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MISSIONARY SURVEY AS AN AID TO INTELLIGENT CO-OPERATION
IN FOREIGN MISSIONS

BY

ROLAND ALLEN, M.A.
SOMETIME S.P.G. MISSIONARY IN NORTH CHINA
AUTHOR OF "MISSIONARY METHODS, ST. PAUL'S OR OURS," ETC.

AND

THOMAS COCHRANE, M.B., C.M.
LATE PRINCIPAL OF UNION MEDICAL COLLEGE, PEKING, AND HON. SECRETARY
OF THE LAYMEN'S MOVEMENT, LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY

1920




PREFACE.


This book, written by Mr. Allen, bears both our names because we studied
the material together, and settled what should be included and what
excluded. We discussed and disputed, and finally found ourselves in
complete agreement. We therefore decided to issue the book in our joint
names, on the understanding that I should be allowed to disclaim the
credit for writing it. But the book would never have been written at all
save for the inspiration and help of Mr. S.J.W. Clark, who, in his
travels in nearly every mission field, has brought an unusually acute
mind, trained by a long business experience, to bear upon mission
problems, and has done more hard thinking on the question of survey than
any man we know.

Let anyone who doubts the need for survey study the present distribution
of missionary forces. He will find little evidence of any plan or
method. In one region of the world there are about four hundred and
fifty missionaries to a population of three millions, while in another
area with more than double the number of people, there are only about
twenty missionaries.

After travelling in the latter region I asked one of the senior workers
what in his opinion would be a large enough foreign staff, and he
indicated quite a moderate addition to the existing force. Suppose I had
suggested a total of a hundred missionaries, he would have declared the
number far too large. Perhaps he was too modest in his demands.
Conditions in one area differ from those in another. But such a wide
difference in distribution and in demands makes the need of survey to
ascertain facts and conditions absolutely imperative, especially when we
remember that to the force of four hundred and fifty in the territory
with the smaller population, missionaries will probably continue to be
added and unevangelised regions will have to wait.

After surveying one of the better staffed divisions of the mission
field, a missionary declared that not more missionaries were needed, but
a more effective use of the force at work; and fortunately in that
particular field central direction is beginning to secure that end. But
usually there is no central direction and no comparison of plans between
neighbouring missions on the field, although several missions may be
located in the same town or city; and two Mission Houses in London may
be almost next door neighbours, and may have missions in the same city
in the Far East, and may yet be entirely ignorant of each other's plans
for work in that city. They might be rival businesses guarding trade
secrets! Hence it is not strange that when late in the day a survey of a
city in China is made in which there are about two hundred missionaries,
it is found that not one of them is giving full time to evangelistic
work! Across the city of Tokyo a line could be drawn west of which all
the foreign workers live, while east of it there are nine hundred and
sixty thousand people without a single resident missionary!

But not only is intermission planning, based on survey, sadly lacking;
few missions have thoroughly surveyed their own fields and their own
work, and fewer still have surveyed them in relation to the work of
others. The result is that policies are adopted and staffs increased in
a way which--for all administrators know to the contrary--may be adding
weight where it should be diminished, and may be piling up expenditure
in the wrong place.

It should be pointed out, however, that survey is beginning to come into
its own. It is being more and more realised that it should be the basis
of all co-operative work, and the survey of China now nearing completion
places that country in a premier position as far as a foundation for
wise building is concerned. Recently in London, neighbouring Mission
Houses have been getting into touch with each other, and the Conference
of British Missionary Societies and the analogous body in America have
made conference between missions frequent and fruitful. But there is a
long way yet to travel before we can have that comprehensive planning
which the present world situation imperatively and urgently demands.

But just as neighbouring missions should get to know about each other's
work and plans in order that funds may be spent most effectively; so a
world survey is necessary if the command of Christ is to be adequately
obeyed. The unit is the world, and survey in patches may misdirect money
which would have been spent differently if the whole need had been
before the eyes of those who are charged with the responsibility of
administration.

We make bold to affirm that no Society can be sure that it is spending
the money entrusted to it wisely unless it has a satisfactory system of
survey in operation, a system which takes account not only of its own
work but also of the work of others. We go further and say that the
chances are the money is _not_ bringing the maximum return. When world
need is so vast it is time to challenge a reasoned contradiction of this
assertion. If each Society did what in justice to its constituency it
ought to do, a survey of an area such as a province or a country would
be an easy task, and a survey of the world would be neither difficult
nor expensive, and after all, until we know the whole, we cannot
intelligently administer the part.

The missionary enterprise waits for the men who will take the
comprehensive view and become leaders in the greatest and most
fundamental task of all time. Until these leaders appear, mission work,
for those who seek to understand it as a world enterprise, will, as a
layman said recently, remain worse than a jigsaw puzzle!

THOS. COCHRANE.




ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS.




CHAPTER I.

THE IMPORTANCE OF A DOMINANT PURPOSE.


The modern demand for intelligent co-operation
The same demand in relation to Foreign Missions
The need for a definition of purpose
The failure of our present reports in this respect
Is definition of purpose desirable?
It is necessary for formulation of policy
Societies with limited incomes cannot afford to pursue every good
  object
The admission of diverse purposes has blurred the purpose of Medical
  Missions
The admission of diverse purposes has confused the administration
  of Educational Missions
The admission of diverse purposes has distracted Evangelistic
  Missions
Hence the absence of unity in the work
Hence the tendency to support details rather than the whole
The need for a dominant purpose and expression of relations
The need for a statement of factors which govern action
The need for a missionary survey which expresses the facts in
  relation
This demand is not unreasonable




CHAPTER II.

PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS.


1. All survey is properly governed by the purpose for which it is
  made
The purpose decides what is to be included, what excluded
A scientific survey is a survey of selected factors
This is not to be confused with the collection of facts to prove a
  theory
The collection of facts is independent of the conclusions which may
  be drawn
2. The survey proposed is a missionary survey
The difference between medical and educational surveys and missionary
  survey
3. The survey proposed is designed to embrace the work of all
  Societies
4. Definition of aim necessarily suggests a policy
We have not hesitated to set out that policy
We make criticism easy
5. Survey should provide facts in relation to an aim, so as to guide
  action
6. Twofold aspect of survey--survey of state, survey of position
Survey is therefore a continual process
7. Possible objections to method proposed--
  (i) The information asked for statistical
  All business and organised effort is based on statistics
  Every Society publishes statistics
  (ii) The admission of estimates
  The value of estimates
  (iii) The difficulty of many small tables
  Why burden the missionary with the working out of proportions?
  The tables should assist the missionary in charge
  (iv) The objection that we cannot obtain all the information
  Partial knowledge the guide of all human action
  (v) The tables contain items at present unknown




CHAPTER III.

SURVEY OF THE STATION AND ITS DISTRICT.

The Work to be Done, and the Force to Do it.


We begin with survey of the station and its district
If the station exists to establish the Church in a definite area then
  we can survey on a territorial basis
The definition of the area involves a policy
I. When the area is defined we can distinguish work done and work to
    be done, in terms of cities, towns, and villages; in terms of
  population
  The meaning of "Christian constituency"
  The reasons for adopting it
  Example of table, and of the impression produced by it
  Example of value of proportions
  Tables of proportions
  The difficulty of procuring this information
  The value of the labour expended in procuring it
II. The force at work
  The permanent and transitory elements
  (a) The foreign force
  The use of merely quantitative expressions
  Such tables essential for deciding questions of reinforcement
  (b) The native force
  Reasons for putting total Christian constituency in the first place
  The Communicants. The paid workers. The unpaid workers
  The difficulty in this classification
  The interest of these tables lies in the proportions
  Summary
But we need to know something of capacity of the native force
  (1) Proportion of Communicants
  The importance of this proportion in itself
  In relation to the work to be done
  (2) Proportion of paid workers to Christian constituency and to
    Communicants
  The difficulty of appreciating the meaning of this proportion
  It must be checked by (a) the proportion of unpaid voluntary workers
  (b) The standard of wealth
  (3) The contribution to missionary work in labour and money
  (4) The literacy of the Christian constituency
  The importance of widespread knowledge of the Bible
  The importance of Christians having a wider knowledge than their
    heathen neighbours




CHAPTER IV.

THE EMPHASIS LAID UPON DIFFERENT TYPES OF WORK.


I. Work amongst men and women respectively
We first distinguish men, wives, and single women among the Foreign
  Missionaries
The reasons for applying the distinction between men and women to the
  Native Force
II. The different classes in the population chiefly reached by the
  mission
III The different races and religions
Emphasis upon one class or race or religion is no proper basis for
  adverse criticism of the mission
IV. The emphasis laid on evangelistic, medical, and educational work
  respectively
The difficulty of distinguishing medical, educational, and
  evangelistic missionaries
The reason why grades need not here be distinguished
V. Sunday Schools--
The diverse character of Sunday Schools
The table proposed




CHAPTER V.

THE MEDICAL WORK IN THE STATION DISTRICT.


The tendency to treat medical and educational work as distinct from
  evangelistic
Medical and educational boards and their surveys
The difficulty of determining the aim of the medical mission
First of medical missions as designed to meet a distinct medical need
Two tables designed to present the medical force in relation to area
  and population
The necessity of considering non-missionary medical work in this
  connection
The extent of the work done in the year
Then of the medical mission as designed to assist evangelistic work
  (i) The extent to which evangelists work with the medicals
  Caution as regards the use of this table
  (ii) The extent to which medicals assist the evangelists outside the
    institutions
  (iii) The extent to which the evangelistic influence of the hospital
    can be traced




CHAPTER VI.

EDUCATIONAL WORK IN THE STATION DISTRICT.


The difficulty of determining the aim of educational missions
The difficulty presented by different grades and standards
The reason for excluding Colleges and Normal Schools at this stage
First of the educational mission as designed to meet a distinct
  educational need
Two tables designed to present the educational work in relation to
  area and population
The necessity of considering non-missionary educational work
The existence of non-missionary schools may either increase the need
  for missionary schools or decrease it
The extent to which education is provided for the better educated and
  the more illiterate
The extent to which education is provided for boys and girls, for
  Christian and non-Christian scholars
The extent to which mission schools receive Government grants throws
  light on their character and purpose
The extent to which education is provided for illiterate adults
The importance of this
The importance of the distinction between Christians and
  non-Christians in this table
Then of the educational mission as designed to assist evangelistic
  work
  (i) The extent to which evangelists work with the educationalists in
    schools
  Caution needed in the use of this table
  (ii) The extent to which educationalists work with evangelists
    outside schools
  The importance of the work done by educationalists outside the
    schools
  (iii) The immediate evangelistic results of education given
  The difficulty
  The table proposed
  The support given by the Natives to medical and educational work




CHAPTER VII.

CO-OPERATION.


The importance of the relation between the different parts of the
  mission
The relations already expressed in earlier tables
The chief difficulty lies in the relationship between medicals
  and educationalists
The importance of medical work in schools
The table showing the work of medicals in connection with schools
The importance of educational work in hospitals
The table showing the work of educationalists in hospitals
Summary of co-operation between evangelists, medicals, and
  educationalists




CHAPTER VIII.

THE NATIVE CHURCH.


The end of the station, a Native Church
This end a condition into which the Church must be
  growing
Survey must therefore deal with the Native Church
The reason for beginning with self-support
The meaning of self-supporting Churches
In rare cases it means independence of external support
In most cases it means attainment of an arbitrary standard
In most cases it does not represent the power of the people to supply
  their own needs
In most cases it is not sure evidence of growing liberality
Nevertheless we must begin by considering the self-supporting
  Churches
We ask for proportion of self-supporting Churches
This will not reveal the power of the Churches to stand alone
We inquire then the proportion of inquirers in self-supporting
  Churches
We inquire then the proportion of unpaid workers in self-supporting
  Churches
Where self-supporting Churches are not recognised we inquire--

  (i) Power of Christians to conduct their own services
  (ii) Power to order Church government
  (iii) Power to provide expenses of Church organisation




CHAPTER IX.

SURVEY OF DISTRICTS WHERE TWO OR MORE SOCIETIES ARE AT WORK.
SURVEY OF MISSIONS WITH NO DEFINED DISTRICTS.


I. The possibility of united survey by missionaries of two or more
  Societies
  The evil of ignoring the work of others
  Survey is concerned with facts not with ecclesiastical prejudices
  The difficulty of obtaining the facts
  The use of estimates
II. The mission which has no defined district--A
general expression of the purpose of such a mission
  In its widest terms survey of the work of such a mission would
    involve survey of the whole state of society
  In its narrower terms it is survey of a mission establishing a Church
  In this case most of the preceding tables could be used, omitting
    proportions to area and population
  Then we could see force at work
  Then we could see forms of work
  Then we could place the mission in a survey of the Country




CHAPTER X.

SURVEY OF THE WORK IN A PROVINCE.


The mission station is not an isolated unit
The relationship of station with station is recognised
So the relationship of all missions in a country is recognised
We can then consider the work of a mission station in relation to all
  mission work done in the Province or Country
Considered in relation to the larger area, impressions produced by
  the earlier tables may have to be revised
The first necessity is to gain a view of the whole work in the
  Country
The difficulty presented by capitals and other large cities
I. The items proposed as necessary for such a general view--
  (1) The work to be done; a bare quantitative expression in terms of
    population, perhaps also in terms of cities, towns, and villages
    unoccupied
  This expression ought not to suggest that the work to be done is to
    be done by the foreigners
  (2) The Foreign Force at work in relation to the work to be done is
    larger than that presented by returns from all mission stations
  The Native Force also is more than the sum of the station district
  returns
  (3) Different forms of work; one table revealing proportion of
  Missionaries, Native Workers, Foreign Funds, and Native
  Contributions employed in different forms of work
  One table of results
  A serious flaw in this table
  (4) The extent to which different classes, etc., are reached. One
    table including the station returns with the addition of special
    missions which work among special classes in the whole Province or
    Country
  (5) Self-support. One table showing the relation of the native
    contribution to the total salaries of all paid native evangelistic
    workers
II. To this must be added tables of students in training for
  different forms of mission work
First the relative proportion of students in training for different
  types of work
Then of each more particularly--
  (1) Evangelistic
  Confusion of nomenclature prevents more than a rough classification
  (2) Educational: divided roughly into four classes
  (3) Medical: divided into three classes
  These tables are prophetic of line of advance in the near future
  The question of perseverance
III. Then the Educational Institutions excluded from the district
  survey must be added to the sum of the station returns to show the
  relation of the educational work to the population of the larger
  area
The importance of the relation of the higher to the lower grade
  institutions
The educational work of non-missionary agencies must also be
  considered
IV. Medical work needs only the addition of provincial hospitals and
  non-missionary medical work
V. Two other subjects claim attention here, literature and industrial
  work
The difficulty of dealing with literature. It needs special treatment
Two brief tables suggested
The difficulty of dealing with industrial work still greater
For industrial missions, other than those which are really
  educational, we suggest three tables
VI. Union work




CHAPTER XI.

THE RELATION OF THE STATION TO THE WORLD.


A world-wide work can only be conducted on world-wide principles
These world-wide principles must govern the work in every part,
  however small
No country, however large, can be an isolated unit from missionary
  point of view
How shall we gain a view of this large whole?
We suggest that four tables would suffice for our purpose:--
  (1) A table showing the force at work in relation to
    population
  (2) A table designed to reveal something of the
character and power of the force
  (3) A table showing the relative strength expended in evangelistic,
    medical, and educational work
  (4) A table showing the extent to which the native Christians support
    existing work
  This is only a tentative suggestion proposed to invite criticism




CHAPTER I.

THE IMPORTANCE OF A DOMINANT PURPOSE.


It is a marked characteristic of our age that every appeal for an
expression of energy should be an intellectual appeal. Emotional appeals
are of course made, and made with tremendous force, but, with the
emotional appeal, an emphasis is laid to-day upon the intellectual
apprehension of the meaning of the effort demanded which is something
quite new to us. Soldiers in the ranks have the objective of their
attack explained to them, and this explanation has a great influence
over the character and quality of the effort which they put forth.
Labourers demand and expect every day a larger and fuller understanding
of the meaning of the work which they are asked to perform. They need to
enjoy the intellectual apprehension of the larger aspects of the work,
and the relation of their own detailed operations to those larger
aspects; and it is commonly recognised that the understanding of the
meaning and purpose of the detail upon which each operative may be
engaged is a most powerful incentive to good work. In the past leaders
relied more upon implicit, unreasoning obedience, supported often by
affection for the leader's own character, and profound trust in his
wisdom, and a general hope of advantage for each individual who carried
out orders unhesitatingly and exactly; but they did not think it
necessary, or even desirable, that the common workers should understand
their plans and act in intelligent co-operation with them: to-day,
intelligent co-operation is prized as it has never been prized before,
and its value is realised as it has never been realised before.

If this is true in the world of arms, of labour, of commerce, it is
equally true in the world of foreign missions. The common worker, the
subscriber, the daily labourer, is beginning to demand that he shall be
allowed to take an intelligent part in the work, and missionary leaders
are beginning to see the importance of securing intelligent
co-operation. In the past the appeal has been rather to blind obedience,
and immense stress has been laid upon the "command"; the appeal has been
to the emotions, and love for Christ, love for the souls of men, hope
of eternal blessings, hope of the coming of the Kingdom, and (for
direction of the work) trust in the wisdom of great missionary leaders
or committees, have been thought sufficient to inspire all to put forth
their best efforts; but to-day, as in the labour world, as in commerce,
as in the army, so in the world of missions, the intellect is taking a
new place. Men want to understand why and how their work assists towards
the attainment of the goal, they want to know what they are doing, they
want to understand the plan and to see their work influencing the
accomplishment of the plan.

It is no doubt true that the demand for intelligent co-operation, both
on the part of the subscribers and workers on the one side and of the
great leaders and boards of directors on the other, is at present
slight, weak, uncertain and hesitating; but it is already beginning to
make itself felt, and must increase. Certainly it is true that the
support of a very large body of men is lost because they have never yet
been able to understand the work of foreign missions. They are
accustomed in their daily business to "know what they are driving at,"
and to relate their action to definite ends; and they have not seen
foreign missions directed to the attainment of definite ends. They have
not seen in them any clear dominant purpose to which they could relate
the manifold activities of the missionaries whom they were asked to
support; and they cannot give to the vague and chaotic that support
which they might give to work which they saw clearly to be directed to
the attainment of a great goal which they desired by a policy which they
understood. The attitude of these men is the attitude of those who await
an intelligent appeal to their intelligence.

For a true understanding of foreign missions it is necessary first that
their aim and object should be clearly defined. Without such a
definition intelligent co-operation is impossible. Unless the objective
is understood men cannot estimate the value of their work. They cannot
trace progress unless they can see clearly the end to be attained; they
cannot zealously support action unless they are persuaded that the
action is truly designed to attain the defined end. There may indeed be
many subordinate objects, and men may be asked to work for the
attainment of any one of these, but there ought to be one final end and
purpose which governs all, and intelligent co-operation involves the
appreciation of the relation between the subordinate and the final end.
Consequently if many objects are set before us, as they are in our
foreign missions, it is essential that these many purposes and objects
should be presented to us not simply as ends to be attained, but in
their relation to one another and in their relation to the final end
which the directors of our missions have clearly before their eyes.

Now it is just at this point that we fail to attain satisfaction. All
societies publish reports and statistics, but the reports and statistics
do not provide us with any clear and intelligible account of progress
towards any definite end. They seem rather designed to attract and to
appeal to our sympathy than to satisfy our intelligence. They set before
us all kinds of work unrelated, indefinite, changeable, and changing
from year to year, as though the compilers selected from the letters of
missionaries any striking statements which they thought would attract
support in themselves and by themselves. No goal is set before us, and
the progress towards that goal steadily traced from year to year; still
less is the relation between the different methods and means employed to
attain each subordinate objective expressed so that we can see, not
only what progress each is making towards its own immediate end, but
what is the effective value of all together towards the attainment of a
final end to which they all contribute.

But would not the definition of one great end or purpose hinder us? Are
not all the great ends which we set before ourselves indefinite enough
to include a host of different and mutually separate and even
occasionally incompatible subsidiary objects, aims, and methods? Would
not the rigid definition of the aim of our foreign missions, by
excluding a great many legitimate aims and methods, weaken and beggar
our missions, which are strong in proportion as they admit all sorts of
different aims and methods? There are men who speak and act as if they
thought so, and in consequence welcome as a proper part of the
missionary programme all Christian, social, and political activities.
_Anything_, they think, which makes for the amelioration of life,
_everything_ which tends to enlighten and uplift the bodies, the souls,
and the minds of men, is a proper object for the missionary to pursue,
and the missionary should assist every movement towards a higher life in
the heathen community as well as in the Christian, and should introduce
every method and plan, industrial, social, or political, literary, or
artistic, which tends to ennoble the life of men. It may be so. It may
be true that the introduction of everything which tends to uplift and
enlighten is a proper object for missionary activity, but we venture to
argue not all at once, in the same place, nor even any one of them at
the whim of any missionary at any time, anywhere. Nor all in the same
order. There is a more and a less important. And we do urge that if we
are to take an intelligent part in foreign missions and to give those
missions intelligent support, we must know what is the more important
and what the less. We are told that the duty of the foreign mission is
to bring all nations into the obedience of Christ, and that "all the
nations" means all the people of all the nations, and all the
capacities, powers, and activities of all the people of all the nations,
individually and collectively, and that any work which tends to bring
any part of the collective action of any non-Christian people under the
direction of Christian principles is, therefore, the proper work of the
missionary, and that the most important is the particular social,
industrial, or political scheme which the missionary who is addressing
us believes to be the pressing need of the moment in his district.

