SURVEY OF THE WORK IN A PROVINCE.
In few parts of the world is a mission station really an isolated unit.
In most of the countries to which we go there are many stations of many
different missions, all aiming more or less definitely at the
establishment of a native Church, whatever their conception of the
Church may be. In the vast majority of cases these stations have some
relationship to one another. The definition of districts for the mission
stations is commonly recognised, and in planning new work directors of
missions frequently allow themselves to be influenced, in some way and
in some degree, by the position of existing mission stations. There are
also in some parts of the world bodies composed of leading members of
many of the missions that work in the country, who meet to consider the
progress of the Christian faith in the province or the country as a
whole, and deliberately plan their work with some consideration of the
position and character of the work done by the others. Now in all this
there is a manifest approach to the idea that mission work in the
country or province is a common work, and that the various missions
engaged in it are not antagonists, but allies. It is certainly true that
we are far from having reached the stage of a common direction and a
real unification of work Rivalry and antagonism are still rampant, but
the recognition of the fact that we must consider the position and
character of other missions in directing our own is a most important
advance; and it implies that we ought, in some measure at least, to be
able to express the work of any mission station in relation to all the
mission work done in the province or country, and to understand, at any
rate in some degree, what place it takes in the mission work in the
province viewed as a whole. It is true that a great many missionaries
would refuse to admit that the recognition of other stations in the
planting of our own is an acknowledgment of the unity of our work; but
whether they acknowledge it, or whether they do not, it is so, and we
for our part recognise it with thankfulness and look forward to a day
when missions will not only recognise others by avoiding them, but by
planning missions deliberately to assist each other. For that seems to
us the necessary conclusion. The moment we recognise a station as a
Christian mission station which we must not disturb, we have gone a long
way towards recognising it as a mission station which our own must not
only not disturb, but must complement; and when we know that one mission
must complement another we are really not far removed from establishing
our missions with common consultation each to supply what is lacking to
the other.
Holding this view, we desire to discover what place each mission station
occupies when we take a wider view and survey the province or country.
Here we shall be able to adjust many apparent inequalities in the
mission stations viewed by themselves. From our previous survey of the
mission stations one by one we may have got the impression that some of
them as mission stations designed for work in a district were very
ill-balanced. The medical work, or institutional work of some kind, may
have seemed to be out of all proportion to the other forms of the work,
and this impression may remain when we view the province. But on the
other hand it may be seriously modified; because when we review the
work of the province as a whole, we may find that the institutional work
of the province as a whole is out of proportion to the evangelistic
work, and in that case we should think the disproportion at the station
more serious. On the other hand we might find the institutional work in
the province inadequate, and in that case the emphasis which seemed
undue in the one place, and may really be improper in that one place,
nevertheless, in view of the situation in the whole province, may be
shown to be reasonable in relation to the whole province. How then can
we gather together the returns from all the stations so as to present a
view of the work in the province? For that is the first thing. We cannot
put the station into its proper place in the province until we have a
view of the work in the province treated as a unity.
In provinces, large cities and towns, which are not reckoned as part of
any mission station district, have to be taken into account. These large
cities, capitals of provinces, countries, or empires, need special
consideration, and must often be surveyed separately. They are centres
in which many societies have their head-quarters, and many missionaries
live, yet the work done in them is not always so impressive or
extensive as the numbers of missionaries might suggest: occasionally the
missionaries are all congregated in one quarter of the city, and large
portions are practically untouched. In them, too, are sometimes large
city congregations, self-supporting indeed and self-governing, but
sucking into themselves all the more vigorous elements of the Christian
community and employing them within a somewhat narrow circle. The
problem of the evangelisation of these cities is a very serious one.
We suggest that these great cities might be treated either as one
district or as several, and that they ought to be surveyed
systematically by a body representative of all the missions in each
city. If a proper survey were made and the facts tabulated, the
statistical tables would be similar to those for the station district,
and we could use them to complete a survey of the work done in the
province treated as a unity.
But to view the work in the province as a unity we do not need all the
detail of the station districts, indeed we should only find the
multiplication of detail confusing. To gain a general view of work in a
large area such as a province or a small country we must first of all
select those features which are common to all the parts and vitally
important. We venture to suggest that the important features to be
represented are five. (1) The work to be done in the whole area. (2) The
strength of the whole force at work in relation to the work to be done.
