Missionary education in home and school

Front matter

MISSIONARY EDUCATION HOME AND SCHOOL-

RALPH E. DIFFENDORFER

Class flNfqbU Book. .XI 5 Gopigtoft?

Part I— Principles Chapter

I. The Aims of Missionary Education 15

II. The Significance and Cultivation of Friendliness. 41

III. The Awakening and Extension of Sympathy 65

IV. The Development of Helpfulness 93

V. Learning How to Cooperate 113

VI. Stewardship and Generosity 141

VII. Training in Loyalty to the Kingdom 175

VIII. The Sense of Justice and Honor 207

IX. The Materials of Missionary Education 233

X. The Bible and Missionary Education 247

Part Ii— Special Method

XI. The Missionary Education of Children (Under

Nine Years of Age) 265

XII. The Missionary Education of Girls and Boys

(From Nine to Twelve Years of Age) 283

XIII. The Missionary Education of Girls and Boys

(About Thirteen to Sixteen Years of Age) .... 297

XIV. The Missionary Education of Young People

(Fifteen to Eighteen Years of Age) 317

XV. The Missionary Education of Young Men and Young Women (Eighteen to Twenty-four Years of Age) 339

XVI. The Missionary Education of Adult Men and

Women 369

XVII. Religious Education for the New Day 389

Index 401

INTRODUCTION THE PLACE OF MISSIONARY EDUCATION

Some time ago the following letter was received from the director of an institute for the training of Sunday school teachers in one of our large cities :

"You will note that the Training Institute is solely for the purpose of religious education. The question of arranging to have missionary instruction included another year in the curriculum is for the Board of Managers and the Teacher Training and Graded Work Committee to decide."

In the mind of this Sunday school worker missionary education and religious education are thought of as two quite distinct processes. In general, this was the attitude of most religious workers ten years ago when the author began an investigation of the relation of missionary education to religious education, and especially its place in the home and the church school. This distinction between religious education and missionaryeducation was so marked and so persistent as to make certain results inevitable. The mission boards recognized more and more that the maintenance of their work depended upon rearing a generation of Christian people in thorough sympathy with missionary work, and with full conviction that its expanding needs must be met thoroughly and efficiently. For many years

8 INTRODUCTION

these boards had been reaching down into the local church for the purpose of organizing special groups for training in missionary interest and for added support. Mission bands, junior missionary societies, girls' and boys' clubs with a missionary purpose, and voluntary mission study circles were organized wherever there were sympathetic leaders to assume the responsibility. Then the mission boards began to see that these special organizations reached only a small proportion of the children and youth in the churches. The local Sunday school was the most permanent organization in the church dealing with boys and girls. Cases were rare where it did not include within its membership practically all the children and youth in the parish. It was natural, on this account, that the mission boards should desire to interest the Sunday school in their work, and many attempts were made to break into the Sunday school organization.

The policies and the methods in missionary education ten years ago, arose out of this necessity. Missionary committees were organized in the Sunday school and special missionary Sundays were introduced into the calendar, at which time missionary programs and special missionary lessons were taught, sometimes by specially prepared teachers. The material used came from the mission boards, but rarely, if ever, had the indorsement of the general Sunday school leaders, secretaries, and editors. There was also the temptation to exploit the Sunday school for the purpose of raising money. Collecting devices of various sorts were offered for use, and appeals were made to classes and schools for the support of special objects in mis-

INTKODUCTION 9

sion fields. Many conferences were held to discuss missionary giving in the Sunday school, and whether or not it would be right to take five minutes each Sunday or once a month, or substitute a missionary lesson for the review lesson once a quarter.

