Christian Missionary Work
In 1743, he took in a student named Samson Occom, a Mohegan who knew English, and had been converted to Christianity in his childhood. Wheelock's success in preparing Occom for the ministry encouraged him to found a school in Lebanon for Native American Indians, with the purpose of instilling, in the boys, elements of secular and religious education, so that they could return to their native culture as missionaries. The girls were to be taught "housewifery" and writing. The school was to be supported by charitable contribution. His plans to educate the young Native American students in his school, which was called the Moor's Charity School, located on the Lebanon town green, did not progress well however — many of his students became sick and died while some turned profligate and in other ways failed to successfully pursue the charter of missionary work.
Read more about this topic: Eleazar Wheelock
Famous quotes containing the words christian, missionary and/or work:
“I never went near the Wellesley College chapel in my four years there, but I am still amazed at the amount of Christian charity that school stuck us all with, a kind of glazed politeness in the face of boredom and stupidity. Tolerance, in the worst sense of the word.... How marvelous it would have been to go to a women’s college that encouraged impoliteness, that rewarded aggression, that encouraged argument.”
—Nora Ephron (b. 1941)
“We crossed a deep and wide bay which makes eastward north of Kineo, leaving an island on our left, and keeping to the eastern side of the lake. This way or that led to some Tomhegan or Socatarian stream, up which the Indian had hunted, and whither I longed to go. The last name, however, had a bogus sound, too much like sectarian for me, as if a missionary had tampered with it; but I knew that the Indians were very liberal. I think I should have inclined to the Tomhegan first.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“On no work of words now for three lean months in the bloody
Belly of the rich year and the big purse of my body
I bitterly take to task my poverty and craft....”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)