The gradual awakening of the villages to the need of better

schools increases yearly the calls for teachers. The Sivas Normal

School reports that the work of the past summer was very hard. “We

were obliged to refuse calls for more than forty teachers, not a

few of them from places to which we had never supplied teachers.

The following quotation from a letter from the Armenian Bishop of

one of our large cities is a fair sample: ‘We wish to call for the

Armenian schools of our city the following teachers: a principal,

a lady principal, teachers for Armenian, Turkish, and French, and

three teachers for scientific branches. If you have among your

experienced teachers or among the new graduates persons to

recommend, please inform us at once in order that we may invite

them.’”

[Illustration: KHATOON

Who walked a month’s journey to get an education, and returned to

teach these children in this Turkish Schoolhouse]

[Sidenote: A Kurdish father.]

One hardly knows whether to laugh or to cry over the Kurdish father up

in the wild mountains of Kurdistan who brought his boy to the little

school taught by a native helper, whacking him with a stick to make

the reluctant youth walk in the paths of learning, while he declared,

“I am not going to let _my_ boy grow up in the street.”

[Sidenote: Can we refuse the demand?]

When great governments, ecclesiastical authorities, wealthy noblemen,

and fierce warriors from the mountain fastnesses all clamor for what

the missionary schools can do for their children, have we a right to

refuse their request? Can we claim freedom from responsibility?

Rather let us glory in the unparalleled opportunity for giving to the

needy children of non-Christian lands that which has proven to be the

only true source of mental preparation for life-work,--a Christian

education. Hear the testimony of Dr. F. W. Foerster, author and

special lecturer in Ethics and Psychology in the University of Zurich,

a man who began his educational work with sympathies strongly

socialistic and entirely aloof from all forms of religion. In the

author’s preface to his book, “Marriage and the Sex Problem,” he

speaks with no uncertain sound of his own experience and conviction.

[Sidenote: Dr. Foerster on Education and Christianity.]

The author of this book comes from the ranks of those who dispense

with all religion. But as the result of long experience,

theoretical and practical, in the difficult work of

character-training, he has been led to realize for himself the

deep meaning and the profound pedagogical wisdom of the Christian

method of caring for souls, and to appreciate, through his own

experience, the value of the old truths.... He has absolutely no

doubt that modern education, in discovering the extraordinary

practical difficulties of character-training, will be increasingly

cured of its optimistic illusions and led back to an understanding

and appreciation of Christianity.

How about the children themselves? Do they enjoy and appreciate school

privileges offered them by the missionaries, and does the work show

results that are worth while?

[Sidenote: Kindergarten work in Japan.]

If, as Miss Lamson claims, “the hope of the nations lies in the

training of little children,” there is hope for Japan in the

ninety-eight mission kindergartens that are maintained by fourteen

Protestant Boards and have an enrollment of four thousand and

sixty-eight children. The report of the Kindergarten Union of Japan is

a most fascinating volume, with its presentation of opportunity, need,

method, and the result of teaching the tiny children who are to be the

future parents, teachers, and leaders of thought and action in that

Empire. A few extracts will give a little idea of what is being done

for the children and through them for their homes and friends.

[Sidenote: A Japanese teacher on Christian kindergartens.]

The kindergarten in our country today is at its most critical

stage, and therefore needs the best and most profound thinkers who

can put their ideals into practice most tactfully. This must be

accomplished by native Christian kindergartners. Education without

religious foundations is like an egg without the germ of life in

it. Most of our public and government kindergartens, which have

the purely so-called educational views of today, are leaving the

very springs of child life untouched, and therefore are not

fulfilling the real meaning of education. They are not disciples

of Froebel, because he based his philosophy on the Christian

faith. (Fuji Takamori of Holy Love Kindergarten, Methodist.)

[Sidenote: Results of sending the children to kindergarten.]

A teacher writes, “A little girl whose father and mother were

Christians entered our school. At first a little nursemaid brought

her, then her grandmother came with her. This grandmother was a

devoted Buddhist. She would not even look at the foreign teacher,

much less listen to anything being taught, but at last she began

to listen, and eventually became convinced that she needed Christ

for her Saviour. Today she is a truly converted woman.”...

The blessing asked at the noon lunch seemed to make a deep

impression on some children, and doing it at home attracts the

parents’ attention, so that a number of them have been known to

come to the church services to hear more about the meaning of

prayer and praise. (Mrs. A. D. Gordon.)

We are told that the songs, the games, the stories, and sometimes

the prayers, are household exercises in many homes. On a recent

morning, which we spent by invitation of the wife of the Governor

in her garden, the little son of the family, not yet of

kindergarten age, took an active part with the other children.

His mother told me that the older sister comes home and “plays

kindergarten” with her small brother, and that, when they have

guests to entertain, the children are often called in to give

some kindergarten exercise. I did not tell her how strongly I

disapprove of “showing off” children before company. I only

prayed that “a little child might lead them.” (Mrs. Genevieve F.

Topping, of Morioka Kindergarten, Baptist.)

An amusing incident happened one day when the children were off

on an observation trip. They had to stop to let a detachment of

soldiers pass, and spontaneously burst out singing “Soldier Boy,

Soldier Boy,” to the great amusement of the soldiers. Then they

all saluted the officer in proper fashion, but he only smiled.

“Sensei, we saluted politely, why didn’t he return the salute?”

Later as the soldiers were drawn up in circular formation on the

parade ground, the children said, “Oh, now they are going to play

just as we do in kindergarten, let’s watch!” So the expedition

which started out to study insect life changed into a lesson on

soldiers and their absolute obedience to orders. (Alice Fyock of

Sendai Aoba Yochien, American Episcopal.)

[Sidenote: The call for missionary kindergartners.]

A similar Kindergarten Union is being formed in China, and from all

missionary lands comes the urgent cry for trained kindergartners who

can not only start schools, but, far more than this, can train native

kindergartners to take up the work. It would be hard to overemphasize

the importance of this particular service which missions are

rendering.

[Sidenote: Dr. Balliet on the early years of childhood.]

Dr. Thomas M. Balliet of New York University voices the opinion of

modern educators when he says, “All the more recent studies in child

psychology emphasize the great plasticity of the early years of

childhood. The habits which the child then forms, and the attitude

both intellectual and emotional which is then given him, are more

lasting and more determining for his adult life than was even

suspected some years ago.”[60]

[Sidenote: Why is the Christian kindergarten needed?]

After a hasty mental review of what has been studied in earlier

chapters regarding the home life and training of little children in

non-Christian lands, it is surely a mild statement to make that the

Christian kindergarten is an _absolute necessity_ if these little

ones, so cunning and capable and helpless, are to have any chance at

all for proper development. The words “Christian kindergarten” are

used advisedly, and agree with utterances of experts such as Elizabeth

Harrison, who says,--

“The foundation of the kindergarten is based upon the psychological

revelation that, if man is the child of God, he must possess infinite

possibilities, and that these possibilities can only develop as he,

man, makes use of them--that in other words, man is a self-making

being, that his likeness to the Divine Father consists in this power

within him to unfold and develop his divine nature.”[61]

[Sidenote: Children of backward races respond to early training.]

Students of primitive and backward races tell us that the small

children show as much promise and as many signs of undeveloped

capability as do children of civilized lands, but before many years a

cloud seems to overcast their minds, while selfishness and sin and

passion take possession of their moral natures. Never again is there

the same chance to make them _what they might have been_, as there was

during those first early days when the kindergarten should have opened

wide her doors to receive them. This argument would in itself seem

sufficient to urge missionary Boards to speedy, thorough action in

this matter, but there is another far-reaching argument to be

considered. All through the East, wherever there are missionary

kindergartens, mothers come to them to learn how to train their

children, and countless homes have caught and passed on a reflection

of the Christ life because of what the mothers have heard and observed

and what the children have taken home with them. Make a flying trip to

the Fuchow Kindergarten and watch “the irrepressible John.”

“This little lad’s father died, after a period of faithful service in

Miss Wiley’s kitchen, and when the widowed mother came back to Miss

Wiley from her country home to earn a living for herself and John and

baby Joseph, John was already master of the situation and of his

mother, and enforced his will on that by no means weak-minded woman by

kicking, biting, pulling her ears, and similar methods. Now Miss Wiley

is a famous trainer of boys, and she soon taught the young mother that

the masculine will is not necessarily law at the age of two plus; the

kindergarten carried out the same idea, and now John devotes vast

energy and determination to the shaping of inanimate clay into pigs

and other fascinating things, and treats animate nature as a

well-mannered and kindly little gentleman should.”[62]

[Sidenote: Kindergartners must be inventive and adaptable.]

It would be most interesting and instructive to make a tour of

missionary kindergartens for the purpose of seeing how ingenious our

missionary teachers are, how they adapt Froebel’s ideas and methods to

the most extraordinary circumstances which would have made that great

educator gasp, how they must not only translate and adapt songs and

tunes and games, but compose and create and invent,--all in an

acquired language which has perhaps been only recently reduced to

writing by some pioneer missionary. It might be pertinent to ask if

all Women’s Boards provide the kindergartners and other teachers whom

they send to the foreign field with a first-class outfit of all needed

material, and if they remember that such an outfit needs to be

replenished at least as often as a similar one does in the home land.

It is not fair to require a missionary to make bricks without straw.

[Sidenote: A West African kindergarten.]

A visit to a West African Kindergarten will show an inventive and

adaptable missionary in charge.

We have a new primary Sunday-School room which will be my

kindergarten. It is a low wall covered by a round thatched roof

high enough to leave a good big space for air. The floor is mudded

and marked in squares. It looks very nice, but I shall take pains

to get the cracks filled up, for they catch too much dirt and

jigger seeds. The benches are not yet made, so the children who

were cleaned up for Sunday went after leaves to sit on. The

classes have to go out under trees to separate, but it is a great

improvement upon the dirty and dangerous saw pit where they have

met for so long. The only advantage about the saw pit was the roof

for shade and pieces of wood and logs to sit upon. The big folks

have been getting most of the attention and all of the advantages,

but we feel that the children should have most because they are in

the future. They do not show such shining results at once, but

work with them will lay a foundation which is greatly needed here

for really effective work....

I have a box cupboard, a sand table, two long low tables marked

with squares, and strong benches. I have not much kindergarten

material, but I do not need more at present. My first “gift” is a

basin of water. They march in singing “Good morning, kind

teacher” (only I am thankful to say the Umbundu words leave out

the “kind”). Then we sing another song or two, and the prayer

with bowed heads. I have no music, so I have to learn the tunes

myself before I come to school. The children are the dearest,

cunning things and they do want to learn.[63]

[Sidenote: Primitive education among backward nations.]

There are lands such as large sections of Africa and many of the

Pacific Islands where no education whatever existed, where the

language was not even reduced to writing, until Christian missionaries

began their work. Other countries gave a certain so-called education

to their boys or to the sons of certain privileged classes, leaving

the girls absolutely illiterate. They agreed in principle if not in

expression with that man in the mountains of Kurdistan who was asked

by a missionary to send his bright little daughter down to the mission

school at the beginning of the fall term. “Do you want my girl?”

questioned the man in amazement and disgust. “Why don’t you take my

cow?”

