The builders

Foreword

It is not the purpose of this volume to give a history of the Chicago Training School with all its contributing interests, in the broad and impartial sense of the word. This is not the time, neither are we the people, for the preparation of such a history. A certain aloofness is always necessary to accurate and impartial judgment. The bird poised high in air sees the landscape in its entirety. The bird sitting upon the bough sees chiefly the embowering foliage. Yet one sees as truly as the other. Moreover, the picture in detail as well as the more comprehensive *^ bird's eye view" is necessary to full and complete knowledge.

The book, then, does not claim to be a liis-siory, in the sense of giving the results of an extended and impartial investigation. It is a true story of the inception and development of a great work from the standpoint of the founders. It is a heart history, gleaned at first hand, and written with the spell of the narrative still upon the writer. Such a story may lose something in comprehensiveness, but it will gain in intensity and human interest.

May this little book go to the women who '*sit at ease in Zion" with a message direct from the whitening harvest fields where reapers are so greatly needed.

LORD, I PRAY FOR THE CITY.

"Lord, I pray Thee for the great City, that hotbed of social sin and personal vice, that center wherein is massed so much of awful misery. From out of the populous city men groan and the soul of the wounded crieth out! Yet it is from the city that spring the mighty mission movements and the great organized efforts for the uplifting of society. God, bless the City, with its enormous possibilities, its wealth of young life and strong life, its wealth of gold! Further every earnest effort that is being made to redeem the city! Bless its settlements and hospitals and all its houses of Mercy, its reform clubs and missions, its Churches and its deaconess work. Raise up an ever-increasing army of heroic souls to labor for the City's good; and hasten the time when our earthly cities shall become copies of the beautiful pattern, the new Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven!"

Girls, girls, girls! Where do they all come from? Tall girls and small girls, plain girls and pretty girls, young girls and — begging their pardon — old girls, and some who might not approve of being classed as girls at all. But all, whether grave or gay, bearing in their faces a certain seriousness, a potential something, that enables alert observers to say correctly nine times out of ten, — meeting a group on the sidewalk or in the street car, *' Training School Girls!"

It is the hour for the afternoon constitutional, and the groups come and go like bees in and out of the arched doorway of a great brick building, or rather group of buildings, occupying the entire side of a city square. Let us follow an entering group. A wide reception hall opens into corridors on either side, on the left running down between rows of offices and public rooms, and on the right opening into reception room and parlors. Here is the *' green room" for dignified guests, the cozy '* teachers' parlor," and a great ^^ students' parlor," in which a hundred girls with their friends might find entertainment. A broad stairway leads to regions above, but there is an elevator with its ceaseless iips and downs, for the building is six stories from top to basement. Then alongside, connected by a passage, is another building of equal size and proportion, given over to dormitories, and still alongside that, another, rather more pretentious as to architecture. From this comes the deep roll of a pipe organ, and entering we find ourselves in a beautiful chapel, chastely finished in white and gold. With choir loft and galleries it will seat seven hundred people. The handsome library room in the rear of the building contains thousands of standard volumes. The floor below the chapel is occupied by the big dining room capable of seating four hundred people at its rows and rows of tables. From this we may wander through a maze of smaller rooms. A warm, fragrant breath heralds the bakery where the brown loaves repose in ranks sufficient for an army, one would think. Potatoes by the bushel are ready for the huge caldron in which they are to be boiled. Odors of soap and clean linen greet us from the laundry, and a chill of Arctic air betrays the eastle-like refrigerator. Everything bespeaksi the huge scale on which the establishment is maintained.

And everywhere, from chapel to laundry, from office to kitchen, you meet the girls. Sometimes with sweeping cap and broom, sometimes with Greek Testament or ponderous volume of theology, but always with busy step and purposeful faces. Here, gathered in one great hive, are two hundred and fifty souls, including teachers and helpers.

But this is not all. Across the street are two more imposing brick buildings. This is the ** Extension Department,'' — a home for young women where the relation between landlady and resident is not merely one of dollars and cents. It is really an extension of the Training School spirit of kindly interest and helpfulness. *'Man shall not live by bread alone," neither woman, — and at this center the sordidness of the young woman's life of toil in ofSce or school is relieved in the evening by music and song, by social gatherings or classes wth brief, informal talks upon literature, ethics, philanthropy — everything that would tend to make a Christian home, and create an environment of moral and intellectual aspiration.

