MISSIONARY TRACTS FOR THE TIMES. No. 4. SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: / HOW'THEY MAY BE ESCAPED, A PROBLEM FOR THE SONS OF ISSACHAR. ¥ KEY. C. IT. CARP K 5 -wm Itf Price Twi m m — BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY PERCIYAL T 43 Lincoln Street. 1886. “I enjoyed the reading of ‘No. 3* exceedingly, as I did the preceding. . . . I believe there are many in the Baptist ranks who are beginning to see the necessity of a radical change, both in the administration at home, and in the policy of the Union abroad. To bring this about, agitation is needed at the present time ; and there is no more timely presentation than that in your clear-cut, matter-of-fact, unanswerable arguments. These discussions should be in the hands of every minister and every contribu¬ tor. ... I wish you God speed in your heroic work.” — Pastor B. “ I began to read with some prejudice, based on what I had heard and read against your method of reform ; but, thank the Lord, I got converted before I had finished reading it. The Christian spirit with which thedract is pervaded ; the arguments which seem to be unanswerable ; and the tes¬ timony of missionaries of long experience on heathen fields, in behalf of self-support, convince me. . . . May the Lord aid you in the much-needed reform.” — Pastor H. “Thanks for ‘No. 3,’ which I have read with great interest. I hope it will make the impression it ought to make. I have long felt that the missionary enterprise needed an infusion of new, red, missionary blood. Nothing stirs the world like genuine Christian self-sacrifice, and nothing is so offensive as that which is missionary only in name. . '. . The large salaries of our secretaries are very demoralizing. They make the mission¬ aries dissatisfied ; and the salaries of the missionaries, in turn, make the native assistants dissatisfied. . . . I wish you God speed, but I fear you are leading a forlorn hope. There are great odds against you. ... I pray that the Divine dynamite may be given to blast away the conservatism of a worldly Christianity, and that you may lay the train.” — Pastor L. “ 1 believe you are doing the mission cause a real service by your tracts, and I hope that you will succeed in so bringing the matter before the public that it will receive the attention which it deserves.” — Pastor R. “If the writers of ‘open letters’ would assail your writings, and then allow you to reply, they would act like men ; but when they assail your motives as well, and then allow no reply, they stoop below the character of men, not to say Christians.” — Pastor T. “ So interesting, valuable, and suggestive ! I wish success to every at¬ tempt to promote economy in all branches of public expenditure, in State and Church.” — Rev. Prof.-. Commendatory notices have been received from “ The Vermont Baptist,” “Ford’s Christian Advocate and Home Circle,” “ The Missionary Advo¬ cate” (Friends), “The Missionary” (Southern Presbyterian), “The Mis¬ sionary Record ” (Cumberland Presbyterian), “Zion’s Herald” (Methodist), and others. Dr. Lasher, in the “ Journal and Messenger,” again gives us “ fiat seven,” full and clear : — “ Benedict Arnold . . . is still a mystery. . . . How a personal pique . . . against the Secretary. . . . There is no good reason why he should not start at once, and remain away from this counti*y all the rest of his life. . . . ‘ Brother Carpenter, go ; go at once, and do not stand upon the order of your going. Only by thus going . . . Go, then ; go speedily ! ’ ” A 0 7 7 V A—'/ ' O' n ) CU*' u. 4*^. IV. SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: HOW THEY MAY BE ESCAPED. i “/ incessantly pray Heaven, all men, the whitest alike and the blackest, the richest and the poorest, had attained precisely the same right, the divine right of being compelled (if * permitted ’ will not answer ) to do what they are appointed for, and not to go idle another 'minute, in a life which is so short, and where idleness so soon runs to putrescence “ * No work, no recompense . . . Work is the mission of man in this Earth. A day is ever struggling forward, a day will arrive in some approximate de¬ gree, when he ivho has no ivork to do, by ivhatever name he may be named, will not find it good to shoio himself in our quarter of the Solar System; but may go and look out elsewhere, If there be any Idle Planet discoverable ? ” T. Carlyle. PREFATORY AND PERSONAL. To Rev. William Ashmore, D.D. My dear Brother ,— I pause in my work upon “ Missionary Tract No. 4,” to read and reply to your “open letter” ad¬ dressed to myself in “The Watchman” of Nov. 26, 1885. I reciprocate all the courteous expressions with which your letter closes. You have done a grand work for China. You exem¬ plify in yourself the virtues and the strength which Christ gives, when he would present to his Church an able minister of the New Testament, or an able missionary of the cross on heathen shores. We have been engaged for many years in preaching the same gospel in benighted Asia ; and, through the blessing of God, we have both been permitted to bring a few souls from thick darkness into the knowledge and life of our divine Redeemer. We have both been engaged in teaching the same theology, and in establishing churches of the same Baptist faith and order. Our views on the mission-school question are, as you say, nearly alike; though I have been led by differing cir¬ cumstances to attempt greater things, perhaps, in the line of self-supporting schools, than you have done. If I would but confine myself to the unwisdom and waste which have attended our costly attempts at evangelization by means of schools, you would give me your esteemed favor and powerful support; but if my sense of duty, and my under¬ standing of God’s word and will, lead me to attack the subsidy 145 14G PREFATORY AND PERSONAL. system which you have so long practised, and which you still intend to make use of, or if I venture to remark upon the sala¬ ries paid to missionaries, their style of living, and their mode of crossing the ocean, you turn upon me your displeasure which I deprecate, and your facile pen which I have often admired, hut do not allow myself to fear, so long as I keep within the hounds of the truth and the righteousness which are revealed as such to me. Bear with me yet a little longer, Dr. Ashmore. My mes¬ sage to the pastors and churches of our native land is nearly delivered. Every denominational paper in America is open, free of cost, to you. With one or two honorable — but only partial — exceptions, all are virtually closed to me. Some of them strangely seek to uphold the missionary cause by striking me with one hand and gagging me with'the other. I must pay for every em of type that is set, and for every pound of paper that is used, in this warfare which I have undertaken, not , as you affirm, against the Missionary Union, but against the abuses which have crept into our missions, and to which you are a party. I must pay out hundreds of dollars for postage, in order to bring my protest within reach of those who have a right to know the facts, who alone can right the wrong. When I have sought at so great outlay to appeal to my brethren of the ministry, you have done what you could to have these tracts deposited u unread, in the waste-basket” (see resolution passed at the Indiana State Convention in your presence). Such is your idea of fair play and freedom of debate for me, when I happen to advocate views that are opposed to your views and your fancied interests. When by the exhaustion of my lesources, my ungracious task is done, I hope to return to the easier and more congenial work on foreign shores. It is hopeless, probably ; but if, perchance, some word of mine in this controvers}' might penetrate your coat of mail, and lead you, on your return, to change your policy in the matter of self-support, it would be auspicious of good to your mission, as well as most gratifying to me. PREFATORY AND PERSONAL. 147 Nearly the whole of your first column, Dr. Ashmore, is de¬ voted to a search for the motives which have actuated the writer of the “ Missionary Tracts.” He has made an attack upon the Missionary Union so brutal, that he must have de¬ sired to destroy the grand old society ; he must have had a long-standing “ grudge ” to satisfy. I assured you, when “No. 2 ” first came out, that I had no such motives; that my only wish was to effect a much-needed change in policy. As I could not convince you then, it is hardly worth while for me to reiter¬ ate denials and protestations. Rev. Dr. Gracey (Methodist) says in the “ Missionary Magazine ” for November, that u the candor of the author, as well as his pains-taking, are evident on almost every page.” If a deep conviction of serious wrong in our existing methods, and a strong desire to help lift our missions on to a higher plane, are not discernible in my tracts, they certainly fail as conspicuously as you do, to do justice to their author. As to my being “ in an absolute minority of one,” please read this from Rev. Mr. Ward, an experienced Methodist mis¬ sionary in India : “A generation of missionaries going through the country empty-handed, as the apostles did, would revolution¬ ize India.” And this from our own Timpany: “Had not a rupee of foreign money been spent on the direct [native] evangelistic agencies of India, its old faiths would, by this time, be like a doomed city in the grip of an earthquake.” And this from Rev. J. Smith, for thirty years a missionary of the English Baptist Society in Delhi and vicinity : “ Almost all the evils we have to contend with may be attributed to money. . . . Indigenous churches, which are the hope of India, can never spring up so long as the native agents are in the pay of the missions. The man who supplies the pa}' must and will be master.” Read also the testimony of twenty-six competent witnesses in “ No. 3.” Many of these are your peers in every respect; and they unanimously deplore the evils of the subsidy system, as it is practised in China, Burma, India, and Africa. To sanitariums and guest-houses I have not the slightest objec> 148 PREFATORY AND PERSONAL. tion, if missionaries will club together and pay for them from their generous salaries, as pastors in this country generally have to do, or go without. In Bassein, and in Toungoo also, I be¬ lieve, missionaries have made such provision to their advantage. What I do object to is the disposition which some have mani¬ fested to get all they can out of the society. I need not add, I trust, that this plain remark has no reference whatever to the missionaries of Swatow. Again, allow me to say that I did not select the Southern Baptist Convention and the American Board because their finan¬ cial exhibits would put the Missionary Union at the greatest disadvantage. There are scores of societies, as you well know, which expend less money per missionary than either of them. I selected those two simply because of their nearness to us ; the American Baptist Missionary Union being, in a sense, the offspring of the American Board, and the mother of the Rich¬ mond society. You assert, somewhat rashly, that I left out some things necessary to a fair comparison. You excuse your¬ self from entering “into details,” but please do me the favor to specify one such omission if 3 ’ou can. After weighing can¬ didly every criticism that bears on my tables, I still believe the . comparisons which I made to be absolutely fair, and so con¬ clusive that they ought to carry conviction to every missionary and every officer connected with the Union. Where you got the idea that I wish to “ equalize ” the sala¬ ries of home and foreign missionaries, I cannot imagine. There are some foreign missionaries that ought to receive less, others that ought to receive more, than some home missionaries, in my judgment. And the salaries paid to missionaries in differ¬ ent foreign countries, and to those in cities and to those in country stations, ought to vary about as much as salaries vary on the different fields of the American Board. At one of your remarks, I, too, pause with “ amazement.” “ Life in a heathen land,” you say, “ is all of it. second-class. . . . Eight or ten } 7 ears in the steerage of heathenism, with its filth, its vermin, and its nasty concomitants, are enough at one PREFATORY AND PERSONAL. 149 stretch.” Possibly, if this language be interpreted in a strictly spiritual sense, you can justify it; though even in that sense our privations have their compensations which are precious beyond expression. I have never seen Swatow; but I have visited scores of missionary homes in Bankok, Hongkong, Can¬ ton, Niugpo, Shanghai, and other Chinese, Japanese, and Indian cities ; and I do not hesitate to pronounce the picture which you draw in these few words misleading and (uninten¬ tionally) untruthful. An intelligent Christian lady, after mak¬ ing the tour of China and other Eastern lands, is said to have remarked, “I can never again say ‘poor missionaries:’ let me always say, since I have seen them in their homes, ‘ good missionaries.’ ” The comfort, the absolute neatness, the trained servants, the unostentatious elegance even, which are found in so many missionary homes abroad (including m 3 7 own old home in Rangoon, perhaps), would strike the great majority of our contributing friends, if they could see them, with surprise, if not with a measure of disapproval. In touring among the people, of course the comfortable home has to be left behind; but allow me to ask if Dr. Ashmore on the average spends fifty nights a year among the “nasty concomitants” of Chi¬ nese inns, or even in the mitigated nastiness of the chapels and homes of his own Christian converts? To the w r eak, Paul became as the weak, in order that he might gain the weak ; but you and I go to the poor heathen, and live so many miles above them, that the wonder is that our preaching wins a single soul. For my own part, I am determined with God’s help to come down a little. Can you not see, my genial, clear-headed brother, that } t ou also would be doing a service acceptable to the homeless, penniless Christ, by coming down a little too? I have been reluctant, Dr. Ashmore, to call special attention to the one weak point in your work ; but the fact that it per¬ fectly illustrates the doctrine of these tracts, and, moreover, the freedom with which you have assailed my literary work and even my motives, leaves me cjuite free to speak freely, but without the slightest ill-will, and I trust with no heat. For all / 150 PREFATORY AND PERSONAL. these years, you and I have really been working on different principles. It is useless for you to attempt to conceal from yourself or others the fact that your chief reliance for “ the sinews of war ” has been upon the Christians of America ; and even now, after your mission to the Tie Chiu people has been established forty years and more, you are still far enough from being ready to release your hold upon the arm that has so long borne you up. What, then, has been your record as to this vital matter of self-support? In 18G5 you estimated that the expenditures of the heathen upon their religious and superstitious rites would average at least ten dollars a family, annually, in one of the large towns on your field. You wrote that out of their poverty they contributed this large average cheerfully. Have your Chinese converts contributed any thing like that amount for the religion which is saving them and their families from eter¬ nal death? Or have you allowed American Christians to bear almost the entire cost of their preachers and schools? These are plain questions, indeed; but the}' seem to be perfectly germane to the discussion which you have chosen to enter. In 1874 you wrote of the Chinese, that “they have a richly laden suppty-train, which, in the case of the tribes spoken of [Karens and others], must be furnished by the American churches.” How do the contributions of the Swatow Chris¬ tians compare with those of the feeble Karens, after more than a quarter of a century of training from yourself and your able co-laborers? The Karen churches which absolutely support themselves, their worship, and their village schools, are num¬ bered by hundreds. The Karen Christians in Bassein, Bangoon, and Shwaygyeen are nearly independent of foreign aid, and are reaching out after the heathen in distant regions more and more. You know the importance of the principle; for in 1872 you wrote, “ It is a great gain to aim for self-supporting churches from the veiy outset.” For the degree of success attained, we must go to your own reports. For nine of the years between 1873 and 1885, I find no PREFATORY AND PERSONAL. 151 report given of the amount of native contributions on your field. ... In 1879 the mission was paying three preachers at the rate of $7 a month each, two at $5, and ten at $4. Fif¬ teen Bible-students were paid at the rate of $2 a month each. Boys in the central school, under ten, were paid $.50, and those from ten to twenty $1, a month. Young men over twenty were paid $1.50. Girls received $1 a month each. There were also twenty-one Bible-women to be provided for by American Christians. ... In 1881, $234 are reported from 715 clmrch- members. In 1882 the largest contributions of the period are reported, an aggregate of $658.93 from 781 church-members. If their value is not included in this sum, there should be added to this the sites for three chapels and a house. For 1883, 1884, 1885, no report of contributions is given. During all this time, the average of subsidies drawn from America for the support of the preachers, Bible-women, and schools in Swatow, has been not less than $3,500 a year; while the average contributions of the native Christians, so far as reported, is hardly one-tenth of the subsidies. I ask, in turn, have these facts no bearing upon your willingness to have the infamous “ No. 2 ” and its naughty fellows burned, as well as included in a Baptist pope’s Index Expurgatorius? If, after twenty-five years of labor in the ancestral district of the Tie Chiu people, you have succeeded, Dr. Ashmore, in establishing one church which has supported its own pastor for three } T ears in succession, without aid from America, the reports of the Swatow Mission fail to show it. Your theories are ad¬ mirable, and much of 3 -our work is solid and excellent; but the impression left by a perusal of your annual reports (so far as the self-support feature goes) is that of a series of interesting experiments, instructive to a certain extent, and hopeful per¬ haps, but not reaching permanent or striking results. Finally. I note that, from your point view, the author of these tracts is pretty nearly a fool, as well as a foot-pad. Three lines below the quotation which you wrest into a denial of the right of his brethren to reply to his strictures, he wrote: “Let the 152 PREFATORY AND PERSONAL. defence be what it may, we submit that a thorough reform in our principles and methods is called for.” Utterly indefensible as I believed and still believe to be a course which has resulted in doubling our expenditures per man within less than forty years, in an outlay sixteen per cent per man greater than that of the Southern Baptist Convention, twenty-eight per cent greater than that of the American Board, and fifty-three per cent greater than the average of all the Protestant missionary socie¬ ties of the world (100), I still expected and desired such defence to be made as was possible ; and my language plainly implied this. That which I deprecated was the “ conspiracy of silence,” which has been tried unsuccessfully ; the u recrimi¬ nation ” which finds its illustration in your own “ open letter,” and in the numerous charges of inconsistency, wrong motives, etc., which have been brought against myself; the refusal to admit mistakes which have been proven ; and the determination to persist in courses which can but weaken the confidence of supporters, and cripple the resources of the society. The facts which have been brought to light in the first three tracts, and those which remain to be brought to light in Nos. 4 and 5, are not to be ignored, explained away, or denied. They are stern facts, and will soon or late make an impression upon the con- stituenc}' of the Missionary Union all the deeper for attempts like yours to break their force, to cover them up, and to escape from the lessons which they most plainty teach. In all fidelity, but cordially, yours, C. H. CARPENTER. Newton Centre, Mass., Dec. 15, 1885. SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: HOW THEY MAY BE ESCAPED. The answer to the question implied in our title shall at least be prompt and direct: By continuing on and on in the bad*, old way. Make no change. Let things drift, as they have drifted since 1878, and neither we nor our children’s children shall ever see a self-supporting Baptist school in India, China, Japan, or Africa. “Any new set of conditions occurring to an animal which render its food and safety very easily attained, seem to lead, as a rule, to degeneration: just as an active, healthy man sometimes degenerates when he becomes suddenly possessed of a fortune; or as Rome degenerated when possessed of the riches of the ancient world. The habit of parasitism clearly acts upon animal organization in this way. Let the parasitic life once he secured , and away go legs , jaws , eyes, and ears; the active , highly gifted crab , insect , or annelid may become a mere sac , absorbing nourishment and laying eggs.” 1 “ Parasitism is one of the gravest crimes in Nature. It is a breach of the law of evolution : Thou shalt evolve, thou shalt develop all thy faculties to the full, thou shalt attain to the highest conceivable perfection of thy race, and so perfect thy race.” 2 1 E. Ray Laiilcester, “ Degeneration,” p 33. 2 Drummond’s “ Natural Law in tlie Spiritual World,” Se7ni-Pctrasitism , p. 319. 153 r 154 SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: “ To sustain life, physical, mental, moral, or spiritual, some sort of food is essential. To secure an adequate supply, each organism is provided with special and appropriate faculties. But the final gain to the organism does not depend so much on the actual amount of food procured as on the exercise required to obtain it. In one sense, the exercise is only a means to an end, namely, the finding food ; but in another and equally real sense, the exercise is the end, the food the means to attain that. . . . Without food exercise is impossible, but without exercise food is useless. . . . Any 'principle which secures food to the individual without the expenditure of work is injurious , and accompanied by the degeneration and loss of parts.” “Food [education] too easily acquired means food [educa¬ tion] without that accompaniment of discipline which is infinitely more valuable than the food [education] itself. It means the possibility of a life which is mere existence.” 1 Keep it before the people: A threefold burden , instead of the one simple burden ichich the Lord Jesus imposes, is precisely ivhat most foreign missionaries and most managers of foreign missions are ever seeking to lay upon the Christians of England and America. Keep it before the people, also, that by far the most mischievous effect of this policy is to scatter broadcast throughout the mission fields the seeds of a parasitic groivtli, and to water the verdant but destructive pests with the dew of a mistaken charity. In “ Tract No. 3,” we traced the evil in its relations to the native ministry. In this number we shall try to portray the evil in its relations to mission schools and native education. OPPOSING SCHEMES OF EDUCATION IN MISSIONS. Schools in their proper time and place, I believe in as firmly as any of my critics. Christ’s people, the world over, desire education. They deserve it too (just as soon as they are able and willing to pay for it), and will have it. With me, and in 1 The same, Parasitism , pp. 848, 349. HOW THEY MAY BE ESCAPED . 155 this paper, it is not a question of schools or no schools. It is a question of what mission schools are for, when they are to be established, and by whom they are to be supported. A sharp distinction is to be made between those who follow up the work of evangelization, as fast and as far as results are reached, with Christian schools called for and supported in the main by the native converts themselves ; and those who, in advance of any extensive turning of the people to God, or before the spon¬ taneous, self-helpful demand arises, enter upon schools as an evangelizing agency , drawing upon the mission treasury for the cost. The one scheme is natural, healthful, and justified by the experience of centuries : the other, while it tends undeniably to parasitism, is one of man’s latest inventions, not yet out of the experimental stage. The one magnifies the New Testament, trusts in the efficacy of the gospel and in the ever-continued uplifting work of the Spirit: the other turns a square corner upon the path marked out by Paul, Peter, and John, distrusts that which the apostle declared to be u the power of God and the wisdom of God,” and substitutes the teaching of English and modern science, with the free use of money, for the simple preaching of Christ and him crucified. The abandonment of schools in missions is not advocated in this series of tracts ; only the reconstruction or abandonment of schools which have been introduced as an evangelizing agency, and schools erected prematurely, in advance of the willingness or the ability of the converts to bear the chief part in sustaining them. We con¬ tend not for the overthrow of schools, but for a return to the New-Testament ideal of missions,—the universal preaching of the gospel, in humble reliance upon the Holy Spirit’s blessing, and the substitution of Indigenous Schools on the basis of self- support in the main, in place of the present slip-shod, eleemosy¬ nary system. A PERSONAL EXPLANATION. Those who charge the author with setting small store by education forget his record. Appointed in 1862 to engage with r 156 SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: Dr. Binney in the work of Karen theological education, the first five years of his missionary life were given to that work, and it satisfied him. The death of Rev. B. C. Thomas had left the large circle of Bassein Sgau churches without a leader. At the invitation of the Karen pastors, as well as of the Exec¬ utive Committee, he went to that important field ; and speedily found himself immersed in a great educational work, as well as in “ the care of all the churches.” During the entire period of his connection wfitli the work in Bassein, more than half of his time and strength was given to school superintendence, to teaching, and to the thorough equipment of the station school with buildings, furniture, apparatus, and an endowment. As things were at that time and in that place, he still thinks that he did the best thing for Bassein and for the heathen world that he could do. The system of schools that he wrought for was self-supporting , and in his judgment he was solving the educational problem for all Burma. Whether the solution which was effected in those years of intense labor and of absolute self-devotion is ever accepted by the missionaries and native Christians in other parts of Burma, or not, the problem was successfully solved in Bassein, and it has been solved as yet nowhere else. American silver has been at the basis of all the other experiments, vitiating the result, and making permanent success difficult if not impossible. I have made many mistakes, but the great mistake of my life was committed when I allowed myself to accept the presidency of the Rangoon Baptist College in 1873. I allowed myself to forget the incomparable advantages of Bassein. I dreamed of harmonizing the conflicting views of my brethren, and of con¬ centrating the efforts and prayers of good men all over Burma in behalf of a central Karen college. Before leaving America, I wrote an article for the “Magazine” (March, 1874), which urged American Christians to give two hundred thousand dollars for the equipment and endowment of the proposed “ college.” It is allowable for men to change their minds on occasion, and it is possible for the wisest of them to grow in wisdom wfitli / HOW THEY MAY BE ESCAPED. 