Again in other sections girls have a brief chance to learn, but are

not expected to keep pace with their brothers or to attain to anything

beyond the rudiments of book learning.

[Sidenote: Lack of concentration.]

A missionary educator from Turkey says that one of the greatest

difficulties in school work arises from the fact that the children

have no power of concentration, no idea of how to think and study on

one line for any length of time. It often takes five or six years for

a child really to learn how to study. Obviously, the earlier these

preparatory years occur in a child’s life, the more benefit may he

hope to derive from his education.

[Sidenote: Evils of the memorizing method.]

Then again, if children learn their first lessons in the native

schools of Turkey, Persia, Korea, and various other countries, they

will become fixed in the habit of memorizing without giving any

intelligent thought to what they learn. Dr. S. M. Zwemer says:

“A Moslem lad is not supposed to know what the words and sentences

mean which he must recite every day; to ask a question regarding the

_thought_ of the Koran would only result in a rebuke or something more

painful. Even grammar, logic, history, and theology are taught by rote

in the higher Mohammedan schools.... Thousands of Moslem lads, who

know the whole Koran nearly by heart, cannot explain the meaning of

the first chapter in every-day language. Tens of thousands can ‘read’

the Koran at random in the Moslem sense of reading, who cannot read an

Arabic newspaper intelligently.”[64]

How utterly this differs from the theory and practice of Dr.

Montessori, who “calls a child disciplined who is master of himself,

and therefore able to dispose of or control himself whenever he needs

to follow a rule of life. The liberty of the child must have as its

limit only the collective interest. To interfere with this spontaneity

is, in Dr. Montessori’s view, perhaps to repress the very essential of

life itself.”[65] How can a child be master of himself who is not even

allowed to inquire into the meaning of what he reads and studies?

[Sidenote: Old methods hard to discard.]

It is not always easy for the missionary suddenly to introduce changes

of method and practice, and many a missionary school which is

infinitely superior to the native institution might shock an American

school superintendent beyond recovery. A missionary from China

wrote,--“I found I must still keep many old methods or the Chinese

would not send their children. I have found it necessary to let them

_learn_ portions of Scripture and classics and shout them at the tops

of their voices, then gradually work in music, geography, and

arithmetic.” Another argument for beginning as early as possible with

the children who can so easily adapt themselves to ideas of a quiet,

orderly school if they have never enjoyed exercising their lungs in

one of the other kind!

[Sidenote: Education of girls in Persia.]

In speaking of primitive education among backward nations, mention was

made of the scant attention given to girls as compared to boys. The

London Times not long ago stated in commenting on the women of Persia,

“As a matter of fact, probably not one girl in a thousand twenty years

ago ever received any education. When the parents were rich enough,

tuition of a sort was given at home, but in the case of poorer persons

it was enough if their sons were taught to read and write.”

In contrast we learn that in the spring of 1913 about one thousand

children from Moslem homes were in attendance at Protestant missionary

schools in Persia, over two hundred of them being girls.

[Sidenote: Early marriage a barrier to education.]

In Mohammedan and other lands the custom of early marriage is an

almost insuperable barrier to an adequate education for a girl. That

this custom _must_ be changed, if men are to have worthy wives and if

children are to be properly trained, is a truth that is beginning to

be realized. The recent great awakening and desire for education is

creating a marvelous change in age-long customs.

[Sidenote: Lord Cromer on conditions in Egypt.]

Lord Cromer says: “The position of women in Egypt, and in

Mohammedan countries generally, is a fatal obstacle to the

attainment of that elevation of thought and character which should

accompany the introduction of European civilization, if that

civilization is to produce its full measure of beneficial effect.

The obvious remedy would appear to be to educate the women....

When the first efforts to promote female education were made, they

met with little sympathy from the population in general.... Most

of the upper-class Egyptians were not merely indifferent to female

education; they were absolutely opposed to it....

“All this has now been changed. The reluctance of parents to send

their daughters to school has been largely overcome.... The

younger generation are beginning to demand that their wives shall

possess some qualifications other than those which can be secured

in the seclusion of the harem.”

In 1912 Lord Kitchener states that “There is probably nothing

more remarkable in the social history of Egypt during the last

dozen years than the growth of public opinion among all classes

of Egyptians in favor of the education of their daughters. The

girls’ schools belonging to the Ministry of Education are

crowded, and to meet the growing demand sites have been acquired

and fresh schools are to be constructed, one at Alexandria and

two in Cairo. Very many applications have, however, to be

refused.”[66]

[Sidenote: Mission schools in the lead.]

To these quotations Dr. Sailer adds the significant words,--“The

missionary schools for girls are yet in the lead in their moral

atmosphere. The government officials were prompt in acknowledging that

missionary teachers brought to their work a spirit which money could

not buy.”

[Sidenote: Now is the time to educate the future mothers.]

Scant justice can be done in these few pages to the whole vast subject

of the education of girls in the East, and the rapid changes that are

taking place in regard to it. A careful study of the subject will well

repay the thoughtful woman. As all roads lead to Rome, so all reading

and observation along this line will lead the candid student to one

conclusion:--_Now is the time to determine the character of the

mothers of the next generation of children in non-Christian lands._

What those little bright-eyed baby girls of Africa and India, Turkey

and Korea are to be and do, what their homes are to be like, what

start in life their children are to have, will be largely determined

by what we Christian women do or fail to do for them today. If it is

too late to do much for their mothers before these children have left

their homes, why not gather the children into kindergartens and

primary schools, why not teach the little ones _now_ while their minds

are plastic and impressionable? Why not do our share toward bringing

Christian civilization into darkened lands by educating in Christian

schools today the mothers of tomorrow?

[Sidenote: Teaching children to play.]

In the preceding chapter great emphasis was laid on the necessity for

teaching the children of many mission lands how to play, not only for

the benefit of their health and to bring joy and brightness into their

lives, but also in order to teach them what “fair play” and

co-operation mean. It is the missionary school, from kindergarten up

to university, that gives the golden opportunity for this teaching, as

is shown by the testimony of a missionary from Tientsin, China:--“We

believe that such games teach them to be honest in business dealings

later, to be truthful, unselfish, quick-witted, and self-controlled.

The change which I have seen in these little, un-taught, ill-cared-for

children after five years in the mission school is due in part, I

believe, to the lessons of ‘fair play’ learned in their games.”

But the school must go even further than this and include in its

curriculum physical education of a very definite kind if it is to meet

_all_ the needs of the children it is serving. Taking as an example of

all mission lands, China, whose system of education antedates by many

centuries all our western civilization, let us observe through the

eyes of the former physical director of the Shanghai Y. M. C. A. what

the real situation is.

[Sidenote: Physical training.]

Physical training should be dignified by giving it an equal place

with the sciences, philosophies, and languages in the curriculum,

and the same careful provision of means and trained men to direct

it. No educational system is adequate which does not aim at the

whole man, which does not recognize the physical basis of

intellectual and spiritual efficiency. Professor Tyler of Amherst

says, “Brain and muscle are never divorced in the action of

healthy higher animals and in healthy men. They should not be

divorced in the education of the child.”...

It is clear that physical training, in the largest sense, must

play an important part in the making of the “New China.” The

questions involved in her uplift are most largely physical

questions. The personal, domestic, and public observance of the

laws of health and life is a physical question; the combating of

that terrible scourge, tuberculosis, is a physical question; the

checking of the fearful infant mortality is a physical question;

etc....

The progress which has been made in physical training in China

must be viewed in the light of the fact that physical exercise

for its own sake has had no part in the national life of China

for centuries. It has been considered improper for a Chinese

gentleman to indulge in it. The popular conception of a Chinese

scholar has been that of a man with a great head, emaciated body,

and hollow chest, sitting and contemplating the problem of life

by thinking dissociated from doing. Until ten years ago athletics

were almost unknown. When foreigners were seen playing football

the Chinese were greatly puzzled, and wanted to know how much

these men were being paid for cutting up such foolish antics,

conceiving it as out of the question that any one would work so

hard without being well paid for it. All that is rapidly being

changed. Physical training is changing China’s conception of a

gentleman. The ideal of all-round manhood, well-balanced in its

physical, mental, and spiritual aspects, is rapidly gaining

ground.[67]

Could all China’s children today be taught this ideal, the task would

be far easier than it will be when they have reached adult life.

[Sidenote: “The athletic method in Kashmir.”]

The story of the Missionary School for Boys in Srinagar, Kashmir, is

as thrilling as a novel, and illustrates to a remarkable degree how

body, mind, and soul must be trained and disciplined and developed in

order to realize the ideal of the Principal, the Rev. C. E.

Tyndale-Biscoe, who says, “We are making citizens, of what sort

remains to be seen. But we hope without wavering that these citizens

will be Christian citizens, for Christ is our ideal.” Some of the

difficulties are thus described:

“To teach the three R’s in Kashmir is easy work. The boys are willing

to squat over their books and grind away for as many hours a day as

nature makes possible. To get an education means sedentary employment

_cum_ rupees. And that to the Kashmiri is living.

“But to _educate_ is a very different matter. To make men of a

thousand or more boys who care nothing for manliness; among whose

ancestors for hundreds of years, chicanery, deceit, and cruelty had

been the recognized and honored paths to success, while generosity and

honesty had been the mark of a fool; to try to quicken and develop the

good in such boys,--boys coming from impure homes, squatting in

unclean rows, with bent backs and open mouths--was flatly pronounced

folly by many a visitor to Kashmir.”[68]

The story tells how boxing, swimming, rowing, and gymnastics are

required of the students as a most necessary and vital part of their

education, and how they are trained to be proud of using these

accomplishments in helping others. By the time a Brahmin boy,--they

are almost all Brahmins in this school,--has saved a child from

drowning, rescued a family of despised sweepers from the roof of their

flood-swept house, delivered a poor woman from being beaten, and

helped clean up the streets and alleys of a city during a cholera

epidemic, he has received an education such as no books in the world

can give him, and Kashmir is one step nearer to the Kingdom of Heaven.

[Sidenote: Building a “great personality.”]

“Train not thy child,” says Emerson, “so that at the age of thirty or

forty he shall have to say, ‘This great work could I have done but for

the lack of a body.’” Elizabeth Harrison, after quoting Emerson, adds,

“Is not this carelessness as to health one of the ways in which we are

not conserving the forces that make for righteousness and truth, one

of the ways in which we are neglecting to build up ‘a great

personality’ in our children?”[69]

Up to this point our study of The Child in non-Christian lands has

shown that the missionary must touch the home life, the customs and

ideals handed down from remote ancestors, the play and work and

education and physical development of the child, in order to give

him his inalienable rights, while in the next chapter we shall dwell

on his right to know of Jesus Christ, the children’s Friend. It may

seem to the reader (as it does to the writer) that the chapters

overlap one another in spite of the heroic effort to treat each

subject by itself. But most of us find,--do we not?--that it is a bit

difficult to attend to the spiritual culture of our boys when they are

clamoring to go out and play ball, or to get our little girls to tell

what they learned at school, when they are hungry for their dinner.

