REPORT
OF A CONFERENCE ON
THE PREPARATION OF
ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

HELD IN NEW YORK GITY
DECEMBER 1-2, 1914

PRICE 25 CENTS

BOARD OF MISSIONARY PREPARATION

BOARD OF MISSIONARY PREPARATION
Professor Frederick L. Anderson, D . D .
Reverend James L. Barton, D . D .
Professor' Harlan P . Beach, D . D .
David Bovaird, M . D .
Professor O. E . Brown, D . D .
Professor Ernest DeWitt Burton, D . D .
Miss Helen B . Calder
Professor Edward W. Capen, Ph.D.
Professor W. O. Carver, D . D .
Reverend W m . I. Chamberlain, Ph.D.
Reverend George Drach
Reverend James Endicott, D . D .
Professor Daniel J. Fleming, Ph.D.
Dean H . E . W . Fosbroke, D . D .
Miss Margaret E . Hodge
President Henry C. King, D . D .
Professor Walter L. Lingle, D . D .
Right Reverend Arthur S. Lloyd, D . D .
Reverend R. P . Mackay, D . D .
President W . Douglas Mackenzie, D . D .
Professor Paul Monroe, P h . D .
John R. M o t t , L L . D .
Reverend F r a n k Mason North, D . D .
Principal T . R. O'Meara, D . D .
President C. T . Paul, P h . D .
Professor Henry B . Robins, Ph.D.
Professor T . H . P . Sailer, Ph.D.
Miss U n a Saunders
Professor E . D . Soper, D . D .
Robert E . Speer, D . D .
President J . Ross Stevenson, D . D .
Fennell P . Turner
President
Reverend
Reverend
President

Addie Grace Wardle, Ph.D.
Charles R. Watson, D . D .
Stanley White, D . D .
Wilbert W . White, P h . D .

President W. Douglas Mackenzie, D . D . , Chairman
Fennell P . Turner, Secretary
Reverend W m . I. Chamberlain, Ph.D., Treasurer
Reverend F r a n k K. Sanders, Ph.D., Director
25 Madison Avenue, New York

REPORT OF A CONFERENCE OF THE
BOARD OF MISSIONARY PREPARATION WITH THE REPRESENTATIVES
OF THEOLOGICAL COLLEGES AND
SEMINARIES AND OF FOREIGN MISSION BOARDS OF NORTH AMERICA
HELD IN

NEW YORK CITY
DECEMBER 1 - 2 ,

1914

EDITED BY

FRANK K.

SANDERS, P H . D .
DIRECTOR

Published by Order of The Board
25 Madison Avenue, New York

REPORT OF T H E CONFERENCE OF T H E BOARD
OF MISSIONARY PREPARATION W I T H REPRESENTATIVES OF T H E O L O G I C A L C O L LEGES AND SEMINARIES AND OF FOREIGN
MISSION BOARDS IN NORTH AMERICA
With the hope of reaching a general consensus of opinion
with reference to the problems involved in the preparation
of ordained men for efficient missionary service, the Board
of Missionary Preparation called a conference for December 1 and 2, 1914, at 25 Madison Avenue, New York City,
the headquarters for the united work of the Foreign Mission Boards of North America, to which were invited representatives of all the institutions affording theological
instruction, and of all the Foreign Mission Boards and of
all the sending societies in the United States and Canada.
The Conference was attended by one hundred and one
delegates. Thirty-seven theological institutions, five other
institutions interested in the training of missionaries, and
twenty-nine Foreign Mission Boards and co-operating organizations were represented. There were also present
eight missionaries on furlough and twenty-nine of the members of the Board of Missionary Preparation. The roster
of delegates will be found on pages 56 to 60.
The Conference was called to order at ten o'clock on
Tuesday, December 1st, by the chairman of the Board of
Missionary Preparation, Reverend President William Douglas Mackenzie, D.D. of the Hartford Seminary Foundation,
Hartford, Connecticut, who acted throughout the Conference as its presiding officer. The morning session was
introduced by an impressive service of devotion led by the
Reverend Bishop William F. Oldham, D.D., Secretary of
the Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal
Church. The chairman then addressed the Conference,
outlining the history of the Board of Missionary Prepara3

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

tion and explaining.the purposes for which the Conference
had been called.
A foundation for the discussions of the day was laid
by Dr. Robert E. Speer, Corresponding Secretary of the
Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in
the United States, in his presentation of the "Present Consensus of Opinion Regarding the Preparation Necessary for
Ordained Missionaries."
The first general discussion centered upon the theme,
"What Courses offered in the Standard Curriculum of
Theological Seminaries and Colleges contribute directly to
the Preparation of the Ordained Missionary ?" This theme
was introduced by the Reverend Professor O. E, Brown,
D.D. of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee. Its
discussion was opened by the Reverend William I. Chamberlain, Ph.D., Foreign Secretary of the Board of Foreign
Missions of the Reformed Church in America, and by the
Reverend Professor William D. Schermerhorn, D.D. of
Garrett Biblical Institute, Evanston, 111., and continued by
the Reverend James L. Barton, D.D. of Boston, Mass.;
Reverend Dean William H. Allison, Ph.D. of Colgate Theological Seminary; Reverend James Endieott, D.D. of Toronto; Reverend Arthur M. Sherman of Hankow, China;
Reverend Horace E. Coleman of Tokyo, Japan; Reverend
W. B. Anderson, D.D. of Philadelphia; Rev. J. C. Robbins
of the Student Volunteer Movement; Reverend Dean Wilbor F. Tillett, D.D. of the Vanderbilt University Department of the Bible, Nashville, Tenn., and Dr. John R. Mott,
chairman of the Continuation Committee of the World Missionary Conference.
The second general discussion was upon the theme,
"What Additional Courses for Special, Missionary Training
are essential for the Ordained Missionary if he is to be adequately prepared for this Work?" It was introduced by the
Reverend James L. Barton, D.D., Corresponding Secretary
4

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. The discussion of Dr. Barton's paper was opened
by the Reverend Bishop William F. Oldham, D.D., and
Reverend Professor Harlan P. Beach, D.D. of the Yale
School of Religion at New Haven, Connecticut. Further
discussion was postponed until the end of the formal
program.
The third general theme was "Is it Reasonable to expect
a Theological Seminary or College to provide the Special
Training necessary for the Ordained Missionary in addition
to the Regular Theological Curriculum ?" It was introduced
by the Reverend Professor Ernest D. Burton, D.D. of the
Theological Faculty of the University of Chicago. Its discussion was opened by the Reverend Principal T. R.
O'Meara, LL.D. of Wycliffe College, Toronto, and furthered by Reverend George Drach, General Secretary of the
Board of Foreign Missions of the General Council of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in North America.
The last theme for general discussion was "If it be the
Function of a Theological Seminary or College to provide
this Special Training; (1) Shall the Curriculum be so modified that the Missionary Candidate may secure the Special
Missionary Training within the Three Years ordinarily devoted to Theological Study, or (2) Shall a Fourth Year be
devoted exclusively to special Missionary Training ?" This
theme was introduced by the Reverend Professor Charles R.
Erdman, D.D. of the Presbyterian Theological Seminary at
Princeton, New Jersey, and discussed by Reverend Professor
Edward W. Capen, Ph.D., Secretary of the Kennedy School
of Missions, Hartford, Connecticut.
A general discussion followed of the whole series of
questions raised by the preceding papers and discussions.
In this participated the Reverend President Augustus
Schultze, L.H.D. of the Moravian College and Theological
Seminary at Bethlehem, Penna.; Reverend Principal James
5

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

Smyths D.D. of the Wesleyan Theological College of Montreal; Pre&dfeht Addie Gr&ce Wardle, M.A. of the Cincinnati Missionary Training School; Reverend Piroftessor Edmund D. Soi>er, D.D. of Drew Theological Serhinary,
Madison, New Jerstey; Mr. Fennel! P. Turner, General Secretary of the Student Volunteer Moveftieht for Foreign
Missions; Reverend Professor T. H. P. Sailer, Ph.D. bf
Teachers College it Columbia University; Reverend Professor George L. Robinson, Ph.D. of McCormick Theological Seminary at Chicago; Professor Duncan B. Macdonald,
D.D. bf Hartford Theological Seminary; Reverend President Wilbert W. White, Ph.D. of the Bible Teachers' Training Schotol of New York City; Reverend President Milton
G. Evans, D.D. of Crdzer Theological Seminary at Chester,
Penna.; Reverend Principal E. M. Hill, D.D. of the Congregational Theological Seminary at Montreal, and Reverend Professor Harry F. Rowe of Nanking, China.
Chairman Mackenzie, in accordance with his earlier announcement, then appointed a Committee on Findings, authorized to formulate the results of the discussions of the
day and to present them for further discussion by the Conference oh the following day. The Committee was as
follows:
Professor Ernest D. Burton, Chairman,
Secretary James L. Barton,
Professor H. P. Beach,
Secretary W. I. Chamberlain,
Secretary George Drach,
Secretary James Endicott,
Professor R. E. Hume,
Dean M. W. Jacobus,
President H. C. King,
President W. D. Mackenzie,
Dr. John R. Mott,
Principal T. R. O'Meara,
Dean Wilfred L. Robbins,
Principal Elson I. Rexford,
Dr. Frank K. Sanders,
Professor E. D. Soper,
Mr. Jennell P. Turner.

