Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions Part 5

| Mission | Mission |Remarks and |Primary Schools.| Secondary Schools.| Conclusions.

-----------------+----------------+---------------------------------- | Boys. | Girls. | Boys. | Girls. | -----------------+-------+--------+-------------------+-------------- Christian or | | | | | From | | | | | Christian homes. | | | | | -----------------+-------+--------+-------+-----------+-------------- Non-Christian | | | | | -----------------+-------+--------+-------+-----------+

Here we divided Christians from non-Christians, and thus the table serves a double purpose. It tells us the division of the scholars by s.e.x and also by faith. It throws light upon the condition of the Christian community and upon the extent to which mission school education is given to Christians and non-Christians.

One other point must be considered in connection with mission schools because it throws great light upon the character of the schools and their purpose. It is the extent to which the educational mission receives Government support. If there is any doubt as to the dominant aim and purpose of a school, the fact that it receives Government aid reveals at once that in the eyes of the Government it stands for the general enlightenment of the population rather than for any direct evangelisation. The dominant aim of the Government is general enlightenment, and the Government gives no grant without some sort of control. If then a school receives a Government grant the dominant idea of general enlightenment will certainly exercise great influence over its direction. Consequently, if we know what proportion of the schools in any mission receive a Government grant, we have at least some guidance as to the extent to which the mission accepts the aim of general enlightenment. We have also some a.s.surance that the schools reach the Government standard of efficiency in the teaching of secular subjects.

--------------------------------------------------------------------- Primary | Proportion | Higher | Proportion | Remarks Schools | Receiving | Schools. | Receiving | and | Government | | Government | Conclusions.

| Grant, if any. | | Grant. | --------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | ________|________________|__________|____________|___________________

Hitherto we have dealt only with schools in which the pupils are probably for the most part children; but in some countries the mission makes a great effort to enlighten the illiterate adults, especially the illiterate adult Christians, and thus, as in China, missionaries propagate simplified systems of writing the language, or in other countries have reduced to writing, languages which possessed no script.

We have already set out the reason why this appeals especially to Protestant missionaries. The reading of the Bible is a keystone in their evangelistic system, and with them Christianity and reading go hand in hand. We must then make room in our survey for a movement so profound, so widespread, and so vitally important, and a movement of this character deserves and demands a separate table. It cannot be confounded with the establishment of ordinary primary schools. It is essential that we should inquire what education is given to the illiterate adults of the area; and we must inquire in what proportion this teaching is given to Christians and non-Christians, because this proportion is very significant. The teaching of reading to the illiterate is by some missionaries viewed as a means preparatory to the preaching of the gospel, a gift to be given as widely as possible, in the belief that the more who can read, the better will be the hearing given to the preachers of Christ; by others the teaching is given rather to illiterate inquirers and converts, and it is given to them as a definitely Christian gift for the edification of the individual and of the Church.

By the one this teaching would be cla.s.sed with the general work of Christian educational missions for the whole community, the meeting of the general intellectual need of the district; by the other it would be cla.s.sed as a part of the work done by the educational mission for the enlightenment of the Church, the meeting of a need of the Church. By the one it would be cla.s.sed with the tables which deal with the relation of the educational to the evangelistic work; by the other with the tables which deal with the educational work viewed as meeting a special need.

The table suggested is:--

--------------------------------------------------------+------| Population. | | --------------------------------------------------------+------| Illiterate Population. | | --------------------------------------------------------+------| Number of Teachers of Illiterate Adults. | | --------------------------------------------------------+------| Number of Illiterate Adult Scholars. | --------------------------------------------------------+------| Christian. | | --------------------------------------------------------+------| Non-Christian | | --------------------------------------------------------+------| Proportion of Illiterate Population. | --------------------------------------------------------+------| Proportion of Teachers to Illiterate Population. | | --------------------------------------------------------+------| Remarks and Conclusions. | | --------------------------------------------------------+------|

This table leads us naturally to consider the educational work done in the station area from an evangelistic point of view. We must inquire then into the extent to which evangelistic missionaries a.s.sist in the schools, and educational missionaries a.s.sist in evangelistic work, and the evangelistic results so far as they can be traced of the work in schools.

