While discussing, amongst other matters, the expense of the
Society's Seminary at Highgate, the Special Committee suggested an
inquiry into the question of the training of the missionary students
generally. It was felt by them that the advanced position attained
by our Missions in all parts of the world, gives to the missionary
brethren, as a body, very great opportunities of usefulness. A large
number of them are called to be superintendents of several churches
and many native agents, to be counsellors of native pastors and
missionaries, and tutors in theological seminaries. All the brethren
in India and China may hold intercourse with Native scholars and
priests, and have to defend truth and assail error by argument,
spreading over a wide range of thought and knowledge. Several of them
have charge of educational institutions of a high order, and are
associated with Native ministers who are themselves men of superior
education and position.
It is an injustice to our missionary brethren themselves to place
them in such positions of weight and influence without giving them
the opportunity of acquiring a complete fitness for the important
duties which those positions involve. It is an injustice to the
Society that the training of its missionaries should be incomplete.
And it is an injustice to the Missions generally, should they be
placed in the hands of men who are unable, from defective education,
rightly to comprehend their claims, and to fulfil the important
duties which the charge of them now involves. In addition to
considerations such as these, the Directors observed that for some
years past their missionary students had been trained in a variety
of ways; a few being educated in the ordinary colleges, and the
remainder in private Institutions, adopted by the Board, at Bedford
and Weston-super-Mare. Aided by a valuable memorandum from the Rev.
J.S. Wardlaw, which went fully into the entire question, the
Directors, after careful consideration, arranged it on the basis of
the following RESOLUTIONS; which have given the students, the
missionaries abroad, and the friends of the Society great
satisfaction:--
"1. THAT, considering the high position of usefulness now attained
by the Society's Missions, and the great importance of the work
carried on in the present day, it has become increasingly desirable
that the Society's missionary students should all enjoy, as far as
practicable, the advantages of a sound and complete College
education.
"2. THAT, as any plan for the formation of a separate Missionary
Institution, and of affiliating it with any existing College, is
found to be impracticable; and as existing colleges have shown
themselves so ready and anxious on favourable terms to welcome the
Society's students among theirs, it is desirable that our students
should be placed in those Institutions in various parts of the
country.
"3. THAT, in the judgment of the Directors, a preparatory class may
be maintained for the few students who need it.
"4. THAT; for several important reasons, the Directors deem it most
desirable to maintain the system by which the Society's students
receive a final year of missionary training under the Rev. J.S.
WARDLAW, M.A."
The Directors regard it as a matter for great thankfulness, and as
a token of continued approval of their work, that they have recently
received, as they did in 1867, a large number of offers from young
men to enter upon the Society's service. The applicants have
presented a great diversity of natural gifts, attainments, and
position: some of them are already studying for the ministry in our
Theological Colleges. The Directors have during the year accepted
no less than eighteen. Amongst them are two of the missionaries' sons.
The total number of missionary students in the Society is now
forty-two. On the first of May, 1869, they stood thus:--
+-------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+------+
|On Probation.|1st Year.|2nd Year.|3rd Year.|4th Year.|5th Year.|Total.|
+-------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+------+
| 6 | 13 | 10 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 42 |
+-------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+------+