49. The River Breaks Out
Chapter 49
The River Breaks Out
It may be that decisions which seem to change the character of the work will now have to be made,” Amy wrote in 1946. “But if the principles which have grounded us from the beginning are held fast there will be no real change. The river may flow in a new channel but it will be the same river.”
Something told her that things could not go on forever exactly as they were, and it was as if she were bracing herself for the time when others would broach the subject they knew she dreaded. If the prediction came from her, their duty would not be quite so disagreeable. The education of the children had been often questioned in the past, and Amy had rejected suggested changes as an altogether different “river.” When Arul Dasan, her faithful helper, arranged for his son David to attend the Walker Middle School nearby, the eight-year-old was excited. The first day of school arrived. All was in readiness. David had the books his father had bought for him and was about to leave the house when a message came. Amma wanted to see Arul Dasan at once. David was not told what Amma said to his father. He was simply told he was not going to the Walker School. In the early days Amma’s children had attended the little mission school. Later she found that they did not learn to be truthful there, “rather the opposite,” so began to educate them at home.
When Dr. MacDougall of the Women’s Christian College of Madras had tried to persuade Amy to send her girls there, she consented at first but none went. For one thing, she was not sure the standards of the Indian teachers met hers. She had heard a conversation among missionaries from different parts of India, lamenting that the type of Christians turned out from their schools lacked certain qualities which make for character.
“I could not help wondering, as I listened to the talk of these seniors, how a new type could be expected to evolve from an old mould.” Amy had set about changing the mould, and she meant to stick with that one.
Agnes Naish, to whom Amy had delegated responsibility for the children’s schooling, took a hard line against college. After all, if the girls’ primary calling was to be the care of children, was not a college education, leading perhaps to medicine and other ambitious professional fields, not only unnecessary but likely to eclipse the call? She reminded Amy of Amy’s own words:
Our goal is service. It is not worth while to spend time, strength, money and energy on anything less. Settle it in your minds: our way of education is planned so as to prepare in spirit and in mind our boys and girls for the Service of the King of Kings. It must therefore from first to last be spiritual education. . . . And the result? No one need fear about that. I could give many proofs that an education such as our children have is indeed true education. The kind of letter a person writes is an index of mind. A letter written in a foreign language is a very searching test. Our children pass that test.
I was given some idea of the inflexibility of Agnes Naish ( three thousand years behind the times”) when I asked why Amy Carmichael had stated adamantly that: no American would be acceptable in the DF. The first answer: She did not believe Americans were prepared for the kind of sacrifice the DF asked. The second: There was no one known to Amy in America who might screen candidates. The third: “It was felt that a certain standard of the English language must be taught, and Agnes Naish dogmatized firmly on syntax and pronunciation (as she did on everything else). You said ‘different from’ and not ‘different to,’ kilometre was to be pronounced keelo-meeter.”
It is to be wondered where the splendid Agnes Naish learned “American”—but then perhaps “different to” was used by some Americans in her day. It also needs to be said that when Dohnavur girls finally began going outside to school they found that they could speak neither Indian English (they spoke English English) nor Indian Tamil. Their Tamil was distinguished by a peculiar singsong such as often develops within a close-knit community. Possibly the accents of some of the foreigners lent their odd cadences, so that teachers in the outside schools had more difficulty understanding the Dohnavur girls’ Tamil than the foreign DFs’.
One of Amy’s most trusted older workers, Pappammal, who had come from a well-known Christian family and was in charge of the smaller boys, strongly disagreed with Amma about their education and finally left because of it. A close friendship of long standing came to an end and Pappammal was “erased.” For the sake of example to the children, her name was not spoken again. Once more, “Dohnavur is a sign that is spoken against.” So Amma, in spite of extreme sensitivity to any possible misrepresentation of her work, wrote, “like our Master we must hold our peace and answer them nothing.”
India’s independence began to impinge on the life of the compound far more powerfully than Amy had foreseen. New laws were passed, one of them bringing great joy to Amy and the rest—the devadasi (temple prostitute) system was outlawed. Its illegality did not stamp it out at once. It went underground for a few years and more recently has surfaced again.
