The Heathen School Summary

In The Heathen School, John Demos follows the story of a school for indigenous youth in Cornwall, Connecticut that was at danger of being lost in time as just “a piece of local history” (265). The story is entwined in the history of early America, a time when prejudice against non-whites was prevalent. The school and the youth that were brought to America from all over the world faced many challenges, which some faced well, but others did not. The story follows the school from its creation to its eventual closure, as well as some of the students’ lives after leaving the school. The story is intermixed with historical background and stories of the author’s journey as he conducted his research for the book.
The story begins with the history

of a man from Hawaii named Obookiah and follows his journey as he boarded a trade ship headed to America. He ended up in New England and longed to get an education. His longing was met by students and professors who offered him a place to stay and taught him English, farm skills, and other lessons, including the Bible. He came to faith and became a member of a church. Eventually, Obookiah started planning. He wanted other “heathens”, like himself, to have access to an education. This included creating a written language for his native tongue and a plan to build a school originally back in Hawaii, but later they changed the location to Connecticut. The hope was to educate “heathens” from around the world in America, then send them back to the places they came from as missionaries to spread the gospel. They faced problems with funding as well as opposition from the white community in the area, but the school eventually became a reality.
Students studied English, science, writing, and math, as well as learned to work the school’s agricultural property.

Enrollment slowly grew, along with funding and approval of the school from the local community, and it appeared to be doing well. That was until they encountered problems with their students fraternizing with local white girls. Interracial dating and marriage were highly stigmatized in that time, as white Americans thought of any “colored” race, including blacks and Indians, as inferior. However, the students continue and two end up marrying white girls. This starts the decline of the schools success that eventual leads to its closure. The rest of the book is dedicated to the students after the school closed. Sadly, many of them failed to be effective missionaries in their homeland, like the school had hoped. Two of the scholars, however, were successful and surprisingly, they were the two that had married the white girls. Although the school had ultimately failed, the success of the two students
The story of the heathen school is a little known, but fascinating story. It’s clear the amount of research and work Demos put into the book. The interludes that tell his story as he gathers information about the school show his dedication to the book. Demos shows a passion for history and telling the untold stories. His passion spills over into the reader as they see the injustice the “heathens” faced. I think he accomplishes the goal of leaving the reader with a feeling

of
Although the story is interesting, the book at times is confusing. It’s not clear at first, in chapter one, where the story is going. When I first read it, I thought I had the wrong idea of what the book was about. It wasn’t until the very end of the chapter that it introduced the main character and made the connection to all the detail just given. While that might make sense in a fictional book, in a nonfictional story it’s confusing and can leave the reader questioning if they're reading the right book.
Demos jumps around a lot, switching from the main story to historical background and his own story as he conducted research for the book in short interludes throughout the book.

The history and personal stories might be relevant to the main story, but I feel like some of them went on too long and distracted from the main story. Chapter five, for example, dives into the history of interracial marriage and the prejudice against the Indians. The chapter never mentions any of the main characters of the story and is long enough to distract from the story. While the information might be relevant, inserting that much of it in the middle takes away from the flow of the story. In addition, some chapters were reasonable, but others were much longer and filled with extensive detail. The longer chapters seemed to cover the same amount of the story as the shorter ones, but were stretched out with long winded descriptions that I feel bog down the reader. The story stops for him to give extensive detail and doesn’t pick up again until he

finishes.
Although the book was at times confusing, the story of the heathen school ends well. Even after the closure of the school and the failures of many of the scholars, Demos tells the stories of two scholars who went on to be successful. This is a good reminder that good things can emerge from situations that we might consider a failure. Demos mentions in the prologue that acknowledging failure is important because we can learn from it. After the stories of injustice towards the Indians and the failure of the school, the success of the students gives readers at least part of the happily ever after that they desire.
The Heathen School tells the untold story of one Indian’s dream to educate “heathens” like himself and send them to be missionaries throughout the world. Although this dream is realized, cultural laws interfere and lead to the schools downfall. This is redeemed in part, however, by two students who manage to succeed where the others failed. The story is a fascinating piece of little known history that, while at times confusing and overrun with detail, shows success and hope through injustice and failure.