6

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

After prayer the session adjourned at five o'clock until
the next morning.
On Wednesday, December 2nd, at ten o'clock the Conference reconvened. After a quiet service of intercession,
conducted by the Reverend Arthur J. Brown, D.D., Corresponding Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions of the
Presbyterian Church in the United States, and participated
in by many, the Committee on Findings reported through its
chairman, Professor Burton. These findings were discussed in detail by the whole Conference, modified in many
particulars and finally committed, with general approval, for
final phrasing to an editorial committee consisting of Dr.
Endicott, Professor Hume and the Director of the Board
of Missionary Preparation.
The chairman in closing the Conference expressed the
grateful thanks of the Board of Missionary Preparation to
the representatives of the Theological Seminaries and Mission Boards and others, who had come at such personal
inconvenience to assist the Board to discover its task and
the wisest ways of performing it. He expressed the hope
that the conclusions of the Conference would appeal strongly
to the institutions to which North America must look for
thoroughly educated missionaries and induce them to make
a definite attempt to solve the problems of organization and
instruction involved in the adequate preparation of missionary candidates for their life task. He assured them that
their sympathy and support would give a fresh impetus and
a new importance to the work of the Board of Missionary
Preparation, and invoked upon all the continuing blessing of
Qod.
The session closed with a prayer and benediction by Dr.
Mackenzie.

7

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

THE OPENING
CHAIRMAN W.

ADDRESS

DOUGLAS MACKENZIE,

D.D.

On behalf of the Board of Missionary Preparation of North America, I bid a very cordial welcome to this Conference, which it has called
together.
It may be unnecessary to say anything about the origin and purpose of our Board, beyond reminding you that it grew out of the work
done at the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh, 1910. One
of the most important of the subjects treated there was the "Preparation of Missionaries." The report of the Commission appointed to
study it was issued in a volume which I trust that every theological
teacher will read. The Edinburgh Conference put its seal in a general
way upon the conclusions of that Commission. The substance of these
conclusions was, in the first place, that the time had come for a very
much deeper study of this question of missionary preparation, and for
the putting of much more strength into it on the part of all missionary
Boards and all Churches. The need of this was demonstrated beyond
a doubt or cavil. It was put very bluntly, very definitely, not as the
result of the academic judgment of a few educators, but on evidence
obtained from scores of missionaries in all parts of the world. That
evidence was complete and convincing to the effect that the time had
come for taking a new step, or many new steps, in the method of preparing young men and women for the foreign missionary field. A
Board of Studies for the promotion of missionary preparation was immediately organized in Great Britain, and, in the following year, our
Board was established by the Annual Conference of Foreign Missionary Boards in North America. The Board of Missionary Preparation
is, therefore, the creature of that Conference and breathes its spirit
and purpose. We have behind us the entire weight of the judgment
which is annually expressed upon our work by that assemblage of all
the missionary Boards of North America to which we report.
Our Board has spent the first three years of its existence in a very
careful study of its whole field. Its reports have received hearty approval, and are available in printed form for any who desire to consult
them. Two or three of its committees have made investigations of great
interest to theological educators. One with Dr. Speer as chairman investigated the preparation of ordained missionaries; another, under the
leadership of Dr. Barton, studied the existing facilities afforded by
theological colleges and seminaries and by schools for missionary training. The results gained by them only convinced the Board that there
was a field for further investigation. The survey of the entire situation
showed that there was widespread confusion of theory and of practice.
So many varied conceptions seemed to obtain as to what special missionary preparation is, and as to how and when and by whom it should
be given, that we felt it necessary to do what we could to try and clear
the atmosphere. We decided, therefore, to call this Conference of the
Board of Missionary Preparation with representatives of theological
8

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

colleges and seminaries and secretaries of foreign mission Boards. Its
purpose is that, with your help, we may discover what the situation is
at the present time; and that, with our help, you, who are delegates
from the theological seminaries, may discover what your practical
problems and powers are in the matter of special missionary preparation. A large number of seminaries are represented here today. Surely
our common consideration of these matters will throw upon them a
considerable amount of light.
It is an interesting fact that all our theological schools are being
compelled today to conceive of their own peculiar work in the presence, as it were, of the whole world. I am not sure that they have
always escaped the temptation of academic institutions to live in traditional and narrow circles of interest and to conceive of their work too
abstractly, too much apart from the supreme and living task of the
Church. The Churches in their general assemblies and conventions, in
their great central boards, even the individual churches, whenever loyal
to their denominational institutions, have been kept confronting the
world, and have always felt that the whole task of the world's conversion rested upon them. If this practical world task has not imposed
itself upon the policy, spirit and work of the seminaries, as it should
have done, perhaps they will hear the challenge of the Church through
such a Conference as this.
The Board of Missionary Preparation is speaking to all the seminaries of all the Churches to the effect that we, as theological institutions, may realize more fundamentally, more humbly, more convincingly
as to the intellect, more passionately as to the heart, that we are also
living sharers in the responsibility of carrying the gospel to the whole
world. If that be one of the effects of this Conference, I think it will
be its greatest and most potent influence. For if that tremendous conviction once takes hold of us, then all the rest will come, and our
"Findings" concerning the nature and scope of our work will be reached
with ease.
You will see that the Board has with great care marked out for
the Conference the direction which the discussions shall take. First,
we shall have from Dr. Speer a presentation of the consensus of opinion
which has already been reached with regard to the preparation needed
by ordained missionaries. Then, we take up the question whether there
are particular courses in the theological curriculum which contribute
to this work of missionary preparation. Later will be raised the
question whether additional courses will be required. Then important
practical questions will present themselves. The first of these is
whether it is reasonable to expect that every theological seminary
should make provision for these new subjects. Further, if we understand that it is the function of at least some theological seminaries to
undertake them, the question will arise whether this should cause a
diminution of attention to any of the traditional elements of a theological course; or, if it appear that there are no parts of that curriculum
which we can venture to sacrifice in the case of the missionary without
serious loss to his all-round efficiency, whether the work of special
9

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

missionary preparation should be provided for by the addition of a
fourth year.
This, in brief, is the outline of the discussion before us. The
methods of the Conference I may briefly suggest. The work of many
of the Commissions and Conferences on missionary subjects which have
met since the Edinburgh Conference has been summed up by means
of what are technically called "Findings." The Edinburgh Conference
did not feel that it would be safe to speak of "resolutions." That would
have seemed to be going too far for some people. Still less did it feel
inclined to formulate "recommendations." To whom were they to be
addressed, and what right had the Edinburgh Conference to make
recommendations to any one? The committee in charge adopted the
innocent word "Findings" as a happy solution, which we will adopt.
We are not going to formulate any resolution or recommendation that
will be binding upon any one here or upon any institution represented.
It is merely proposed to so order the material as to express it in a
"Finding."
These Findings, if approved, will be included in the report of the
Conference, and will, I hope, "find" their way to the various institutions that are represented here. For this purpose, we recommend that
a committee be appointed to sum up the results of our discussions. At
the close of the afternoon meeting, they will get together and spend the
evening and night, and their "findings" will become the basis of a
general discussion on the floor here to-morrow morning.
We have with us today a few representatives of institutions for
missionary training not classified as theological schools, and a few
missionaries from the field. We welcome them all to a share in our
deliberations.

m

PREPARATION OP ORDAINED MISSIONARIES
P R E S E N T CONSENSUS O F O P I N I O N REGARDING T H E
PREPARATION NECESSARY FOR ORDAINED
MISSIONARIES
DR. ROBERT E.

SPEER

An inquiry into the present consensus of opinion regarding the
preparation necessary for ordained missionaries was conducted by a
special committee of the Board of Missionary Preparation which
reported to the Board at its meeting last January. The committee was
composed of nine representatives of theological and training schools,
all of them active teachers, three representatives of missionary Boards,
and Dean Russell of Teachers College at Columbia University. This
committee had before it a large range of information and opinion,
including (1) the body of the committee's own individual observations
and judgments; (2) the mass of material accumulated by the missionary Boards in their long experience with this problem, and recorded
in the reports of their annual conferences; (3) the studies of the subject made by theological seminaries, and, in some of them, already
embodied in revised curricula; (4) the report of Commission V of the
Edinburgh Conference, which dealt with the preparation of missionaries ; (5) the findings of various missionary conferences, and especially
of the Continuation Committee Conferences held in Asia in 1912-13;
(6) a series of communications from missionary leaders in various
fields answering a few fundamental questions which the committee
had sent them and making fresh suggestions in the light of all the wide
discussions of the subject in recent years. The purpose of this opening statement this morning is to give an abstract of all this mass of
material. Every one will realize that this is no easy task.
Let us first consider some fundamental principles. One of the
most indomitable and successful educational missionaries of the last
century, whose influence is still deeply felt in China, used to lay down
three educational axioms which should govern all missionary educational work in the foreign field. First, such education must be thorough. If it was not thorough, that is, accurate and true, it was not
real education and it was not Christian. If Christianity requires any
one thing which can never be compromised or qualified, it is truth both
in material and in method. He insisted that whatever work was done,
whether little or much, it must be thorough, and that if the choice must
be made between much carelessly done and a little thoroughly done, the
little must be chosen. Second, it must be adapted. It must be given
in the language in which the student thought and in which he could
communicate the results of his education to others. Its purpose was to
fit men for the work which they were to do and for the environment
in which they were to live. Third, it must be Christian. At the first
he had no Christian students to work upon, so he took a few heathen
boys into his own home and so taught and influenced them that they
became Christians. When he had thus a Christian student atmosphere
11

