Educational missions

Front matter

JAMES JL. BARTON

X\vf ®hcologiW/

PRINCETON, N. J.

Preface

Much of the material for this book has been collected at first hand, from recently printed documents and from manuscripts. A considerable amount of material collected by the Commission on Education of the Edinburgh Missionary Conference, and never printed, is in the author’s possession and has been drawn upon. The most modern printed reports of the higher educational institutions and of the missionary societies carrying on educational work abroad have been frequently used. A large number of educators who are now or who have been closely related to this work have been interrogated. In addition to these sources, the author has been able to draw upon personal experiences growing out of more than twenty-five years of close relations with higher educational work abroad.

Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Place, Standing and Growth i

II. National Relations 26

Chapter I

Educational missions constitute a part of the great enterprise, in which Divine and human forces cooperate, for world evangelization and world Christianization. In seeking first of all to estimate their character, we must consider their relation to the other parts of the whole undertaking.

“Educational missions” is in reality a misnomer, if we mean by the term the establishment and propagation of educational work and educational institutions in mission countries, separate and apart from the methods and purposes of evangelization. The term “educational missions” has come to be used with much frequency to express a particular phase of mission work. We use also the terms “medical missions” and “evangelistic missions,” each standing for a particular idea and method of work, or, to put it in another way, representing a department of missionary work. We err, however, if we assume that these departments are separate one from another, without vital relations between them.*

* For relation of education to evangelism, see Hamlin’s “Among the Turks,” Chapter XVIII.

For place of education in missionary enterprise, see Bliss’ “The Missionary Enterprise,” Chapter XI.

See also Mott’s “Strategic Points in the World’s Conquest,” pp. 96-98.

All of these so-called “missions,” or departments, are but parts of a single, united whole, with only one definite, clear-cut object in view, the permanent establishment of the Kingdom of God in the lands to which the missionaries go.* No one of these departments could survive isolation from evangelization for any length of time. An educational work could be carried on as a separated effort, as could also a medical or industrial work, but it could hardly be called “missions” in any ordinary use of the word, unless the end aimed at was the evangelization of the people and the permanent establishment among them of the Church of Jesus Christ.

The expression is sometimes heard that there is a danger of the missionary losing himself in the educator. The phrase is an unhappy and misleading one, since it is becoming increasingly recognized that the aim of true education is necessarily a religious one. The best educator is the best missionary. But the expression, however unfortunate, points to a danger that is real. There is a constant temptation to rest content with the lower and subordinate ends of education, instead of seeking the highest. It is extraordinarily easy to slip almost unconsciously into satisfaction with a school that is serving with manifest success certain social ends and so to fail to seek the complete conversion to God of the lives of those who are being taught. The magnitude and urgency of the opportunity, while they call for an educational policy of the broadest and most comprehensive kind, at the same time make it imperative that the policy adopted should be dominated from beginning to end, and, in all its details, by the central missionary motive. t

A broader conception of the meaning of the Kingdom of God has superseded the old missionary idea, and we have generally come to realize not only that the Gospel ministers to the entire man in his complete environment, but also that it demands of its

* Edinburgh Missionary Conference Report, Vol. Ill, p. 383.

t For the aims of missionary education, see section on Christian education, “Mission Problems and Policies in Asia.”

followers that they shall reveal the power of that same Gospel through every form of human activity. This forces the introduction of medical work among people who are destitute of the advantages of modern medicine, the teaching of industries to the industrially backward races, and the development of schools and systems of education among the illiterate. These various activities, however, are but other forms of preaching the Gospel and of teaching men to demonstrate their faith as sincere followers of Christ and as true to the ideals of a Christian society.

