Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions Part 4

Dealing first with medical missions we suppose that the question might be put in this form, What are the medical missionary resources available in the district in relation to the need which it is proposed to meet?

Here again there arises the difficulty that there is no common agreement as to the purpose of the medical work of the missionary societies. What are the doctors there for? What does the hospital exist to do? Who can tell? So diverse are the ideas of different men on this subject, so little thought out, that a man of unusual experience told us that he had met few missionary doctors who could answer the question: "On the basis of what facts ought the question of the establishment of a hospital to be decided?" Few could tell him whether in sending doctors the missionary societies ought to consider the duty of caring for the health of their missionaries first or last. Few could tell him whether the care of the health of the children in schools and inst.i.tutions was the first duty, or the last, or any duty at all, of the medical missionary. Yet obviously, those two points if they were once admitted would influence largely the location of doctors and hospitals. Again, we hear it argued that missionary societies ought to establish medical schools, hospitals, and inst.i.tutions of the finest possible type in order to show how the thing really ought to be done, to demonstrate the very best example of western medical work, and to train natives to a western efficiency. That would not only influence the location of doctors and hospitals, it would also affect the character of the buildings and would demand a special type of medical missionary. Or again, we hear it argued that medical missions are the point of the missionary sword; but if it is the point of the sword then it ought to be in front of the blade. That, too, would direct the location of the doctors and hospitals. It would also affect the character of the building unless the missionary sword is to become an immovable object, which having once cleft a rock remains fast in the breach until a G.o.d-sent hero, like King Arthur, appears to pull it out and set it to work again. We cannot state all the different aims. They are not simple and formulated; they are complex and confused. Very often the establishment of a medical mission turns upon no more thorough examination of the facts of the situation than the conviction of a capable missionary that there is need for medical work in his district, and that he must supply it if he can, and that he must persevere in appeals till he can supply it. When a man asks: "On the basis of what facts ought this or that to be done in the mission field?" he has got a long way into the complexity of the problem, and the need for survey, if a society is to act with wisdom, is already apparent to him. But most men in the past have acted simply, without much argument: they said, "Here is a need; I can supply it," and the societies were the feeders of such men. Naturally. So one hospital and a doctor was the point of a sword which in twenty years' time was stuck fast in the rock; and then the hospital was enlarged and became a medical school under the fervent direction of a doctor who was a natural teacher; and then it became an inst.i.tution, and then part of a college. And in all this there may have been no definite policy, any more than there was any definite policy in the guidance of its twin brother, which, instead of changing its character, remained what it had always been, the point of a sword, only buried in a rock, competing feebly with a Government inst.i.tution. When one writes of mixed motives, and mixed policies, and mixed methods, it is natural to use mixed metaphors.

But to return to our point. It is not easy to say what some hospitals are there for. If we knew, we could at least formulate tables to set out the progress which they have made towards the object proposed. That would be reasonable survey as we have defined it. To collect all possible information concerning all the things which the doctor or hospital might do, or may be doing, unrelated to any end, is to collect a ma.s.s of information which we cannot use; and that we have declined to do. What course then can we pursue? We propose first to accept the notion that the medical mission is there to supply a medical need of the people, and to consider how far it does that; and then to look at the medical work at the station as definitely designed to a.s.sist the evangelisation of the people, as evangelistic in its purpose. We have, therefore, designed a double set of tables to serve these two purposes.

First, tables to show the medical work in relation to the presumed need of the district for western medicine.

Here, as before for evangelistic work, so now for medical, we have expressed the relation between the medical work and the district in terms both of area and population in order that each table may be a check upon the other. Thus:--

(i) In terms of area.

-------------------------------------------------------------------- | |Number of| | | | | |Qualified|Number of |Number of |Number of|Number of | |Medicals.|a.s.sistants.|Hospitals.| Nurses. |Dispens- | | | | | |aries.

District.|Area.|---------|-----------|----------|---------|--------- | | M. | F. | M. | F. |For | For | M. | F. | | | | | | |men |women| | | ---------|-----|----|----|-----|-----|----|-----|----|----|--------- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | | | | | | _________|_____|____|____|_____|_____|____|_____|____|____|__________

(ii) In terms of population.

---------------------------------------------- District. |Population. | ---------------------------------------------| Proportion of | | | Medicals to | | | Population. | | | ---------------------------------------------- Proportion of | | | a.s.sistants to | | | Population. | | | ---------------------------------------------- Proportion of | | | Nurses to | | | Population. | | | ---------------------------------------------- Proportion of | | | Beds to | | | Population. | | | ---------------------------------------------- Proportion of | | | Dispensaries to | | | Population. | | | ----------------------------------------------

It will be observed that in this second table the items are not identical with those in the preceding table. In the place of hospitals we have beds; because in relation to the area the thing of importance is the number of the hospitals; but in relation to population the thing of importance is the number of beds available. Two hospitals in a single area are probably not in the same place and imply more widespread influence; but if each has twenty beds, in proportion to population it is of no importance whether the forty beds are in one place or two: forty in-patients fill the beds.