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

to work with, he brought in more boys from non-Christian homes, but
made it a rule never to have more non-Christians than the Christian
spirit of the school could control and absorb. The education which he
provided was the best scientific education obtainable in China; but
whatever the subject of study, the aim and the spirit, the tone and the
result had to be unqualifiedly Christian.
Now, if these principles are valid, as they surely are, in missionary
education, they are valid in the education of missionaries.
1. The training given to ordained missionaries must be thorough.
This is an ethical as well as a pedagogical necessity. It must be adequate in quantity and duration, in order to allow time for thorough
work. Our correspondents agree in requiring a high school and college
course with the B.A. degree, to be followed by a course in the theological seminary. It is obvious that exceptional men will appear sometime without this full training but, nevertheless, with adequate preparation. This, however, is the normal requirement and the training given
must be thorough in its quality, because only so is it true. And how
can teachers of truth be prepared except by true teaching? And how
otherwise can they be made men who will not flinch from hard intellectual problems on the mission field, or attempt to advance the truth
by false or incompetent devices ? Men who are to be missionaries must
be made workmen of absolute veracity of method and action, of habit
and view and feeling.
2. The training given to ordained missionaries must be adapted
to prepare them for their work, (a) It should be determined by the
actual requirements of the work on the foreign field. A good deal that
is offered in the theological course is not so adapted. The subject itself
may be necessary, but the form in which it is given and the expository
or apologetic cast given to it are unadapted. Oftentimes a reshaping of
such courses with a view to adapting them to foreign missionary preparation would at the same time make them even more effective as
preparation for the home ministry, (b) The training offered should
be directed to giving men the power of adaptation to the unknown,
rather than ready-made fitness to the known. It is never possible to
give a man a full understanding of the conditions which he is to face
on the foreign field. No cut and dried preparation will ever prepare
him. He must be given the secret of self-adaptation to unforeseen
intellectual contingencies, (c) The training needed must qualify men
to deal with fundamental and elemental problems. On the mission
field, mixed with twentieth century problems, the missionary meets also
the problems of the first and the fourth and the eighteenth and all the
other Christian centuries. The ecclesiastical and doctrinal issues of
our churches at home today are only part of what missionaries meet.
They must be able to distinguish principles from all that obscures them
and to deal with them fundamentally, (d) To this end they need
courage and freedom as well as discernment. They are to be founders
of new national churches and leaders in new organizations of life.
They should be men of creative leadership who can detect and warm
into reality the germs of power and service in others. Of course,
12

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

seminaries are limited in this result by the character of the material
they have to work upon; but just as far as possible they should release
the creative energies in the material they have and prepare it for positive achievement, (e) An adequately adapted training would also seek
to turn,out men for a world enterprise, calling for the widest sympathies and understandings, men whose intellectual apprehensions had
been universalized; who, to a simple, clean and conclusive faith and
experience in Christ, add a fulness of concord with His world purposes
and who follow Him in the fulness of His plans for all humanity.
3. The training of ordained missionaries must also be Christian.
This means that it must be evangelical and evangelistic. The ordained
missionary should go out driven by the propulsion of a deep evangelism. It will not be enough to make him a sedentary apologist or a
stagnant schoolmaster. He must be a maker of tireless evangelists,
and to that end the Gospel must be a fire in his own soul, keeping him
ever restless and making everyone about him restive until they become
propagandists also. There is a striking letter in our report on this
subject to the last meeting of this Board from the Rev. Geo. D. Wilder
of North China, in which Mr. Wilder laments the deterioration both in
volume and in power of evangelistic preaching in North China. The
ablest missionaries having withdrawn from chapel preaching to undertake educational and other institutional forms of work, the ablest
natives were following their example, so that the preaching was not
as effective as it had been in earlier days. The example of the missionaries was and always will be more powerful than their precept.
Unless the strongest missionaries are full of the evangelistic spirit and
busy in evangelistic work, the strongest natives will not be. Ordained
missionaries, accordingly, whatever the form of work which they are
to take up, ought to be so trained in the home seminaries in the warmth
and life of the Gospel that their one consuming purpose shall be to push
the Gospel into all human life and to the rim of the world.
Assuming, then, that the training of ordained missionaries is to
be thorough, adapted and Christian, we may go on to ask what the
consensus of opinion indicates as the most important subjects of study,
and we need not attempt to arrange them in any order of importance.
1. Theology.—All agree that theology must be one of the main
subjects. The emphasis, however, is not upon such a descriptive word as
dogmatic or systematic, although there is full recognition of the importance of that which these words connote; it is rather such adjectives
as Biblical or historical or comparative. And the issue which such
comparative study should deal with is not so much what Calvinism has
to say against Arminianism; for example, but what Calvinism has to say
against its own exaggeration in the Hindu doctrine of Karma, or the
mechanical fatalism of some schools of Islam; not what Arminianism
has to say against Calvinism, but what it has to say to its own distortion
in the antinomianism of Hindu pantheism, or to theories of divine
propitiation which make free grace look pallid. Theology, in other
words, needs to be taught against a background of real knowledge of
what the theological problems are on the mission field, and what the
13

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

task is of interpreting Christian truth to the human minds which are
actually to be dealt with.
2. Comparative Religion.—-Our correspondents lay emphasis upon
the necessity of teaching Comparative Religion, and of teaching it
truly, and with as great an approach as possible to reality. It is easy
to set up the nan-Christian religions in a class-room and demolish them.
Their weaknesses are absolutely fatal to them in our thought about
them, but those who hold these religions have reasons for doing so,
which they are prepared to state and argue. Bishop Lefroy of Lahore
used to come home wearied to death at the end of the day after his
discussions with Mohammedans on the issue between Christianity and
Islftfii. His opponents were not ready to fall down and surrender
before the case which it is easy enough to construct in a class-room ten
thousand miles away. Of course, no one can be brought face to face
'with the reality of these religions until he actually meets them on their
own soil; but, as far as possible, Comparative Religion should be
studied iti the atmosphere of reality and justice should be done to the
actual problems which are to be faced.
3. Apologetics.—The study of the actual apologetic problems
which men encounter when they attempt to propagate Christianity,
which differ in different countries. Southern Buddhism and Islam,
Confucianism and Vedantism are very different things. In some lands
our Western infidelities have made their way. How can men as they
are when we meet them be convinced of the truth of God in Christ
and brought to faith and new life in Him? How is this greatest of all
problems to be studied and solved?
4. Church History.—Every one emphasizes the importance of
Church History both as the history of the development of doctrine and
as the story of evangelization. As one of our correspondents puts it:
A prospective missionary should take all he can obtain in the History of
Religions, and their comparison, where the distinctive features of Christianity
are well emphasized, and most especially every form of study emphasizing God
in history. The Bible is history, but it is peculiarly God in history for the redemption of man. There are some noble books along this line—Buns en—but we
need more, and I believe that the missionary history of the past century ought
to be ready to supply them. While I am not exactly conversant with the details
of many seminary courses, I have an impression that there are many minor
courses which might give way to these major courses of God in history.

Missions are making church history now, just as it was made in
Asia Minor, or in Germany, or in Scotland in the past, and a study
of past church history as the record of actual evangelization is the most
immediately fruitful study an ordained missionary can undertake. It
is also one of the most dangerous. Nowhere else is it easier to err as
to the lessons taught, or to confuse the essential and universal with
the transitory and local.
5. Christian Transformation of Society.—A fifth subject is
closely related to the two just mentioned and may, indeed, be melted
into them. It might be called church politics. It is something more
than ecclesiastical polity. It is the science of missions, the method of
14

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

propagandism—how to found Christian institutions and to introduce
Christian principles into life. Sociology is another subject which
belongs in the same group. Whatever the title, the field to be covered
includes the problem of the relation of Christian ethics to life, the
transformation of society into conformity to Christian ideals, the relation of Church and state, and similar themes.
6. The *Science and Art of Education.-—The word pedagogy used
to express what is meant by this title, but the educationalists in selfdefense seem to have discarded it. The missionary is a preacher of
the Gospel. All missionary preaching must of necessity be teaching.
How to teach, how to teach others to teach, the secret of communicating
truth, of developing character, of making truth contagious so that it
will spread of itself—these are fundamental necessities of the ordained
missionary. He needs such a training as our Lord gave the Twelve.
7. The Bible.—The Bible, whether in the original languages, or in
English, or in all, is to be mastered by the ordained missionary as a part
of his training for his work. Here, too, our correspondents urge something more than mere perfunctory teaching. They urge that men
should be put in possession of methods of study which will endure the
strains which are to come, that they get solid ground under their feet
regarding the things that are central, so that when they go out and
have to stand alone, they can stand alone. So one correspondent writes:
A study of theology, largely historical, is important in order to enable the
missionary to understand the large variety of beliefs he will meet. I think personally that thorough Bible study is better than formal theology to lead to the
definite personal convictions that are very important. Church history with special attention to the causes and means of the expression of Christianity and also
the working out of Christian principles in society is important.