(3) The extent to which emphasis is laid on various forms of work. (4)
The extent to which different classes, races, and religions in the area
are reached. (5) The extent to which the Church has attained to
self-support.
1. If the mission stations and their allotted districts covered the
whole country, we should need to do no more than add together the
returns obtained from the station statistics which we have already drawn
up. But in most countries there are large unoccupied areas of the size
and population of which we are more or less ignorant. What we have is,
either a census return for the whole province, or an estimate of its
area and population. In dealing with the whole province then we must
treat the station returns of towns and villages occupied and of the
numbers of the Christian constituency as work done; and then we must
find out the relation of these to the whole area and population. This
would have to be done probably first on a large scale map which would
show the density of the population in different parts of the area, and
would show the stations and the strength of the Christian constituency
in relation to the area and population. These facts could then be
expressed in a table, and we should gain at once an idea of the extent
to which the missions were in a position to reach the population. The
table would be exceedingly simple and give us no more than the barest
idea of the work to be done in its vaguest expression.
------------------------------------------------------------------
| | | Christian Con- | Non-Christian
Province. | Area. | Population. | stituency. | Population.
------------------------------------------------------------------
| | | |
__________|________|______________|________________|____________
If, in addition to this, there was either a census return or a credible
estimate of the cities, towns, and villages, in the area, a table could
be drawn of the cities, towns, and villages occupied, in the sense that
there were Christians resident in them, and the work could be expressed
in that form also, which would greatly assist the understanding of the
other.
________________________________________________________________
| |
| Occupied. | Unoccupied.
Province.|__________________________|___________________________
| | | | | |
|Cities.| Towns.| Villages.| Cities.| Towns.| Villages.
_________|_______|_______|__________|________|_______|__________
| | | | | |
_________|_______|_______|__________|________|_______|__________
We ought here to repeat that we do not imagine for a moment that the
Foreign Missions are to occupy all the villages or even all the cities
and towns. We believe that a careful statement of work to be done in
this form would very speedily force us to realise, with a clearness and
power never before experienced, the truth which we often repeat, that
the conversion of the country must be the work of native Christians.
2. The force at work in relation to the work to be done. Here again it
would not be sufficient to add together the figures returned from the
stations, because in a large area like a province or a small country
there are often many missionaries not at mission stations but at some
large centre engaged in work for the whole province rather than for any
particular mission district; as, for instance, translators or
journalists; men engaged in hostels or Y.M.C.A. work; or in large
institutions, such as training colleges, medical or educational or
industrial; or in some special form of Christian philanthropy, such as
work amongst lepers, blind, deaf and dumb, and other infirm or defective
persons; or men engaged in assisting the missionaries all over the
country as directors, or forwarding agents; and all these must be taken
into account in considering the foreign force in the province. Including
all these we should get a table for the foreign force similar to that
which we had for the station, and that force we could relate directly to
the work to be done.
____________________________________________________________________
| | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | Re-
| | | | | | | |marks
Popu- | Total |Propor-| |Propor-| |Single|Propor-| and
lation.|Foreign|tion to| Men. |tion to| Wives.|Women.|tion to| Con-
| Force.| Popu- | | Popu- | | | Popu- | clu-
| |lation.| |lation.| | |lation.|sions.
_______|_______|_______|______|_______|_______|______|_______|______
| | | | | | | |
_______|_______|_______|______|_______|_______|______|_______|______
We cannot sacrifice the proportions, because the life is in them.
Comparison of conditions in different areas can only be made on
proportions. The mere statement of the figures with the suggestion that
anyone can work out the proportions would reveal a singular ignorance of
human nature.