Evangelization has to do with the present generation, education with the next. Evangelization gathers men into churches, while education secures the permanence of the institutions that evangelization calls into existence. Education forges the weapons of offence and defence that evangelization wields against heathenism and scepticism. It teaches men to decipher the truth contained in the hieroglyphics of nature; it brings to light the record hid under the scrawled and blotted palimpsest of history, and from both of these sources illustrates and confirms the message of revelation. That message itself, given at sundry times and in divers manners, cannot be fully understood unless the times and manners be traced by reverent scholarship. In spite of all opposition, therefore, Christian education has won and firmly holds for itself a place among the great missionary agencies in every land.*

Educational missions, therefore, constitute but a single department of the university of the Kingdom of God, holding a place of large importance but inseparable from the institution as a whole. f This phase of missions, however, stands by itself almost as distinctly as does “medical missions,” since, by common consent, that form of missionary work is called educational which centers in a school, including, of

* Pieters’ “Mission Problems in Japan,” pp. 135, 136.

t See Edinburgh Missionary Conference Report, Vol. Ill, pp. 369-372.

course, the primary school as well as the college, university and theological seminary. Hence, wherever schools and systems of education exist, under the direction of missionaries and supported in whole or in part by missionary organizations, having for their object the introduction of intelligent, aggressive, self-respecting Christianity, there you have educational missions and all that is implied in the term.*

Speaking of possible remedies for the social evils of the non-Christian world, Dr. Dennis says :

Education alone, apart from Christianity, will not accomplish it [the social task of missions]. It is not in itself a moral force. In fact, if it is out of touch entirely with Christianity, it often becomes a powerful weapon of evil, and may be subsidized in violent hostility to the higher welfare of society. Let us here guard carefully our meaning. We do not intend to assert that education under Christian auspices, pervaded by the spirit and aim of a Christian purpose, is not a useful and helpful stimulus to social progress. It should rather be counted a noble and legitimate missionary instrumentality. Our contention, then, is that mere education, either elementary or higher, apart from Christianity, with no promptings of Christian morality, no infusion of Christian truth, and no lessons in Christian living, is not in itself an effective instrument of social regeneration. We do not dispute that it is an intellectual stimulus, that it broadens the outlook, and breaks the fetters of superstition, is of benefit in its sphere and way as a ministry to the mental faculties, and that it may indeed be a scholastic preparation for a subsequent study and more appreciative apprehension of Christian truth and morality; yet, while it is in alliance with materialism, agnosticism, or a false and superstitious religious system, its power as a moral regenerator of society is at a minimum. Civilization is not derived from or based upon knowledge in the head so much as it is drawn from and prompted by a true religious and humane temper in the heart and life of man.f

* For principles of missionary educational work, see Speer’s “Missionary Principles and Practice,” pp. 52-61.

t From Dennis’ “Christian Missions and Social Progress,” Vol. I, P- 357-

S

That education holds a relation to the missionary enterprise which is fundamental is not difficult to un- : derstand. Great social, physical, moral and national changes in the world have all originated in the thoughts and in the beliefs of men. Ideas like leaven spread through society, work their changes upon communities, produce fundamental changes in religious belief,- and eventuate in sweeping revolutions that put their stamp upon a new society dominated by new ideas.

It would be the height of absurdity to imagine that f:( , an African or an Eastern nation can be led to change its manner of life, or to overthrow its traditional form of government for a wholly different form, without previous fundamental changes having taken place in the ideas and concepts of the people as a whole. Equally true is it that we would not expect any race, European or Asiatic, to retain the same customs and to perpetuate the same society, whether social or political, after it had experienced a fundamental revolution in its manner of thought and in its religious belief.