The Bible should be taught as a living missionary book, as Arnold
taught Roman history, and as he taught the Bible, too.
8. Christian Dynamics.—Men should study the dynamics of
Christianity. What are the secrets of power ? What makes some kinds
of Christianity and some Christian men effective and fruitful, and
others not? What truth has the vital energy in it? What habits of
personal life condition power? The Gospel is to go to the world, not
in word only, but in power. The latter as well as the former should be
the subject of study and of solicitude.
These are the main outstanding subjects on which our correspondents lay emphasis. And now if you will turn to the report of our
Committee, in the Third Annual Report of the Board of Missionary
Preparation, pp. 36 and 37, you will find a pretty complete list of the
subjects suggested in the consensus of opinion which we have gathered.

15

. PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

These subjects may be divided into groups as follows:
1. Systematic theology.
Church history.
Apologetics.
3. History of philosophy.
History of civilization.
History of religion.
5. Modern languages, especially
German.
Hebrew.
Greek.
Phonetics.
7. Political and economic geography.
Sociology and civics.
Ethnology and anthropology.
Astronomy.
Economics.
Biology.

2. Comparative religion.
The science of missions.
Missionary biography.
The Bible.
4. Principles of religious education.
Pedagogy.
Biblical pedagogy.
Psychology.
6. Missions and world movements.
Early conflict of Christianity with
heathenism.
Political, economic and diplomatic
history of foreign mission fields.
8. Music.
Art.
Business methods.
9, Sanitary science.
Hygiene.
First aid to the injured.

This list, full as it is, doubtless omits some things which some
will deem desirable, but it is full enough, and the man with this preparation will be well prepared. At the same time, it needs to be recognized that if a man does not prepare himself, no one else can prepare
him, and that much of the method of his self-preparation is of necessity an individual and incommunicable process.
As to where all this training is to be secured, it is not our province
to discuss, but we may say that our correspondents are not arguing for
a supplementary training for ordained missionaries, or for a set of
special studies to be externally tacked on to their other training, which
may have been the conventional training for men in the home ministry
as heretofore conceived. What is needed rather is the organic correlation of a proper course of training to the needs of missionary candidates throughout their course; and there would seem to be ground for
holding that the training even of home ministers would be improved
by its approximation to such a vital reshaping of work as appears to
be desirable for missionaries.
In conclusion, one of our friends in China has invented a word
which he thinks describes an element which should be included in the
training of missionaries. He writes:
If you could invent a new course in "Spartanics" or something like that—I
mean the science of "non-quitting"—you would very greatly benefit the missionary cause. Our missionaries are dropping off far too fast these days, not as
shocks of corn fully ripe, but in the full green of the spring tide, and they drop
off and are both lost and gone before (their proper time).

Is there not a real truth here ? Our friend is not alone in wanting
more iron and steel in the training of missionaries. But how is it to be
put in? If it was not bred in by grandfathers and grandmothers, if
men come to the seminaries putty instead of rock, how are they to be
made Spartans in their sense of duty and loyalty? And we may add
16

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

two more elements to this one. To keep up the White-Star-Line-barbarism of our friend, one might be called Humanics and the other
Vitalics. The former term will suffice to suggest the need of sympathy, of human understanding and adaptability, the capacity to get
along with people, to make light of all hindrances in the way of human
service, to see the joy and keep the sunlight on the face and in the
heart. The other word covers the need of the central power which
makes the impact, which drives home, which reaches past the seedtime
to the harvest. It calls for the central union of the man with God
and for the faith which claims the mighty promises—"The works that
I do shall ye do also and greater works than these shall ye do because
I go unto my Father." It is easy to take these things for granted, but
they ought not to be taken for granted. They must be recognized and
thought of and planned for. We ought consciously to put first in the
training of missionaries the things which are actually of first importance. These must under no tacit assumption be ignored in preparing
men who are to go out to do the most difficult, perplexing, creative
work in the world; a work, however, to which humble and self-distrustful men can safely go at their Master's call and to which the proud and
self-assumed, whatever their training, have no summons until they
first forget themselves in Christ.
WHAT COURSES O F F E R E D IN T H E STANDARD CURRICULUM O F THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES AND COLLEGES
CONTRIBUTE DIRECTLY TO T H E PREPARATION O F
T H E ORDAINED MISSIONARY?
REVEREND PROFESSOR O. E. BROWN,

D.D.

One cannot approach the discussion of this question without
acknowledging first of all a large indebtedness to the Board of Missionary Preparation. At the last meeting of the Board at Kansas City,
Dr. Speer gave the results of a thorough study of the problem of the
preparation of ordained missionaries. At that same meeting, Dr.
Barton submitted a very valuable report on the facilities for the training of missionaries, wherein a central place was given to the work of
the theological schools. Dr. Mott has also made an indispensable contribution to our inquiry in the suggestions for the training of missionaries which are given in the Report on the Continuation Committee
Conferences in Asia, 1912-13. These sources make an authoritative
supplement to the historic report of Commission V on The Preparation
of Missionaries, at the World's Missionary Conference of 1910.
Let me-call attention to three definite restrictions implied in the
theme which is proposed for consideration at this time. Our inquiry is
restricted to ordained missionaries, i. e., to those who are specially
charged with evangelistic work, pastoral leadership, and the direction
of organized church life. It is further restricted to the actual courses
of study now to be found in our standard theological schools. To be
17

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

sure, these vary so greatly in their courses of study that a standard
curriculum may be impossible of identification. We may, however,
arrive at a general average for our theological schools and may, not
unreasonably, assume certain standard courses by which it is sought
to prepare men for the service of the Christian Church at home and
abroad. A third restriction of the inquiry is to the direct usefulness of
the preparation given in missionary service. Every sort of preparation
which ministers to a richer Christian personality makes for a better
missionary, but some lines of preparation seem peculiarly adapted to
promote the missionary's evangelistic and constructive leadership. Our
question is, therefore: How does the average seminary course prepare
the ordained missionary for his distinctive task ?
Theological schools are meant, primarily, to prepare men for efficient ministerial leadership in the homeland. It does not follow, however, that courses of study which are directly valuable for the ordained
man at home are only of secondary value to the ordained worker
abroad. The Japan National Conference in April, 1913, one of the
series of Continuation Committee Conferences, registered the conviction that "for work in Japan as thorough an equipment is needed as for
parallel work in Christian lands." This judgment expresses the need
for the same values in training for work at home or abroad, with
special emphasis on some studies called for by Japan's peculiar needs.
The China Conference also adopted a finding to the effect that the
missionary preparation should include "an education as complete, in all
respects, as that needed for the holy ministry . . . at home." Furthermore, the India National Conference specified "a thorough training in
theology" as a requisite in missionary preparation. Dr. Speer reported
at Kansas City, a year ago, as a result of his investigations, that "all
are agreed, also, that the foreign missionary should have a theological
training as thorough as that of the ministry at home." Some would
have the same required courses for both the home pastorate and the
foreign service, leaving variation only in the field of electives. A
statement, therefore, of the direct value of our theological courses for
the ordained missionary may seem to be largely in terms applicable to
fitness for ministerial leadership in general. The home and foreign
workers are dealing with the same great essentials; they are only seeking to adjust them to differing environments.
The direct preparation of the ordained missionary may be considered from the standpoint of the several functions which he is
expected to fulfil. These functions can be treated here only in larger
outline.
1. Interpretation.—The first function of the ordained missionary
which calls for special emphasis is his work of interpretation. His
great task is to interpret essential Christianity to a non-Christian people. He is in life, and speech, and leadership to answer, in intelligible
terms, the question, What is Christianity ? or the more specific question,
Who is Christ? It is clear that no courses of study can be of more
direct value than those which furnish him with the best means for
answering such questions. Of first importance are those courses which
18

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

enable the student, with a spirit of scientific genuineness, to interpret
the original documents of the Christian faith. New Testament study,
with a command of New Testament Greek, deserves the same crowning
place in missionary preparation which it holds in the theological
curriculum. Greek is stressed, because it alone furnishes an approach
to scientific certainty in interpretation. A supreme need on the mission
field today is a scientific, as distinguished from a sectarian, interpretation of the New Testament. Unity and cooperation on these fields
wait upon a more harmonious insight into the fundamental meaning of
the New Testament Writings. Assuming the normative value of the
New Testament, a sectarian interpretation of its teachings causes
division rather than unification. Our theological schools can make
their most direct contribution to the missionary enterprise of our day
by furnishing a body of missionaries who have been initiated into the
great catholic brotherhood of scientific interpreters of the Bible. The
Old and New Testaments are so intimately interwoven as to make each
the vital clue to the understanding of the other. Our theological institutions, through their facilities for the historical interpretation of the
Old Testament, furnish another definite contribution to the training
of the ordained missionary. Missionary experts differ as to the essen^
tial value of Hebrew for the proper mastery of the Old Testament, but
the burden of proof would seem to rest upon those who question the
direct serviceableness of the study of the Old Testament in its original
language. The standard curriculum of pur theological schools is
giving an increasingly vital place to the study of the English Bible,
Without question, the ordained missionary should supplement his
study of the Bible in the original languages with a comprehensive mastery of the Bible in English. This study should be interpretative and
historical as well as practical. There will also be an unquestionable
contribution to missionary efficiency in the study of the leading ideas
and principles of the Hebrew and Christian religions as these are set
forth in Biblical Theology.
The interpretative work of the missionary will be greatly furthered
by the study of Christianity in its historic growth, as it has adjusted
to its changing environments. Church History, in its great essentials^
is the story of the missionary expansion of Christianity. The ceaseless
challenge of Church History is to a distinction between the changeless
verities of the Christian faith and the adaptive forms of the Christian
Church. Fundamental to missionary efficiency is the discovery of those
timeless essentials which constitute the undergirding unity of Christian
history. If overvaluation of the denominational forms of Christianity
is a hindrance to all-round missionary service, then Church History is
a wholesome cure. Moreover, the missionary has a search-light turned
upon his own task, when he follows up the adjustment of the Christian
faith to widely varying cultural environments and racial minds. Dr.
Barton's investigations have shown that the theological schools are
quite generally providing courses in History and Philosophy of Religion
as well as in Comparative Religion. The studies are valuable because
Christianity can only be fully appreciated where it is known in com19

