HARRIS MEMORIAL COLLEGE

One can hardly overestimate the contribution of the Woman's Division of Christian Service to the Methodist work in the Philippines. And of that contribution, especially important has been Harris Memorial College, established by Miss Winnifred Spaulding in 1903, and then developed by Miss Marguerite Decker from 1905 until 1940. Miss Spaulding had been principal of a training school in Kansas City and was sent to the Philippines by the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society in order to begin a training school for women of the Philippines. Her work followed an earlier attempt by Miss J. E. Wisner to start a girls' boarding school in Manila.¹¹⁷ Four girls entered the first class in 1903. The school met a definite need in the Church and since that time, it has turned out well-trained women workers that are serving throughout the Philippines. Harris complements the training program of Union Theological Seminary. The earliest curriculum included courses in Bible, English, music, religious education, field work, hygiene, embroidery, and cookery. A report typical of those made by Winifred Spaulding to the Annual Conferences of the Church gives vivid insight into the situation at Harris:

Some of the girls, by their own testimony, had no genuine Christian experience when they entered the school last July; did not know how to pray; did not appreciate the Bible; were ashamed to witness to others. All that is changed and their faces shine with a new spiritual intelligence, and their earnest prayers for the conversion of relatives, their convincing testimonies, their devotion to the children in their Junior Leagues, their own improved personal appearance, their loving attitude toward their companions, their deliverance from old superstitions and their advanced ideals all speak
of the transforming power at work in their lives.¹¹⁸

Illness forced Miss Spaulding to leave Harris and she was replaced by Marguerite Decker, who guided the school through its years of steady growth and expanding influence. The first location of the school was on General Luna Street and then later it was moved next to Knox Church. It received its name in 1906 in honor of N.W. Harris of Chicago, who contributed towards its building fund. For many years Harris was in the Sampaloc section of Manila, where the Methodist Social Center now stands; in 1948, it moved back to General Luna, in order to be near Union Seminary with which it worked closely.

Gradually the curriculum and standards improved. In 1924, the kindergarten department was added; and in 1936 high school graduation became a requirement for admission. In 1951, Miss Prudencia L. Fabro, a former Crusade scholar and a graduate of Drew Seminary, became the first Filipina director of the school.¹¹⁹ She has ably continued the work begun by her predecessors and is widely recognized for her accomplishments at Harris.

The Harris graduate has a vital role in the local church, teaching, preaching, visiting, organizing and working beside the pastor. It is not infrequent that she also comes to take her role with the pastor, becoming the minister's wife! In whichever role – as deaconess or as minister's wife – her service is indispensable for Philippine Methodism.

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