Correct thinking and right beliefs are the domi- J nant forces that rule men and nations, and these constitute the only realm in which great and fundamental conquests can be won. They are the only realm to which we may appeal in our endeavor to change the life of the world. It was to this realm that Jesus Christ and the Apostles appealed. This is the sphere of human life to which Christianity presents its truths and from which it seeks assent. Missionaries need not dwell with anxious thought upon the society that will ultimately result ; neither are they called upon to give attention to national changes that will inevitably follow. The missionary’s only legitimate field of approach is to the mind, to the heart and to the conscience of those to whom he can obtain access.*

The educational work of the missionary, beginning with a single pupil, it may be, had for its aim, and still has, the development of a new line of thinking and a new moral standard growing out of changed religious belief. This principle of educational missions has not been changed during the entire century of modern missionary experience, although the methods of its application have met with many and sweeping changes. Educational missions, therefore, aim at fundamental and universal conquest, but the conquest of ideas and correct belief which precede the highest ideals and which must ultimately issue in the embodiment of those ideals in a new society for the world. f

If we would comprehend fully the nature and function of educational missions, we must consider the place which from its earliest days Christianity has given to education. Christianity puts more emphasis upon education than any other religious faith in ancient or modern times.J The ideas of Christianity with reference to God, to man, and to all human relationships compel the highest use of the intellect and the fullest development of the reasoning powers. In its effort to extend itself throughout the world, Christianity has conceded a prominence to education which no other scheme of religion or philosophy has given ; in fact, it has based its expectation of a permanent conquest of the world upon the training of the intellect, the understanding, the reason, of those whom it has won or hopes to win.

* See Dennis’ “Foreign Missions After a Century,” pp. 230-233.

t See Tenney’s “The Triumphs of the Cross,” pp. 1S8, 189.

t For Christianity as an ally and patron of intellectual progress, see Dennis’ “Christian Missions and Social Progress,” Vol. Ill, pp.

5-7-

To understand the importance of the school to religion, we have but to recall the influence of the Rabbis under Judaism and the place which the teacher held as a prominent and honored personage in the earliest churches. As Christianity expanded among the Gentiles, we see that the teacher as a catechetical leader came prominently to the front. These teachers became leaders of philosophical thought and gave, besides their Christian instruction, a general philosophical training. Justin is a good illustration of this in the catechetical school of Alexandria. Origen is another example of the teachers of that period who not only gave instruction in the Scriptures and in Christianity, but who discussed also the principles of mathematics, physical and natural sciences and moral philosophy. Augustine himself gave instruction in the art of teaching. The Christian Church in the early days spent much energy in thoroughly initiating converts into the foundation principles of the Christian religion, and has always endeavored to make the best possible use of the intellectual material at its command in each successive age.

Because of the fact that general education had been widely extended throughout the Roman Empire at the beginning of the Christian era, the early Church did not give much attention to general primary and intermediate education. While there were many private schools they were held as private until toward the beginning of the third century, when the teachers were appointed and paid by the State. Indeed, until the Roman Empire became Christian there was no attempt on the part of the Church to establish and support an independent school system, and thus the Christian youth was trained, for the most part, except as he received education in private schools, under the same teachers and in the same classrooms with the children from pagan homes.

From that time forward, the Church has exerted a mighty influence throughout its history in the promotion of education. At the present time there is wide recognition of the necessity of the moral, if not even of the religious, element in a complete education,— a recognition which is not confined to Christian nations but exists among the Hindus of India, the Confucianists of China, and the statesmen and educators who are trained in the principles of Bushido. Many leaders of Islam to-day acknowledge the same need. If, however, education is to include the moral and the religious, it is essential that the moral ideas which are inculcated should be of the highest which the world has achieved, and the conception of religion imparted should be that of the purest and the truest. While recognizing many elements of value in the non-Christian systems of religion and ethics, the Christian would be untrue to his belief and to his religion did he not reaffirm his conviction that the best and highest education of the world demands for its complete development those elements of truth which Christianity is peculiarly fitted to contribute.*

It is an interesting fact of history that higher education in America owes its origin and early impetus to the Christian Church. The Episcopalians started Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania; Harvard and Yale were established by Congregationalists ; Brown University by the Baptists ; Princeton University by the Presbyterians ; and Boston University by the Methodist Episcopal Church. In fact, all of the earlier colleges owe their origin to some branch of the Church. In the colonial period

* For education and Christian advance, see Mackenzie’s “Christianity and the Progress of Man,” Chapter V.

