20th November:
I left Quittapahilla and went on to Donegal [7]. Because my journey through the country and its purpose was well known, along the path I had to take the Brethren and Sisters stood waiting in the doors until they saw me and would give me no peace until I had at least looked into their houses. The children were also very eager, gathering around me immediately and being very cute. This meant that it was already night when I got to my dear Johann Schmidt. The Brethren there were working hard on the chimney and were eager to finish so that we could be together undisturbed. We were very happy together. He has a sweet little dwelling there and the Brethren and Sisters there and their children love him very much. The latter had given me many greetings to bring to him.
21st November:
They were still working on the chimney, so we weren’t able to undertake much together, which continued thus through the week but I took advantage of the night and tried as much as possible to make him a little more sure of his spelling and seem to have achieved my goal with him.
22nd & 23rd November:
We continued in our school matters and came to discuss many necessary and useful points. Because I had so many wishes, I found myself compelled to note a couple of points which contain a system and method, compact and simple and as natural as possible [note at foot of page: this is nothing more than the Jena School and Spelling Method adjusted for our conditions here and slightly accommodated to our Country Schools] Wrote to Br. Christian Rauch [8] and asked him to a conference.
24th November:
Towards evening Br. Christian Rauch came to us. We conferred about the points that had been drawn up until almost midnight. Because he found all of them good, easy, simple useful and in agreement with the method of the blessed Brother Gottschalk, although not in use in most of the schools any more, we agreed to set up the system in that way.
8. Christian Heinrich Rauch had been the very first Moravian messenger to the American Indians; following his expulsion from the Colony of New York he became an itinerant evangelist in central Pennsylvania, headquartered in Warwick Twp, now Lititz, Lancaster County, PA; he died a missionary in Jamaica
Brother Bader's Diary
of his Journey and Visit to the Schools in the Country from
16th November 1752 to
28th February 1753
Translated by Pastor Roy Ledbetter
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