On the other hand, it was natural that the Sunday school leaders, not being in touch with the pressing needs of the mission boards, should oppose and in some cases resent these attempts to break in upon their schedule with a new program of study, giving, and service. These religious educators were providing Bible study in cycles of lessons known as the "Uniform Lesson System." All the publications were devoted to the treatment of these lessons, and all the time of the local schools was spent upon their study and discussion. The funds collected in the local Sunday school in the regular offering were used largely for the purchase of the lesson papers and supplies for the school. As a rule, children were not given any instruction or training in the habits of systematic giving, or in relating their gifts to the work of the local church in its community, or to home and foreign missions. Sunday school teachers were trusting that the pupils themselves would apply the principles of the Bible to everyday life. They were hoping also that the pupils would relate their Sunday school teaching to the need for gifts of money and service. Those who were directing regularly the religious education of the churches did not regard missions as we think of it in this book as the main business of the church, and they made little or no attempt to create a generation of Christians who would so regard it.

10 INTRODUCTION

The effect of this situation upon the pupil and upon his conception of missions was logical. He looked upon an interest in missions as something special or optional, or something in addition to his religious thought and life. This conception was heightened by the efforts to organize mission bands and other missionary groups. Children were asked if they would join the mission band which was to meet some time through the week. These appeals were zealous and, in many cases, convincing, but, after all, it was optional with the children. To them it was something in addition to the regular requirements of religious education in the home and in the church school. The baneful effect of this procedure throughout the churches can hardly be overestimated. A delegate to a missionary summer conference went home to her Sunday school class of junior pupils with the resolve that she would change her whole point of view with reference to their religious training. She had learned in her Conference training course that the normal result of her teaching should be Christian conduct especially in all social relations. She felt also that these relationships would have increasing significance in the growing lives of her pupils, and finally comprehend community, national, and international interests, all of which should become Christian. Enthusiastic over her new ideals, she proposed to her class a course of lessons with related activities which the pupils soon discovered were missionary. Evidently, they were labeled. In a common quick response, those pupils reminded their teacher: "It is not your business to teach missions. Mr. A. does that on the first Sunday of the month!" This

INTRODUCTION 11

remark was the logical conclusion to be drawn from our conception and procedure in times past

Fortunately, there appeared, in time, a group of religious leaders who saw that religious education was failing to meet the requirements. It was too academic. Functional psychology, as taught in our colleges and universities; pedagogy based upon learning by doing; the principles of child development as revealed in child study; the changing conceptions of the church and its work; and the newer ideals of social service were making it increasingly apparent that there must be some radical adjustment in the aims, material, and methods of religious education.

In recent years the emphasis on social evangelism and the social gospel has had a wholesome effect upon the conception of missionary education, even as it has more and more affected the work of missions itself. If missions are to be considered an organized enterprise for the purpose of selecting individual missionaries and sending them to the needy places of the world, missionary education must directly train our boys and girls to support this enterprise. It must also make an appeal to them to offer themselves, after due meditation and prayer, for service in these fields. On the other hand, if we are to include in missions the process of Christianizing all our social relationships in the community, in industry, in national life, and in international affairs, then the scope, the aims, the methods, and the material of missionary education will be greatly broadened. It is the writer's feeling that we can never hope to establish the kingdom of God on earth by depending exclusively on special agents,

12 INTRODUCTION

however well qualified, sent out by our churches in order that all the people may hear the gospel. The world now finds itself in closer relations than ever before. The peoples of the earth form a great family, and are in normal contact in trade, government, education, the pursuit of the arts, and in pleasure travel. The next generation, therefore, will face the problem of making effective in every relationship of life the implications of the gospel of Christ. If this be true, the aims of missionary education for the present growing generation of children must be comparable with the task which they are expected to meet. Keligious education, therefore, will more and more approximate the conception which some of us have of missionary education. This much is certain, missionary education will be an essential part of all religious education.

PART I PRINCIPLES

Chapter I The Aims Of Missionary Education

God of the nations, hear our call; Thou who art Father of us all; Show us our part in thy great plan For the vast brotherhood of man.

In plastic form the nations lie For molding, unto us they cry; May we their urgent summons heed And gladly go to meet their need.

May we, a nation blessed with light, Be ever truer to the right, That nations in our life may see The power which we derive from thee.

Let us with earnestness of youth Care only for pursuit of Truth.