So long as foreign missions are presented to us in that way, so long as
any mission may serve any purpose, we cannot possibly take any
intelligent share in foreign missions as a whole. We are lost. We cannot
co-ordinate in thought the activities of the missions, as we see plainly
that they are not co-ordinated in action in the field itself. And it is
practically impossible for us to imagine that the missions are directed
on any thought-out policy, because a policy seems to involve necessarily
the sub-ordination of the aim deemed to be less important to another
which is deemed to be more important, and the less or the more must
depend, not upon personal predilections, but upon closeness of relation
to some one dominant idea; and, therefore, the definition of the
dominant idea is the first necessity for the establishment of a
reasonable missionary policy.

To some minds the idea of a policy in connection with missions seems to
be abhorrent; but can a society with an income of something between half
and a quarter of a million pounds, or even less, afford to aim at every
type and form of missionary activity? Is it not necessary that it
should know and express to itself, to its missionaries, and to its
supporters what forms of activity it deems essential, what less
important, what aims it will pursue with all its strength, and what it
will refuse to pursue at all? It cannot afford to pursue every good or
desirable object which it may meet in its course. It must have a
dominant purpose which really controls its operations, and forces it to
set aside some great and noble actions because they are not so closely
related to the dominant purpose as some other.

A society with the limited resources which most of us lament cannot do
everything. In medicine it cannot afford to aim at a strictly
evangelistic use of its medical missions and at a use which is not
strictly evangelistic. We hear men talk sometimes as if it were the
business of a missionary society to undertake the task of healing the
physical afflictions of the people almost in the same sense as it is the
business of a missionary society to seek to heal their souls. We hear
them talk sometimes as if it was the duty of a missionary society to
supplant the native medical practice by western medical science as
surely as it is their business to supplant idolatry by the preaching of
Christ. And the tolerance of these ideas has certainly influenced the
direction of missions. The evangelistic value of medical missions has
not been the one dominant directing principle in their administration,
and the consequences have been confusion of aim and waste of power. Nor
has any other dominant purpose taken control; no other purpose,
philanthropic, social, or economic, ever will take control so long as
the vast majority of the supporters of foreign missions are people whose
one real desire is the salvation of men in Christ. But the admission of
another purpose has blurred the aim.

Because they have been pioneers in education, missions earn large praise
and not in-considerable support from governors and philanthropists; but
they have sometimes paid for these praises and grants dearly in
confusion of aim. Many of them started with the intention of relating
their educational work very closely to their evangelistic work; but
because the evangelistic idea was not dominant, a government grant
sometimes led the educational mission far from its first objective.
Similarly, the establishment of great educational institutions altered
the whole policy of a mission over very large areas, because no dominant
purpose controlled the action of the mission authorities. The
institutions demanded such large support, financial and personal, that
when once they had been founded they tended to draw into themselves a
very large proportion of the best men who joined the mission. In this
way a great educational institution has often altered the policy of a
mission to an extent which its original founders never anticipated, and
a mission which was designed primarily to be an evangelistic mission has
been compelled not only to check advance, but even to withdraw its
evangelistic workers and to close its outstations. But that was not the
intention of the founders of the institution. The difficulty arose
because there was no dominant purpose which governed the direction of
the mission. There was no purpose so strong and clear that it could
prevent the foundation of, or close when founded, an institution which
was leading it far from its primary object.

Again it is notorious that what we call the work of the evangelistic
missionary is so manifold and variegated that it includes every kind of
activity, every sort of social and economic reform. Our evangelistic
missionaries are busy about everything, from itinerant preaching to the
establishment of banks and asylums. Can we afford it? What purpose is
dominant, what aim really governs the policy of those who send out
evangelistic missionaries? What decides the form of their work and the
method by which they pursue it? It is hard to guess, it is hard to
discover, it is hard to understand.

Now when our missions are presented to us and we are asked to support
them on all sorts of grounds, as though a society with its slight funds
could really successfully practise every kind of philanthropic work, we
begin to doubt whether it can really be wisely guided. Each mission
station, each institution, seems to be an isolated fragment. The
missionary in charge often appeals to us as an exceedingly good and able
man, and we support him, and we support the society which sends him and
others like him. And we call this the support of foreign missions; but
foreign missions as a unity we do not support because we can see no
unity. The directors of foreign missions appear not to have hitched
their wagon to a star, but rather to all the visible stars, and we
cannot tell whither they are going. So we fall back on the individual
missionary, or the isolated mission which at any rate for the moment
seems to have an intelligible objective.

Hence the common conception of missionary work as small. We look at the
parts, and the smallest parts, because our minds instinctively seek a
unity, and only in the parts do we find a unity, nor there often, unless
we concentrate our attention on one aspect of the work. But by thinking
of foreign missions in this small way and speaking of them in this small
way, we alienate men who are accustomed to think in large terms of large
undertakings designed on large policies.

What we need to-day is to understand foreign missions as a whole. We
want to take an intelligent part in them viewed as a unity. We want to
know what is the grand objective and how the parts are related to that
end. We do not want merely to support this mission because this
missionary appeals to us; we want to know what dominant purpose governs
the activities of the different societies, directs, and controls them,
deciding what work good and excellent in itself the mission cannot
afford to undertake, what it can and must do with the means at its
disposal in order to attain an end which it has deliberately adopted.

We need more, we need to know on what principles the missionaries are
sent here or there. We need to know what facts must be taken into
consideration before any mission, evangelistic, educational, or medical,
is planted in any place, what facts decide the question whether work is
begun, or reinforcements sent, to this place rather than to that. It is
not enough to be assured that there is a need. There is need everywhere.
We cannot supply all need; but we can have some settled and clear
judgment what facts ought to weigh with us, what information we must
possess before we can decide properly whether the claim of this place is
more urgent than the claim of that. We ought to have same basis of
comparison. The mere appeal of an earnest and devoted man, the mere
clamour of a body of men, the mere insistence of a persevering man, is
not sufficient to guide us aright. The mere offer of some supporter to
provide a building ought not to suffice. Acceptance of the offer may
alter the whole balance and character of the mission. We ought to know
what facts must be considered and how.

We need therefore a reasoned statement of the work of our foreign
missions expressed as a unity, which sets forth the work actually done
in different departments showing their relation one to another and the
relation of all to a dominant object. In other words, what we need is a
survey of the missionary situation in the world in terms of these
relationships.

It may be said that such a claim is outrageous and impossible; but we
are persuaded that with our present enlightenment, with the means of
knowledge which we now possess, we could, if we thought it worth while,
lay our hands on the necessary information. Our firm conviction is that,
if we did that, and set out the results of our examination in a form
intelligible to thoughtful laymen, we should obtain the support of a
great number of men to whom foreign missions at present appear as
nothing but the ill-organised, fragmentary and indefinite efforts of
pious people to propagate their peculiar schemes for the betterment of
humanity. Without some such statement we do not know how anyone can take
an intelligent, though he may take a sentimental, interest in foreign
missions.




CHAPTER II.

PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS.


1. We need a survey of the missionary situation in the world which will
express the facts in terms of the relationships between the different
missionary activities and between them all in relation to a dominant
idea or purpose. Such a survey is strictly scientific. All scientific
survey is properly governed by the end or purpose for which it is made.

It is this purpose or end which decides what is to be included and what
is to be excluded from the survey. If, for instance, we are making a
survey of the acoustic properties of church buildings in England, it is
not scientific to introduce questions as to the character of the gospel
preached in them. A scientific survey is not necessarily a collection of
all possible information about any people or country; that is an
encyclopaedia; a scientific survey is a survey of those facts only which
throw light on the business in hand. A scientific survey of foreign
missions ought not then necessarily to look at the work carried on from
"every point of view". The point of view must be defined, the end to be
served defined, and then only those factors which throw light upon that
end have any place in a scientific survey. We cannot be too clear about
this, because in survey of a work so vast and so many sided as foreign
missions we might easily include every human activity, unless we defined
beforehand the end to be served and selected carefully only the
appropriate factors. Carefully defined, missionary survey is not the
unwieldy, amorphous thing which people often imagine. There is indeed a
dangerous type of survey which starting with a hypothesis proceeds to
prove it by collecting any facts which seem to support it to the neglect
of all other facts which might disprove it. The procedure advocated here
is the adoption of a definite and acknowledged purpose for which the
survey is to be made and the collection of all the facts which bear upon
the subject in hand. The facts are selected, but they are selected not
by the prejudices or partiality of the surveyor, but by their own innate
and inherent relationship to the subject.

A scientific survey can only be a collection of facts; but inferences
will certainly be drawn from the facts which will direct the policy of
those who administer foreign missionary societies. The drawing of these
inferences from the material collected must be carefully distinguished
from the collection of the material (i.e. the making of the survey). The
latter precedes the former and is independent of it. Inferences hastily
drawn, or prematurely adopted, would only tend to discredit missionary
survey as a means to the attainment of truth. The adoption of a
hypothesis and the making of a survey in order to prove it by a careful
selection and manipulation of facts would not discredit survey as a
means to the attainment of truth; it would only discredit and debase the
moral character of the man who made such a survey.

2. The survey here treated of is missionary survey, that is to say, it
treats of missions and is governed by a missionary purpose. And it is a
survey of Christian missions; therefore it is governed by the purpose of
spreading the knowledge of Christ. This statement is of great importance
and needs to be carefully conned before it is accepted, because by it
missionary survey will be distinguished from all other survey. For
instance, medical boards survey medical institutions. Their sole
concern is whether those institutions are well found and efficient.[1]
But when a missionary surveys a missionary hospital (if the principle
which we propound is accepted), he surveys it not _qua_ medical
establishment but _qua_ missionary utensil. The object is not to find
out the medical efficiency of the hospital, but its missionary
effectiveness. It may be answered that a medically inefficient hospital
cannot be truly effective from a missionary point of view. That may be
true; but it is not certainly true. Whether it is true or not, that does
not alter the fact that an efficient medical establishment is not
necessarily effective from a missionary point of view; it is not
necessarily either missionary or Christian at all. Then to survey
medical missions simply as medical institutions is to ignore their real
significance. Missionary survey must relate the information asked for to
the missionary purpose; and unless it is so related the survey is a
medical survey, not a missionary survey. The same holds good of
educational work, and of pastoral work.

[Footnote 1: We could produce surveys of medical and educational mission
work which are essentially of this character, dealing solely with
medical and educational efficiency.]

3. The survey here proposed is designed for all societies so far as the
societies can be persuaded to supply the information. It would perhaps
be more simple to provide statistical returns for one society of which
the ecclesiastical organisation is known and the ecclesiastical terms
used consequently fixed. But survey of the work of a society, invaluable
and necessary as that is for a society, is not sufficient by itself. It
is essential to-day that we should be able to place our work in the
world in relation to all the missionary work done. We can no longer
afford to ignore the work of others and to plan our missions as though
other missions did not exist. As we try to point out from time to time
no society can act rightly in ignorance of another's work. Therefore we
have attempted to design a survey which would show what is the work of
any mission in such a form that its work can be related in some sort to
the missionary work of all, and not only to the other missions of its
own society.

4. Seeing that all survey is scientifically governed by the object for
which it is made, it is essential that in a survey such as we propose
the end for which it is made should be stated in each case as clearly
and definitely as possible. This involves often such a definition of
the end as implies a certain missionary policy. Realising this, we have
not hesitated to set forth the policy implied in the terms which we use
and the questions which we ask.[1] We are well aware that this lays us
open to attack from men who may question the policy and dispute the
value of the survey. It would be far more easy to set down simply the
facts which we think any true survey should contain, leaving them
unrelated to one another, so that no one could tell exactly what we were
driving at. This is the common plan. Men say they want to know the facts
of the missionary situation, any facts, all facts, indiscriminately, and
they draw up a list of all the facts that they can think of and issue a
_questionnaire_ which leaves the compiler of the answers in complete
ignorance concerning the purpose of the questions. Such heaps of
information might be used anyhow if they were really complete; but in
fact since they have not been designed for any definite use they are
generally deficient for any definite use, and remain mere masses of
information on which no true judgments can be based. So far from
revealing the missionary situation they obscure it. We have, therefore,
taken the risk of explaining why we want each piece of information, how
we think it might be used, and have drawn our tables in such a form that
it is actually seen at work. By so doing we open the door at once, both
for intelligent co-operation and intelligent opposition. We frankly make
criticism easy; we invite it; for we believe that frank criticism on the
basis of agreed facts is extremely fruitful.

[Footnote 1: It does not follow that we approve the policy implied.]

We may well acknowledge that the aim which above all others has appealed
to us is the aim of the establishment in the world of a Christian
Church, native, indigenous, living, self-supporting, self-governing,
self-extending, independent of foreign aid. That has no doubt coloured
our work and will perhaps render it less acceptable to some; for the
facts which must be included in a survey which accepts that aim are
precisely the facts which societies do not now tabulate and are often
estimated with some difficulty.

But though this thought has inevitably governed our conception of survey
and we have made no attempt to conceal it, we have nevertheless tried to
avoid the danger of selecting for survey only those facts which might
serve to support a theory of the method by which that aim is to be
attained; and we have kept in our minds constantly the needs of men
whose idea of the aim of foreign missions differs from our own.

5. Missionary survey must justify itself by assisting definitely and
clearly those who make it and those who have to direct and support
missionary work in all parts of the world. The first question which we
ought to answer in every case where our help is asked is this: "What do
we want to do? What is our purpose in doing anything at all here?" The
second question is: "What must we know to enable us to act discreetly
and wisely in this case? What facts are properly to be taken into
account in this matter?" The first question is the question of aim, the
second is the question of relation. Suppose we say that we want to send
our missionaries where they are most needed, what information must we
have to direct us? First we must know what we mean by need, what kind of
need we are to put first in our thoughts; that is the question of
definition of aim. Then, how shall we decide where that need is greatest
at the present time, for us, that is, within our possibility of active
assistance; that is the question of relation. The facts of need as we
define it must be related and compared. The survey of which we speak as
necessary for an intelligent understanding of foreign missions must
provide these facts in a form easily grasped and understood and compared
for different countries and districts, so that those who direct action
and those who support the action may be able to do so with reason, not
being guided merely by the most influential voice or the loudest shout.

6. To serve this purpose survey must have twofold aspect. It must be a
review of the present state of the work, it must also be a review of the
present position of the work. It is a review of the state of the work,
the stations, the converts, the Church; it is a review of the position,
the progress made compared with the work to be done. But the state
varies, the position changes, and action must be taken continually.

The survey, therefore, should be not simply a single act but a continual
process. Mission work is not a task which can be undertaken and finished
on a predetermined plan, like the construction of a railway. It is a
task the conditions of which vary from time to time, and consequently
plans and policies and methods must vary, and this variation can only
be rational if it is determined by recognition of the changing
circumstances, and the change of circumstances can only be understood
and appreciated if the survey of missions is a continuous process kept
constantly up to date. It is a form of mission history in which the
omission of a few years may break the connection of the whole narrative.

7. (i) It may perhaps cause surprise to some that the information for
which we ask is mainly such as can be expressed in a statistical form.
But the fact remains that all statesmanship (and foreign missions
involve large elements of statesmanship), and all organised effort (and
foreign missions are highly organised), is in the world always based
either upon carefully compiled statistics, or upon guess work; and that
the business which is directed by guess work does not enjoy the same
confidence as the business which is directed by knowledge derived from
carefully compiled statistics.

Take, for example, this extract from a letter written by a firm in the
United States of America which deals with candy securities:--

The candy business, the history of which shows a remarkable record of
freedom from failure, is to-day enjoying unparalleled prosperity, and
there is every reason to believe that the present high earnings of all
the large candy concerns in the United States will continue
indefinitely. Those fortunate enough to hold shares in well-established
candy manufacturing concerns may expect, therefore, to enjoy larger
earnings than could reasonably be expected from funds placed in most
other enterprises. _Prohibition is proving a tremendous factor in
increasing candy sales. Best estimates show that the American public is
now spending between $800,000,000 and $1,000,000,000 annually for
candy_. ---- & Co. are specialists in the candy and sugar securities. We
maintain a statistical department, and endeavour to furnish information
concerning all of the prominent issues based on these industries. You
are invited to avail yourself of this service, and if you are interested
in any candy or sugar stock, we will be pleased to have you confer with
us. This department now has in preparation an analysis of the candy and
sugar situation as it exists to-day in the United States. Interesting
data is also being collected from most reliable sources, giving figures
and statistics for the world. The number of copies which we are
preparing for general distribution is limited. If you will sign the
enclosed card, and return it to us, we will take pleasure in extending
to you the courtesy of a copy of this analysis free of charge.

When individuals work individually, for themselves, as they please,
statistics are only necessary for the onlooker who wants to compare
individual effort with individual effort; the individuals who want to
make no comparison of their own work with that of others, nor to keep
any record of the progress of their work, need keep no statistics; but
societies always want to keep a record of their work, and that record
must be largely statistical.

It is vain to attack statistics to-day. Every society publishes
statistical sheets. Every society by publishing them shows that it
recognises the value of statistics. The difficulty to-day is not that
the societies do not publish statistics, but that the statistics which
they publish are not related to any aim or purpose, and do not include
factors or standards which enable us to measure progress.

(ii) It may also cause surprise that we ask for estimates in some cases
where exact information is not immediately accessible. It may be said
that statistics are misleading, but estimates are hopelessly misleading:
let us have correct figures or none. That attitude is easily understood,
but under the circumstances it is vain. "Correct figures," that is,
meticulously exact figures, are unattainable. An estimate is in nearly
all matters of daily life and business the basis, and rightly the basis,
of our action. It will be noticed that in that letter which we quoted
above concerning the statistics of the candy trade in the United States
of America, estimates had a place, and foreign missions involve matters
about which "correct figures" are more difficult to obtain than the
candy business. An estimate carefully made and understood, a deliberate
statement expressed in round numbers, is not unscientific: it is only
unscientific to mistake such figures for what they do not profess to be.
When men object that the figures are not exact, if the figures do not
profess to be exact, it is the objector who is unscientific, not the
statistics.

Nevertheless, we must acknowledge that the admission of estimates and
round figures does open the door to serious error. Men will be tempted
to mistake an estimate for a guess. An estimate is a statement for which
reasons can be given, a guess is--a mere guess. The great safeguard
against guesses, as against all slipshod statistical entries, is the
assurance that the statements made will be used. At present missionary
statistics are untrustworthy mainly because so few people use them, and
consequently those who supply them do not feel the need of revising them
carefully.

Furthermore, it is important to bear in mind that the field for estimate
in statistics of the kind proposed is limited; it only embraces figures
for which exact totals are unobtainable, for instance, area, population,
and figures of societies which refuse to give statistics, etc., and in
every case precision in these statistics is not of vital importance.

(iii) The main difference between our tables and those of others is that
we make them very small and express in each a relation. The figures
supplied by the societies in their reports are seldom related to
anything; they are mere bundles of sticks; we suggest the introduction
of a relation into every table which gives to each figure a significance
which by itself it does not possess. In our tables every figure is set
to work. Our idea of missionary statistics demands that they should be a
basis for action. We think that it is waste of time to collect
statistics from which no conclusion can be certainly drawn both by the
compiler and the reader--a conclusion which ought to be suggestive when
taken alone by itself, and, when considered in relation to the
conclusions suggested by similar tables, compelling.

But it may be said that we are adding to the already overwhelming burden
of accounts and reports over which missionaries toil to the great
detriment of their proper work. The tables in this book are arranged
apparently for the worker on the spot as well as for the intelligent
supporter and director at home; why multiply tables and trouble the
missionary with the sums of proportion? Why not ask the man there simply
to give the necessary facts and then let the man at home work out for
special purposes the various relations? The answer is simple: we
ourselves have been asked to fill up long schedules of unrelated facts;
and we know that the labour is intolerable. The supply of unrelated,
meaningless facts dulls and wearies the brain. Few men can do the work
with pleasure or profit, and consequently the schedules are often filled
up, not indeed with deliberate carelessness, but with that heavy
painfulness which, taking no interest in the work, often produces as
pitiful a result as downright carelessness. "Thou shalt not muzzle the
ox that treadeth out the corn" is a maxim which has a great application
here. The man who provides the information should be the first to profit
by it and to be interested in it. The first man to criticise these
tables should be the missionary who fills them up on the spot; and his
most valuable criticism might be a demonstration that the last column in
a table was futile; that the table led him to no conclusions and
suggested no remarks. That column of conclusions and remarks we hold to
be the most precious of them all. We would have no man supply
meaningless information. Only, we believe, when the information is of
vital importance and interest to the man who supplies it will it be
supplied carefully, correctly, willingly, and above all, intelligently.
We venture to hope that our tables may be one step towards the day when
the supply of statistical information by the missionary will cease to be
mere drudgery.