For the native force all that we need for the present purpose is a
table that will show us the Christian constituency, communicants, and
workers in the whole province in proportion to one another. Here also we
must include many workers and some congregations in large towns which
the station district survey may have omitted.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|Total.| Proportion| Proportion |Proportion |Remarks
| |of |of Christian |of |and
| |Population.| Constituency. |Communicants.|Conclu-
| | | | | sions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Christian | | | | |
constituency| ---- | ---- | | |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Communicants| ---- | ---- | ---- | |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Paid workers| ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Unpaid | | | | |
Workers | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
3. It is important to consider carefully the proportions in which the
force is engaged in different forms of work since, as we have already
explained, these different forms are often, if not generally, treated as
distinct and separate methods of propaganda, and men want to know what
is the effectiveness of each. They ask, what are the fruits of medical
and educational work, and they expect an answer in terms of additions to
the Church. If the dominant object of missions is the establishment of a
native Church this is indeed not unnatural; but, as we have already
said, many educational and medical missionaries might resent this
demand, for they have other ideas of the nature and purpose of their
work. Nevertheless, since this native Church is constantly presented to
us as the dominant purpose of all our efforts, it is only right that we
should make the inquiry here, as we did in the earlier chapters, and ask
how the force in the field is divided. It seems almost absurd that we
should have no idea in what proportion medicals, educationalists, and
evangelists should be employed in any field. In some countries medical
work is by far the most effective, if not the only possible form of
propaganda; in some fields the evangelists can work effectively almost
alone, and medical institutions are not the same necessity, and their
establishment does not produce great results in the building of the
Church when compared with the work of evangelists and educationalists.
In some places their aid was at first apparently necessary to success,
but as time went on that first desperate importance ceased. We have not
so large a medical force that we can afford to use it for any but the
most important and necessary purposes; yet, if the establishment of a
native Church is the dominant purpose, large numbers of medicals are
doing work which is (from this point of view only) of second-rate
importance, whilst work which only they could do is left undone, and
cries aloud for their assistance. Similarly, if the establishment of a
native Church is really the dominant object, educationalists are often
wrongly directed and placed. They are not producing fruit in this regard
(of course in this regard only) in anything like the abundance which
they might produce if they were free to attack the real questions of the
education of the native Church. In many centres they are doing splendid
work for the enlightenment of the people, but close beside them are
large bodies of Christians who from the point of view of the
establishment of a native Church need their help much more.
We ought then to know in each province how the force is divided and what
is the fruit of the labours of each class of missionaries viewed from
the standpoint of the building up of the native Church.
Now if we know the proportions of the workers in each class in each
country, and if we could have a table which told us with any degree of
accuracy the numbers of the inquirers, communicants, and places opened
by the labours of each class, we should surely have some facts from
which we might gain light on this most practical question, in what
proportion the work of each class of workers was most effective in each
country as an evangelistic and church-building agency. We propose then
two tables (see opposite page).
(i)
_____________________________________________________________________
| | Paid |Amount of| Amount of | Remarks
| Mission-| Native | Foreign | Native | and Con-
| aries | Workers.| Funds. |Contributions. | clusions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Evangelistic| -- | -- | -- | -- |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Medical | -- | -- | -- | -- |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Educational | -- | -- | -- | -- |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Other forms | | | | |
of work. | -- | -- | -- | -- |
_____________________________________________________________________
(ii)
_____________________________________________________________________
| Inquirers | | Places Opened | Remarks
| Derived | Communicants | Directly Through | and Con-
| From | Derived from | Influence of | clusions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Evangelistic| -- | -- | -- |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Medical | -- | -- | -- |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Educational | -- | -- | -- |
_____________________________________________________________________
If we desire to know the influence of our medical and educational work
upon the native Church we ought certainly to have a table which, for the
schools at least, would show us what proportion of the pupils who passed
through the schools became valuable members of the Church. But every one
who has had any scholastic experience, and has tried to follow the
after-history of his pupils, knows that that is not easy, even in
external and material affairs, and when the inquiry is concerned with
internal convictions and religious influence that difficulty is
insuperable. A few specially endowed and devoted educationalists could
indeed tell the after-history of a considerable number of their pupils,
and ideally all schools ought to have a record of the history of pupils
for at least a few years after leaving the school; but there would
always be a percentage of loss; in many cases that percentage would be
very high, and we doubt whether many schools have any record at all.
Under these circumstances to put into an inquiry such as that which we
propose a question concerning the after-life of scholars or patients
seems almost impossible. Yet we cannot be content. There are mission
schools which go on year after year educating boys for a business
career, and generation after generation of boys pass through the school,
large sums of mission money are expended on them, and the results _from
a missionary point of view_ are shrouded in Cimmerian gloom; or the
general darkness is relieved by one or two exceptional pupils who,
because they do very well, appear to justify the existence of the
institution in which they were educated, though they would probably have
been as valuable Christians if they had been educated in any other
school. In this way a very low average is often concealed. If a school
is judged by a few exceptionally good scholars, it should also be judged
by a few exceptionally bad ones. It is indeed of serious importance that
the missionary value of some of our medical and educational, especially
the educational, institutions should be carefully examined and tested by
an appeal to indisputable facts. It is generally supposed that education
in mission schools must necessarily produce a strong, enlightened, and
zealous Christian community. That it produces a large number of
Christians intellectually enlightened is certain: that they are zealous
evangelists is not as certain. We want a statistical table to reveal the
missionary value, not the commercial value, of the education given. But
what table can we draw? The preceding table which sets forth inquirers
and communicants is clearly insufficient though it is better than
nothing. Until every school keeps a careful record of the after-history
of at least a large number of its pupils it seems impossible to get any
clear light on the question.
