Educating 'heathens,' in Falls Village

FALLS VILLAGE — Learn about a curious episode in Cornwall’s history when Yale historian John Demos comes to the South Canaan Meeting House to discuss “Cornwall’s Heathen School — Hope and Betrayal in the Early Republic� as part of the Tuesdays at Six lecture series, on Tuesday, Aug. 3, at 6 p.m.

Demos heard the story of the Foreign Mission School at a dinner party in Cornwall several years ago.

Intrigued, he went to the library at Yale and found, to his delight, that it was a subject that had received little if any academic attention; moreover, many of the primary source documents were right there in New Haven.

It was the historians’ version of a horseplayer hitting a trifecta: a great story, all the materials at hand and a wide open field.

Demos said the school was established by Congregationalists with the idea of bringing people from all over the world for training, and then sending them back to their homelands.

“The idea was that these people would be educated, converted, and ‘civilized,’� said Demos. “Then they would go home and establish similar programs.�

About 100 people — from Hawaii, China, the Pacific Islands  and India —went through the school, which Demos said was in operation from 1815 to 1825 (the Cornwall Historical Society has 1817 to 1826 on its website).

But not too many of the “scholars,� as the school referred to the students, ever followed through with missionary activity.

The school attracted worldwide attention — and visitors with a professional interest in the unusual school.

And the school also found itself in conflict with the townspeople.

The curious will have to attend the lecture for the details of this unique “town and gown� conflict.

Suffice it to say that, according to Demos, the missionary movement decided it was better to send people out than to bring them in.

The South Canaan Meeting House is just south of the junction of routes 7 and 63 in Falls Village (behind the Crossroads Deli). The free program begins at 5:45 p.m. with a musical interlude.

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