The mother must train _all parts_ of her child’s nature by attending

to the need that is uppermost at the time,--the missionary must do the

same for her foster children, and the woman at home, behind the

missionary, has to recognize the same inseparable inter-relation of

body, mind, and soul in the little ones of whom she is studying. Our

divisions into “subjects” must be more or less artificial. However, to

this particular subject of “The Child at School” belong naturally two

more matters which must be touched on briefly.

[Sidenote: The need for good literature.]

When the Turkish girl has learned to read, when six thousand boys have

annually been trained in that great chain of Anglo-Chinese schools

started by the Methodists in Malaysia, when Korean children have

acquired a taste for reading and study, where are they to find

suitable, interesting books? The Cyclopedia of Education pays a

wonderful tribute to what _one_ Book has done for Korea, saying that

“the translation of the Bible into Korean and its rapid distribution,

and revivals marked with habitual study of the Bible, compelled many

to learn the alphabet to master a sacred library so rich, and has

constituted a national school of intelligence and culture.” But other

books than the Bible must be translated and written in order to give

clean, interesting, wholesome literature to the children of countless

thousands who never had any use for a literature for themselves. As

Miss Lilian Trotter of Algiers says,--“Those who have been patiently

toiling over the schooling of Moslem girls and women begin to feel

that the powers of reading gained in school days should be used as a

means to an end, not left to lapse in the first years that ensue for

want of following up. Letters from the whole reach of the Moslem world

give the same refrain,--the girls drop their reading largely because

there is nothing published that interests them. The few upper class

women who read, read little but newspapers and French novels. Could

not some one who understands child minds work out bright beginnings

for the use of their waking powers in stories and pictures with

colored lettering and borders? Easterns _must_ have color to make them

happy!”[70]

Here is a call to missionary work for some one who never dreamt that

her particular literary and artistic talents are absolutely needed

today by the children of the East.

[Sidenote: Industrial training in mission schools.]

The second matter mentioned above is the need for industrial training.

Great progress has been made in this respect in recent years, but much

more progress is needed, and trained teachers and suitable equipment

are required. As a missionary in Persia says when urging that more

industrial training be given the school girls,--“A woman may be able

to read, but, if unable to bake or prepare a good meal, her husband

will not care if she reads about the Bread of Life. She may play the

organ, but, if she cannot wash, mend, make the children’s clothes, and

make a happy home, he will have little interest in hearing her play or

sing ‘The Home over there.’”

[Sidenote: Extent of American missionary education.]

There is abundant testimony to prove that America is already doing

great things in the line of missionary education. Here is the

testimony of a traveler and newspaper man.

The number of mission schools and colleges supported by Americans

with American money is nearly as large as that of all the schools

conducted by the missionaries of all other countries combined. We

have approximately 10,000 schools in lands that are not under our

flag and from which we receive not a cent of revenue.

If a man in quest of material for an American educational exhibit

were to sail out of San Francisco Bay with a phonograph recorder,

he would come up on the other side of Sandy Hook with a polyglot

collection of records that would give the people of the United

States a new conception of their part in the world’s advance

toward light. His audience might hear a spelling class recite in

the tuneful Hawaiian tongue or listen to Moros, Tagalogs, and

Igorrotes reading from the same “McGuffey’s Reader.” A change of

records might bring the sound of little Japanese reciting

geography, or of Chinese repeating the multiplication table in a

dozen dialects. Another record would tell in quaint Siamese the

difference between a transitive or an intransitive verb, or

conjugate the verb “to be” in any one of the languages of India.

One might hear a professor from Pennsylvania lecturing on anatomy

to a class of young men in the ancient kingdom of Darius; or a

young woman from Massachusetts explaining the mysteries of an

eclipse to a group of girls in Constantinople; or a Princeton man

telling in Arabic the relation between a major and a minor

premise. And when the audience had listened to all this and to

“My country, ’tis of thee” in Eskimo and in Spanish, the exhibit

of American teaching would have only begun.[71]

[Sidenote: Languages used.]

One American Mission Board alone (the Presbyterian) uses the following

languages and dialects in its educational institutions:--Arabic,

Armenian, Beng, Bulu, English, Fang, French, German, Hainanese, Hakka,

Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Laos, Mandarin (and many dialects in

our eight China missions; the dialects of China are as diverse as the

languages of Europe), Marathi, Mpongwe, Persian, Portuguese, Punjabi,

Sanscrit, Siamese, Spanish, Syriac, Tagalog, Turkish, Urdu,

Visayan.[72]

[Sidenote: Where shall we put the emphasis?]

But in spite of all that is being done, we continue to make our plea

for the _little children_. Whatever emphasis may be laid on the need

for boarding schools, colleges, normal, and industrial training

schools, let us remember that those who are taught while small will

make the most hopeful students in these more advanced schools, and the

best workers in the future.

[Sidenote: How missionary schools lead children to Christ.]

How quickly and easily and naturally the little ones learn of Jesus,

the children’s Friend, and their relation to Him, we have already seen

illustrated in the kindergarten work of Japan. A little six-year-old

Greek boy in Syria, who had attended the missionary kindergarten,

spent the summer in the mountains and became dreadfully wild and

profane. On his return to school the teacher asked why he had been so

naughty. He replied, “I didn’t pray during the summer. Now I’m going

to pray and be a good boy.”

To Mrs. Pitcher of Amoy we owe the following incident:--

A scholar in one of our schools, whose relatives were all idol

worshippers and very ignorant, was led to give her heart to Jesus,

and became a most active little Christian; but one day she was

taken very ill with plague, and during her last hours she was so

happy singing hymns she had learned at school and telling her

parents and old grandmother about the Home beyond, where she would

soon be with the Lord, that all that heathen family were led by

this dying child to believe in a God of love, who could so comfort

His little child, and save her from the terror and dread of the

many evil spirits in whom they had blindly trusted.[73]

[Sidenote: Mission school children in after-life.]

This chapter cannot end before we follow into their later life some of

the children whose early and perhaps whose only education was received

in missionary schools.

“The home in Syria whose mother was taught in a school can always be

distinguished at a glance, whether it belongs to the Protestant

community or to one of the old Christian sects. Neatness and good

taste prevail, the children are more carefully trained, the members of

the family work for each other’s benefit. One of our school girls, who

was married to an uneducated man, told us years after: ‘Letter by

letter I taught him to read, figure by figure I taught him arithmetic,

and then I drew him down upon his knees and word by word I taught him

to pray.’”[74]

[Sidenote: Boys of West Africa.]

From the _Spirit of Missions_ we quote the following about the boys at

Cape Mount, West Africa:--

“These people can be reached by Christianity best in their childhood,

before superstitions, belief in the Gregre, or the influence of the

life of a Mohammedan has become grafted into their lives. If allowed

to grow up in their native villages they often become leaders of

tribal wars, and, unknowingly, men of the vilest character. In one

tribe from which several boys are at the mission, the mother tattoos

curious marks on the forehead of her babe, in order that if during

war he is captured and in after years she becomes able to redeem him

from slavery, she may be able to recognize her own child. With the

influence and training of a Christian mission, even though the boys go

back to native life, they do not go back to all of its vileness, and

one can soon distinguish between them and the un-Christianized

heathen.”

It takes faith and hope and love and a vision far into the future to

teach boys like these. But it pays, and the “bread cast on the waters”

is often found again in most unlikely places, such as those described

in a letter from Mr. W. C. Johnson of West Africa:--

“Everywhere I find in the village schools sources of Christian

influence. In one village where I stayed all night, all of the boys

and all but two of the women were Christians. This was entirely the

work of Christian school boys. In another place a young man told me

that there were only two young men in the community who were not

trying to lead Christian lives. This too was the work of the Christian

school boys.”

[Sidenote: A few months at school and what they accomplished.]

A little Mohammedan girl attended for a very few months the mission

day school in a near-by city street. Her cruel step-mother persecuted

her bitterly, throwing her school books on the floor and trampling

them under foot to show her contempt of Christian learning. Some kind

friend at the school gave the child forty cents,--unheard-of wealth to

the little one,--and the missionary suggested that a teacher should

help the child spend it for something she greatly needed before the

mother could take it away. “No,” said the little girl, “I don’t want

to spend it in that way. I want to give it all to the Lord and then I

shall have treasure in heaven. I learned that at school.” She was

married,--without any choice in the matter,--to a man who had known

Christians and was favorable to them, and the little wife lived a

consistent Christian life and died trusting in Christ as her Saviour.

Only a few months at school for a few hours of each day, but they made

all the difference for time and for eternity! How many children are

having such an opportunity because of us and our missionary society?

How many are deprived of the opportunity because it is “not our

business” to help them realize the truth of what was said in days of

old,--“Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom. The fear

of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

QUOTATIONS

EDUCATIONAL WORK IN SIAM

American missionaries were the pioneers in true educational work in

Siam. They gave to Siam its first real school. They aided Siam in

establishing the Government Educational system, and encouraged the

Department of Education to establish normal training schools. They

introduced the printing press into Siam, made the first Siamese type,

and taught Siam the art of printing.

American missionaries gave Siam its first newspaper in the Siamese

language, and gave the first Geography, Astronomy, Anatomy, and

Physiology, Chemistry, Arithmetic, and Geometry in the Siamese

language.

When the King of Siam made the first move for the establishment of a

school system over Siam, he placed an American missionary at the head

of the work. The present Minister of Education was at one time pupil

of a missionary, later on he became fellow student of one of the

missionaries in Sanscrit, and still consults the missionaries on

educational questions and literary subjects.

In the past twenty-five years the Presbyterian Mission at Siam has

received more money from the Siamese king, princes, nobles, and common

people for the maintenance of educational work, than it has received

from the Presbyterian Church in America. (Educational Work of the Bd.

For. Miss. of the Pres. Ch.)

PERSIAN SCHOOLS

An English boy learns to read his own language first, and does not

always go on to a foreign language. A Persian boy learns to read a

foreign language first, and does not always go on to his own language.

When a little Persian boy goes to school he is given a big Arabic

book, with a great many long words in it, and he is not taught how the

words are spelt, but is told what they are, and made to repeat them

from memory, pointing to each word in the book as he says it, and

gradually he gets some idea of which word is which.... The Mohammedans

think that reading the Koran, quite apart from understanding it, is a

very good action, so the little Persian boys work away at it, and they

do not think it hard lines because all men and big boys began in the

same way, so it seems the natural thing to do. And perhaps it is a

little consolation to know that when they reach certain points they

will be given sweets. One little boy who was asked how far he had got

in the Koran, said that he had just got his first sweets.