(iv) Seeing that the missionary task is essentially world-wide, it is
obvious that a world-wide work cannot be properly directed without a
world-wide view. Now, missionary survey is in its infancy, and in most
parts of the world it has yet to be begun. A full and complete
missionary survey of the whole world would necessarily be a considerable
undertaking, for many important facts could not be easily or quickly
collected. There is then a strong tendency for men to argue that, since
all the facts desirable cannot be known at once without much time and
expense, it is futile and dangerous to collect those facts which can be
collected speedily without great expense. A little knowledge, they say,
is a dangerous thing ... let us remain ignorant.

We would venture to suggest that a little knowledge is only dangerous
when it is mistaken for much knowledge; that it is far better to act on
knowledge which can be obtained than to act in total ignorance, blindly.
Where we must act it is our duty to know all that we can know, and if,
because we cannot collect all the information that we should wish to
possess, we refuse to collect that information which we can obtain,
because we realise that it will be incomplete, we commit a serious moral
and intellectual crime. If we can know only one factor out of one
hundred, we offend if we refuse to know that one. We must act. We have
no right to shut our eyes to knowledge which ought to guide our action
because we are aware that action taken on that one factor will be
insufficiently guided. The one factor is an important one and must
influence our action, and would influence our action if we knew all the
other factors. We ought to allow it to influence our action even in
ignorance of the other factors.

In daily life we habitually act on partial knowledge, and we should
think that man mad who urged us to refuse to be guided by our partial
knowledge until our knowledge was complete; we should think a man mad
who, being under necessity to act, refused to know what he could know,
because he was aware that fuller knowledge might lead him to modify his
action. Now missionaries and missionary societies are acting and must
act, and the refusal to collect the information which they can obtain is
as culpable as the ignorance of a man who refuses to attend to the one
word "poison" printed on the label of a bottle which he can read,
because he cannot read the name of the stuff written on the label.

Yet it is very commonly argued that unless survey can be made complete,
unless, that is, every factor which we can think of as exercising an
influence on our action is duly weighed, it is futile to survey the
larger, commoner, and more easily accessible factors. This objection
recurs again and again, and unless it can be put out of the way it must
prejudice missionary survey. It would be wise, it would be right, to
collect information on only one point, if that were all that we could
do. It would be better than to rest content with total ignorance.
Nevertheless, when anyone collects with care statistics on any
particular point, he is certain to meet the objection that his labour
ought to be ignored because he has not collected information about
something else. As if total ignorance were preferable to partial
knowledge! Is there any answer to the argument, that "Where ignorance is
bliss 'tis folly to be wise," when supported by "A little knowledge is a
dangerous thing," other than Dr. Arnold's maxim, "Where it is our duty
to act it is also our duty to learn"?

(v) We have not been careful to avoid asking for details of which we are
well aware that the statistics do not now exist. We have thought it our
duty rather to point out the information necessary for arriving at right
conclusions than to mislead our readers by pretending that it is
possible to form judgments and act properly without taking the trouble
to collect information which is really necessary. This is no
contradiction of the argument which we set forth that partial
information is better than none, but it does warn the surveyor that
blanks in the forms leave him not fully equipped, and that steps ought
to be taken to secure information without which his conclusions are
uncertain.




CHAPTER III.

STATION DISTRICT SURVEY.

THE WORK TO BE DONE, AND THE FORCE TO DO IT.


Missionary work is presented to us here at home mainly at two points;
the one, work at a mission station, the other, the condition and needs
of a country or of a continent. In the one case we hear a great deal
about the missionary's life and work; in the other we hear about great
problems, religious, moral, social, and very little about the facts of
the work.

We propose to begin with the mission station and to set down the
information which we need, in order that we may take an intelligent
interest in the work at the station, viewed by itself, as progress is
made towards the immediate object of its existence; and then we propose
to look at it in relation to other stations in the province or country,
both comparatively to see how they differ, and as parts of a whole, to
see what is the position of the Church in the province or country, and
what place each station occupies in the work done in the larger whole.

When we look at the mission station viewed by itself, the first question
which we ask is: Has the station any defined area, district, or parish,
connected with it in which it is the business of the missionaries to
preach the Gospel and establish the Church? If the answer to that
question is, "Yes, it has," and that answer would very commonly be
given, then at once we get our feet on firm ground. We can start our
survey on a territorial basis; and with a common territorial basis we
can immediately compare the work of one station with that done at
another station. We have further a _terminus ad quem_, and in our survey
we can tell whether progress is in that direction and how rapid it is.

We can do this, because the definition of a parish or district implies
the recognition on the part of those who define the parish or district,
of the purpose, if not the duty, of preaching the Gospel and
establishing the Church in the area of that parish or district. The mere
definition of the area, therefore, implies a policy for the mission
which defines the area and for the station for which the area is
defined. For such a station, therefore, we design our first survey, the
object of the survey being to discover how far the work of the station
is succeeding in performing the task which it obviously undertook when
it accepted the definition of area.

1. We begin then by surveying the position of the work in the station
district extensively: we ask--What is the relation between the work done
and the work remaining to be done? We ask this question in two forms;
first, in terms of the cities, towns, and villages which lie in the
station area, and secondly, in terms of population. We ask the question
in this double form because we believe that by this means the surveyor
will obtain a clear view of the situation and will be able easily to see
what has been done in relation to the work yet to be done, and it is the
relation of those two that is most illuminating. If these tables were
constantly revised the progress of the work could be traced from year to
year easily and helpfully. Put side by side they illuminate each other,
and each affords a check upon the other. Progress in numbers in
proportion to population and progress in the number of places occupied
should often properly advance side by side. Progress in numbers in
proportion to population without any increase in the number of places
occupied may often occur; progress in the number of places occupied
without a corresponding increase of the Christian population in
proportion to the non-Christian population may also occur, and each must
give the missionary food for thought. The tables are simple, dealing
with bare numerical proportions:--

-------------------------------------------------------------------
         |       |             |  Number of|  Number of |
         |       |   Date of   |  Occupied |  Unoccupied|  Work to
District.|  Area.|   Foundation|  Cities,  |  Cities,   |  be Done.
         |       |  of Station.|    Towns, |  Towns,    |
         |       |             |  Villages.|  Villages. |
-------------------------------------------------------------------
         |       |             |           |            |
_________|_______|_____________|___________|____________|__________


By "occupied" we mean places where there are resident Christians, few or
many.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
   Total   |    Total      |     Total      |Work to   |  Remarks
Population.|   Christian   |  Non-Christian | be Done. |      and
           | Constituency. | Constituency.  |          |Conclusions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
           |               |                |          |
___________|_______________|________________|__________|____________

By _Christian Constituency_ we mean the total number of people who call
themselves Christian in the area in question. They may not be baptised,
they may be mere inquirers or hearers; but if asked their religion they
would call themselves Christians rather than anything else.

The reasons why we adopt this extremely wide expression are: (1) Some
societies, whose members are undeniably Christian in morals and thought,
do not baptise adults; many societies do not baptise infants; yet these
unbaptised people are certainly not heathen; they certainly do not
belong to any other religious organisation than the Christian. Again,
some societies baptise very much more freely than others, and count as
members large numbers of people whom other societies would consider to
be in the position of inquirers or hearers. Consequently any just
comparison between different areas in which different societies are
working is impossible unless a very wide expression is employed, and a
very wide interpretation given to it.

(2) The Christian cause, both for good and evil, is largely influenced
by the existence of these unbaptised. They are called Christian, they
are considered to be such by their heathen neighbours, they suffer
persecution often with the other Christians when any outbreak occurs.
Their numbers and conduct exercise a wide influence in the society in
which they live, for or against the progress of the Christian faith.

(3) The attitude of these people to the Christian missionary is quite
different from that of the heathen. They acknowledge Christ as the one
Divine Teacher and Lord. The missionary cannot count them as belonging
to the heathen; he cannot approach them as the teacher of a new
religion. He must approach them as an exponent of the religion which
they already profess. However inadequate and confused their ideas about
Christian theology and practice may be, they expect to receive from a
Christian teacher instruction in their own religion, and that religion
is a religion common to him and to them. Consequently to omit them from
the Christian constituency is to do an injustice to them, and to
misrepresent the true facts of the case.

(4) In many areas two or more societies are at work and their conception
of the qualifications for the name of Christian differ. In a survey each
society is tempted to ignore the members of the other, and to reckon as
Christians only those who fulfil the conditions which are applied by the
one society. So certain Protestant societies ignore all Roman Catholics;
but that for the reasons already stated is most misleading, for when
persecution arises Protestants and Roman Catholics alike suffer for the
Name of Christ. Whatever the members of another society may be, they are
certainly not heathen; the heathen deny them. Consequently they cannot
properly be counted with the heathen by any surveyor who wishes to
present the facts.

For these reasons we have been compelled to adopt a very wide
expression, and the expression used by the China Continuation Committee
seemed to be sufficiently elastic to serve our purpose. Nevertheless, to
avoid error as far as possible, when we institute comparisons between
Christian and non-Christian population, we introduce side by side with
the total Christian Constituency the total Communicants (or Full
Members), which is a valuable check.

Take then an example. The figures here given are obviously not the
figures of a station area; they are figures for a province; but they
serve to illustrate the point. We cannot fill up the area table; we can
only supply figures for the population.

----------------------------------------
 Population. :  Total      : Total Non-
             : Christians. : Christians.
----------------------------------------
  32,571,000 :  534,238    :  2,036,762
----------------------------------------

Now, here of the 534,238 Christians 500,655 are Roman Catholics, the
Protestants numbering 33,583. The Roman Catholics in this area began
work about 300 years earlier than the Protestants. Are we to eliminate
them?

Are all these 33,583 Protestants more worthy of the name of Christian
than some of the Roman Catholics? Or shall we eliminate some of the
33,583? If so, how many, and on what grounds? Is not the denial of the
Name to those who claim to be servants of Christ absurd? Are there not
enough non-Christians to be converted?

Suppose the Roman Catholic figures to be an estimate. Is it not plain
that in dealing with considerable areas estimates may be useful though
faulty? How little difference in the work to be done does an error in
that estimate make? Knock off or add on 50,000 and is the work to be
done seriously affected? It is true that in some calculations an error
of that magnitude might mislead us somewhat, but hardly enough to
vitiate our whole view of the situation, especially if we carefully
check our conclusions by the results of other tables given later.

At the first glance these figures produce the impression that very
little has been done. In the beginning, and that was many years ago,
there were over 32 million non-Christians; there are over 32 million
to-day. But let us look at proportions and see what a different
impression is produced.

-----------------------------------------------------------
 Population. : Total       : Total Non-  : Proportion
             : Christians. : Christians. : of Christians to
             :             :             : Non-Christians.
-----------------------------------------------------------
 32,571,000  :  534,238    : 32,036,762  :    1 to 60
-----------------------------------------------------------

One Christian to every sixty non-Christians gives us a totally different
impression. We begin to feel that if only the Christians awoke to their
duty they could influence the whole population profoundly. That is
precisely the effect produced upon the Christians by a missionary survey
undertaken with them, and understood by them; they begin to see the
immensity of the work to be done, they begin to see that it can be done.

There should properly then here be two tables parallel to the first two.
Thus:--

---------------------------------------------------------------------
      | Number of      | Number of      |               |
      | Occupied       | Unoccupied     | Proportion of |Remarks
Area. | Cities, Towns, | Cities, Towns, | Occupied to   |and
      | Villages.      | Villages.      | Unoccupied.   |Conclusions.
------|----------------|----------------|---------------|------------
      |                |                |               |
______|________________|________________|_______________|____________

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Total       | Total       | Total Non-  | Proportion of  | Remarks
Population. | Christian   | Christian   | Christian to   | and
            | Population. | Population. | Non-Christian. |Conclusions.
------------|-------------|-------------|----------------|------------
            |             |             |                |
____________|_____________|_____________|________________|____________

Observe what light is thrown upon a district by the mere juxtaposition
of those few facts. I think those two tables alone should suffice to
prove that a survey which regarded only a very few factors might be of
immense service, if those who used it kept clearly before them its
partial character and did not allow themselves to treat it as complete.

But, unfortunately, these first facts which we have desired are, like
other facts of importance, procured only with difficulty and toil. In
order to fill up the preceding tables the missionary surveyor must be
able to state what is the area and what the population in the station
district. But some could not supply that information. Its acquisition
might involve a journey of many months given up to careful examination
and inquiry. It is no small demand to make. In many cases a reasoned
estimate is indeed the only possible statement; but as we have already
argued careful estimates are invaluable, and where a census does not
exist they give us for the time something to work upon.

Where the physical survey can be undertaken it is most illuminating
work, illuminating both to the missionaries and to their native helpers,
who often gain an entirely new view of their work and its possibilities
from such personal examination. Testimony to the value of this
experience is growing daily in weight and volume.

This physical survey would naturally result in the production of a map
of the area in which the cities, towns, and villages in the station
district were marked with notes on their character from the missionary
point of view. In this map all places where Christians resided, where
there were Christian congregations, churches, preaching places, schools,
hospitals, dispensaries, etc., would be marked. It would be a pictorial
presentation of the facts so far as they were capable of expression in
map form.

But whether in map form or in statistical form, the area and the
population for which the mission is working must be expressed either by
exact figures or by estimates if we are to trace progress.

If these tables were kept over a number of years, the missionaries on
the spot and directors and inquirers at home would be able to see what
progress was being made towards fulfilling the obligation implied by the
definition of the station area or district, and what that obligation
involved.

II. When we know the work to be done we turn to the consideration of the
force available. This force consists of permanent and more or less
temporary members. Some will in all human probability remain in the
place till they die; they are of it, they belong to it; others will
probably depart elsewhere; they are not of the place; they speak of home
as far away; they are liable to removal; sickness which does not kill
them takes them away; the call of friends or business carries them back
to their own land; they are strangers all their days in the mission
district. Nevertheless, they are generally the moving, active force;
upon them progress seems to depend. It is strange, but it is true
generally: the permanent is the passive element, the impermanent is the
active. Here we simply state the fact to excuse or condemn the placing
of the missionary force first in our tables. First it is to-day.

We need then a table of the foreign missionary force. In its form it
will be a mere statement of proportions. The proportions are essential
in order to make comparison between one area and another possible; and
comparison is the sweet savour of survey. We cannot compare the work of
three men labouring among an unstated population with the work of two
other men working in an unstated population; the moment that the
proportions are worked out the cases can be compared. But some men
detest this purely quantitative comparison. They insist, and rightly,
that there is no true equality in the comparison. One man differs from
another man and his work differs from the work of the other man: over
large areas it is often the work of one man among many which really
saves the situation. It is quite true. In the last resort survey becomes
survey of personalities. But in a survey of the kind which we propose,
survey of personalities is impossible and most undesirable.

The survey proposed cannot deal with personalities, but that does not
invalidate the importance of the information asked for. Such forms
received from many different stations would certainly throw light on the
serious question of reinforcement. It is of course obvious that
reinforcements could not be allotted rightly on such slight evidence as
the proportion of missionaries to the population of a district. The
question is not whether reinforcements could be allotted on this factor
alone; but whether they could be allotted rightly in ignorance of it.
Taken in conjunction with the preceding and following tables, this table
would reveal something that we may call _need_ in a purely quantitative
expression, and comparative need should certainly influence the
allotment of reinforcements. Though the statement of need in this table
is indeed utterly insufficient by itself, it is nevertheless true that
no statement of comparative need which ignored the proportions here set
out would be satisfactory. This quantitative expression is not
sufficient; but no statement is sufficient without it, and, as often, so
here, it is the proportion rather than the actual figures which make
comparison possible:--

---------------------------------------------------------------------
         |        |   Total     |Proportion |Proportion | Remarks
District.|Popula- |  Foreign    |    to     | of Women  |   and
         | tion.  |Missionaries.|Population.|   to      |Conclusions.
         |        |             |           |Population.|
---------|--------|-------------|-----------|-----------|------------
         |        |             |           |           |
---------------------------------------------------------------------

We turn now to the permanent Christian force in the district. We want to
know what is the force. We ask, therefore, that the total Christian
constituency may be accepted as the first expression of the native
force. The progress of the Gospel is most seriously affected by the
whole number of those who in any sense call themselves Christians. They
are the force in the place which influences the heathen for or against
it. It is of the utmost importance that they should be reckoned first,
and treated first, as the force which above all others works slowly,
quietly, imperceptibly, but mightily. The whole body of those who
profess and call themselves Christians should be put in the very first
place.

Then the communicants (or full members) are commonly the body to which
all turn for voluntary zealous effort. The communicants are the strength
of the Church. We compare them next with the work to be done. Then the
paid workers. Then the voluntary unpaid workers, recognised as such.

The difficulty of calculating the unpaid voluntary workers is indeed
very great. We know of no definition which would serve to give any
uniformity to returns made by different missions. We recognise that
different missions would make the returns on different bases. We
earnestly desire a common definition, which all might accept. But under
existing circumstances it seems impossible to find one. Nevertheless,
without some statement of the number of voluntary workers, we are, as we
shall see, in grave danger of misjudging the situation and wronging our
missionaries and the native Christians. For the time then we suggest
that it would be far better to accept the returns given to us by the
missionaries on their own basis, asking them to append a note to the
return explaining how they calculated their voluntary force. We should
then have the following table:--

_The Native Force_.

_(a) The Christian Constituency_.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
District. |Population. |Christian     |Proportion to  |Remarks and
          |            |Constituency  |Non-Christian  |Conclusions.
          |            |              |Population.    |
-------------------------------------------------------------------
          |            |              |               |
---------------------------------------------------------------------

_(b) The Communicants or Full Members_.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
District. | Population. | Communicants. | Proportion to | Remarks and
          |             |               | Non-Christian | Conclusions
          |             |               | Population.   |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
          |             |               |               |
---------------------------------------------------------------------


_(c) The Paid Workers._

---------------------------------------------------------------------
District. | Population. | Paid Workers. | Proportion to | Remarks and
          |             |               | Non-Christian | Conclusions
          |             |               | Population.   |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
          |             |               |               |
---------------------------------------------------------------------


_(d) The Unpaid Workers._

-----------------------------------------------------------------
District. | Population. | Unpaid   | Proportion to | Remarks and
          |             | Workers. | Non-Christian | Conclusions.
          |             |          | Population.   |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
          |             |          |               |
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Here again it is the proportions which are illuminating and enable
comparisons of different areas to be made. The bare figures of the
number of Christians and communicants and workers by themselves would
tell us very little; only when we have them related to a common factor
do we get any real light.

Let us now sum up our inquiry thus far.

+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Work to be Done: Non-Christian Population.              |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Untouched, Unoccupied Villages.                         |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Foreign Force Compared with Work to be Done.            |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Native Force Compared with Work to be Done.                   |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
    Christian Constituency.                             |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
    Communicants.                                       |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
    Paid Workers.                                       |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
    Unpaid Voluntary Workers.                           |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+

If these tables were kept over a series of years, the progress of the
force in relation to the work to be done would be most interestingly
revealed.

But in estimating the Christian force in the district we need to know
more than its number; we need to know so much of its character as
statistical tables can show.

One Christian to every 129 heathen may mean much or little. It might
mean that the day when the Christian force would be the controlling
force in the area was close at hand. That would depend largely upon the
capacity of the Christians, their education, their zeal. The tables
which we now suggest are designed to reveal, so far as tables can
reveal, the truth in these matters.

We begin then with the proportion of communicants in the Christian
constituency. If we take the last table and, instead of considering the
proportion of the communicants to the non-Christian population, consider
the proportion of communicants to the Christian constituency, we gain a
very different view. We gain then an idea of the character of the
Christians. Instead of an idea of the size of the force at work we
receive an impression of the quality of the force. Even one who lays
little stress on the value and necessity of sacraments would not deny
that he would expect more from a Church of 1000 in which 500 were
communicants than he would from a Church of 1000 of which only 100 were
communicants. He might deny that his expectation was based upon any
faith in the virtue of sacraments, but he would acknowledge the fact
that in our experience the Church which possesses large numbers of
communicants is generally stronger than the Church which possesses a
small number. The comparison of the number of communicants in relation
to the number of the total Christian constituency does properly produce
an impression of the strength of the Christian body.

If we can fill up the table

---------------------------------------------------------------------
District.| Total.       | Communicants | Proportion of | Remarks and
         | Christian    | or Full      | Communicants  | Conclusions
         | Constituency.| Members.     | to Christian  |
         |              |              | Constituency. |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
         |              |              |               |
---------------------------------------------------------------------

we gain an impression of the strength of the Church. But it is important
to observe that it is only in relation to the earlier tables, which set
out the force in relation to the work to be done, that this impression
of strength is of immediate importance to us. We are dealing with a
missionary survey, a survey concerned with the propagation of the
Gospel. The mere strength of the Church, unrelated to any work in which
the strength is to be employed, is a very different matter. We might
take pleasure in the sight of it. We might congratulate ourselves and
the missionaries on the beauty of the strength revealed, but not until
it is related to work to be done does strength appear in its true glory.
We find in nearly all missionary statistics the number of communicants
and converts set forth, and we often wonder what for. It cannot be that
we may glory in our conquests and say: See how many converts and
communicants we have made! But, unrelated to any task to be done, that
is all that appears. Therefore we have instituted this comparison here,
in close relation to the earlier tables, that we may know what is the
force on the spot at work in the area defined.