157 advancing years. Before I had been in Rangoon six weeks, I saw the futility of all ray hopes, and was homesick for the co¬ operation and sympathy of the noble people whom I had left behind in Bassein. The article in the “Magazine” is still quoted against me ; but, so far as I know, it failed to draw a dollar from the pockets of American Baptists, and I have never been able to regret that failure. Schools? No American Christian in his right mind can doubt that Christian schools are a prime necessity for Christians under all skies ; but let the schools be self-originated and self-support¬ ing, like those in Bassein. Active aid may be necessary in the outset for the training of native preachers, but this necessity soon passes away ; and, aside from that, let almost every thing be left to the Christian instincts of the newly converted people, and to the providential improvement of their resources, under the advice and encouragement of their missionaries. Let soci¬ eties and missionaries plant themselves immovably on the truth that preaching the gospel is the one great debt which they owe to the nations. Then, when the seed springs up, and the infant churches plead that their children may be taught to read the wonderful Book and the wonderful works of God in their own tongue, let the, work be looked upon as tlieir work; let the provision made be inexpensive, and gauged strictly according to their ability to pay therefor. Sometimes, as in Bassein, the eagerness and self-sacrifice of the converts may be extraordi¬ nary : the hope that a general school of high order will grow out of the vigorous native beginning may be well founded. In such a case it may be judicious and wise for a missionary to supplement the contributions of his people from his own resources, or from the generosity of personal friends. Me would not lay down an inflexible rule. And if, perchance, self- support should engender a spirit of manly independence, and a readiness to accept the responsibilities of complete self-control at an earlier period than we had expected or desired, better that a thousand times than the selfish, sluggish inertness of the absorptive sacculinci. / 158 SELF-SUPPORTING SCTIOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: THE PROMOTION OF PARASITISM AN AVOWED POLICY. In March, 1878, as we have seen, the Executive Committee unanimously resolved that “ mission funds are not contributed for secular purposes,” and that “ no station school ought to be dependent, for any considerable period or amount, upon mis¬ sion funds” (see p. 17). From this sound position our leaders have sadly departed. In proof of this, the rapid and alarming increase in the amount of subsidies paid to our missions, chiefly for school work, has been shown at length in “Tract No. 1.” As further and conclusive proof that this change of policy has not been accidental or unintentional, we submit a few quota¬ tions from published declarations of our mission secretaries. 1 At the annual meeting of the Missionary Union in 1884, Sec¬ retary Luther, as chairman of the committee on missions in Burma, used this language : — “ It cannot be said that too much money has been or is be¬ ing spent upon the education of the seventy-five thousand (?) children of Christian parents in Burma. . . . The time is near at hand when increased educational facilities will be demanded, and must be supplied. ... It is altogether probable that the churches in some districts will always need assistance , either from America or from their wealthier brethren in Burma. . . . The missions in Burma are ... all too feebly supported by American Baptists.” The report was adopted by the Union. Secretary McKenzie, in the report of the committee on the Telugu Missions, read as follows : — “ Education , both secular and religious, must be instantly and amply provided for. It is gratifying and encouraging to learn that this want is at this hour being felt, and, to some extent, provision is being made to meet it.” The report was 1 The drifting undoubtedly began on the foreign field. In a printed cir¬ cular addressed to the missionaries by Dr. Murdock as long ago as April 2, 1878, he asked them to state whether it was, in their judgment, “expedient to establish such [boarding] schools as evangelizing agencies .” From the missionaries the contagion soon spread to the secretaries. HOW THEY MAY BE ESCAPED. 159 adopted. In his report on the same mission for 1885, Secre¬ tary Murdock himself says : — “The vast and urgent needs on the Ongole fields, of appli¬ ances for the further growth and firm establishment of the work, are being supplied. During the hasty visit of Dr. Clough to America, large and generous donations were made through him to place the important educational work at Ongole in a good working condition. Schools for the education of the natives are also being established at the new stations. A new building at Ramapatam has been completed, . . . which is one of the finest for educational purposes in India; and an industrial institution for girls is soon to be established at Nellore, which promises much for the future development of the women in the Telugu Mission. ... A Christian nation has sprung into being , and all the appliances of a Christian civilization must soon be provided to secure for this people a safe and normal develop¬ ment into an established and well-ordered Christian community .” [Italics by Editor.] Have the thousands of native converts an}^ hand at all in these broad and expensive plans ? Has their voice been heard asking for these costly facilities, and have their offerings been brought in for the work? If so, the reports fail to show the fact. Because twenty-five thousand out of a population of fif¬ teen million Telugus have been baptized by us, “ a Christian nation has sprung into being,” and it is the duty of American Baptists to spring and provide for that “nation” “all the appliances of a Christian civilization.” Does the New Testa¬ ment make that duty quite so clear? Does common-sense, even, approve of such outlay, in advance of any popular movement towards self-help in these directions? And in taking up this burden at the beck of our leaders, is there no danger that preaching the gospel to the millions of Telugus who are un¬ reached as yet will be delayed ? It will at once be alleged, that most of the money used for these objects was given specifically; but observe how fully the Secretary indorses these “specifics” in his report (“Maga- 160 SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: zine,” July, 1885, p. 251. See also Mr. Manley’s statement, p. 260). When the Secretary and the Committee officially do all in their power to encourage such donations, when the gifts pass through the treasury, when they are entered on the hooks and are formally appropriated by them to the objects named, as they always are, how can the executive officers rightfully escape the responsibility of “ specific donations,” as they sometimes seem inclined to do? Rare indeed is it for a missionary to make an appeal to the churches without their approval, tacit or expressed. In his “Apostolic Missions,” the secretary has undoubtedly given us his real opinions ; but opinions which are based on New-Testament principles even can only be carried into practice, sometimes, at the cost of a little evanescent popu¬ larity. A shipmaster who should be persuaded by his passen¬ gers to go counter to the Admiralty Charts and Horsford’s “ Sailing Directions ” might easily find himself and his charge on the rocks. It is no more difficult for a great society to come to grief under such management. O O $ SCHOOLS AS AN EVANGELIZING AGENCY. In the diffusion of information, in quickening the missionary spirit in the churches, in the systematic collection of funds, and in the sending forth of assistant missionaries in large numbers, O O J the Christian women of America, organized as missionary soci¬ eties in all of 'the leading denominations, have done a grand work. It is painfully apparent, however, from the reports of some of these societies, that schools, rather than direct evan¬ gelistic work for the conversion of heathen women and children and for their confirmation in the faith, have assumed the chief, if not almost the exclusive, place in their efforts. If “the Chris¬ tianization of women in foreign lands” be “the leading object of [their] organization,” as the constitution of the Woman’s Baptist Foreign Missionary Society affirms, how happens it that two-thirds if not three-fourths of the recent reports (foreign department) of both the Eastern and Western societies are HOW THEY MAY BE ESCAPED. 1G1 taken up with school and medical work? Are women to be saved in a different way from men? We do not doubt for an instant the justice of their claim that these societies have held themselves from the outset as strictly auxiliary to the parent society; that their course has been approved, if it has not been suggested, by the officers of the Missionary Union at every step. They have been only too loyal, and too ready to divert their beneficence from the spiritual welfare of their own sex to the secular advantage of the sons and brothers of the heathen women whom they fain would save. To justify themselves in this course, some of the leading women appear to have adopted the theory that Christian schools are an evangelizing agency. With the best intentions, and acting all along under the advice and direction of the secretaries and missionaries of the general society, it still seems to be true that they have been educating themselves and training the denomination away from the simple New-Testament ideal of missions, and into this modern method of saving the nations by means of arithmetic and the English language, sanctified by prayer and a daily Bible-lesson. What other construction can be placed upon the “oracular” words which are made the “key-note” of the Eastern Secretary’s report of the foreign department for 1884 (p. 43) ; or upon such expressions as these, taken from the report and another official paper for 1885? “Our schools are, in the main, direct, evangelistic agencies.” . . . “These schools have no value to her, except as an evan¬ gelizing agency.” It is well understood that our Eastern sisters (noble women all of them) are so fixed in these new views, that it was with extreme reluctance that they partially acceded to a request of the Executive Committee of the Missionary Union by a tempo¬ rary reduction of ten per cent in their appropriations to schools, at the beginning of the present year. 162 SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: THE DELUSION RIFE AT THE FRONT. We have nowhere seen a more frank and explicit statement of this dangerous theory than the following from Rev. A. Bun¬ ker of Toungoo. Must we accept it as the deliberate expression of an unalterable belief? In his “ Review of 4 Self-Support/ ” pp. 12, 13, he writes: — “ Are we confined to apostolic methods? God existed before the apostles ; and as he did not see fit to use the apostles as he did the patriarchs and prophets, so he may not deem it wise to use modern missionaries as he did the apostles. Why set bounds to the power of the Holy Spirit? Truth is fixed, but what has fixed the methods of declaring it? We may safely assume, that, always the same, the Holy Spirit uses his people in his own way, and inspires them with wisdom for his work. Apostolic methods were for apostolic times : modern missionary methods are for modern times. Conditions of work have changed. The heathen of to-day are not like the heathen of the apostles’ day. . . . Modern missions dare to attack well- compacted systems of false faiths ; . . . but who expects these giants to surrender on demand, or yield to old methods of war¬ fare, makes a mistake, we believe. One -might as well retain the old shield and spear for modern warfare because they fought ■with those weapons in apostolic times. As in modern warfare, so in spiritual warfare, we have given us new weapons with which to carry on the fight of faith, as schools, the printing- press, etc. . . . The unanimity with which missionaries return to the system of evangelizing by schools, as well as by preach¬ ing, and the tenacity with which they hold on to this method of w r ork, shows in which way the Spirit is leading them.” This language has a familiar sound. In the past, I myself have written, in a somewhat similar strain, words which I should now feel obliged to reconstruct or repudiate. Unitarianism has long insisted that the heathen must be civilized before they can be converted ; and in so far as your words, my valiant, warm¬ hearted brother, elevate schools and the printing-press to a IIOW THEY MAY BE ESCAPED. 1G3 level with “the preached gospel,” as agencies for the salvation of the heathen, you are committed to a subtle and dangerous heresy. This is not the King’s daughter, modestly arrayed ix raiment of needle-work, but Unitarianism without so much as a diaphanous skirt to cover her nakedness. Whenever you or I wander from our old-fashioned Baptist faith to the extent which this language seems to indicate, a visit to America and a course under Mr. Moody, or one of Dr. Gordon’s sermons on the Holy Spirit, taken with a view to re-conversion, may be earnestly rec¬ ommended. That any number of Mr. Bunker’s constituents in this country believe that Paul’s weapons are antiquated, I can hardly suppose ; nor will I at present admit that my old friend himself really thinks that he is inspired, or that the simple gospel has lost its power. THE TRUE TEST OF “NEED.” . Some of our missions are established among small peoples, numbering but a few thousand souls at most. Other missions to the more civilized and powerful peoples number but a few scores or hundreds of converts after many years of persistent labor and the outlay of vast sums of money. From the Amer¬ ican point of view, there is not one of the least of these mis¬ sions that does not need primary schools, grammar schools, high schools, a college and theological seminary ; not one that does not need, the entire Bible, a Christian literature, text-books, almanacs, newspapers, etc., immediately. But do the converts themselves feel the need of all these expensive agencies and appliances? It may be that we are not the best judges of what they really need. It would seem that cargoes of soap, tons of insect-powder, hogsheads of “Pain Killer” and “Expectorant,” are needed also. If the ladies of the Moral Reform Society would charter a cotton-factory, and run it for a hundred years or so, sending the entire product to mission-fields, with pious dressmakers to teach the women how to clothe themselves and their children 164 SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: decently, it would be a good work, promotive of health, mor¬ ality, and religion. Fortunately it is found, however, that all the desired benefits easily, naturally, and most economically, follow the conversion of the people to Christianity. And unless they appreciate their value somewhat, and really want them enough to sacrifice somewhat to obtain them, it is of little use for us to give these goods to our converts gratuitously. The sure test and measure of their desires and of their ability to profit by such advantages is their willingness and ability to meet a fair proportion of the cost. Burma has had for many genera¬ tions a system of indigenous schools, by which a larger propor¬ tion of the men and boys acquire the ability to read and write than can be found in most of the countries of Christian Europe. These schools are housed, the teachers are paid, and the pupils are clothed and fed, by the people themselves, without a particle of foreign aid. Is it too much, then, to expect that our native converts in Burma, especially those of the Burman race, will feed their own school-children, pay the native teachers, and, with the ready aid of government and local friends, provide dormitory and school buildings? There has been neither rea¬ son, justice, nor a proper regard to propriety and the future well-being of the converts themselves, in loading these burdens upon American Christians, as so many of our missionaries, sec¬ onded by our secretaries and mission-boards, have done in the past. Whenever the natives are ready to assume these burdens, and only when this is done, I, for one, should consider it expe¬ dient to send out and support, for a limited time, competent American teachers, for the superintendence of the needed schools and for the instruction of the highest classes. As we have said before, in exceptional cases, where marked eagerness for Chris¬ tian education and great self-sacrifice are manifested, some fur¬ ther aid may be wisely extended to native Christians, but not from missionary societies as such. HOW THEY MAY BE ESCAPED. 165 HOW THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT DOES IT. The British government in India is conducted by men of rare practical wisdom ; and in their efforts to foster education they aim systematically at the building-up of permanent, self-sup¬ porting schools. We give in a condensed form a few of the grant-in-aid rules (1885) for British Burma. The contrast between the conditions which the government enforces, and the lax and un-business-like method of mission grants and “specific donations” to schools in far-away pagan lands, is sufficiently striking. 1. The grants are given impartially to all schools which impart a sound secular education ; but before any application for aid is considered, the government must be satisfied that the school is under responsible management, and that its managers will be answerable for its permanence-for some given time. 2. Full reports and returns in prescribed forms must be sub¬ mitted regularly to the education department; and the accounts, books, and records, as well as the school itself, must be open to inspection and examination at all times. 3. Grants are given to those schools only (normal and girls’ schools excepted) at which fees are levied from the scholars, at rates approved by the director of public instruction. Contribu¬ tions made by the Christian Karen communities in aid of their schools may, with the sanction of the director, be accepted in lieu of fees. 4. The number of holidays is regulated, and the daily attend¬ ance of the pupils must be recorded in forms furnished for the purpose. 5. Managers of schools desiring aid must give to the govern¬ ment full information as to the course of study, the superintend¬ ence and management, the number and grade of the pupils in actual attendance, the extent and nature of the }oecuniary re¬ sources of the school , the details of the proposed monthly expend¬ iture, the nature and extent of aid sought for from government, 166 SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: with particulars as to the existence of other schools within a radius of six miles. 6. The grants depend largely on the number of pupils who pass the yearly examinations. There is also an “ attendance ” grant. 7. “ In no case will the total of all grants to a school exceed in amount the sum contributed from private sources in the pre¬ vious year. Schools in which less than twenty per cent of those on the average daily 7 attendance-roll succeed in passing by the respective standards in two or more subjects will be considered inefficient, and will be liable to be struck off the grant-in-aid register.” 8. “Special grants” towards the cost of the erection, pur¬ chase, or enlargement of school-buildings, and towards the cost of school-furniture, maps, etc., are given only on condition (1) that evidence of the necessity for the erection, etc., shall be adduced ; (2) that in each case the managers and friends of the school shall contribute an equivalent to the amount of the grant; (3) satisfactory plans and estimates must be submitted before the commencement of the undertaking; (4) previous to the payment of the grant, a responsible engineer or other officer deputed to examine the building must certify that the work has been executed in accordance with the approved plan ; also the managers shall declare that they have funds on hand sufficient, when supplemented by the grant, to clear off all the debts in¬ curred in the execution of the work. “ Grants are not given to pay off debts for building , or in consideration of former expendi¬ ture for building , nor for the maintenance of buildings.” It is easy to see how stimulating to self-support these rules are, or would be if missionaries did not so generally resort to their home societies to enable them to comply with the condi¬ tions. The evident aim of the government is not to aid mush¬ room or parasitic growths, but only those schools which are founded upon a healthy local demand, and which are sure of the fosterins: care of local communities and friends. When aided schools are brought into competition with schools of the now THEY MAY BE ESCAPED. 167 government, the competition is honorable, so far as my obser¬ vation goes. The rates of tuition charged by the government are invariably higher than the rates in mission-schools, so that pupils are never tempted to leave the latter from economical considerations, unless it be in the hope of securing valuable scholarships. HOW WE DO IT. On the other hand, if the Missionary Union or the Woman’s Missionary Societies have ever required local contributions at least equal to the amount of aid sought, or local guaranties for the permanence of the school, the author is ignorant of the fact. A mere statement from a missionary or missionaries, that a school is “needed,” with the intimation, that, if one is not established, prospective pupils will be lured away by Roman- Catholic, Church-of-England, or government schools, has suf¬ ficed, in some instances at least, to secure the services of teachers from this country, and liberal and regular appropria¬ tions of money. The reports furnished in return have often been meagre, the average daily attendance even not being usually given ; the amounts received from fees, from native Christians and other local sources, not being usually stated. It is for the interest of all aided schools to make as good a show as they can of their income from private sources ; and it was a striking fact, a few years ago, that the Roman-Catholic and Church-of-Eng¬ land schools, whose influence was so much feared and depre¬ cated, were actually receiving far less aid from their respective friends in Christian lands, according to the official returns to government, than were our own American Baptist mission- schools. They were depending far more upon local support than were we. 1 As our schools have been receiving larger and 1 See Missionary Magazine, January, 1880, pp. 6-12, especially p. 8, bot¬ tom. The article “ Education in British Burma ” cost the writer consider¬ able labor; and he regards its statements and conclusions as reliable, and worthy of the consideration of those interested in mission schools. It shows that seven of the principal Roman-Catholic and S. P. G. schools in Burma were receiving less than one-sixth of their expenses from their home patrons. 1G8 SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: larger appropriations from home, we have no reason to suppose that the official tables would show a result less unfavorable to us now, if they were at hand for our inspection. For the information of secretaries, boards, and churches at home, we would venture to suggest that missionaries in charge of schools aided both by the mission and the government be required to send to the Rooms in Boston, promptly, copies of all the reports and returns furnished by them to the govern¬ ment ; and that the mission treasurers in provinces where we are carrying on mission-schools—i.e., in Rangoon, Madras, and Assam — be requested to procure, and forward to the Rooms, copies of the annual reports of the “ Directors of Public In¬ struction.” These, supplemented with the information now given as to the religious condition and progress of the schools, will supply data much needed for an intelligent judgment as to their general conduct and efficiency. The society in America is the principal supporter of most of these schools, and it has a plain right to require at least as much attention from its own missionaries as the British government requires. A FEW MORE STATISTICS. Some good people disparage statistics ; but there is evidence that our God not only conducts the great operations of nature on strict mathematical principles, but that in his dealings with men he is equally exact and exactly exacting. How did he settle with the children of Israel, on a certain occasion? In considera¬ tion of the mercy shown to the first-born of Israel on that night of wailing in Egypt, they were to belong to Jehovah in a peculiar sense. But it pleased him to exchange the first-born males of all the tribes, for the one tribe of Levi. When at last the change was effected, could any thing be more exact? (Num. iii. 39-51.) By specific command, the first-born males of Israel from one month old and upwards were numbered, and found to be 22,273. All the males of the Levites from one month old and upwards were found to be an even 22,000. For the excess HOW THEY MAY BE ESCAPED. 