Having finished the Koran, our little Persian boy goes on to Persian

books. These, too, he studies in much the same way as he did the

Koran, but it is more useful, because now he understands what he

reads. After plodding through the Koran it is a pleasant change for

little Ghulam Husain to turn to the “War between the Cats and Mice” or

the “Hundred Fables.” Later on he reads the poems of Hafiz and Sa’adi,

and other great Persian poets.

The Persians do not apparently think much of their own system of

education, for they are always laughing at their schoolmasters. They

have a story of a charvadar, or muleteer, one of whose mules strayed

one day into a school. It was quickly driven out, and the muleteer

claimed damages to the extent of half the value of a mule. The

schoolmaster indignantly asked on what he based his claim. The

muleteer turned to the crowd which had gathered to listen to the

argument. “My beast,” said he, “went into his school a mule and it has

come out a donkey.” You see, a donkey counts half a mule in caravan

traveling, just as child counts half a person in train traveling.

When a boy is caned in punishment he lies on his back and holds out

his feet instead of his hands. Sometimes his feet are held in a kind

of stocks while he is caned across the soles. They call it “eating

sticks” or “eating wood.” (Mrs. Napier Malcolm in “Children of

Persia.”)

[Illustration: A PERSIAN BOYS’ SCHOOL AND THE FAVORITE MODE OF

PUNISHMENT]

EDUCATION, BULU TRIBE, AFRICA

There is no more extraordinary feature of the work among the Bulu than

the readiness with which this little forest creature submits himself

to the discipline of school. From a heritage of liberty he comes to

knock at the Mission door and to set his little jiggered feet upon the

new way of order. He who came and went at will keeps the commandments

of the school drum. He who has been bred to inter-tribal hatred eats

out of the pot with his hereditary enemy. He earns his food in all

honor under the Mission law of labor. He permits himself to be “tied”

with “ten tyings” to a standard of conduct which is the reverse of his

racial standards.

In the rude school house, with his alphabet before him, or in the

open, cutlass in hand, he performs daily acts of order and discipline,

and these little tasks are regenerative. His little sister is beside

him and subjected to the same process. The presence of the Mission in

a Bulu community is a great blessing to a little girl. It is a kind of

sanctuary and a police patrol. I cannot think that you would like to

know from what perils it saves her.... Such little girls, following in

the paths after their brothers, have come to own a slate, to own a

primer, to ply a needle, to sleep at night in peace under a Christian

thatch and in innocent company. (“Other Children” by Jean Mackenzie,

Wom. For. Miss. Soc. Pres.)

A GIRLS’ SCHOOL IN THE KURDISH MOUNTAINS

Ever since coming here I have talked to both men and women, as

occasion offered, about the folly of not allowing girls to learn

anything. When I felt pretty sure of two little girls, I announced one

Sunday to the women who were gathered in my room that on Thursday I

should begin a girls’ school for any who cared to come. What was my

surprise and delight on Thursday to have one of the Kashas (Old Church

pastors) come bringing, not two but _four_ little girls who promptly

walked up to me and kissed my hand. The next day another, who had not

heard of the school the first day, came. After three days one girl

disappeared. On Saturday I visited her home and found they were

keeping her to work, and this, according to my idea of the

circumstances, seemed very unnecessary, for I keep them only two hours

a day at present. When I expostulated with the father, he said, “Why

should I take the trouble to let her go to school, when after a

little time I’ll marry her into some other family?” Here girls are

married very young, at twelve years, many of them. All I could say was

of no avail. During all this conversation poor Rachel sat between us,

the tears running down her face, and saying repeatedly, “Father, let

me go.” The father was too selfish to be moved by her pleadings.

(Letter from Mrs. E. W. McDowell.)

BIBLE READING

TEACHING THE CHILDREN

Deut. 11:18-21 with 2d Tim. 1:5 and 3:14-17.

The natural, constant teaching of God’s commandments in the daily life

of the home by parents and grandparents will prepare the children to

lead prosperous, successful, useful lives. What is learned in

childhood “furnishes” the man or woman for life.

“Therefore if to the goodness of nature be joined the wisdom of the

teacher in leading young wits into a right and plain way of learning,

surely children, kept up in God’s fear, and governed by His grace, may

most easily be brought well to serve God and country both by virtue

and wisdom.” (Roger Ascham in the year 1570.)

PRAYER

O Lord Jesus Christ, Thou Child of Bethlehem, bless, we beseech Thee,

the children gathered in Christian schools; may they be truthful,

pure, obedient, and ever ready to do their duty in that state of life

to which Thou shalt be pleased to call them, Who livest and reignest

with the Father and Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

QUESTIONS

1. Give five reasons for multiplying kindergartens and primary schools

in non-Christian lands.

2. In the missionary Forward Movement in China, should the emphasis in

advance educational work be put on primary or on secondary education?

3. Give the reasons for and against an increase in Missionary

educational work in Japan. What is your personal opinion on the

subject?

4. Should the missionary teacher aim to secure a large number of

scholars, or to give more time and personal attention to a few? Give

your reasons for your answer.

5. If you were facing a school of fifty little children who had

absolutely no idea of education, cleanliness, manners, morals, or

Christianity, what would you try to teach them during the first week?

How would you go about it? (This takes it for granted that you know

their language.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY. CHAPTER IV.

The School and the Child, John Dewey.

Stages in Missionary Education, T. H. P. Sailer, _Woman’s Work_,

Sept., 1912.

Christian Missions and Social Progress, J. S. Dennis. (Revell) vol. ii.

“On the Education of Backward Races,” E. W. Coffin, _Pedagogical

Seminary_, March, 1908.

Report on Educational Work of Bd. For. Miss. of Pres. Ch.

Daylight in the Harem, Van Sommer and Zwemer, (Revell.)

Children of Persia, Mrs. Napier Malcolm, (Oliphant, Anderson &

Ferrier.)

Education of Girls in Persia, _Moslem World_, Oct., 1912.

The Education of the Women of India, M. G. Gowan, (Revell.)

Modern India, Sir J. D. Rees, (George Allen and Sons.)

The Athletic Method in Kashmir, Henry Forman, _Outlook_, Sept. 24,

1910.

Village Life in China, Arthur H. Smith, (Revell.)

The Education of Chinese Women, Margaret Burton.

Possibilities of the Kindergarten in China, L. Pearl Boggs, _Child

Welfare Magazine_, Feb., 1913.

“The Opportunity and Need for the Mission School in China.” F. L.

Hawks Pott, D.D., _Intern’l Review of Missions_, Oct., 1912.

Report of the Kindergarten Union of Japan.

Fifteen Years among the Top-Knots, Mrs. Underwood, (Am. Tract Soc.)

The Land of the White Helmet, Edgar Allen Forbes, (Revell.)

LEAFLETS

Into a New Life Woman’s Board of Missions

Kwuli, a South Sea Maid of the Congregational

The Story of Aghavnitza Church.

The Children’s Gardens

The Story of the Imadegawa

Kindergarten

The Cesarea Kindergarten

Coral Island Brownies

Ling Te’s Letter Woman’s Foreign Missionary

Society of the Presbyterian

Church.

The New Persia Board of Foreign Missions

of the Presbyterian Church.

Our Investments in India Woman’s Board of Foreign

Schools in the Arcot Mission, Missions of the Reformed

India Church in America.

Hindu Girls’ School in Arcot

Mission

Key to Hindu Homes

Educational Work in Japan

From Kindergarten to College Woman’s Foreign Missionary

A Peep into Yokohama Society of the Methodist

Day Schools Episcopal Church.

A School Day at Aoyama

Luchmi

How Orthodox Mohammedans Board of Foreign Missions of the

Educate a Child Reformed Church in America.

Messages to Mass. from Woman’s Universalist Missionary

Blackmer Home, 1912 Society of Massachusetts.

Story of Matsu Koyama

Midori Kindergarten

Concerning the Blackmer Woman’s National Missionary

Home Association, Universalist.

FOOTNOTES:

[51] Told in “Among the Top-Knots,” Mrs. Underwood (Am. Tract Soc.)

[52] Told in _Missionary Review of the World_, Nov., 1911.

[53] “Foreign Mail Annual,” 1913, For. Dep. Int. Com. Y. M. C. A.

[54] _Pedagogical Seminary_, March, 1908, “On the Education of

Backward Races.”

[55] Edited by Paul Monroe, 1912. (Macmillan.)

[56] _Life and Light_, Oct., 1912.

[57] _Woman’s Work_, Aug., 1911. Cora C. Bartlett.

[58] Told by Miss A. W. Stocking in _Moslem World_, Oct., 1912.

[59] _Congregationalist and Christian World_, Dec. 26, 1912.

[60] “Kindergartens and ‘Near Kindergartens,’” _Child Welfare

Magazine_, Sept., 1912.

[61] “Mountain Tops and Valleys of Humanity,” _Child Welfare

Magazine_, Dec., 1912.

[62] “The Children’s Gardens,” Woman’s Board of Missions, (Cong.)

[63] _Life and Light_, March, 1912. Janette E. Miller.

[64] “How Orthodox Mohammedans Educate a Child.” Bd. of For. Miss.

Ref. Ch.

[65] “The Montessori System,” Theodate L. Smith. (Harper.)

[66] “Education of Girls in the Levant.” T. H. P. Sailer in _Woman’s

Work_, Aug., 1912.

[67] “Physical Training for the Chinese.” M. J. Exner, M.D.

[68] “The Athletic Method in Kashmir,” Henry Forman in _Outlook_,

Sept. 24, 1910.

[69] “Mountain Tops and Valleys of Humanity,” _Child Welfare

Magazine_, Jan., 1913.

[70] “Daylight in the Harem.”

[71] “The Land of the White Helmet,” E. A. Forbes. (Revell.)

[72] “Educational Work of the Bd. For. Miss. of the Pres. Ch.”

[73] “A Little Child Shall Lead Them.” Wom. Bd. For. Miss. Ref. Ch.

Am.

[74] “Home Life in Syria,” Elfreda Post, Wom. Pres. Bd. For. Miss.

CHAPTER V.

THE CHILD AT WORSHIP

“Suffer the little children to come unto Me.”

Children worshiping--The child at worship in Thibet--In India--In

Mohammedan Lands--In Africa--Religious needs greater than all

others--The place of the child in non-Christian religions--In the

Koran--In the Hindu Vedas and Shastras--Confucianism and

Christianity--Failure of non-Christian religions to influence

lives for righteousness--Religious acts and their results to

children--Temple girls of India--Heathen mothers and their dead

children--Only the Bible gives the child a place--The motive for

teaching the children about Christ--The means to be

used--Sunday-Schools--Christian Endeavor Societies--The power of

God’s Word--Christian hymns--Obstacles to bringing children to

Christ--“After many days”--Our great privilege.

[Sidenote: Children worshiping.]