Next, the proportion of Paid Workers in proportion to the number of the
Christian constituency and the communicants is a most illuminating
factor. By itself it is a difficult factor to appreciate rightly.
Suppose we find, as we do sometimes find, that one out of every ten
communicants is a paid worker. That may imply that the proportion of
rice Christians is very high, or it may imply a high standard of zeal,
very many of the converts being able and willing to devote themselves to
Christian work and at the same time too poor to be able to support
themselves without pay. This proportion, therefore, should be carefully
checked by a table which shows the proportion of unpaid workers and
another which shows the standard of wealth. But commonly we are given
the number of paid workers, and given neither the number of unpaid
voluntary workers, nor the standard of wealth, and therefore the danger
of reading amiss the number of paid workers is great. We have already
explained the difficulty of obtaining exact figures, or even estimates,
of the number of voluntary unpaid workers, but a mere glance at the
proportion of paid workers to communicants should be enough to persuade
any man who desires to judge our work fairly of the necessity for such a
table as we now suggest.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
District.| Paid     | Proportion      | Proportion of | Remarks and
         | Workers. | of Paid Workers | Paid Workers  | Conclusions
         |          | to Christian    | to            |
         |          | Constituency.   | Communicants. |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
         |          |                 |               |
---------------------------------------------------------------------


---------------------------------------------------------------------
District.| Unpaid   |Proportion       |Proportion of   | Remarks and
         | Workers. |of Unpaid Workers|Unpaid Workers  | Conclusions
         |          |to Christian     |to              |
         |          |Constituency.    |Communicants.   |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
         |          |                 |                |
---------------------------------------------------------------------


---------------------------------------------------------------------
         |               | Proportion of Christian |
         |               | Constituency. According |
         |               | to Local Standard.      |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
District.| Christian     | Well   | Poor | In      |  Remarks and
         | Constituency. | to do. |      | Poverty |  Conclusions
         |               |        |      |         |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
         |               |        |      |         |
---------------------------------------------------------------------

There is indeed a way of judging the zeal of native Christians for the
propagation of the Gospel very popular among missionaries, the way of
tabulating and comparing the amount which they subscribe for missionary
work. Obviously this method is the form most natural to us, but it is
one of the worst conceivable. When a Christian congregation lives
surrounded by heathen, for it to learn to satisfy the divine spirit of
missions by putting money into a box, is most dangerous. The zeal of
Christians for the spread of the Gospel ought always to be expressed
first in active personal service. We should prefer to omit any question
as to the amount subscribed for missionary work far off. We believe it
to be a most delusive and deluding test. It deceives the giver, it
deceives the inquirer. We should prefer to inquire the number of hearers
or inquirers brought to the Church by the undirected effort of the
Church members, or the number of Church members who go out to teach or
preach in their neighbourhood, or perhaps best of all, the number of
little Christian congregations which as a body are actively engaged in
evangelising their neighbours. But we admit missionary contributions as
an additional question

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Christian    |Inquirers  |Congregations| Amount         | Remarks and
Constituency.|brought in |Evangelising | Subscribed     | Conclusions
             |by Native  |their        | for Missionary |
             |Christians.|Neighbours.  | Purposes.      |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
             |           |             |                |
---------------------------------------------------------------------

That a Church must be instructed and instruct its children all are
agreed: where men differ is with respect to the manner of the teaching.
On the one side are those who would safeguard the faith by committing
the teaching of it to a small body of carefully trained men, the clergy,
whilst the majority of the Christians, the laity, remain unlearned and
accept what is taught by the trained official teachers: on the other
side are those who would boldly commit the faith to all, opening to all
the door of learning. The one party would preserve the faith in the
hands of a select few, the other would put the Bible into every man's
hands. It is an old controversy; but we suppose nearly all those for
whom we write are of the second party, men who would gladly see every
Christian able to read the Bible and to base his religious life upon it.
We stand for the open Bible; we believe that the Christian Church in
every country will progress and develop strongly if it is based on a
widespread knowledge of Holy Writ, and we are prepared to believe that a
capacity to read the Bible is a sure sign of health in any Christian
Church. The test of literacy commonly adopted in our missions is the
capacity to read the Holy Gospels: we accept that gladly and
confidently.

Furthermore, the influence of the Christian Church in the country will
largely depend upon the extent to which the Christians are better able
to read and understand literary expression than their heathen
neighbours.

We want then to know the literacy of the Christian community as compared
with the literacy of the non-Christian population from which it springs,
and, if possible, a little more than that--what proportion of the
Christians have had a sufficient education to enable them not only to
satisfy the very slight demands of a literary test, but to have some
wider knowledge with which to improve their own position and to
enlighten others.

The table which results is as follows:--

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Non-Chris-|Propor- |Total     |Propor- |Proportion    | Remarks and
tian      |tion of |Christian |tion of |of Christians | Conclusions.
Popula-   |Liter-  |Consti-   |Liter-  |of Higher     |
 tion.    |ates.   |tuency.   |ates.   |Education.    |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
          |        |          |        |              |
---------------------------------------------------------------------

In this table we touch one of the points on which exact figures are
often inaccessible and an estimate must be made. An estimate which is
recognised as an estimate is not misleading, and, if it is carefully
made and based on evidence understood, is generally most useful, only
estimates carelessly made and mistaken for precise and accurate
statements of fact are misleading.

These tables would, we suggest, suffice to give us a fairly clear idea
of the strength of the force at work, especially if they are taken in
conjunction with the tables which we suggest under the heading of the
Native Church in Chapter VIII. where we deal particularly with
organisation.

We ought now to be able to form some idea of the work to be done and of
the force to do it. We know in quantitative terms the work to be done,
we know the relative force of missionaries, we know the relative
strength of the native Christian constituency, its communicants, its
workers, its education, its wealth, in relation to the work to be done.

We have now to consider how the force is directed, along what lines it
is applied, and how its efforts are co-ordinated.




CHAPTER IV.

THE EMPHASIS LAID UPON DIFFERENT TYPES OF WORK.


When we know the area and the force at work in it, we must next consider
how this force is applied. We need to know in what proportion it works
amongst men and women, how far different classes of the population are
reached by it, and what emphasis is placed upon different forms of work,
evangelistic, medical, and educational. We propose then four tables
which will help us to understand these things.

First, we inquire into the relative strength of the force in relation to
work among men and women. In the foreign missionary force we distinguish
men, wives, and single women; in the native force we distinguish only
men and women; because marriage generally affects the character of the
foreigner's work more than it affects the character of the work done by
the native Christians who live in their own homes among their own
people.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
                       |     |        |  Single    |
                       |     |        |  Women and |  Remarks and
                       | Men |   Wives|  Widows    |  Conclusions
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Foreign missionaries.  |     |        |            |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
                       |            Women
Christian constituency |     |                     |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Communicants.          |     |                     |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Native workers (paid)  |     |                     |
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Since it is generally agreed that men in the main appeal to men, and
women to women, that table should tell us roughly what is the force at
work in relation to men and women; and any mistake in that supposition
will be checked by the statistics for the Christian constituency, which
serve a double purpose. The statistics of the Christian constituency
show us not only an important part of the Christian force at work in
relation to the men and women of the non-Christian population; but in
relation to the foreigners and the native workers they also help us to
see how far the idea that men appeal to men and women to women, is in
fact a good working rule.

Next it is desirable to know to what classes the mission especially
appeals. Here we shall probably have to accept estimates, sometimes
rough estimates, for part at least of the information desirable; in some
cases the table may be impossible; in some it may be most useful. The
table which we suggest is:--

----------------------------------------------------------------------
In the Population of Station District--
_____________________________________________________________________
Per Cent.|Per Cent.|Per Cent.     |Per Cent.| Per Cent.| Remarks
Students.|Officials|Agricultural  |Traders. |Labourers,| and
         |         |Small Holders.|         |Craftsmen.| Conclusions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
         |         |              |         |          |
---------------------------------------------------------------------


In the Christian Constituency--

_____________________________________________________________________
Per Cent.|Per Cent.|Per Cent.     |Per Cent.| Per Cent.| Remarks
Students.|Officials|Agricultural  |Traders. |Labourers,| and
         |         |Small Holders.|         |Craftsmen.| Conclusions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
         |         |              |         |          |
---------------------------------------------------------------------

If that table could be filled up it would show at a glance what class of
the people was reached most easily and fully, and whether any were
unduly neglected.

Then, in many station areas there are divergencies of race and
religion, and it is important to know how far the mission is reaching
each of these. In some areas, for instance, large numbers of converts
are made from the pagan population whilst a Moslem population in the
area is practically untouched; in some nearly all the converts are made
from one caste out of many. That is no reason for adverse criticism of
the mission: it may be, and often is, a reason for striking harder at
the point on which the work is now most successful; but it is a fact
which throws great light on the nature of the work done and upon the
character of the Church which is rising in the area, and therefore
cannot be ignored. We append then a table to reveal this:--

--------------------------------------------------------------------
                         | Area of Races, Castes, |  Remarks and
                         |      Religions, etc.   |  Conclusions
                         |                        |
Proportion of Population |                        |
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Proportion of Christian  |                        |
Constituency derived from|                        |
--------------------------------------------------------------------

We cannot possibly supply the table complete for all areas in the world.
We suggest that such a table kept up to date would reveal not only
facts useful to illustrate the progress of the Christian faith, but also
to show the progress of aggressive non-Christian religions such as
Mohammedanism.

Then we want to know what is the emphasis put on different forms of
missionary work, evangelistic, medical, educational. Here we come to a
difficulty. Medical missionaries, thank God, do evangelistic work, and
so do educational missionaries, and one day we shall learn that the
evangelistic missionary, technically so called, is doing a most
important educational work, and often truly medical, healing work. The
division is a technical one and missionary-hearted men begin to resent
it; they are all evangelic in their work, if not technically
evangelistic, and the division seems unreal, unnatural, untrue. It would
be a sad day for our missions if medical and educational missionaries
ceased to be at heart evangelists, and were content to leave
evangelistic work to others. Nevertheless, the technical distinction is
a real one and must be expressed. Some men express their evangelistic
fervour naturally and providentially in medical form, others in
scholastic, others in teaching, preaching, and organising of the
converts and the hearers. But how shall we divide them? The best plan
seems to be to put each man into that category in which he spends most
of his time, and in cases of doubt to use fractions, e.g. a doctor may
be as keen an evangelist and may preach and strive to convert his
patients as eagerly as his colleague who is called an evangelistic
missionary. An evangelistic missionary is perhaps a doctor by training
or experience, and heals the sick as eagerly as his colleague who is
called a medical missionary. Each is unwilling to be catalogued in one
column only. He feels, and feels rightly, that that single figure belies
the facts. The evangelistic missionary may be the only doctor in the
whole area who really understands the use of western drugs and
implements, the doctor may be the only evangelist in the whole area who
really knows how to preach the Gospel in language which the people can
understand. Clearly, in such cases the only possible thing to do is to
use a fraction, though the inner truth might be more easily expressed by
figures which represented that one man as two or three.

The table then is as follows:--

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Missionaries. | Paid   | Amount of| Amount of | Total     | Remarks
              | Native | Foreign  | Native    | Funds     | and
              | Workers| Funds    | Funds     | including | Con-
              |        | Spent    | Spent     | Government| clusions
              |        | on: [1]  | on: [2]   | Grants.   |
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Evangelistic  |        |          |           |           |
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Medical.      |        |          |           |           |
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Educational   |        |          |           |           |
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Other Forms   |        |          |           |           |
of Work.      |        |          |           |           |
--------------------------------------------------------------------

[Footnote 1: All funds derived from foreigners except Government grants.]

[Footnote 2: Including fees and contributions.]

It will be observed that this table is designed, like all the others, to
serve primarily one single purpose. Since that purpose is to show the
relative weight thrown by the mission and the Christians into different
forms of evangelistic expression, all missionaries, all native workers,
all funds mainly occupied in each form are lumped together. There is no
need at this stage to distinguish doctors from nurses, or Bible-women
from pastors or priests.

From these tables we should hope to gain a general idea of the direction
of the force at work.

We thrust in here an inquiry concerning a form of work upon which many
missions lay great stress. It is exceedingly difficult to classify. It
is not certainly evangelistic work, though it is commonly organised by
evangelistic workers; it is not educational in the sense that
educational missionaries accept it as a definitely recognised part of
their work, though educational methods are employed and it often has a
distinctly educational purpose. It is sometimes a form of Sunday service
almost akin to a Church service. It is often a form of children's school
where the religious teaching given, or neglected, during the week in the
day school is supplemented: it is sometimes a form of elementary school
for adults, Christian, or inquirers: it is a form of Bible school for
adult Christian workers. It is a method of propaganda for the conversion
of heathen children or adults. It is a form of work where untrained
Christian voluntary workers find opportunity for expressing their
religious zeal; it is a form of work in which experts in certain types
of elementary religious teaching revel. It is educational work carried
on by those who are not technically educationalists: it is evangelistic
work carried on by those who are not technically evangelists.

What sort of information then are we to seek concerning it? It is so
important that it cannot be omitted; it is so widespread that it almost
demands special consideration; it is so protean that tables designed to
reveal all its aspects and values would be with difficulty designed, and
tediously minute. From the point of view of this survey it would be
futile to ask, as most of the societies ask, simply for the number of
Sunday schools, the number of teachers, and the number of scholars. From
those bare numbers we can gain no information which really enlightens
us. We want to know what the Sunday schools exist for, and whether they
are accomplishing the object of their existence. But we cannot define,
nor even enumerate all the objects. We therefore arbitrarily select
three which are directly related to the establishment of a native
Church, and make one table serve. We inquire: (1) How they are related
to the Christian constituency; from this we hope to learn the extent to
which Sunday schools are a part of the Church life. (2) How the teachers
are related to the communicants (or full members); from this we hope to
learn the extent to which the voluntary effort of the communicants finds
expression in this work. (3) How the scholars are related to baptisms
and confirmations (or admission as full members); from this we hope to
learn to what extent the Sunday-schools are a recruiting ground for the
Church.

The table then is as follows:--

+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
District                                                |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Number of Sunday Schools.                               |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Proportion of Sunday Schools to Christian Constituency. |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Sunday School Teachers.                                 |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Proportion of Communicants.                             |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Sunday School Scholars. (M./F.)                         |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Proportion of Sunday School Scholars                    |     |
Baptised in the Year.                                   |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Proportion of Scholars Confirmed                        |     |
or Admitted Full Members in the Year.                   |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Remarks and Conclusions.                                |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+




CHAPTER V.

MEDICAL WORK IN THE STATION DISTRICT.


Thus far of the force in its general aspect. When we turn to closer
consideration of the medical and educational work we meet with a
difficulty. Medical and educational work, as we have already pointed
out, often, if not generally, have a definitely evangelistic character,
but each, nevertheless, appears to be designed to meet a special need of
the Church and people. There is a strong tendency in thought, and often
in speech, to emphasise this special need and to make it a distinct,
separate need. Herein lies a danger. Medical missions are sometimes
urged upon our attention as though they were founded to meet a medical
need of the people, as if it were the recognised and accepted duty of
missionary societies and of missionaries to supplant the native medical
practice by western scientific methods as certainly and fully as it is
their recognised and accepted duty to supplant native religion by the
faith of Christ. But that we for our part emphatically deny. The one may
be a philanthropic duty; the other certainly is a religious duty.
Consequently we deny that there is a medical need which it is the duty
of missionaries to supply in the sense in which we affirm that there is
a religious need which it is the duty of missionaries to supply. Medical
missions are, and ought to be, evangelistic in their aim, mere
handmaids[1] of evangelism. Similarly we deny a separate and distinct
educational need which it is the duty of missionary societies to supply.
The missionary societies ought not to take upon themselves the supply of
every need. We think the Christian Church is misled when it allows the
medical need of a country to be presented as a distinct need which it is
the duty of missionaries to meet, and when it allows the ignorance of a
country to be presented as a distinct need which it is the duty of
missionaries to meet. From such a presentation educational missions
become detached, medical missions become detached, each designed to meet
a distinct and separate need of the people.

[Footnote 1: If any reader experiences a revulsion at this expression,
he will know at once what we mean when we say that a distinction has
been drawn between evangelistic, medical, and educational missions as
though they were three co-equal and separate things. They are not
co-equal and they ought not to be separate. Education does not
necessarily reveal Christ, medical science does not necessarily reveal
Christ, only as education and medicine assist the revelation of Christ
are they proper subjects for Christian missionary enterprise, that is,
only when they are clearly and unmistakably subordinate to an
evangelistic purpose. Of course we do not undervalue medical and
educational efficiency: efficiency should increase evangelistic power.]

One result of the sharp distinction which is drawn between medical and
educational and evangelistic work is that in some countries there are
distinct medical and educational associations which collect information
about the state of medical and educational missions in the country,
dealing with these missionary activities most prominently, if not
wholly, from the point of view of medical and educational efficiency.
These associations issue _questionnaires_ and publish reports often more
full, detailed, and carefully compiled than any evangelistic reports.
Consequently it is peculiarly dangerous for a layman unacquainted with
the working of these associations to trespass upon their preserves.
These departmental surveys should be treated separately by experts.
Nevertheless, since we are dealing with the work of the station in its
area, and this work includes often medical and educational work, we
cannot pass over it with no more than the general treatment which we
have hitherto given. We need to know what is the medical and what the
educational work carried on at the station, when these are viewed, as
they are viewed, separately, as distinct expressions of missionary zeal.

Dealing first with medical missions we suppose that the question might
be put in this form, What are the medical missionary resources available
in the district in relation to the need which it is proposed to meet?

Here again there arises the difficulty that there is no common agreement
as to the purpose of the medical work of the missionary societies. What
are the doctors there for? What does the hospital exist to do? Who can
tell? So diverse are the ideas of different men on this subject, so
little thought out, that a man of unusual experience told us that he had
met few missionary doctors who could answer the question: "On the basis
of what facts ought the question of the establishment of a hospital to
be decided?" Few could tell him whether in sending doctors the
missionary societies ought to consider the duty of caring for the
health of their missionaries first or last. Few could tell him whether
the care of the health of the children in schools and institutions was
the first duty, or the last, or any duty at all, of the medical
missionary. Yet obviously, those two points if they were once admitted
would influence largely the location of doctors and hospitals. Again, we
hear it argued that missionary societies ought to establish medical
schools, hospitals, and institutions of the finest possible type in
order to show how the thing really ought to be done, to demonstrate the
very best example of western medical work, and to train natives to a
western efficiency. That would not only influence the location of
doctors and hospitals, it would also affect the character of the
buildings and would demand a special type of medical missionary. Or
again, we hear it argued that medical missions are the point of the
missionary sword; but if it is the point of the sword then it ought to
be in front of the blade. That, too, would direct the location of the
doctors and hospitals. It would also affect the character of the
building unless the missionary sword is to become an immovable object,
which having once cleft a rock remains fast in the breach until a
God-sent hero, like King Arthur, appears to pull it out and set it to
work again. We cannot state all the different aims. They are not simple
and formulated; they are complex and confused. Very often the
establishment of a medical mission turns upon no more thorough
examination of the facts of the situation than the conviction of a
capable missionary that there is need for medical work in his district,
and that he must supply it if he can, and that he must persevere in
appeals till he can supply it. When a man asks: "On the basis of what
facts ought this or that to be done in the mission field?" he has got a
long way into the complexity of the problem, and the need for survey, if
a society is to act with wisdom, is already apparent to him. But most
men in the past have acted simply, without much argument: they said,
"Here is a need; I can supply it," and the societies were the feeders of
such men. Naturally. So one hospital and a doctor was the point of a
sword which in twenty years' time was stuck fast in the rock; and then
the hospital was enlarged and became a medical school under the fervent
direction of a doctor who was a natural teacher; and then it became an
institution, and then part of a college. And in all this there may have
been no definite policy, any more than there was any definite policy in
the guidance of its twin brother, which, instead of changing its
character, remained what it had always been, the point of a sword, only
buried in a rock, competing feebly with a Government institution. When
one writes of mixed motives, and mixed policies, and mixed methods, it
is natural to use mixed metaphors.

But to return to our point. It is not easy to say what some hospitals
are there for. If we knew, we could at least formulate tables to set out
the progress which they have made towards the object proposed. That
would be reasonable survey as we have defined it. To collect all
possible information concerning all the things which the doctor or
hospital might do, or may be doing, unrelated to any end, is to collect
a mass of information which we cannot use; and that we have declined to
do. What course then can we pursue? We propose first to accept the
notion that the medical mission is there to supply a medical need of the
people, and to consider how far it does that; and then to look at the
medical work at the station as definitely designed to assist the
evangelisation of the people, as evangelistic in its purpose. We have,
therefore, designed a double set of tables to serve these two purposes.

First, tables to show the medical work in relation to the presumed need
of the district for western medicine.