And wider yet does the Chicago Training School extend its boundaries of influence. From out its walls have gone year by year its daughters, equipped for Christian service. In India, in Japan, in Africa and South America, and in every part of the homeland they are busy with works of Christian charity as missionaries, as deaconesses, evangelists and teachers. Through all these channels, and through its correspondence department and its flood of outgoing literature the School touches thousands of Uvea every day, the wide world over.

Now roll back the panorama of history for twenty-five years. In the front parlor of a fairly respectable down town residence is gathered an eager little group of four girls with their teacher. There is little to indicate that it is intended for a schoolroom, except the certainty that it could be intended for nothing else. Maps, books and pictures are conspicuous by their absence. There is a table, a bit of blackboard, a dozen chairs all empty but four, and pinned on the wall a chart with the course of study.

We have said there were no maps, but on the teacher's table lie four pieces of paper, on each of which a straggling black line is ambitiously labeled, Euphrates River. Near the western borders of the same paper a wavy line is affirmed to represent the Mediterranean Sea, and a timid and irregular row of dots wandering across the page assumes to point the route followed by Abraham as he ;iourneyed from Ur to the Land of Promise. Whether the worthy patriarch would recognize his line of march or not, it was a suggestive beginning, for like Abraham, the teacher was leading her little flock out by faith into an unknown land, not knowing whither they went, conscious only that God had said to them, '^Go forward."

Someone has said that **Mark Hopkins sitting on one end of a log and the student on the other would make a college." Here was an outfit almost as simple, but here was also *^the vision and the dream/' for the teacher was Mrs. ]\Ieyer and the bare little room held the enfolded acorn from which was to spring the wide-spreading oak, the embryo of the Chicago Training School.

The whole history of this School, with the deaconess work, the hospitals, the orphanages, and other institutions which in the providence of God must trace their origin back to it. reads like a wonder story. And since a story must begin somewhere this may be said to begin where most romances end, with a wedding.

A few years before ]\Iiss Lucy J. Rider was field secretary for the Sunday School Association of the state of Illinois. She was then in the prime of young womanhood, a graduate of Oberlin College, a woman of rare enthusiasm, magnetic presence, and full of energy to the finger tips. It vras at a meeting on the historic Des Plaines camp grounds that she first saw Mr. J. S. Meyer, then assistant secretary in the Young Men's Christian Association, and also carrying on work in a mission church of Chicago. The acquaintance culminated in an engagement and marriage, which occurred May 21, 1885, and was of more than personal interest.

Marriages, it is said, — some marriages — are made in heaven, and in this case the future of the embryonic Training School must have had a place in the council of the heavenly powers. For in this alliance were combined the idealism, fire, and enthusiasm of the one with practical business qualities and organizing ability of high order in the other. If Mrs. Meyer was the prophetic woman for the enterprise, no less waa Mr. Meyer the indispensable man. Both had that special experience and training which fitted them for the work to which they were being called, though in different fields. Both were the children of Christian homes, and were trained from infancy to familiarity with the Word of God and the doctrines of the Church. Mrs. Meyer had already achieved reputation as a Bible scholar and teacher, her published notes on Sunday school lessons and plans for Bible study bringing her an acceptable income. Mr. Meyer in addition to a theological training had considerable experience in business enterprises and had developed a force of character, a patient persistency of purpose, business sagacity and experience in the details of the management of great enterprises, without which the Training School never could have existed. From the first they have stood shoulder to shoulder, one in purpose, one in devotion and in industry. If Mrs. Meyer has stood before the world as the moving spirit and inspiration of the movement, not less has Mr. Meyer been the man of affairs, building patiently and unostentatiously the great institution whose influence has gone to the ends of the earth and the islands of the sea.

And the times were ripe for the launching of such an enterprise. It has been said that *' whenever a condition becomes a problem, it has also become a prophecy," and there is a world of optimism in the assertion. To believe that the very problem is a challenge to its solution ; that in every need is wrapped the promise of fulfillment; that there is lying dormant in some man or woman, or in some group of men or women, or in the whole body of society, the power to right every wrong and to do whatever needs to be done, and that the crisis comes to call this power into action — ^this is to fortify the soul against discouragement and to anchor it to the Eternal Righteousness.

And new and unheard-of problems were confronting society and the Church. The great social revolution which awaited the opening of the new century was already sending out its prophets with their watchwords of '* Brotherhood" and ** Social Service," and the call was stirring vaguely the consciousness of Christendom. Its first response in the Methodist Church was a new awakening of the missionary spirit, and naturally the womanhood of the Church was especially responsive to the call. "Within a score of years the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society had been *^ struck out of the hearts of women white hot with love and pity for the woes of their heathen sisters." Then came the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, not Methodist it is true, but affecting the women of Methodism profoundly. Scon followed the Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist and other Churches, in response to the cry of need from the rapidly opening fields of the home land.