What wonderful pictures flash before the mind as one repeats the

words, “The Child at Worship”! The picture, familiar to childhood, of

the boy Samuel, kneeling in the temple with folded hands and uplifted

eyes; the picture on the nursery wall of vested choir boys or

earnest-faced children singing praises in the sanctuary; the bowed

heads of little ones in the primary room at Sunday-School, while with

hushed voices they sing their prayer song; the hour far back in

childhood when you knelt at your mother’s knee; or the sweet moment

when your sleepy baby cuddled in your arms and learned to lisp, “Now I

lay me.” All that is sweetest, purest, holiest in childhood seems to

find full expression and highest reality as we see the child at

worship, for “except ye turn and become as little children, ye shall

in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven, ... for their angels do

always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.”

[Sidenote: The Child at Worship in Thibet.]

The Child at Worship! Far off in distant Thibet today thousands of

children are praying morning, noon, and night, joining their parents

in the constant repetition of one six-syllabled sentence, “Om mani

padme Hum” (“Om! the Jewel in the Lotus! Hum”!) This prayer they are

taught from earliest childhood to use as “a panacea for all evils, a

compendium of all knowledge, a treasury of all wisdom, a summary of

all religion.” It is engraved on the outside of metal cylinders,

written on rolls within rolls of paper inserted into the cylinders,

which are held in the right hand and whirled round and round like a

child’s toy,--each revolution storing up merit to the worshipper. But

alack! if the careless boy whirls the prayer cylinder in the wrong

direction, i.e., not with the sun, he is adding to the debit side of

his account, and the more zealously he “prays,” the less good will his

prayers do him.[75] “They think they shall be heard for their much

speaking.”

[Sidenote: The Child at Worship in India.]

The Child at Worship in India! “All the way up the bank they are

killing and skinning their goats. You look to the right and put your

hands over your eyes. You look to the left, and do it again. You look

straight in front of you and see an extended skinned victim hung from

the branch of a tree. Every hanging rootlet of the great banyan-tree

is hung with horrors,--all dead most mercifully, but horribly

still....

“We see little children watching the process delightedly. There is no

intentional cruelty, for the god will not accept the sacrifice unless

the head is severed by a single stroke. But it is most disgusting and

demoralizing. And to think that these children are being taught to

connect it with religion!

“With me is one who used to enjoy it all. She tells me how she twisted

the fowls’ heads off with her own hands. I look at the fine little

brown hands, and I can hardly believe it. ‘You, _you_, do such a

thing!’ And she says, ‘Yes; when the day came round to sacrifice to

our family divinity my little brother held the goat’s head while my

father struck it off, and I twisted the chickens’ heads. It was my

pleasure.’”[76]

Truly, “the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of

cruelty!”

[Sidenote: The Mohammedan Child at Worship.]

The Mohammedan Child at Worship! From the minaret of the Sunni Mosque

or the roof of the Shi’ite Mosque sounds the call to prayer. Children

of seven or older are supposed to join their elders in obeying the

summons five times a day,--in the early dawn, at noon, two hours

before sunset, at sunset, and two hours later. The religious law,

however, provides that no child shall be beaten for neglecting his

prayer until he is ten years of age.

Praying, however, is not as easy a task for the Mohammedan lad as for

his Thibetan cousin. He must first wash his face, hands, and arms,

feet, and legs, learning which side of the face, which hand and foot

to wash first, whether the arms should be stroked from the wrist to

the elbow or in the opposite direction. His prayer will not count

before the great “Allah” if the ablutions are not correct. Then he

must learn the words of the prayers, and these are in Arabic, which

three-fourths of the Mohammedan children of the world cannot

understand. Turning toward Mecca, he must stand, kneel, and bow

himself with his forehead to the ground, at just the proper intervals

during the prayer. At the age of twelve he begins to observe the month

of Ramazan, and his nine-year-old sister must do the same, when from

sunrise to sunset no morsel of food or drop of drink may cross their

lips. “Is such the fast that I have chosen? wilt thou call this a fast

and an acceptable day unto Jehovah?” With deep insight into the truth

has Mrs. Malcolm said:--

“Here again we see Mohammed giving his people what we may call

‘nursery rules,’ treating them as children, while our Master expects

us to grow up so that we can arrange these matters for ourselves. The

very fact that the detailed rules of Mohammedanism are binding through

life shows that the Mohammedan is not expected to grow up as we

understand growing up.”[77]

[Sidenote: The African Child at Worship.]

Once more the Child at Worship, this time in the African jungle!

“Ancestor-worship is the highest form of African Fetishism,--the usual

fetish is the skull of the father, which the son keeps in a box. The

father occasionally speaks to the son in dreams, and frequently

communicates with him by omens. He helps him in all his enterprises,

good and evil, and secures his success in love, in hunting, and in

war. All those who have skulls are a secret society, which is powerful

to rule and to tyrannize over others. Young boys are initiated into

this society by rites and ceremonies that are revolting.... In the

mild ceremony of the more civilized Fang towns, the boy who is to be

initiated is made very drunk and taken blindfolded to the bush, to a

place set apart for the use of the society. The ceremony continues

several days. In one part of it the bandage is removed from his eyes

at midnight, a low fire is burning, which gives a feeble light, and he

finds himself surrounded by members of the society with faces and

bodies frightfully distorted, and all the skulls of their ancestors

exposed to view, together with the heads of persons who have recently

died. Some one asks him what he sees. He replies that he sees only

spirits, and solemnly declares that these are not men....

“Further up the river, a boy during initiation is usually placed for

several days in a house alone, after being made to look so long at the

sun that sometimes he faints, and when he is taken into the house he

cannot at first see anything. Meantime the door is closed, and they

all go away. Gradually he sees things around him, and at length

discovers opposite him a corpse, in an early state of decomposition.

He is kept there day and night during the ceremony. The men visit him

and subject him to all sorts of indignities, in order to impress him

with the necessity of absolute obedience to the society.... They

believe that the skull of the father or other ancestor, when it has

been properly prepared, becomes the residence of the ancestor. The son

... will keep the skull comfortably warm and dry, occasionally rubbing

it with oil and red-wood powder, and will feed it bountifully.”[78]

[Sidenote: Religious needs greater than all others in non-Christian

lands.]

Our hearts are touched by the child in its helplessness, by the

suffering and sorrow of neglected little ones, by the agonies of child

wives and widows, and the yearning cry for teachers and books, but how

can we endure it when all that is sweetest and holiest and best in the

beautiful child heart is defiled and polluted in the name of religion;

when senseless repetition in an unknown tongue takes the place of the

trustful words, “Our Father”; when sticks and stones, ancestral

tablets, spirits and devils are worshipped by those to whom the Christ

cries out in yearning love, “Suffer the little children to come unto

ME”? If our hearts are touched, not to the breaking point, but to the

_acting_ point, then these horrors must cease, and the children will

be taught to worship aright, and Christ “shall see of the travail of

His soul and shall be satisfied.”

[Sidenote: The place of the child in non-Christian religions.]

“The people in the country from which you have come have a religion of

their own, is it not good enough for them? Why should you insult them

by trying to foist your religion upon them?” These and many similar

questions meet the missionary on furlough, and cause her more woe than

does many a hard experience on the mission field. The best answer to

such questions is to induce the questioners to study carefully what

the non-Christian religions have to say regarding children, and the

direct result of their systems on child life.

[Sidenote: In the Koran.]

A careful search in the Koran, the sacred book of the Mohammedans, is

rewarded by finding several passages strictly enjoining kindness and

justice to orphans, and a set of minute regulations regarding

inheritance in which children, parents, husbands, and wives shall

share, prefaced by these words: “God hath thus commanded you

concerning your children,” and followed up later by the remark: “Ye

know not whether your parents or your children be of greater use unto

you.” (Sura IV.)

“Children,” says Rev. S. M. Zwemer, “are scarcely mentioned in the

Koran; of such is not the Kingdom of Islam.”

[Sidenote: In Hindu Vedas.]

“The Hindu Vedas enjoin that by a girl, or by a young woman, or by a

woman advanced in years, nothing must be done, even in her own

dwelling place, according to her mere pleasure; in childhood a female

must be dependent on (or subject to) her father; in youth, on her

husband; her lord being dead, on her sons; a woman must never seek

independence.” (Manu V, 158.)

[Sidenote: In Hindu Shastras.]

“The Hindu Shastras have made no provisions of affection and regard

for a daughter. She is viewed by them, as far as her parents are

concerned, merely as an object to be ‘given away,’ and that as soon as

possible. She is declared by them to be marriageable, even in her

infancy, to a person of any age; and of course without her own choice

or intelligent consent.... According to the letter of the law, the

parents are not to sell their daughters, but they may receive valuable

gifts, the equivalent of a price, on her behalf.” (Manu III, 51.)[79]

The code of Manu further teaches that by honoring his mother a son

gains the terrestrial world, by honoring his father, the

ethereal,--intermediate,--and by assiduous attention to his preceptor,

even the celestial world of Brahma.[80]

How different are the words of the Apostle Paul regarding the relation

between parents and children. “Fathers, provoke not your children

that they be not discouraged. Children, obey your parents _in the

Lord_. Honor thy father _and thy mother_, which is the first

commandment with promise.”

[Sidenote: Confucianism and Christianity.]

The Right Reverend Logan H. Roots, Bishop of Hankow, has illustrated

so forcibly the difference in the practical working out of the

precepts of Confucianism and Christianity, that it is well worth while

to quote him at length.

In conversation with a group of Chinese gentlemen some time ago, I

made the remark that outside the Jewish and Christian religions

there was no serious recognition of the inherent dignity of

children, and that no sage had ever made a statement comparable to

that of our Lord.--“Suffer the little children to come unto me and

forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” Such a

remark as this on my part would have elicited scarcely any

interest a few years ago. The warm discussion it aroused this time

was a sign of the new life that is now stirring among the Chinese.

The keenest of these gentlemen were in sympathy with Christianity,

but they were all inclined to look upon Confucianism as a real

preparation for Christianity, and one after another brought forth

sayings of the Confucian sages which they thought could be

reasonably compared to that of Christ.

They quoted the praises of King Wen in the “Great Learning,”

where it is said, “As a father he rested in kindness”; the

sayings of Confucius himself in the “Analects” as to his own

wish: “In regard to the young, treat them tenderly”; the advice

to a ruler in “The Great Learning”: “Act as though you were

watching over an infant”; and the fine saying of Mencius: “The

great man is he who does not lose his child’s heart.”...

The eagerness of these gentlemen in discussing the question with

me, to find a place for their worthies in the ample folds of

Christian teaching is far from unwholesome or blameworthy,

especially when there is such readiness as they showed to appeal

to Christian teaching rather than to the sages as their standard,

and to prove the greatness of their sages by their agreement with

the Christ....

My purpose, however, is not to give an exposition of these

classical gems, but rather to contrast them briefly with certain

popular Chinese conceptions of childhood which are foolish or

cruel, but which these lofty sayings of the sages have been

powerless to correct.

Should a child fall ill, his relatives or friends very likely

remark, “His spirit has gone seeking another incarnation.” Or

some one suggests, “Some ghost has frightened the child to the

point of losing its soul.”... Should the child die, the parents

will grieve as surely and as sorely as parents any where; but ...

they will be told, “Never mind, the child was misguided to your

home, and was not intended for you.” Or, “It was only a creditor

collecting a debt you owed in a former existence.” Or, “Don’t

grieve, it was but one of those demon spirits that always die

young.”...