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

parison with other historic faiths. The missionary needs to know with
thoroughness the specific religious environment into which his work
calls him; but he can face that environment with peculiar courage and
hopefulness if he has seen how Christianity fulfills all that is best in
other religions and redeems all that is base in them. If, we interpret
Systematic Theology to mean the presentation of Christianity in the
light of present-day thought and experience, then it, too, will have a
vital part in preparing the evangelistic worker for his divine task of
creating "one new man" out of those who are "far off" and those who
are "nigh." The standard theological schools can thus contribute to
the preparation of the ordained missionary for his interpretative work
through their courses in Old and New Testament Interpretation, Biblical Theology, and the English Bible; their courses in the History,
Philosophy, and Comparative Science of Religion; and their courses
in Church History and Christian Theology.
2. Organisation.—Another function of the missionary is his constructive church work. The ordained missionary must not only be able
to win individuals to accept his interpretation of Christ and Christianity, but he must be able to organize these individual believers into an
effective social force. The seminary course in Homiletics will prove
of value in so far as it teaches effective ways of presenting the Christian message, but the formal and technical art of sermon-making and
delivery will need to be used with great caution, lest the missionary
become the victim of art for art's sake. The courses in Pastoral
Theology, with emphasis on personal work, personal ministration, and
practical Christian effort, are essential to the ordained missionary
though the methods must be carefully adapted to the new social environment into which they are carried. Of very direct value will be the
study of the essentials of church organization. Each missionary should
have an intelligent mastery of the form of organization represented by
his own denomination. This theological schools are providing. In a
less degree they are providing for the equally important comparative
study of church organization. This study, with its judicial yet sympathetic consideration of prevailing types of organization, should cultivate the conviction that in the organic forms of Christianity lies the
field of readiest adjustment to the demands of a new environment. It
was once thought that the seminary courses dealing with the history
and conduct of religious revivals or missions were without applicability to conditions in our foreign fields. It is now found that these
courses have to do with methods of work most widely useful in missionary service. In fact, there are few studies in the field of practical
theology which the ordained missionary can omit without lowering
his efficiency.
3. Social Upbuilding.—The next task of the ordained missionary
is one of a corrective or reformatory nature. This is the most delicate
feature of missionary service. A polemical, iconoclastic attitude toward
religious, political, and social institutions may mean a forfeiture of all
opportunity for working toward a better day. Our Lord was at once
the world's greatest revolutionist and the world's greatest peacemaker.

20

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

His messengers must be like Him. The seminary courses in Christian
Sociology and in Christian Ethics will prove of great value to the social
physician. These courses usually presuppose college courses in sociology and ethical science. Some seminaries are offering courses in
crime and punishments, in pauperism and charities, in the problems
of the family and the city. These courses are made more helpful by
the fact that they are coming to be taught by the comparative method
and by the use of sociological and other data furnished by the great
mission fields. Theological schools also furnish opportunities for
studying the outstanding moral and social reform movements of Christian history. Many schools, in the History of Missions, discuss the
policy which typical missionary leaders have followed in dealing with
the social and civic evils of the non-Christian world. The seminary
library, with its collection of missionary biographies, has a very rich
contribution to make to this line of missionary preparation.
4. Education.—A fourth task of the ordained missionary is educative. He is sent fully as much for the discovery, the enlistment and the
practical training of evangelistic leaders as he is for winning individual
converts. Indeed, the science of missions is pointing toward intensive
work in the training of potential leaders as the most productive function of the ordained missionary. Too much emphasis, therefore, cannot be put upon the value, for the missionary, of the courses in Religious Education which all of our standard theological schools are offering. Courses in the History and Principles of Religious Education, as
well as in the ways of organizing the home, the school and the church
to be training agencies, should be placed by our theological schools
on the required list for missionary candidates.
In view of these considerations we reach three generalized conclusions :
1. It seems clear that a full seminary course is indispensable to
the largest efficiency of the ordained missionary.
2. It also seems clear that the missionary candidate cannot afford,
in the use of his privilege of electing studies, to omit any of those
courses which are fundamental to a thorough equipment of the Christian ministry at home.
3. Heretofore, the standard theological course has generally been
considered adequate to the preparation of an ordained missionary for
his work. The soundness of this conclusion will be discussed by others.
Whatever the verdict may be, the theological schools should undertake
to furnish a preparation for ordained missionary service which is really
adequate. Their goal should not fall short of that high pastoral ideal
—"that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto
every good work."
THE

DISCUSSION

Dr. Chamberlain.—It is an interesting and significant fact, and
one that bears upon the present discussion, that a memorandum has
been recently issued by a Conference, similar to the one in which we
21

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

are at present engaged, and held, last April, in England under the auspices of the British Board of Studies for the Preparation of Missionaries with principals of theological colleges and training institutions,
university professors, and representatives of missionary Societies. In the
Findings of this Conference importance was attached to the following
subjects, taught generally in British theological colleges, as contributing to the preparation of ordained missionaries: Comparative Religion,
Church History, Biblical Exegesis, and Systematic and Apologetic
Theology. It was also the judgment of this Conference that every
missionary should know something about educational methods and
Psychology. In our American theological seminaries, courses which
are of peculiar value to the missionary are being quite generally offered
now, also, in Sociology and Religious Education. The British Conference further declared its belief that adequate preparation for service
abroad makes necessary a year of postgraduate study. Moreover, it
expressed-its conviction of the importance of correlating carefully the
work of the final year of preparation at home with that of the first
year of preparation on the field.
Professor Schermerhorn.—Three difficulties meet us at the
beginning of this discussion: First, what is a "standard theological
curriculum"? Second, how often does a Board determine well in
advance the field in which a candidate is to work ? And, third, how can
a seminary plan a course of study to equip a man for an ill-defined
task? Nevertheless, any foreign missionary, whatever his field, or
whatever his task, should by all means take certain studies^.
1. The Bible should be foremost on the list of the studies in any
missionary course. Every intending missionary should know at least
three things about the Bible: its history, its contents, and its interpretation.
2. Next to the Bible, I would place Church History, which is
repeating itself in the several missionary fields. For example, note the
increasing tendency toward the union of Christians on the mission
fields, and remember that in the old days, when the Church became
catholic, she also fixed her statements of doctrine. Would Church
History teach us anything regarding this? The History of Missions
should be included in Church History.
3. The study of next importance is Comparative Religion. The
student should know not only the differences between Christianity and
other religions, but also the points they hold in common. The presentation of Comparative Religion should always include a presentation of
the life and the civilization which are the normal products of these
religions. Mere book study is not enough.
4. A fourth possible discipline should be practical work in Christian service. If those desiring to go abroad as missionaries can not
succeed in the preliminary tasks undertaken at home while in preparation, I doubt the wisdom of their appointment. And, on the other
hand, a good measure of success here would be a strong recommendation for appointment abroad.
Dr. Barton.—I wish to emphasize the statement made by Dr.
22

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

Speer that you can not make preachers by putting them under teachers
who are not themselves preaching men. Again, it is vitally necessary
for the theological seminary to develop men of creative ability.
Dean Allison.—It seems to me a very serious matter that men
come up to the seminaries and go through them, fully expecting to go
to the foreign field, only to find that they can not be sent. The constant
repetition of this experience in the seminaries will certainly dull the
nerve of missionary enthusiasm. Not much can be attempted in the
direction of specific preparation so long as the determining of the
question of actual destination is postponed to the last moment. There
should be a much closer cooperation between the missionary Boards
through their Candidate Secretaries and the students who are actually
in the process of preparation for the field.
President Mackenzie.—We have present with us today not a
few who have had actual experience in the foreign field. It would be
helpful for us to hear from them regarding the courses which were of
material value to them. We would gladly know what courses they
found useless, and why; and in what specific way the seminary contributed to their later efficiency.
Dr. Endicott—I was sixteen years in China. That experience
led me to think that the most important result to be sought in theological
training is ability to present in vital .fashion to others the truths we ourselves know, and also led me to recognize that one of the chief defects
of theological training is seen in some men who have a fairly extensive
acquaintance with theological studies, but who are decidedly inefficient
in expression.
There is a very picturesque Chinese proverb which speaks of a
dumpling boiled in a teakettle. It is aimed at just the defect to which
I have referred; that is to say, there is no difficulty whatever experienced in getting the ingredients of the dumpling into the teakettle.
The difficulty is met when one attempts to pour the dumpling out.
So far as training goes, we are probably producing superior scholars at home at the present time, but are we producing effective preachers of the Gospel? I have seen men on the mission field too poorly educated for Secretarial acceptance by most Boards, who have yet achieved
what their theologically trained associates failed to accomplish, simply
because they gained such a mastery of the language of the field and
lived so close to the people, that they were able adequately arid powerfully to present the message which they had brought.
The great need on the field is not for men who are qualified to be
theological professors. The need is for preachers of the Gospel. We
must exalt the pulpit and give every student in our theological institutions to understand that when a man is taken from the pulpit and
placed in a theological chair, at home or abroad, it is not an advancement, but merely an Irish promotion.
Rev. A. M. Sherman.—I would like to suggest that the advisability of dropping Hebrew from the theological course of some missionary candidates be given consideration. Personally, I found that
Hebrew at the seminary took more than its fair share of time. It not
23

