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The Girl of the Period - At Alpha Cottage

Firefly. "The Girl of the Period - At Alpha Cottage." Gall's Daily Newsletter 2 February 1897.

AT ALPHA COTTAGE

It isn't only mothers who have motherly feeling. I think when motherhood itself is denied the instinct still exists which prompts women to love little children and long to care for and protect them. Indeed, that is a "larger motherhood" which can yearn over other people's children.

That was what came home to me the other day, as I poked around the pleasant downstairs and class rooms of the Alpha Industrial School, and noted how hearty and contented appear the children I saw there. It is a good work—the training and bringing up of these poor homeless young ones. The Government is to be congratulated on what it has to show us at Alpha Cottage. Yet no, not the government, it is the Sisters of Mercy to whom all praise is due. It is their power of sympathy and self-sacrifice which is transforming these little waifs into respectable boys and girls.

Alpha Cottage Industrial and Elementary Schools are proofs of woman's work. The coldly calculating Government weighing reasons for and against, fearful ever of the consequences of actions, could never have accomplished what we see at Alpha Cottage. What has been achieved there has been through the spirit that "believeth all things" and it is only the women that possess that spirit. This men gladly acknowledge—that women are more capable of throwing themselves into the work of others than they are themselves, and that is why though many men object to the woman who seeks to enter the arena of politics, law, or science, all who are true to their consciences uphold the impulse that inspires women to take an active part in Christian effort. Men know that women knit together like the Sisters of Mercy, by the close bond of common vocation, can take up a round of harsh, unlovely, discouraging duties with an enthusiasm which transfigures the work and makes it hopeful and blessed. So the Sisters of Mercy mother the poor unshepherded waifs and strays and there's never an urchin too dirty or naughty to find a place in their hearts.

I have been to the convent, have conversed with the sisters and have roved from one school to another taking notes of the sweetness, the airiness and the brightness of the place which has been christened Alpha Cottage.

We have no such sunny institutions up North. If ever I have to become an inmate of such an institution, let it be in Jamaica. The open windows and summer surroundings take away the Institution feeling, and I know that if I ever find a child that needs the shelter, I shall ask the Sisters of Mercy to kindly take it in.

HIGH SCHOOL

In connection with the Convent of Mercy there is a High School and here the daughters of some of the best and wealthiest families on the island are educated.

When I arrived at the Cottage, that is Alpha Cottage or High School, I was met by two sweet-faced women, Mother Aquinas, the Superior, and Sister Agnes, the Principal of the High School. They welcomed me most courteously and kindly, and after I had viewed the beautiful grounds, stretching forty-five acres around and also observed the several adjacent buildings, I stepped into the Cottage and there beheld the girls of the High School at their studies—about sixty in all. This High School, I learnt, comprises Junior and Preparatory Schools and a division of Senior students. The Senior Division is intended to help those ambitious maidens who are desirous of preparing for public examinations.

Sister Agnes informed me that besides the usual branches of English education and in the Junior Classes, Kindergarten and Musical Drill, there are also taught piano, violin, singing, painting, drawing, French and German. A pupil could take one or all of these accomplishments by paying extra fees.

The Alpha Cottage makes an ideal school, located healthily and beautifully supplied with all the comforts and conveniences of the latest modern academies and taught by gentle, refined ladies.

CONVENT

From the Cottage I turned to the Convent, and whilst in the latter retreat, had the pleasure of listening to some fine music from a couple of the pupils, Miss Arch and Miss Sweetie.

I do not recollect Miss Sweetie's surname, but I'm sure it cannot be as taken as her Christian.

The Convent is a handsome, commodious building, and the interior is not only very pleasant to the eye, but is pervaded with an atmosphere of comfort which makes one feel inclined to tarry. The floors are beautifully polished and the sitting-room is most tastefully furnished.

Ferns and flowers decorate tables and brackets, and on the walls hang portraits of several of the prelates of the Church of Rome, the portrait of the late Mother Superior, and also a representation in oils of Mother Aquinas herself. The last, I scarcely recognized, the expression being very solemn and totally unlike that of the lady whose fresh youthful face beamed so happily upon me that for a moment I almost wished I myself were a member of her sisterhood.

ELEMENTARY AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS

The Mother is a young woman, still in her twenties, who talks in a pretty, illuminating manner. She has taken under her wing forty little orphans whom she is bringing up all herself—the Government having no part or parcel in them. When I visited the Elementary Schools, one of their special charges, wee Hilda Bravo, very prettily sang and played for me on the tambourine.

I saw 250 children in the Elementary Schools and 97 in the Industrial. They are all under the care of 18 Sisters, four of whom I met, namely, Sister Evangelist, Sister Genevieve, Sister Xavier, and Sister Magdalin.

The very little children in the Elementary School took my fancy wonderfully; black eyed, round-headed chickabiddies. One little Coolie girl of three or four years of age gave us a recitation in a pretty baby voice in a manner which would have reflected credit on a child of seven.

The penmanship in all the classes showed not only careful teaching on the part of the teachers and attention on the part of the pupils, but an aptitude for forming letters which I could not but remark upon. As to the behavior of the pupils, I must say I have never seen a better and more docile appearing lot of youngsters than those Mother Aquinas introduced to me as the boys and girls of the Alpha Elementary and Industrial Schools.

The Industrial School children are of course kept separate from those of the Elementary School. The girls of the Industrial School work like busy bees at appointed tasks one half of the day, the other half is spent in receiving school instruction. The boys divide their time in the same manner. The Elementary school boys have a splendid band, composed of self-made musicians who can pick up all kinds of tunes by ear and perform on all kinds of instruments. They played a few selections for me and I declare I was surprised and am quite sure I would rather hear Mother Aquinas' boys than the Grand West Indian.

Some of the children whom I saw looking bright and happy had come to the Convent in a dying condition, but the sisters had worked hard to restore them to the wicked world and their efforts have not been unsuccessful.

The Industrial school boys are taught gardening, carpentering and painting, the girls everything that will make them good domestic servants. They will never set the world on fire, but they will be able to work and get enough to eat, and what more can a boy or girl sigh for.

If they lived in America or even in the old country, it might be worthwhile to have some ambition, but in Jamaica the wise ones are they who hope for little. If they must have an ambition, let them place it on things heavenly and not on things earthly. Come to think of it—I believe that's just what they do. Being denied the opportunity of rising on earth, the Jamaicans go much to church, no doubt thinking thereby to rise to Heaven.

There is no sneer in my remarks. I merely write my thoughts as they come to me, and can assure you I felt real good as I stood in the pretty Convent of Mercy Chapel and confessed to myself that happiness is possible even to those who dare not try their wings.

"Where Nature's harps are all in tune,
A calm or a still on life's rough sea.
A place where it is always afternoon."

FIREFLY