But in medical work, when we are considering the need of the district, another factor of importance often enters. The medicals of the mission are often not the only men meeting that need. There are often others, Government officials, or private pract.i.tioners, who, from the point of view of medical practice, are doing the same work. The medical need of a district where the missionary doctor is the only exponent of western medicine is not the same as that of the district where he is competing with Government or private doctors fully trained as he is. Consequently it is essential in order to understand the position that we should know what other, non-missionary, medical a.s.sistance is available, and we need the following table:--

--------------------------------------------------------------------- |Hospitals.|Qualified|a.s.sistants.|Nurses.|Dispensaries.|Beds.

| |Practi- | | | | tioners. | | | | --------|----------|---------|-----------|-------|-------------|--- | | | | | | Mission-| | | | | | ary| ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ___ -------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | | Non- | | | | | | Mission-| | | | | | ary| ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ___ | | | | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------

If any surveyor finds it difficult to fill in such a table, he must make an estimate, but he ought to realise that a table of the kind is a necessary part of any appeal for increased support; for support cannot be reasonably given to his work _on the ground of this medical need_ unless these facts are known. Of course that does not mean that support ought to be given or withheld solely on the statistics so provided.

There may be a thousand reasons for strengthening and enlarging work where this table would suggest less need; but no support should be given in ignorance of these facts.

Then we need tables to reveal, as far as such tables can reveal anything, the extent of the medical mission work done in the year.

-------------------------------------------------------------------- District|Area|Popul-|Hospital |Dispensary,|Total|Propor- |Remarks | |ation |Patients in|Patients in|Pat- |tion of |and | | |Year |Year |ients|Patients |Conclu- | | | | | |to Popul-|sions | | | | | |ation | --------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | | | | | |M.|F.|Child|M.|F.|Child| | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | | | | | | | ________|____|______|__|__|_____|__|__|_____|_____|_________|________

Turning then from the medical need to be met, we proposed to inquire into the medical work as an evangelistic agency. This inquiry is hard to formulate; but we suggest that the three tables appended, taken in conjunction with the preceding, would throw certain light on this question, and would help towards a true understanding.

First, we inquire into the relative extent to which the medical workers make use of the a.s.sistance of evangelistic workers. This table would _not_ reveal the evangelistic influence of the hospital. On the one hand, there is sometimes a tendency for the medical men and women to do medical work exclusively, and to leave all religious work to the evangelistic workers, and to give way to the temptation to imagine that if evangelistic workers read or preach in the waiting-room and visit the patients, the medicals can be satisfied that they have done their duty as medical missionaries. On the other hand, a medical who does his medical work in the Spirit, who speaks to and prays with his patients, exercises an evangelistic influence wider and deeper than that of many of the evangelistic workers directly so called, and in such a case the fact that the evangelistic workers are apparently lacking in the hospital does not at all show that the medical work is not a strong evangelistic force. But any danger of misguidance which might arise if this table stood alone must be counteracted by the other tables; for the three can be taken together. And when this allowance has been made the table is useful with the others, and lights one side of the question before us.

--------------------------------------------------------------------- | Hospitals | Dispensaries | | (Where these | | are not attached to | | hospitals) -------------------------+--------------+---------------------------- Number of Medicals | | on Staff.[1] | | -------------------------+--------------+---------------------------- Proportion to Patients. | | -------------------------+--------------+---------------------------- Number of Evangelistic | | Workers on Staff.[1] | | -------------------------+--------------+---------------------------- Proportion to Patients. | | -------------------------+--------------+---------------------------- Remarks and Conclusions. | | -------------------------+--------------+----------------------------

[Footnote 1: By "on staff" we mean regularly attached to, or regularly visiting.]

When we have seen the extent to which the medicals use the evangelistic workers in their inst.i.tutions, we need to know the extent to which the medicals a.s.sist the evangelistic workers outside the inst.i.tutions. We put this in the form of a table designed to reveal the extent to which the medicals a.s.sist in evangelistic tours, helping the evangelistic workers on tour, either by healing the sick on the spot, or by sending them to the hospitals, or by preaching, or in all these ways.

------------------------------------------------------------------- Number of |Number of |Number of |Number of |Number of |Remarks Evange- |Evangelistic|Medicals |Days spent by|Days spent|and listic |Workers |a.s.sisting.|Evangelistic |by |Conclu- Tours. |a.s.sisting. | |Workers. |Medicals. |sions.

