The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1928, Page 168

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168 THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

Boys’ Boarding-School, Nagercoil, India.

Christian Missionary Education.

The following paragraphs are taken from
Dennis’s Christian Missions and Social Progress.
It is to be deplored that not a few missionary
agencies do not share this noted missionary’s con-
victions : —

“There are weighty and perplexing problems
arising in connection with the whole question of
missionary education, but it is obviously impossible
to discuss them here. Nor is it within our present
purpose to attempt any vindication of the mis-
sionary function of education, where it is properly
conducted and regulated. All that it is necessary to
say on this point has been said many times over in
missionary literature. One principle, however, is of
supreme moment; it is that missionary education
should be Christian in its spirit and should
so be conducted as to unfold and commend
._ the essential truths of Christianity to the

minds of the pupils and produce as its final
result a basis of Christian culture. Educa-
tion, emphatically, must be the handmaid
of religion, Christ must be the master spirit
of intellectual progress if India or any
other mission-field is to receive the highest
benefits from the establishment of educa-
tional facilities. In the light of present
tesults it may be safely asserted that the
‘educational, quite as much as the evangelis-
tic, campaign is already a priceless contribu- -
_tion to the welfare of the native Christian
Church. :
“After this clear statement we shall not

be misunderstood if we express the convic-
tion that the test of immediate conversion
should not be established as the one essen-
tial mark of success in missionary educa-
tion. However desirable this may be, and
however commendable as the aim of a.mis-
sionary teacher, it seems a mistake to regard
it as the only test, or the final one, of sue-
cess. In the spiritual and intellectual soil
of India and, in fact, of the entire Oriental
world the seed which springs up quickly
does not necessarily issue in the most
healthy and permanent growth. It is likely
to be without the deep roots which are
necessary to nourish and support it and so
may soon wither and die. Spiritual im-
pressions, in some cases, may result speedily
in sound conversion; but, among others,
the ripening processes are apt to be slow; yet the
final outcome, in the latter case, is not unlikely to
be quite as permanent as, and perhaps even richer
and sounder in essentials than, the first. The mis-
sionary must be a man of faith, and must serve in
love and patience, if he aims to be an educator of
Orientals. He must wait in humility and prayer
upon the workings of the divine Spirit. However
ardently he may desire to record results, he must be
content to refrain until they have been written first
in the book of Providence, where time alone will
make them legible. Meanwhile we may all hope for
the time when distinctively Christian universities
and colleges will crown the educational development
of India and when the religion of Christ will become
the dominant influence in such higher centers of
learning: It is true that Christian education has

Teaching Staff at Boys’ Boarding-School, Nagercoil, India.