The difficulty lies in the fact that the educational missionaries who set before themselves as the aim of their work a far distant goal to be attained by the cumulative effect of Christian influence brought to bear upon generation after generation of children who do not themselves become Christians, naturally resent a table which seems to demand a present, immediate, result in the tabulation of baptisms, and we fear that the other tables will hardly reconcile them, because we are afraid that few educational missionaries have yet learned to understand what a vast and important and absorbingly interesting work the education of the converts outside the schools affords. Consequently we shiver when we think of the reception which these tables are likely to receive at the hands of some of our friends in foreign countries, and our ears tingle in anticipation.
Nevertheless, if we are to be told, and to act on the hearing, that Christian schools are founded because it is easier to convert the young than the old, and the twig can be bent while the tree resists till it breaks, we must inquire how far this saying is justified by experience. A survey which neglected the factors which throw light upon it would be a partial and unjust one.
Hence we ask first—
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-------------- | Scholars | Baptism | Baptism | Confirmation | Remarks | | of | of | or Admission | and | | Scholars | Parents | as Full | Conclusions | | | | Members | ------------------------------------------------------------
--------- Primary | | | | | Schools | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------
--------- Secondary| | | | | Schools | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------
---------
and secondly—
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--------- Number of Places Opened to | | Remarks Christian Teachers by the | Proportion of Total | and Influence of Scholars. | Places Occupied. | Conclusions. ------------------------------------------------------------
---- | | ___________________________|_____________________|__________
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These two tables will give us some idea of the direct influence of the educational mission as an evangelistic force.
Some are anxious to know what support the educational and medical work call forth from the natives for whom these are set in hand. They want this information, we suppose, as a help towards an understanding of the influence exercised by these different forms of work. If the natives support them generously then they have obviously been impressed by them favourably. And perhaps the extent of native support may suggest the measure to which our work as medical and educational missionaries is approaching a successful end.