Letter from Aldin Grout to James Bailey

Locusts have descended on his oats and corn, despite precautions. The country "is amazingly fruitful under favorable circumstances, but there is many a step twixt the cup and the lip. Insects, draught and hail, and floods are always to be feared here." Though uncertain about continuance by the government, they have set up a school and a one of the boys is now set up to teach and "gets beyond our expectations... Ubangu, the teacher, can read tolerably well in his own language and some in English. He can write some, can count, add, subtract, and multiply a little... He is perhaps sixteen years old. An old New England school teacher perhaps would thinking Ubangu rather a meagre school master, and so he would be there, and here too if we had better ones, but he can get the children on a little and at the same time be making advance himself. In fact untaught as he is, being a native, and knowing all the feelings, habits, &c of his people, & see that he has some important advantage over a white man from our country who knows nothing of natives. The customs of the people make if difficult getting their children to attend school regularly..."