O, may we feel thy guidance still And heed the impulse of thy will!

Thus, as thy kingdom cometh here, Shall it throughout the world draw near; And loyalty to country then Shall reach out to include all men.

—Vera Campbell, 1913.

CHAPTER I THE AIMS OF MISSIONARY EDUCATION

The Popular Conception of the Term "Missionary." Recently a normal class composed of students preparing for religious work was asked to take pencil and paper and to write down the first thought suggested to their minds by a certain word. The leader then said, "missionary," and the following words and phrases were written: a messenger of Christianity, the mental picture of a certain man, service, A. M. A. (After Money Again), one sent for service, China, Miss C. ( a student in the room ) , cannibal, ships, a man with a red beard, a typical old maid, a peculiar person, a man who lives the spirit of missions, one sent forth, "Go ye into all the world," a sent one, India, China, Japan, consecration, Burma, Mary Reed, not a man with a green umbrella, Strait's Settlements, a certain man, and one who helps others.

A study of these phrases shows that most of these students associated the word "missionary" with certain particular people, countries, travel, money, and queerness. Similar experiments have been made at other times and places with practically the same results. It may be said that a majority of people think of "missionary" in these imperfect and misleading terms. It is as a qualifying adjective that the word

"missionary" is most frequently used. In the mind of the average Christian it describes boards, societies, candidates, secretaries, libraries, books, meetings, collections, offerings, committees, or bulletins, all of which are impersonal and apart from his own individual life.

A Dictionary Definition. "Missionary" is derived from the Latin mitto, "to send." It describes the act of sending, or being sent, that with which the messenger is charged, an association of those who have been sent or are sending others, an organization dependent on another, or special services or a series of addresses for the influencing of others in a creed or faith. A "missionary" is the person who is sent, or the word may qualify anything which has to do with the above meanings.

Are These Conceptions Correct or Adequate ? The great enterprise known as missions, with its boards, committees, funds, buildings, representatives, literature, and special methods, is all possible simply because of a certain quality of character which, when truly developed, is the spirit of the missionary himself. It is not necessarily membership in a society, or Board, or the giving of money, or the going out to a foreign land, but something behind all this — a power in the life of the individual Christian, an attitude toward the world and its needs ; in short, the spirit of Christ, one "sent with a message" embodying in himself the meaning of the message. The fundamental problem for the religious teacher is whether or not these characteristics are to be reserved for a few, our "missionaries," or are to become the normal product of our whole process of religious education.

Every Christian a Missionary. The world will scarcely become Christian through the efforts of several thousands of special representatives sent out by more or less self-contented churches. Mohammedanism to-day has 200,000,000 adherents in the world, and Christianity had a start of six hundred years. Mormonism in less than a century has largely dominated the life of a half dozen or more States and has influenced the entire fabric of our national life. The Christian Scientist is an enthusiastic propagandist, a radiating center of his belief. In a few decades these people have extended the knowledge of their faith to every part of the world. Whatever we may say regarding their methods and ideals, these forms of religion have never set up a special machinery for extension as has Christianity. Their propagation is the task of the whole body. Each person is constituted a missionary and all relationships of individuals and groups come under the sway of the impulse toward extension. The missionary ideal and spirit is an essential part of their faith.

"But it is probably true that the masses of Islam have more generally, both geographically and as to periods of time, been undivided toward missionary work, toward the spread of their faith by one means or another. . . . The impulse in Islam is to spread and propagate itself through direct movements of the people and not through the efforts of a class especially set apart thereto." 1

"Any study of Mohammedanism which overlooks the

1 Duncan B. Macdonald, Aspects of Islam, pp. 269, 270.

intense zeal of the Moslem in the propagation of his faith is sadly defective." 2

"The Mormons are, above all, propagandists. This idea is inculcated into them from childhood." 3

"It was somewhat in consequence of the forming of the national association, somewhat in the gradual missionary work of the Journal, and largely because of the healing work of the students, who went out from the college, month after month, that Christian Science spread to every part of the country." 4

Historically, this is equally true of Christianity. Gibbon assigns as one of the principal causes explaining the rapid spread of Christianity in the Eoman empire the fact that each convert regarded it as his great privilege and responsibility to disseminate among his acquaintances the inestimable blessings which he had received. Harnack, in his Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries, has strongly enforced this point.