But into these humanitarian impulses there was coming a sense of incompleteness and dissatisfaction. The missionary impulse was abroad in the hearts of many, but it was often vague in its purpose, indefinite in its methods, and doubtful in its results. Something was needed to crystallize this impulse into organized effort, and to direct it into useful activity. Among women especially, where the impulse to service was most eager and spontaneous and the lack of experience in affairs the most apparent, this need was most keenly recognized. It was becoming more and more evident that willing-heartedness was not enough. There was also needed the trained mind and the deft hand, a working knowledge of conditions to be met and of the agencies available in meeting them. The problem of better preparation and training for the newly opening fields of Christian service was taking definite form, and prophecies for its solution were in the air.

As the question of better preparation for missionary work both at home and abroad became more and more pressing, various plans were devised for meeting the need but all alike waited for the leader — man or woman — called oi God, and with a life free to devote to this one cause. For nothing less than a life would do, a life all aflame with enthusiasm and consecrated to this purpose alone, a life that could attract to itself, as to a magnet, the unworked plans and floating enthusiasms of the prophets and the seers.

It cannot be supposed that either Mr. or Mrs. Meyer with their ^dde experience in Christian work had failed of being deeply impressed with the need and the opportunity, though each in a different way. On the one hand in his mission work Mr. Meyer had come in contact with the neglected fields of the city and the need of trained workers for these districts. On the other hand Mrs. Meyer in her work in Sunday school conventions and Normal Bible classes for young people had found scores of young women whose hearts were responsive to the call for service but whose lack of definite training in religious work left them unfitted for usefulness. Even among Sunday school teachers and leaders the lack of acquaintance with the simplest facts of Biblical history and literature seemed to her, as she herself says, ** simply appalling," and to their be- Beeching question, *^What can I do?" she could only reply, in her own mind if not aloud, *'You must first get ready to do."

Impressed with this idea, she had for years been turning over in her mind a plan for a school for Bible study and normal methods which should also include training for both home and foreign work. At the Illinois State Sunday School Convention of 1882 she presented in a public address a well worked out plan for a Summer Bible Normal School, the outlines of which were in striking agreement with the school which was afterward established. In 1884 she was in New York City and called upon some leading women who were interested in the subject of missions in the attempt to interest them in the project, w^hich had already begun to possess her imagination. Among the first to give sympathetic attention to her appeal were Chaplain McCabe and his wife. Mrs. McCabe took Miss Rider in her own carriage to call upon other ladies who might become interested. Some listened politely as this young woman enthusiastically unfolded her plans, some became mildly interested and some doubted. Mrs. Meyer herself tells the story of one of these interviews: ''I explained my plans to the lady, watching her face for signs of dissent or approval. She listened patiently until I announced that in the proposed school young w^omen were to be trained for both home and foreign work, and that both missionary societies were to be represented in it.

At this point she raised her hand with a gesture of absolute dissent. 'My dear,' she said impressively, *that idea alone' — and pen cannot express the flat finality of the downward inflection — 'that idea alone proves the absolute impracticability of your plan.' A year later," Mrs. Meyer adds gleefully, 'Hhat same dear lady handed me her check for a handsome sum, her first contribution to the 'impracticable plan,' and she has been a valued friend ever since."

After her marriage Mrs. Meyer was in a position to devote herself more fully to the work than she had been able to do before. She wrote letters to everyone who she thought would take the trouble to consider them. She had already learned the power of the printed v/ord, and used the religious press to the extent of her ability to ''set the people thinking." She wrote facts and spun prophetic fiction out of her own brain, fiction that has since become strangely and wonderfully true. At last, through the secretary of the Chicago Methodist Preachers' Meeting, Eev. T. P. Marsh, she secured an invitation to present the subject of a Training School before that body — at that time one of the most influential organizations of the Church of the Middle West. The presentation of this paper, into which Mrs. Meyer poured all the intensity of her desires and whose sentences were "saturated with prayer," became the first in a series of events which from this time moved rapidly on. The immediate effect of this paper was the appointment of a committee of three ministers which, a week later, reported favorably on the plan of the proposed School; and a permanent committee was formed, having on it members of the Preachers' Meeting, the Woman's Home and the Women's Foreign Missionary Societies. These members were selected with the thought in mind that it was fitting that the new enterprise should gather together those actively interested in every good work, but not with any idea that these organizations should have any formal connection with the School — as indeed has neveif been the case.