We ask first the extent to which educationalists employ the services of evangelistic workers in their schools and inst.i.tutions. As we pointed out in dealing with the relation between medical and evangelistic work, so here we would insist that this particular table is not by itself a good guide. There is a serious danger in an inst.i.tution, whether medical or educational, of dividing the work in this way. We have already a.s.serted our conviction that medical missionaries should be evangelistic, and educational missionaries evangelistic also. But when evangelistic workers distinctly so called are on the staff of hospitals or schools, there is a danger lest the medicals and the educationalists should consider themselves absolved from personal effort by the occasional presence of an evangelist. "Let him do the religious preaching, and let me do the secular teaching. Preaching is his job, teaching is mine." Thus a division is created which reacts seriously upon the work of both. The pupils learn to distinguish the one work from the other, as separate and distinct departments. They prefer the one, they are bored by the other. No man can serve two masters; and if the religious teaching is plainly in the hands of one teacher and the secular teaching plainly in the hands of the other, they will tend to think that they can hold to the one and despise the other. This we say is a danger, but it is not an unavoidable danger. Only we must not judge that an inst.i.tution is doing good evangelistic work because evangelistic services are held in it. The table is as follows:--

------------------------------------------------------------------- Schools. | Number of Schools | Proportion of Schools | Remarks and | Regularly Visited | Visited by | Conclusions.

| by Evangelists. | Evangelists. | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | _________|___________________|_______________________|____________

Then there is a most important work which the educational evangelist does, or might do, outside the school. Perhaps we ought to explain this; for many supporters of missions are unfamiliar with the idea. They think of the work of educational missionaries as necessarily bound up with schools and inst.i.tutions. A teacher without a school, or outside a school, seems to them rather like a gunner without a gun. If an educational missionary goes on an evangelistic tour it is, they think, as an evangelist that he goes, not as an educationalist. Yet, if we understood the work of an evangelistic educationalist, we should not think it strange to meet an educational missionary on tour, doing evangelistic educational work. Evangelistic work is educational to the core, and it leads to educational results. No evangelistic work amongst an illiterate, or a literate, people can be really complete, if it does not lead at once to the organisation of education amongst the converts and hearers. The illiterate must be taught to read the Gospels, and it demands an expert in the teaching of illiterates to direct their studies; the illiterate and the literate converts alike must be taught to transform that education which they all give daily to their children, whether in the home or in a school, into Christian education, and this too demands the attention of a skilled educationalist. This work is invaluable and most exciting and interesting work, and must produce results which, for the establishment of the Church, are almost incalculably important. As then for the medical missionaries, so for the educationalists we ask:--

------------+------------+---------------+-------------+------------ Evangelistic| Number of | Number of | Number of |Conclusions Tours. |Evangelistic|Educationalists|Days Spent by|and Remarks.

| Workers. | a.s.sisting. | Evangelists | | | | on Tour. | ------------+------------+---------------+-------------+------------ | | | | ------------+------------+---------------+-------------+------------

When we turn to the immediate evangelistic results of the education given in the station district, we labour under difficulties even greater than those which we met when we tried to formulate tables to reveal the extent to which medical missions were effective as an evangelistic agency.

The difficulty lies in the fact that the educational missionaries who set before themselves as the aim of their work a far distant goal to be attained by the c.u.mulative effect of Christian influence brought to bear upon generation after generation of children who do not themselves become Christians, naturally resent a table which seems to demand a present, immediate, result in the tabulation of baptisms, and we fear that the other tables will hardly reconcile them, because we are afraid that few educational missionaries have yet learned to understand what a vast and important and absorbingly interesting work the education of the converts outside the schools affords. Consequently we s.h.i.+ver when we think of the reception which these tables are likely to receive at the hands of some of our friends in foreign countries, and our ears tingle in antic.i.p.ation.