4. With regard to the extent to which different races and classes are
reached by the missions, we may safely assume that the Christian
missions ought to extend their benefits to all classes and races in the
area, and that there ought to be some proportion between the efforts
made in each case. If, and when, the responsible leaders of the missions
decided that the time had come to concentrate on one particular kind of
work for one particular class, we may be perfectly certain that they
would have no difficulty in justifying their action. But in any case
action should not be taken without consideration of proportions, and,
therefore, it is important that the proportions should be known.
But in dealing with work in the province or small country we cannot
simply repeat the table prepared for the mission district. In the
province or country there are often missionaries at work who give
themselves up wholly to one class. It is difficult, if not impossible,
to distinguish every possible form of work; but seeing that very
considerable work is done amongst students, we have thought it well to
add one column in which the proportion of the children of different
classes who are attending Christian schools or living in Christian
hostels is set forth:--
_____________________________________________________________________
| | Agri- | | | |Remarks
Percentage Stud-|Offi- |cultural|Traders.|Labourers.| Crafts-|and
of: ents.|cials.|Small- | | | men. |Conclu-
| |Holders.| | | |sions.
________________|______|________|________|__________|________|_______
In
Population -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
________________|______|________|________|___________________________
In Christian -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
Constituency | | | | | |
________________|______|________|________|__________|________|_______
In Christian | | | | | |
schools and | | | | | |
hostels, -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
percentage | | | | | |
of children | | | | | |
of | | | | | |
________________|______|________|________|__________|________|_______
With respect to work among different races, castes, etc., no addition to
the table prepared for the district seems necessary, and we therefore
repeat it:--
--------------|-----------------------------------------|------------
| Races, Religious Castes, etc., whatever| Remarks
| they may be. | And
| |Conclusions.
--------------|-----------------------------------------|------------
In Population | ---- |
--------------|-----------------------------------------|------------
In Christian | ---- |
Constituency | |
--------------|-----------------------------------------|------------
5. Concerning self-support, one table should, we think, suffice. We
cannot possibly adopt any estimated necessary expenditure such as we
proposed in the table for the station district because in the province
that estimate would be almost impossible to make. Different missions
have different ideas, and their estimates have for themselves some
reality; but they have no reality for others, and a mere average of the
estimates given for all the missions of the province would have still
less reality. It would be an absurd guess, meaning nothing. If we want
to judge progress in self-support we must have some definite key figure
by which to judge it. What figure then can we use? The total cost of all
the work carried on in the province is an impossible figure.[1] The mere
contribution of the native Christians by itself means nothing. That is
the figure generally given. The native Christian subscribed $6000 last
year, $7000 this year. Here is progress. The progress is an addition of
$1000. But does that tell us their progress towards self-support unless
we know what self-support implies? In the year the Church ought to have
increased in numbers, and the $7000 may represent exactly the same
position as the $6000 represented last year. Expenses may have
increased: the $7000 may be actually further removed from self-support
than the $6000 last year. We must have a proportion of which we can
trace the variation if we want to see progress. But is there any expense
which we can use to strike the proportion? Suppose then we suggest the
pay of all evangelistic and pastoral workers and provision and upkeep of
churches, chapels, and preaching rooms. That would at least give us
something to work by. But it might be difficult to calculate. We would
propose then, as a secondary item, some easily calculable and known
expense, something which every missionary accountant knows, such as the
pay of all native pastors and evangelistic workers, and then compare
with these the contributions of the Christians for Church and
evangelistic work only, excluding all fees for education and medicine.