I put these popular sayings beside the exalted sentiments of the

Chinese Classics, not to disparage the sages, but to show how

utterly dark the popular mind is, in spite of these sayings which

seem so full of light. Is not the difficulty that the sages after

all could not go to the root of the matter? They knew nothing of

God as Father.[81]

[Sidenote: Failure to influence lives for righteousness.]

What is here illustrated of the failure of Confucianism to influence

lives toward righteousness and faith is true of the other

non-Christian religions. Even the young Mohammedan girl realized the

power and claim of Christianity as she was a chance listener to the

Gospel story while a missionary toured in central Persia. “Why,

lady,” she exclaimed, “if one understands clearly that Book, there is

nothing left but to obey!”

The direct results of the way children are taught to worship in

non-Christian lands deserve careful, unprejudiced study, with the

question constantly in mind, “Is this religion good enough for _my_

children, or for those in whom I am interested?” If the study results

in a negative answer to the question, it is fair to ask further, “Is

it good enough for _any_ children in the whole wide world?”

[Sidenote: Result to the child of religious acts.]

What should be the results, physical, mental, moral, and spiritual, of

a child’s religious acts? Which of all the world religions produces

these results? Study Mohammedanism, for instance, of which we have

already noted some of the religious acts expected of the child. These

must necessarily inculcate formalism, thoughtless repetition,

deep-rooted superstition, and the idea that God can be appeased and

sin can be forgiven through certain acts unconnected with life and

character.

“When I die,” said a poor, blind Mohammedan girl, “I shall be visited

by two angels, the chief of whom will make an examination of my deeds,

and remind me of everything I have done, and left undone; he will then

cut off a piece of my shroud and record upon it my good and bad deeds,

and attach it firmly to my neck with a piece of rope. If my good deeds

outweigh my bad ones, I shall go straight into heaven. If my bad

deeds outweigh my good deeds, my intercessor Mohammed will easily get

permission for me to enter heaven, so it does not much matter how I

live.”[82]

[Sidenote: Mohammedan month of mourning.]

The annual month of mourning of the Shi’ite Mohammedans is observed by

children as well as by adults, and little ones with their heads

covered with straw or ashes, or wearing chains, are borne on horseback

in the processions that close the series of passion plays. A

missionary in Persia saw a mother carrying her boy of five or six

years in the bloody procession, cutting his head with a curved sword,

while blood streamed from five or six gashes. Poor, eager, zealous

mother, trying to store up merit for her baby boy against the day of

wrath!

[Sidenote: Fear and horror in idol worship.]

Fear, dread, and horror are inseparably associated in the minds of

thousands of children with the worship of their gods. From earliest

childhood others grow so naturally into the forms of ancestor, idol,

and spirit worship that this becomes one of the most difficult factors

in leading them into Christianity. From the _Mission Day Spring_ we

quote a few words about “how Chinese children worship.”

We must go up a flight of wide stone steps at the entrance of the

temple, and as we enter we shall see two tall images with very

ugly faces and brilliantly painted coats, which are called

“Guardians of the Gate.” The mothers bring their little children

forward, and teach them to clasp their hands and bow down,

knocking their heads to the ground as they worship the image. If

it is the first time, the children are afraid and often say, “Oh,

I can’t do it, I never can do it!” Then they have to watch closely

while their mothers once more show them how to worship. Afterwards

they are sometimes rewarded with little presents, which they are

told have been given them by the idol. If they are still too

afraid to worship, stories of the terrible things that happen to

people who do not ask the protection of the idols are repeated to

them.

Up on the mountain slopes of the Hakone District in Japan, is the

great children’s god, Jizo, carved centuries ago out of the solid

rock. The heathen mother has been taught that, when the souls of her

little children pass over the sullen stream of death, they must be

saved from the clutches of a cruel hag residing on the banks. She

steals their clothes and forces them to the endless task of piling

stones at the river side. In order to induce Jizo to save them from

the hag, the weary heathen mother climbs the steep paths leading to

the children’s god, and there makes her supplication. And the little

one tied to her back or led by the hand, with highly strung nerves and

weary limbs, shrinks in terror at the sight of the ugly idol, and at

the stories of dire vengeance which will befall her unless she

worships properly.

[Sidenote: Death from fright and exposure.]

Many children die from the effects of fright and exposure connected

with religious rites, as in the case of some of the African boys whose

initiation into ancestor worship was described above.

[Sidenote: Soul-stains.]

[Sidenote: Temple girls.]

Worse than all the results yet mentioned are the deep soul-stains, the

utter ruin of all moral and spiritual character, which fall to the lot

of countless thousands of innocent children through the direct

influence of their religion. One longs to turn away from scenes like

these, but we mothers, sisters, and daughters of Christian homes

cannot be honest with ourselves and with our God, unless we are

willing to know things as they really are, in order to help to make

them as they really ought to be. Such conditions exist to a larger or

smaller degree in many lands, but to be really understood in their

baldest, most revolting form, it is only necessary to visit India.

Bishop Caldwell says that “the stories related of the life of the god

Krishna do more than anything to destroy the morals and corrupt the

imaginations of Hindu youth.” The temple girls, nautch girls, and

muralis are living witnesses to India’s need of a pure and holy

religion.

The nautch-girl often begins her career of training under teachers

as early as five years of age. She is taught to read, dance, and

sing, and instructed in every seductive art. Her songs are usually

amorous; and while she is yet a mere girl, before she can realize

fully the moral bearings of her choice of life, she makes her

debut as a nautch-girl in the community.

Khandoba is the deity of the Marathi country and is popularly

believed to be an avator, or incarnation of Shiva. Muralis are

girls devoted to him by their parents in infancy or early

childhood. Outside the main entrance of the temple court, a stone

column stands on the wall on the left side. It is about three

feet high, and on the head of it is cut a filthy design. The

column is called by the name of Yeshwantrao.... He it is who

gives children to barren women.... It is to this image the poor

deluded women promise to sacrifice their first-born daughters if

Khandoba will make them mothers of many children. Then after the

vow, the first-born girl is offered to Khandoba and set apart for

him by tying a necklace of seven cowries around the little girl’s

neck. When she becomes of marriageable age she is formally

married to the Khanda or daggar of Khandoba, and becomes his

nominal wife. Henceforth she is forbidden to become the wedded

wife of man, and the result is that she usually leads an infamous

life, earning a livelihood by sin.[83]

The stories told by Amy Wilson Carmichael and many others corroborate

and emphasize the facts stated by Mrs. Fuller, and tell of what the

British Government and Christian missions are trying to do to

counteract and stop the monstrous evil. From the _Missionary Review of

the World_ for February, 1913, we quote:--

[Sidenote: Legislation to abolish young temple girls.]

“A bill lately introduced into the viceroy’s legislative council by

Mr. Dadabhai, the Parsee member of that body, touches upon some of

oldest and darkest social evils of India. It proposes to make it

criminal for a parent or other lawful guardian to dedicate a girl

under sixteen years of age to ‘the service of a deity,’ which always

means dedicating her to a life of infamy, and to make the crime

punishable with ten years penal servitude. It prohibits under very

severe penalties, the practice which obtains whereby priests enter

into temporary alliance with young girls thus dedicated, in order to

initiate them into the life of professional profligacy.” To this we

may add from an authoritative source that in 1913 the native state of

Mysore had already abolished dancing girls from all its temples.

While the British Government is trying to prevent any of India’s

daughters from being hereafter ruined, body and soul, in the name of

religion, what is being done for the thousands who through no fault of

their own have already become “the servants of the gods”? Is it

possible to do anything to redeem the lives of these children whose

earliest memories cluster about the most hideous forms of evil?

[Sidenote: Rescuing the servant of the gods.]

Another picture. A group of women lounging within the temple

enclosure in the cool shade of the fragrant cork trees. A

beautiful little girl of five years is running up and down the

great stone steps of the tank, laughing and playing. Now and then

one of the women calls the child to her and tries the effect of

some article of jewelry against the bright little face. Little

Moothi, the Pearl of the Temple, as she is called, is full of life

and happiness. Too young to understand the sin and wrong about

her, she loves the bright jewels and silken garments, the

excitement of the dancing and singing. The daily exercise on the

whirling wheel is only fun for her. She never grows dizzy and

falls off as do her stupid companions, to be beaten by cross old

Ramana, their teacher. “She will bring plenty of money by and by,”

said one of the women to Moothi’s mother. “You had better let her

go to the Christian school in the village. She will be taught to

read and sing without any expense to you, and there is no danger

of her remembering what she hears of that foolish religion.” But

the mother’s face did not light up in response. Sitting in her

little hut she has listened to the Gospel as it was told to a

group of outcast women who had gathered weekly in the village

palim on the other side of the wall. The wonderful story had

penetrated her dark heart. But it is too late for her. She is too

old to change, but oh, that her little Moothi, her beautiful one,

might be spared the life of sin and shame to which she is doomed

as a dancing girl devoted to the service of the temple. What can

she do? Through the long nights she thought and thought, until

finally she came to the decision to part with the little one

though her heart break. One night she took the child with a little

bundle of clothing and stole away. After weary miles of travel she

appeared at the home of a missionary and begged her to take the

little girl. “I give her to you,” she said, “to be taught your

religion, and to be your child, but she must never know who her

mother was.” She laid down twenty rupees which she had saved

toward her support, and disappeared, leaving no clue to her name

and village.

There was consternation among the women of the temple when it was

discovered that Moothi was gone, but the mother gave no sign, and

it was finally concluded that some one had stolen her because of

her beauty, and such things are too common in a heathen land to

cause a disturbance. As Moothi grew and developed into a

beautiful Christian woman and earnest worker, the missionary

often wondered whence came the God-given trust so strangely sent.

Now and then, but less frequently as the years pass on, a woman,

growing increasingly old and bent, was seen near the school, whom

they associated with Moothi, but no one knew until upon her

deathbed she sent for the missionary and told her story. Only a

heathen mother, degraded and heart-broken, parted from her only

joy in life, watching hungrily in the distance for a sight of the

loved face. Can we not believe that the Christ of love was

revealed to her heart also?[84]

What Christian mother will make it possible that some other

heart-broken heathen mother may hear the Gospel message, and may find

a place of refuge for her sweet, innocent child?

[Sidenote: Heathen mothers and their dead children.]

While our hearts go out in tenderness to the heathen mother deprived

of her living child, what can we do or say to comfort the mother whose

little one is cold in death? Our statistics of infant mortality in

Chapter I give some slight idea of the vast multitudes of mourning

mothers for whom there is no hope, no knowledge that,--“around the

throne of God in heaven, thousands of children stand;” no vision of

Him who “shall gather the lambs with His arm and carry them in His

bosom.” Nowhere but among Christians do hope and faith and

self-control and comfort abide in the house where death has come, and

none but the Christian cemetery is a place of order and beauty and

peace. Among the Thonga Tribe of South Africa, the mother who loses a

baby is considered deeply contaminated with the defilement of death.