After showing in great detail the rise, work, and influence of apostles, prophets, teachers, and missionaries, Dr. Harnack says:

"The most numerous and successful missionaries of the Christian religion were not the regular teachers, but Christians themselves, in virtue of their loyalty and courage. . . . Above all, every confessor and martyr was a missionary. . . . The executions of the martyrs must have made an impression which startled and stirred wide circles of people. ... It was character-

2 E. M. Sherry, Islam and Christianity in the Far East, p. 51.

3 Bruce Kinney, Mormonism, p. 77.

4 Sibyl Wilbur, The Life of Mary Baker Eddy, p. 303.

THE AIMS OF MISSIONAKY EDUCATION 21

istic of this religion that everyone who seriously confessed the faith proved of service to its propaganda. Christians are to 'let their light shine, that pagans may see their good works and glorify their Father in heaven.' If this dominated all their life, and if they lived according to the precepts of their religion, they could not be hidden at all ; by their very mode of living they could not fail to preach their faith plainly and audibly. . . . We cannot hesitate to believe that the great mission of Christianity was in reality accomplished by means of informal missionaries. Justin says so quite explicitly. What won him over was the impression made by the moral life which he found among Christians in general." 5

"The inner spread of Christianity comes out primarily and preeminently in the sense, felt by Christians, of their own strength. Evidence of this feeling is furnished by the zeal they displayed in the extension of the faith, by their consciousness of being the people of God and of possessing the true religion, and also by their impulse to annex any element of worth and value." 6

To train every Christian to be a missionary, nay, more, to identify the two is the conception which offers a challenging opportunity to the religious education of to-day and to-morrow.

The Missionary Spirit. The attitude of Jesus toward the world is the missionary spirit. When scarcely out of his youth, fully conscious of his divine mission and of the meaning of his message for the world, Jesus began to proclaim the kingdom of God to the people in whatever place he found them assembled. This spirit has also characterized every great missionary. In terms of individual attitude, the missionary spirit may be said to consist, in the first place, of faith in this world as God's world, and a conviction that it is grounded in no blind and barren mechanism, but in an eternal and patient purpose for good not unlike that of a wise father for his children. Then it is a great, deep sense of justice, a quality which answers the demand of conscience and adjudges our relations to others on a basis of righteousness. It is also a life of friendship or comradeship, acknowledging all people to be the children of God, thus pinning its faith to the dignity and worth of humanity. There is also a broad sense of sympathy and a desire to help, serving the common good and others for their own sakes. Ability to cooperate loyally in the establishing of the kingdom of God on earth is an essential element. These characteristics and attitudes constitute what is meant in these pages by "missionary," and a discussion of them forms the chapters of this book.

Missionary Education Is a Complex Process. It is more than telling a story, reading a book, or joining a mission study class. It deals with life impulses, attitudes, ideals, and breadth of knowledge and experience. In order to produce a missionary church as indicated above, religious education must more and more develop those fundamental qualities of character which function normally in everyday living. It must cease to be academic and become practical. We must come out of the old rut of thinking that the meaning of education is exhausted in formal instruction, or in cramming the intellect. In this connection we may observe the change which is rapidly occurring in the conception of secular education. There was a day when it was regarded chiefly as learning the facts of a textbook. Now it is looked upon as including all of those factors and influences which prepare for complete living. In a notable address before the National Education Association, in convention in 1915 at Oakland, California, Mr. L. B. Avery, assistant superintendent of the schools of Oakland, pointed out the danger of making efficiency in getting things done the final test of the teacher. "The trouble with the efficiency system is that it asks, not 'Is he honest V but 'Can he deliver the goods?' not 'Is it right?' but 'Is it scholarship?' Thus it tends to a material basis and material ends in education. But the real end of education is not merely efficiency in getting things done, but character. No doctrine of efficiency can take the place of human love and loyalty and devotion ; no material accomplishments can take the place of inspiration and aspiration molding human life." "Education is the preparation for life. It is a large and a noble part of life itself, and yet it finds its particular aim and purpose in the preparation for the life which is to come when the happy school days are over. Hence the purpose of education is to make the boy and girl willing and able to help in the realization of ideal values." 7