Here, as before for evangelistic work, so now for medical, we have
expressed the relation between the medical work and the district in
terms both of area and population in order that each table may be a
check upon the other. Thus:--

(i) In terms of area.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
         |     |Number of|           |          |         |
         |     |Qualified|Number of  |Number of |Number of|Number of
         |     |Medicals.|Assistants.|Hospitals.| Nurses. |Dispens-
         |     |         |           |          |         |aries.
District.|Area.|---------|-----------|----------|---------|---------
         |     | M. | F. | M.  | F.  |For | For | M. | F. |
         |     |    |    |     |     |men |women|    |    |
---------|-----|----|----|-----|-----|----|-----|----|----|---------
         |     |    |    |     |     |    |     |    |    |
         |     |    |    |     |     |    |     |    |    |
         |     |    |    |     |     |    |     |    |    |
--------------------------------------------------------------------
         |     |    |    |     |     |    |     |    |    |
_________|_____|____|____|_____|_____|____|_____|____|____|__________


(ii) In terms of population.

----------------------------------------------
                   District.    |Population. |
---------------------------------------------|
Proportion of   |               |            |
Medicals to     |               |            |
Population.     |               |            |
----------------------------------------------
Proportion of   |               |            |
Assistants to   |               |            |
Population.     |               |            |
----------------------------------------------
Proportion of   |               |            |
Nurses to       |               |            |
Population.     |               |            |
----------------------------------------------
Proportion of   |               |            |
Beds to         |               |            |
Population.     |               |            |
----------------------------------------------
Proportion of   |               |            |
Dispensaries to |               |            |
Population.     |               |            |
----------------------------------------------

It will be observed that in this second table the items are not
identical with those in the preceding table. In the place of hospitals
we have beds; because in relation to the area the thing of importance is
the number of the hospitals; but in relation to population the thing of
importance is the number of beds available. Two hospitals in a single
area are probably not in the same place and imply more widespread
influence; but if each has twenty beds, in proportion to population it
is of no importance whether the forty beds are in one place or two:
forty in-patients fill the beds.

But in medical work, when we are considering the need of the district,
another factor of importance often enters. The medicals of the mission
are often not the only men meeting that need. There are often others,
Government officials, or private practitioners, who, from the point of
view of medical practice, are doing the same work. The medical need of a
district where the missionary doctor is the only exponent of western
medicine is not the same as that of the district where he is competing
with Government or private doctors fully trained as he is. Consequently
it is essential in order to understand the position that we should know
what other, non-missionary, medical assistance is available, and we
need the following table:--

---------------------------------------------------------------------
        |Hospitals.|Qualified|Assistants.|Nurses.|Dispensaries.|Beds.
        |          |Practi-  |           |       |             |
                    tioners. |           |       |             |
--------|----------|---------|-----------|-------|-------------|---
        |          |         |           |       |             |
Mission-|          |         |           |       |             |
     ary|   ____   |  ____   |   ____    | ____  |    ____     | ___
--------------------------------------------------------------------
        |          |         |           |       |             |
   Non- |          |         |           |       |             |
Mission-|          |         |           |       |             |
     ary|   ____   |  ____   |   ____    | ____  |    ____     | ___
        |          |         |           |       |             |
---------------------------------------------------------------------

If any surveyor finds it difficult to fill in such a table, he must make
an estimate, but he ought to realise that a table of the kind is a
necessary part of any appeal for increased support; for support cannot
be reasonably given to his work _on the ground of this medical need_
unless these facts are known. Of course that does not mean that support
ought to be given or withheld solely on the statistics so provided.
There may be a thousand reasons for strengthening and enlarging work
where this table would suggest less need; but no support should be given
in ignorance of these facts.

Then we need tables to reveal, as far as such tables can reveal
anything, the extent of the medical mission work done in the year.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
District|Area|Popul-|Hospital   |Dispensary,|Total|Propor-  |Remarks
        |    |ation |Patients in|Patients in|Pat- |tion of  |and
        |    |      |Year       |Year       |ients|Patients |Conclu-
        |    |      |           |           |     |to Popul-|sions
        |    |      |           |           |     |ation    |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
        |    |      |           |           |     |         |
        |    |      |M.|F.|Child|M.|F.|Child|     |         |
        |    |      |  |  |     |  |  |     |     |         |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
        |    |      |  |  |     |  |  |     |     |         |
________|____|______|__|__|_____|__|__|_____|_____|_________|________


Turning then from the medical need to be met, we proposed to inquire
into the medical work as an evangelistic agency. This inquiry is hard to
formulate; but we suggest that the three tables appended, taken in
conjunction with the preceding, would throw certain light on this
question, and would help towards a true understanding.

First, we inquire into the relative extent to which the medical workers
make use of the assistance of evangelistic workers. This table would
_not_ reveal the evangelistic influence of the hospital. On the one
hand, there is sometimes a tendency for the medical men and women to do
medical work exclusively, and to leave all religious work to the
evangelistic workers, and to give way to the temptation to imagine that
if evangelistic workers read or preach in the waiting-room and visit the
patients, the medicals can be satisfied that they have done their duty
as medical missionaries. On the other hand, a medical who does his
medical work in the Spirit, who speaks to and prays with his patients,
exercises an evangelistic influence wider and deeper than that of many
of the evangelistic workers directly so called, and in such a case the
fact that the evangelistic workers are apparently lacking in the
hospital does not at all show that the medical work is not a strong
evangelistic force. But any danger of misguidance which might arise if
this table stood alone must be counteracted by the other tables; for the
three can be taken together. And when this allowance has been made the
table is useful with the others, and lights one side of the question
before us.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
                         |  Hospitals   |   Dispensaries
                         |              |  (Where these
                         |              |   are not attached to
                         |              |   hospitals)
-------------------------+--------------+----------------------------
Number of Medicals       |              |
on Staff.[1]             |              |
-------------------------+--------------+----------------------------
Proportion to Patients.  |              |
-------------------------+--------------+----------------------------
Number of Evangelistic   |              |
Workers on Staff.[1]     |              |
-------------------------+--------------+----------------------------
Proportion to Patients.  |              |
-------------------------+--------------+----------------------------
Remarks and Conclusions. |              |
-------------------------+--------------+----------------------------

[Footnote 1: By "on staff" we mean regularly attached to, or regularly
visiting.]

When we have seen the extent to which the medicals use the evangelistic
workers in their institutions, we need to know the extent to which the
medicals assist the evangelistic workers outside the institutions. We
put this in the form of a table designed to reveal the extent to which
the medicals assist in evangelistic tours, helping the evangelistic
workers on tour, either by healing the sick on the spot, or by sending
them to the hospitals, or by preaching, or in all these ways.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of |Number of   |Number of |Number of    |Number of |Remarks
Evange-   |Evangelistic|Medicals  |Days spent by|Days spent|and
listic    |Workers     |Assisting.|Evangelistic |by        |Conclu-
Tours.    |Assisting.  |          |Workers.     |Medicals. |sions.
----------|------------|----------|-------------|----------|-------
          |            |          |             |          |
          |            |          |             |          |
          |            |          |             |          |
-------------------------------------------------------------------
          |            |          |             |          |
__________|____________|__________|_____________|__________|_______


Finally, we inquire how far the direct evangelistic influence of the
hospitals and dispensaries can be traced. We might at first suppose that
this could be done by asking the number of inquirers enrolled as a
direct consequence of attendance at hospitals and dispensaries; but it
is not surprising that patients are willing to enrol their names as
inquirers simply to please the doctors or nurses, without any intention
of pursuing the matter further when they leave the hospital; and
consequently such a question by itself might be very misleading. We
therefore add two further questions, the first, what number of
communicants trace their conversion to their visits to hospitals or
dispensaries, the second, what number of places have been opened to
Christian teachers and preachers by the influence of doctors and
patients. Some missionary doctors are much interested in this inquiry,
and we all might well be interested in it. The answers would be a most
important contribution to our study, and might go far to justify medical
missions as an evangelistic agency.

+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Number of Inquirers Enrolled in the Year as a Direct    |     |
Consequence of Attendance at Hospitals and Dispensaries.|     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Proportion of Total Inquirers.                          |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Enrolled in the Year.                                   |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Number of Communicants Derived from Attendance          |     |
at Hospitals and Dispensaries in the Year.              |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Proportion of Communicants Enrolled in the Year.        |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Number of Places Opened to Christian Teachers through   |     |
the Influence of Doctors or Patients in the Year.       |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Proportion of Total Places Opened in the Year.          |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Conclusions and Remarks.                                |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+




CHAPTER VI.

EDUCATIONAL WORK IN THE STATION DISTRICT.


The difficulty of providing tables for the survey of educational work is
as great as that of finding tables for medical work, and for the same
reasons. There is the same separateness, the same diversity of immediate
aim, the same alteration of character, the same uncertainty of policy.

Educational missions have been designed to convert the young whilst they
were yet pliable, to influence the growing generation in order to
prepare for a great advance of Christianity later, to Christianise
society, to educate young Christians in a Christian atmosphere, to
prepare leaders for the Christian Church, to elevate an ignorant and
illiterate Christian Church. All these various objects have been set
before us as the reasons for the establishment of schools, both
separately, each in different circumstances, and unitedly, all at the
same time, as though one school could fulfil all these different
purposes without any confusion. At one and the same moment Christian
children were to be educated in a Christian atmosphere, and
non-Christian children in large numbers were admitted, and non-Christian
teachers employed. At the same time non-Christian children were to be
converted and not converted, but filled with Christian ideas.

All these aims and objects are confusedly set forth, each as its turn
comes round, as the immediate aim of our educational missions; but the
attempt to draw tables for a survey which shall embrace impartially all
these objects is enough to satisfy the inquirer that they are not easily
combined into one. We propose, therefore, in this bewildering maze of
mixed purposes and ideas, to follow the line which seemed possible in
the case of medical missions--to accept the idea that there is an
educational need of the people which it is the business of the
educational mission to meet so far as it can; and then to add a further
inquiry concerning the direct evangelistic influence of the educational
mission, and its relation to the evangelistic and medical work.

But in educational mission survey there is an added difficulty which
arises from the fact that scholastic education is divided into many
grades, and this division has no common standard in different countries,
sometimes not even in the same country. We, then, who are seeking light
not from one country only but from all, are compelled to simplify these
grade distinctions as much as possible, and to accept the local
definitions. This does not really invalidate comparisons between
different areas so seriously as we might at the first glance be tempted
to expect. There is in every country a grade which is primary; there is
a secondary, or middle, or high school; there is a normal, or college,
or arts course. The primary in one country may run into higher primary
and be at its best far in advance of the primary in another country; and
so far the two are incomparable; but, nevertheless, this primary grade
is the lowest grade in each country, and if the inquiry is, what number
of pupils are taught in this local first grade, then the comparison is
admissible. Similarly of the second grade and the third. If the inquiry
is understood to imply no more than it states, and no conclusion is
drawn as to the relative stage or merits of the education in the two
countries in relation to one another, it may justly be argued that the
primary pupils in one country stand in relation to the illiterate and
more highly educated pupils in their own country in a similar position
to that in which the primary pupils in another country stand to the
illiterate and more highly educated pupils in their own country; though
the primary pupils in the one may be far more advanced than the primary
pupils in the other. On this basis a possible comparison can be made.

But since colleges and normal schools generally serve a larger area than
the station district, these are reserved for provincial survey, and the
present tables deal with nothing above the secondary, or middle, or high
school. In the station district area the matter of chief importance is
the extent to which the need of the district for primary and secondary
education is met, and the proportion in which the needs of the many and
the few are met.

Of course where the surveyor has before him more elaborate tables
prepared for some board, he can serve all purposes best by keeping those
tables carefully and sending copies of them to those who may be
interested. Our hasty division into primary and higher than primary is
only designed to save trouble in those districts where no elaborate
distinctions and definitions have been made. If it is desirable for
purposes of comparison to reduce tables from different parts of the
world to a common basis, so long as the tables supplied from any part do
not contain _less_ than the tables here suggested, the comparison can
easily be made, for what it is worth.

We begin then with the educational work done in the station district as
designed to meet a distinct educational need. The first tables,
therefore, correspond to the first evangelistic and medical tables and
set forth the quantitative extent of the educational work in relation to
the area and to the population.

_______________________________________________________________
         |      |                 |  Number of   |
         |      |    Number of    | Secondary or | Remarks and
District.| Area.| Primary Schools.|  Middle or   | Conclusions.
         |      |                 | High Schools.|
_________|______|_________________|______________|_____________
         |      |                 |              |
         |      |                 |              |
_________|______|_________________|______________|_____________
---------|------|-----------------|--------------|--------------

_________________________________________________________________
         |        |          | Propor-|          | Propor-|
         |        |  Number  |  tion  |  Number  |  tion  |
         | Popula-|    of    |   to   |    of    |   to   | Re-
District.|  tion. |  Primary | Popula-|  Higher  | Popula-|marks.
         |        | Teachers.|  tion. | Teachers.|  tion. |
_________|________|__________|________|__________|________|______
         |        |          |        |          |        |
_________|________|__________|________|__________|________|_______


Here it will be noted that whereas in the area it is the number of
schools which is considered, in relation to population it is the number
of teachers, because in the area the point of importance is the
accessibility of the schools; whilst in relation to the population it is
the number of teachers which reveals to what extent the population is
served.

Then similar reasons to those which led us to take into account the
non-missionary medical assistance in the area force us to consider the
non-missionary education. If we are to consider scholastic education as
a need of the people at all, we must acknowledge that the presence of
Government or private schools makes a great difference to the situation,
and if an appeal for medical missions ought to be affected by the
presence or absence of non-missionary medical assistance, equally ought
an appeal for educational missions in any area to be affected by the
presence or absence of non-missionary educational facilities.

It may be true that if the aim of educational missions were defined as
the provision of educational facilities under Christian influence, the
presence of non-Christian educational facilities, in proportion to their
magnitude, might be a challenge to Christians to increase theirs. On
this basis the mission would deliberately compete with Government
schools where Government schools were strongest. But if the mission is
designed to supply a liberal education for Christians, the presence of
Government schools does not necessarily induce competition. We might
well ponder the question put by a Christian convert in India, when
discussing the use of educational missions by the missionary societies:
"Hindus," he said, "are not deterred from sending their children to
Christian schools by the fear that they will cease to be Hindus, and do
the societies think so little of our religion that they are afraid that
our children would cease to be Christians if they attended a Government
school?" Whatever answer we give to that question, in either case the
existence of non-Christian schools is a serious and important factor in
the situation.

We therefore inquire into the non-missionary educational work done in
the area. We are well aware that in many cases the surveyor will find it
difficult to supply the required information, and may be driven to make
an estimate; but the information ought to be provided for any true and
just administration of educational mission funds, and estimates must be
here regarded as at the best a poor substitute, though under existing
circumstances perhaps a necessary one.

_____________________________________________________________________
          |       |        |
          |       |        |Propor- | Higher |      | Propor- |
          |Primary|        |tion of |   or   |Teach-| tion of |Re-
          |Schools|Teachers|Teachers| Second-| ers. | Teachers|marks.
          |       |        |to Popu-|   ary  |      | to Popu-|
          |       |        |lation. |Schools.|      | lation. |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Missionary|   --  |   --   |   --   |    --  |  --  |   --    |  --
---------------------------------------------------------------------
  Non-    |       |        |        |        |      |         |
Missionary|   --  |   --   |   --   |   --   |  --  |    --   |  --
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Then we need to consider the extent to which the educational efforts of
the mission are used to meet the needs of the better educated and of the
more ignorant. This will be revealed by the average attendance in the
different classes of schools.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Total   |        |        |Propor-|         |       | Propor-| Re-
Scholars|        |        |tion of|         |       | tion of|marks
  in    |Primary |Scholars|Total  |Secondary| Scho- |  Total |  and
Mission |Schools.|        |  Scho-| Schools.|  lars.| Scho-  |Conclu-
Schools.|        |        |lars.  |         |       | lars.  | sions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
        |        |        |       |         |       |        |
________|________|________|_______|_________|_______|________|_______

Then we must inquire into the proportion in which the education given in
the schools is given to boys and to girls. This is peculiarly important
in considering the influence of school education upon the rising
generation of Christians, since well-taught girls make intelligent and
helpful wives and mothers, and this tends enormously to the advancement
of the Christian community. And the same truth applies to the
non-Christian population.

                 |    Mission     |     Mission       |Remarks and
                 |Primary Schools.| Secondary Schools.|  Conclusions.
-----------------+----------------+----------------------------------
                 | Boys. | Girls. | Boys. | Girls.    |
-----------------+-------+--------+-------------------+--------------
Christian or     |       |        |       |           |
From             |       |        |       |           |
Christian homes. |       |        |       |           |
-----------------+-------+--------+-------+-----------+--------------
Non-Christian    |       |        |       |           |
-----------------+-------+--------+-------+-----------+

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

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

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Primary | Proportion     | Higher   | Proportion | Remarks
Schools | Receiving      | Schools. | Receiving  | and
        | Government     |          | Government | Conclusions.
        | Grant, if any. |          | Grant.     |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
        |                |          |            |
________|________________|__________|____________|___________________

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

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

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

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

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

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

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Schools. | Number of Schools | Proportion of Schools | Remarks and
         | Regularly Visited | Visited by            | Conclusions.
         | by Evangelists.   | Evangelists.          |
         |                   |                       |
-------------------------------------------------------------------
         |                   |                       |
_________|___________________|_______________________|____________

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

------------+------------+---------------+-------------+------------
Evangelistic| Number of  |   Number of   |  Number of  |Conclusions
   Tours.   |Evangelistic|Educationalists|Days Spent by|and Remarks.
            |  Workers.  |  Assisting.   | Evangelists |
            |            |               |  on Tour.   |
------------+------------+---------------+-------------+------------
            |            |               |             |
------------+------------+---------------+-------------+------------

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

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

Nevertheless, if we are to be told, and to act on the hearing, that
Christian schools are founded because it is easier to convert the young
than the old, and the twig can be bent while the tree resists till it
breaks, we must inquire how far this saying is justified by experience.
A survey which neglected the factors which throw light upon it would be
a partial and unjust one.

Hence we ask first--

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

and secondly--

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

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

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

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

---------------------------------------------------------------------
            | Total      | Total         | Total Native | Volunteers
            | Expense    | Foreign       | Contribution | for
            | of Work in | Contribution. | Fees and     | Training.
            | Station    |               | Donations.   |
            | Area.      |               |              |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Medical     | ----       | ----          | ----         | ----
------------|------------|---------------|--------------|------------
Educational | ----       | ----          | ----         | ----
---------------------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER VII.

CO-OPERATION BETWEEN THE DIFFERENT ELEMENTS IN THE MISSION.


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

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

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

But it is just at this point, the relation between the medical and
educational work, that we shall probably find most difficulty. This
relationship has not been carefully thought out in the past, and
co-operation between medicals and educationalists is, we fancy, somewhat
rare. Few men could tell us exactly what policy is followed, or ought to
be followed. This is partly due to that confusion of purpose of which we
spoke in the first chapter, a confusion which obscures and confounds
our medical and educational missions. If both medical and educational
missions had had one common dominant purpose, the relation between them
would have been more easily seen; but since they were separated in
thought, each having its own particular and separate objects to pursue,
they naturally worked along parallel lines and consequently did not
meet. If they had had one common dominant object they would have met.
But generally speaking there is no clear understanding whether the
medical mission has any definite relation to the educational mission, or
the educational mission to the medical.

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

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

The table can only include visits and inspection of pupils.

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

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

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

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

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

---------------------------------------------------------------------
       | Foreign | Native |Assisting|Assisting|Assisting|Remarks
       | Mission | Assist | in      |in       |in       |   and
       | -aries. | ants.  | Evangel-|Hosp-    |Schools. |Conclusions.
       |         |        |   istic |itals.   |         |
       |         |        | Tours.  |         |         |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Evange-|         |        |         |         |         |
listic |  ----   |  ----  |  ----   |  ----   |  ----   |  ----
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Medical|  ----   |  ----  |  ----   |  ----   |  ----   |  ----
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Educa  |         |        |         |         |         |
-tional|  ----   |  ----  |  ----   |  ----   |  ----   |  ----
---------------------------------------------------------------------

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

CHAPTER VIII.

THE NATIVE CHURCH.


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

This proposal sets before us a real end for the mission station. It
suggests a point at which the station will have done its work; the
mission would then have no more place in those parts. The station has
thus an end, not only in the sense that it has an object at which it
aims, but a point at which it ceases. But this end is not simply a point
in the far distant future; it is a condition, or state of the Church in
the district, into which it must be growing. Then the growth of the
native Church is more important than the growth of the mission, and all
things should be directed primarily to that end, so that as the native
Church waxed the mission should wane, and thus the end should be reached
naturally and easily and not by a catastrophe. If that is the end, then
the survey of the station and its district cannot fail to take the form
of an inquiry how far progress in this direction has been made.

Since our ideas of missionary work are wrapped up with the establishment
of mission stations and consequently with the purchase of land and
buildings, since we rely almost wholly upon paid workers for the
prosecution of the work, since we employ most expensive methods of
propaganda, such as the establishment of great medical and educational
institutions, since our societies at home are almost wholly absorbed in
the effort to procure funds to pay for all these things, it is not
surprising that money takes a supremely important position in our
thought of all missionary work. Consequently, when we think of the
growth of the native Church in power to carry on the work which we have
begun we naturally think first of self-support.

