As soon as our first building was near enough to completion so
that we could occupy a portion of it--which was near the middle
of the second year of the school--we opened a boarding
department. Students had begun coming from quite a distance, and
in such increasing numbers that we felt more and more that we
were merely skimming over the surface, in that we were not
getting hold of the students in their home life.
We had nothing but the students and their appetites with which to
begin a boarding department. No provision had been made in the
new building for a kitchen and dining room; but we discovered
that by digging out a large amount of earth from under the
building we could make a partially lighted basement room that
could be used for a kitchen and dining room. Again I called on
the students to volunteer for work, this time to assist in
digging out the basement. This they did, and in a few weeks we
had a place to cook and eat in, although it was very rough and
uncomfortable. Any one seeing the place now would never believe
that it was once used for a dining room.
The most serious problem, though, was to get the boarding
department started off in running order, with nothing to do with
in the way of furniture, and with no money with which to buy
anything.
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