Nevertheless, if we are to be told, and to act on the hearing, that Christian schools are founded because it is easier to convert the young than the old, and the twig can be bent while the tree resists till it breaks, we must inquire how far this saying is justified by experience.

A survey which neglected the factors which throw light upon it would be a partial and unjust one.

Hence we ask first--

--------------------------------------------------------------------- | Scholars | Baptism | Baptism | Confirmation | Remarks | | of | of | or Admission | and | | Scholars | Parents | as Full | Conclusions | | | | Members | --------------------------------------------------------------------- Primary | | | | | Schools | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------- Secondary| | | | | Schools | | | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------

and secondly--

---------------------------------------------------------------- Number of Places Opened to | | Remarks Christian Teachers by the | Proportion of Total | and Influence of Scholars. | Places Occupied. | Conclusions.

---------------------------------------------------------------- | | ___________________________|_____________________|______________

These two tables will give us some idea of the direct influence of the educational mission as an evangelistic force.

Some are anxious to know what support the educational and medical work call forth from the natives for whom these are set in hand. They want this information, we suppose, as a help towards an understanding of the influence exercised by these different forms of work. If the natives support them generously then they have obviously been impressed by them favourably. And perhaps the extent of native support may suggest the measure to which our work as medical and educational missionaries is approaching a successful end.

We therefore include a table identical for medical and educational workers:--

--------------------------------------------------------------------- | Total | Total | Total Native | Volunteers | Expense | Foreign | Contribution | for | of Work in | Contribution. | Fees and | Training.

| Station | | Donations. | | Area. | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------- Medical | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- ------------|------------|---------------|--------------|------------ Educational | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- ---------------------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER VII.

CO-OPERATION BETWEEN THE DIFFERENT ELEMENTS IN THE MISSION.

We have now surveyed the evangelistic, medical, and educational work in the station district, viewed separately. It remains to unify the results, that we may get, if possible, a definite conception of the whole. The effectiveness of the mission machinery largely depends upon the relation of these parts to one another. The mission ought not to be three separate things but one thing; for the impression produced upon the non-Christian population is the result of the combination of all the various forms in which the one missionary spirit expresses itself. The spirit which produces them all is one, and it is that one spirit which influences and converts the heathen.

Now we already know the proportion in which workers and funds are divided between the three branches (p. 68). We already know something of the work done by evangelists in hospitals (p. 83), and by doctors in evangelistic tours (p. 84); and of the extent to which the work in the hospitals opens up the way for evangelists (p. 85). We already know something of the work done by evangelists in schools (p. 99), and of the evangelistic influence of the educational work (p. 102, 103), and of the extent to which educationalists a.s.sist in evangelistic tours (p. 101).

If then we now add tables to show the help given by the medicals in the schools and the work done by the educationalists in the hospitals we shall be able to gain a fairly complete idea of the co-operation between the three branches.

But it is just at this point, the relation between the medical and educational work, that we shall probably find most difficulty. This relations.h.i.+p has not been carefully thought out in the past, and co-operation between medicals and educationalists is, we fancy, somewhat rare. Few men could tell us exactly what policy is followed, or ought to be followed. This is partly due to that confusion of purpose of which we spoke in the first chapter, a confusion which obscures and confounds our medical and educational missions. If both medical and educational missions had had one common dominant purpose, the relation between them would have been more easily seen; but since they were separated in thought, each having its own particular and separate objects to pursue, they naturally worked along parallel lines and consequently did not meet. If they had had one common dominant object they would have met.

But generally speaking there is no clear understanding whether the medical mission has any definite relation to the educational mission, or the educational mission to the medical.