Self-support is now one of the most common missionary catchwords. We
hear it on every platform at home; we hear it in the mouths of large
numbers of our converts abroad. There exist in the mission field large
numbers of what are called "self-supporting churches". Our missionaries
often set this self-support before their converts as a status of honour,
and offer them encouragements of various kinds to induce them to become
self-supporting as soon as possible. At home, if we ask concerning the
progress of the native Church, they often answer us by telling us the
numbers of these self-supporting churches.

What then is meant by a self-supporting Church? We might naturally
suppose that a self-supporting Church was a Church which was independent
of external support; we might suppose that it could maintain itself
without any assistance from mission funds; we might suppose that, when a
Church became self-supporting, the mission, so far as finance was
concerned, could withdraw and move to some fresh place. That is
sometimes the case, but very rarely. We know, for instance, a case where
fourteen Christians in a small town provided their own chapel and its
furnishing and upkeep, and all subsidiary expenses without any
assistance. They had no paid ministers and therefore no salaries to
pay. They were from the very beginning entirely self-supporting, and the
missionary could, and did, leave them and go to others who needed him
more. But in this case there was no mission compound, no elaborate
system of mission education, and no mission fund from which the chapel
could be built and a pastor provided, before the converts were ready to
provide these things for themselves.

Most commonly the mission does all these things, and then self-support
does not necessarily imply independence of foreign support. We have met
native Christians who assured us in one breath that they were members of
a self-supporting Church and that their Church did not receive its fair
share of mission funds. Self-support does not necessarily mean
independence of external pecuniary aid.

What then does the status of a self-supporting Church imply? Nothing
certain, but just what the society, or the missionary, chooses. Take a
case. In a newly opened outstation the converts subscribed $5 Mexican, a
head, per annum. The missionary in charge of the district estimated that
$500 per annum would pay the rent and upkeep of the chapel, and the
salary of the pastor. Therefore he calculated that when the membership
of the chapel reached 100, the congregation would be self-supporting.
But if a school were founded and fees paid, then the day of self-support
would be very far off.

Hence it is obvious that self-support is an arbitrary standard fixed on
no certain grounds; and progress towards self-support is simply a
progress towards a line which the foreigner prescribes. Just as each
father among us here in England, according to his class and standard of
living, fixes a standard for his son, saying, "When he earns so much he
will be able to maintain himself," so the society, or the individual
missionary, fixes the standard for converts. In this case, the foreigner
insisted on the salary for the pastor, he created the building, its
ornaments and expenses; and where this is done the day of self-support
must be more or less delayed. More or less, for what one man considers
abundant another thinks hardly decent, simply because each has learnt in
a different school different ideas of what is necessary or desirable.
Consequently one man makes the day of self-support easy of attainment,
another loudly proclaims that his people are so poor that they cannot
possibly be expected to provide for themselves.

Furthermore, we must observe that in the first case the converts
arrived speedily at self-support because the foreign missionary never
for a moment allowed them to be anything else, whilst in the second the
missionary provided what he thought necessary until such time as the
Church was sufficiently wealthy to pay for it. The one Church decided
for itself what it needed, and what it needed it took the necessary
steps to supply: the other accepted what was given to it and was asked
to subscribe more and more to pay for it. But when the provision is
first made largely from some more or less mysterious foreign source, the
converts will never subscribe to a fund so organised as they will to a
fund which they raise and administer themselves to supply what they
themselves want, and cannot have unless they provide the necessary money
to get it. Self-support then, as the word is most commonly used, means
anything but genuine self-support, and does not represent the power of
the people to supply their needs. It means only the subscription of
money sufficient to pay for certain things which are more or less
arbitrarily fixed by the missionary or his society.

Neither is it any sure evidence of the zeal and liberality of the Church
which is called self-supporting. The existence of self-supporting
churches is indeed sometimes used as an argument to show that the Church
is growing in this Christian virtue. But this is largely deceptive. The
existence of self-supporting churches does not necessarily prove
Christian liberality. Take the case which we quoted above where the
Christians subscribed $5 a head. It was said that when they numbered 100
members they would be self-supporting. But, if they still subscribed $5
a head, there would be no more liberality in the Church of 100, which
was self-supporting, than in the Church of ten, which was not
self-supporting. There might be more, if the ninety members added were
very poor; there might be less if one wealthy man joined the Church.
Since the status of a self-supporting Church is one of honour and
privilege, the members might even be tempted to admit an unworthy member
who was well off in the hope that his subscriptions might aid them to
attain that glorious position without much self-denial or effort on
their own part.

Moreover, the collection of money is a highly developed art. It is
extraordinary what pressure men can bring to bear upon converts to
induce them to subscribe, so that the contribution is in many cases
little different from the payment of a tax. It is truly amazing to read
how many forms of appeals and fees can be invented to collect money from
more or less unwilling givers.[1] We cannot then accept the existence of
self-supporting churches as an evidence of liberality, nor base our
calculation on the sum subscribed for the upkeep of such churches.

[Footnote 1: This is a list of the means employed to raise money by one
missionary in order to assist the people in his district to arrive at
self-support:--

(1) Sunday collections. (2) Share of first fruits (crop seasons). (3)
Monthly membership family assessment. (4) Special missionary or harvest
thanksgiving (twice a year). (5) Pinch of rice at every meal as
thanksgiving (women's share). (6) Box in houses for prayer meetings,
etc. (7) Church box. (8) Dedication of special pepper or cocoa-nut trees
for church repair. (9) Bible society collections. (10) Hospital
collection. (11) Baptism offerings. (12) Marriage offerings. (13) Lord's
Supper offerings. (14) Special gifts for church building or equipment.

It is not surprising that he adds that he is told that some of the new
converts have gone back because they see the regularity and frequency of
giving.]

Nevertheless, seeing that self-supporting churches are widely
recognised, let us begin with these and seek to find out what
information a table of inquiry might supply. We should ask first for
the number of self-supporting churches in relation to (_a_) the number
of communicants (or full members) in the district, and (_b_) the number
of Christian Churches organised, but not self-supporting. By an
organised Church we understand a body of Christians in any place who
hold regular religious services, and may send delegates to any council
which may exist for the whole station district.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Communicants.|Proportion of  |Organised|Proportion of   |Remarks
             |Communicants   |Churches.|Organised       |and
             |connected with |         |Churches        |Conclusions.
             |Self-supporting|         |Self-supporting.|
             |Churches.      |         |                |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
             |               |         |                |
_____________|_______________|_________|________________|____________

From this we should learn briefly, and as a starting-point, the
proportion of the self-supporting churches, and that might help us to
understand the progress made towards self-support as it is understood in
the district, and enable us to compare it with that of other districts.
But this by itself would not be of any great value in assisting us to
understand what progress had been made towards the establishment of a
Church which could stand alone, if the station with its foreign staff
were withdrawn. No Church which does not advance can stand, and the mere
attainment of this arbitrary standard does not necessarily prove
capacity to advance or to stand. The effort to attain it sometimes leads
the converts to concentrate their attention upon themselves. They set
self-support before their eyes as an end to be attained for their own
sake. It has consequently sometimes happened that native churches,
established on this self-supporting basis, have become self-absorbed,
self-seeking. They have so looked on their own things that they have
tended to lose sight of the things of others. They have become, like
many little Christian communities at home, so entangled in the effort to
maintain their own dignity, their own services, their own progress in
outward prosperity, that they have forgotten the real purpose of their
existence, and, instead of becoming centres of light and attraction and
active zeal for the spread of the gospel, have degenerated into
self-contained units indulging a self-satisfied pride in the glorious
position to which they have attained as self-supporting churches. The
history of some churches on the West Coast of Africa and in South India
suggests the need for such a warning, and urges us to pursue the
inquiry further.

We should inquire, then, what number of inquirers, adherents, hearers,
catechumens, etc., are seeking entrance into the Church in connection
with the self-supporting churches as compared with the total number of
such inquirers, adherents, etc., in the district and compared with the
number of communicants in connection with those churches.

---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
In District (excluding Self-supporting Churches).              |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
  Communicants.                                          |     |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
  Inquirers and Adherents.                               |     |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
  Proportion of Inquirers to Communicants.               |     |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
In Self-supporting Churches.                                   |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
  Communicants.                                          |     |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
  Inquirers and Adherents.                               |     |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
  Proportion of Inquirers to Communicants.               |     |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Remarks and Conclusions.                                 |     |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|

Such a table should, we think, prove illuminating as revealing the
influence and zeal of the members of the self-supporting churches.

A further light on this subject might be gained by comparing the number
of unpaid workers connected with the self-supporting churches with the
number of such workers in the whole district, excluding the
self-supporting churches.

---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
In District (excluding Self-supporting Churches).              |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
  Communicants.                                          |     |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
  Unpaid Workers.                                        |     |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
  Proportion of Unpaid Workers to Communicants.          |     |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
In Self-supporting Churches.                                   |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
  Communicants.                                          |     |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
  Unpaid Workers.                                        |     |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
  Proportion of Unpaid Workers to Communicants.          |     |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Remarks and Conclusions.                                 |     |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|

This would supplement the previous table and tend to correct any
mistakes to which it might give rise.

Thus far of the missions which recognise self-supporting churches. As
for the mission districts in which no such distinctions have been made,
all that I think we need to do is to recall the tables which we made
when considering the native force (p. 54 _sqq_.), and to supplement them
with tables designed to reveal (1) the power of the Christians to
conduct their own religious services independently of the foreigner; (2)
their power to direct their own Church government; (3) their power to
supply the material needs of their organisation according to the ideas
which they have received and hold.

With regard to the first question, all that we need to know is what
proportion of the Christians are in a position to carry on their own
religious life independently of foreign help. In the Anglican Communion
that involves the presence of a duly ordained priest: in some societies
which deny the necessity of ordination, yet give a position not unlike
that of the priest to their ordained men, it would involve the presence
of a pastor. Others deny the necessity or advantage of any ordained
ministers. Under these circumstances we cannot use accepted
ecclesiastical terms; but by capacity for conducting their own religious
services we must certainly at least mean capacity to perform all
necessary religious rites, and that, for Anglicans at any rate, must
include Baptism and Holy Communion. Suppose then that we accepted the
"organised churches" as a basis and inquired what proportion of these
organised churches could, and did, perform _all_ necessary religious
rites, we should indeed omit the floating and isolated members of the
unorganised Christian community which in some districts might be very
large, but we should nevertheless, we hope, get a definite and common
basis which would really give us some light on this difficult but
important problem, and if we added a question as to the proportion of
the Christian constituency connected with these organised churches we
should have some check upon a serious misunderstanding.

---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Number of Organised Churches.                            |     |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Proportion of Christian Constituency                     |     |
Connected with these.                                    |     |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Number of Churches Capable of Performing _all_      |     |
Necessary Religious Rites without External Assistance.   |     |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Proportion of these to Number of Organised Churches.     |     |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Remarks and Conclusions.                                 |     |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|

The second question is, How far the Church in the district can direct
its own life and order its own government. The difficulty here arises
from the very diverse forms of Church government which have been taught
to the natives by their foreign teachers, some of them late and
difficult representative systems, not easily grasped even by educated
men. Is there then any general question which will suffice to throw
light on this problem, where the people are in the midst of the process
of learning an unfamiliar form of government?

Were very simple and almost universal ideas always followed, as for
instance in episcopacy, which naturally adapts itself to the simplest
and most common conceptions and experiences of men, in that the bishop
is closely related in idea to the father of the family, or the head man
of a village, or the governor of a province, or a chief of a tribe, or
an autocratic emperor, or a constitutional monarch, according to the
notions and experience of the people--so that a bishop is as easily
understood by a nomad family, or a village community, as by a democratic
nation, according to its stage of development, and if native bishops
were universal, as they are not, the problem would be comparatively
simple. Indeed then we need scarcely ask the question at all. Either
patriarchal episcopacy, or monarchical episcopacy, or constitutional
episcopacy all men can understand, whether the bishop is elected by his
people, or appointed by his predecessor, or by his fellows, or both
elected by his people and confirmed by his fellows--such things all men
can understand and maintain, each the form suited to their own stage.
But constitutional episcopacy when the people are at the patriarchal
stage of development, or republicanism when the people are at the
monarchical stage, they cannot understand, until they have learnt to
understand it by long and slow experience. But many of the systems
introduced by us are the latest and most advanced systems. How then can
we discover to what extent the Christians have mastered them? We can
find no question which solves this problem. We can only suggest the bare
questions, what proportion of the people take a proper and active part
in the system of Church government under which they live; and what
proportion of the congregations take an active part as congregations in
that system of Church government.

---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Number of Christians who take any part in Church         |     |
Government by Vote or Voice.                             |     |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Proportion of Total Christian Constituency               |     |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Number of Congregations who take a share as              |     |
Congregations in Church Government.                      |     |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Proportion of Christian Congregations.                   |     |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Remarks and Conclusions.                                 |     |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|

By the first question we understand the number of Christians who vote or
speak or act in any way, either personally or by electing
representatives, in the direction of the common action of the whole
Christian community viewed as a unity; by the second question we
understand the number of congregations which are represented at any
council higher than the council of their own congregation.

We think these questions most unsatisfactory, but we can devise no
others. We have no doubt that, if all the foreigners disappeared
suddenly, the native Christians would either perish or would speedily
adopt a form of Church government which they understood. The whole
necessity for these questions arises from the fact that we have foisted
upon them foreign systems and are uncertain to what extent they have
really grasped them. The consequence is that when we think of a Church
capable of standing alone we are in doubt. We do not feel certain that
the converts could carry on their government; and some of us think a
change in the form of Church government as serious a matter as the
change from Paganism to Christianity: it is an excommunicating matter.
Inevitably then in an inquiry such as ours we must try to discover how
far the people are advanced in the understanding of the organisation
which they have been taught. Until they are quite sound in this faith
and fully trained in this system, whether it is a circuit or a
presbytery or a democratic episcopacy, or a papacy, they cannot possibly
stand alone. Who would dare to suggest such a revolutionary idea! Why,
they might adopt a native governmental system--something which they
understood at once, quite easily, and then where should we be? We know
how to administer the system in which we were brought up: it is better
that they should learn that.

Finally we make an inquiry concerning the power of the Christians to
supply the material needs of their religious organisation. We want to
know to what extent they are really dependent on foreign funds, and to
what extent they can stand alone financially.

It is tempting to imagine that we can discover this by a mere
calculation of the total expenditure on all work carried on in the
district and comparing this either with the number of Christians and
their relative wealth or poverty, or simply with the contribution which
they actually make, concluding that the difference between their
contribution, or their estimated power to give, and the cost of the work
carried on in the area is the difference between their power to supply
their needs and their real needs. But foreign funds are largely spent
upon things which, however excellent they may be in themselves, are not
really _necessary_ for the religious life of the Christians, such as
missionaries' salaries, high schools, colleges, medical institutions,
and expensive buildings. Consequently to know the total expenditure in
the area is not to know the necessary expenditure. The native Church
might maintain its life and conquer the whole district without spending
in actual money a tithe of that which we spend on providing the people
with medicine and education and buildings and foreign missionaries.

Yet the question cannot be avoided. Missionaries all over the world
carefully count every penny which the converts subscribe, and search
diligently for some new method of doubling it, in order to lead their
converts towards the goal of self-support. What that goal is we do not
know. We cannot tell how far the Christians can supply their own needs,
if we do not know what the needs really are. And that we do not know. In
a certain very real sense Christians can always provide what is
necessary for their religious life. They could all always be
self-supporting, if we did not invent needs and insist upon them; and
what we insist upon depends entirely upon the school in which we were
brought up. The standard set, as we have already explained, is purely
arbitrary.

Under these circumstances how can we express the position of the native
Church with any approximation to truth? We can only suggest that these
arbitrary standards should be accepted, and ask that they should be
defined in every case. We should ask the missionaries, or the societies,
to estimate the amount required to supply that minimum upon which they
insist. If we did that, remembering always that the estimate made must
be doubtful and arbitrary, and that the native contribution, whilst
comparatively large funds are regularly supplied from a foreign source,
will never represent the power of the Christian community to supply its
own needs, we should at least have some standard by which we might
estimate the position of the Christian Church in the country, and its
progress. We suggest then that three items should be included in the
table: (1) the total expense of carrying on all the work in the station
district, whether the funds were provided from foreign or native
sources; (2) the amount estimated to cover the necessary expenses of the
native Christian Church; and (3) the amount subscribed by the native
Christian community. We think these three items taken together would
help us to understand the situation.

---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Total Expense of Church and Mission in the Area          |     |
per Head of Christian Constituency.                      |     |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Amount Estimated to Cover all Necessary Expenses of the  |     |
Native Christian Constituency per Head.                  |     |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Amount Subscribed for all Purposes by the Native         |     |
Christian Constituency per Head.                         |     |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Remarks and Conclusions.                                 |     |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|

We have now, we hope, some light on the question how far we are really
succeeding in attaining a purpose which we hear constantly proclaimed,
as if it were indeed a governing object of our work, the creation of an
independent native Church.




CHAPTER IX.

SURVEY OF DISTRICTS WHERE TWO OR MORE SOCIETIES ARE AT WORK AND SURVEY
OF MISSIONS WITH NO DEFINED DISTRICTS.


I. Districts in which Two or more Societies are at Work.

Hitherto we have taken for granted that only one missionary society is
at work in the district and that the survey is therefore simple; but in
many mission station districts some other society is also at work.
Occasionally the district of one station overlaps part of the district
of a station of another society. In many districts Roman Catholics are
at work, and certain forms of their work cannot be ignored, and no form
of their work ought to be ignored in surveying the district.

If two missions sent by different societies are at work in the _same_
district then, it would be an immense advantage if the survey of the
district could be made a joint production. Union for study is often
possible, when union in work is impossible, and the common understanding
of the situation is most useful.

But if that is impossible, then each society must survey the whole
district, and, what an immense amount of labour would be wasted in the
preliminary survey, the physical toil of travelling over the country to
see the villages and towns, which must be seen to be known, and must be
known to reveal the secret of the task which the mission is founded to
fulfil, that labour is known only to one who has undertaken such a task,
and will soon be known to anyone who starts out conscientiously to
survey any district. But it is helpful and illuminating labour, and it
would be far better that the heads of two missions should survey the
whole of the same district separately than that neither should survey
any of it. If both feel that in any real sense that is "_their
district_," then they ought both to survey it all; for to call a
district _mine_ which I have not even surveyed and do not know even by
sight is absurd; but it would lighten their labour and help their mutual
understanding if they surveyed it together.

If a part of the district overlaps part of another mission district,
that part should be surveyed together if possible, or if that is not
possible, by each separately.

In this survey the work of no Christian society, however remote
ecclesiastically or theologically from the surveyor's point of view,
should be omitted. Ignorance of the work done by others is the worst
possible form of separation. There is a sense in which it is true that
the more remote the ecclesiastical position of another is from our own,
the more near we are to definite opposition, the more important it is
that we should know what his work is. We may find in it so much to
admire that our annoyance at what seem to us his ecclesiastical
absurdities may be softened. If we survey the district together we shall
perhaps find there is room for both, even if we each start with the
persuasion that there is no room for the other anywhere in the world.

On no account must we fail to consider another's work. In educational or
medical work we must recognise that a school or a hospital which exists,
by whomsoever created, in the district makes a difference to the
situation. To deal with the district as if that school or hospital did
not exist is to deal with an imaginary district, not with the real one;
and no one supposes that there is any advantage in dealing with things
that are what they are as if they were something else.

We have observed a certain tendency to recognise this truth in the
matter of education and medicine, and to introduce into survey proposals
a note, when the educational and medical tables were reached, to remind
the surveyor that the educational and medical work of some society of
which he is afraid, or from which he thinks himself widely separated, as
extreme Protestants from Roman Catholics, must not be ignored; but in
the evangelistic and Church tables no such note is inserted. This is, we
suppose, a tacit acceptance of the idea that the opposite party's
evangelical and church building work can be ignored with trifling
loss--that to ignore it does not much matter. But if a man is surveying
what he calls habitually "his" district, he is surveying it presumably
to get at the facts, and one of the most important facts which he needs
to know is how far the preaching of Christ has extended and where
Christian churches have been established. Unless then he is prepared to
deny the name of Christ to the opposite party (and that is a very
serious thing to do), he cannot ignore their churches. The people claim
to be Christians and declare that they believe in Christ. If the
surveyor without further inquiry rejects them because they belong to a
society which he does not like, that may be an exhibition of
ecclesiastical zeal, but it is not the science of surveying.

Whatever he may think of them, as a surveyor he has no right to ignore
them. He is surveying "his district". There are in it so many persons of
various religious belief, amongst them his own converts and these
Christians of the opposite party. He perhaps refuses to recognise the
latter as Christians; but they are undoubtedly neither Moslems nor
Confucianists, nor Buddhists, nor Hindoos, nor do they belong to any of
the non-Christian religions. He cannot ignore them. He must take count
of them. Therefore if in a district the Protestant and the Roman
Catholic cannot survey together, the Protestant who does survey must
carefully consider the facts before his face, and endeavour to find out
what the facts really are as well as he possibly can. The facts are that
Roman Catholics are working in what he calls "his district"; the facts
are that there are churches here, and here, and here, and people who
call themselves Christians so many, and that the heathen population is
by so many less. And there are so many mission priests, and they win
converts, and the converts won by them cease to be heathen, for they are
sometimes persecuted by their heathen neighbours, even as his own
converts are persecuted.

