School Work in Mission Fields
By J. N. Anderson
FOR a long time I have seen the need of school work in our foreign fields. The great importance, in fact, the absolute necessity, of this kind of missionary activity has come to be more apparent to me with the passing of time. I am now fully convinced that the future of our work in such fields as China depends more on the work of the school, in preparing young men and women as helpers, than on any other one line of missionary effort. Some of my reasons for coming to this conclusion I will herewith set forth:— 1. History witnesses to the fact that every religious movement has had its living voice, not only in its beginning, but all through its history. Not only must this voice be maintained, but it must be multiplied manyfold. I know of no way of effecting this end without the school. 2. In China there is always the possibility of the foreign missionary being compelled to leave the field. He must then commit to “faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also,” the truth he himself holds dear. The present political situation in China is such at this very moment that many thoughtful minds entertain fears that a serious uprising is just ahead. In such an upheaval there is nothing that is so easily removed as the foreigner. 3. In a land like China, where the language, customs, and manners of the people, and their highly organized and very complex civilization, differ so radically from our own, it must be seen that the foreigner is at a great disadvantage in many ways. However well he may acquire the language, however heartily he may enter into the spirit and ways of the people, he will nevertheless always be a foreigner. And as a foreigner, he will never fully meet the Chinese people. His influence, if it is to be permanent, his work, if it is to stand, must be intrusted to a class of men and women whom he has carefully trained, and inspired with his own hopes. 4. But, granting that the foreigner could enter fully into the national feelings of the people, and to all intents become one of them, and that he could become a permanent factor in the life of the nation, yet the fact would remain that he would in any case be supplanted, sooner or later, by the Chinese church. The spirit of independence which is sweeping over that empire will influence men in every walk in life; and the foreigner is unwise if he does not now plan with that in mind. He now has the opportunity of training men, who will supplant him more nearly according to his own ideas. In this I am not advising that we get ready to turn the missionary work of that great field over to the Chinese, and so withdraw the foreigner; but I do say that we should be prepared to commit our mission interests into the hands of the Chinese believers, if that time comes, in such a way that the cause will be safeguarded. 5. On general principles any cause needs well-informed and intelligent advocates. How often we see even a worthy cause weakened because its representatives are unqualified to speak in its behalf! Is our message worthy? Is it to take deep root, and abide all the storms that are sure to beat against it in the land of Sinim very soon in the future? Is there to be, under the blessing of God, a strong spiritual church, holding up the banner of the advent message? To these very pertinent questions we all say: “It must be so; the message is of God, and hence it must go forward, and do its work in that mighty empire.”13But as certain as it is that the message is of God, and that it will conquer, so certain it is that there must be efficient means employed in the accomplishing of this end. 6. It is not only in the matter of preparing workers that the school is an essential; it stands for the unification, the solidification, of all the work. It is in close and vital touch with all parts of the field, since its students are gathered from various places in the field. In this way the life, the power, of the school extends to all the work. And in such a land as China, where letters and literature are held in almost idolatrous honor, the power and influence of the school must be even more than in other lands. In this way the school becomes a positive factor in gathering converts as well as in training them to be its advocates. To the Chinese the school is the fountainhead of all knowledge, all religion, all government. All the history of China in the past gathers about the school. Does not this very fact give us a splendid door of entrance to the Chinese kingdom?