She must bury the child alone, not even her husband helping her. Mrs.

George Heber Jones said recently that in all her many years of life in

Korea she had never seen any funeral service for a child of

non-Christians. The baby is buried anywhere at the back of the house

as a dog would be, or put up in the branches of a tree for the

vultures to find. Do the mothers have hearts and feelings? Listen to

the experience of Mrs. U. S. G. Jones of India, and answer the

question for yourselves.

“I went into a Brahmin home where several widows were gathered. One

old woman with eyes that were dimmed from much weeping said, peering

into my face, ‘Yes, it is the same, I was sure of it. You came here

some ten or twelve years ago, and told us how when your beloved were

taken from you, you did not mourn and wail as we did. When my daughter

died, I tried to recall what you had said about another life and hope

beyond the grave, but I could not remember. Tell it all again now.’ So

I told her again of our glorious hope and of the resurrection. How

earnestly they all listened! Poor, poor things!”[85]

[Sidenote: Only the Bible gives the child a place.]

“The Child for Christ” must be the watchword of our “organized

motherhood for the children of the world.” The Bible is the only

sacred book that gives the child a place of importance. Christ was the

only founder of a religion who raised childhood into a type of those

who were fit to enter His Kingdom. As E. G. Romanes says, “Tenderness

toward child life, appreciation of the simplicity and the helplessness

of children, affection of parents for their children, and children for

their parents;--all these are features of the Bible which the most

superficial reader cannot fail to observe.”[86]

[Sidenote: The motive for teaching the children of Christ.]

In his “Challenge to Christian Missions,” R. E. Welsh utters these

significant words,--

“Why is it a matter of urgent duty and concern on a parent’s part to

teach his child the story of Christ and train him in Christian truth

and life?... What is the parent’s motive?... Simply the sharp sense of

the value of Christ to every human being, young or old--the perception

of the child’s need and peril if he does not get the saving power of

Christ upon him; the sense of the native worth and value of being a

Christian in soul and character; the desire to lift him out of ‘the

natural man’ to ‘the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.’

If that motive be not strong enough to inspire us with zeal for taking

the blessing of Christ to the heathen, then Christ has still much work

to do upon us to make us Christian in mind and spiritual sympathy.”

[Sidenote: The means to be used.]

If it is our duty and privilege to win the children of the world to

Christ, how is it to be done? What special means are our missionaries

using to bring about this result? All missionary work for children, in

the homes, in day school and boarding school, in church and

Sunday-School, in hospital and orphanage, must have the great two-fold

aim ever in view,--to win the child to Christ, to train the child for

Christ. It remains for us to study briefly several agencies not yet

touched upon, that have been greatly blessed in their effect upon

children of many lands.

[Sidenote: Sunday-School statistics.]

First in the list of these child-winning agencies stands the

Sunday-School. From a series of statistics appearing in the January,

1913, number of the _Missionary Review of the World_, we take the

following figures, concerning Sunday-Schools conducted by the

Protestant Missionary Societies of the world.

Miss. Soc’s Of other

U. S. & Canada Countries

No. Heathen Children baptized

1912 27,997 68,567

No. Sunday-Schools 19,230 11,375

No. Pupils in same 908,007 580,012

Would that every Christian woman who glances at these figures could

dimly realize what they stand for,--the efforts, the time and energy

and love expended, the disappointments and trials, the encouragements

and victories. One must _never_ be discouraged, one must _never_ lose

faith and hope, one may _never_ stop sowing seeds in little hearts,

even though the work seems as small and insignificant as it did in the

Japanese Sunday-School at Kawazoe.

[Sidenote: Japanese Sunday-School.]

Every Sunday at twelve o’clock the children begin to clatter up on

their wooden shoes to a Sunday-School which does not begin till

two o’clock.... When it begins they sing hymns vigorously if not

tunefully, and listen as patiently as any children of the same

age. The nurse girls, aged ten or eleven, come with babies on

their backs, and, if the babies remonstrate too vigorously, they

are trotted out in the sunshine for a breathing space. An average

of forty children come every Sunday to hear the Christian

stories, and often, passing on the street, one hears the familiar

tune and unfamiliar words of “Jesus loves me.” One, two, or more

Sunday-Schools seem like but a drop in the bucket in a town of

twenty thousand people, but we can only hope that through hymn, or

story, or picture, or card, the good news of the love of God may

be spread more widely.[87]

But many “drops” fill a bucket, and some day Japan is going to feel

the mighty power of the children who have been taught in mission

Sunday-Schools. Here is a prophetic instance:--

[Sidenote: A Sunday-School rally in Japan.]

The teachings which produce the sweetest and most beautiful things

in the lives of children, and will make them the truest and best

“soldiers and servants” are those given in the Sunday-Schools

which are multiplying in Japan. Therefore there is no work better

worth doing than that in the Sunday-Schools, and no service more

valuable than that of the missionaries who teach the children of

Japan.... On the Campus of the Reformed Church College, Sendai,

there was held last summer a union gathering of the Sunday-Schools

of the city. Some of them were Saturday Sunday-Schools, as there

were not hours enough on Sunday for the Christian teachers to

instruct all those who are eager to learn, and it is not

unprecedented for two or three Sunday-Schools to be taught by the

same persons. When the pupils in the Christian schools of Sendai

came together they were one thousand seven hundred strong. An

eye-witness says:--

“I wish you could have seen them! Our own four Sunday-Schools

furnished one hundred and fifty of the number. It did my heart

good! Do missions pay? Oh, my, no! One of our students in the

training school is the direct result of the Sendai Sunday-School,

and another from that Sunday-School enters next year. And to

hear those one thousand seven hundred children sing! And back of

that great gathering was the story of long and patient labor,

days of constant effort, and nights of discouragement.”[88]

[Sidenote: A Sunday-School with practical results.]

With such a view of the value of the Sunday-School to Japan, it is

interesting to note that in May, 1913, there were one thousand seven

hundred Protestant Sunday-Schools in Japan, with an enrollment of

about 100,000 pupils. If the question is asked, Do the Sunday-Schools

have any effect on the lives of the children? it is a pleasure to

answer with a brief extract from the personal letter of a new

missionary to Japan:--

“This afternoon a lady called whose mother belongs to the nobility and

has older ideals, but her father is American. She is a most earnest

Christian and has done a great deal. She has access to the nobility’s

children and is forming a Sunday-School, but she has many

discouragements. At one village they had started a school of two

hundred, and the children were showing its influence, but the

schoolmaster feared just this and so managed to frighten the parents

that all were withdrawn. This village was built in terraces with a

long flight of stairs, down which many blind people went. The boys

used to hang cords across so as to trip them. But now they have begun

to take these poor people by the hand, and lead them down.” A

Sunday-School that can teach such practical Christianity to

mischievous boys must be a power in the community.

[Sidenote: A Sunday-School Parade in Peking.]

In October, 1911, the city of Peking, China, witnessed a Sunday-School

parade in which two thousand children took part. With banners flying,

and led by the Methodists with six hundred children and a band, the

parade passed through the most important streets of the city to a

large church where a children’s mass meeting was held.

A noteworthy “forward movement” was undertaken by the Methodist

Episcopal Church in 1913, when the Rev. Wallace H. Miner, son of a

missionary, sailed for China, to become a Sunday-School worker and

organizer in that new republic. His work will be to assist the

missionaries in promoting the work of the Sunday-Schools, to instruct

native preachers in methods of Sunday-School organization and

administration, and to train local teachers and native field workers,

introducing modern methods into Chinese Sunday-Schools as far as they

are adapted to Chinese conditions.

[Sidenote: A Sunday-School Union in India.]

Would that India had more men like the rich coffee planter who gives

his services to Christian work, and who travels from end to end of

India organizing Sunday-Schools. The statistics of the Sunday-School

Union of India are deeply significant, as is also the fact that there

_is_ such a Union. “The Sunday-School Union of India has a membership

of 458,945, being an increase of 37,866 on the previous year. The

Union stands for the very best in Bible instruction, equipment, and

management. It publishes 10,000,000 English and vernacular pages of

Scripture illustrated expositions, nearly all of which are based on

the international syllabus. To meet the needs of Sunday-Schools in

fifty languages, there are about fifty editions of ‘helps’ in twenty

languages. A prominent feature of the Union is that it stands for

salvation through Jesus Christ, and membership in the church to which

it belongs.”[89]

[Sidenote: An African Sunday-School.]

It would be fascinating to visit the Sunday-Schools in various lands,

and to hear the same dear children’s hymns sung in many languages by

black children and white, red, and brown. We have time for only a peep

at an Egyptian Sunday-School, but even this glimpse shows how

naturally and inevitably the love and power of Jesus Christ can change

the heart and life of a little child.

At 2 P. M. the beating of the bell has the desired effect, and

presently there rises up from the edge of the river a crowd of

some of the dirtiest and yet some of the prettiest little boys and

girls you ever saw. Nearly every little girl carries perched on

her shoulder a baby brother or sister. They rush without ceremony

into the compound, but there they are intercepted, and made to

walk quietly and orderly into the classes provided for them.

A kind Syrian nurse from the Hospital takes her place in a class

of some thirty or forty girls, and, if only you could peep behind

the scenes, you would hear such sad stories connected with the

lives of several of her girls. Some have been married and cast

aside by their husbands for some trivial fault, and then how glad

they are once more to find their way back to school, where they

know they are loved and cared for.

A blind girl sits among a class of the very naughtiest but

sweetest little folk, who try her patience to the utmost. A kind

missionary takes another class, and I am sure that, although she

is accustomed to teaching all through the week, she has never

taught such pieces of humanity as those before her. Still another

class of mischievous little boys is taught by one of the

day-school boys, who sometimes has to appeal to the

superintendent to restore order.... Now the bell has to be

beaten, gently too, and, after much noise, all shaggy heads are

bent in prayer, then sentence by sentence, the Lord’s Prayer is

said, and a very elongated “Amen” comes in at the end. Now three

rooms are occupied instead of one, for if all the classes were

kept in one room the noise would be deafening. What are all those

dirty little bags hung around the children’s necks? Ah! those

bags contain the most precious thing the children have, viz., an

old Christmas card which serves as a register. If by some

unfortunate chance that ticket gets lost, genuine tears form a

streamlet down the troubled little face of the owner, for he or

she knows it is just a mere chance if the superintendent will

relent so far as to provide another, and yet without it

admittance to the yearly Christmas tree is a thing impossible.

These registers are marked and a tiny box handed around to

receive many little widows’ mites, for although the children are

of the poorest, we try to teach them that it is more blessed to

give than to receive. And now we are all in the room again, and a

time is spent in catechising the whole school so as to make sure

they have been listening to their lesson. The story had been told

of the ten lepers, and the ingratitude of the nine, who went away

without saying “thank you.” Z., a very regular member, looked up

with glowing eyes, and said, “I would very much like to say thank

you to Jesus for all He has done for me, but I am afraid He would

not care to bend His hand from heaven to let a little girl like

me kiss it.”... Another little girl is all eagerness to speak.