Madras Christian College, Madras, India of American history, institutions for the propagation of Christianity and scholarship were in close cooperation, and for the avowed purpose of promoting the welfare of the Church.

It is clear, therefore, that the stress which is now being laid upon education in the foreign missionary propaganda is but the logical extension of the emphasis which the ChurcIT'has always laid upon the intellectual training of the young.

But, after all, the including of education in the foreign missionary scheme is a comparatively new idea. Strange as it may now seem after the experience of three missionary generations, at the close of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, when the modern foreign missionary movement was inaugurated, those who were most forward in the organization of missionary societies and the development of the missionary idea do not appear to have had any conception of the place of education in missionary work. The dominant thought in the minds of all seems to have been the conversion of the “heathen.” Beyond that no one was bold enough to venture.

In the charters of the missionary societies organized throughout that period, there is little or no allusion to education as having a place in the missionary enterprise ; neither did the school seem to have any part in the missionary program. This fact is not surprising; but it demonstrates that educational missions, as well as medical missions and industrial work, was a later development and grew out of existing necessities.

Quotations from charters of some of the earlier societies show that the attention of the Church was then centered on evangelistic forms of work, no other method of approach to the pagan world being suggested. It is also interesting to note that many societies formed much later in the nineteenth century still put evangelism as the prime and exclusive idea of their organization, giving no place to the teacher and school as a legitimate means of propagating the Gospel.

At the time of the formation of the Church Missionary Society of England, in 1799, a series of resolutions was passed with reference to the organization of the society. The first contained the following as the sole reason for its formation, “the duty incumbent upon every Christian to endeavor to propagate the knowledge of the Gospel among the heathen.”

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, formed in 1810, sets forth in its charter, as the one object of its organization, “for the purpose of propagating the Gospel in heathen lands by supporting missionaries and diffusing a knowledge of the holy Scriptures.” Evangelistic missions apparently covered the entire purpose of this society.

These declarations of purpose have a very familiar sound and indicate the general thinking of the period. He would indeed have been a bold innovator who, in those days, would have dared suggest the maintenance of schools as a part of the work of those societies and as an object for contributions from the supporting churches. We do not find any indication that such a declaration was made for many years after these societies began ; and, in fact, for many decades after the missionaries themselves on the field had begun schools and were actually carrying on educational work. If one had suggested educational missions at the beginning of the last century, there probably would not have been a sufficient number of supporters to create a discussion, much less to cause a schism. In the appeals made at home by officers of

II missionary societies, by interested pastors, as well as by returned missionaries, both for recruits and for funds, the appalling ignorance of peoples to b@ reached was seldom, if ever, referred to ; the one plea was the lost condition of all who lived and died without a saving knowledge of Christ. Neither was emphasis laid, to any extent, upon the necessity of training, from among the Christians themselves, those who should in turn become preachers to their own people. The larger viewpoint could come only as the result of the experience of the missionaries in actual work and of a more intelligent understanding by the home constituencies of the place and value of educational missions.*

We ask, then, why schools were so early begun by missionaries of nearly all of the leading missionary societies. In stating the principal reasons for beginning educational missions, we are but giving some, at least, of the reasons for their continuance. f

i. Schools afforded an avenue of approach to the people. The earlier missionary’s life was one of isolation. There were some exceptions, such as the beginning of work in the Sandwich Islands, but usually the strange foreigner, with his pale face and outlandish clothing, was, after the first feeling of curiosity, repellent to the people. They were not eager to hear him attempt to talk about his religion, in which they took little or no interest; and the chances were that his knowledge of their vernacular was too inadequate to enable him to make himself readily understood in public address. Then, too, most of the people to whom he could hope for access at all

* See Robert E. Speer’s “Christianity and the Nations,” pp. 91-98.

t For the purpose of missionary education, see The East and the West, January, 1910, pp. 3-7.