"Education, in short, cannot be better described than by calling it the organization of acquired habits of

7 Hugo Munsterberg, Psychology and the Teacher, pp. 63, 65, 70.

conduct and tendencies to behavior. You should regard your professional task as if it consisted chiefly and essentially in training the pupil to behavior: taking behavior, not in the narrowed sense of his manners, but in the very widest possible sense, as including every possible sort of fit reaction on the circumstances into which he may find himself brought by the vicissitudes of life." 8

How to live — that is the essential question for us. Not how to live in the mere material sense only, but in the widest sense. The general problem, which comprehends every special problem, is the right ruling of conduct in all directions under all circumstances. In what way to treat the body ; in what way to treat the mind, in what way to manage our affairs, in what way to bring up a family, in what way to behave as a citizen, in what way to utilize all those sources of happiness which nature supplies — how to live completely. To prepare us for complete living is the function which education has to discharge. 9

Religious Education, therefore, Must Be Truly Prophetic in Spirit and Method. It cannot do less than to interpret to children and youth the significance of Jesus for the world of to-day. It must do more; it must point out as clearly as it is given us to discern them the implications of the world's changing life for the Christianity of to-morrow. To do this the religious leader cannot have his eyes wholly on the past, but, with the forward look, will try to make available for to-day and to-morrow the lessons from God's dealings with men in

8 William James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology, pp. 28, 29.

9 Herbert Spencer, Education, p. 30.

the past. As some have heard Professor George A. Coe say in his classroom lectures :

"The essence of Christian education is in continuous development of the child's present social experience toward and into appreciation of and devotion to the ideal of Jesus Christ, which includes God and men in social unity/'

All will agree that the core of Christianity is personal devotion to Jesus Christ. It is only when we come to interpret what that means that we find the necessity for changing conceptions. In each age Christ means something different as men try to interpret him for the life of their day. The religious education of to-day will not be less evangelistic than in any past generation. It will put devotion to the ideal of Jesus Christ first and it will also direct its most intelligent inquiries to determine the meaning of the child's growing social experience.

If every Christian is to become a missionary, we will not only increase the interest in and support of our national mission boards, but will also train a generation of men and women who will acknowledge their normal social contacts as offering the greatest opportunities for Christianizing the world. A number of classifications of these contacts of the individual with society have been made. For our purpose, we will take the following, indicating also the particular problem for religious education.

The Family. The conviction that the family must be maintained and loyalty to the home as a Christian institution have first place in any scheme of missionary education. From every foreign mission field comes

2G MISSIONARY EDUCATION

the testimony of missionaries to the effect that one of the most potent influences for propagating the Christian ideal is the life of the Christian family. All through his well-known work, 10 Dr. Dennis shows that the reconstruction of the family, next to the regeneration of individual character, is the most precious contribution of missions to heathen society, and is one of the most helpful human influences which can be consecrated to the service of social elevation. In the effort to hallow and purify family life Christian missionaries stir the secret yearnings of fatherhood and motherhood ; they enter the precincts of the home, and take childhood by the hand; they restore to its place of power and winsomeness in the domestic circle the ministry of womanhood; and at the same time they strike at some of the most despicable evils and desolating wrongs of the fallen world. If parental training can be made loving, faithful, conscientious, and helpful; if womanhood can be redeemed and crowned; if childhood can be guided in tenderness and wisdom ; if the home can be made a place where virtue dwells, and moral goodness is nourished and becomes strong and brave for the conflicts of life, one can conceive of no more effective combination of invigorating influences for the rehabilitation of fallen society than will therein be given.

