Our Foreign Mission School by Arthur G. Daniells

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 18, 1907

Our Foreign Mission School

By Arthur G. Daniells

LAST week’s REVIEW contained a brief statement regarding the decision of the council held at Grand, that the time has come in the development of our work to establish a foreign mission school in which shall be given, as far as possible, the special instruction needed by volunteers for missions. Further explanations should be given concerning this important measure.

This school will occupy a field somewhat different from that of our regular schools. Our academies and colleges are giving the general education that forms the basis for intelligent, difficult service in all vocations. But our young people who are called to Africa, China, India, Japan, Korea, the East Indies, the Levant, and the Mohammedan countries we have not yet entered, require a line of instruction not given in these schools. The volunteer for a foreign mission field should, before going to that field, pursue a line of study especially adapted to the field.

Men who have had the longest and ripest experience in foreign service have very clear, pronounced convictions regarding the preparation required by those who go to foreign mission fields. They urge that volunteers for missions should obtain a fairly good knowledge of the general history of the country to which they are going. They should, if possible, make a fairly good beginning in the languages they will have to use. They should get a clear understanding of the main features of the religions they will have to displace in the minds and hearts of the people. They should learn about the peculiar local diseases most prevalent and dangerous, so that they may know from the first how to avoid them, and also the best remedies for treating them. They should learn something of the customs, habits, and temperament of the people to whom they are going. They should also know something of the manner in which they will have to live, the special kind of work they will be required to do; and if there will be farming, they should know something about the character of the soil, and the kinds of crops to be raised.

While it is true that volunteers for missions will not be able to obtain a full knowledge of all these important points

before going to their fields, yet it is also true that a certain amount of information can be gathered in a reasonably short time that will be of great service as soon as they reach their fields of labor. It is just this kind of instruction that we shall endeavor to give in our foreign mission school.

Another consideration of great value is the acquaintance that will be formed in this school between the volunteers for missions and the members of the General Conference Committee, whose duty it is to secure recruits for mission fields.

In their efforts to secure the workers called for, the General Conference Committee have been compelled in many instances to select persons whom they have never seen, to go to the most distant and difficult fields on the globe. In such cases it is practically impossible to feel strong assurance in the wisdom of the selection made. Their qualifications as regards spiritual experience, education, health, temperament, and aptness for the fields for which they are chosen are not known.

And it is continually becoming more difficult and perplexing to provide the workers needed. One reason for this is that we have drawn from the ranks of our regular workers until there are but few left of the right age and qualifications who can be spared. In the early part of our missionary enterprises there was a demand for men of age and experience in English-speaking fields; but the situation is now changed. Only occasionally are we now required to send men to any English-speaking country. Great Britain, Australasia, South Africa, and Canada are fairly well supplied, and are developing their own workers. The calls that now come are from lands where new languages must be learned, and privations endured. All are agreed that our young people are best suited to fill these calls. Men well advanced in years can not successfully master the difficult languages to be learned, nor stand the exposures and privations incident to many of these countries. Besides, these men are needed in the home lands to aid in furnishing supplies for foreign fields.

With a large number of young people in this school taking special instruction to prepare them for foreign service, the Committee will have many advantages not now possessed in selecting workers best adapted to the fields. And on the other hand, the workers will have an acquaintance with the Committee and the conditions under which they will go abroad that will be of great value to them.

We believe that our people the world over will see the wisdom of maintaining a foreign mission school at our headquarters, and that our brethren in America will unite in giving this school strong support. We believe our school men connected with our academies and colleges will co-operate with us in carrying out the plans for this institution. Many who have learned of these plans have told us that they look upon this move as being one of the most important the General Conference Committee has ever made. In behalf of the great work contemplated, we crave the prayers of God’s people.

A. G. DANIELLS.