That would, we think, give us a standard which we could apply without
having to consider complications introduced by such things as Government
grants to schools or hospitals. We propose then to judge progress in
self-support thus:--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| Total Cost | Total | Total |
| of all | Salaries of | Native |
| Evangelistic | all Paid | Contribution, |
Province.| and | Native | excluding | Remarks and
| Pastoral | Evangelistic | School or | Conclusions.
| Work, Men | Workers, | Hospital |
| and Material. | including | Fees or |
| | Pastors. | Donations. |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| | | |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
[Footnote 1: In Dr. Eugene Stock's "History of the C.M.S.," vol. ii., p.
420, we are told that "In 1863,... 400 families raised 1371 rupees,
equal then to £137. These families consisted mainly of labourers earning
(say) 2s. a week; so that a corresponding sum for 400 families of
English labourers earning 12s. a week would be £137 x 6 = £822, or over
£2 a year from each family. A few years later, taking the whole of the
C.M.S. districts in Tinnevelly and reckoning catechumens as well as
baptised Christians, their contributions were such that, supposing the
whole thirty millions of people in England were poor labourers earning
12s. a week, and there were no other source of wealth, their
corresponding contributions should amount to £6,000,000 per annum." Yet
he says on the very next page that "It was not possible for the native
Church, liberal as its contributions were, to maintain its pastors and
meet its other expenses (he does not say what the _other expenses_ were)
entirely. The society must necessarily help for a while.... This grant,
in the first instance, had to be large enough to cover much more than
half the expenditure."
If this was the case in one part of a province, what would happen if we
took the whole expense of all work carried on in a whole province or
country and used that as a standard by which to test progress in
self-support?]
Turning now from the force at work we must consider the force in
training, for this is prophetic. Let us then take first a table which
shows the proportion in which students are being trained for pastoral
and evangelistic work, for medical mission work, and for educational
mission work, in the province or country, regardless of the place at
which they are being trained, whether that place is inside or outside
the area under consideration. This ought to show us on what lines we may
expect the work to develop in the near future.
_____________________________________________________________________
Total |For Evangel- | | | | |
Students |istic Work, |Propor- |For |Propor-|For Educa-|Remarks
in |including the |tion of|Medical|tion of|tional |and
Training.|Pastorate. |Total. |Work. |Total. |Work. |Conclu-
| | | | | |sions
_________|______________|________|_______|_______|__________|________
| | | | | |
_________|______________|________|_______|_______|__________|________
Then we must examine more closely, if we can;--and first of the
_evangelistic_ workers. The difficulty is to classify, because
ecclesiastical nomenclature is so confused that it is almost impossible
to use any terms which would be widely recognised. The best we can do is
to distinguish grades of training, beginning from the top thus:--
1st grade, college or university.
2nd " high school.
3rd " regular Bible school.
4th " intermittent, irregular Bible instruction.
It will probably be found that the first grade is commonly prepared for,
and looks forward to, the charge of a settled congregation, or of an
organised church, and the lower grades do the pioneer work, and it may
well suggest itself to thoughtful men whether this is rightly so.
Then, _educationalists_ in training: again we divide by grades
roughly:--
1st grade, college or university.
2nd " normal school.
3rd " high school.
4th " teachers of illiterates.
The college students presumably look forward to work in the high
schools, or colleges, or normal schools; the normal school pupils to
work in normal schools, high schools, and large primary schools; the
high school pupils to work in village schools; and the teachers of
illiterates to village work, or work among the poor in the towns. Of
_medicals_ the generally recognised distinctions seem to be, qualified
practitioners, assistants, and nurses.
Following these lines we should obtain simple prophetic tables for each
of the three branches of work.
(i) Students in Training for _Evangelistic_ Work.
----------------------------------------------------------
1st Grade. | 2nd. | 3rd. | 4th.
College. | High School. | Regular | Intermittent.
| Bible School | Teaching |
------------------------------------------- --------------
| | |
| | |
----------------------------------------------------------
(ii) For _Educational_ Work.
----------------------------------------------------------
1st Grade. | 2nd. | 3rd. | Teachers of
College. | Normal. | High School. | Illiterates.
------------------------------------------- --------------
| | |
| | |
----------------------------------------------------------
(iii) For _Medical_ Work.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1st Grade. | 2nd. | 3rd.
To be Qualified Doctors. | Assistants, including Dispensers, |Nurses.
| etc. |
----------------------------------------------------------------------
| |
| |
----------------------------------------------------------------------
If we had those tables for _men and women_ we should see fairly plainly
how the work might be expected to develop.
