Anna V. Blough letter to Ida, Feb. 8, 1918

              Ping Ting Hsien, Shansi, China
8 February 1918

My Dear Ida, - Such good long letters as you do write to me. And especially are they so since you have your machine. It is surely good to have brothers and sisters. You have all been so good to me this year again. I often wonder how I can be more deserving and can do more for you. The other eve your letter came telling me of your Xmas vacation and the good times you had. Hope by this time you have my letter telling some of our good times here too.

And then you told me more of your plans that are to be matured along the first of March. I wonder if the great event will be over when this reaches you. I hope definite word will come to me soon so I can think of you on that day and if I can not say the thing I would like to, I can at least thnk [sic] of you and pray God�s blessing on your lives. I wish so much I knew Everett, for I can only think of him in a sort ov [sic] vague way as it is. But the day is not so far distant when it is my turn to be coming home.

I am having vacation now. School closed on Wednesday and tonight the girls are just about all gone, one more to go tomorrow, and then there will be just two left out of the thirtyone. These two will stay here during vacation. Things did not work out in school as I had planned, I mean they went so much quicker that we got thru a day sooner than was decided on for closing school. There are three teachers in the school besides myself. It is supposed here that I must hear them each one give their examinations to know if they are doing the work they should do. Last spring when Minerva went home I had first one teacher examine, then another, and I sat thru those tor turous [sic] days and listened to the whole rigamarole from beginning to end. It was terrible, for I understood only a part and it was all done in the spoken language. I would get so nervous and fidgety till it was thru I did not know what to do. So this fall I tried another plan that works well and I find out that it takes only a third of the time to examine. I put them all at it at once. Then I fly around from one room to the other, find what ground they have covered, the nature of the work done and listen to one or two and then go elsewhere [sic]. This gives me some exercise and we get thru in a short time. I found my two lady teachers doing alright, but the old man, Mr. Shang, I do not know what I will do in his case. In their reading he would select a lesson and ask them if they could take an examination on it, if not he would select till an easy one was found and then give them a high grade. Well I gave a little speech in the midst of the exam on what an examination meant, it was given to the girls but for his benefit. will have to solve the problem later somehow.

We have some splendid girls. One of them has c mmitted about twent of the Psalms, has studied Joshua, Judges and Ruth till she can answer any question as a matter of history in them, can say her big Geography about thru word for word, and in everything is almost perfect except her English. Others are like her. But then there is Pang Ti who is almost a blank in her Arithmetic. She has been here two years and can commit anything but can do no reasoning. She can not keep up with her class in Arith, so for several months I has taken her a half hour a day and tried to add the combinations up to ten and subtract below