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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