But here we ought to remember the difficulty which we set forth earlier
in discussing the missionary influence of our various activities,
medical and educational, from a Church building point of view. A great
many boys are educated and trained at mission expense to be evangelists,
medicals, and teachers in mission employ, who serve indeed for a period
according to their contract and then disappear into Government service
or private practice. It is a serious question whether missionaries can
be raised up successfully in this way. "I will give you training if you
will promise to serve the mission," is not a very certain way of
securing ready, wholehearted, zealous service of Christ. We have found
out its uncertainty in many cases at home; we have found it out in
still more frequent cases in the mission field. Unless we keep a very
careful record of the after-life of those whom we train, and a very
honest one, we are apt to ignore the failure, a failure which we cannot
properly afford, and consequently we cannot know what we are really
doing by our training. We ought to know the truth in this matter, both
for our encouragement and our admonition. Happily here, we think, we can
find an easy and a valuable test. If we ask what proportion of those
whom we train continue in their missionary work after the end of their
first term of service, we shall certainly have some enlightenment; for
it is true of medicals and educationalists, and of evangelists, though
in a much less degree, that if any man continues in missionary work
after he has fulfilled the letter of his contract, it will generally be
because he has his heart in the work; for missionary work seldom, if
ever, offers the emoluments of Government service, or of private
practice. We ask then--
SURVEY OF WORK IN A PROVINCE
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|Evangelistic | Medical | Educational
--------------------------------+-------------+---------+------------
Total Students | | |
--------------------------------+-------------+---------+------------
Trained at Mission Expense, | | |
Wholly or in Part. | | |
--------------------------------+-------------+---------+------------
Number who Continue in | | |
Mission Work after the end | | |
of the Term of their Contract. | | |
--------------------------------+-------------+---------+------------
Proportion of Total Students | | |
who so Continue. | | |
--------------------------------+-------------+---------+------------
Remarks and Conclusions. | | |
--------------------------------+-------------+---------+------------
If the institutions in which the training is actually carried on lie
within the province, then we ought to have tables such as we have for
the schools in the station area for these institutions. We need no
elaborate statistics in this place, because the work of these
institutions should be specially treated in departmental surveys. Here,
all that we need is to relate the work of the schools or hospitals which
were omitted in the station district survey, because they served a
larger area than the station area, to the work done in the province or
country. The educational returns from each station area must be added
together and the returns of these larger institutions added to the total
educational statistics; that will give us the work done in the larger
area in proportion to population.
But in the province it is important to consider the relation in which
the different grade schools stand to one another; because if the aim of
the missionary educational system is the education of the Christian
community, and the higher schools are designed primarily for Christian
pupils from the lower schools, this relation is of importance. It is
possible to build an organisation too narrow at the base and too heavy
at the top, and then to fill the higher schools with non-Christian
pupils without any definite understanding of the way in which that
practice is to serve the main purpose of the mission. Then these schools
stand on a distinct and separate basis from the rest of the mission
activities, and the work of Christian missions in the country is split,
part aiming directly at the establishment of a native Christian Church,
and part "aiming at the general improvement of morals, and social,
religious, and political enlightenment. Thus we arrive at that chaotic
state in which the mission as a whole is not subordinate to any dominant
idea of the purpose for which it exists, which alone can unify the work
of all its members. But if the colleges and schools are designed for
mutual support, and if the higher have any relation to the lower grades,
then there must be some proportion between the base and the
superstructure, and that proportion must be known and expressed in any
survey worthy of the name. We include, therefore, the following table:--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| Mission | Proportion | Proportion | Remarks
| Schools, | to | to | and
| Number | Population. | High | Conclusions.
| of. | | Schools. |
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Primary | | | |
Schools | | | |
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High | | | |
Schools | | | |
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Normal | | | |
Schools | | | |
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Colleges| | | |
--------+-----------+--------------+-------------+-------------------
In the province also we must know the educational facilities afforded by
non-missionary agencies, if we are to have any true conception of the
work of the educational missions. We must therefore add a table for
these schools.
------------------------------------------------------------
| Non- | Proportion | Remarks. |
| Missionary | to | |
| Schools, | Population. | |
| Number of. | | |
-------------------------------------------------------------
Primary Schools | | | |
-------------------------------------------------------------
High Schools. | | | |
-------------------------------------------------------------
Normal School | | | |
-------------------------------------------------------------
Colleges. | | | |
-------------------------------------------------------------
Here it is not necessary for us to find the proportion between the
higher and lower grade schools, because we are not surveying the
non-missionary educational work, and their scheme of proportions is not
our business.
