those are one-hour courses, except the last, which is a two-hour course.

Twelve institutions, or 10 per cent. of the whole number, report regular "Missionary Lecture Course Foundations." The number of lectures afforded on these foundations is usually five each year. In addition to these courses, some forty-eight report "special" and "occasional lectures, given by members of the faculties or by specially invited guests, particularly by missionaries at home on furlough, and by secretaries of the Mission Boards.

In addition to these regular and occasional courses, or in the place of these courses, missionary instruction and inspiration are furthered, in several seminaries, by special conferences held monthly or annually. For this purpose, seminary exercises are, for the time, totally suspended, and students and faculty meet for the consideration of exclusively missionary topics. For example, in one a full morning of each month is devoted to the meeting of the Missionary Society, composed of faculty and students. The mission fields of the world are studied. At another the first Tuesday of each month is observed as a missionary day, with lectures in the afternoon and evening. In another from one to three lectures are given on the first day of each month, when all regular lectures are suspended. One day of each month in another seminary is devoted to a free conference on mission work. Class work is suspended for the day, and several hours are spent by the faculty and students in the discussion of various subjects relating to home and foreign mission work, and in seeking to foster the missionary spirit in the seminary. This has done more to quicken interest in missions than all other causes combined. Work is suspended in another for one day each month, and the day is wholly devoted to studying missions; both faculty and students attend these mission-day exercises and take part, and also the officers of the Board of Missions.

Eighty-three institutions, or 70 per cent. of the whole number, report voluntary classes for mission study.

About three-fourths of these classes are conducted by students and the remainder by professors. They are usually organised under the auspices of the Young Men's Christian Association, and use, in many instances, the books published under the direction of the Young People's Missionary Movement. These classes are largely attended. In three instances they include all the students in the institution. There are frequently a number of classes conducted simultaneously in the same seminary. Princeton Seminary, for example, in addition to the required course in missions and its special courses, has a large number of mission study classes enrolling a large proportion of the students. Some forty-two seminaries give the number enrolled in these voluntary classes as 1662, or about 40 per cent. of the entire number of students. These classes usually meet for one hour each week, but during only a part of the seminary year.

Sixty-eight seminaries report the number of missionary books in their libraries as aggregating 41,000, or an average of 603 each. In addition to these, a number of seminaries report special missionary libraries, provided by the Young Men's Christian Association or the Student Volunteer Band. Special yearly appropriations for the purchasing of new missionary books are reported by twenty-three seminaries. Most of the seminaries report the regular provision of a number of missionary magazines for the library or reading-room. The average number of such missionary periodicals received by each institution is nine, although two receive upwards of eighty each.

The Continent of Europe

In Holland the history of missions has, since 1877, had a place in the curriculum of the theological studies of students in preparation for the ministry in the Dutch Reformed Church, to which half of the people in the country belong. Mission professors are appointed to this task by the Church, and some are reported as not especially interested in the subject. One of these, how

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ever, at the University of Utrecht, is just now publishing his Prolegomena to a Protestant Science of Missions.

In the two faculties of theology at Paris and Montauban courses of lectures upon missions have been given by special lecturers, and in the latter institution a missionary recently gave a course upon the religions of the inferior races. This practically comprises the academic missionary instruction offered to students for the ministry in France.

In the Free Church theological faculties in Switzerland it is arranged that each generation of students has the opportunity of hearing something about missionary history either from one of the professors or from a specialist.

For the last six years the theological faculty of the University of Copenhagen has offered an annual series. of lectures on missions. In the theological seminary of the University of Norway lectures upon missions are regularly given. At the University of Upsala, in Sweden, the History of Missions is studied in connection with Church History, and the Theory of Missions is made a part of the course in Pastoral Theology. Lectures are also given upon the history and theory of missions.

It must be borne in mind that in Europe many of the strong Missionary Societies have missionary training schools in which most of their candidates receive their education. In such cases the missionary receives his education largely apart from the candidate for service in the Church at home. This is especially true of Germany and Holland. To these candidates for missionary service missionary instruction is given. While this materially aids the future missionary to the proper equipment for his life-work, it is of no service to the young men who do not have the foreign field in view.

As the great majority of these receive their general and theological training at the State universities, the question of their missionary instruction is dealt with under the head of Academic Instruction. In many parts of Germany, however, young ministers, after completing their university course in theology,

spend one or two years in a theological seminary for training on more practical lines. Nearly all of these seminaries include in their official course the study of missions, either in connection with some other discipline or in a separate course of lectures. One seminary reports that the graduates hold missionary meetings under the supervision of the principal.

In Germany, where theological faculties are established, there is no general provision made for missionary lectures, but occasional courses are given in Berne and Lausanne, while at Basel one of the Basel Missionary Secretaries has quite recently been officially appointed as missionary lecturer. At Halle University there is a professorship of Missions.

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS

What is being done by some seminaries and theological colleges suggests what may be done by others, and even those by which the most is now undertaken indicate that the work is of recent growth. Many of those now attempting little are suggesting hopes and even plans for enlargement in the near future. Conditions in different seminaries are so diverse, and the theological curriculum is already so crowded, that specific or radical recommendations may seem useless, yet it may be allowable to point out a few apparent possibilities.

1. A prescribed course of instruction in Christian missions may well and even should form an integral part of the curriculum of every theological seminary or college.

2. The extent of such courses is a matter upon which opinions may differ. It would seem that the allotment of one hour a week, for only one year, is quite inadequate; and that such courses should be continued through the three years of study, increasing the fraction of time expended upon missions from one-fiftieth to onefifteenth.

3. The content of the courses need not differ from

that already suggested. They should certainly include the History of Missions (apostolic, medieval, and modern), the Biblical Basis of Missions, the Apologetic Defence of Missions, the Apologetic Significance of Missions, the Science and Methods of Missions, Comparative Religion, Christianity and Social Progress, the Pastor and Missions, Modern Missionary Movements in the Home Church, Special Missionary Fields, and the Missionary Work of the denomination with which the particular seminary is connected.

4. The conduct of the courses might well include the use of both text-books and lectures, and should suggest collateral reading. The courses should be under the direction of a special professor or instructor, or form a definite part of the assigned duties of such an instructor. Modern missionary movements are so rapid and their problems so numerous and so complex as to demand the attention and consideration of a specialist.

5. Effort should be made to secure endowments for lecture courses, and for the continued enlargement of missionary libraries.

6. The organisation of classes for voluntary study should be encouraged. These classes are found to flourish, and to be of incalculable service, even where missions have a regular and important place in the curriculum.

7. In conclusion, while the study of missions has such wide ramifications that it can be profitably taught in connection with any one of a large number of the usual theological disciplines, the need for its further emphasis in these courses, or its more extensive treatment in a distinct department, is made evident by the simplest reference to the specific purpose of all theological education, viz. to prepare men to be able and efficient preachers of the Gospel among all nations. Nothing will tend more definitely to develop interesting preachers, skilful organisers, or consecrated missionaries, than such instruction as imparts missionary information, suggests missionary illustrations, and inspires missionary zeal.