"The Christian home is to be the transforming center of a new community. Into the midst of pagan masses, where society is coagulated rather than organized, where homes are degraded by parental tyranny, marital multiplicity, and female bondage, he brings the leaven

10 James S. Dennis, Christian Missions and Social Progress.

of a redeemed family, which is to be the nucleus of a redeemed society. . . . This new institution, with its monogamy, its equality of man and woman, its sympathy between child and parent, its cooperative spirit of industry, its intelligence, its recreation, its worship, is at once a new revelation and a striking object-lesson of the meaning and possibility of family life." 11

Dr. Robert Evans 12 has written that "the missionary and his family have a wonderful influence for the elevation of domestic life among the natives of Assam. They see how he respects his wife and treats his children. They are also taught that woman is not inferior to man as an intellectual and responsible being, and learn to exercise patience and protect her as the weaker vessel. This change is seen first in Christian families who are more intimately associated with the missionaries, and come under the influence of Bible teaching. But it is fast extending to those heathen families who are more directly in contact with missionaries and native Christians. I know many Hindu families in which the wives are treated very differently since the men have become acquainted with the missionaries. A feather will show whence the wind blows."

Another missionary 13 says that the happy homes of Christians affect the heathen very favorably. Once a man came to a friend of his bringing his idol, the "God of Riches," which he presented to him, saying: "We

11 Edward Alexander Lawrence, Modern Missions in the East, pp. 196, 197.

12 The Rev. Robert Evans (W.C.M.M.S.), Mawphlang, Shillong, Assam. » The Rev. Joseph S. Adams (A.B.C.F.M.), Hankow, China.

28 MISSXONAKY EDUCATION

have never any peace in our house. I am told if I give up idols and believe in Jesus, my home will become a little heaven on earth. Here is my idol." The cleanliness, sanitary improvements, and decent arrangements for sleeping (instead of the usual indecencies) impress the heathen favorably.

In his series of Adult Bible Class lessons on Poverty and Wealth, in the chapter in which is discussed "The Breakdown of Family Life," showing the influences of poverty in the family, Professor Harry Ward says that the family is the first social group. Its health and permanence is, therefore, the first concern in the effort to secure social welfare. It is the first school of morals. Within the family the power of social living, of contributing to the common welfare, is developed or destroyed. 14

What, then, is to be the attitude of the Christian toward all the factors which make for the maintenance of the family as a social institution? On the foreign mission field and among primitive and neglected peoples at home, the church has answered this by sometimes initiating and always fostering the factors essential to the permanence of the family. Medical, industrial, and educational missionaries and the mothers and daughters of missionaries have been the pioneers in many non-Christian lands of a new family life. The Christian evangelist has preached a standard of marriage and family morals which has almost revolutionized the Orient's social order. 15 Such work is now m See Harry F. Ward, Poverty and Wealth, p. 85.

is Shatter Mathews, The Individual and Social Gospel, Chapter II, "Christianizing the Home."

recognized as an integral and necessary form of the Christian propaganda. But what of the established body of Christians in our home churches? Have we systematically cultivated intelligence regarding the principles upon which the family is founded? Have we taken seriously the significance of eugenics, childtraining, the awakening of adolescence, love-making, social purity, poverty, intemperance, and divorce, as factors in the permanency of the family? The sanctity of marriage is the foundation of the Christian's family. Yet much of the fun-making capital of moving-pictures, vaudeville shows, and the theater is directed against the higher ideals of married life. If love-making is referred to among high school students and employed young men and women, they are liable to greet the remarks with snickering or, being blase, they may appear indifferent, or attempt to smother their deeper sentiments and emotions. The churches, as the organized Christian body, by a widespread, constructive educational movement could change the present apparently indifferent and mocking attitude toward the family as a social institution, and could preserve it for those Christianizing influences of which it has always been the center.