Happily all leading surveyors are realising these obvious facts and are
now taking these things into serious account; but it is still necessary
to insist on their importance.

In these tables, when other missions are at work in the district, all
that is necessary is to add one column of the work of the other missions
so far as it is known, or can be ascertained. We are well aware that
that easy phrase covers in many cases great practical difficulty. Here
is one of the places where estimates may be inevitable. If they are
inevitable, they should be estimates, not guesses, and a note should be
made of the process by which they were reached. The difference between
an estimate and a guess is that an estimate is the result of a definite
train of reasoned calculation and a guess is not. For an estimate
reasons can be given, for a guess none other than--it occurred to me.


II. The Mission which has no Defined District.

We believe that the vast majority of missions accept a territorial
district; but there are missions where the station district has not and
cannot be defined.

The idea of the mission is not territorial. The object proposed is not
to cover any area with mission stations, nor to establish in every town
and village a church or chapel, but to create at a centre a Church of
living sons trained and educated by many years, perhaps generations, of
care to become the centre of a movement which may cover the whole
country; or it may be to influence movements which arise in the
religious, political, or social life of the people, and to direct these
into Christian channels. In such cases a territorial foundation is
impossible. The mission exists in the midst of a people and influences
the people; it makes converts, it establishes them in the faith, it
cares for them in mind and body, it prepares them to set the moral and
religious standard for any Church of the future. It is not concerned
directly with the widest possible preaching of the Gospel. When the
native Christians whom it is painfully and slowly educating and training
come to maturity they will spread the Gospel throughout the length and
breadth of the land. It is not, we are told, the business of the Foreign
Mission to preach the Gospel in every village of a defined area nor to
make itself responsible for such preaching directly: it should give to
converts in every country the highest and best and fullest teaching of
Christian civilisation, in order that by so doing it may show to all the
people of the country an example, by which they may be attracted and
influenced. If we take the widest expression of such mission activity we
find that to estimate the true value of such work we should be compelled
to survey not only the mission and its activities but the social, moral,
material, and spiritual state of the people among whom the mission was
planted, and seek for signs of a change which we could trace with some
certainty to the influence of the mission. That would be a stupendous
and most intricate undertaking. Where innumerable forces are at work
such as are implied in the impact of western civilisation upon the
peoples of the East, or of Africa, it would be extremely difficult to
state the exact impression made by the mission, even if we could survey
the whole state of the people at regular and definite periods. We do
not for a moment doubt that all Christian missions do exercise an
influence of this wide and far-reaching character, and from time to time
we can see results which clearly spring from it, but we cannot think it
wise to set out this vague influence as the primary purpose of a
mission. We believe that the Christian missions which aim directly and
primarily at the conversion of men and the establishment of a living
native Church produce this fruit by the way.

If, however, we take the narrower expressions in the statement of aim
which we have set out above, we find in it the purpose of establishing a
Church, but the establishment is viewed as the result of a long and
elaborate training and cultivation of a comparatively small body of
Christians, rather than as the immediate result of widespread work. In
such a case we ought to be able to trace progress and to place these
missions in a common scheme.

The early tables of work to be done and of the force in relation to that
work on a territorial basis certainly fail. The leaders of the mission
have not the information and do not want it, but they could almost
certainly provide the facts concerning the force at work contained in
the tables without the proportions for the district, and they would
perhaps be able to fill up most of the other tables omitting proportions
to area and population.

Now if they did that we should be able to see the force at work and the
type of work in which the mission was strongest and weakest, and the
relation of the different types of work to each other, though it is
probable that the tables dealing with the native Church as distinct from
the Mission would not be filled up. With that information we could
almost certainly define more or less exactly the place of the mission in
a large area such as the province, or the country; for in dealing with
the province or the country we must necessarily mass figures, and we
have there a known, or estimated, area and population, to use as a basis
for calculation of proportions and comparison, and we are aiming at
placing each mission in a larger whole and trying to see what part each
takes in the performance of a great work which is world wide in its
scope. If the missions then which decline a territorial basis for their
work would fill up those tables which reveal the nature of their work
and the force engaged in it we should be able to advance to the next
stage. This is what we meant when at an earlier stage we remarked that
we had drawn our tables to serve a definite purpose, but that we had not
ignored the case of the man whose idea of the purpose of a mission
differed from our own.




CHAPTER X.

SURVEY OF THE WORK IN A PROVINCE.


In few parts of the world is a mission station really an isolated unit.
In most of the countries to which we go there are many stations of many
different missions, all aiming more or less definitely at the
establishment of a native Church, whatever their conception of the
Church may be. In the vast majority of cases these stations have some
relationship to one another. The definition of districts for the mission
stations is commonly recognised, and in planning new work directors of
missions frequently allow themselves to be influenced, in some way and
in some degree, by the position of existing mission stations. There are
also in some parts of the world bodies composed of leading members of
many of the missions that work in the country, who meet to consider the
progress of the Christian faith in the province or the country as a
whole, and deliberately plan their work with some consideration of the
position and character of the work done by the others. Now in all this
there is a manifest approach to the idea that mission work in the
country or province is a common work, and that the various missions
engaged in it are not antagonists, but allies. It is certainly true that
we are far from having reached the stage of a common direction and a
real unification of work Rivalry and antagonism are still rampant, but
the recognition of the fact that we must consider the position and
character of other missions in directing our own is a most important
advance; and it implies that we ought, in some measure at least, to be
able to express the work of any mission station in relation to all the
mission work done in the province or country, and to understand, at any
rate in some degree, what place it takes in the mission work in the
province viewed as a whole. It is true that a great many missionaries
would refuse to admit that the recognition of other stations in the
planting of our own is an acknowledgment of the unity of our work; but
whether they acknowledge it, or whether they do not, it is so, and we
for our part recognise it with thankfulness and look forward to a day
when missions will not only recognise others by avoiding them, but by
planning missions deliberately to assist each other. For that seems to
us the necessary conclusion. The moment we recognise a station as a
Christian mission station which we must not disturb, we have gone a long
way towards recognising it as a mission station which our own must not
only not disturb, but must complement; and when we know that one mission
must complement another we are really not far removed from establishing
our missions with common consultation each to supply what is lacking to
the other.

Holding this view, we desire to discover what place each mission station
occupies when we take a wider view and survey the province or country.
Here we shall be able to adjust many apparent inequalities in the
mission stations viewed by themselves. From our previous survey of the
mission stations one by one we may have got the impression that some of
them as mission stations designed for work in a district were very
ill-balanced. The medical work, or institutional work of some kind, may
have seemed to be out of all proportion to the other forms of the work,
and this impression may remain when we view the province. But on the
other hand it may be seriously modified; because when we review the
work of the province as a whole, we may find that the institutional work
of the province as a whole is out of proportion to the evangelistic
work, and in that case we should think the disproportion at the station
more serious. On the other hand we might find the institutional work in
the province inadequate, and in that case the emphasis which seemed
undue in the one place, and may really be improper in that one place,
nevertheless, in view of the situation in the whole province, may be
shown to be reasonable in relation to the whole province. How then can
we gather together the returns from all the stations so as to present a
view of the work in the province? For that is the first thing. We cannot
put the station into its proper place in the province until we have a
view of the work in the province treated as a unity.

In provinces, large cities and towns, which are not reckoned as part of
any mission station district, have to be taken into account. These large
cities, capitals of provinces, countries, or empires, need special
consideration, and must often be surveyed separately. They are centres
in which many societies have their head-quarters, and many missionaries
live, yet the work done in them is not always so impressive or
extensive as the numbers of missionaries might suggest: occasionally the
missionaries are all congregated in one quarter of the city, and large
portions are practically untouched. In them, too, are sometimes large
city congregations, self-supporting indeed and self-governing, but
sucking into themselves all the more vigorous elements of the Christian
community and employing them within a somewhat narrow circle. The
problem of the evangelisation of these cities is a very serious one.

We suggest that these great cities might be treated either as one
district or as several, and that they ought to be surveyed
systematically by a body representative of all the missions in each
city. If a proper survey were made and the facts tabulated, the
statistical tables would be similar to those for the station district,
and we could use them to complete a survey of the work done in the
province treated as a unity.

But to view the work in the province as a unity we do not need all the
detail of the station districts, indeed we should only find the
multiplication of detail confusing. To gain a general view of work in a
large area such as a province or a small country we must first of all
select those features which are common to all the parts and vitally
important. We venture to suggest that the important features to be
represented are five. (1) The work to be done in the whole area. (2) The
strength of the whole force at work in relation to the work to be done.
(3) The extent to which emphasis is laid on various forms of work. (4)
The extent to which different classes, races, and religions in the area
are reached. (5) The extent to which the Church has attained to
self-support.

1. If the mission stations and their allotted districts covered the
whole country, we should need to do no more than add together the
returns obtained from the station statistics which we have already drawn
up. But in most countries there are large unoccupied areas of the size
and population of which we are more or less ignorant. What we have is,
either a census return for the whole province, or an estimate of its
area and population. In dealing with the whole province then we must
treat the station returns of towns and villages occupied and of the
numbers of the Christian constituency as work done; and then we must
find out the relation of these to the whole area and population. This
would have to be done probably first on a large scale map which would
show the density of the population in different parts of the area, and
would show the stations and the strength of the Christian constituency
in relation to the area and population. These facts could then be
expressed in a table, and we should gain at once an idea of the extent
to which the missions were in a position to reach the population. The
table would be exceedingly simple and give us no more than the barest
idea of the work to be done in its vaguest expression.

------------------------------------------------------------------
          |        |              | Christian Con- | Non-Christian
Province. |  Area. |  Population. |    stituency.  |  Population.
------------------------------------------------------------------
          |        |              |                |
__________|________|______________|________________|____________

If, in addition to this, there was either a census return or a credible
estimate of the cities, towns, and villages, in the area, a table could
be drawn of the cities, towns, and villages occupied, in the sense that
there were Christians resident in them, and the work could be expressed
in that form also, which would greatly assist the understanding of the
other.

________________________________________________________________
         |                          |
         |       Occupied.          |       Unoccupied.
Province.|__________________________|___________________________
         |       |       |          |        |       |
         |Cities.| Towns.| Villages.| Cities.| Towns.| Villages.
_________|_______|_______|__________|________|_______|__________
         |       |       |          |        |       |
_________|_______|_______|__________|________|_______|__________

We ought here to repeat that we do not imagine for a moment that the
Foreign Missions are to occupy all the villages or even all the cities
and towns. We believe that a careful statement of work to be done in
this form would very speedily force us to realise, with a clearness and
power never before experienced, the truth which we often repeat, that
the conversion of the country must be the work of native Christians.

2. The force at work in relation to the work to be done. Here again it
would not be sufficient to add together the figures returned from the
stations, because in a large area like a province or a small country
there are often many missionaries not at mission stations but at some
large centre engaged in work for the whole province rather than for any
particular mission district; as, for instance, translators or
journalists; men engaged in hostels or Y.M.C.A. work; or in large
institutions, such as training colleges, medical or educational or
industrial; or in some special form of Christian philanthropy, such as
work amongst lepers, blind, deaf and dumb, and other infirm or defective
persons; or men engaged in assisting the missionaries all over the
country as directors, or forwarding agents; and all these must be taken
into account in considering the foreign force in the province. Including
all these we should get a table for the foreign force similar to that
which we had for the station, and that force we could relate directly to
the work to be done.

____________________________________________________________________
       |       |       |      |       |       |      |       |
       |       |       |      |       |       |      |       | Re-
       |       |       |      |       |       |      |       |marks
Popu-  | Total |Propor-|      |Propor-|       |Single|Propor-| and
lation.|Foreign|tion to| Men. |tion to| Wives.|Women.|tion to| Con-
       | Force.| Popu- |      | Popu- |       |      | Popu- | clu-
       |       |lation.|      |lation.|       |      |lation.|sions.
_______|_______|_______|______|_______|_______|______|_______|______
       |       |       |      |       |       |      |       |
_______|_______|_______|______|_______|_______|______|_______|______

We cannot sacrifice the proportions, because the life is in them.
Comparison of conditions in different areas can only be made on
proportions. The mere statement of the figures with the suggestion that
anyone can work out the proportions would reveal a singular ignorance of
human nature.

For the native force all that we need for the present purpose is a
table that will show us the Christian constituency, communicants, and
workers in the whole province in proportion to one another. Here also we
must include many workers and some congregations in large towns which
the station district survey may have omitted.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
            |Total.| Proportion| Proportion    |Proportion   |Remarks
            |      |of         |of Christian   |of           |and
            |      |Population.| Constituency. |Communicants.|Conclu-
            |      |           |               |             | sions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Christian   |      |           |               |             |
constituency| ---- |  ----     |               |             |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Communicants| ---- |  ----     |  ----         |             |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Paid workers| ---- |  ----     |  ----         |   ----      |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Unpaid      |      |           |               |             |
 Workers    | ---- |  ----     |  ----         |   ----      |
---------------------------------------------------------------------

3. It is important to consider carefully the proportions in which the
force is engaged in different forms of work since, as we have already
explained, these different forms are often, if not generally, treated as
distinct and separate methods of propaganda, and men want to know what
is the effectiveness of each. They ask, what are the fruits of medical
and educational work, and they expect an answer in terms of additions to
the Church. If the dominant object of missions is the establishment of a
native Church this is indeed not unnatural; but, as we have already
said, many educational and medical missionaries might resent this
demand, for they have other ideas of the nature and purpose of their
work. Nevertheless, since this native Church is constantly presented to
us as the dominant purpose of all our efforts, it is only right that we
should make the inquiry here, as we did in the earlier chapters, and ask
how the force in the field is divided. It seems almost absurd that we
should have no idea in what proportion medicals, educationalists, and
evangelists should be employed in any field. In some countries medical
work is by far the most effective, if not the only possible form of
propaganda; in some fields the evangelists can work effectively almost
alone, and medical institutions are not the same necessity, and their
establishment does not produce great results in the building of the
Church when compared with the work of evangelists and educationalists.
In some places their aid was at first apparently necessary to success,
but as time went on that first desperate importance ceased. We have not
so large a medical force that we can afford to use it for any but the
most important and necessary purposes; yet, if the establishment of a
native Church is the dominant purpose, large numbers of medicals are
doing work which is (from this point of view only) of second-rate
importance, whilst work which only they could do is left undone, and
cries aloud for their assistance. Similarly, if the establishment of a
native Church is really the dominant object, educationalists are often
wrongly directed and placed. They are not producing fruit in this regard
(of course in this regard only) in anything like the abundance which
they might produce if they were free to attack the real questions of the
education of the native Church. In many centres they are doing splendid
work for the enlightenment of the people, but close beside them are
large bodies of Christians who from the point of view of the
establishment of a native Church need their help much more.

We ought then to know in each province how the force is divided and what
is the fruit of the labours of each class of missionaries viewed from
the standpoint of the building up of the native Church.

Now if we know the proportions of the workers in each class in each
country, and if we could have a table which told us with any degree of
accuracy the numbers of the inquirers, communicants, and places opened
by the labours of each class, we should surely have some facts from
which we might gain light on this most practical question, in what
proportion the work of each class of workers was most effective in each
country as an evangelistic and church-building agency. We propose then
two tables (see opposite page).

(i)

_____________________________________________________________________
            |         |  Paid   |Amount of| Amount of     | Remarks
            | Mission-|  Native | Foreign |  Native       | and Con-
            | aries   | Workers.| Funds.  |Contributions. | clusions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Evangelistic|   --    |   --    |    --   |     --        |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Medical     |   --    |   --    |    --   |      --       |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Educational |   --    |   --    |    --   |      --       |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Other forms |         |         |         |               |
  of work.  |   --    |   --    |    --   |      --       |
_____________________________________________________________________

(ii)

_____________________________________________________________________
            | Inquirers |              |  Places Opened   |   Remarks
            |  Derived  | Communicants | Directly Through | and Con-
            |   From    | Derived from |  Influence of    | clusions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Evangelistic|    --     |      --      |        --        |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Medical     |    --     |      --      |        --        |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Educational |    --     |      --      |        --        |
_____________________________________________________________________

If we desire to know the influence of our medical and educational work
upon the native Church we ought certainly to have a table which, for the
schools at least, would show us what proportion of the pupils who passed
through the schools became valuable members of the Church. But every one
who has had any scholastic experience, and has tried to follow the
after-history of his pupils, knows that that is not easy, even in
external and material affairs, and when the inquiry is concerned with
internal convictions and religious influence that difficulty is
insuperable. A few specially endowed and devoted educationalists could
indeed tell the after-history of a considerable number of their pupils,
and ideally all schools ought to have a record of the history of pupils
for at least a few years after leaving the school; but there would
always be a percentage of loss; in many cases that percentage would be
very high, and we doubt whether many schools have any record at all.
Under these circumstances to put into an inquiry such as that which we
propose a question concerning the after-life of scholars or patients
seems almost impossible. Yet we cannot be content. There are mission
schools which go on year after year educating boys for a business
career, and generation after generation of boys pass through the school,
large sums of mission money are expended on them, and the results _from
a missionary point of view_ are shrouded in Cimmerian gloom; or the
general darkness is relieved by one or two exceptional pupils who,
because they do very well, appear to justify the existence of the
institution in which they were educated, though they would probably have
been as valuable Christians if they had been educated in any other
school. In this way a very low average is often concealed. If a school
is judged by a few exceptionally good scholars, it should also be judged
by a few exceptionally bad ones. It is indeed of serious importance that
the missionary value of some of our medical and educational, especially
the educational, institutions should be carefully examined and tested by
an appeal to indisputable facts. It is generally supposed that education
in mission schools must necessarily produce a strong, enlightened, and
zealous Christian community. That it produces a large number of
Christians intellectually enlightened is certain: that they are zealous
evangelists is not as certain. We want a statistical table to reveal the
missionary value, not the commercial value, of the education given. But
what table can we draw? The preceding table which sets forth inquirers
and communicants is clearly insufficient though it is better than
nothing. Until every school keeps a careful record of the after-history
of at least a large number of its pupils it seems impossible to get any
clear light on the question.

4. With regard to the extent to which different races and classes are
reached by the missions, we may safely assume that the Christian
missions ought to extend their benefits to all classes and races in the
area, and that there ought to be some proportion between the efforts
made in each case. If, and when, the responsible leaders of the missions
decided that the time had come to concentrate on one particular kind of
work for one particular class, we may be perfectly certain that they
would have no difficulty in justifying their action. But in any case
action should not be taken without consideration of proportions, and,
therefore, it is important that the proportions should be known.