1G9 of 273 souls, a ransom of five shekels each was exacted and paid, 1,365 shekels, not into the treasury of the Lord, but to Aaron and his sons, it would seem, in consideration of the extra service which fell upon them, owing to the small deficiency in their numbers. Our Saviour said in the parable, “After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and recJconeth with them.” It may not be quite prudent for us modern Christians to despise the lessons which careful book-keeping and honest statistical tables teach. Let us take up, more carefully than we have done hitherto, the history of a few specimen schools which have been under the support of American Baptists for a series of years. As the Ka- ren schools, all of them, are for the children of Christians, and self-supporting to a greater or less degree, they are entitled, according to the principles of these tracts, to some measure of assistance. We will, therefore, pass them by. In the schools considered, we will endeavor to arrive as closely as we can at their cost to the Christians of this country, including the outfits, passages, and salaries of their American teachers, the sums appropriated for school-compounds, buildings, furniture, etc., and for the current expenses of the schools, including the sup¬ port of pupils and native teachers. If the reports show any contributions from natives for school-buildings or current ex¬ penses, we shall take pleasure in calling attention to the fact. We will also take into account the size of the Christian com¬ munities for the benefit of which, primarily, the schools were established ; and also the visible fruits in conversions and bap¬ tisms, about which American Christians chiefly care. (1) THE BURMAN GIRLS’ SCHOOL IN MAULMAIN. This excellent school was begun by Miss S. E. IIas well in 1867, apparently without any official authorization from America. For the first four or five years, the Missionary Union was charge¬ able only with her personal salary and allowances. The school 170 SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: found a home in a vacant building belonging to the mission. The other expenses were met by the Burma Baptist Convention and local friends. During her visit to this country in 1871, Miss Haswell raised several thousand dollars among the friends of missions, for the erection of a substantial and elegant build¬ ing, and the newly formed Woman’s Baptist Foreign Missionary Society assumed the support of the school and of Miss Haswell herself. Other teachers have been sent forward from time to time. Miss Sheldon, who has been in charge for some years, is doing what she can, under obvious difficulties, to induce the pupils and their parents to relieve the mission in part from the cost of clothing, books, etc., formerly given gratuitously. A careful study of the annual reports gives us the following as the approximate cost of this school to Christians in this country from 1872 to 1885, inclusive: — Cost of buildings ..... Furniture, pupils, native teachers, etc. Outfit, passage, salary of American teachers $8,982 14 15,865 06 18,581 99 Total $43,429 19 Pupils leaving school before the time agreed upon have paid something by way of forfeit; something has doubtless been received for tuition, etc., but the amounts are not given. 1 The school being situated on the mission premises, nothing was paid out for land. Mrs. J. M. Haswell was nominally connected with the school for several years, but her support is not included. As to the spiritual results, so far as such results can be ex¬ pressed in numbers, we find that during this period of fourteen 1 In 1877 Rev. J. R. Haswell reported that in seven years (1869-1876) over $5,000 had been paid by the natives for the support of the gospel and the several mission schools in Maulmain. As he gives the amount re¬ ceived for school-fees that year as over Rs. 2,000, it is probable that the greater part of the $5,000 came from that source. The Burman boys’ school is largely dependent on that source of income, and receives much more for tuition than the girls’ school. HOW THEY MAY BE ESCAPED. 171 years, fifty-seven of the pupils were baptized. About one-third of them were brought in under the labors of an earnest mis¬ sionary of the China Inland Mission, who spent some months in Maulmain in 1875. (2) EURASIAN GIRLS’ SCHOOL. In reckoning what American Christians are doing for the Christian education of the Burmese in Maulmain, the Eurasian Home should not be forgotten. This institution also owes its origin to Miss Haswell’s pious zeal. It was begun, apparently without authority from this country, in 1873. The unfortunate class for whose benefit it is designed are mostly the offspring of Burman mothers by European fathers. The lady in charge reported in 1876, that out of sixty-five pupils only five were of legitimate birth. Common justice would seem to require, that while our hands are so full of work for the natives, British Christians should care for these, their own poor children. In 1877 Mrs. Longley presented the cause in England so persua¬ sively that about five thousand dollars were given to her for the purchase of the house and grounds which are now occupied by the Home. This sum is not included below. As nearly as we can ascertain, the following amounts have been forwarded through the treasury of the Missionary Union, for this school, up to April, 1885 : — For current expenses of the school . . . $8,855 64 Outfit, passage, and salary of American teachers, 9,954 14 Total.$18,809 78 During the same period twenty-three of the pupils were bap¬ tized. This makes a total of $62,238.97, expended by us within the last fourteen years for the education of girls in Maul¬ main, not including Karens. The adult Christian community for which this provision was made numbers less than three hundred souls. 172 SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: (3) BURMAN GIRLS’ SCHOOL, RANGOON. This school, begun by Miss Gage in 1873, has outgrown its older sister, in Maulmain. Early in its history, it received from the late Rev. C. Bennett the gift of a large and convenient school-building, which is said to have cost the donor about Rs. 10,000. This sum did not pass through the mission treasury, and is not included in the statement below. The school has a fine location, is well equipped with buildings and furniture, is ably conducted ; and so long as government continues to give double the grant for girls which it gives for boys of a similar grade, it should not be difficult to put this school on a self-supporting basis, leaving the mission chargeable only with the salaries, etc., of the American teachers. Up to the present year, it has cost American Christians as follows : — For compound, buildings, and fence . current expenses of the school . salary, outfit, and passage of American teachers . $14,207 32 . 12,370 61 . 23,594 55 Total.$50,172 48 Seventy pupils were baptized during the thirteen years under review. Large grants in aid have been received from govern¬ ment, besides something for fees and forfeit money; but the totals are not published. As to the amount received as dona¬ tions from the natives, Miss Gage, reviewing the history of the school in 1878, gives a list of presents and collections amount¬ ing to thirty rupees, besides minor gifts of fowls, eggs, fruit, rice, etc. (4) BURMESE AND SHAN GIRLS’ SCHOOL, TOUNGOO. It is not strange that every missionary wants the most and the best that he can get for the people to whom he has devoted his life. The origin of this school is so like that of many others, that we quote from the letter which urged its adoption HOW THEY MAY BE ESCAPED. 173 by the Woman’s Society: “ This school seems a very important enterprise ; and I confidently hope it will result in good, and that your Board will approve it. In view of the importance of starting the school at once, I have engaged a teacher, and hope I may rely upon your society for her salary and some other necessary expenses of the school. The pupils are such nice, bright girls, that I cannot give them up.” Being successful in this first appeal, the pressure was con¬ tinued until the official indorsement of the secretaries was obtained: “The need of a schoolhouse is as imperative as ever.” “A girls’ school is much needed here.” “The lady is greatly needed.” Since 1880 a compound and buildings have been purchased, and four ladies have been sent out to the work. The aggregate expenditure is as follows, from 1875 to 1885 : — For compound, buildings, and repairs .... $5,125 65 current expenses of the school ..... 5,046 03 salary, outfit, and passage of American teachers . 7,123 88 Total . . $17,295 56 The number of baptisms reported is seven. Much faithful work has been done ; but when we consider the little fruit that has been reaped, and the fact that there are belt a handful of Burman and Shan Christians in Toungoo (forty-seven), the costliness of the provision made for the education of their daughters is apparent. Nor is it less important to note that the unwisdom of endeavoring to compel hostile or antipathetic races to live together under one roof for the purposes of edu¬ cation finds fresh illustration in this school. (5) EURASIAN GIRLS’ SCHOOL, TOUNGOO. After repeated and increasingly urgent appeals from a worthy missionary on the ground, the Woman’s Society in Boston was constrained to take up this enterprise. The school had but a 174 SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: brief life. After four years of faithful labor by the Christian lady who was sent out to do the work, and after the expendi¬ ture of nearly five thousand dollars, it was ascertained that the Eurasian population in the vicinity of Toungoo was much smaller than had been supposed. Of the six girls remaining in the school, at last, two ran away ; a third was kept at home by her mother; three joined the Burmese Girls’ School; and Miss Lawrence herself was transferred to the Karen department. Such costly mistakes would be prevented by the adoption of the precautions always practised by the British government in Burma. The expenditure from the mission treasury was as follows: — For current expenses of the school ..... $1,796 80 salary, outfit, and passage of American teacher . . 3,0S9 16 Total o ....... $1,885 96 It would not be difficult to continue the investigation to any required extent, but this may suffice for the present. Five schools for girls have been considered, upon which American Baptist women have expended an aggregate of $134,592.97, all within the last fourteen years. If we treat the schools as a provision for the educational wants of the Christian families which have grown up under our ministrations, the want has been met at a cost (for girls only) of $197 per member, or, say, $500 for each family ; for the whole number of Baptists on the fields occupied by these schools is exactly 683, the number of families not over two or three hundred. If, however, we regard the schools as an evangelizing agency, we can count up but 158 baptisms, some of which certainly should be credited to the preaching of male missionaries of the Missionary Union. At the rate of $850 or $1,000 per convert, the conversion of the world by means of schools promises to be a pretty expensive operation, vastly more so than by the old-fashioned scriptural method. In this calculation we have made no account of the % precious lives which have been sacrificed, nor of the years of HOW THEY MAY BE ESCAPED. 175 valuable time which have necessarily been given to these same enterprises by the missionaries, male and female, of the parent society. The instruction given in these schools is of the best. The Bible occupies a more prominent place in them all than it does in Baptist academies in this country. The work is a good work,—no doubt of that. The question is, whether this form of Christian labor brings the largest possible returns for our Lord’s money, our Lord’s talents, our Lord’s time. This, too, should be considered. These girls live in a heathen land, surrounded by peculiar temptations and few safe¬ guards. The attractiveness, the money value, of every one of them, is greatly enhanced by the habits of neatness, the knowl¬ edge of English, the skill in needle-work, in singing, and other accomplishments, which they acquire in these schools. The design of the teachers and patrons is to train their pupils for holy and useful lives, but with the best endeavors some will go astray. In 1880 a missionary lady told me that three or four out of five young women, who had recently returned to her station after a term of study in one of the oldest and most successful of these schools for Burman girls, had shortly be¬ come the mistresses of men of foreign or alien birth. In a jungle-tour I once made the acquaintance of a young English officer. He spent the Sunday near by, and joined us at morn¬ ing and evening worship. He told me that he had lately broken off an immoral connection with a young Burman woman. He spoke warmly of her domestic virtues, and showed me one of his garments, neatly embroidered by her hand, with his initials in English. Directly or indirectly she undoubtedly gained this and other accomplishments from one of our mission-schools. 1 There are drawbacks, of course, to all, even the most wisely conducted, benevolent enterprises ; but we submit that it is a fair question, whether American Christians are called upon to 1 In her sketch of the Nellore Girls’ School (“ Helping Hand,” February, 18S0), Mrs. Downie, with commendable frankness, mentions the fact that three of her girls had “ fallen into sin,” and been excluded. 176 SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: undertake this class of schools before the people are ready to meet a considerable part of the cost themselves. “HE THAT TEACHETH, TO HIS TEACHING.” It is claimed that a considerable portion of the time and strength of the teaching women in our missions should be cred¬ ited to “ gospel work.’’ We have had iu our own family not less than eight of the missionaries sent out by the Woman’s Societies to assist in the school work of Bassein. More excel¬ lent or more efficient ladies than they were, it would be difficult to find. Their full strength, and not infrequently large drafts from their reserve energies, were given to teaching and superin¬ tending the different departments of educational and industrial work. They felt, as I did, that Scripture instruction in the vernacular could better be given by the senior missionaries, or by native teachers who had spent several years in systematic Bible study in Bassein and Rangoon. Aside from their Sunday- school classes, I do not remember that one of these ladies ever gave regular biblical or religious instruction in connection with her school duties. At the end of the school year, after eight or nine months of grinding work in that climate, the hottest season was upon us. The devoted ladies sorely needed rest and a change, and they were generally wise enough to take it. In a few instances they went to the jungle villages ; but it was for the study of the language and habits of the people in their own homes, rather than for religious labor, that they generally went. No, good and wise sisters of the Boards, when your mis¬ sionaries teach in the dry season as well as in the rains, it is too much to expect any appreciable amount of evangelistic service from them. For that work you must have women specially called, specially trained, and specially designated and directed. Excellent teachers you have found ready to your hand. In self-supporting schools the}? still can find much work worth the doing ; but for the ministry of the Word, you must look further, with constant prayer to the Lord of the harvest that he will HOW THEY MAY BE ESCAPED. 177 raise up and qualify the choicest of women for this crowning work in behalf of womanhood and childhood perishing in hea¬ thenish darkness. The “training-school” which has been begun in Chicago proposes to do a most important work, and no pains or expense should be spared to make it adequate for that work. TELUGU SCHOOLS. The most expensive boys’ 4 school in connection with our missions (always excepting the “ college ” in Rangoon), and at the same time the one which has received the least from local and native sources, is that which is now called the “ High School” at Ongole, together with its preparatory depart¬ ment, or “Boys’ School.” An approximate estimate only is possible from the printed reports. From these it appears that not less than $50,000 have been expended upon it since 1876, including the salaries, etc., of American teachers, and $5,000 of the money in hand for a new edifice. The lady in charge of the preparatory boys’ school reports the average daily attendance for last year to be T27. “Of these, ninety-one are boarding boys, whose parents are poor and unable to keep them in school. They are the sons of preachers or teachers, or have been selected . . . from the best boys attending the village schools. . . . They receive food, clothes, and books from the mission.” Dr. Clough says, moreover (“Magazine,” Decem¬ ber, 1885, p. 458), that most of the high-school boys are sons or younger brothers of the pastors, evangelists, and village teachers, and that therefore they are unable to pay tuition, or to provide for their board and clothes. Accordingly the mission paid the tuition of the Christian boys (to meet a rule of the government), while the heathen pupils “flaxed about” and paid the tuition demand themselves. It seems to be assumed, that, because a boy is the son or brother of a preacher, he is unable to do any thing to support himself ; when there is some reason to believe that the preachers are even better off, so far as this 178 SELF-SUrrORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: world’s goods go, than the majority of their own caste. If they are excused, all Christians must be excused. This clearly is an excellent way to escape self-supporting schools in Ongole. From the outset, tuition seems to have been free to everybody ; while to the children of Christians, at least, board, books, and clothing have been given without price. The British government, believing and practising the opposite policy, directs Mr. Manley to require tuition at certain fixed rates from all his pupils. He proceeds to collect it from all non-Christians, the school gaining Rs. 1,110 by the operation ; while good, gen¬ erous Dr. Clough steps in, and pays Rs. 835 in a lump sum for all the Christians. This, of course, is no immediate loss to the mission, for the mission holds itself responsible for the support of the school, and the school finances are improved to just the same extent; but the precedent thus established clearly places a premium upon the profession of Christianity, while it postpones to the dim future all hope of pecuniary assistance from the Christian community. But are all the Telugu preachers so poor as to preclude their paying, partially even, for the clothes, the books, or the board of their children ? 1 The Rev. A. Kanakiah of Nellore sends two boys to the Ongole school. As a common laborer, he, though a Sudra, 1 In addition to the appropriations made directly to Messrs. Boggs, Man- ley, Miss Ranschenbush, and others, for the work in Ongole, the appropria¬ tions in Dr. Clough’s name alone aggregate $91,728 59 for the seven years 3879-1885 inclusive. Deducting his salary, “ special grants,” and passage expenses, $78,945.03 remain for the work. We have already alluded to the fact that common laborers in Ongole are content with less than one-twen¬ tieth of the wages which the corresponding class receive in this country. It follows that the expenditure of $11,278 per year by a single man on that field is quite comparable to the expenditure of a quarter of a million a year in this country. How would it work in Indiana, for example, to import an exceptionally able doctor of divinity from England, on a heavy salary, and to put him in charge of the State missions, with $250,000 of foreign funds for distribution year by year? Alas for poor human nature sub¬ jected to such a strain! We observe that the division of the original Ongole field into five, and generous appropriations to the four new stations, have not thus far resulted in any diminution of the demands of the mother station. HOW THEY MAY BE ESCAPED . 179 must have been content to work for four or six rupees a month; but he is educated at mission expense, as well as his excellent wife, the well-known “Julia.” He is then taken into mission employ. They live in a nice brick house on the mission com¬ pound. He receives a salary of thirty rupees a month, with five rupees more for Julia. Could they pay no tuition? Their boys come to Ongole, and are received gratuitously like all the rest. They are put upon a plain but wholesome diet, the same as the other boys, but are not satisfied. Their parents secretly send to them money, rice, bottles of imported pickles, preserves, etc., from Europe. They run off to the bazaar to buy sweetmeats, slip off behind the hedge to cook a mutton-curry, and feast upon it. The teacher writes to Nellore, protesting against the practice. The missionary brother there labors with the parents, but unsuc¬ cessfully. They keep it up. The teacher writes again that it must stop. Kanakiah then orders his boys home, places them in the Free-Church Anglo-vernacular school at high tuition, and boards them at home. I understand that one or two of his sons are now supported gratuitously in the Ramapatam Semi¬ nary. Space forbids an examination of the expensive girls’ schools at Ongole and Nellore, and the expensive system of schools which is being inaugurated at the four new Telugu stations. IS IT A LOW FORM OF INFANTILE, OR PRE-NATAL, LIFE? What should be said of a system of benevolence, so called, which expends hundreds of thousands of dollars upon the edu¬ cation of people on the other side of the globe, who do not contribute, and apparently are not expected to contribute, a rupee or a copper in the way of self-help? What should be said of the continuance of such a system in ever-increasing ratios, decade after decade, for forty, fifty, or sixty years? What could justly be said of the blindness of the men who manage the business, and seek to fasten the system, a perpetual clog and shame, upon the churches of a land whose boast is her freedom alike from the craft of priest and king, whose glory is 180 SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: the astonishing vitality and growth of ecclesiastical and benev¬ olent institutions under the voluntary system? As to the order of life which pertains to the chief sufferers by this unscriptural system, it cannot be called infantile life. If life there be, it is an unnatural, foetal life. The great majority of so-called churches in heathen lands have never been born. Wrapped in the uterus of the Missionary Union and kindred societies, their sustenance is pumped into them, already digested and assimi¬ lated. We submit that it is high time for Baptists, at least, to see to it that their children are brought forth into the cold world, forcibly if need be ; to tie the umbilical cord at once, and cut it, if the lives of mother and child are to be saved. The Karen mission, thank Heaven, never passed through the foetal stage. It was born a lusty child, May 16, 1838, the very day on which Ko Tliahbyu, the “Karen apostle” and first convert, was baptized. The Karen churches alone in all our missions are beginning to enter upon the second stage of devel¬ opment. Most of them have nursed their mother too hard and too long, but nursing with the mouth is a healthier process than the other. Already they begin to chew, and will shortly grub their own living entirely. There is an organic life in the Karen churches which is most hopeful. They have the sense of per¬ sonality. They adhere together. They organize easily into churches and associations. They give of their scanty substance, and their substance increases. They go out after the heathen far and near. They obey the great law of spiritual life and growth, “Thou slialt give, thou shalt work for the Lord who hath bought thee.” The Sgaus of Bassein have the right of the line, indisputably, and they are well to the front. In choosing locations and in laying foundations, their aid must be invoked, their wishes and their claims must be considered. As we have blundered and failed for the most part in securing self-support¬ ing schools of the lower order, it may be found that we have made no less serious mistakes in the establishment of general schools of a higher grade for the Karens, who are alone ready for them. Let us see. HOW THEY MAY BE ESCAPED. 