Her name means “Cast Out,” and when her turn comes she says, “I

love pickles, oh! so much, and when my mother said, ‘Go to the

market and bring back pickles in vinegar,’ I used to dip my

fingers into the vinegar all the way home,--they would creep into

the basin in spite of myself,--but now since my teacher has told

me it is like stealing, I try not even to look at the basin, but

run all the way home with it to my mother.”[90]

[Sidenote: Junior Christian Endeavor Societies.]

It would take pages to tell what Junior Christian Endeavor Societies,

Epworth Leagues, and similar organizations are doing for the children

of Asia and Africa, and how through them the children of Christian

households are being trained to live and work for Christ,--a training

which most of their parents lacked in childhood. A missionary from

Japan tells how a little fellow prayed at the Christian Endeavor

meeting, “Oh God, I just want to thank you for the good time we had

last Saturday, I can taste it yet; help us not to forget what we

promised then.”

[Illustration: JAPANESE CHILDREN AT WORSHIP]

A Junior Endeavor Society in the Madura District in India helps to

support a Sunday-School in a near-by village, the children bringing

their offerings of one pie each (one sixth of a cent) with noble

regularity. In one boarding-school in Persia, four or five Endeavor

Societies flourished some years ago, and, when the girls went home for

their vacations, they led the singing in the village churches,

teaching the congregations new hymns learned at school. Each girl saw

to it that a Christian Endeavor Society was formed in her village

during the long summer vacation. Often the school girl would be the

only member of the Society who could read, but she gathered the

village children about her, and taught them to repeat Bible verses,

sing hymns, and offer simple prayers, and a great deal of training and

teaching can be accomplished in one summer vacation!

[Sidenote: The power of the Bible.]

What marvelous power there is in the Word of God! A Mohammedan boy in

a fanatical Persian city, which had often been visited by colporteurs

and missionaries, went one day to the bazaar where he saw a New

Testament being torn up to serve as wrapping paper. He remonstrated

with the shopkeeper, and finally bought what was left of the Book.

Through its influence both he and his mother were led to Christ. In

another Persian city, the missionary holds a Bible lesson for boys

under fifteen every Friday, when they do not have to be at work.

Picture cards sent by thoughtful friends in America are earned by boys

learning the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, or verses from the

Sermon on the Mount. Some of the boys always repeat the lesson at

home to their mothers, and some say openly, “If what the Bible says is

true, the Mohammedan religion is vain and useless.” Truly, “the

entrance of Thy word giveth light.”

Do American children prize their Bibles as does this Korean boy?

[Sidenote: A Korean boy and his Bible.]

Every day in the village of Nulmok there is an exodus of small

boys to the mountain for fuel. Wood being scarce, it becomes

necessary for each household to furnish a fuel gatherer. This army

of boys is winding its way to the mountains some five miles off.

Each boy has tied to his jikcey, or rack carried on his back, a

small package of rice. This is his dinner, for it is an all-day

job. As they make their way up the well-nigh barren slopes, one

boy notices that his friend Kaiby has a second little bundle tied

to his jikcey, and so he hails him to know why he is carrying two

dinners.

“Oh, one is for my body, and the other is dinner for my soul,” he

replies.

After a morning spent in raking over a small area of the

mountain, each boy has succeeded in getting together his bundle

of dried grass, and all sit down beside a mountain brook to eat

of their dinner of cold rice and a relish of greens or pickled

cabbage in season. Soon Kaiby has finished his meal and is

untying his second bundle; taking out a book he begins to read

aloud, slowly, while the other boys gather around to hear. It is

about a great Man, who, when the people wanted to make him king,

went to the mountain to pray.

Day after day at rest time Kaiby got out his book and read from

it, and the other boys were interested. About this time, Ki Mun

Ju, the Bible Society agent, came again to the village with

Bibles. After supper, Kaiby, accompanied by several other boys,

asked if there was not a smaller copy of the New Testament, as a

number of the boys wanted to buy a Bible, but their only

opportunity to read was at rest time on the mountain, and a

smaller copy would be more easily carried. Needless to say, the

colporteur did not fail to bring some on his next trip, and now

many of the boys have their own, and frequently the hymnbook

which they treasure next is tied up with it.[91]

[Sidenote: Hymnbooks and singing.]

Korean boys are not the only ones who treasure the hymnbook and love

to learn and to sing Christian hymns. The missionary who can play and

sing, and the one who knows enough about music to translate hymns and

adapt tunes, has marvelous opportunities to work effectively among

children. Miss Ford’s experiences in Palestine illustrate the truth of

this:--

“I should like to say a word about the use of the organ. We are able

sometimes to have very large Moslem audiences in the villages. Scores

of boys will gather around to hear. When we propose to teach them a

hymn or chorus they eagerly agree to learn. The subject of the song is

always salvation in Jesus Christ, and the way of life is pointed out.

We often hear the children afterward singing these hymns in the

streets.... God has given us large numbers of little children to bring

to Him. They learn hymns and psalms, chapters of the Gospels, and

verses from the Bible with great facility, and they love to sing the

hymns. Now also we can use with profit, large, illustrated, highly

colored pictures of the life and teachings of our Lord, as well as Old

Testament stories.”[92]

[Sidenote: Obstacles to bringing children to Christ.]

Lest anyone be tempted to think that the work is always easy, that one

has but to sow the seed in order without further work and prayer to

reap a bountiful harvest, it is but fair to mention a few of the

obstacles that missionaries must constantly meet while trying to win

children to Christ. Heredity, age-long custom, superstition, fatalism,

the shackles of caste and prejudice, the home influences that so

quickly counteract what a child learns during a few brief hours at a

mission compound,--all these and many other hindrances must be

reckoned with and overcome. Miss Carmichael graphically describes some

of these experiences of effort and disappointment in India.

[Sidenote: Miss Carmichael on discouragements in India.]

“Often we hear people say how excellent it is, and how they never

worship idols now, but only the true God; and even a heathen mother

will make her child repeat its texts to you, and a father will tell

you how it tells him Bible stories; and, if you are quite new to the

work, you put it in the Magazine, and at home it sounds like

conversion. All this goes on most peacefully; there is not the

slightest stir, till something happens to show the people that the

doctrine is not just a creed, but contains a living Power. And then,

and not until then, there is opposition. In one village there was a

little Brahmin child who often tried to speak to us, but was never

allowed. One day she risked capture and its consequences, and ran

across the narrow stream which divides the Brahmin street from the

village, and spoke to one of our band in a hurried little whisper,

‘Oh, I do want to hear about Jesus!’ And she told how she had learned

at school in her own town, and then she had been sent to her

mother-in-law’s house in this jungle village, ‘that one,’ pointing to

a house where they never had smiles for us; but her mother-in-law

objected to the preaching, and had threatened to throw her down the

well if she listened to us. Just then a hard voice called her and she

flew. Next time we went to that village she was shut up somewhere

inside.”[93]

[Sidenote: “After many days.”]

Sometimes God grants that bread cast on the waters with loving, lavish

hand, is found again after many, many days. Often a Bible verse or the

words of a hymn, or the recollection of what was seen and heard in a

missionary home, has not been forgotten, and has borne fruit in after

life. “A rich Japanese silk merchant sent for the missionaries in his

town, and entertained them most hospitably. He told how as a child he

had attended a Sunday-School. ‘Very often,’ he said, ‘right in the

midst of my business the words of the hymn, “Jesus loves me, this I

know,” come to me, and, try as I may, I can’t get them out of my

mind.’ He then repeated the hymn from beginning to end, and added,

‘Though I have lived my life without religion, I feel that it is the

most important thing there is, and I want my little girl to be a

Christian; and it is for that purpose,’ he added emphatically, ‘that I

have placed her in the mission school, that she may become a

Christian.’”

[Sidenote: Ours is the greater privilege.]

Do we realize the privilege and opportunity that is ours to pray and

give and go, to send our money and our sons and daughters, that the

children of many Christless lands may learn to know and love and serve

the children’s Friend while they are young, and hearts and minds are

plastic and teachable? Have we as keen an insight into the great

truths of Christian privilege as had the little Chinese girl, who,

after being publicly baptized, was asked by her teacher, “Are you glad

of the privilege of attending a school where you can hear of the Lord

Jesus?” Quickly she responded, “Are _you_ not glad, teacher, that you

are in China, where you can teach of the Lord Jesus?”[94] Yes, ours is

the greater privilege, and we must see to it carefully that we do not

miss any part of the joy that the Master has in store for us. Our own

children are so cunning and lovable, so full of wonderful

possibilities, and in need of so much care and watchfulness, that it

is easy to forget the other children who also need our love and help.

In the Saviour’s eyes there is no difference,--He loves and cares for

_all_ children. Shall we imitate Him in this respect?

[Sidenote: A missionary’s dream.]

A weary missionary fell asleep, and as she slept she dreamed a dream.

A message had arrived that the Master was coming, and to her was

appointed the task of getting all the little children ready for His

arrival. So she arranged them on the benches, tier on tier, putting

the little white children on the first benches, nearest to where the

Master would stand, and then came the little yellow and red and brown

children and far back on the farthest benches sat the black children.

When they were all arranged, she looked, and it did not seem quite

right to her. Why should the black children be so far away? They ought

perhaps to be on the front benches. She started to rearrange them, but

just as all was in confusion, the children stirring around, and each

trying to find his proper place, footsteps were heard, and lo! it was

the Master’s tread, and He was coming before the children were ready.

Overcome with shame and confusion she hung her head. To think that the

task entrusted to her had not been accomplished in time! So she stood

while the footsteps drew nearer and nearer, till finally they paused

beside her, and she was obliged to look up. And lo! as she did so, and

her eyes rested on the children, all shades of color and difference

had vanished,--the little children in the Master’s presence were all

alike!

QUOTATIONS

A HEATHEN BABY

An English missionary in Swatow, China, heard sounds of bitter weeping

by the wayside one night. Looking for its source, he found a heathen

woman bowed over a child’s grave, upon which, according to the local

custom, lay an overturned cradle.

A heathen baby,--that is all;--

A woman’s lips that wildly plead;

Poor lips that never learned to call

On Christ, in woman’s time of need!

Poor lips, that never did repeat

Through quiet tears, “Thy will be done,”

That never knew the story sweet

Of Mary, and the Infant Son.

An emptied cradle, and a grave--

A little grave--cut through the sod;

O Jesus, pitiful to save,

Make known to her the mother’s God.

O Spirit of the heavenly Love,

Stir some dear heart at home today,

An earnest thought to lift above,

For mother-hearts so far away.

That all may know the mercy mild

Of Him who did the nurselings bless:

The heathen and the homeborn child

Are one in that great tenderness.

(Clara A. Lindsay in _Woman’s Work_.)

CASTE IN INDIA