Adel High School - Scarlet and Black Yearbook (Adel, IA)

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-9- - -- - -- - A- - -- - 1- - ---- - -- - ------------- - --i- Letter from Miss Taylor -r-- W ------ww.---.v--vv---Wvv--v-v---v--f----U g --ra Nanking, China, Feb. l2', l9l5. My dear girls and boys in the Adel High School: l hope you still consider yourselves at least partly mine, 'even though l must share you with a number of new teachers and in spite of the fact that you have moved into a fine new home since l was part of your high school life. I shall never give up my claim on you so long as any of you whom l had in my classes are still in school. I have heard so much about the beauty and usefulness of the new building that l am very eager to see it for myself. l am sure it must be a great joy to all of you and you must all feel like doing your very best in such splendid environment. I scarcely know where or how to begin telling you about my work and experiences in China. It is all so interesting and so absolutely different from anything in America that it is hard to select the things which you may lind most appealing. The University of Nanking is a union institution sup- ported by several American mission boards. It is different from an Ameri- can university in that it includes a complete educational course, beginning with the primary school and ending with the college. l have the English in the middle school, which includes what corresponds to our sixth, seventh and eighth grades at home, although the pupils are for the most part older than pupils in these grades usually are, because the majority of them have had very little opportunity at an education aside from what they get in their own little Chinese private schools and this doesn't Ht them for the kind of work we give in the middle school. So my boys range in age from ten or twelve to eighteen or twenty. As a class they are a very studious, earnest lot and the majority of them are very bright and attractive, though some of them are exceedingly funny. There is one little fellow who wears an earring in one ear. This means that he is either an only son or the oldest son and his parents are trying to protect him from the evil spirits by deceiving them into thinking he is a girl. No doubt they would all look extremely queer to you in their long robes and funny little round caps which they wear in the house as well as outside. Their clothes are all made exactly alike, though differing in material. They consist of a long, straight robe or gwadzi, which fastens on one shoulder and clown under one arm and extends nearly to the ankle. The sleeves are cut in one piece with the body of the garment and there is a standing collar, open at the front. You can tell how many clothes a boy has by counting his collars. as every one has one and they stand up one inside of the other. These gwadzis are made of cotton, wool or silk and all who can afford it have at least one fur-lined one for cold weather. Under this robe they wear queer little tight-legged trousers, bound in closely about the ankle with a wind band of satin or cotton. Their shoes are always low, made of cloth, with thick paper or leather soles, and their stockings are made of heavy white cloth cut to ht the foot. This is the regulation Chinese costume, but many of the more wealthy, progres- sive Chinese are now wearing foreign shoes, stockings and hats. and a few