181 GENERAL SCHOOLS FOR THE KARENS. If self-supporting schools are an end to be aimed at, and not a danger to be escaped, the utmost care and wisdom are to be used in selecting their location. A school for the training of preachers is one of the earliest necessities in a mission which is blessed of the Lord. In the outset, it may be wise for the mis¬ sion to meet most of the current expenses, and it may be best to establish it, provisionally, at the point which is most con¬ venient for the missionaries ; but as results appear, and the time approaches when the converts may be expected to assume its support, the question of a permanent location comes up for set¬ tlement. Where are the converts most numerous? Where have they manifested the most enterprise, the most zeal for education and evangelization ? Where are they accustomed to devise the most liberal things ? Where is a general school most strongly desired, and where will the people do the most for it in the way of support, as well as in furnishing pupils of promise? To ignore these considerations, as has been done in one or more of our missions, is simply fatuous. These are the grounds on which the location of an institution is generally settled in this country, and it is difficult to see how the location of schools for the benefit of converts in any heathen land can wisely be determined on other grounds. In Burma at least, there are no wealthy natives to put an institution on its feet, and endow it for all time to come from the start. “ Indigenous schools,” when they come, must depend on the poor, and therefore on the many, for support. The same things can be said of the more secular “college,” when at a later period it becomes a necessity. In taking up for reconsideration this subject which has been so hotly discussed for many years, the writer wishes to have his own position distinctly understood. If he ever had u an axe to grind” in connection with institutions for the Karens, not the ghost of an axe remains to him now. Although the Karens still urge his return to Bassein, he has decided that a return 182 SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: to the climate and the work from which he has twice suffered so severely is not wise, lie is making definite arrangements to spend his remaining days in work for a heathen people far to the north of Burma. He will be able, therefore, he hopes, to discuss the subject quite apart from personal considerations, and he respectfully asks his brethren to reconsider the subject in that light. ATe hold these positions to be impregnable: — (1) The only institutions worth rearing in any land are of indigenous growth , “ of the people and by the people ,” no less than “ for the people .” This proposition does not exclude a modicum of aid from older and richer communities to indi¬ genous high schools and seminaries of promise. (2) The only ground in Burma on which advanced schools , devised by the people and mainly supported by them , have been established , or can be at present after forty years and more of tentative effort , is in Bassein, among the Karen Christians of Abbott and Beecher’s training. For proof of this we refer to the files of the “ Missionary Magazine” since 1838, and to the author’s “History of the Bassein Karen Mission.” A RETROSPECT. Please observe that the project of establishing the general school, or schools, for the training of Karen ministers and teachers, at Bassein, is not of Mr. Carpenter’s originating. In 1844, at the meeting of the Triennial Convention in Phil¬ adelphia, the committee on Asiatic Missions reported that “ it is worthy of serious consideration whether the school for Karens should not be located in Arakan [Bassein], instead of Maul- main. The missions in the former need, more than in the latter place, the encouragement and advantages which would be af¬ forded by the contiguity of such an institution.” After dis¬ cussion this report was adopted by the Convention which was so soon to become the Missionary Union. Rev. Dr. Binney was even then on his way to open a theological school in Maul- HOW THEY MAY BE ESCAPED. 183 main ; but so strong was the feeling in favor of the western location that a strong special committee on u the expediency of the establishment of the Karen Theological School at Maul- main ” reported at the closing session u that they had not been able to prepare their report.” They were accordingly dis¬ charged. Again, in November, 1856, after the great ingatherings in Toungoo and Sliwaygyeen had well begun, Rev. Dr. Wade, then president of the Karen Theological Seminary in Maul- main, wrote: — “ It seems impracticable to keep up a seminary in this expensive place, with the appropriations you make to it. It has been strongly suggested to our minds, as Rangoon is not open to us, that the school had better be removed to Bassein. The Bassein native brethren urge it, and promise help in feeding and clothing the pupils; and the prospect is that a large school there would cost the Union less than a small one here.” It is to be remembered, that Dr. Wade wrote with a thorough personal acquaintance both with the Tavoy and Maulmain dis¬ tricts. He had also instructed scores of young men from all the Karen fields. He had sent out company after company to labor in those fields, and by correspondence with them he knew them also thoroughly. A month later he wrote again : — “We cannot continue the school at the rate of expense unavoidable in Maulmain, where the pupils have mostly to come from a distance, where the prices of provisions of all kinds are extraordinarily high, and where the native churches can not or will not aid with a single basket of paddy, or a stick of fuel, without receiving city prices. I therefore beg the sanction of the Executive Committee, if my health allows me to con¬ tinue in charge of the school, to remove it at once, before it is positively broken up, to a place among the churches, where the churches want it and will do something for its support. [Italics by editor.] . . . We have, therefore, proposed Bassein as the most eligible place, and particularly because the churches and pastors there, so far as we can learn, are ex¬ ceedingly anxious that I remove the school to that district, and pledge their aid in its support, so far as concerns the board of 'the pupils.” 184 SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: With this view Hibbard of Maulmain and the Bassein missionaries fully concurred. 1 The Henthada mission wrote: “ There would be a very great advantage in having the semi¬ nary in Bassein at present, inasmuch as the Christian Karens are able, and it is hoped would be willing, to render the school material aid.” They thought it “ desirable and best for the cause, to remove the seminary to Bassein ; ” but for certain reasons, all but one of which sound strangely enough after the experience and the changes of thirty years, they were of opinion that the arrangement should be temporary, and that the school ought eventually to be located at Henthada. The Executive Committee decided to remove the school to Henthada. Dr. Wade, while still preferring Bassein, loyally expressed his willingness to go thither if such was the will of the Committee. At this juncture, however, Dr. Binney decided to return to the work of Karen theological education. Coming as he did from the presidency of the college in Washington, the rising capital (Rangoon), to his mind, presented superior advantages. He also believed that by giving up the claim, which the Union was maintaining, to the Karen mission-com- pound in Kemendine, he could make peace, and at the same time establish among the Rangoon Karens the work to which his valuable life was devoted. He had never entertained the curious notion that the seminary should be isolated and apart from the grounds and the work of any mission-station. In Maulmain the seminary had done its work side by side with the station-school; and, in the absence of the missionary, Dr. Binney had taken temporary charge of the churches and the station-work. In removing the seminary to Rangoon, his decided preference was to have it placed on the Karen com¬ pound, with the Sgau mission on one side and the Pwo mission on the other; and it was thus placed for five years. At the end of that time, finding that the Sgau Karens and their mis¬ sionaries would not sell to the Union for the use of the semi- 1 See letter of Rev. H. L. Van Meter to Secretary Peck, on file, dated Jan. 7, 1857. now THEY MAY BE ESCAPED. 185 nary less than one-fourth of the land which he had persuaded the Union to yield up to them without price, he reluctantly left the Karen compound, and the school-buildings which he had erected at considerable expense, and removed the seminary to a new compound a mile away, which was purchased and fitted up with buildings during the war of the Rebellion and immediately after, when exchange was almost ruinously high. Naturally enough, the Rangoon Sgau Karens for a long time found it difficult for themselves to send pupils, or to feel a friendly interest even, in an institution which they had done so little to help. Again, eight years later, when the “ college ” was established on a compound a mile distant from the Pwo-Karen compound where it had been agreed to build (in the opinion of the Pwo mission), several brethren were so seriously alienated that they could neither co-operate with the college enterprise, nor ask the Divine blessing upon it. Under all the circumstances, it is not strange that the subject of removing the college and seminary to Bassein should again be mooted. Like Banquo’s ghost, it would not 1 ‘down.” Maulmain had had its trial of fifteen years, and had been found wanting. Rangoon had then had its trial of fifteen years, and had been found no less wanting. Why should not the great circle of Bassein churches, which had been growing from the first in love for Christian education and Christian missions, and in large-hearted, regular beneficence of all kinds, have their turn of trial? A MOTION FOR SELF-SUPPORT UNSECONDED. Mr. Carpenter, recently appointed to the charge of the infant college, knew Bassein, its advantages and capabilities, better than any man then living. He also thought that he understood the situation in Rangoon, having been associated with Dr. Bin- ney in educational work for several years. To his deep regret, however, he found on his arrival not one Karen missionary, ex¬ cepting Dr. Binney, heartily in favor of the college on the exist- 186 SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: iiig basis. In past years he had been told by Dr. Binney many times, that not one of the station-missionaries heartily co-operated with him in the support of the seminary. He had been told as often by older missionaries like Thomas, Beecher, and Van Meter, that their young men were spoiled by Rangoon, and that they could not conscientiously send men thither. He found himself, to his surprise, a Karen missionary cut off from intercourse with the Karens, with a mere handful of primary pupils, -and no apparent source of supply for pupils, or for means of subsistence, short of America. Too late he saw the mistake he had committed in- accepting the presidency of a college thus placed. What should he do? The struggle in his own mind was a sharp one ; but it ended in the following note to Dr. Binney, and an enclosure addressed to the Executive Committee, not one word of which has he ever seen occasion to modify, except for under-statement: — Rangoon, May 13, 1874. My dear Dr. Binney. The paper, of which the enclosed is an exact copy, goes to Dr. Murdock by the next mail. While I fear that its contents will dis¬ appoint and pain you, I venture to hope that you will not doubt my unabated respect and affection for yourself, nor that I am acting con¬ scientiously, and for what my imperfect judgment tells me are the best interests of the college. You will use your liberty, of course, and oppose my views to the Committee (in Boston) as strongly as you please. I only desire that the will of Christ may be done. If the change proposed should be effected, I trust that you will live long enough to see abundant occasion for rejoicing in it. If you knew the field in Bassein as I do, I feel sure that you would be the first and strongest advocate of the change. If you can, Believe me always Affectionately yours, C. H. CARPENTER. Some years before, Mr. Carpenter had corresponded with Dr. Binney on the subject of removing the seminary to Bassein; and he had good reason to believe that the .latter would be unal¬ terably opposed to his proposition. The letter to the Executive Committee set forth at lensth the reasons for and against the HOW THEY MAY BE ESCAPED . 187 removal, as they presented themselves to the mind of the writer. It is too long for insertion here, but may be found in the appen¬ dix (A). On the very day that his letter was mailed to Boston, Mr. Carpenter started for Bassein to lay the whole matter before the Pastors’ Conference, which was then in session. The result of the visit and consultation was, that the leading Karens joy¬ fully welcomed the proposal, and promised to do all that was asked of them to secure so great a boon ; viz., to raise twenty thousand rupees for buildings, to give all the rice needed year by year for the consumption of the- pupils, and to maintain vig¬ orously their large preparatory school. At the same time they expressed the fear that the missionaries of other stations might feel injured by the removal, and that selfish motives would be attributed to them. “We do not wish,” said they, “to seek our own advantage to the injury of our brethren in other stations ; but, if the Missionary Union on public grounds sees fit to make the change, we will receive the college with great joy, and do all in our power for its upbuilding.” In the discussion, and voluminous correspondence which fol¬ lowed the circulation of the letter of May 13, it appeared that several of the missionaries favored the removal of the college to the Pwo-Ivaren compound at Kemendine. After careful con¬ sideration, therefore, Mr. Carpenter addressed a communication on that phase of the question to the brethren concerned, dated June 18, 1874, a copy of which is on file at the Mission Rooms, with letters on the same general subject dated May 19, 25, June 1, 9, July 1, 1874, April 15, 1879, etc. As was anticipated, no formal offer of land or money came from the Rangoon Karens; and all save two of the missionaries in charge of Karen stations finally voted against the removal to Bassein. Nearly all treated the fulfilment of the Bassein pledges as impossible. The chief argument adduced in favor of Rangoon was its centrality. Good men who are even now so unready to have the principles of self-support applied to their own fields, naturally would not be disposed to aid in the triumph of those principles in a neighboring field, or willingly consent 188 SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: to the transfer of a general institution for all the Karens to a place where their own pupils might note unpleasant con¬ trasts, and become indoctrinated, perchance, with unpalatable ideas. After more than three months for consideration, Secretary Murdock under date of Oct. 7, 1874, replied to Mr. Carpenter’s letter of May 13. In communicating the decision of the Com¬ mittee that 44 it is inexpedient to remove the Rangoon Baptist College to Bassein,” he wrote the following' “ thoughts : ” — a “ Mr. Smith would like to go to Bassein. ... I have proposed to Mr. Hopkinson to exchange fields with Mr. Smith, and have written to the latter pledging the sanction of the Committee to any proper measures he may take towards that end. If Mr. Smith should go to Bassein, the Com¬ mittee would be willing to have you go there also, provided you should not think it wise to remain with the college in Rangoon. Once on that field together, the Committee would be glad to see what would grow from the intelligence, zeal, and liberality of the Bassein Christians. The Exec¬ utive Committee will do all in their power for education in that field, and the Woman’s Board will also make liberal grants to the cause. Questions of location have often in this country been settled by the natural tend¬ ency of things, and the law of supply and demand. Under the inspira¬ tion of yourself and Mr. Smith, five to ten years will settle the question whether a college will grow better in Bassein or Rangoon; and a college that does not grow out of the necessities and the liberality of the people will be a college only in name, however it may be fostered by outside influences. ... I do not mean that you are to do your best without outside help. I have not a doubt but you will have such aid as may be necessary to make such an institution as the Karens need; and just to the extent that the other districts rise to a sense of their needs, they will seek such advantages as you may be able to offer them. You may wait ten years before you name the institution which may possibly grow up in the promising soil which you have so essentially contributed to cultivate. I need scarcely add that I am in favor of your returning to Bassein, when you leave the college in Rangoon, for the reasons indicated in these hints. . . . “ I want to see what the next ten years will do for the churches in Bassein, — to test the principle of self-support , at least in one of the dis¬ tricts of Burma. [Italics by editor.] By self-support I mean something more than a capacity to live, and maintain the stated preaching and ordi¬ nances of the gospel: I include a function of spiritual propagation. Let us labor and wait and see. HOW THEY MAY BE ESCAPED. 189 “I will only add that I sincerely respect your convictions, and honor you for the frank and manly utterance you have given them.” What all these confidential but official pledges of sympathy and assistance amounted to, will be seen farther on. The Secre- tai’ 3 7 a month later had come to the conclusion that his sugges¬ tion about joining Mr. Smith with us in Bassein was hardly practicable, if indeed it were wise. This was soon followed by the appointment of Mr. Smith to the presidency of the college. Mr. Smith himself, who had favored the transfer of the college to Bassein for a time, and had promised to join us in educational work there, changed his plans, and returned to the United States for the health of his family. Mr. Carpenter’s resignation had been in the hands of the Executive Committee for some months, with an alternative proposition either to begin a new mission to the Ka-khyens in Upper Burma, or to return to his old field in Bassein. At the special request of the Executive Committee he remained in charge of the college until the close of the year, when it was decided that he should return alone to Bassein. ONE, WITH GOD, IS A MAJORITY. Without relaxing for a single week the earnest prosecution of evangelistic work at home and abroad, the special work of improving and enlarging the school in Bassein went on with far greater spirit and success than Mr. Carpenter even had dared to hope. The Woman’s Societies, East and West, aided essen¬ tially by sending from time to time, as the need arose, several devoted and accomplished teachers to our help. Above all, the Divine help and blessing was added in rich, overflowing meas¬ ures. During the six years (1875-1880), over two thousand Karens were baptized on the Bassein field. Foreign missions were vigorously begun to the Ka-khyens in Upper Burma, and to the Karens in Northern Siam, besides something done for the heathen in the Prome, Shwaygyeen, and Toungoo districts. From four to six native missionaries, some of them with fami¬ lies, were supported in those distant regions during most of 190 SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: this period, besides an average of ten or a dozen men itinerat¬ ing in the home field in the travelling season. Not less than Rs. 228,000 in cash, or its equivalent, were contributed for religious and educational purposes by the Bassein Sgaus alone, or an average of Rs. 38,000 a year for the entire period. Permanent buildings, convenient and ample for the accommodation of three hundred boarding-pupils, were completed without aid in money from the government or from America, at a cost to the Karens and local friends of more than Rs. 60,000. To the “ E. L. Abbott Endowment Fund,” which is mostly invested in this country, the Karens have contributed also over Rs. 40,000 in cash. To this may be added the “Al¬ pha Fund” of $15,000, which ultimately goes for the support of the Bassein Institute, and the “Mark Carpenter Scholarship Fund” of $4,500. The pupils, meanwhile, were taking a good stand in the peri¬ odical examinations of the province ; three of the former pupils and teachers of the school were appointed deputy inspectors of Karen schools, on salaries of two hundred rupees a month, the only Karens who have received such appointments in Burma; and for a series of years the Bassein Institute received from the educational officers of government higher praise than any other aided missionary institution in the land. 1 Little by little the mists had lifted, and it began to appear that there were no pupils and no call for a real college among the Karens anywhere. There began to be very substantial reason to hope that the people of Bassein, with the Divine blessing, would be able to secure all the advantages for secular education that they needed, or cared about, without foreign help, and that they might be able, even, to invite their brethren of other districts to share their advantages with them. It became especially clear that a college like the one in Rangoon (after it was decided to put all races on a footing of perfect equality within it) was not satis factor} 7 to the Karens of Bas- 1 See Self-Support iu Bassein, Appendix C, pp. 415-420. HOW THEY MAY BE ESCAPED. 191 sein, if indeed it was satisfactory to the Karens of any district. The death of one of the most promising Karen pupils from a murderous blow by one of his Burm'an schoolfellows, and the stabbing of a Shan ( ?) pupil by another Burman student, soon after Mr. Carpenter’s retirement from the college, tended to intensify the race prejudice, and to confirm the people of Bas- sein in their indifference to an institution which they had lately invited so cordially to their hearts and homes. What they wanted, in common with all their race, was a Karen college, and that they were patiently building for themselves on the very spot where they wanted it to be. 1 UNEXPECTED OPPOSITION FROM VARIOUS QUARTERS. We ventured to believe that the- plan marked out for us by the Secretary in 1874 (barring the help which he promised) had been followed to the letter. But the success vouchsafed unto us was altogether too complete to be endured with equa¬ nimity by some of the brotherhood. The self-supporting up¬ start must be opposed and quenched, if possible. A rehearsal of the opposition endured for years from those who were hundreds of miles away from us, whose hands should have been full of their own work, would be unprofitable. It was usually directed at our faithful, but ill-informed, Karens, on the side where our strength lay, but where we were most vulnerable. The predic¬ tions of failure ; that the endowment funds sent to America would never be seen again ; false innuendoes as to Mr. Carpen¬ ter’s standing with the Executive Committee ; the small hurri¬ cane from Toungoo over the modest Greek cross with which we had dared to crown the tower of the Ko Thahbyu Memorial Hall; the talk about the possible alienation of the property, on which the Karens had spent so many thousands of rupees, through the bad faith of the Missionary Union,—these, and many more strange things which we would gladly forget for- , --—.—--— -. 1 For Rev. E. L. Abbott’s weighty opinion on this subject, see Self- Support in Bassein, pp. 362, 363, footnote. * 192 SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: ever, helped to prove that self-support in Burma, at least, is a thorny road to travel, and that it will remain so until it becomes the fashion. Kind words, though cheap, are often grateful, and of these we had many from the Society headquarters. But the time came when the policy of active repression took the place of broken promises and hope deferred. In-the printed circular of Nov. 19, 1878, the Executive Committee made use of this language : — “ The college should be the standard, and the station-schools should be graded down from that, and be not the rivals, but the feeders, of the college. . . . They must not aspire to be colleges, nor in any sense be rivals of the college. . . . The schools, therefore, must be made helpful to the college, and be conducted in harmony with it. Should there fail to be harmony of conviction on the part of the missionaries, with refer¬ ence to the position and work of the station-schools, there must not fail to be harmony of action. ” To the threat implied in the above language, Mr. Carpenter replied, soon after the receipt of the circular, as follows : — “Others can reply for themselves; but for my own part I am bound to say, that in questions of vital importance to the progress of the Re¬ deemer’s kingdom in this land, my actions must always conform to my convictions. For seventeen years I have done my best to render loyal service, for Christ’s sake, to the American Baptist Missionary Union. In my poor judgment, the most valuable service of my missionary life was rendered in my protest against the location of the college in 1874, in my final abandonment of that enterprise in 1875, and in the years that have followed. From the Union and from its executive officers I have re¬ ceived, personally, only kindness and consideration. To sunder these relations would give me and mine life-long regret; yet, though it should come to that, I am constrained to say that my convictions, my actions, and my speech arerand must be, diametrically opposed to your present policy relative to the location of the Karen educational institutions.” After the completion of our buildings, when informed of our plan to raise an endowment of fifty thousand rupees from the devoted Karens of Bassein, Secretary Murdock wrote as fol¬ lows, under date of Jan. 31, 1879 : — HOW THEY MAY BE ESCAPED. 193 “We have thought it possible, that by a gradual growth the school in Bassein might settle the problem of higher education in Burma; and we certainly have not been averse to such a solution. But you cannot be ignorant of the fact that many missionaries . . . have looked upon the measures already taken as forced, and as designed to supersede the col¬ lege, so called, in Rangoon. . . . On these and other grounds [health, need of rest, etc.] the Committee respectfully suggest to you that it is at present inexpedient for you to embark in the effort to raise the proposed endowment.” The Secretary wrote again to the same effect May 6, but his letters did not arrive until our plans were matured and in pro¬ cess of fulfilment. As to the idea that our previous measures had been u forced,” we have only to call attention to the fact, that under my kind and gentle successor, Rev. C. A. Nichols, the average contributed during the four completed years is Rs. 31,065 per year, to Rs. 30,104 for the ten years preceding. And as to the oft-repeated charge that the college was failing through my opposition, I affirm that it is based on an unfounded suspicion. My hands and brain were over-taxed with my legit¬ imate work, ever expanding, on a great field. It is true that I did not believe in the college ; that as an advanced school for Karens, I regarded it as moribund. It is also true that I did not support the college, although I repeatedly gave the pupils in the first class permission to go to the college if they wished. My regard for Dr. and Mrs. Packer would never have allowed me to oppose their work actively, and I never did. They have simply been struggling heroically against the inherent difficul¬ ties of their situation. In so far as they have succeeded in getting pay for the board of their pupils, they have done well; but something more than that is necessary in any country, before much can be said about “ self-support.” REMOVAL OF THE SEMINARY AGAIN PROPOSED. Meanwhile, it had become perfectly clear that a vernacular Bible-scliool in Bassein itself was a necessity for the proper development of the work among the churches and heathen of 194 SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: that large district, — a work which was rapidly expanding from Basseiu as a centre to the far-distant north and east. There being no pledges, like those which had been adduced in the case of the college, to fix the location of the seminary in Ran¬ goon, Mr. Carpenter wrote to the Executive Committee in 1876, urging the removal of that institution to Bassein, and pledging generous support. In November of that year the Committee passed this vote : — “In spite of the reasons which favor the removal of the Karen Theological Seminary to Bassein, the Committee deem any change In its location at the present time inexpedient.” Again, at the annual meeting, March 7, 1879, being re¬ quested to renew their offer by Dr. Smith, the president of the seminary, the Bassein Sgau association pledged itself to give buildings and cash to the amount of Rs. 10,000, the use of the west wing of Memorial Hall temporarily, and all the rice required for the pupils of the seminary in perpetuo, provided the Missionary Union should consent to transfer the seminary to their spacious compound. This munificent offer from a poor people, unprecedented in the history of modern missions, has not been accepted ; for a long time it was not even acknowl¬ edged. It is never too late to mend a great wrong. So long as the only institutions for the higher education of an entire people and for the training of Christian laborers for their own and other heathen races are miserably failing to perform their office, and must from their unfortunate location continue to fail to the end of time, the question of their location becomes an irrepress¬ ible question. It is not possible to stifle its agitation ; and if there is any power in truth,, if there is any tendency in human affairs, divinely administered, to the repair of injury in spite of malpractice, as in nature, so surely will there be a change. The reasons which called for a change in the location of the college in 1874 still exist, and they call more loudly still for a change in the location of the Karen Theological Seminary. HOW THEY MAY BE ESCAPED. 