Page 28 - 1918 February - To Dragma

TO DRAGMA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI 121

ment could start no precedent, and in due course of time there was
another keeper.

For the most part, the minds of the light-children are as quick and
capable as are their hands which so often help in caring for the great
lamps. And just here comes the sad problem. The school privileges
of these children of the lights are so poor as to be almost negligible.
I t was not until two years ago when the State of Maine appointed
a light-teacher that any educational opportunities, other than those
which the keepers themselves could give, and the help and encourage-
ment given by the Seacoast Mission, were afforded the children. The
keepers are all too poorly paid, the average salary being about sixty
dollars a month. Many of them are obliged to fish in addition to
their duties about the light, but even with such help, i t is almost
impossible, especially in these days of increased prices, to board and
educate children in the nearest mainland towns. Daily trips by
motor boats are quite out of the question, even from those lights
nearest shore, as the weather and sea are not trustworthy and as the
winters are so cold.

I f the children of school age could but leave the lights for even
six months of the year, they would not feel so deeply the loneliness
and isolation, so increased in these war times, nor would they be
forced to realize later that they are vastly inferior in an educational
sense to mainland children of their own age.

I t is this sad condition of affairs which the Seacoast Mission under
its able leader is trying to alleviate, and in which it is to be hoped,
when days are brighter for us all, our national government will take
a greater interest.

There are two persons to whom the light-stations are open even in
time of war—the Seacoast Missionary and the light-teacher. Though
with the former, we did not share his "open sesame"; but we were so
fortunate as to meet Miss Severance one Sunday afternoon in August
off Moose Peak Light, whose seventy-two foot shaft looks down
upon as wonderful a surf scene as the coast of Maine can boast.

The sea was an Italian blue that afternoon as we waited on the
deck of the Sunbeam for the keeper, his wife, and family to row out
to us for a service, and the shaft of Moose Peak was as white as
the countless gulls ever encircling it, or as the surf which broke at
its feet. The teacher came, too, in the boat which brought the light
family. She was spending her allotted one week in eight with the
four Moose Peak children. We were glad to see her, for we had
heard much of her and of her service among the lights. She is a
slight, eager-faced girl, still in her twenties; and after the captain