Agricultural Education
By H. A. Washburn
Preparation for Missionary Work
We have before us a vast work in this world. The message committed to us is to be proclaimed by us to “every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.” The figures representing the number of souls to whom we are to declare the glad tidings are almost unintelligible. If, among the fifteen hundred millions of souls we were to sustain ten thousand missionaries, each would have a parish of one hundred and fifty thousand. We have made a small beginning, and have scarcely touched the heathen world, but the work that we are carrying is very much crippled in its support. The supply of means at the command of the Mission Board is not sufficient for even present needs. We need a large increase in order adequately to meet present demands. What will not the demands of this work be when a sufficient force of workers is in the field for reaching every kindred! When nearly every soul is pressed into service in the Master’s vineyard, there will be an urgent necessity for methods of self-support in the mission field. This is a problem to which we should be giving some attention and careful study. How may the missionary work be made self-supporting? Again, as recently stated by a conference president of several years’ experience in the foreign field, when the work in the United States is closed, as it soon will be, the work abroad will have to be on so firm a footing as to maintain itself without assistance from this country. We must now place our foreign work on this firm basis. This truly presents a multitude of problems, as the fields vary so widely, and what would be successful in one place would fail utterly in some other place. We shall have to devise various means, but, in the mind of the writer, there will be necessity for giving special attention to agricultural work as a means of self-support to the foreign missionary, as well as for our people generally, as already shown in these articles. We should give all our prospective missionaries an agricultural education as a part of their preparation. For this additional reason, “study in agricultural lines should be the A, B, and C of the education given in our schools.” It is well to note in this connection that missionaries are needed in many places to teach the people better methods of agriculture. “Men are needed in different communities to show the people how riches are to be obtained from the soil.” “Men are wanted to educate others how to plow, and how to use the implements of agriculture. Who will be missionaries to do this work?” “Missionaries will be more influential among the people if they are able to teach the inexperienced how to labor according to the best methods and to produce the best results. They will thus be able to demonstrate that missionaries can become industrial educators; and this kind of instruction will be appreciated especially where means are limited. A much smaller fund would be required to sustain such missionaries, because, combined with their studies, they have put to the very best use their physical powers in practical labor; and wherever they may go, all they have gained in this line will give them vantage-ground.” The principles of agricultural reform are for the whole world, not for ourselves alone. Such work as this is designed by the Lord to be a means of reaching souls in the great heathen world. “Because of sin the whole earth was cursed. But if God’s people followed his instruction, their land would be restored to fertility and beauty. God himself gave them directions in regard to the culture of the soil, and they were to co-operate with him in its restoration. Thus the whole land, under God’s control, would become an object-lesson of spiritual truth. As in obedience to his natural laws the earth should produce its treasures, so in obedience to his moral law the hearts of the people were to reflect the attributes of his character. Even the heathen would recognize the superiority of those who served and worshiped the living God.” H. A. Washburn.