Ellen G. White: The Australian Years: 1891-1900 (vol. 4)

The Second Term of School

The second term of school opened on March 16. There were fifty-three students present on the opening day, but a week later there were seventy. Accommodations had been expanded through the addition of new buildings. The March issue of the newly started Union Conference Record carried word from W. C. White on this: 4BIO 344.7

The buildings erected during the summer have doubled the capacity and the general comfort of our school home. And it is our hope that the number of boarding students may increase to sixty, and that the day students in both departments may number fifty. 4BIO 345.1

C. B. Hughes stated in the May Record that the faculty at Cooranbong was much the same as during the first term and the program also much the same. The students divided their time between study and work, with two and a half hours each afternoon devoted to the latter. 4BIO 345.2

In describing the daily program, Hughes wrote: 4BIO 345.3

At three o'clock, students and teachers may be seen in their work clothes wending their way to work. The young men engage in the various duties of farm, garden, orchard, and carpenter work. The young ladies find employment in the kitchen, laundry, and garden. Work closes at five-thirty.

While proving a success, the school was entering upon a period of financial distress even greater than had been foreseen or expected. W. C. White, now chairman of the board, had to contend with this problem rather relentlessly, and this was to be the story for the next year or two. Ellen White attributed it somewhat to tuition set at too low a point, and to discouraging rumors and false reports that were carelessly bandied about. The May Record carries “An Appeal for Help” as the first article in which White reports on accomplishments and describes activities at the school and then presents its needs. It closes with the suggestion that as in the days of Israel of old, when the people came to the feasts carrying liberal offerings, so should it be in the forthcoming Week of Prayer, May 28 to June 5, which would extend over two weekends. There was a call from church leaders not only for the payment of pledges already made to the school but for liberal offerings on the Sabbaths—at both the beginning and the close of that convocation. As the story of the Avondale school will surface here and there in this account of Ellen White's life and activities during 1898 and 1899, there will be several allusions to financial problems. 4BIO 345.4

In the March, 1898, Record, W. C. White reported on the animal life at the school, both domestic and wild: 4BIO 346.1

Of domestic animals and other living creatures on the place, the school has three farm horses, about a dozen cows, half as many young cattle, and forty to fifty fowls. Besides this, there are twenty-two swarms of bees, from whose summer gatherings of honey eleven hundred pounds have already been extracted and stored for the winter use of the students. 4BIO 346.2

Of the wild animals on the place, we cannot speak so definitely. There is a small family of large kangaroos, which show themselves occasionally. The wallabies are quite numerous, although many have recently been shot. Thus far they have not done serious injury to our crops. The native bears are getting scarce. We seldom hear their cry. Opossums can be heard any night, although they have been thinned out by the hunters. Snakes are much talked about, but rarely seen. Each year we see less and less of them. Occasionally a tiger cat makes a raid on our fowls. Then we trap him, and he suffers the death penalty for his fowl murders. Flying foxes have done us no harm this year. Of magpies, there are plenty. The laughing jackasses, though not numerous, are very sociable. Groups of cockatoos and parrots are occasionally seen. The bell bird and the whip bird can be heard every day. 4BIO 346.3