On the medical side, it is not clearly understood whether it is the first duty, or the last duty, of medicals to attend to the children whom we gather together in such large numbers, whether the medicals ought to inspect all the children, whether they ought to be at hand to treat children who are obviously sick, whether these considerations ought to influence the location of the hospital, or of the place of residence of the medical missionaries, or whether this work, if they really gave much time to it, should be considered as withdrawing them from their _proper_ work. Consequently, the health of the children in mission schools has often suffered, and the work of the school been hindered. In one school something approaching to a revolution was produced by the constant care and attention of a doctor. Phthisis, which had been a continual source of trouble and weakness, was reduced considerably, and the whole work and tone of the school improved enormously. If medical missionaries and educational missionaries always realised that they were engaged in a common work, this experience would be almost universal.

In our tables we cannot possibly enter into any details. The work of medicals in schools cannot be exactly stated, it varies greatly in extent and character; but it would, we suppose, always include attention to the health of the children and consultation with the teachers, both about the welfare of the school as a whole and of the care of individual pupils. It might also include lectures in hygiene and kindred topics, sanitation of buildings, and other a.s.sistance too varied to specify.

The table can only include visits and inspection of pupils.

----------------------------------------------------------------- Total | Number | Total | Number | Remarks Number | Regularly | Number | Regularly | and of Schools. | Visited by | of | Inspected. | Conclusions.

| Medicals. | Scholars. | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | | | | -----------------------------------------------------------------

The relation of the educational mission to the medical has not been thought out any more carefully. There is in hospitals an opportunity of extraordinary importance, a field of great fruitfulness which is largely neglected. If the hospital is a missionary hospital, founded to heal the souls as well as the bodies of men, ought not the patients in them to be taught as well as medically treated? Have they any claim upon the care of educational missionaries? Have the educational missionaries any duty in hospitals? Very few, we think, have given much attention to these questions: no society, so far as we know, has followed any definite policy in regard to them. A single instance will reveal how important they may be. A doctor who was deeply interested in the teaching of Chinese illiterates took steps to have the illiterate convalescents in his hospital taught to read. The average time which these patients spent in the hospital was three weeks, and in that time they could learn to read the Gospels in simplified script fluently. They thus left the hospital not only healed in body, but with a new interest in life, and a considerable knowledge of Christian truth, and a power to advance in it, and a power also to instruct others. In a hospital for Chinese coolies in France this doctor taught one patient to read the Gospel. The patient was then removed to another hospital where he taught no less than forty of his fellow-patients to read. If such results can be obtained, it would be well to consider whether we are making full use of the opportunities afforded by the gathering of large numbers of patients into hospitals all over the world. Illiterates are not the only people who might profit by Christian teaching, cla.s.ses for literates might be equally valuable. Large numbers might leave our hospitals with a considerable knowledge of Christian truth, and a new interest in life, with power to advance and to teach others, if they were systematically taught. In one missionary hospital regular courses were given on Christian Evidences, and courses on the education of children might well be given to parents in hospitals.

Here again a table cannot reveal the type and character of the work done: it can only tabulate visits. The work would include the teaching of illiterates to read, and instructing convalescents of higher education either in cla.s.ses or individually.

--------------------------------------------------------------------- Total | Number | Total | Number | Remarks Number of | Regularly | Number of | of | and Hospitals. | Visited by | Patients. | Scholars | Conclusions.

| Educationalists. | | Taught. | --------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------

We might now sum up this branch of our inquiry thus:--

--------------------------------------------------------------------- | Foreign | Native |a.s.sisting|a.s.sisting|a.s.sisting|Remarks | Mission | a.s.sist | in |in |in | and | -aries. | ants. | Evangel-|Hosp- |Schools. |Conclusions.

| | | istic |itals. | | | | | Tours. | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------- Evange-| | | | | | listic | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Medical| ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Educa | | | | | | -tional| ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- ---------------------------------------------------------------------

Then we shall surely have some idea of the extent to which the whole force works together towards one end.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE NATIVE CHURCH.

In the Introduction we pointed out that the end for which the work surveyed is undertaken ought to govern the survey of the work. Now we are constantly told that the end for which the station is founded is the establishment of a Christian Church in the district so strongly that if the station with its foreign staff disappeared, the Church would remain and bring up each generation in the Christian Faith.