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

only took four or five hours a week in the class-room the first year,
but it crowded every other study during the hours of preparation out
of the class-room. On going to the foreign field and spending some
years in the study of a new and difficult language, I found Hebrew of
little or no practical use. The time given to Hebrew in the theological
seminary for the majority of missionary candidates might better be
spent upon such subjects as Comparative Religion, Sociology, Pedagogy, Phonetics, or Church History. There should be, of course, some
Hebrew scholars in every mission field; but it is much better to have
some men specialize in Hebrew than to have the ordinary missionary
spend a large part of his preparatory time in the study of a language
of which he practically never makes use. I was interested in meeting
recently a very bright and promising missionary candidate. He told
me that he had omitted Hebrew entirely and was putting in his time
on Pedagogy.
Rev. Horace Coleman.—I did not take the regular theological
course before going to the field, but had three years in the Graduate
and Divinity Schools of the University of Chicago. My work in
Sociology and in constructive Bible study has been of great value to
me, as well as my experience in Young Men's Christian Association
work. I feel like emphasizing, therefore, constructive Bible study and
practical experience in some varied lines of Christian and social work.
During my first furlough I am now studying the additional things
that I have found are important, viz.: Educational Psychology, Religious Education in the Sunday-school, Psychology of Religion, History
and Philosophy of Religion, and Christian Ethics.
Dr. Anderson.—My theological training was always of service to
me in the field. My only suggestion would be one of method. Theological schools should aim more definitely to train men to think independently. Students should be encouraged, even forced, to think things
out for themselves. Every missionary candidate should learn to stand
on his own feet. Let a seminary give a course which would enable a
man to find himself, and he will be the truer missionary.
Rev. J. C. Robbins.—As a missionary in the Philippines, I found
that all of the courses taken by me in the theological seminary, including Hebrew, were of real value to me as a missionary. Especially
valuable were the courses in the exegetical and historical study of the
Bible, Church History, and Homiletics. Practical evangelistic work
in a mission in Boston furnished useful experience. A thorough course
in Comparative Religion would have been of great value in preparing
me more adequately for missionary service.
Dean Tillett.—I have listened with keen interest to the missionaries and would like to say a word from the point of view of one who
has spent forty years in a theological seminary. The seminaries have
learned much from visiting missionaries and from secretaries who have
been on the field. Their greatest inspiration is the call to prepare men
for the work of the Kingdom of God throughout the earth.
I was deeply impressed by Dr. Charles Cuthbert Hall's declaration
in one of his published volumes after his visit to the Orient, to the
24

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

effect that the best, largest, and purest interpretation of Christianity
and of the Christian religion would come when the Orient turns to
Christianity. Our larger vision, our principles, our policies have come
and will come through the practical suggestions which we have been
hearing.
Dr. Mott.—The object of the whole missionary movement is to
make the living Christ, his teachings and his principles known and
operative in the lives of those people to whom we go. These results we
must reach with wisdom and efficiency. Without them all other results
are disappointing. My experience a year ago at the conferences of the
Continuation Committee, in listening to missionaries and in studying
their work at first hand in their stations, leads me to conclude that the
really successful missionaries are those who not only receive adequate instruction, but also acquire some measure of experience. There
were surprisingly few who could take part in organizing great evangelistic campaigns, in training workers, and in leading converts to
assurance and conviction. It was necessary to place chief dependence
upon men who had acquired such skill at home. It would be of great
value if our theological institutions could give more of this direct evangelistic training. Judging by results, I make bold to say that it is one
of the weak spots today.
W H A T ADDITIONAL COURSES FOR SPECIAL MISSIONARY TRAINING ARE E S S E N T I A L FOR T H E ORDAINED
MISSIONARY I F H E IS TO BE ADEQUATELY PREPARED?
REVEREND JAMES L. BARTON,

D.D.

I approach this subject from the standpoint of my own personal
experience, study and observation, and am confident that the conclusions to which I have been led will not meet with the unanimous
approval of this Conference. My own conclusions are subject to
revision or reversion upon evidence. As such they are set forth for
friendly but frank discussion, in the hope that it will clarify some of
the problems we face today.
We may assume that every theological seminary teaches the exegesis of the Bible in Hebrew, Greek and English, Biblical Introduction,
Church History, Ancient, Medieval and Modern, Systematic Theology,
and Homiletics or Preaching and Pastoral Care. These subjects are
the minimum of theological instruction. Many seminaries offer added
courses of varied values, such as Sociology, Missions, and Comparative
Religion. Do these courses offer an adequate theological preparation
for a missionary wishing to enter the ordained service abroad? My
answer is in the negative.
We will probably all agree that the careful and systematic study
of Old and New Testament Introduction, of all aspects of general
Church History, and of Theology, in the best use of that term, should
25

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

be pursued by every candidate for ordination, whether he is to serve
at home or abroad. We would also undoubtedly^ agree that the additional courses offered by some seminaries in Sociology, Missions, and
Comparative Religion are essential. About three features in most of
the theological curricula of today I am coming to have questionings,
if not doubts, concerning their necessity in the equipment of all
ordained missionaries. These are Greek, Hebrew, and Homiletics
or Pastoral Care.
Considering each of these in turn, let me remind you, first of all,
that it is now possible to secure the degree of B.A. from many colleges
of high standing without having had any Greek at all; and that an
increasing number of men are entering theological schools with little or
no knowledge of even the rudiments of the Greek language. Greek
exegesis was incorporated into the theological curriculum when every
college graduate knew Greek, and when minute and mechanical exactness of interpretation was regarded as essential to the declaration of
Biblical truth. Neither is true today. In the face of the multitude of
subjects demanding the attention of the man who contemplates ordained
service abroad, is it worth while for him to begin Greek in the seminary? I would say "no," unless he plans to work among Greeks or
Armenians, to teach theology, or to translate the Scriptures.
Unless the missionary candidate contemplates work where he will
use Arabic or Hebrew or some Semitic cognate, it is equally true that
Hebrew should be eliminated. I would, of course, make an exception
for both Greek and Hebrew in the case of men of unusual linguistic
ability, who will probably be called upon to translate or revise previous
translations of the Old Testament in the vernaculars of mission fields.
There is an important place on the mission field for such men, and
they should be given rich opportunity for the thorough mastery of
languages and linguistic methods. Such men, however, are missionary
specialists. The majority of candidates can gain the discipline and the
other advantages of the study of Greek and Hebrew in ways of far
more practical value.
Again, Homiletics and Pastoral Care is primarily intended to give
men skill in preparing sermons to preach, for the most part, to Christians, and to enable them so to organize and direct the affairs of a
church that it may increase in strength and power. The ordained missionary has little or none of this work to do. He is the pastor of no
church and preaches mostly to non-Christians, where his services are
more comparable to that of a teacher than that of a pastor. I am
confident that a thorough course in the Psychology of Teaching and in
Pedagogy would be of far greater and more permanent value to the
ordained missionary than the ordinary course or courses in Homiletics
and Pastoral Care given in our seminaries.
Courses in Greek, Hebrew, and Homiletics come close to calling
for a half of the precious time available to the theological student. If
they are eliminated for the average student, the way is clear for the
introduction of some additional courses, which will be universally
valuable to the ordained missionary working under any Board or
26

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

Society and engaged in any department of work liable to come to men
of that class. These courses should be put upon a parity with those of
all other departments of the seminary, requiring the same thoroughness
of preparation and completion for graduation. It goes without saying
that the teachers and professors handling them should have adequate
equipment for their work.
The following courses are suggested as supremely essential to the
proper equipment of the ordained missionary:
1. A More Complete Study of the Bible, including Introduction,
Contents and Doctrine, and Apologetics.—In the main this study should
be made in English, with more or less reference to the original tongues,
but with the principal purpose of giving the student a real mastery of
the whole Bible. Few ordained missionaries enter upon their life work
with an adequate understanding of the oracles of their own religion;
many are strangely unfamiliar with the contents of the Book that contains the revelation they are to teach. It would be well if the foundation and much of the superstructure of their systematic theology came
from the Bible direct rather than through battle-scarred definitions and
doctrines, handed down from the past, many of which stand for division
in the Church of God rather than for constructive cooperation.
2. A Practical and Thorough Course in the Art of Bible Teaching in Week-day and Sunday-schools.—This holds a place of importance not second to preaching. The study of the Bible under competent instruction is rapidly becoming the most effective and practical
method of approach to the mind and heart of non-Christians. The
ordained missionary must be able to lead in the preparation of courses
of study, in the training of competent teachers, and in organizing and
conducting schools and Bible classes.
3. Comprehensive and Practical Courses in the Psychology and
Practice of Teaching.—Enough has already been said to make further
comment on this topic unnecessary. This is of supreme importance,
second to nothing else save the study of the Word of God itself.
4. The History and Philosophy of Religion.—Few missionaries
are now able to secure adequate instruction in this most important subject, and so are compelled to enter upon their work in the foreign
field with little or no knowledge of the historic groping of the race
after God and the existence among all peoples of a deep-seated religious
faculty and a real longing to see and know the true and eternal Spirit.
5. Comparative Religion. — A thorough and comprehensive
course, based not wholly upon information obtained from books, but
accompanied by the results of personal observation and experience, will
be of great assistance to every missionary. Each candidate should in
the seminary lay such a deep and broad foundation in this study that
he will continue to pursue the subject throughout his missionary career.
6. Modern Missions as Church History.—Apart from., the first
three centuries of the Christian era and the period of the Reformation,
there is no century that begins to compare in importance with the last
one hundred years of modern missions. This subject is as important
for the pastor at home as for the missionary who goes abroad. It is
27