195 The arguments applicable to one are applicable to both. For those arguments we beg to refer especially to the letters in the appendix to this tract. - We will now consider briefly some objec¬ tions which have been urged against the change, beginning with that which is latest in point of time. (1) THE RECENT “ EMANCIPATION ” IN BASSEIN. The idea that the Karen Christians in any district have been led about by the nose, by their missionaries, as they lead about their buffaloes, is sufficiently absurd, but it may have been put in circulation in some quarters. If it be so, and if there has been a consequent restlessness under “ the missionary yoke,” in Bassein or in any part of Burma, it can be confidently affirmed that the trouble and the mischief are due, not to the practice of self-support, but to the superficial education and the superficial ideas of freedom and social life which have been acquired by our young brethren from over the sea during their sojourn in this country. It will be said that recent events in Bassein preclude forever the idea of establishing at that place a college or seminary for the Karen people. But is the anomalous “Karen Nation Soci¬ ety ’ ’ any less active in Rangoon ? The story comes to me in this wise. Under extreme prov¬ ocation, a kind-hearted Christian man saw fit to strike a dis¬ obedient pupil to the floor as an act of discipline ; and the story of the falling boy and of the bloody face was circulated far and wide in the district. Demagogic arts are not unknown in Burma. There was great excitement; and at the meeting of the trustees which followed, the missionary was relieved from the superintendency of the school, but not from the care of the churches and the jungle work. Rev. Thanbyah, a Karen grad¬ uate of Rochester, whom I highly esteemed as a pupil in Ran¬ goon many years ago, was elected superintendent; and the retirement of the two American ladies immediately followed, although they were invited to continue their valued assistance. 196 SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: It has been asserted confidently, that the Bassein Karens have shown by this act that they wish to be free from American control, and to' get on without American missionaries. This is by no means proven. Things may have have been said by individuals under excitement, which seemed to imply that; but I know that people well, and I am confident that the sober sec¬ ond thought of the pastors and the people generally will be to hold fast to the missionaries to whom they owe so much. The presence of three or four Karens of ability, educated in America, adds, of course, a new element to the work in Bassein. They are able to do much to aid in developing the work. They can also do much to embarrass and hinder the American teach¬ ers, if they choose ; but it cannot be that they will persistently choose the part of the nihilist and the obstructive. To my mind it is probable that a short trial of the responsibilities of an independent control of their school affairs, with all the intricate relations to government and the Missionary Union, will convince them and their people that they cannot for the present success¬ fully conduct the Institute even, without an American head. Whenever they can do so, none will rejoice more heartily than their emancipated missionaries. 1 A letter came to me a few days ago from one of the ablest, if not the ablest, of all the educated Karens in Burma, passion¬ ately protesting against the idea that his people have any wish to dispense with the help of their missionaries. I translate from his letter, dated Bassein, Nov. 21, 1885 : — “ Teacher Nichols advised us to make a trial of a Karen superintend¬ ent; and the majority, understanding that it was only an experiment, consented. There was no disposition to drive away the American teacli- 1 While the above was in the printer’s hands, word comes that the Karen trustees have rescinded their former action, and unanimously re¬ elected Rev. Mr. Nichols to the superintendency of the Institute. Accord¬ ing^ he and all of the American teachers are back again in their old places, and he writes that the atmosphere is all the clearer for the brief episode. A similar experience may become necessary and equally advantageous at other stations, although the large use of American funds at most of them probably tends to repress the feeling of independence. now THEY MAY BE ESCAPED. 197 ers. . . . When I go from village to village, the people come to me, and say, ‘ We hear that the teacher in the city is going to leave us, and that teacher C. is not coming back again. What shall we do? ’ . . . Even the trees and the flowers on the mission compound show that power is gone. I cannot sleep for sorrow. It is reported that the Missionary Union is going to withhold all teachers from us. ... I love my own people better than I love you white people, hut the time has not come for Karens to be at the head of this work, either in the town or jungle. In order to the advancement of my people in knowledge, you Americans must still lead us on. . . . Finally, I would not limit the power of God, but if the Missionary Union wishes to see the Bassein Karens become a proverb for failure and destruction, let teacher N. cease to lead us; let teacher C. not come again, and they will see their desire. [Italics by editor.] ... I write for myself alone, but a great many pastors and elders fully agree with me.” To my own mind, these occurrences are but a fresh argument for the location of the general school, or schools, in Bassein. I believe that the desire of the people for them, and their willing¬ ness to fulfil all tlieir pledges, are as strong as ever. After the little flurry in the management of their local school has subsided, they will settle down, and be more loyal than ever, if a kind and conciliatory course is taken with them. They have always been a spirited, independent people. Mr. Beecher used to say that they were “ provokingly independent.” That is the kind of people to do and to dare, the kind of people who can be made something of. No Christians in Burma have excelled them in loyalty to their missionaries in the past. Send them men who are worthy to lead them ; establish Dr. Smith and his seminary among them ; give Mr. Nichols back to them, — and they will prove to be as loyal and as responsive to wise and brave leader¬ ship as they have been in the past. Which is preferable, a pair of strong and spirited horses, or a lazy, lifeless pair which wait upon the whip? Which is most interesting, the “ active, highly gifted crab,” albeit he flashes sidewise to the right and left in a curious fashion, or the absorbing, spawning, nauseous sacculina? 198 SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: (2) AS TO THAT “UNPARDONABLE WASTE OF MONEY.” In their printed circular of Nov. 19, 1878, the Executive Committee say that the college should be sustained where it is, “on account of the large and expensive building which has been erected for the college” at Rangoon. But prior to its erection, before a rupee had been expended upon it, the objec¬ tions to the location in Rangoon were set before the Committee in extenso , and the man to whom the work of building was con¬ fided resigned, rather than be a party to the waste. They themselves gave the order for the work to go on, they them¬ selves authorized the expenditure of not less than Rs. 30,000 in buildings on that location ; and now they adduce that as an argument why the mistake and the wrong should be per¬ petuated. “ The college is located,” they say. “ It could not be trans¬ ferred to any other place without an unpardonable waste of money.” It is never too late to right a wrong, and the waste of money is all on the side of keeping the college and seminary where they are. By the annexation of Upper Burma, which has been already consummated, the commercial, if not the political, importance of Rangoon will be trebled, and the value of real estate must be greatly enhanced in the near future. The college and seminary compounds contain over sixteen acres of fine, high ground, in the heart of the most desirable quarter for residences, towards which the business-quarter is continually advancing. Mr. Freiday’s suggestion, to keep the property as a permanent endowment after the removal, to convert the buildings into dwelling-houses, and use the monthly rents for the salaries and other current expenses, is an excellent one. The great rise in real estate is yet to come; but come it will. The site of the old town-church (Episcopal) sold for two or three dollars a foot, if I remember rightly. The goodly compound of twenty-six acres in Bassein is ample for college, seminary, and all needful station purposes, without additional purchase. If the changes are made a little gradually, now THEY MAY BE ESCAPED. 199 I am sure that the Karens and other local friends would be able to provide all the additional buildings which might be needed. Then, at a low computation, the four dwelling-houses now in readiness, and those which could be made by re-converting the vacated school-buildings in Rangoon, would bring in a net income of not less than six hundred rupees a month, and the gain from the removal would be something like this: — Annual rental Rangoon property, say .... Rs. 7,200 Rice, etc., given by Karens to college and seminary . . -2,000 Cost of preparatory departments borne by them and gov¬ ernment .8,000 Lower cost of fish, fuel, etc. .. 500 Saving in taxes, say. 500 Total annual saving.. Rs. 18,200 This I regard as a low estimate. Whenever it is thought best to erect additional buildings for rental, the income of the Ran¬ goon property may be largely increased, and ultimately it should bring enough to provide an ample endowment for both institutions. In a word, it is undeniable that all of the waste of money, and the incalculably greater waste of men and influ¬ ence, is in remaining where we are. (3) ARE THE OBJECTIONS TO RANGOON “FANCIFUL”? The circular also says this : u Nor does your Committee think that there are any strong reasons for such a transfer.” The Secretary writes to the same effect, that the objections urged against Rangoon “are conjectural, rather than real.” For twenty-five years we have sent our choicest young men to Rangoon, with what result ? Any Karen missionary can tell you that not one in three of the hundreds of choice Christian men who have received more or less training in the seminary at Ran¬ goon are now to he found engaged in Christian work as preachers or teachers. I went over the whole list, man by man, a few years 200 SELF-SUPrORTING SCIIOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: ago, so that I am not speaking at random. Two-thirds of them, at least, are engaged in trade, timber business, tax-gathering, or paddy-making. And yet the Secretary says that the objec¬ tions to Rangoon are “ conjectural,” and “ not real ” ! The Karens, in their native state, are an exclusively agricul¬ tural people. They nowhere dwell in towns. So also the Kyens, Iva-khyens, and Red Karens, to whom we wish to send Karen preachers. Our grand object is the training of devoted, self-sacrificing, and efficient preachers and school-teachers for jungle-service. For this purpose you decree that our youthful rustics shall resort for four, six, or eight years, to’the chief city of the land. You build your schools in the heart of that city, a city filled with the excitement of courts, the noisy marts of trade, shipping, railways, — a Babel of tongues, — with liquor- shops, prostitutes, and all kinds of temptation to worldliness and vice on every hand: Our young men are unfitted for hum¬ ble, self-sacrificing labor in the forests and mountains ; they are largely secularized, and some of them are morally ruined, by Rangoon. There is evidence of these facts in abundance in the Secretary’s pigeon-holes ; and yet he writes to me that the objections to Rangoon “ are conjectural, rather than real ” ! (4) VOTES TO BE WEIGHED AS WELL AS COUNTED. But, again, the Executive Committee say that they “ are com¬ pelled to regard the views of the body of the missionaries.” Yes ; but have the Baptist churches of America nothing to say in such a matter? The body of missionaries do not propose to support the college and seminary where they are, from their own pockets. Nor would it seem that they propose to have their native Christians do it. No ; but with an assurance and a blind¬ ness to the tendency of things which is amazing, they propose to have American Christians keep on bearing the chief burden of their own station-schools, contribute heavily for the support of their native preachers, advance into Upper Burma in force, and then, when a station which has been run on the broad, self- HOW THEY MAY BE ESCAPED. 201 support gauge for thirty years, proposes, with their leave, to relieve the Missionary Union from the necessity of further out¬ lay for one or both of the general schools, they say, “ Stand back; it shall not be!” So long have they been allowed to draw upon America at will, that the privilege has become to them a right, which they think to exercise to the end of time. The parasite, meanwhile, drops its coddled members one after die other, and rejoices in increasing helplessness, and in fulfill¬ ing the functions of a self-complacent incubus in the militant . Church Universal. A SUMMING-UP OF THE MATTER. In Rangoon, under Dr. Packer, we have a college on which American Christians have expended (including the salary, etc., of the American teachers) over $75,000. At the end of another year, after fifteen years of toil, the president hopes to have a small class ready for entrance upon collegiate studies, under the low Calcutta standard. He reports forty-five of his students as pursuing primary studies, leaving in the “ higher depart¬ ment ” sixty-five, who must be divided between the grammar and high-school grades, with a preponderance in favor of the former. Originally established for the Karens alone, who number twenty-four thousand Baptist church-members, and who would naturally (if the college were according to their liking) furnish nine-tenths of the pupils, we find but thirty-two Karen pupils, to sixty-two Burmans, three Shans, nine Hindus, and four Chinese. As to religion, forty of them belong to our churches, while forty-nine are Buddhists and four are Mohammedans ; the non-Christians being attracted chiefly, I presume, by the fact that the Baptist college charges much lower fees than the neighboring government and Church of England schools. The president has repeatedly appealed to the Karen associations for pecuniary help, but in vain. On the opposite side of West Street is Dr. Smith, working 202 SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: hard to keep np the depleted seminary in a plague-stricken spot apart from all entangling alliances with Karen missions and mis¬ sionaries. For the last five years the monthly “ Karen Star,” of which he is the editor, has abounded in appeals to Christian Karens all over Burma, to contribute two cents and a half each, annually, for the support of an institution which has cost the Baptists of America for the last twenty years an average of more than $5,000 a year. In response he has received a total of $1,109, or about $222 annually, with a decreasing tendency. Neither seminary nor college has an endowment. They have land and buildings bought with American funds, which are of considerable commercial value, but of much less intrinsic value for school purposes than the premises in Bassein. They depend almost entirely upon the treasury of the Missionary Union ; and they must continue so to depend, so long as they remain where they are, for the threefold reason that they are where they are by the controlling will of one man, Dr. Binney, the Karens never having been consulted as to the location, or recognized as a supporting factor; from the fact that they are kept carefully distinct from all the stations, including Rangoon ; and, lastly, for the grave reason that, notwithstanding the in¬ spiring example of Bassein, nearly all of the Karen missions, even, still draw largely from America, both for the support of their schools and their preachers. What, for example, can the Toungoo Karens be fairly ex¬ pected to do for general institutions, when in 1885 the} 7 drew from America $4,977 in subsidies for their work, besides help from the Burma Convention, their entire contributions for self- support being but $3,622? Tavoy Karens drew $1,217 ; Maul- main Karens, $1,549; Maooben Pwos, $855; Henthada Ka¬ rens, $2,680; Rangoon Sgaus, $1,233; Shwaygyeen Karens, $492. The Bassein Sgaus drew but $235 in subsidies, while their contributions for the year (including the interest accruing on their “Abbott Fund”) amounted to $14,497, a little more than the entire sum contributed for religious and educational purposes by all the Karen Christians outside of Bassein. HOW THEY MAY BE ESCAPED. 203 For the year 1879-80 (I have no later figures) six of the schools at stations above named were supported at a cost of Rs. 25,525. Of this aggregate, American Christians contrib¬ uted Rs. 14,427 ; the British Government, Rs. 6,2G0 ; endow¬ ments yielded Rs. 540, and fees Rs. 21 ; while the Karen Christians contributed the remaining Rs. 4,277, less than one- fifth. I bring forward these facts not to exalt Bassein, nor to dis¬ parage what other stations have done. Many Christians outside of Bassein may have given to the cause of Christ all that they ought to give. I believe, indeed, that they might and ought as a whole to bear a much larger proportion of the cost of their own schools ; but I bring out the facts here simply to show, that, aside from Bassein, there is no station which feels itself pre¬ pared to assume the full support of its local work even, much less to assume any appreciable part of the support of general schools. In Bassein, on the other hand, we have, besides that noble circle of churches, unequalled in all our missions for Christian enterprise and benevolence, a spacious compound of unsurpassed beauty and healthfulness. AVe have school buildings and furni¬ ture, superior as a whole to those of any mission-school in Burma, ample for 300 boarding-pupils, or for the use of the preparatory school, a “college” and a seminary for years to come. AA T e have, perhaps, the finest corps of trained native teachers to be found anywhere in our missions, and a school which deserves the high encomiums which have been pronounced upon it by competent judges for many years. This school, indigenous and mainly self-supporting from its origin, already has endowment funds safely invested amounting to more than $35,000. Of this sum, $20,000 yields a steady income which is available for current expenses, and $15,000 will do so on the death of the donors. With the income of these funds, all secured without appeal to the Union or the Christian public of America, and with the possibility of further aid from private friends if the enterprise is allowed to prosper, 204 SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: it is quite certain that even now the Bassein Karens are able to support (with the exception of the necessary American teach¬ ers) all the higher secular education, including English, which they or Karens anywhere are prepared to profit by. It is in just such communities (is it not?) that Christian schools of the higher grade take rise and grow naturally in Christian lands. Human nature is one, and the commandment one. Why not, then, in heathen lands? Has the Christian law, “To him that hath shall be given,” no application in such affairs? The Bassein Christians consider it their high duty and privilege to maintain their schools, not for their own children only, but for Karen youth from all quarters. They have generously opened, and will still open, their doors and their hearts wide, and will welcome all freely ; but in all consistency and sincerity they will still beg to be excused from contributions to the support of the wasteful, exogenous experiments which have been carried on for so many years in that great Babel, Rangoon. It remains to be seen whether the Executive Committee at this critical juncture will have the nerve and the faith, even if backed by public opinion, to make a new departure in the only direction which seems to promise substantial relief; viz., to put all the Karen schools on a self-supporting basis forthwith. Let the schools which have been started as an “ evangelizino; agency” for the Burmans and other races be made over to those who have no gospel to preach. Let the station-schools without exception be thrown upon the local support which they should have depended upon from the beginning. Let all appropriations to the college and seminary (save American sal¬ aries) be stopped ; and if those deserving institutions must die in consequence, and prefer to die, rather than be transplanted to the hospitable air and soil of Bassein, let them die the death of the righteous at their speediest convenience. Then, at last, let the ban be removed from the vigorous native stock which has been so long struggling for recognition in Bassein. Let it have scope to grow ; give it a little cheap sympathy and a re¬ spectful look or word now and then, and a few years hence our nOW THEY MAY BE ESCAPED. 205 successors shall see a new illustration of “ the survival of the fittest.” The time for reconsideration has come ; and the final decision, so far as it rests with American Christians, must be near. May Heaven grant wisdom and send success to the insti¬ tution of Heaven’s own electing ! ANNIVERSARY PYROTECHNICS. An enthusiastic speaker at the anniversaries says, u Blot out forever that word Retrenchment , and write the word Forward! ” But if our missionaries and mission managers continue to im¬ pose upon the churches of America this threefold burden, when Christ, the Head of the Church, lays upon us but one, is it any wonder that our operations are threatened with paralysis ? The King’s business requireth haste, indeed ; but is it any wonder that there is a significant lack of elasticity in our income for missions, and a painful unresponsiveness in the churches to providential openings and to the strongest appeals? It is for the churches of America (not for the secretaries, editors, and missionaries) to say whether they will bear this threefold bur¬ den or not. It is for them to say whether self-support shall be the law of the native churches abroad or not. Let us bend our backs so low to the one, Heaven-appointed task of sending forth a multitude of preaching men and women, that the clamor for eleemosynary schools and support for native assistants shall no longer be heard. Again, we say that what we plead for is no temporary re¬ trenchment under the pressure of debts unprecedented in mag¬ nitude, but for a permanent reform , by which our societies, the Missionary Union especially, shall return to the one simple work of preaching the gospel to the pagan nations, — the work which Christ himself lays upon us with the utmost positiveness and solemnity, and which our fathers undertook to do in simple faith at the call of Adoniram Judson. All needed worldly good will follow the acceptance of that miracle-working gospel. If I were to die this night, I would fain speak this one last word in 206 SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: the ear of all the churches : Millions to set Christ and him cru¬ cified before the eyes of his lost ones in Asia and Africa , who have never heard the seraphic music of his name; but not a nickel more for secular education in native schools that are not chiefly, if not altogether, self-supporting ! Let the Executive Committee reduce the rate of expenditure on our present fields one-third (not in every field, but judi¬ ciously), as they can certainly do with positive advantage to spirituality, and then let them appeal with confidence to the churches and to the young men in theological seminaries for a grand advance into Upper Burma and into the heart of Africa. I believe that there would be such a response as American Bap¬ tists never yet have given, and that the most glorious results of the century would follow. That is the way to silence criticism, the way to arouse latent enthusiasm, the way to call down the Divine blessing in Pentecostal measures. THE ART OF GIVING, AND A COMPREHENSIVE GRUMBLE. One of the most discouraging features of Christian life in our day is that Christians as a whole give so sparingly ; another is that they give so unsystematically ; another equally discouraging feature is that they give with so little thought, discrimination, and prayer. One circle of ladies gives a set of marble-topped furniture to brighten the room of a dear sister in Antipode, leaving the society to pay the freight and insurance perhaps. Another sends a communion-table of black walnut to the ends of the earth, when a home-made table of teak with a snowy cloth upon it would be more serviceable and appropriate. A Sunday school gives an organ, which is sure to go to pieces in the climate of Burma within four or five years, without inquir¬ ing whether the recipient or anybody within a hundred miles can play upon it to edification. A mission band contribute, year after year, for the support of “ Yellow Flower,” whose name is the most romantic and hopeful thing about her. The good mis¬ sionary sister uses what is needed for the girl’s support, and HOW THEY MAY BE ESCAPED. 