Baptist Mission School Opens for Chinese Children
A newly formed mission school near Wa Chong’s store enrolls forty-two Chinese students in an effort to provide Christian instruction.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A Chinese Baptist mission school has been established by the Baptist churches of this city. The superintendent is Thomas H. Bubb, who devotes his entire time to it, assisted by volunteer teachers. The committee on the mission is composed of Mrs. Roger S. Greene, Mrs. J. A. Ressignie, and Mrs. A. T. Mears. Although just started, the school has forty-two pupils, the children of the Chinese residents of the city. The building in which the young Chinese are taught is just in the rear of Wa Chong's store. Superintendent Bubb visits Chinese residents personally, seeking to convert them to the Christian faith. The school operates daily except Thursday.
“He says that the young scholars are full of enthusiasm and earnest in their studies, and that they show a brightness that was not expected.”
This story occurs during a period of intense anti-Chinese sentiment in the Pacific Northwest following the 1885-1886 expulsions. The mission’s efforts represent a complex, patronizing, yet integrationist approach that stood in sharp contrast to the prevailing exclusionary politics of the time.
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