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

the modern Acts of the Apostles. It is the story of the Church in the
most active and prosperous period of its history.
7. The Principles of Social Science.—This course should include
enough practical experience to enable the missionary to apply these
principles to the society in which he will be placed. It is imperative
that, in addition to the personal message of the Gospel, calling the
individual to repentance, the missionary should also be alive to the
social message that summons him to live a Christian life in the midst
of society and to be a part of the dynamic which will make that society
Christian.
8. Phonetics and the Science of Language.—The missionary
Societies are becoming increasingly alert to the importance of the mastery by the ordained missionary of at least one vernacular during the
first two or three years of his apprenticeship. Experience .has proven
the value of phonetics as a foundation upon which a new language can
be learned. There is no demand for the teaching in this country of any
of the vernaculars used in the mission fields except, possibly, the
beginning of Arabic. A course in phonetics is calculated to prepare the
missionary not only for the more speedy acquisition of a vernacular,
but for its more accurate and scientific use when once mastered.
9. The Direction of Candidates in Missionary Reading.—This
presupposes a practical modern missionary library. There is an imperative demand for direct assistance to candidates in their general
reading upon missionary themes. The seminary should provide for
courses of reading, beginning with the history of the growth of the
missionary enterprise, narrowing down ultimately to the country, people and religions with which the candidate is to be associated after
appointment.
These suggestions apply equally to candidates for appointment
for ordained service in any mission field. These topics are all of
supreme importance for the adequate preparation of men for the foreign service and shouid be provided by every theological seminary that
claims to be fully equipped for this work. Some of these courses
would be of almost equal value to pastors in this country. It is evident that if all seminaries should provide for the courses here mentioned, there would still be need of the missionary training schools to
prepare specialists and to give specific instruction upon the science of
missions and the different missionary countries.
T H E DISCUSSION
Bishop Oldham.—I find myself in considerable accord with Dr.
Barton in his position regarding the value of Hebrew to the missionary.
I speak out of the experience of a seminary student, a missionary, and
a missionary secretary. I would not eliminate it as a subject, but
would favor some adjustment which would serve after one year of
study to weed out of the Hebrew classes all who had not taken it up
with enthusiasm.
I would add to the usual studies of the theological curriculum
Elementary Medicine. Such knowledge will in some fields give a mis28

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

sionary much influence. I once saw in Borneo a Dyak come to the
missionary's house, whose head was nearly split in two. The missionary was able to give him first-aid treatment. Some four months later
I was there again and found a man devoted to the missionary and to
his Lord. An elementary knowledge of medicine is valuable everywhere. Another sort of knowledge which will be useful is that of
business methods. Much positive misery is due to the fact that a man,
highly educated at home in larger matters, is often a blundering blockhead with reference to missionary accounting.
To Dr. Speer's Spartanics, the cultivation of the quality which
subordinates privilege to non-calculated duty, which I, too, would
emphasize, I would add Humanics, the quality which expresses itself in
loving sympathy for men. Men must have wide knowledge, but they
need these human qualities, too. Our whole church life needs to be
vitalized into a deeper sense of the presence of God and a more definite belief in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Professor Beach.—May I say a word or two concerning Dr.
Barton's proposed plan for gaining the time in a regular seminary
course for the added work which his report proposes?
I believe very much in Hebrew and have proved my faith by my
works in that direction. Yet remember that we are discussing the
relative importance of studies all of which may be desirable but not
all of which are possible. Dr. Barton grants that special men, who
are peculiarly gifted linguistically and who may later be used in the
important work of Biblical translation, should take Hebrew. For the
rest of the candidates, I am sure that the relatively weak grasp of
Hebrew gained in the average theological seminary is of less value
than many subjects which, because of the time given to that study,
must be given up. So with reference to Greek. If the student has
never had elementary Greek before going to the seminary and must
there begin the study, I think that his time, may be better spent on some
of the alternates which Dr. Barton has presented. Those who have
had Greek in fitting school and college, ought, by all means, to continue it in the seminary.
Homiletics has been suggested as a study which might give place
to courses more practically helpful to the candidate. That depends.
If Homiletics is the study of a mass of details relating to our highly
organized ecclesiastical systems here in America, it may very profitably
be curtailed or omitted for missionary candidates. I hope, however,
that these men may get as much as their brethren who remain at home
in the way of the preparation and delivery of sermons, especially, if
the seminary gives ample opportunity for extemporaneous speaking,
preaching, and debate. Such training is especially desirable for missionaries whose principal work in preaching will be without the aid of
notes. Allied to this line of study and sometimes included in the work
of the professor of Homiletics, where a specialist is not procurable,
is Voice Training. Most evangelistic missionaries spend hours at a
time in speaking to crowds, to groups and individuals. Unless they
learn how to breathe and use the vocal organs, they will suffer from
clergyman's sore throat.
29

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

Social Science was recommended as a study to be introduced or to
be studied by candidates while in the seminary. I question whether
the average seminary can afford to have a professor who is sufficiently
expert to give better instruction than the candidate has already had at
college; in that case, I should hardly agree with Dr. Barton's suggestion. Yet it is undoubtedly desirable to have missionary candidates
prepared to understand and make proper use of the helpful knowledge
derivable from the study of sociology, especially in its societological
aspects. The social environment is too little understood by most missionaries and should be so fully known that it may be used as a lever
to raise men Christward.
I desire to add one study which could be introduced more easily
than some that have been suggested, namely, the study of translations
of the principal Asiatic literatures. This is a course almost equally
valuable for the home minister and for the missionary. We at home
preach occasionally upon the ethnic faiths, and even more often must
meet the critic of missions who holds that the religions of Asia are
"good enough" for Asiatics. If our theological students could read
translations of typical passages of the various non-Christian canons,
they would enlarge their own horizon and, at the same time, be preparing to answer such a criticism. It is even more desirable that missionary candidates should do this, since many young missionaries are
plunged into the atmosphere of these religions with no inkling of what
their sacred books actually have to say upon the main topics of religion.
Too few of them ever find time to study the classical languages of their
fields, except in China, and so they never do know what the canons
contain. Both classes of students could be helped by a course of readings which could be more easily arranged than most that we have been
recommending.
Let me close with a word as to Phonetics. For satisfactory results
an expert teacher must be provided, as at the Kennedy School of Missions and at the Bible Teachers' Training School. Where such a
teacher is unobtainable, more harm than good results. Indeed, even
when a competent instructor is available, it is a question whether
phonetics are not overemphasized. In some fields or portions of fields,
the sounds are relatively easy to acquire with accuracy. Is it worth
while to spend any considerable amount of time on a study which may
be of no value in the field to be entered, if, in order to get this time,
more important work is set aside?
The preparation which Dr. Speer and Dr. Oldham include under
such terms as Spartanics and Humanics, seems to me especially desirable. While such work does not come into a scholastic program, the
qualities desired can be taught by precept and example. Miss Small,
at her institution at Edinburgh and in her addresses at the British
summer schools for missionary candidates, is showing what can be
accomplished in that direction. What our missionaries are is vastly
more important than what they say, and an emphasis of the ideas
underlying those coined words will revolutionize some lives on the field.

30

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

IS I T REASONABLE T O E X P E C T A THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OR COLLEGE T O PROVIDE T H E SPECIAL
TRAINING NECESSARY FOR T H E ORDAINED MISSIONARY IN ADDITION TO T H E REGULAR T H E O LOGICAL CURRICULUM?
PROFESSOR ERNEST D. BURTON,

D.D.

The report of the Committee on the Preparation of Ordained
Missionaries, printed in the Third Annual Report of this Board, contains a list of studies regarded as desirable to be pursued by the prospective ordained missionary. It omits some of the more obvious
studies of the collegiate course, but those enumerated fall into three
classes.
1. Studies that properly belong to the undergraduate collegiate
course: Modern Languages, Art, History of Civilization, History of
Philosophy, Psychology, Pedagogy, Sociology and Civics, Economics,
Astronomy, Biology.
2. Studies that clearly belong to the standard theological course,
apart from any special needs of men preparing for foreign missionary
service: Greek (N.T.), History of Religion, Comparative Religion,
Systematic Theology, Church History, Apologetics, the Bible, Principles of Religious Education. (The early conflict of Christianity with
heathenism is simply a chapter of early church history.)
3. Then remain the following, which are apparently inserted with
special reference to the needs of the prospective missionary:
(a)
(b)
(c)

Ethnology and anthropology.
Political and economic geography.
Political, economic and diplomatic history of foreign mission
fields.
(d) Missions and world movements.
(e) The science of missions.
(f) Missionary biography.
(g) Business methods.
(h) Hygiene, sanitary science, first aid to the injured.
( i ) Phonetics.