207 with the balance has a necklace made from English sovereigns, by a native jeweller, against the time of her betrothal. The donors give, because they are asked to give, a mere trifle each, and because they have a vague idea that in some way the giving will benefit the heathen or the missionary, and please the Mas¬ ter. They do not stop to inquire what becomes of their gifts, or whether there is any reasonable probability that money bestowed in that way will bring the largest spiritual returns. They give, and done with it. Such careless giving, unaccompa¬ nied with prayer or forethought, is not blessed to the giver or the receiver. It is not Christian giving. The one definite purpose contemplated in the great commission is not uppermost in their thoughts. And hence arises a very large percentage of the criminal waste which accompanies all our missionary work. How not to do things is a great art. Some persons are troubled that it costs so much to get a dollar out to the missionary. It really costs but ten or eleven cents for exchange and all the home charges. But how many care that with the vast interiors of Burma, China, Japan, India, and Africa wide open to the heralds of the cross, a full half of the. diminished dollar goes for the support of schools and native laborers in fields which we have occupied for thirty, fifty, or seventy years, for all of which expenditure no precept or example can be found in the New Testament? Who cares that executive officers systematically discriminate against health¬ ful, self-supporting schools, to nurse and bolster up artificial, sickly schools of their own unwise planting? I have confessed already that in Bassein more than half of my own time was given to secular and educational work. The one redeeming fact (if, indeed, it did redeem) was, that the schools were decid¬ edly religious in their character, self-supporting, and that the w r hole work in that field had reached the second stage of devel¬ opment. But how many missionaries give an equal proportion of their time and energy to schools that draw nearly their whole support from funds which ought to be sacred to evangelization? How many are prevented by building, from going to the jungles 208 SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: at all for a year or more together? I have a painful conviction that secular and civilizing work is crowding more and more into the time of missionaries who ought to be chiefly devoted to spiritual and religious work. The more money you give them, the greater will be their absorption in such barren labor. But who in America cares? Don’t we give, and have done with it? May a merciful God save us from the paralysis of faith which always accompanies selfishness, and from spiritual pride and . unfruitfulness! BIBLE TRANSLATION. As these tracts profess to be a series of studies in mission economics, we must refer briefly to the subject of Scripture translation ; and there is no place more appropriate for the ref¬ erence than this. At the right time and in the right proportion, this work is of the first importance after the oral proclamation of the gospel. The services of the most scholarly and often the most experienced man and the ablest preacher in the mission are required, and are readily devoted for a long term of years to this work. Long, perilous, and expensive journeys are taken for the main object of fixing wisely upon the dialect to be adopted. After the translation is completed, the cost of cut¬ ting punches, making matrices, type-casting, printing, binding, storage (including protection against white ants), and circula¬ tion is very great. It is agreed by all, that the Gospels and a few brief portions of the Word should be prepared at the ear¬ liest practicable day in every new mission, as an indispensable auxiliary to preaching. But at what point should the requisite time and money be invested permanently in the translation and publication of the entire New Testament, or the entire Bible? The question is worth considering from a business point of view. If the time and expenses of the translator be taken into account, as they surely ought to be, it is probable that the Missionary Union has rarely published a first edition of the New Testament in a new language which did not actually cost the society $20,000 or over, in cash; nor one of the entire Bible at a cost of less than $-10,000. HOW THEY MAY BE ESCAPED. 209 For an example, take the history of the Shan Mission. Begun by Dr. Bixby in 1861, it has just completed its first quarter of a century, at a cost to the Missionary Union, as I reckon it, of $136,626.18. Dr. Cushing, one of the ablest lin¬ guists ever reared in our missions, went out in 1867. He has completed the publication of the New Testament in Shan, and has done much work on the Old. This, with the necessary preparation, has been his chief work; and fully half of his salary and appropriations, or considerably more than $20,000, might fairly be charged off to this account. But here arises the question. Considering the very small number of Christians to read the Shan Scriptures (thirty-five), is it worth while to go on and spend $20,000 more on the Old Testament, and then proceed with commentaries, a concordance, etc,, etc., as has been done in the Bunnan department? I would not write a word to wound the feelings of the faithful brethren who are laboring for the Shans. They have had much to contend with. The mission has been most sorely %/ stricken by the early death of laborers from whose lives much precious fruit was hoped for. The number of Shans hitherto accessible in Lower Burma has been very small (only 59,723, according to the census of 1881). The character of the Shan people, as described by Dr. Cushing in his report for 1872, is not hopeful. He writes : — “The prevalent idea among the Shans is that the foreign teacher is willing to give worldly assistance for the sake of securing adhesion to Christianity. Unfortunately this idea has been strengthened by some who have professed themselves disciples, but were influenced by selfish motives only. . . . Many children would have attended school, had we allowed them eight annas a week besides food and clothing ; but this wasteful system does not raise the value of education in tlieir eyes, and panders to tlieir national love of money.” Stronger testimony to the evils and dangers of the subsidy system we could not ask than this from Dr. Cushing. It was generally understood at the time in Burma, that great and last- / * 210 SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS IN OUR MISSIONS: ing harm had been done in the early history of the Shan mis¬ sion, so called, by the profuse expenditure of mission money. Now, when the whole of Sban-land is at last wide open to evan¬ gelistic efforts, is it worth while to take time and talent which are so much needed for preaching and church-building in the upper country, and to sink money which is sorely needed for other uses, merely to complete the translation and publication of the Old Testament? It would be a monument to the literary skill and pains-taking of the translator, indeed, and another leaf in the laurel crown of our society; but the law of Christian stewardship, we believe, points in another direction. CONCLUSION. A mighty conflagration is devouring square after square in a great city. Into the hands of the fire-department, legislators and the mayor have placed all the machinery and appliances for subduing fire which the city possesses. Water, steam, and dynamite, engines, hose-carriages, hydrants, hooks and ladders, axes and crowbars, all are at their disposal, with power to blow up buildings, and impress the service of men and horses. But the engineers of the department have a theory of their own ; and amid the smoke and roar, the crash of falling buildings, and the shrieks of the wounded, the bereaved, the homeless, and the dying, they coolly proceed to la}^ out parks and plant trees and shrubbery at vast expense, with a view to the prevention of similar calamities in the future. The Fire-King, meantime,' bears undisputed sway. Property and human lives melt away before him, while landscape gardening occupies the chief atten¬ tion of the miscalled firemen. After the fire has been subdued, or has burned itself out, rebuilding is indeed in order, and Baron Haussmann may well step in and lay out broader avenues and new parks to enhance the beauty, the healthfulness, and the security of the new city from riots and from fire ; but the cost should be defrayed, not from the imperial treasury, but by municipal taxation and by HOW THEY MAY BE ESCAPED. 211 a special levy upon adjacent property-holders for “ better¬ ments.” We, the redeemed people of Christ, are here, spending our little day in the midst of a perishing world. We must shortly stand before the Man of Calvary, face to face with uncounted millions of pagans who are dying unwarned, it may be, through our neglect. He, the great Head of the Church, has laid upon his blood-bought bondservants one simple duty, that of preach¬ ing the gospel of his death and resurrection to every creature ; and we, to our eternal shame and confusion of face, shirk the duty like selfish, ease-loving cowards. Once more I repeat the charge. Instead of loyally taking up this one, divinely imposed duty, and prosecuting it with undivided zeal and energy, and carrying it through to early completion, we fritter away our substance and our lives over home “ duties ” and pleasures, quieting our consciences, per¬ haps, by an occasional touch given with the tip of our fingers to that threefold burden of man’s imposing. The patronage system for the support of a native ministry, and the expensive machinery of schools for the heathen, from the primary grade up to the college, are laid upon shoulders too narrow (so puny is the strength of a worldly, a disobedient and unbelieving Church) to bear the Master’s “ easy ” yoke, with no human ad¬ ditions. So long has this evil prevailed, so systematically have the churches been educated to play with these supererogatory burdens, to the partial if not entire neglect of Christ’s instant, all-compelling, single command, that a majority of the few who take any interest whatever in the work of missions are incredu¬ lous as to apostolic methods, preferring to give for the support of schools, pupils, and “cheap” native preachers. “ In such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh.” Shall we not take the warning which our Lord mercifully left for us ? Shall we not forsake the new, and turn again to the good old paths ? God grant it, for his Son’s sake ! AX IMMEDIATE RETURN TO OLD-TIME ECOXOMY AXD TO THE SCRIPTURAL AXD COMMOX-SEXSE PRIXCIPLES UXAXIMOUSLY ADOPTED BY TIIE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MARCH 11, 1878 (SEE PAGES 16, 17), IS ABSO¬ LUTELY ESSEXTIAL TO PROSPERITY IX OUR FOREIGX MISSIOX WORK. LET THE VOICE OF EVERY TRUE SOX OF ISSAC1IAR BE HEARD, AXD HIS VOTE BE RECORDED, FOR THIS REFORM. X. B. — LET ALL BEAL) TILE LETTEBS WITICTI FOLLOW, ESPECIALLY THOSE BY llEV. MESSRS. EBEIBAY AM) NICHOLS. APPENDIX. (A) Letter from Mr. Carpenter to the Executive Committee , on the Loca¬ tion of the Embryonic Karen College. Rangoon, Burma, May 13, 1874. Rev. Dr. J. N. Murdock, Corresponding Secretary. My dear Brother , — Perhaps a word of apology is necessary for rais¬ ing the question of the location of the Karen college in the third year of its existence. . As you know, I returned to Burma under appoint¬ ment to the presidency of the college, resolved to accept and make the best of its present location, though it was never satisfactory to me. At the very inception of the enterprise, while in Bassein, I felt strongly that on most accounts that station would be preferable to Rangoon as its location ; and I wrote to Dr. Binney briefly, urging a consideration of the facts. Afterwards I took it for granted that my judgment had been a little warped ; and I returned here with much the same impressions in favor of Rangoon that I carried away when I left the seminary six years ago to go to Bassein. The brief interval of time which has elapsed since my arrival, however, has been sufficient to change my views on the subject very materially. The sense of responsibility for the success and usefulness of this infant institution never rested upon me by night and by day before. I never was in a position to balance so justly, as I think, the relative claims and advan¬ tages offered by Rangoon and other stations to the college. Having reason to believe that the facts which should determine the location of the college have never been fully presented to the Executive Com¬ mittee, I cannot think it right to go on and erect expensive buildings here, until they have had at least an opportunity for reconsideration. I need hardly say that nothing but a stern sense of duty could induce me to take a step which is so decidedly opposed to the wishes and judgment of my revered friend, the first president of the college. 213 214 ATTEND IX. I need not refer to his invaluable labors, nor to the fact so obvious to all, that no one can have more deeply at heart the highest interests of the Karen people than he. It is my consolation to believe that if he and other missionaries knew the favorable conditions in Bassein as perfectly as I do. we should all be heartily agreed in the course to be pursued. First, I conceive that in addition to the main work of a college, viz., the training-up in morals and intellect of a large body of graduates, who shall become the leaders and teachers of their people, there is another work of great importance which the college must do, if it would fulfil its mission worthily; I mean the putting-forth of those indirect but powerful influences which tend to refine and stimulate the entire community in which the institution is located. The Karen col¬ lege ought to be as a light set upon a hill. All unconsciously to themselves, it ought to be lifting up the Karens, and inciting them on to all good continually; but to do this, it must be near to the people, and of the people. The fact which strikes me first and most painfully here is that we are isolated, cut off from almost all direct communication with the Karens, whether heathen or Christians. It is no exaggeration, but literal truth, that, in the six weeks we have been on this compound, I have hardly seen six Karens who were not either pupils or employees of the mission. Nor is this a place of retirement, such as a scholar would choose for study and meditation. We are overrun with people of other races ; but the Karens to whom we are sent as missionaries, not as mere teachers, are not here. It is vastly different in Bassein. Secondly, I maintain without fear of controversy, that a prime condi¬ tion of permanent success to a college in any land is a strong local at¬ tachment and support. In opposition to this, it is held by some, that the Karen college and seminary ought to be entirely distinct from the local mission ; that for the Christians of any station, Rangoon or Bassein for instance, to have a peculiar regard for those institutions, would be detrimental to them ; that every station should feel that it has an equal interest in them, and that they have equal demands upon it, etc. If by this it were meant merely that the college should be free to do its legitimate work in its own way, uncontrolled either by the station missionary or his people, it would obviously be a correct position ; but that is not all that is meant. The college must be kept away from the local station altogether, lest the native Christians of that station feel a peculiar regard for it, and treat it in some sense as their own. APPENDIX. 215 This position, and the fear that underlies it, I believe to be utterly fallacious. Because the Newton Centre Baptist Church and the Bap¬ tist churches of Eastern Massachusetts love Newton Theological Insti¬ tution peculiarly, and do more for it than others, do other Baptists love it less, or send fewer students to it ? Newton owes its origin to the intelligent, far-seeing Baptist fathers of that vicinity. All that might be taken from the local love and support would be just so much taken out of the life and usefulness of the institution. Geo¬ graphical or political centres do not often make strong denominational schools. The soil where Baptist principles have taken the deepest root, where those principles are bearing the most fruit, where there is the deepest desire for educational privileges, and the greatest readi¬ ness to sacrifice in support of an educational institution, — that is the soil in which to plant a Baptist college or seminary in any land. Now, in the light of these general principles, where is the place for you to plant this college ? It is to be hoped that the old spirit of alienation is passing away from the Karen Christians of Rangoon. The fact remains, however, that they are much fewer in numbers, and weaker generally, than the Karens of Bassein. The last report (1885) gives 8,382 Karen church-members in Bassein, to 4,349 in Rangoon; 2,803 pupils in the Bassein schools, to 1,853 in Rangoon; Rs. 41,354 contributed for reli¬ gious and educational purposes in Bassein, to Rs. 10,009 in Rangoon. As to the number of pupils likely to be furnished by the two fields respectively, I have consulted the catalogues of the Karen Theologi¬ cal Seminary for 1868-69, 1870-71, 1872-73, and 1873-74. I have been unable to get them for other years, but have no reason to suppose that the showing would differ materially from that of these four years. In these catalogues, I find the names of students from Bassein, 211 ; from Rangoon, with the seminary at their very doors, only 22. 1 The graduates for the same period were, from Bassein, 34; from Rangoon, one. Nor are the Rangoon Karens in a position to aid you mate¬ rially in the erection of buildings for the college, however good their disposition. ... I make these comparisons in no invidious spirit. I merely do it in order to give you the facts necessary for an intelli¬ gent judgment. Over and above these outward circumstances, it is just that warm feeling of interest, of ownership if they will, which i In 1884 the seminary had 20 students from Bassein, and 5 from Ran¬ goon ; in 1885, 20 from Bassein, to 4 from Rangoon. 21G ArP END IX. others deprecate, that was so strong and pervasive in Bassein, that I miss here. In my judgment, the seminary, useful as it has been, has * not done nearly as much for the Karen people as a whole here, as it would have done in Bassein, had it been thrown on the Christians of that district in a measure for support from the beginning. I believe more and more firmly that the college will never root itself, and grow naturally and strongly here, as it would do in Bassein, if it were offered to them on condition of their adopting it as their own, to be held in trust for all, they sharing the expense of buildings, and of food for the pupils. It is easy to say that the college is theirs now, and that it is their duty to do as much for it though it be here. The human nature of the Bassein Karen Christians is as good as any human nature in the world; but they will not lift for the college, as I propose to have them lift, — “until they see stars,” — while it is here; nor will the Christians of Rangoon or Henthada. Did they do what I believe they could and would do to secure the location of the college among them, their native brethren of other stations would feel that they had richly earned the privilege of having it near them. Jealousy might be felt in some quarters, but it would not affect the great body of Karen Christians. If the college were made what it ought to be made, and ivhat it can be made more easily in Bassein than anywhere else , it would draw students like a magnet from every quarter of the Karen country. But the subject should be discussed a little more minutely. On the one hand, it may be claimed for Rangoon : — 1. That the embryo is here, and hence the presumption is in favor of the present location. This is granted. 2. The seminary is here. The contiguity and co-operation of the two institutions is desirable, certainly, but I see no reason why it is more indispensable than in America. It is certain, to my mind, that connection with a strong preparatory school like the one so long maintained in Bassein without cost to the American churches, would do a great deal more for the college than the seminary can do. 3. Rangoon is, beyond doubt, the most central point and the me¬ tropolis of Burma. The mere fact that this is the capital of the province, and an important emporium, as I have intimated before, will avail no more here than similar advantages have availed for institu¬ tions at home. It is true that the pupils will be more in contact with the world; they will lose more of their Karen greenness; they will be more likely to find openings for a career in the world as clerks and merchants: but neither in mind nor morals will they be as likely to APPENDIX. 217 improve here, as in a quieter place. Rangoon is more easy of access to all parts of Burma than any other station. IIow much weight this should have as regards the pupils, can be inferred from the cata¬ logues already quoted. Henthada, being equally near to Basseiu, may be reckoned out of the comparison. For those four years we find a total of 211 names from Bassein, 36 from Henthada, 22 from Ran¬ goon, and 86 from all other stations. In other words, by a removal of the seminary to Bassein, 211 passages to and fro would have been saved, while 108 would have been lengthened by the distance between the two towns, — a saving on travelling expenses of nearly one-half. It is probable that the relative proportion of pupils in the college would not vary greatly from the above in a term of years; while, by locating the college in Bassein, a still larger number of pupils would be likely to come from the churches of that district. In Rangoon, the college would be more open to the inspection of missionaries passing through ; and this fact should have due weight, though it is doubtful whether the seminary profits much by this circumstance. It is to be remembered that the convention, which is attended by a majority of the missionaries, would naturally meet at Bassein once in eight or nine years, and any who really desired to see the working of the college in the intervals could do so quite easily. [Three steamers a week make the inland trip to Bassein in thirty or thirty-six hours.] The Mission Press is in Rangoon, and, of course, the facilities for publishing text-books, procuring supplies, etc., for the college, would be somewhat greater there. 1 These considerations should have due weight, but they should never be allowed to overbalance the great moral considerations involved. 4. Certain pecuniary considerations hang on the occupation of the present compound. The adjacent lot known as “ Shady Dell ” reverts to the college, provided permanent buildings are put up here before May, 1875, and are occupied until May, 1892. It is intimated also that a bequest has been made on similar conditions. That these generous provisions were made by the sainted Dr. Wade and others from the purest motives, and, as they deemed, for the highest good of the college, no one can doubt. It is a fair question, however, whether regard to the property involved, or even for the feelings of these 1 Rev. Mr. Nichols has now built up an excellent printing establish¬ ment in connection with the Bassein Institute, on the self-support princi¬ ple, which is capable of doing first-class work in at least three different languages. 218 APPENDIX. devoted friends and servants of Christ, should constrain yon to fix the only collegiate institution for the Karen people in an undesirable position. Besides, as will be seen from the propositions offered below, care will be taken that the college sustains no pecuniary loss by a removal to Bassein. On the other hand, I would bespeak the careful attention of the Executive Committee to arguments in favor of transferring the col¬ lege at once, without further loss of time, to Bassein. 1. Moral Considerations. — Bassein, and especially the immediate neighborhood of the Sgati compound in Bassein, is most quiet and free from the temptations which abound in Rangoon. As Dr. Binney himself remarked the other day, this city is full of prostitutes, liquor, and gambling-shops. The road opposite the compound is lined with the stables and houses of noisy, quarrelsome, gharry-wallahs from Madras and Bengal. Intoxicating liquors are hawked up and down the street, and I am told on good authority that pupils in the college yielded repeatedly to one of these temptations last year. 2. The conditions in Bassein are as favorable as possible for the successful development of the industrial feature of the college. There is an unlimited demand in the Christian villages for all the furniture that the pupils can make in the school workshop. There is ample ground for gardens; and all is so screened, or apart, from the public view, that the boys are not ashamed to do any kind of cooly-work which is required of them. Here the conditions are as unfavorable as possible. There is no demand for furniture such as a Karen school could make; little room for garden-work; and the whole compound is exposed to the gaze of a multitude of passers-by. So long as their teachers work with them, they will do it; but they would be more than human if they relished manual labor, when the boys of St. John’s College, across the street, never soil their hands with honest labor. 3. The ground in Bassein is not occupied, as it is in Rangoon, by great educational establishments of the government, the S. P. G., and the Roman Catholics. The government is erecting a school-building, to cost Rs. 90,000, on one of the finest sites in town. The Roman- Catholic bishop is putting up a fine building for a girls’ school on another site equally eligible. Do the best we can with the grounds and funds at our disposal here, and we shall be entirely overshadowed by those schools, so far as buildings, grounds, and outward appliances go. We ought to look at the school, not at its setting; at the work turned out, not at the workshop, I know. Some of us can do this, but APPENDIX. 