See also Bliss’ “The Missionary Enterprise,” Chapter XI.

were compelled to work for their bread, and had little time or inclination to cultivate the foreigner. To find a way of approach to the people was a practical and a vital question.

The children were less prejudiced and more curious. They soon learned that the strangers were harmless, to say the least, and they found them interesting as well. Many were quite willing to identify themselves with the missionaries as daily pupils in their homes, or in some rented place. These children carried back to their parents, and to the community in which they moved, reports of the doings, the sayings and the teachings of their newfound friends. In this way prejudices were broken down and the missionaries found the approach to the parents by way of the child fairly easy. Probably in the earlier efforts of this kind the missionary school was of no less value as a road to the homes and the hearts of the parents than it was as a benefit to the child himself.

2. The school provided the missionary with continuous, interesting and rewarding occupation. The adults were not always accessible, and when found were not invariably eager or ready listeners. In the absence of any other occupation, the missionary, whose sole duty was preaching, necessarily found broad expanses of time when no audience could be secured. But he could conduct a school several hours each day and not interfere with his preaching time or capacity. At the same time, a continual audience of children at an impressionable period in their lives, and with minds aroused by the strange learning of the still stranger school, provided a hearing which was not to be despised. The adult population were irregular, inattentive and hard to move ; the children were alert, eager and responsive. It is not strange, therefore, that the missionaries early in their practical life turned to the children and sought in them, through the agency of the school, an audience and a constituency. They found here a quick response to their efforts, and a continuous and satisfying activity.

3. .Only through the school could the missionaries secure the native assistants and colaborers the work demanded. At the very outset they needed teachers to assist them in mastering the native languages, and in many instances these had to be trained by the missionaries themselves. The need of native helpers to act as preachers and evangelists became immediately apparent, also, and most missionaries began to select from among the brightest and most devoted young men groups to whom they gave themselves as teachers. These schools were called “training classes,” which name many of them still bear, and their purpose was to prepare men, and later women, also, for direct, aggressive Christian service. All of the distinguished native leaders in the older mission fields came from classes of this character; and their place in the propagation of Christianity among their own people has not been second to that of the missionaries. In the training of these earlier classes the missionaries followed something of the same methods Christ used in the training of the twelve disciples.

In addition to the first recognized demand for native preachers, there soon began to emerge another need, and that was for native teachers. It is true that in those earlier days the distinction between teacher and preacher was not clearly drawn, and the necessity for native preachers first commanded recognition. The native teachers became assistants to the missionaries in their earlier schools, and later were put in full charge of schools under the general super-

H vision of the missionaries. It required no further demonstration to make it clear that the missionary could vastly and most effectively multiply the volume and power of the work by training a native agency.

4. Local educational conditions in all missionary countries were most unsatisfactory. Even in countries where there was a written language and an extensive vernacular literature, illiteracy was almost universal among the people most accessible.* One needs but to read the missionary annals of those earlier days, or even the reports of days not so remote, to understand the attitude of the missionaries toward the need of introducing modern Christian education as the foundation and safeguard of the Church and of society. A large number of the first modern missionaries were the products of a liberal education, and had well learned the importance of a constituency that had at least the rudiments of an education, lifting it intellectually above the common level of uniform illiteracy. In no mission country were conditions such as to promise anything in this respect. Education from any modern point of view did not exist, and, so far as one could see, would never be inaugurated by local leaders. The missionaries did not set out to develop an educational system for the country, but they felt compelled to do all in their power to correct the conditions that were all about them, and to inspire in the few they were able to reach a desire for something better in the way of education.