A few laymen were soon added to the committee. Mrs. Meyer's efforts were now concentrated on this committee. Some of them had been appointed without their knowledge and consent ; it was the season of the year when most social and church obligations are laid aside, and it was necessary to see many individuals separately in the effort to convey to each something of the enthusiasm engendered at the Preachers' Meeting. Meetings formal and informal were held whenever a quorum or anything approaching it could be got together, meetings at which there was talking, '* endless" even if necessary, but very little definite result. A meeting waa finally held (August 7th, 1885), at Lake Bluff, a favorite summer resort north of Chicago, and it is quite possible that even so casual a thing as a thunder shower was the pivot upon which turned for the time at least the fate of the Training School. An important Foreign Missionary anniversary had been held during the day, and the Committee had been summoned to meet at its close on the platform. There was little interest, however, and some were preparing to leave, when the heavens suddenly gathered darkness and the rain fell in torrents. The stars in their courses seemed fighting for the cause. To leave the place was impossible and a number of persons already interested in missionary work gathered with the committee. There are those who look upon that thunderstorm as a special dispensation of Providence in behalf of the Training School to be. A great factor in the result of this meeting was the presence of the returned missionary, the Reverend Dr. William Butler. He had addressed the missionary meeting before mentioned, and the power and inspiration of his words were still felt among those present. Mrs. Meyer with keen foresight had, before the Committee Meeting, obtained an interview with him and elicited his interest in her cause. As the decision of the committee wavered, she now suggested that Dr. Butler's opinion be asked. The white-haired veteran rose and spoke gently but earnestly in favor of the plan. His words had the weight of years and experience. Eyes began to sparkle, spines to straighten, and heads to nod approval, and when he said fervently: ''I assure you, friends, your missionaries in foreign fields need training before they go. I cannot find words to express the desire of my heart that this plan shall go through." The day was won. The committee passed decided resolutions in favor of the school, and advised that it be opened for students in the fall.

Events moved rapidly after this. New friends were won to the cause and old ones strengthened in the faith. A meeting of the committee held August 28th will be long remembered. Up to this time no provision had been made or could be made for teachers' salaries, and this seemed an insurmountable barrier to the establishment of the school. But at this meeting Mrs. Meyer rose and said that if the committee would provide a building she and Mr. Meyer would open the school without salary for the first year. This removed the last stumbling block as it would afford an opportunity to demonstrate the feasibility of the plan. A committee was nominated to secure a building but before the final vote was taken, ^'realizing the responsibility of what they were about to do, the committee suspended business for a few minutes, and resolved itself into a prayer meeting." After fervent prayer for guidance the resolution was passed, the committee appointed, and the Training School wag definitely and formally ordered to exist. Soon after, the three story residence building at No. 19 dollars a month. To the committee, without a dol- Park Avenue west, was secured, with rent at fifty lar of resources in sight, this amount seemed formidable enough. Their faith could scarcely look forward to the time when they would handle thousands as easily as dollars now. But that ia another story.

It will readily be undei^tood that matters had not progressed thus far without serious discussions of the financial problems. Indeed, the question of financing the institution had been from first to last the heart of the difficulty. Gradually it had been brought down to the question of teachers' salaries. It had been demonstrated that the school once begun a moderate sum paid by the students for room and board would meet the running expenses. Friends of the movement could be depended upon to provide the initiatory expenses and see the school launched, but the constantly recurring question was, '^^Vhat are you going to do for teachers* salaries?" And for a long time there had seemed to be no answer. Mrs. Meyer had been receiving in her work for the Sunday School Association a salary of about eighteen hundred dollars a year. Naturally, in her desire for the success of the school, she felt willing to cut down this amount considerably: but that some stated salary would be attached to the position she had not for a moment doubted. Though other difficulties cleared away, this one remained. No man of wealth and faith came forward with an endowment or promise of aid of any kind. The matter was finally settled in a way that was unique and has become historic. The problem that could not be solved was ignored. The work must be done, salary or no salary, this was Mrs. Meyer's position; and when she announced her readiness to go on with the work for the work's sake alone, the last difficulty vanished and the school became an assured fact.