219 it is not so easy for Karens. I also must regard the proximity of the S. P. G. “ St. John’s College ” as an objection. Our scholars are tempted to idleness and extravagance (not to speak of immorality) by what they see in their neighbors. 4. Economy .—In Bassein you already possess, at a mere nominal cost, a noble compound of twenty-six acres, admirably adapted and ample for the wants of both college, station-school, and missionaries’ residence. The new buildings, planned by myself, are so arranged that a natural and symmetrical division can be made. The com¬ pound now occupied by the college has a considerable market value. Whether it would bring all that it cost, or not, I have not the means of knowing. In order that the question of removal may be considered on its own merits, I hereby pledge myself to pay over to the endowment or building fund of the college Rs. 5,500 (the cost of “ Shady Dell ”) within three months after the removal of the institution to Bassein. This is on the understanding that the corps of teachers be promptly filled, as agreed to before I left America. I would make, as the conditions of removal, that we have carte- blanche from the Karens, and all concerned, to take such part of the compound and existing buildings for the use of the college as seem to us best adapted for our purpose; that the Karens meet one-half of the expense of new buildings, up to Rs. 20,000, the friends of missions in America to meet the other half; and that they pledge themselves to furnish sufficient rice for the consumption of the pupils in the college, year by year, as they have always done hitherto for their own high school. I have not consulted Rev. Mr. Ilopkinson, nor the Karens, on this subject as yet; but I know those twenty-five ordained pastors, and those sixty churches, and they know me, and I firmly believe that they would do all that I have indicated, within a reason¬ able time, and that God would bless them richly in the doing of it. Besides these considerations, the cost of provisions, such as the pupils require, I find to be from thirty to fifty per cent more in Ran¬ goon than in Bassein. This difference must increase the expenses of the college hundreds of rupees yearly. Again, by a special provision of government, the mission, as well as school buildings, 1 on that 1 Since this was written, three or four houses occupied by Karen families, and the land purchased by the mission outside of the original grant of ten acres, have been taxed ; but the whole amount is trifling compared with the heavy assessments on the Rangoon school property. 220 APPENDIX compound are exempt from taxation, while here the taxes are heavy. All this is in addition to the saving to the pupils in travelling ex¬ penses, dress, and pocket-money, as indicated above. Greater than all other economical considerations, if the college w T ere transferred to Bassein, the necessity of creating a distinct preparatory department would he obviated. Mr. Smith of Identhada, and perhaps other missionaries, is very strongly opposed to our having any preparatory department at all, fearing that it will interfere with the station-schools. But if an academical department is a necessity at Hamilton, and if Water- ville Academy and Lyons Preparatory School at Providence are doing an essential service for the colleges to which they are affiliated, such a department is still more necessary here in Burma. Now r , the normal school in Bassein has long been placed at the head of all schools of its class in Burma by the educational officers of government. Why should not that self-sustaining school be the germ out of which the college should grow ? Place that school under the direction of the president and faculty of the college, and it would become all that we should need. The expense in labor and money of creating a new preparatory school, which w r e are trying to do at great disadvantage here, would all be saved; the objections felt by Mr. Smith and others would be removed; and all the benefits of such a department in the college W'Ould be fully secured. 5. Bassein is the most favorable location in Burma for a female department. I am convinced that no amount of argument or per¬ suasion w r ould ever induce Karen parents to send any considerable number of their daughters to the college in its present location. The number of young women in Bassein district, w ho are able and anxious to pursue advanced studies, is large-, and the compound and its sur¬ roundings are all that any Karen parent or missionary could desire. To conclude this long paper, I would say again that the reflex influences of the college on your most advanced mission-field wrould be incalculable. In Bassein alone, do we see a positive and strong demand for such an institution. It is wanted there. Here it is toler¬ ated, or accepted as a matter of course. It makes my heart leap to think of the sympathy, the active aid, the sacrifices, which that dear people w r ould give to the college, and also to think of the blessings which W'Ould come to them, and to the heathen of that great district, if the transfer were made in the manner indicated. If you locate the college there, it will grow naturally out of the largest and best system of schools to be found anywhere in your missions. The work will be APPENDIX. 221 done in the simplest and most economical way; and I firmly believe that the college will take deep root in the hearts of the people, and long abide in strength to bless the land with its fruitage. The decision of the location rightfully rests with you; and I shall loyally abide by it, whatever it may be. At the same time, it is right for me to remind the Committee that I only accepted the honor of this appointment, in the hope that I could here do more for the high¬ est interests of the Karens than elsewhere. With my present light, it seems to me that I could do more to secure and advance those interests, — I mean the interests of higher education for the whole Karen people , — in Bassein, icitliout the college even, than I can hope to do here at the head of the college. 1 I have sent a copy of this communication to Dr. Binney and the other Karen missionaries, with the request that they will forward their views on this subject, whether adverse or otherwise, directly to you. While I know that several of the brethren have very strong objections to the present location of the college, I have no assurance that one of them will support the views of this paper. If they are just and pleasing to the Master, whom I am trying to serve in this matter, it is sufficient for me. To save time, which is more than money in the present instance, please telegraph at my expense, as soon as the Committee come to a decision : either “ Build at once,” in which case I shall understand that you deem a removal unwise, and wish me to go on with the build¬ ing here, as if this subject had not been broached; or “ Canvass Bassein,” which would imply that you are disposed to consider the subject favorably, if the conditions mentioned should be agreed to by the Karen missionaries and pastors of that district. If your decision is favorable to this proposition, I should wish to be placed in charge of the entire educational work on the Sgau com¬ pound in Bassein. Mr. Hopkinson would find work enough for three men among the churches and jungle schools. May I trouble you to send a copy of this paper to Professor Buggies with a kind word ? So good and true a friend of the college should know the exact truth in a matter of this importance. 1 We find here a “ college ” which is in no respect farther advanced than the school we left in Bassein. The pupils are certainly not more promising, and they are hardly one-third as numerous, while the large and perennial supply of new pupils eagerly pressing for admission seems wholly wanting. 222 APPENDIX. With earnest prayers that the Committee may receive wisdom to decide this question, not according to my poor wish, but according to the perfect will of our glorious Lord, I remain as ever, your fellow-servant and brother in Christ, C. H. CARPENTER, President of ilie Karen Baptist College. (B) Extracts from a printed Letter of Rev. C. A. Nichols Ip Rev. D. A. W. Smith , D.D., dated Bassein, Aug. 11, 1885. . . . “Yes; lain in favor of their contributing the anna per mem¬ ber, and more besides, in that the condition of the home treasury now affords an excellent opportunity to open up the way to the Karens doing what they long since should have done, — support their own theological seminary in toto. Moreover, I thoroughly believe that they will do it, of course excepting the support of their American president. . . . When I was in Rangoon last dry season, no one more sincerely hoped than I, that the experiment of changing the dormito¬ ries to the other side of the compound [an experiment which cost the Union several hundred dollars. — Ed.] would succeed in ridding us of that plague. But now it seems it has not; and it continues to be positively dangerous for a boy to go to the seminary for a course of study with that plague impending over him. Mauket, who was one of our brightest boys, and who has now been at home about two years, still suffers from the effects of his short stay in the seminary; and when we were in Rangoon last October, he staid on the compound one night only, when an attack immediately assailed him, obliging him to return home by the next steamer. Others, one after another, have had the same experience. 1 Our Bassein young men have braved it nobly; some of them desiring to return to their studies, while as yet it would have been a great risk to have allowed them to do so. Hence a change somewhere seems called for; and now that we propose a change of base as to the support of the institution, in view of the debt at home, and that a radical one, nothing less than full support, it seems a good opportunity to settle, once for all, the question of loca¬ tion. ... A location not central and connected with a station, but 1 For eight or nine years this mysterious disease has dogged the semi¬ nary in its present location persistently, and the lives of one of its most promising teachers and perhaps a score of its pupils have been sacrificed. It docs not seem to attack Europeans. — Editor. APPENDIX. 223 supported by the people themselves, I should consider incomparably preferable to a central location which was disconnected from a sta¬ tion, should its centrality and its isolation necessitate its being wholly or in part supported by American money. In such a case, I would say, by all means remove to Bassein at once. “ Notwithstanding the heavy load which it would involve for the Karen people to enter alone upon the full support of the seminary, in its present location, unaided by an endowment, yet, if it were not for beri beri , I should consider that the Karen missionaries were bound to urge their native brethren to take upon themselves this responsibility immediately, in view of the financial straits at home. But . . . the persistence of the beri beri makes it imperative that a change should be made, whether we desire it or not. ... I know that it will be hard to give up all of the pleasant and convenient features of the present location. . . . Therefore, I think it best ... to ask them to take upon themselves the full support of the seminary, excepting that of its American head. This we cannot reasonably do, until we have done all we can to make it practicable for them so to do; i.e., by giving the seminary a healthful location, and securing for it an endow¬ ment, by means of funds which can be made available by the proceeds of what may easily be saved by either of the three changes suggested, viz. : — “ (1) Should any invitation be given whereby a favorable location in Rangoon could be obtained, accept that; or, “ (2) Buy some place easy of access by railroad, say at Insein, where property is cheap, and the climate healthful; or, “ (3) Accept the standing offer of the Bassein brethren.” (C) Extracts from an Open Letter to the Faculty and Trustees of the Karen Theological Seminary , by Rev. J. A . Freiday, dated Rangoon , Sept. 2, 1885. “ The president of the seminary, in a recent circular letter addressed to Mr. Nichols, questions whether the Karens ought now to assume, and expresses the opinion that they cannot at once assume, the entire support of the seminary, apart from the salary of its president. . . . The annual amount required to attain the desirable result advocated by Mr. Nichols is stated by Dr Smith as about Rs. 3,600. An annual gift, therefore, of less than three annas (seven or eight cents) per member for 20,000 Karens, is all that is required to at once attain the 224 APPENDIX. excellent object proposed, even without the help of any endowment, and supposing the beri beri objection removed, and the seminary con¬ tinued in its present location. . . . Many reasons at once suggest themselves why American Christians should not be taxed with the seminary’s support one moment after the Karens are able and willing to assume that support themselves. It is a task of some delicacy, and a labor of greatly increased difficulty, to press the immediate attainment of the excellent object advocated, ‘ with the true Bassein ring,’ by Mr. Nichols, in opposition to the frankly expressed opinion of the seminary’s president that the object proposed is beyond the present obligations antTability of the Karens. . . . “ If any apology be needed, I may say that my own interest in the matter has been aroused chiefly by its relations as a needed and possi¬ ble application of the principle of self-support to new missions, and by the terms of what is known as ‘the Bassein offer to the seminary.’ The time has certainly come for every possible application of the prin¬ ciple of self-support to our Burma missions; and it is vitally important that the example and practice of our only theological school, the teacher of the future leaders of our Karen churches, should be on the right side in this important matter. “ The terms of the Bassein offer are fully stated in Mr. Carpenter’s Self-Support Illustrated, and in his later Study in Mission Finance (‘Tract No. 1’), in which he declares that the acceptance of the Bassein offer will make it entirely feasible to relieve the Union henceforth from all charges for Karen theological instruction. Con¬ ceding that the acceptance of this offer will accomplish this most desirable result, the following objections are yet offered to its accept¬ ance : — “ 1. Rangoon, as the centre of the province, is the best possible location for the Seminary. To this it is answered, that Bassein with a generous and vigorous constituency that wants the Seminary, and will at once do so much for it, that, with an endowment made possible by its pres¬ ent property, it will at once become self-supporting, is better than a central location with almost total dependence on American support; that ‘the present compound has been infected for eight years with a mysterious and deadly disease ; ’ that, as there are no Karens in the cities, the students are training for exclusively jungle service, and it is therefore wiser and cheaper to train them in a jungle town, at the headquarters of a strong Karen mission in full sympathy with the Seminary, than in a great city isolated from every Karen community, APPENDIX. 225 and filled with temptations; that Bassein is the place of all others for a successful preparatory vernacular and English feeder for the Seminary; and that it is far better for the present self-respect and future usefulness of the students themselves, and for the proper spiritual development of the Karens, that the Seminary become a child of the Karens in any place, than that it continue a child of America in Rangoon. “ 2. A chapel with school and recitation rooms , over and above what the Bassein Karens offer , ivould be required to preserve the present efficiency of the Seminary's instructors. If the Bassein Karens could not them¬ selves thus enlarge their offer, the necessary building could be secured by the sale of part of the Seminary’s present property, and enough of it still be left to secure or constitute a handsome endowment. “ 3. The efficiency of the Seminary would be lessened by its removal to Bassein. With precisely the same teachers, a helpful endowment, a suitable equipment, a location at the headquarters of a strong Karen mission doing it good and receiving good from it, its autonomy guar¬ anteed, its efficiency would certainly be greater than in its present isolation from every Karen community, with no endowment, no more useful equipment, and only the same teachers. “4. In Bassein the Seminary would inevitably cease to be a yeneral Karen institution; for , once located there , the Bassein Karens ivould either control it in every particular , or abandon it. The refusal of the Bassein Karens to support the Convention is mentioned as a justification of this fear. There is here no necessary insinuation of bad faith in the Bassein offer, nor of distrust of Bassein Karens, but only a broad recognition of the fact that Karens like to have their own way; but the autonomy of the Seminary being guaranteed in the beginning, the faculty and trustees with their Bassein supporters, aided by the grace of God, may be trusted to continue that autonomy, and to preserve the general character of the school. The course of the Bassein Karens towards the Convention does not justify any fear for the Seminary; for others, as well as Bassein Karens, doubt the efficiency of the Con¬ vention, while all concede the need and efficiency of the Seminary. “ 5. The missionaries of other stations would not support the Seminary in Bassein. This is rather a humiliating confession that missionaries, as well as Karens, like to have their own way. But a good thing is bound to go for what it is worth in the end, and the Seminary’s sup¬ port, wherever located, will depend on its work; and the missionaries will support it, wherever located, only so far and so long as they are 226 APPENDIX. satisfied that the Seminary will train their students more efficiently than they themselves can train them in the home station. “6. The presence of so many attractive girls in Bassein icould imperil the habits of study, the affections, and ( possibly) the morals of the students. The dangers to the students’ morals and habits of study are much greater in their present isolation and freedom from restraints in a great, wicked city. The influence of so many educated girls would be refining, and the girls themselves might furnish in many cases a better quality of wives than the students now get. A few students might be lost to their own stations by marriage and settlement in the Bassein district; but they would not be lost to the cause, and such intermarriages would prove an efficient means of breaking up present antipathies between Karens of the different stations. [I am not aware that there have ever been such antipathies. — C. H. C.] “7. The past positions of some Karen missionaries with respect to this offer would require its continued rejection. Many new missionaries have entered the Karen work since an expression was partially obtained on the subject, and its reconsideration might now show a prevailing sentiment for its acceptance. Personal feelings and com¬ forts should not be allowed to stand in the way of the Seminary’s greater usefulness. . . . “ I have no authority to speak for Mr. Brayton, but in conversa¬ tion with him on this subject he has expressed in the strongest language his conviction that the interests of the Karens themselves require that the Seminary now be made self-supporting ; and he has besides expressed the hope, that, before another forty years shall have passed, all its instructors will be Karens, and nothing whatever be drawn from America for its support, save Christian love and sym¬ pathy. ... It is neither necessary nor wise that the Seminary’s equipment be greatly superior to that of the stations from which the students come. An extravagant equipment and a lavish provision for the students will not only give them wrong ideas of American wealth, but have a certain tendency to put them out of sympathy with the humble surroundings and life from which they come, and to which they must return, and in which they must enthusiastically, self- sacrificingly, and humbly spend their lives, to be the kind of leaders needed by a humble jungle people. “ I estimate the value of the total Seminary property at Us. 50,000 [this was written before there was any prospect of the annexation of Upper Burma. — Ed]. The first time I asked Dr. Smith for his esti- APPENDIX . 227 mate, he said Rs. 100,000. ... In any case, none of the plans sug¬ gested would force a sale. Indeed, if the Bassein offer were accepted, it might be best not to sell at all, but rather to let the present proper¬ ty constitute the Seminary’s endowment. The ‘ Warren House’ will rent for Rs. 100; the Smith House for Rs. 150; and not very expen¬ sive alterations would convert the chapel into another dwelling which would rent for a further Rs. 100, — or a total of Rs. 350 per month; which is itself not only a handsome interest on Rs. 50,000, but Rs. 50 a month more than the sum required to secure the Seminary’s imme¬ diate self-support. There would be left, besides, all the materials of unsalable native houses, which in case of not distant removal could be moved and used again ; and the sale of the building sites thus made vacant would produce a further substantial revenue ; and the ac¬ tual occupation of such sites ... by residences for Europeans would increase the value of the reserved houses and property. Nearly the whole of this amount would be available, were the Seminary removed to Bassein. “ But to every plan to secure the Seminary’s greater efficiency and self-support, but involving a removal from its present location, it is objected: — 1. The heri beri need not be considered a reason for removal; and re¬ moval would not help the matter, for the disease has appeared nearly every¬ where in Burma. Dr. Smith, however, concedes that several cases last January did not yield to the best treatment; and the disease has not appeared in the places to which a removal is possible, with any such virulence or frequency as on the Seminary compound. The Bassein Sgau compound has been quite free from it. “2. Any change would impeach the wisdom of those who located the Seminary where it now is. A change for the better would rather exalt that wisdom which secured a site so increasingly valuable as to earn for the Seminary a handsome endowment. “ 3. The person who gave the purchase-money for the present property gave it to locate the Seminary where it now is. The object of the donor was not to injure, but to help, the Seminary; and whenever that object can be furthered by its removal, the purpose of the donor requires the removal to be made. . . . “5. Any change from its present location would be to pluck up by the roots and throw away the labors of forty years [only twenty-one. — Ed]. Though the Seminary be forty years old, in this matter of self-support it has no roots in Karen soil; and each of the plans suggested not 228 APPENDIX. only conserves the labors of forty years, but, by driving the roots of the Seminary into Karen soil, gives desirable assurance of its greater future usefulness. “6. An endowment would not stimulate , but repress , Karen support. What the Seminary can do for itself it should do, and the Karens can then be best appealed to for what may yet be needed. There is no good reason to believe that a result so exceptional would follow from endowment. “7. The object proposed can be attained at some indejinite time in the future by the enlargement of the one-anna movement without taking the risks and trouble of removal. The object proposed is secondary to the effi¬ ciency of the Seminary; and while its present isolation from every Karen community may be favorable to its independence, its present independence is dependent on a generous and continuous supply of American money, and unfavorable alike to the higher self-respect and the greatest spiritual efficiency of the students themselves, which re¬ quire that men who are to be the future spiritual leaders of the Karens be supported, so far as possible, by Karens, and engaged in some light form of religious work for Karens, especially for the unconverted, even while pursuing their studies. The one-anna collection is the only effort being made in the direction of self-support; and the appli¬ cation of the income of that movement, not to reduce home drafts, but to the enlargement of the present superior equipment of the Seminary, when considered with reference to the greater need for a better equip¬ ment of their own on the part of the contributing stations, and in the light of the needs of unreached heathen everywhere about us, not only wears an unpleasant appearance of selfishness, but the amount of the income itself affords no hope whatever of complete self-support by that process. . . . “ I do not believe there will be any strong and abiding impetus in the direction of new missions in Burma, until the older and richer missions find a way to release more American money for that purpose; and if the Karen Theological Seminary, the teacher of our future church leaders, itself now forty years old, its own graduates, according to Dr. Smith, ‘the brain and the sinew of the strongest churches in every station,’ and therefore in the best possible positions to render it needed help, and, as the only general theological school, having ail exclusive claim on a constituency of twenty thousand Karens, can¬ not take the lead, I do not know where we may look for a leader.” APPENDIX. 229 (D) Extract from a Letter of Dr. Francis Mason to Secretary Peck, dated Toungoo, Oct. 30, 1857. “ I hope to see the normal school conducted without using the ap¬ propriation you have made [Rs. 220 only!]