A comparatively slight addition to the tables for medical work in the
various station districts will suffice to give an adequate impression of
the medical work done in the whole area. We need not go into details,
for the medical work should be, and generally is, reviewed by Medical
Boards in their reports. For us now, all that is needed is the addition
of tables, similar to those which we used for hospitals in the station
area, for hospitals excluded from any station survey.
Two other subjects ought to be included in this provincial survey,
namely, literature and industrial work. First, we must try to find a
table which will express the work done by those important missionaries
who are engaged in providing Christian literature, both for the
Christian community and the heathen outside. Here we find once more the
difficulty that, whilst a few missionaries are wholly engaged in this
form of missionary work, much is produced by missionaries who have
already been included in the tables as either evangelistic or
educational or medical missionaries, and we also touch bookselling and
other kindred commercial questions. With the commercial aspect of this
work we cannot deal. The following tables will throw light on the extent
to which Christian literature is being produced and read:--
(i)
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Number of Missionaries wholly Engaged | Proportion of Total
in Literary Work. | Missionaries.
---------------------------------------+-----------------------------
|
---------------------------------------+-----------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of Vernacular | Number of | Proportion of Sales
Christian Books Produced | Christian Books | to Population.
in the Year. | Sold in the Year.|
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| Bibles or | | Bibles or |
| Scripture | Other | Scripture | Other
| Portions. | Books.| Portions. | Books.
-------------------------+-----------+--------+------------+---------
| | | |
-------------------------+-----------+--------+------------+---------
If the business side of literary work is difficult, the whole position
of industrial missions is still more difficult. In some countries
industrial missions seem to be trading ventures with a Christian
intention, in others industrial missions are really almost entirely
educational establishments. The best tables which we have ever seen
dealing with this subject were those drawn by Mr. Sidney Clark in one of
his papers, "From a Layman to a Layman".[1] All that we can do is to
suggest that industrial missions which are in the main clearly and
unmistakably educational should be included in the educational work, and
that the missions with large commercial interests, even if they are
doing a valuable educational work for the community, should be treated
separately, thus:--
[Footnote 1: Printed for private distribution by Mr. S.J.W. Clark, 3
Tudor Street, Blackfriars, London, E.C. 4.]
_Industrial Missions_,
(a)
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Province. | Number of | Amount of Mission | Proportion of
| Industrial | Funds Allotted to | Total Mission
| Missions. | such Work. | Funds.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| | |
__________|______________|_____________________|_____________________
(b)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| Number of | Number of Missionaries | Proportion of
Province. | Industrial | Engaged in such | Total
| Institutions. | Institutions. | Missionaries
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| | |
__________|________________|________________________|________________
(c)
-------------------------------------------------------------
| Number of | Number of | Proportion of
Province. | Industrial | Native Agents | Native Christian
| Missions. | Employed. | Workers Employed.
-------------------------------------------------------------
| | |
__________|_____________|________________|___________________
In some missions the proportion of missionaries and native workers so
employed would be very small; in others they would be very considerable.
There is now a tendency to hand over some of the industrial work as it
develops along commercial lines to Boards of Christian men who are
interested in the social and spiritual aspect of the work.
In the province we must also consider union work, work done in common by
two or more societies,[1] sometimes evangelistic, sometimes medical or
educational training, sometimes the establishment, or enlargement of an
educational or medical institution; or sometimes, as in Kwangtung in
South China, several societies unite in a "Board of Co-operation". This
union of societies for the better and more efficient performance of
their work is a most important development of the last few years:
important both to the workers on the field and to us at home. We ought,
therefore, to have a short table to show what is being done.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| Number of Societies | |
Number | Co-operating in |Number of |
of |--------------------------------| Societies |Remarks
Societies|Evangelistic|Medical|Educational| Co-operating| and
at Work. | Work. | Work. | Work. | in all Work.|Conclusions.
---------+------------+-------+-----------+-------------+------------
| | | | |
---------+------------+-------+-----------+-------------+------------
[Footnote 1: The larger and more important movements towards corporate
union, such as those now taking place in S. India, China, and E. Africa,
lie outside the scope of this survey until their completion affects
their statistical returns. Then the importance of them will speedily
appear.]