These arguments do not need any further development here. We would only point out: (1) That, in the opinion of many of those best able to judge, the present inability and ineffectiveness of the Church, in view of her great opportunities, is directly traceable to the lack of any policy of missionary education of her children in the past. (2) That the very greatness of the demands made upon the Church at the opening of the twentieth century constitutes an imperious necessity for comprehensive and scientific propaganda for reaching the rising generation with the inspiration of the missionary idea.

It is taken for granted that in order to reach children, teachers must be especially trained. Any plan for effectively bringing to the attention of children the great work of missions cannot fail to make provision for the proper training of those who are to be the children's teachers. At present practically nothing is done in this direction.

(b) THE DANGERS

In laying the result of our enquiries before the Conference, we feel that we must insist from the first upon one thing that has stood out in tremendous proportion from all our investigations, viz.: that the work of interesting boys and girls in foreign missions is not only full of hope and possibilities, but fraught with very serious dangers. Two of these demand a special emphasis.

(1) It is as easy in our well-meaning efforts to make children dislike the whole thing as like it. In the missionary appeal we are handling what educationists agree is in itself the most forceful religious appeal that can come to a child, and if it fail to grip, the injury to its faith and personal religion may be serious. Success or failure depends, from the educational point of view, upon the personality of the teacher and the degree to which the methods adopted are suited to the children.

(2) In other branches of education the teacher has studied the child, and learnt to relate his subjects to those

instincts, interests, and activities which are most alive at each stage of the child's development. The secular educationist has learnt to capture children's imagination by suiting his methods and grading his teaching to their capacity and instincts, from the kindergarten to the sixth form. If we do less in missionary propaganda we must fail accordingly.

In the face of these serious, and, we believe, imminent dangers, we would point out that it is inadvisable to carry out any missionary propaganda among boys and girls apart from the study of the child and the laws of education. To attempt to transfer adult missionary ideas into the thoughts of a child is courting failure. Hence it is most desirable that the leadership in work among young people should be entrusted by the Missionary Societies to workers who have time and opportunity to specialise upon child study.

With the above facts in our minds, we have set ourselves not so much to count as to weigh what is at present being done throughout the Churches to interest young people in foreign missions. We have tried to discover what methods are being employed by the various Societies, what methods have been most successful in the past, and what methods they consider promise to be most fruitful in the future. We have also consulted with those who are acknowledged experts of the Churches upon the religious education of children, with a view to unite their judgment with the experience of the Societies, in an outline which we venture to put forward as indicating the lines of a sound and worthy policy for the future.

(c) SUNDAY SCHOOLS OF AMERICA

One of the most encouraging features of missionary advance is the rapid development of the work in the Sunday School field during the last five years. The unique opportunity in the Sunday School lies both in what it can do for missions at the present time, and also for the effect of this work of education on the Church

of the future. It has developed from two main sources -the activities of the Mission Boards and of those organisations distinctly connected with Sunday Schools.

The Activities of Mission Boards

(1) The Young People's Missionary Movement. Through this movement there has been in the United States a federation of the Mission Boards for the work of missionary education. To this movement probably more than to any other agency is due the credit of awakening the Sunday Schools of America. Four special summer conferences have been held for the consideration of this subject, and it has received attention at all of the numerous conferences and institutes of the Movement.

Probably the greatest contribution of the Movement has been the preparation and publication of a high grade literature for the use of the local Sunday School. Libraries, study books, pictures, maps, charts, and programmes are provided for any and every use.

(2) The Denominational Societies. There are now in America nearly thirty salaried officers in almost as many Mission Boards, giving their time to the work of missionary education among young people. The Sunday School has a large claim on their efforts. Several of the Missionary Societies have special Sunday School. secretaries.

Education in denominational work both at home and abroad, with appeals for offerings, both systematic and occasional, is a part of the activities of the educational departments of the missionary organisations.

The Missionary Activities of the Sunday School
Organisations

(1) The last three triennial conventions of the World's Sunday School Association, held respectively in Jerusalem, Rome, and Washington, D.C., have emphasised the importance of the Sunday School in mission work, and the

corresponding obligation upon the Sunday Schools at home to know about it and contribute to it.

(2) The International Sunday School Association, adopting a far-sighted missionary policy, has created a missionary department and appointed a missionary superintendent. Through these agencies the missionary message will be brought to the attention of all the Sunday School leaders.

(3) Following the example of example of the International Association, about one-half of the States and provinces of North America have created missionary departments, and hundreds of counties have fallen into line.

(4) The denominational Sunday School Associations have begun to create a missionary literature, and are supplementing the denominational work of the Mission Boards.

(5) The study of missions is finding a larger place in the many lesson systems now offered to Sunday Schools. The old International Uniform Lessons are now selected with a view to giving more opportunity for the study of the missionary message of the Bible. The new International Graded Lessons are providing for the study of missions "in course," in the Primary, Junior, Intermediate, and Senior grades.

(6) The Sunday School Editorial Association of North America has created a missionary department for the purpose of studying the place of missions in the Sunday School literature of all denominations. In both the Lesson Helps and the Story Papers the missionary message is finding prominent place.

Such great Churches as the Methodist-Episcopal have organised all their Sunday Schools as Missionary Societies. This has done much to increase missionary interest and intelligence in their schools; and although this method has not been adopted by many other denominations, still the general study of missions in the Sunday School has become a matter of fact and of recognised worth.

Some few schools have devised ways and means of

their own to study particular portions of the work, forming courses adapted to their own use. Recent publications have done very much in this line. Our correspondence reveals the fact that the Sunday School feels to-day the need of just the stimulus and incentive which will come from a world-wide study of the kingdom. The various denominations both in Europe and in America seem alive to the importance of emphasising this depart

ment.

(d) SUNDAY SCHOOLS OF GREAT BRITAIN

We have been in correspondence with the secretaries of Sunday School and Young People's Departments of the various Churches, and the inter-denominational Sunday School Unions. The place that is given to foreign missionary work varies very greatly among them. It cannot be denied that the three great inter-denominational Associations-which perhaps command the greatest expert opinion are far in advance of most of the denominational Unions.

One of the fundamental aims of the World's Sunday School Association is 'to keep the world view of Sunday School work before school officers and teachers, and, further, to extend such work by co-operation with missionary and Sunday School organisations in different parts of the world."

The Sunday School Union keeps the idea of missions to the front in its conferences, and to some extent in the syllabuses it issues. Among its literature is a very valuable pamphlet entitled, How a Sunday School helps Foreign Missions, showing "how an individual school of 900 scholars by systematising and vitalising its methods increased its giving to missions from £80 ($392) per year to an average of over £387 ($1896) per year." The Union also, no doubt, gains fresh inspiration from the similar Unions with which it is linked, and which it helps to support in some parts of the mission field.

The Scottish National Sabbath School Union includes missionary subjects in the programme for its Convention,