. The natives will assume the responsibility of supporting the young men, as they have of the girls. The site of the young men’s schoolhouse has already been selected, and some of the people are getting down timber for the building. , “ I am as anxious that the natives should support their normal schools, as I am that they should support their village schools. When they have to support their pupils, it will have a good effect in tending to prevent the less advanced scholars from coming to the city, who can just as well pursue their studies in the jungle. It is very undesirable, in many respects, to have Karens study in the large towns. It is fre¬ quently ruinous to their morals. Not but that the teachers do all that can be done to prevent such calamities; but it is the result of the circumstances in which they are placed, the temptations to which they are exposed, and which are beyond the control of the missionaries. “ Then, at the best, they acquire expensive habits, and habits of self-indulgence, in the cities, which unfit them to live in the jungles. They learn to eat bread and butter, to drink tea and eat sugar. I have constant applications for tea, a very dear article here, from assistants that have been educated in the towns; and a Karen letter before me asks an acquaintance in Maulma into buy him a teapot. Not long ago a wild Karen came to me to borrow a rupee, that he might have ‘one meal of sweet salt,’ as they denominate sugar. They will eat it by handfuls, when obtainable. Clothing, too, unsuit¬ able for Karens, is constantly coveted. “ I am thoroughly convinced that we must look for our assistants to be raised up from the churches on the ground ; and the more I see of the Karens, and the measures pursued for their instruction, the more I am impressed with the paramount importance of educating them to the greatest practicable extent in their own villages. The few that come to the cities should stay in them as short a time as possible. “ This effort to have the Karens of Toungoo carry forward all their educational operations, short of the theological seminary, as they do the preaching, ... is now an experiment; [but] no fears are enter¬ tained of ultimate success, if there be no interference. ... I am 230 APPENDIX. much gratified by the course brother Cross is pursuing to make the Tavoy churches self-supporting. Great as is the evil of divisions, and the crippling of our operations, as it is called, if the result is that the missions learn to support themselves, the good will be greater than the evil, — God’s blessing greater than man’s transgression.” Would that brother Bunker and his churches to-day stood as squarely for self-support as the same churches stood under Dr. Mason thirty years ago! (E) Ten Facls for the Friends of Karen Education to consider. (1) It is a fact that the Karens are an agricultural people of retiring habits, and that it is far better for them to remain so. (2) It is a fact that they need higher facilities for religious and secular education than they at present enjoy, to fit them for life, and especially for missionary work, among their own and kindred races. (3) It is a fact that they are able to contribute largely towards the cost of this higher education, and that they would be better off to do so. (4) It is a fact that Bassein is absolutely central to the richer and more advanced half of the Christian Karen population of Burma. (5) It is a fact that the Bassein Karens alone have contributed much more for religious and educational purposes during the last ten years than all the other Karen, Burman, and Shan Christians of Burma put together. (G) It is a fact that the Sgau Karen compound in Bassein comprises twenty-six acres of ground, of which ten are free from taxes, and that as a whole, for school purposes, it is superior to any other compound owned by the Missionary Union in Burma. (7) It is a fact that the school-buildings on that compound, recently erected and furnished at a cost of over Rs. 65,000, are admirably adapted for school work, and sufficient for the accommodation of 300 pupils and their native teachers. This heavy expense has been met by the Karens and their local friends, without material aid from America or from government; and the fact furnishes a strong and unique argument for the location of the higher schools for Karens in Bassein. (8) It is also a fact that of all our mission-schools in Burma, the Bassein Institute has secured an endowment of $35,000 from the will- APPENDIX. 231 ing contributions of the Karens and local friends, without appeal to the Christian public of America. (9) It. is a fact that the American Baptist “Educational Commis¬ sion ” adopted this as a fundamental principle : that generous local help should be absolutely prerequisite to help from the Commission. Can there be any doubt that this principle should be applied to edu¬ cational institutions in the foreign field? (10) It is a fact that the Bassein Karens are the only people who have ever invited the Karen College and Seminary to their hearts and homes. Their invitation has been often renewed, and always accom¬ panied with definite and generous pledges of aid. BY THE SAME AUTHOR. SELF-SUPPORT ILLUSTRATED IN THE HISTORY OF THE BASSEIN KAREN MISSION. This work has been pronounced by excellent judges to be one of the most valuable contributions ever made to the his¬ tory and philosophy of missions. Ten missionary societies have ordered a large number of copies for distribution among their missionaries, and the book has been introduced as a text¬ book in the Training Institution of the Danish Evangelical Missionary Society. Single copies of the new edition, with Dr. Hovey’s excellent introduction and a copy of this tract (really a supplement to the larger volume), will be sent, post¬ paid , to any address in any land for $1.50, or to ministers and missionaries for $1.25, on application to C. H. Carpenter, Newton Centre, M&ss. It may be procured, also, at any de¬ pository of the American Baptist Publication Society. OPINIONS OF EDITORS, MISSIONARIES, AND OTHERS. “ The study and experience of all the years that have transpired since we went to India, lead us to welcome this volume, and devoutly thank God for it. It is the lai'gest contribution to the work of foreign missions within our knowledge since the days of the apostles and the early mar¬ tyrs, — larger than a gift of a million dollars in solid cash. Let the lessons of this history be duly studied and applied by every foreign missionary, and we may look for the speedy evangelization of the entire heathen world.” — Rev. Dr. Wilder, editor Missionary Review. “ A book full of interest, and sure to be of lasting advantage to the cause which it seeks to promote. The writer is deeply in earnest. He is more than the historian, and more than the advocate. Profoundly im¬ pressed with the truth of the record, and with the importance of the principles it illustrates, he gives to his pages a strong personality, which impresses itself upon the reader, and wins him to the side of the man with whom he is walking in Burma.” — Rev. Alexander McKenzie, D.D., in the Christian Union. I “ An extremely interesting inside view of missionary work.” — The Independent. 42 • \ - THE BASS El N KAREN MISSION. 43 “ Will be recognized at once, by all competent to pronounce on the matter, as a very important contribution to the history and theory of for¬ eign missions.” — Rev. James Mujdge (late of Lucknow, India), in Zion's Herald. “ The reading of it is to be urgently commended, especially to the home conductors of missions and to all missionaries. — Allgemeine Missions- Zeitschrift. “ A work of remarkable interest and value, not only as a history, but also as an argument based on the facts. . . . The whole story of trial and triumph is told with admirable tact and temper.” — Homiletic Monthly. “A thrilling account, and will be read with the deepest interest by all friends of missionary work.” — Christian Commonwealth, London. “ Mr. Carpenter has laid the whole Christian world under great obliga¬ tions to him for this noble book.” — Christian Standard, Cincinnati. “ We commend the book to all Christians as a record of the triumphs of faith and heroism of martyrs. We commend it especially to mission¬ aries at home ami abroad, for its lessons on the subject of self-support are important to both.” — Missionary Record (Cumberland Presbyterian), St. Louis. “ Should be read by every pastor in America. It is a timely book, an inspiring book, a book that has a mission. Its lessons are needed by the leaders in missions throughout the Christian world; and the inspiration of the example of zeal, self-denial, and heroism shown by the missionaries and the Karen Christians is needed by all.” — Baptist Pioneer, Selma, Ala. “ Very suggestive and instructive. A valuable contribution, not only to the history, but to the philosophy, of missions. It is the most historically accurate and carefully written book that has yet been published on the missions in Burma. We wish every secretary of a missionary society, every director, and every missionary, could read it.” — Chronicle of the London Missionary Society. “ Exceedingly suggestive. We wish it could be put into the hands of every missionary in India. Valuable hints can be found in it upon many missionary topics, while the spirit which pervades the book from end to end cannot but be stimulating to missionary zeal and enterprise. The heroes of the story are not exalted to impossible pinnacles of excellence, but their frailties are admitted with all frankness and honesty.”— Rev. Dr. Thoburn, in the Indian Witness, Calcutta. “Subsidy enervated the churches; self-help, on the other hand, invig¬ orated them. We wish that every promoter of missions could trace for himself the proof of this statement in the admirable history of the Bassein Mission by Mr. Carpenter. In a narrative of intense and romantic inter¬ est, it presents a distinct view of one of the best missions of the century, carried on by Christian heroes, who shortened their lives by devotion to the cause they loved so well. The adoption, gradually and wisely, of the principle of self-help in all our missions, would, we are persuaded, inaugu- 44 SELF-SUPPORT: HISTORY OF rate a new era of progress throughout the world.” — Spurgeon’s Sword and Trowel. “ I am exceedingly glad to see your book, because it brings so freshly to my mind a man who was very dear to me, and whom I esteemed as one of our best missionaries. I knew Brother Abbott before he left Hamilton. . . . I think he was the most genial man I ever knew. Your book brings him fresh before me, with so many pleasant recollections, that I cherish the book as a blessing and a friend. I think it cannot fail to do good to all who read it, and I think that those who read it will be many. If they love missions, they will read it; and, if they read it, they will love mis¬ sions.”— Rev. E. B. Cross, D.D., Toungoo, Burma. “ I read your book through, from beginning to end. I enjoyed it much. . . . I approve and indorse it, as a whole, most heartily and emphatically. I wish it might be in every Baptist family and in every Sunday-school library in the land. I thank you for your faithful work. May God reward you by making the book the means of awakening a deeper interest in missions, and a deeper study of the principles, methods, and policy of missions.” — Rev. A. T. Rose, Rangoon, Burma. “ Your book has been read by some of us here with much interest. I mean to keep it moving among my missionary friends.”—R ev. G. L. Mason, Ningpo, Cliiua. “ I fully approve of the principle, and we are trying to throw the bur¬ dens more and more on the native brethren.” — Rev. R. H. Graves, D.D., Canton, China. “We have read your good and timely book, ‘ Self-Support,’ with pleas¬ ure and profit. I think it will do great good.” — Rev. E. Z. Simmons, Canton, China. “ Of all missions, the Bassein Karen Mission leads the list, in my hum¬ ble judgment, and largely because it lias kept to the principle of your text.” — Rev. W. H. Sloan, Mexico (late Rangoon, Burma). “ A wonderful record. Its study will do any man good. With the principles it advocates, I am in full sympathy.”— Rev. J. A. Freiday, Bhamo, Upper Burma. “ The history of this mission is faithfully and most interestingly re¬ counted, and yet the thing to be illustrated is never for a moment lost sight of. Indeed, it could not well be, so incorporated is this principle of self-support in the entire life and growth of the mission. . . . Our grati¬ tude is certainly due to [the author] for thus collecting and putting into permanent form these records of one of the most successful missions of modern times or of any time. . . . To hunt about for a stray fly or two in this book of precious ointment may seem a very ungracious task.” — Rev. D. A. W. Smith, D.D., Rangoon, Burma. “ I am glad you have published [your book], and still more so, that the facts which it records ever took place to enable you to publish it. I hope that the book will be widely read, and that it may promote a true knowl- THE BASSE IN KAREN MISSION. 45 edge of missionary work and interest therein.”—R ev. C. W. Park, late editor of the Indian Evangelical Review , Bombay. “ I have read it through with pleasure and profit. It is a noble histori¬ cal record of the early days of the mission, and full of important informa¬ tion and suggestions as to the later and the‘present.”— Rev. S. F. Smith, D.D., author of Missionary Sketches, Rambles in Mission-Fields, etc. “ My wife and I are reading your bool^ with great interest. The account of the early beginnings of Christianity among the Karens, when the Word was handed on from mouth to mouth, and no missionary came for years together, is wonderful.” — Hon. C. Bernard, Chief Commissioner British Burma, Rangoon. “ A great mistake has been made by our societies South in their manner of work among the freedmen. They are not helping them to do the work, but are doing it for them in large measure. ... I hope your book may help to change this.” — Rev. H. Woodsmall, Atlanta, Ga. “ I read your book with profound interest. My joy and admiration in view of Christian missions were greatly increased. The type of piety developed by the apostolic labors and teaching of the sainted Abbott seems to me nearer to the New-Testatnent model than any other found in our time. Your book must do great good.”— Rev. G. W. Bosworth, D.D., Cambridge, Mass. “ I cannot write you of my thoughts as I read this wonderful story. . . . I never dreamed of the work which was going on when I was a child, and used to hear all the talk about * Abbott’s work.’ I thank you a thousand times for the gathering of the threads, and for putting them before us in this clear and connected narrative.” — Mrs. M. A. Edmond, Salem, Mass. “ I am sure your excellent book will be read by [our missionaries] with the same interest as that with which I have read it, and that it will con¬ tribute to the furtherance of the system of self-support in our missions. . . . I wish this sound principle to be instilled into the minds of [our missionary students] from the very beginning of their preparation for their future work.” — Pastor V. Holm, Secretary Danish Evangelical Missionary Society, Gladsaxe, Denmark. “ I w'ant to tell you how much I am enjoying the reading of * Self-Sup¬ port ’ in Bassein. I am glad you have brought out Mr. Abbott’s views in regard to self-support. We must look to the future in laying the founda¬ tion. A system may be adopted which will yield apparently greater pres¬ ent results, but be finally pernicious.” — Miss L. E. Miller (late of Tavoy). “ We are enjoying your book very much, and second Dr. J.’s suggestion that the Karens should have an abridged edition in their own language. If you will immediately prepare such an edition, I shall be glad to put it through our press to the best of my ability.” — Rev. C. A. Nichols, Bas¬ sein, Burma. 4G THE BASSE IN KAREN MISSION ” “ T have found great interest in reading your volume upon self-support. God's lessons in the Bassein Sgau Karen work cannot be made too con¬ spicuous. I only wish now that our Board could go hack with you to Western Burma, and spend a week on your held.” — Bev. W. F. Bain- bridge, author of “ Bound-tlie-World Tour,” etc. “ I have just finished the reading of your hook, ‘ Self-Support,’ and feel that I must thank you for it — or God that he led you to write it. . . . I think that Brother Abbott was divinely led to [the true principle] — ‘ Karen support for Karens, American support for Americans.’ . . . Your book cannot but do good.”— Bev. E. T. Sandford, St. Jolinsbury, Yt. “ I have read it through from beginning to end with constantly increas¬ ing interest, and I hope profit also.” — Bev. S. B. Band, Amherst, Mass, (formerly of Maulmain). “ It will be a very readable hook to many even who do not comprehend its logical tendency. . . . Self-support should he the aim in all our mis¬ sions at the earliest moment practicable, and self-control also. The won¬ derful progress of these Karen churches will be helpful in leading us in the right direction. I congratulate you on so successful a completion of your gre. t undertaking. Your book may accomplish more even than all your successful personal ministrations as a minister of the gospel among the heathen.” — Ebenezer Thresher, LL.D,, Dayton, O. “ I thank you most cordially for your very valuable volume defending the great principle of self-support in missions.” — Bev. Joseph Cook, Boston. “ I have read your volume with much interest. I accept heartily the theory set forth, as limited and illustrated in the Bassein mission.” — Bev. Dr. N. G. Clark, Corresponding Secretary A.B.C.F.M., Boston. “ A very interesting book. I have thus far read about one-half of it, and hope to complete it in a few days. I take it with me on my journeys. The history of the Karen missions has always been of stirring interest to me; but the better knowledge which this book gives me greatly increases that interest.” — Bev. Dr. J. M. Beid, Corresponding Secretary Methodist- Episcopal Missions, New York. “ It is a great satisfaction to me to see the high merit and indefatigable work of my friend Mr. E. L. Abbott, in years long gone by, placed on record in a volume which will be read with deep interest in these islands as well as in America. Need I say that your interesting book recalTs to me many happy days among the simple Karens in the midst of their hills and jungles?” — Gen. Sir A. P. Phayke, late Chief Commissioner of Brit¬ ish Burma, Governor of Mauritius, etc., Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland. “I am reading ‘Self-Support in Bassein’ with due care, and growing interest as I proceed. Those of us who have a practical knowledge of mis¬ sions, and who see how their strength and progress have been retarded by foreign nursing and a far too lavish supply of money, cannot but bo inter- "SELF-SUPPORT ” 47 ested in the history of a healthier attempt. The book, as you say, will awaken some sharp criticism; but it will commend itself to the judgment of most unprejudiced minds. It is especially advisable to get it into the hands of missionaries and the secretaries and directors of mission societies. The opinion, I imagine, is now general, that the earlier missionaries were wrong in doing so much for the native churches; and now comes the diffi¬ culty of correcting their mistaken policy.” — Rev. E. Storkow, Brighton, England (for many years a missionary of the L.M.S. in Calcutta). “ I have read Self-Support ’ with an interest second only to that with which 1 read the life of Dr. Judson, and in some respects with an interest such as no other mission-story ever awakened in my mind. As I complete the reading, I ask myself, 4 What can be said in reply to the argument which it presents? ’ It seems unanswerable. Two points are made perfectly clear by it, — the necessity of developing a spirit of self-support among the con¬ verts, and the need of a Christian education for the people who have been evangelized. The first principle lies at the very root of Christianity.” — Rev. G. B. Gow, D.D., Glen’s Falls, N Y. n The book is cheap at $1 50, as books are published, and its contents are richer than its external dress and form. I hope it may have a large circulation. Its excellences are abundant, and its failings are few and by no means considerable.”— Rev. J. N. Murdock, D.D., Corresponding Sec¬ retary A. B. M. Union. “I thank you for your interesting book. We think it would be useful for our mission-conference libraries in India, and are ordering twelve copies through Triibner & Co. for that purpose.” — Eugene Stock, Editorial Secretary Church Missionary Society. “Let me thank you for the service which you have rendered the cause of Christian missions by writing 4 Self-Support in Bassein.’ I have just finished the careful reading of it, and am profoundly impressed with its value. It is a revelation, a demonstration, and an inspiration, — a revela¬ tion of missionary life of unsurpassed interest; an historical demonstra¬ tion of your thesis, that the evangelical work done by natives in our foreign fields must be sustained by natives ; an inspiration of courage and hope in the prosecution of our divinely appointed task of giving the gospel to the world. Upon the method which you advocate, there is reasonable ground for faith ; our resources of men and money seem more nearly ade¬ quate to the demands of the enterprise than under the current system.” — Rev. II. E. Robins, D.D kite President of Colby University. “Among the most valuable of recent additions to missionary litera¬ ture. . . . With admirable modesty the author tells almost nothing about his own personal work. . . . The book gives us fresh occasion to congratu¬ late our brethren of the Southern Baptist Convention, that the poverty of our treasury and the good sense of our missionaries have preserved us from some of the mistakes into which others have fallen.” — Foreign Mission Journal, Richmond, Va., April, 1884. . - * • • 1 . ~ - - . > ' “ ■ T — MUSICALLY DISCORDANT ECHOES TO TRACT NO. “ I have read ‘ No. 3 ’ with great satisfaction, and see nothing in it to fi fault with. I heartily approve it.” — Rev. A. Loughridge, Missionary t the Telugus. Rev. C. B. Ward, of Secunderabad, India, writes: “I cannot feel that I have discharged my duty till I write you a letter expressive of my deep-felt gratitude to God and you for your ‘Missionary Tracts for the Times.’ Some months since I came accidentally across Dr.-’s copy of your volume, ‘ Self-Support,’ and ‘ Tract No. 1.’ The Doctor was trying to lend it as little as possible ; but when he lent it to -, at least a dozen read it. It was read day and night. I emploj^ed two young men to cop} r for me, and brought away about a hundred pages of the book and tract, which I have been using in the ‘India Methodist Watchman.’ . . . God bless you, Brother C. ... If you don’t die till your tracts kill you, you will outlive many of your brethren. ... I want twenty copies of ‘ No. 3.’ ” “ Good Dr. Judson certainly made a mistake in the Burman work in not having the native Christians help themselves more. After a baby has been carried in arms for seventy years, you may put it down and say, ‘ Now walk alone,’ but it won’t walk worth a cent.” — A Missionary to the Barmans. “ [As to self-support], too many missionaries, like some Democrats in ’(>1, are in favor of the Constitution, but ‘agin the enforcement of it.’” — A Missionary of the A. B. C. F. M. in China. “ I have been greatly interested in ‘ No. 3,’ and from my standpoint it is the strongest of the three thus far issued for the general cause. I am sure you will find that these tracts are doing a great deal to undermine the present system of subsidy.” — A Missionary to the Japanese. An excellent secretary of foreign missions writes— “ While I was a missionary in China, my observations and experience led me to the conclusions which you have ably stated and indicated in your tract [No. 3], and my colleagues at-were of the same mind. Since I came to the secretary’s place, I have aimed to shape [our] mission-work, as far as I could, according to these principles, which I believe meet with increasing favor among the missionaries of this Church. Undoubtedly the call to the native Christians to practise self-denial, that they may support the gospel and carry it forward, carries with it a still louder call to the missionaries to set an example in this thing; and this brings the call back with increased force to us at home. ... I enclose S3 for copies of 4 No. 3.’ ” Brother Bunker, of Toungoo, follows, with just the note required to complete the chord of “ the diminished seventh : ” — “ You are fast committing moral suicide. . . . Says a president of one of our universities, whose name is in all the churches, in a private letter to¬ day, referring to your tracts, ‘ His course is astonishing. It is a wonder to me that brother C does not see the mischief of his campaign.’ Says another of almost world-wide reputation, ‘ His course is most astounding.’ Says a prominent sister, . . . ‘ Poor Mr. C.! Was ever man so deluded?’ and more of that kind. Hence, my dear brother, I beg of you to be sure . . . that you are not led by the Spirit from below.” [See fourth page of rover. MISSIONARY TRACTS FOR THE TIMES. No. 1. Self-Support: How far attained in our Missions. Price 10 Cents. No. 2. The American Baptist Missionary Union: Its Present Standing as an Economical Agency for the Propagation of the Gospel. * Pkice 10 Cents. No. 3. The Subsidy System in Missions: Shall it be Extirpated? Pkice 20 Cents. No. 4. Self-Supporting Schools in our Missions: How they may be Escaped. Pkice 20 Cents. No. 5. The Coming Revolution: A Plea for Constitutional Re¬ vision. In Press. For distribution, the above tracts will be furnished at six dollars a hundred, or thirty dollars a thousand. Persons forwarding one dollar in aid of the free-distribution fund will receive the whole series by mail. Address the author, at Newton Centre, Mass. Single copies will be sent, postpaid, to any address, for the pub¬ lished price. Apply to the publisher, at 43 Lincoln Street, Boston, Mass., or at any depository of the American Baptist Publication Society. Pecuniary aid is still greatly needed to meet the heavy expense of publishing and distributing through the mails thirty thousand copies of these tracts. Address the author as above. No. 5, “ The Coming Revolution,” takes up entirely new ground, and is by no means the least important number of the series. It may not be distributed as freely as the previous numbers. To insure receiving a copy, all persons who desire it and have not already ordered should at once do so, enclosing twenty cents in stamps, to the author. Will be published about May 1 (if sufficient encouragement is given), “STUDIES IN MISSION ECONOMICS,” by C. H. Carpenter. The volume will contain the entire series of “Missionary Tracts for the Times,” with various additions and improvements, and will be a handsome muslin-bound duodecimo of about three hundred pages. Price, with a portrait of Rev. E. L. Abbott, the pioneer of self-support among all Ameri¬ can missionaries, one dollar. Pastors who send seventy-live cents to the author, in advance of publication, will receive a copy postpaid ; or, for two dollars the author will send the “ Studies,” and the “History of the Bas- sein Karen Mission.” Be prompt, as lie wishes to sail for the foreign held i;i the early summer. [/See third page of cover.