5. A Christian community needed to be trained. Besides the direct native Christian workers needed, it was imperative that there should be educated Christian men in the various learned professions and also in business and other pursuits. No church in the

* For ignorance among non-Christian races, see Dennis’ “Christian Missions and Social Progress,” Vol. I, pp. 182-187,

IS

West could thrive or even survive without the Christian layman, wise, balanced and consecrated. In the East the need is equally great, if not greater. It must needs be demonstrated that Christianity applies to all walks of life and to all professions, and that it put its stamp upon society as well as upon the individual, and the society thus created must be such as to command the confidence and respect of all classes in the community. The Christian physician and lawyer and government official, as well as the Christian business man, each in his way and place, exerts an influence hardly second to that of the teacher and preacher. They lift the Christian community and demonstrate its superior character as a new social order and give to it standing, respect and influence.

6. Another factor, operating not perhaps as a reason for undertaking educational work but as an incentive to its continuance, has been the fact that, as teacher, the missionary acquired a standing and influence difficult otherwise to acquire. A Eastern people especially respect and even reverence the teachers of their children. The profession is highly honored, even where the masses of the people are illiterate. The Mohammedan’s hodja in the mosque, before whom boys gather daily who are set to the task of committing to memory the Koran and other sacred books and traditions of Mohammedanism, exercises the widest influence over those youths. The teacher has exercised in all the history of Islam that dominant influence that enables Mohammedanism to maintain a solidarity which to-day is one of its most fundamental characteristics. The teacher, by his daily contacts, has been able to shape the thinking and the religious belief of the children so that, when they pass out from under his direct control, there is little danger i6 that any other religion can displace their belief in the Koran. The Mohammedan teacher is held in profound respect by Moslem believers all over the world, and holds a position of conspicuous influence.

In India we find the same condition. Many leading Hindu and Parsi families engage a teacher permanently, who becomes a member of the family and the teacher of the children. His office is not purely that of the teacher of the children, but combines with it something of the priesthood, holding a peculiar religious relation to the head of the family. He is a spiritual adviser, and so exerts a profound influence upon the whole household and does much to shape the religious and intellectual, as well as the social, life of the homes. The Hindu’s esteem for the guru, or religious teacher, amounts almost to veneration.

In Japan, while the situation is somewhat different from that in Mohammedan countries and in India, the teacher of the child, even to the present date, is held in unusual esteem. This perhaps was more true under the old order, fifty or sixty years ago, than it is to-day, under the Constitution. But even now the teacher holds a position of high respect.

China puts more emphasis upon education than any other country of the Far East. As education in China has had a supreme place in its national life, so the teacher, who has stood at the center of education, has ever had a position of unusual influence and power. The responsibility of the pupil’s passing the examinations for his much coveted degrees rested solely upon the teacher. The successful pupil felt under lasting obligation to the one who had led him through the intricacies of the Chinese Classics, so that when he came to the dreaded examinations he was able to

E. A. K. Hackett Medical College for Women, Canton, China

1 7 pass successfully. Ever after, whatever his official position, he never forgot his teacher or failed to give due credit for what had been received at his hand. The educated Chinese always speak with great reverence and respect of their teachers. Indeed much of China’s stability through the centuries may be accounted for by her worshipful regard of her teachers, from Confucius down. In view of this exalted and influential position which the teacher holds among Oriental peoples, it is easy to see the position of vantage from which the educational missionary works. And it would be unfortunate indeed if he should fail to fit deservingly into this high estate or should allow the teaching profession to fall into lower esteem.* 7. The people were ready for education. This fact was not so evident in the earlier days of the enterprise as it is now. It cannot be given as one of the leading reasons why missionaries began schools, but it is now an important reason for perpetuating them. In nearly every missionary country there can be discovered a real desire among a considerable body for educational facilities for their children. This appears not only in the general patronage of the schools when established, but in urgent requests from remote and unexpected regions for schools. The rapid rise and phenomenal progress of modern education in Japan, and the present eagerness of the Chinese for the modern development of their school system, are two well known illustrations of such a desire. All classes in the Turkish Empire and great masses of people in India have also demonstrated their eagerness for a widely extended school system. At the present time petitions are coming in from the Albanians, only recently eman-