This feature of the Training School work, developing as it did into the unsalaried plan of deaconess service, has been much misunderstood and much criticised; but it is simple enough to those who are able to assume the worker's view point. It is no disparagement of salaries nor of salaried service. That the 'Workman is w^orthy of his hire" is as incontrovertible now as in St. Paul's time. Mrs. Meyer would have accepted a remuneration adequate or inadequate as her unquestioned right, had there been any provision for such. But the salary was not indispensable, as Mr. Meyer's income was at that time sufficient for both, and when it became a question of giving up the salary or the school, her heart answered in the only way possible. When, later, Mr. Meyer's entire time and ability became absolutely necessary to the rapidly growing work, there were still no resources upon which to draw for suitable salaries, though all other needs were being met. And he, too, gave himself unreservedly to the work without question or promise. The work provided for daily needs, and they asked no more. Their example formed the precedent which was followed as the teaching force increased, and which crystallized into established form when the deaconess work came into existence.

There be those to whom this solution of a difficult situation will ever be an unsolved mystery, to be regarded with reserve and vague suspicion. For the most part they are those to whom Sandy's question, ^^How mooch will ye gie me?" always comes first in considering a new project. There are others to whom even the foregoing explanation will seem superfluous; so naturally does love for their work, whatever it may be, drive questions of emolument into the background. Happy are they who, working with or without salary, have found the work that commands their whole-hearted and joyous devotion, with whom the *'joy of achieving'' drowns all other considerations.

Mrs. Meyer also, in her printed works, deprecates the idea that the unsalaried feature of the work indicates that the School was started as a *' faith work" in the general acceptation of the term. Faith there was that God had led and was leading them. The committees from first to last were composed of men and women who implicitly believed in and trusted to Divine guidance. They assumed that the enterprise they were launching was for the promotion of the Kingdom, and that they could reasonably call upon divine resources for its advancement. Hindrances they regarded as an indication that in God's plan the time was not ripe for certain movements; success was just as certainly his direct command to go forward. Business meetings were opened by prayer and song, often with Scripture promises quoted from memory; and they voiced their exultation over difficulties removed by singing the Doxology. The secretary's reports read like a chapter from a devotional meeting. More than once when they were confronted by '^ lions in the way" they dropped on their knees and laid the matter definitely and simply before God; and, rising, continued the business in faith that their prayers were answered. Take this picture of a committee meeting held just before the opening of the second year, before the new building had been completed :

September 20, 1886. An upper room; but five or six of the Board of Management present. An empty treasury; many discouragements; troublesome workmen. But, thank God, many students applying. It is a business committee meeting, but someone begins to sing **A charge to keep I have," and then all drop on their knees, and there they stay until each has "told Jesus." And the Light shines. God will help us and that right early.

So in the best and broadest sense the School was begun as a faith work. It was faith at work. It was faith looking for and receiving from heavenly storehouses the divine dynamic that could make effective human agencies.

GIVING LIFE AWAY.

Do you know the very best thing a man or a woman can do with a life is to give it away? Actually to give it, freely, recklessly, gladly, as the Lord Jesus gave His? Thousands of unknown saints and martyrs are doing this day by day for the sake of loved ones, for husbands, wives, children, parents. All honor to them. But there are thousands more who have no such tender and immediate ties — ^thousands who have time, talent, money, that might be used in a broader way for the sake of the great, sick, sorrowful world. Don't sell your life. There is no great, uplifting joy in a commercial transaction. Give it, give it, and thank God for the privilege. Give it and see how the *'joy of the Lord" will flow back, a great flood, to enrich your own heart and life.

Plain living? Hard work? Uncongenial companionship? What does it matter? Serge is as warm as satin if love sweetens labor, and as for companionship, the Lord himself will walk with you. You will find Him in the weary, pitiful faces of mothers, and the innocent smiles of childhood. He said it — *Te did it unto Me."

Rise up, then, ye women that are at ease, ye careless daughters! Give ear to the Voice that would call you from a life of self-seeking that leads to death to the life of self-renunciation which alone is true living. "The work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and confidence forever." Peace, quietness, confidence — can you find them in idle pleasure-seeking? But blessed will you be in sowing beside all waters deeds of peace and love. — Isahelle Horton,

BEGINNINGS.

II.

Oh, the wonderful first days of a great enterprise ! They hold the joy of the explorer, threading new paths to be beaten broad by the myriad feet of the future, the exultation of the master builder as he sees the creation of his brain taking shape in arch and dome. One is in league vnth heavenly powers and counts not pain or sacrifice in the joy of achievement. He rides on the crest of the billows. His head is among the clouds. He reads the mystic writing of the stars and all signs say **Go on and prosper.'' He does the impossible day by day, and glories in the doing.