----------|------------|----------|-------------|----------|------- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | __________|____________|__________|_____________|__________|_______

Finally, we inquire how far the direct evangelistic influence of the hospitals and dispensaries can be traced. We might at first suppose that this could be done by asking the number of inquirers enrolled as a direct consequence of attendance at hospitals and dispensaries; but it is not surprising that patients are willing to enrol their names as inquirers simply to please the doctors or nurses, without any intention of pursuing the matter further when they leave the hospital; and consequently such a question by itself might be very misleading. We therefore add two further questions, the first, what number of communicants trace their conversion to their visits to hospitals or dispensaries, the second, what number of places have been opened to Christian teachers and preachers by the influence of doctors and patients. Some missionary doctors are much interested in this inquiry, and we all might well be interested in it. The answers would be a most important contribution to our study, and might go far to justify medical missions as an evangelistic agency.

+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+ Number of Inquirers Enrolled in the Year as a Direct | | Consequence of Attendance at Hospitals and Dispensaries.| | +-------------------------------------------------------+-----+ Proportion of Total Inquirers. | | +-------------------------------------------------------+-----+ Enrolled in the Year. | | +-------------------------------------------------------+-----+ Number of Communicants Derived from Attendance | | at Hospitals and Dispensaries in the Year. | | +-------------------------------------------------------+-----+ Proportion of Communicants Enrolled in the Year. | | +-------------------------------------------------------+-----+ Number of Places Opened to Christian Teachers through | | the Influence of Doctors or Patients in the Year. | | +-------------------------------------------------------+-----+ Proportion of Total Places Opened in the Year. | | +-------------------------------------------------------+-----+ Conclusions and Remarks. | | +-------------------------------------------------------+-----+

CHAPTER VI.

EDUCATIONAL WORK IN THE STATION DISTRICT.

The difficulty of providing tables for the survey of educational work is as great as that of finding tables for medical work, and for the same reasons. There is the same separateness, the same diversity of immediate aim, the same alteration of character, the same uncertainty of policy.

Educational missions have been designed to convert the young whilst they were yet pliable, to influence the growing generation in order to prepare for a great advance of Christianity later, to Christianise society, to educate young Christians in a Christian atmosphere, to prepare leaders for the Christian Church, to elevate an ignorant and illiterate Christian Church. All these various objects have been set before us as the reasons for the establishment of schools, both separately, each in different circ.u.mstances, and unitedly, all at the same time, as though one school could fulfil all these different purposes without any confusion. At one and the same moment Christian children were to be educated in a Christian atmosphere, and non-Christian children in large numbers were admitted, and non-Christian teachers employed. At the same time non-Christian children were to be converted and not converted, but filled with Christian ideas.

All these aims and objects are confusedly set forth, each as its turn comes round, as the immediate aim of our educational missions; but the attempt to draw tables for a survey which shall embrace impartially all these objects is enough to satisfy the inquirer that they are not easily combined into one. We propose, therefore, in this bewildering maze of mixed purposes and ideas, to follow the line which seemed possible in the case of medical missions--to accept the idea that there is an educational need of the people which it is the business of the educational mission to meet so far as it can; and then to add a further inquiry concerning the direct evangelistic influence of the educational mission, and its relation to the evangelistic and medical work.

But in educational mission survey there is an added difficulty which arises from the fact that scholastic education is divided into many grades, and this division has no common standard in different countries, sometimes not even in the same country. We, then, who are seeking light not from one country only but from all, are compelled to simplify these grade distinctions as much as possible, and to accept the local definitions. This does not really invalidate comparisons between different areas so seriously as we might at the first glance be tempted to expect. There is in every country a grade which is primary; there is a secondary, or middle, or high school; there is a normal, or college, or arts course. The primary in one country may run into higher primary and be at its best far in advance of the primary in another country; and so far the two are incomparable; but, nevertheless, this primary grade is the lowest grade in each country, and if the inquiry is, what number of pupils are taught in this local first grade, then the comparison is admissible. Similarly of the second grade and the third. If the inquiry is understood to imply no more than it states, and no conclusion is drawn as to the relative stage or merits of the education in the two countries in relation to one another, it may justly be argued that the primary pupils in one country stand in relation to the illiterate and more highly educated pupils in their own country in a similar position to that in which the primary pupils in another country stand to the illiterate and more highly educated pupils in their own country; though the primary pupils in the one may be far more advanced than the primary pupils in the other. On this basis a possible comparison can be made.