But in dealing with work in the province or small country we cannot
simply repeat the table prepared for the mission district. In the
province or country there are often missionaries at work who give
themselves up wholly to one class. It is difficult, if not impossible,
to distinguish every possible form of work; but seeing that very
considerable work is done amongst students, we have thought it well to
add one column in which the proportion of the children of different
classes who are attending Christian schools or living in Christian
hostels is set forth:--

_____________________________________________________________________
                |      | Agri-  |        |          |        |Remarks
Percentage Stud-|Offi- |cultural|Traders.|Labourers.| Crafts-|and
    of:    ents.|cials.|Small-  |        |          | men.   |Conclu-
                |      |Holders.|        |          |        |sions.
________________|______|________|________|__________|________|_______
In
Population   -- |  --  |   --   |   --   |   --     |   --   |
________________|______|________|________|___________________________
In Christian -- |  --  |   --   |   --   |   --     |   --   |
Constituency    |      |        |        |          |        |
________________|______|________|________|__________|________|_______
In Christian    |      |        |        |          |        |
schools and     |      |        |        |          |        |
hostels,     -- |   -- |   --   |   --   |   --     |   --   |
percentage      |      |        |        |          |        |
of children     |      |        |        |          |        |
of              |      |        |        |          |        |
________________|______|________|________|__________|________|_______

With respect to work among different races, castes, etc., no addition to
the table prepared for the district seems necessary, and we therefore
repeat it:--

--------------|-----------------------------------------|------------
              |  Races, Religious Castes, etc., whatever| Remarks
              |             they may be.                |  And
              |                                         |Conclusions.
--------------|-----------------------------------------|------------
In Population |                   ----                  |
--------------|-----------------------------------------|------------
In Christian  |                   ----                  |
Constituency  |                                         |
--------------|-----------------------------------------|------------

5. Concerning self-support, one table should, we think, suffice. We
cannot possibly adopt any estimated necessary expenditure such as we
proposed in the table for the station district because in the province
that estimate would be almost impossible to make. Different missions
have different ideas, and their estimates have for themselves some
reality; but they have no reality for others, and a mere average of the
estimates given for all the missions of the province would have still
less reality. It would be an absurd guess, meaning nothing. If we want
to judge progress in self-support we must have some definite key figure
by which to judge it. What figure then can we use? The total cost of all
the work carried on in the province is an impossible figure.[1] The mere
contribution of the native Christians by itself means nothing. That is
the figure generally given. The native Christian subscribed $6000 last
year, $7000 this year. Here is progress. The progress is an addition of
$1000. But does that tell us their progress towards self-support unless
we know what self-support implies? In the year the Church ought to have
increased in numbers, and the $7000 may represent exactly the same
position as the $6000 represented last year. Expenses may have
increased: the $7000 may be actually further removed from self-support
than the $6000 last year. We must have a proportion of which we can
trace the variation if we want to see progress. But is there any expense
which we can use to strike the proportion? Suppose then we suggest the
pay of all evangelistic and pastoral workers and provision and upkeep of
churches, chapels, and preaching rooms. That would at least give us
something to work by. But it might be difficult to calculate. We would
propose then, as a secondary item, some easily calculable and known
expense, something which every missionary accountant knows, such as the
pay of all native pastors and evangelistic workers, and then compare
with these the contributions of the Christians for Church and
evangelistic work only, excluding all fees for education and medicine.
That would, we think, give us a standard which we could apply without
having to consider complications introduced by such things as Government
grants to schools or hospitals. We propose then to judge progress in
self-support thus:--

---------------------------------------------------------------------
         | Total Cost    | Total        | Total         |
         | of all        | Salaries of  | Native        |
         | Evangelistic  | all Paid     | Contribution, |
Province.| and           | Native       | excluding     | Remarks and
         | Pastoral      | Evangelistic | School or     | Conclusions.
         | Work, Men     | Workers,     | Hospital      |
         | and Material. | including    | Fees or       |
         |               | Pastors.     | Donations.    |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
         |               |              |               |
---------------------------------------------------------------------

[Footnote 1: In Dr. Eugene Stock's "History of the C.M.S.," vol. ii., p.
420, we are told that "In 1863,... 400 families raised 1371 rupees,
equal then to £137. These families consisted mainly of labourers earning
(say) 2s. a week; so that a corresponding sum for 400 families of
English labourers earning 12s. a week would be £137 x 6 = £822, or over
£2 a year from each family. A few years later, taking the whole of the
C.M.S. districts in Tinnevelly and reckoning catechumens as well as
baptised Christians, their contributions were such that, supposing the
whole thirty millions of people in England were poor labourers earning
12s. a week, and there were no other source of wealth, their
corresponding contributions should amount to £6,000,000 per annum." Yet
he says on the very next page that "It was not possible for the native
Church, liberal as its contributions were, to maintain its pastors and
meet its other expenses (he does not say what the _other expenses_ were)
entirely. The society must necessarily help for a while.... This grant,
in the first instance, had to be large enough to cover much more than
half the expenditure."

If this was the case in one part of a province, what would happen if we
took the whole expense of all work carried on in a whole province or
country and used that as a standard by which to test progress in
self-support?]

Turning now from the force at work we must consider the force in
training, for this is prophetic. Let us then take first a table which
shows the proportion in which students are being trained for pastoral
and evangelistic work, for medical mission work, and for educational
mission work, in the province or country, regardless of the place at
which they are being trained, whether that place is inside or outside
the area under consideration. This ought to show us on what lines we may
expect the work to develop in the near future.

_____________________________________________________________________
Total    |For Evangel-  |        |       |       |          |
Students |istic Work,   |Propor- |For    |Propor-|For Educa-|Remarks
in       |including the |tion  of|Medical|tion of|tional    |and
Training.|Pastorate.    |Total.  |Work.  |Total. |Work.     |Conclu-
         |              |        |       |       |          |sions
_________|______________|________|_______|_______|__________|________
         |              |        |       |       |          |
_________|______________|________|_______|_______|__________|________

Then we must examine more closely, if we can;--and first of the
_evangelistic_ workers. The difficulty is to classify, because
ecclesiastical nomenclature is so confused that it is almost impossible
to use any terms which would be widely recognised. The best we can do is
to distinguish grades of training, beginning from the top thus:--

  1st grade, college or university.
  2nd "  high school.
  3rd "  regular Bible school.
  4th "  intermittent, irregular Bible instruction.

It will probably be found that the first grade is commonly prepared for,
and looks forward to, the charge of a settled congregation, or of an
organised church, and the lower grades do the pioneer work, and it may
well suggest itself to thoughtful men whether this is rightly so.

Then, _educationalists_ in training: again we divide by grades
roughly:--

  1st grade, college or university.
  2nd  "  normal school.
  3rd  "  high school.
  4th  "  teachers of illiterates.

The college students presumably look forward to work in the high
schools, or colleges, or normal schools; the normal school pupils to
work in normal schools, high schools, and large primary schools; the
high school pupils to work in village schools; and the teachers of
illiterates to village work, or work among the poor in the towns. Of
_medicals_ the generally recognised distinctions seem to be, qualified
practitioners, assistants, and nurses.

Following these lines we should obtain simple prophetic tables for each
of the three branches of work.

(i) Students in Training for _Evangelistic_ Work.

----------------------------------------------------------
  1st Grade.  |  2nd.        |  3rd.        |  4th.
 College.     | High School. | Regular      | Intermittent.
              | Bible School | Teaching     |
------------------------------------------- --------------
              |              |              |
              |              |              |
----------------------------------------------------------

(ii) For _Educational_ Work.

----------------------------------------------------------
  1st Grade.  |  2nd.   |  3rd.        | Teachers of
 College.     | Normal. | High School. | Illiterates.
------------------------------------------- --------------
              |         |              |
              |         |              |
----------------------------------------------------------

(iii) For _Medical_ Work.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
     1st Grade.           |                2nd.               |  3rd.
To be Qualified Doctors.  | Assistants, including Dispensers, |Nurses.
                          |                etc.               |
----------------------------------------------------------------------
                          |                                   |
                          |                                   |
----------------------------------------------------------------------

If we had those tables for _men and women_ we should see fairly plainly
how the work might be expected to develop.

But here we ought to remember the difficulty which we set forth earlier
in discussing the missionary influence of our various activities,
medical and educational, from a Church building point of view. A great
many boys are educated and trained at mission expense to be evangelists,
medicals, and teachers in mission employ, who serve indeed for a period
according to their contract and then disappear into Government service
or private practice. It is a serious question whether missionaries can
be raised up successfully in this way. "I will give you training if you
will promise to serve the mission," is not a very certain way of
securing ready, wholehearted, zealous service of Christ. We have found
out its uncertainty in many cases at home; we have found it out in
still more frequent cases in the mission field. Unless we keep a very
careful record of the after-life of those whom we train, and a very
honest one, we are apt to ignore the failure, a failure which we cannot
properly afford, and consequently we cannot know what we are really
doing by our training. We ought to know the truth in this matter, both
for our encouragement and our admonition. Happily here, we think, we can
find an easy and a valuable test. If we ask what proportion of those
whom we train continue in their missionary work after the end of their
first term of service, we shall certainly have some enlightenment; for
it is true of medicals and educationalists, and of evangelists, though
in a much less degree, that if any man continues in missionary work
after he has fulfilled the letter of his contract, it will generally be
because he has his heart in the work; for missionary work seldom, if
ever, offers the emoluments of Government service, or of private
practice. We ask then--

SURVEY OF WORK IN A PROVINCE

---------------------------------------------------------------------
                                |Evangelistic | Medical | Educational
--------------------------------+-------------+---------+------------
Total Students                  |             |         |
--------------------------------+-------------+---------+------------
Trained at Mission Expense,     |             |         |
Wholly or in Part.              |             |         |
--------------------------------+-------------+---------+------------
Number who Continue in          |             |         |
Mission Work after the end      |             |         |
of the Term of their Contract.  |             |         |
--------------------------------+-------------+---------+------------
Proportion of Total Students    |             |         |
who so Continue.                |             |         |
--------------------------------+-------------+---------+------------
Remarks and Conclusions.        |             |         |
--------------------------------+-------------+---------+------------

If the institutions in which the training is actually carried on lie
within the province, then we ought to have tables such as we have for
the schools in the station area for these institutions. We need no
elaborate statistics in this place, because the work of these
institutions should be specially treated in departmental surveys. Here,
all that we need is to relate the work of the schools or hospitals which
were omitted in the station district survey, because they served a
larger area than the station area, to the work done in the province or
country. The educational returns from each station area must be added
together and the returns of these larger institutions added to the total
educational statistics; that will give us the work done in the larger
area in proportion to population.

But in the province it is important to consider the relation in which
the different grade schools stand to one another; because if the aim of
the missionary educational system is the education of the Christian
community, and the higher schools are designed primarily for Christian
pupils from the lower schools, this relation is of importance. It is
possible to build an organisation too narrow at the base and too heavy
at the top, and then to fill the higher schools with non-Christian
pupils without any definite understanding of the way in which that
practice is to serve the main purpose of the mission. Then these schools
stand on a distinct and separate basis from the rest of the mission
activities, and the work of Christian missions in the country is split,
part aiming directly at the establishment of a native Christian Church,
and part "aiming at the general improvement of morals, and social,
religious, and political enlightenment. Thus we arrive at that chaotic
state in which the mission as a whole is not subordinate to any dominant
idea of the purpose for which it exists, which alone can unify the work
of all its members. But if the colleges and schools are designed for
mutual support, and if the higher have any relation to the lower grades,
then there must be some proportion between the base and the
superstructure, and that proportion must be known and expressed in any
survey worthy of the name. We include, therefore, the following table:--

---------------------------------------------------------------------
        |  Mission  |  Proportion  |  Proportion |   Remarks
        |  Schools, |  to          |  to         |   and
        |  Number   |  Population. |  High       |   Conclusions.
        |  of.      |              |  Schools.   |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Primary |           |              |             |
Schools |           |              |             |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
High    |           |              |             |
Schools |           |              |             |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Normal  |           |              |             |
Schools |           |              |             |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Colleges|           |              |             |
--------+-----------+--------------+-------------+-------------------

In the province also we must know the educational facilities afforded by
non-missionary agencies, if we are to have any true conception of the
work of the educational missions. We must therefore add a table for
these schools.

------------------------------------------------------------
                  |  Non-       |  Proportion  |   Remarks. |
                  |  Missionary |  to          |            |
                  |  Schools,   |  Population. |            |
                  |  Number of. |              |            |
-------------------------------------------------------------
Primary Schools   |             |              |            |
-------------------------------------------------------------
High Schools.     |             |              |            |
-------------------------------------------------------------
Normal School     |             |              |            |
-------------------------------------------------------------
Colleges.         |             |              |            |
-------------------------------------------------------------

Here it is not necessary for us to find the proportion between the
higher and lower grade schools, because we are not surveying the
non-missionary educational work, and their scheme of proportions is not
our business.

A comparatively slight addition to the tables for medical work in the
various station districts will suffice to give an adequate impression of
the medical work done in the whole area. We need not go into details,
for the medical work should be, and generally is, reviewed by Medical
Boards in their reports. For us now, all that is needed is the addition
of tables, similar to those which we used for hospitals in the station
area, for hospitals excluded from any station survey.

Two other subjects ought to be included in this provincial survey,
namely, literature and industrial work. First, we must try to find a
table which will express the work done by those important missionaries
who are engaged in providing Christian literature, both for the
Christian community and the heathen outside. Here we find once more the
difficulty that, whilst a few missionaries are wholly engaged in this
form of missionary work, much is produced by missionaries who have
already been included in the tables as either evangelistic or
educational or medical missionaries, and we also touch bookselling and
other kindred commercial questions. With the commercial aspect of this
work we cannot deal. The following tables will throw light on the extent
to which Christian literature is being produced and read:--

(i)

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of Missionaries wholly Engaged  |     Proportion of Total
        in Literary Work.              |         Missionaries.
---------------------------------------+-----------------------------
                                       |
---------------------------------------+-----------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of Vernacular     |   Number of        |  Proportion of Sales
Christian Books Produced |   Christian Books  |  to Population.
in the Year.             |   Sold in the Year.|
---------------------------------------------------------------------
                         | Bibles or |        |  Bibles or |
                         | Scripture |  Other |  Scripture | Other
                         | Portions. |  Books.|  Portions. | Books.
-------------------------+-----------+--------+------------+---------
                         |           |        |            |
-------------------------+-----------+--------+------------+---------

If the business side of literary work is difficult, the whole position
of industrial missions is still more difficult. In some countries
industrial missions seem to be trading ventures with a Christian
intention, in others industrial missions are really almost entirely
educational establishments. The best tables which we have ever seen
dealing with this subject were those drawn by Mr. Sidney Clark in one of
his papers, "From a Layman to a Layman".[1] All that we can do is to
suggest that industrial missions which are in the main clearly and
unmistakably educational should be included in the educational work, and
that the missions with large commercial interests, even if they are
doing a valuable educational work for the community, should be treated
separately, thus:--

[Footnote 1: Printed for private distribution by Mr. S.J.W. Clark, 3
Tudor Street, Blackfriars, London, E.C. 4.]

_Industrial Missions_,

(a)

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Province. |  Number of   |  Amount of Mission  |  Proportion of
          |  Industrial  |  Funds Allotted to  |  Total Mission
          |  Missions.   |     such Work.      |     Funds.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
          |              |                     |
__________|______________|_____________________|_____________________

(b)

---------------------------------------------------------------------
          |  Number of     | Number of Missionaries | Proportion of
Province. |  Industrial    | Engaged in such        |    Total
          |  Institutions. | Institutions.          | Missionaries
---------------------------------------------------------------------
          |                |                        |
__________|________________|________________________|________________

(c)

-------------------------------------------------------------
          |  Number of  |  Number of     |  Proportion of
Province. |  Industrial |  Native Agents |  Native Christian
          |  Missions.  |  Employed.     |  Workers Employed.
-------------------------------------------------------------
          |             |                |
__________|_____________|________________|___________________

In some missions the proportion of missionaries and native workers so
employed would be very small; in others they would be very considerable.
There is now a tendency to hand over some of the industrial work as it
develops along commercial lines to Boards of Christian men who are
interested in the social and spiritual aspect of the work.

In the province we must also consider union work, work done in common by
two or more societies,[1] sometimes evangelistic, sometimes medical or
educational training, sometimes the establishment, or enlargement of an
educational or medical institution; or sometimes, as in Kwangtung in
South China, several societies unite in a "Board of Co-operation". This
union of societies for the better and more efficient performance of
their work is a most important development of the last few years:
important both to the workers on the field and to us at home. We ought,
therefore, to have a short table to show what is being done.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
         |      Number of Societies       |             |
Number   |        Co-operating in         |Number of    |
of       |--------------------------------| Societies   |Remarks
Societies|Evangelistic|Medical|Educational| Co-operating|  and
at Work. |    Work.   | Work. |   Work.   | in all Work.|Conclusions.
---------+------------+-------+-----------+-------------+------------
         |            |       |           |             |
---------+------------+-------+-----------+-------------+------------

[Footnote 1: The larger and more important movements towards corporate
union, such as those now taking place in S. India, China, and E. Africa,
lie outside the scope of this survey until their completion affects
their statistical returns. Then the importance of them will speedily
appear.]




CHAPTER XI.

THE RELATION OF THE STATION TO THE WORLD.


We have now dealt with the survey of the station and of the province or
small country, but the final end of missionary work is the attainment of
a world-wide purpose. The Gospel is for the whole world, not for a
fragment of it, however big. Missionary work cannot properly be carried
on in any place except by means and methods designed with a view to the
whole, and missions can never be properly presented to us at home so
long as we are taught to fix our eyes on small areas; because the great
characteristic of missions is their vastness. This is what is so
uplifting and ennobling in the work. Every little piece of mission work
ought to be directed on principles capable of bearing the weight of the
whole. We ought to be able to say, "The whole world can be converted by
these means and on these principles which we are here employing in this
little village". If the methods and the principles are so narrow that we
can build no great world-wide structure on them, we can take little more
interest in them than we do in the petty politics of some little parish
at home.

We have then yet to demand that we shall be able to put every little
station into its proper place in this larger whole, and to see how its
principles and methods are illumined by the vision of the whole, being
established with the design of accomplishing the whole task. We turn
then now to this larger view of mission work. The tables which we have
drawn for a province or small country would enable us to compare the
work in each area with another such area in the larger whole, and to
judge whether we were unduly neglecting any; where the Church was
strongest and where it was least established; where it was more capable
and where it was less capable of taking over that work which rightly
belongs to it, of extending its own boundaries, and of maintaining its
own life. We should not send hasty missions here or there because some
interesting political event attracts the eyes of men to this or that
particular country, but on definite missionary principles, acting on a
clear and reasonable understanding of the missionary situation in the
world.

The commission of Christ is world-wide, the claim of Christ is
world-wide, the work of Christ, the Spirit of Christ are all-embracing;
and the work which missionaries do in His name should be all-embracing
to. We should conduct all our work, and plan all our work, at home and
abroad, with our eyes fixed on the final goal, which is for us, so long
as we are on this earth, coterminous only with the limits of the
habitable globe. We cannot be content to approach even the largest areas
as though our action was limited by them. All our policy in every part
should be part of a policy designed for the whole. If it is not designed
to accomplish the whole it is not adequate for any part.

How then could we gain a vision of the whole, a whole composed of such
vast and diverse parts? Obviously we must have for every country in
which any missionary work is carried on some common returns, either
those which we venture to suggest or others which some abler minds might
suggest; but that they must be common to all, and fundamental in
character, is obvious; and they must be reduced to proportions on a
common basis, or comparison and combination will be impossible; and
they must be as few as possible in order to avoid confusion.

We suggest, then, that if we had the four tables which follow we should
possess a reasonable basis, sufficient for our present needs, especially
since we suppose they would be supported by the tables for the different
provinces, countries, and stations which we have already suggested, and
they ought to be supplemented by surveys made by each society of its own
work and by departmental surveys of medical, educational, industrial,
and literary work made for the special direction of each of these
branches. But for a first general view of the whole we propose:--

(1) A table showing the force at work in the area in relation to the
population:--

---------------------------------------------------------------------
                              Proportion to Population.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Province| Popula-| Total   | Chris-   | Com-      |        |
 or     | tion.  | Foreign | tian     | municants | Paid   | Unpaid
 Country|        | Mission-| Constitu-| or Full   |Workers.| Workers.
 Area.  |        | aries.  | ents.    | Members   |        |
--------|--------|---------|----------|-----------|--------|---------
        |        |         |          |           |        |
________|________|_________|__________|___________|________|_________
---------------------------------------------------------------------

That would give us a general view of the force at work in relation to
the work to be done and of the proportions between its constituent
parts. Then (2):--

---------------------------------------------------------------------
                   | Proportion of Paid     |  Proportion of
                   | Workers                |  Unpaid Workers
-------------------|------------------------|------------------------
           Propor- |                        |
Christian   tion   |-----------|------------|-------------|----------
Constitu-    of    |           |    To      |             |To
 ency.     Liter-  |    To     | Christian  | To          |Christian
            ates.  |   Com-    | Constitu-  | Com-        |Constitu-
                   | municants.|   ency     |municants.   |ency.
-------------------|-----------|------------|-------------|----------
                   |           |            |             |
-------------------+-----------+------------+-------------+----------

That would give us an idea of the character and power of the force. (3)

---------------------------------------------------------------------
             |              |         | Percentage   | Percentage
             |              | Paid    | of Total     | of Total
             | Missionaries.| Native  | Foreign Funds| Native
             |              | Workers.| Employed in. | Contributions
             |              |         |              | Employed in.
-------------+--------------+---------+--------------+---------------
Evangelistic |     --       |    --   |       --     |      --
----------------------------+---------+--------------+---------------
Medical      |     --       |    --   |       --     |      --
----------------------------+---------+--------------+---------------
Educational  |     --       |    --   |       --     |      --
----------------------------+---------+--------------+---------------
Other forms  |     --       |    --   |       --     |      --
of work      |     --       |    --   |       --     |      --
-------------+--------------+---------+--------------+---------------

That would give us relative emphasis on different forms of work.

(4)

-------------+---------------------+--------------+------------------
             | Total Amount Paid   |              |Relation of Native
Christian    | to Native Evangel-  | Total Native | Contribution to
Constituency.| istic Workers In-   | Contribution.|  Pay of Workers.
             | cluding all Pastors.|              |
-------------+---------------------+--------------+------------------
             |                     |              |
_____________|_____________________|______________|__________________

That would give us some idea of the extent to which the native
Christians support the existing work.

Now if we could form some idea of the force at work in relation to the
country in which it is working; and some idea of the character of the
force; and some idea of the relative emphasis laid on different forms of
work, and some idea of the extent to which the native Christians support
the work, we should, we hope, be able to form a reasonable estimate of
the extent and progress of our efforts in the world. The whole number of
forms would not be very large, for there would only be about 150 areas
from which such forms would be required, and these could be combined so
as to give us a view of the situation in the world such as the mind
could grasp.

This is, we admit, rather a hasty and tentative expression of the way
in which we might satisfy the present need; but it seems to us that the
time is ripe for the consideration of this great subject, and we can
think of no better plan than to propose tables, and then to leave others
to criticise and amend them, or to suggest better ones, or better
methods of attaining an object which few would deny to be desirable.

With proper tables, these or others, we should then be able to trace the
meaning and results of each station which we founded and to put it into
its place in a reasoned scheme of things, and that is the crying need.