Certain kinds of training which Dohnavur could not provide were now required by law for certain degrees. If they were to have government recognition for the teachers in Dohnavur they must have school-leaving certificates. Amy was able finally to see the necessity of a major change in educational policy. Thyaharaj was the first to break the boundary when he sat for the Senior Cambridge exams. Amy approved the boys’ attending the Middle School in Dohnavur and the girls going to Tiruchchirappalli, though she wept when they left. She called the boys Gideons,” for a man who had courage and faith, and the girls “Timothys,” for a man who learned to endure hardness. One of the sitties and an accal went with the girls to make a home, but the transition, not surprisingly, was less than smooth.
The relative freedom, so heady after the strictures of all their former years, was too much for some of the girls and, as Amma had feared, they rebelled. Furthermore it was discovered at first that Agnes Naish’s system was not superior after all, and some of the girls did poorly in school. But the release into education in the public system was to lead into a new future for the work, with college graduates and other trained personnel moving into careers, often in Christian institutions in India and other countries. Some are now among the leaders of the present work in Dohnavur.
Studies in child psychology were brought to Amy’s attention and she was able to accept the recommendation that children ought to be in mixed age groups in the cottages. They had always been divided into peer groups, ages two to six, six to eight, eight to ten, and so on. This meant that the children experienced several times, as they grew up and were moved from cottage to cottage, what amounted nearly to the death of their mother (their accal). Though the leaders had tried to make these moves gradual, having the children go first to play at the new house, the final transfer broke the children’s hearts. It also broke the mothers hearts. It took a long time before anyone recognized the reason for many of the difficulties that resulted.
Margaret Wilkinson, a university-educated woman from northern Ireland, felt strongly the need for some sort of a “break out’’ from the time-honored ways of Dohnavur. It was an out-of-the-way place. They were cut off not only by the war and by Amma’s illness, but even, to a much greater degree than in Amma’s early days, from other missions. They needed to establish links with the outside. There simply were not enough choices. Margaret’s conviction was that the character of a young person is developed through learning to choose. She saw that they needed something other than spiritual training and proposed that Dohnavur girls be allowed to join the Girl Guides movement, of which she had been a leader in Ireland. She presented, for the consideration of Amy and the other leaders, her reasons:
1. It may not be possible to shelter future generations as we have sheltered past ones. I feel we must therefore try to prepare them to test things that differ and to weigh up other points of view, so that if the day should come when they have conflicting ideals forced upon them from without they may be able to make a considered judgment.
2. Our senior accals had nearly all some experience of life outside the compound even if only as a child. The generation from whom the senior accals of the future must come have not that experience; yet not only may they have to fill the place held by the seniors of today but circumstances may arise in which they will have to shoulder responsibilities to carry which a knowledge of the world has been essential to sitties.
Then followed an explanation of the specific ways in which Girl Guides could provide just the help that was needed. The proposal was rejected, “but I did not feel I was not listened to,” she said. Years later she broached the subject again. This time it received Amma’s blessing and a Guide company was formed.
The interests of Amy Carmichael might understandably have been restricted by this time in her life to the Family. Weren’t the burdens she bore for them quite an adequate load for an elderly shut-in who had a large share of pain to bear besides? In fact her attention and concern continued to range outside the compound walls where there were still huge numbers who did not know Christ. All new DFs were required to live for a time in a Hindu village with non-English-speaking companions in order to learn the language by the saturation method, and the religion and customs at first hand. She wanted news of them and their progress. When evangelistic teams of twos and threes returned from visits to the villages, Amma wanted to know exactly what questions they had been asked, how they had answered. What of the Tamil tracts and booklets produced and distributed in the DF book room—were they being read? Sometimes, until she became too ill, she asked to meet patients who had come to trust the Lord in the hospital.
Evangelistic efforts in Dohnavur suffered from too exclusive use of the Family’s men as preachers. Yearly at Christmas a four-day convention called the Meetings of Vision brought together Hindus, Muslims, and others to hear again the Gospel which many had first heard through the personal witness of the hospital staff, or through visits to the villages by Dohnavur people. In 1948, at the suggestion of Dr. Kinnear, an outside Indian speaker (a “trusted” one) was invited to address these meetings. It was the thin edge of a most significant wedge, bringing to Dohnavur in due course many leaders of a new evangelical awakening in Tamil Nadu.
The Dohnavur “river” was certainly flowing in new “channels.” It was a testimony to the vigor of Amy’s mind that she was able to accept as many of the new proposals as she did. It was also greatly reassuring to those in charge. The question she had forbidden them to ask—Would Amma have done it this way?—was always there, spoken or unspoken. To have her blessing on the new channels obviated the question.