But since colleges and normal schools generally serve a larger area than the station district, these are reserved for provincial survey, and the present tables deal with nothing above the secondary, or middle, or high school. In the station district area the matter of chief importance is the extent to which the need of the district for primary and secondary education is met, and the proportion in which the needs of the many and the few are met.

Of course where the surveyor has before him more elaborate tables prepared for some board, he can serve all purposes best by keeping those tables carefully and sending copies of them to those who may be interested. Our hasty division into primary and higher than primary is only designed to save trouble in those districts where no elaborate distinctions and definitions have been made. If it is desirable for purposes of comparison to reduce tables from different parts of the world to a common basis, so long as the tables supplied from any part do not contain _less_ than the tables here suggested, the comparison can easily be made, for what it is worth.

We begin then with the educational work done in the station district as designed to meet a distinct educational need. The first tables, therefore, correspond to the first evangelistic and medical tables and set forth the quant.i.tative extent of the educational work in relation to the area and to the population.

_______________________________________________________________ | | | Number of | | | Number of | Secondary or | Remarks and District.| Area.| Primary Schools.| Middle or | Conclusions.

| | | High Schools.| _________|______|_________________|______________|_____________ | | | | | | | | _________|______|_________________|______________|_____________ ---------|------|-----------------|--------------|--------------

_________________________________________________________________ | | | Propor-| | Propor-| | | Number | tion | Number | tion | | Popula-| of | to | of | to | Re- District.| tion. | Primary | Popula-| Higher | Popula-|marks.

| | Teachers.| tion. | Teachers.| tion. | _________|________|__________|________|__________|________|______ | | | | | | _________|________|__________|________|__________|________|_______

Here it will be noted that whereas in the area it is the number of schools which is considered, in relation to population it is the number of teachers, because in the area the point of importance is the accessibility of the schools; whilst in relation to the population it is the number of teachers which reveals to what extent the population is served.

Then similar reasons to those which led us to take into account the non-missionary medical a.s.sistance in the area force us to consider the non-missionary education. If we are to consider scholastic education as a need of the people at all, we must acknowledge that the presence of Government or private schools makes a great difference to the situation, and if an appeal for medical missions ought to be affected by the presence or absence of non-missionary medical a.s.sistance, equally ought an appeal for educational missions in any area to be affected by the presence or absence of non-missionary educational facilities.

It may be true that if the aim of educational missions were defined as the provision of educational facilities under Christian influence, the presence of non-Christian educational facilities, in proportion to their magnitude, might be a challenge to Christians to increase theirs. On this basis the mission would deliberately compete with Government schools where Government schools were strongest. But if the mission is designed to supply a liberal education for Christians, the presence of Government schools does not necessarily induce compet.i.tion. We might well ponder the question put by a Christian convert in India, when discussing the use of educational missions by the missionary societies: "Hindus," he said, "are not deterred from sending their children to Christian schools by the fear that they will cease to be Hindus, and do the societies think so little of our religion that they are afraid that our children would cease to be Christians if they attended a Government school?" Whatever answer we give to that question, in either case the existence of non-Christian schools is a serious and important factor in the situation.

We therefore inquire into the non-missionary educational work done in the area. We are well aware that in many cases the surveyor will find it difficult to supply the required information, and may be driven to make an estimate; but the information ought to be provided for any true and just administration of educational mission funds, and estimates must be here regarded as at the best a poor subst.i.tute, though under existing circ.u.mstances perhaps a necessary one.

_____________________________________________________________________ | | | | | |Propor- | Higher | | Propor- | |Primary| |tion of | or |Teach-| tion of |Re- |Schools|Teachers|Teachers| Second-| ers. | Teachers|marks.

| | |to Popu-| ary | | to Popu-| | | |lation. |Schools.| | lation. | --------------------------------------------------------------------- Missionary| -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Non- | | | | | | | Missionary| -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------

Then we need to consider the extent to which the educational efforts of the mission are used to meet the needs of the better educated and of the more ignorant. This will be revealed by the average attendance in the different cla.s.ses of schools.

--------------------------------------------------------------------- Total | | |Propor-| | | Propor-| Re- Scholars| | |tion of| | | tion of|marks in |Primary |Scholars|Total |Secondary| Scho- | Total | and Mission |Schools.| | Scho-| Schools.| lars.| Scho- |Conclu- Schools.| | |lars. | | | lars. | sions.

--------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | | | ________|________|________|_______|_________|_______|________|_______

Then we must inquire into the proportion in which the education given in the schools is given to boys and to girls. This is peculiarly important in considering the influence of school education upon the rising generation of Christians, since well-taught girls make intelligent and helpful wives and mothers, and this tends enormously to the advancement of the Christian community. And the same truth applies to the non-Christian population.