Mount Herman – a school for all

The following blog post has been written by Katie Royle, a student at Manchester Metropolitan University who recently completed her Master's in Public History and Heritage. As part of her course Katie used the Together Trust Archive located at Manchester Central Library to undertake research on some of the young people in the Charity's care who were emigrated.

In the spring of 1883, Manchester was hit by evangelical fever when a famous American preacher began a fortnights mission in the city.  Dwight L Moody had achieved fame through a mix of his ‘man of the men’ persona and his ‘peculiarly original style’ of preaching, which gained him a widespread following both in America and throughout the world. Moody, together with hymn singer Ira Sankey, visited Manchester as part of a nationwide tour where, not unlike the celebrity pop stars of today, the sermons attracted thousands. Moody had said he ‘feared the cold formalism which was creeping over Christianity’, and his services were peppered with humour, the ‘common touch’, the simplifying of Bible passages, and plenty of singing and musical interludes.

In Manchester, they held sermons in the Free Trade Hall and the Circus in Chepstow Street to packed-out audiences. The Manchester Guardian reported:

‘The time announced for the commencement of the proceedings was half past seven: but in anticipation of a crush the doors of the hall were opened at five o’clock, and half an hour later the vast assembly room was literally packed. At six o’clock the approaches were filled with would-be hearers, thousands being unable to obtain admission.’

‘Although the musical portion of the service was very attractive and singular in its arrangement, it was not sufficient to account for the tremendous influence which the evangelists excite. So far as can be judged, their power lies in the fact that there is nothing of the sermon about their utterances.’[1]

During his Manchester tour, he visited the ‘Manchester and Salford Boys and Girls Refuge’ and, seeing something of himself in the boys he met, invited 12 of the ‘orphans’ to join him in America as students of his training school, Mount Herman in Northfield, Massachusetts.

M189/8/1/4 From the Charity magazine 'The Christian Worker' August 1883 on the boys arrival in America

A self-made man, Moody was born in rural Northfield in 1837 in abject poverty and with no formal education. Borne from frustration at his own lack of schooling, Moody was firm believer that a good education was key to a successful and productive life, and should be accessible to all sexes, classes and races. He opened a school first in Chicago and then in his hometown of Northfield, offering a full education to girls and young women. It was such a success, and with plentiful donations from wealthy and influential backers, the school was expanded to include boys.  Forward-thinking for the time, Mount Herman was an all-inclusive school; with nationalities from all over the world being enrolled, including indigenous people, African, Chinese, and Indian students. The school flourished and the education the children received was of a high standard, comparable at the time to the expensive private schools that neighboured it.

M189/9/1/1 Boys from the Refuge chosen to join Dwight Moody's training school in Northfield, Massachusetts in 1883 with L.K.Shaw

It was to this school that 12 of our Manchester boys set sail in 1883. A reporter visiting the school in the summer of that same year illustrated what the boys would have found on their arrival:

‘No finer site in Franklin county can be found for the school than this … on high sloping ground it has an extensive view of the mountain and valley, which in itself, is a great factor in education.’

‘The boys assist on the farm, help milk the thirty five cows, care for the horses and the pigs, helped last fall to pack and sell 175 barrels of apples … they are required to work about three hours a day and in vacation are paid for working over hours. Only two hours or so are devoted now to school study, but in September usual hours will be observed … The purpose of the Trustees is to make it a thoroughly English school, and to provide careful training for religious, intellectual and physical nature of the boys.’ [2]

The boys flourished at Mount Herman. Two brothers, Frank and Benjamin M-S, who were 12 and 10 respectively when they had left the Refuge, did especially well. Benjamin trained as a medical doctor and then moved to the Philippines with his wife, a fellow student at Mount Herman, to become medical missionaries. They stayed there for 12 years, having five children, travelling extensively through Australia and China, before eventually moving back to America where Benjamin set up practice in Santa Cruz, California. Frank stayed in Northfield as a valued member of the community, becoming the first City Treasurer and an Alderman. Destitute orphans, two of eight siblings, the boys had only been admitted to the ‘Refuge’ a week before Moody’s visit – a real stroke of luck! Some of their younger siblings emigrated to Canada through the ‘Refuge’, and when Benjamin’s daughter got married both Frank and his sister, Mary, visiting from Canada, attended the wedding.

Tragically, two of the number drowned the following summer whilst swimming in the lake at Mount Herman, with the ‘Manchester and Salford Refuge’ being informed by one of the other Manchester boys, Frank C. Frank had had a tough start to life, abandoned by his criminal father, and his mother dead, he had been in the Refuge for four years before setting sail for America. In this new environment he had thrived, he became a member of the Mount Herman Glee Club (later the Moody Quartet) singing second bass and even returning to England for a brief tour with the musical group in 1893. He then studied romantics at John Hopkins University, later relocating to New York where he became an esteemed Professor of French at Princeton University, staying in the post for 35 years. He spent his old age in the sunnier climes of Florida, with his wife, and when he died in 1945 his obituary stated he had studied at the prestigious Eaton School in England before moving to America; apparently, he did not want his old life to taint his new by revealing his much humbler beginnings!

---

[1] ‘Messrs. Moody and Sankey’s Services’, Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, Saturday, March 17, 1883

[2] ‘A Drive with Mr Moody’, The Fitchburg Sentinel, Massachusetts , Monday 6 August 1883, Page 2

To read more about the Together Trust's history, Andrew Simpson's book 'The Ever Open Door' can be purchased through our enquiry page.