CHAPTER XV

PROBLEMS OF ADMINISTRATION

THE APPOINTMENT OF NATIVES OF FOREIGN COUNTRIES AS MISSIONARIES TO THEIR OWN PEOPLE

WHEN foreign missions were begun the policy was at once adopted, especially in the United States, of bringing to that country people from the lands to be evangelised for the purpose of training them to return as missionaries to their own race. In practice this plan has proved to be a failure. It has been clearly demonstrated that this is not an effective, wise, and economical way to carry on missions. There has been now and then a striking exception to this general conclusion standing out in isolated prominence among a multitude of failures.

We would not venture to introduce this topic here, were it not for the fact that many outside the circle of the directors of missions still entertain the old idea that the ideal missionary must be the man from the field, trained in the West, and sent back as a missionary to convert his own people. At the same time there are large numbers of students in the colleges and theological schools in Europe and America who have come from mission fields, many of whom would be glad to return to their homes as missionaries, and who are encouraged in this desire by zealous friends.

It should be made clear that, in the consideration of this topic, by "native missionary" is meant one appointed by the "home society" as natives of Europe

and America are appointed, the support coming wholly from the appointing Society, and the future conditions of themselves and their families being the same as those now existing between the Missionary Society at home and its missionaries abroad. There should be no confusion between the terms "missionary" and "trained native Christian leader." All Societies and missions welcome the latter, and are supremely dependent upon them for the success of the work. But these are not appointed missionaries, although at least one Society in England gives some of these able and distinguished native leaders the title of "missionary," without changing their relation to the Society or to the native leaders. The question is not of the same importance to Societies in Europe as it is to those in America, where far more young men born and reared in the East, after pursuing a course of education in the United States, apply to the Societies to be sent back to their home with the status of an American missionary.

One of the chief reasons why Missionary Societies do not appoint such as missionaries to their own people is the jealousy with which they guard the dignity and value of native leadership. Necessarily the foreign missionary in any and in all countries is temporary. He must decrease, while the trained native force must increase in number and in authority. Ultimately the work of the foreign missionary will come to an end, while that of the native leader will continue. It would be manifestly wrong, and on this practically all Societies and Boards agree, to remove a man from the ranks of the permanent leaders of the Native Church in any country and put him into the ranks of the temporary foreign workers. The dignity and strength of the native pastors should be maintained at the highest possible level, and it appears to the great Missionary Societies that to take from that exalted class men of influence with peculiar qualities for leadership, would be to strike a blow at the Native Church itself.

Another reason for this position is that it is the province of the Missionary Societies to build up and strengthen

the force of trained local leaders. No Society should make drafts upon the ever-increasing number of this class to supply deficiencies caused by the failure of the Church at home to provide the men needed abroad in the missionary ranks. Among some of the peoples of the East the position of missionary is looked upon as higher than that of the native pastor. Through the appointment of a student of the country as a missionary, with his support coming directly from abroad and himself apparently clothed with authority and possessing privileges beyond those possessed by others of equal devotion and ability, it is but natural that leadership in the Native Church would be discounted.

There are many other reasons which need not be given here, revealed by the experience of leading Missionary Societies, why it is not wise to appoint as missionaries to their own people natives of any of the countries in which foreign missionary work is carried on. Among these are disparity of support, inability to represent the Christian body whose commission they bear, since they are of another country and race, the impossibility of making the position of such an agent clear to his own people, and the special temptations which necessarily come to one thus removed from his natural environment and put into conditions with which he must be unfamiliar. This does not mean that the position of the foreign missionary is a more exalted one than that held by the native leader, but quite the contrary.

The Commission is of the opinion that Missionary Societies should not appoint natives of eastern countries as "missionaries" to their own people, but that they should use every means in their power to encourage all such, who seem qualified, to return to their own country as Christian leaders and workers in connection with the Native Church and native institutions. This attitude should be taken with the understanding that salaries and support shall come from the Native Church or community, and not from the Mission Board, even though for the immediate present some financial aid may be given from mission funds.

CHAPTER XVI

THE SCIENCE OF MISSIONARY

SOCIETIES

THE Science of missions is much more advanced in its bearings upon the work abroad than in its relations to the operations of the Societies at home..

Interest in missions as a science has largely centred hitherto in the activities of missionaries and the institutions which they have organised abroad, and not in the organisation of the Societies or their plans for disseminating information at home, creating and holding the constituency, securing missionaries needed for the work, and raising funds for its support. These more commonplace matters have been too close at hand to command much general and systematic attention. The general missionary Conferences in Christian countries have for the greater part fixed attention upon the remote points of missionary work. In the Mildmay Conference of 1878 there were about forty distinct papers and addresses given, only one of which could by any interpretation be made to apply to the home base, or the operations of Missionary Societies at home. In the London Conference of 1888 there was hardly a phase of the home side of the work of Missionary Societies that received any attention whatever. The thought of the entire body of delegates for the ten days of its session was directed to the ends of the earth, and held there to the closing hours of the Conference. In the Missionary Conference held in New York in 1900 much more attention was given to questions bearing upon the home side. The printed

report of the Conference covers about 1000 pages, 168 of which are devoted to matters belonging to the home base of the missionary enterprise. It seems that, so far as general Conferences in Europe and America are concerned, the science of the home base (or the science of Missionary Societies) began to emerge only at the beginning of the last decade.

The general Conferences held in missionary countries, as the various Decennial Conferences in India and the Centennial Conference in Shanghai in 1907, have necessarily dealt with the advancement of the work in the countries in which the Conferences were held, and not at all with the science of the operation of Missionary Societies at home. These have been most valuable in developing the science of missions as related to the work abroad, but only indirectly have they any bearing upon the relation of missionary science to the work at home.

The annual Conferences of the Missionary Societies of North America, which have been held usually in New York for the last sixteen years, have covered with a considerable degree of thoroughness, and with a proper recognition of values, the wide field of missionary endeavour, both in foreign countries and at home. As would be expected, however, the emphasis has necessarily been placed upon the home side of missionary work, and only indirectly upon the work abroad, since the Conference has been composed of the executive officers and members of the controlling committees. of the Societies at home. Naturally all missionary problems, under the circumstances, would be viewed and discussed from the outlook of the home base. These Conferences have given more than half their time and attention to the consideration of questions in which the various Missionary Societies, as Societies, were particularly interested, and which had to do with the administration of their work at home. So far as they have dealt with questions of the field, it has generally been with a view to throwing light upon phases of those questions which affected the attitude of the partici