Two omissions from this list are noticeable. The History of Missions does not appear at all. But as it undoubtedly belongs in the
second list among studies which should be accessible to all students
for the ministry, it does not concern us at this point. The other omission is more significant. No mention is made of the languages of mission lands. The committee thus tacitly gives assent to the principle
that the study of the language of the land in which a man is to work
should be pursued in that land. This is, I believe, a sound decision.
But if to this be added, in accordance with the general .trend of opinion, that such study is to be pursued in a school for newly arrived
missionaries, it is reasonable that in this school also should be pursued
the intensive study of the history, literature, customs, religion, and
31

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

political and economic conditions of the land in which the missionary
is to work. In that case, we should eliminate from our present consideration the third item in the list: Political, Economic and Diplomatic History of Mission Lands. For I think it may be assumed without argument that it is unreasonable to expect the student, before going
out to the foreign field, to study the political, economic and diplomatic
history of all mission lands, to say nothing of the difficulty of the
theological school offering so comprehensive a series of courses. Respecting missionary biography, it is fair to question whether it should
be included in the curriculum, and not rather be recommended to the
student to be included in his private reading.
If, then, we assume that the committee meant to recommend the
list which they gave as representing the general opinion of their correspondents, and omit the two just named for the reasons indicated,
there remain as subjects needed by the missionary, but not by the pastor, the following seven subjects:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Ethnology and anthropology.
Political and economic geography.
Missions and world movements.
The science of missions.
Business methods.
Hygiene, sanitary science, first aid to the injured.
Phonetics.

Our question, then, is, Is it reasonable to expect theological schools
to provide instruction in these subjects for the benefit of their students
who expect to become missionaries?
It seems clear to me that in general we must return a negative
answer to this question. It will be at once agreed that the seminary
ought not to offer these subjects to its students unless it is prepared
to teach them well. The first four of them, Ethnology and Anthropology, Political and Economic Geography, Missions and World Movements, The Science of Missions, are, perhaps, sufficiently related so
that they might all be taught by one man. It would not usually be the
case that the same man who taught these subjects would be competent
to teach Phonetics, nor likely that he could give competent instruction
in Business Methods, Sanitary Science and First Aid to the Injured.
As none of these last named subjects is enough for a professorship,
it would be practically necessary to secure the services for part time of
some neighboring physician and lawyer, or of an instructor in a business college. The provision of these courses, therefore, would, roughly
speaking, call for the appointment of one additional professor and the
provision of some special instruction by a person or persons outside
the faculty.
In the great majority of our theological schools, this provision
would be made for a very small number of men. In a school connected
or closely associated with a university, the instruction in Ethnology
and Anthropology and in Political and Economic Geography, in Hygiene, Sanitary Science, Business Methods, and in Phonetics, might
32

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

be had with little, if any, additional expense. In such a case, the
courses in Missions and World Movements and in the Science of Missions might, perhaps, be given by the professor of Missions, if Missions is not simply an adjunct to his principal task, and some special
provision might then be made for First Aid to the Injured.
A large theological school, having a considerable number of men
preparing for work as foreign missionaries, might very well be warranted in appointing a professor of Anthropology, Geography and
related subjects, and in securing outside instruction in Business Methods, Sanitary Science and Phonetics. But it seems scarcely possible to
doubt that, in the interests both of economy and efficiency, the great
majority of our schools should make no effort to provide instruction in any of these lines, but should instead advise their students to
seek such instruction in a university or in a school devoted specially
to the training of missionaries, where there would, presumably, be
enough students in these subjects to warrant the employment of competent instructors. To put upon the several theological schools the
responsibility for the teaching of all these subjects is to tempt them
to lay the burden upon professors already covering a field as wide as
they can deal with successfully, with the inevitable result of deterioration in the character of their work, or to compel them to spend an
amount of money out of proportion to the results to be achieved.
I have thus far taken it for granted that the theological school
will not undertake to teach such distinctly collegiate subjects as
Astronomy, Biology, Psychology, etc., which find a place in the list
just named above. This assumption is, I think, most just. But it is
to be remembered that many students who come to our theological
schools will not have taken all the studies in that list in college, and,
in many cases, will not discover their need of them till they are in the
midst of their theological course. The necessity that will thus arise
that the student should turn to some other than his theological school
to complete his preparation for missionary service, furnishes an additional reason why such a school should not add the studies of the third
list to its curriculum. For it will usually be possible for the student
to find in the same or adjacent schools instruction both in those studies
which he needs from the third list and those which he lacks from the
first. To provide the latter will only tempt him to do without the first.
Two years ago I answered in the negative the question whether
the standard theological course should be lengthened to four years in
order to provide adequate instruction in missions. I am constrained
to return the same answer to the present question, and to advise that,
in general, the theological seminaries do not undertake to offer those
special studies which, though needed by the prospective missionary,
are not required by their other students; but that, if these courses are
not available in some immediately adjoining college or university, they
advise their students to supplement their course in the theological
school by a short period of study in a missionary training school or
other institution offering the courses which they need to supplement
those taken in the college and seminary.

33

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

THE

DISCUSSION

Principal O'Meara.—I am a hearty believer in the well-equipped
school of missions. In a few strong and well-chosen centers, we should
aim at providing not only opportunities for lectures, but institutions
which are devoted to the special work of missionary training on its
more technical side. Every course, however, in all our theological
seminaries should be of such a nature as to serve the cause of worldwide evangelization. To minister to the need of the world should be
the objective of every seminary^. The institution which uses its equipment and staff with the broadest outlook and most catholic spirit is
the one which most helpfully serves its local purpose.
Thorough missionary training should include the elements of
social service and of the science of teaching. It should also include
the History of Missions and a thorough mastery of the English Bible.
A missionary leader in China of eighteen years' experience, in writing
to me recently, remarked: "We need men of wide outlook, welleducated and thoroughly equipped; but, in particular, send us men
who know their English Bibles and can use them when they come into
contact with the heathen." Pastoral efficiency is needed and the ability
not only to preach in the ordinary acceptation of the term, but to
debate and conduct an argument in the midst of hostile and questioning
crowds. Such preparation as this our theological institutions should
give. For technical preparation, in medicine, education, or special
language study, it is of pressing importance that we should have our
schools of missions.
Rev. George Drach.—The theological seminary is the training school for the laborers in the vineyard of the Lord, the ministers
of the Church, both at home and abroad. An efficient seminary must
furnish an adequate supply of trained men for both fields. The first
theological schools, the catechetical schools of the ante-Nicene fathers,
sought to meet the missionary as well as the pastoral needs of the
Church of their day; and if our modern seminaries have failed to provide for the training of missionaries, it is because they have lacked the
missionary vision and spirit.
Because the functions of the holy ministry are essentially the same
everywhere and always, the institution which is established and maintained by the Church to prepare men to administer this sacred office
must provide the instruction which will fit them for service in any
field to which they may be called, whether it be in a settled pastorate
at home, or in some foreign mission field.
To each of the four main divisions of theology—exegetical, dogmatic, historical, and practical—the science of missions is closely related. We need the full equipment of every seminary, yet every
theological professor should be a teacher of missions, even where a
chair of the science and practice of missions exists.
Every theological student should study missions. It would be far
wiser to prepare students for entrance into either field of service, home
or foreign, letting the call finally determine which shall be their work,
34

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

rather than to select a few men at the beginning of the theological
course to be specially trained for foreign mission work. The study
of missions should not be an appendix to a theological curriculum, not
even a graduate opportunity, but an integral part of the regular work.
In Germany there are many schools which aim to prepare for the
foreign field men who have had no university training. We have quite
a number of these training schools whose standards are low. We
should insist, I believe, on a thorough theological education for ordained men. To that end, we mus,t encourage our seminaries to furnish adequate opportunities for missionary candidates.
Many advantages would result from regular instruction in missions for all theological students. Those who remain at home would
have as good a theoretical knowledge as those who go abroad, and
would, therefore, be more definitely in sympathy with those out in the
field. The work of foreign missions would more naturally be included
in the mind of the whole Church as an integral part of its work. Foreign missionaries would be the living links between the great enterprise
to which they have given their lives and their fellow alumni at home.

ASSUMING T H A T IT IS T H E FUNCTION O F A THEOLOGICAL INSTITUTION TO PROVIDE T H E SPECIAL TRAINING NECESSARY FOR T H E ORDAINED MISSIONARY,
(1) SHALL T H E CURRICULUM BE SO MODIFIED T H A T
T H E MISSIONARY CANDIDATE MAY SECURE T H E
SPECIAL MISSIONARY TRAINING W I T H I N
THE
T H R E E YEARS ORDINARILY DEVOTED TO T H E O LOGICAL STUDY, OR (2) SHALL A F O U R T H YEAR BE
DEVOTED, EXCLUSIVELY, T O SPECIAL MISSIONARY
TRAINING?
REVEREND PROFESSOR CHARLES R. ERDMAN,

D.D.

To further the discussion of this important problem, I will present seven considerations, in view of which it may seem wise to endeavor to secure for missionary candidates a fourth year of special
instruction rather than to attempt so to modify existing curricula as
to make this special training a part of the usual three years' course
of study.
Before presenting these considerations, however, it may be helpful
to make a few preliminary statements, upon which, in all probability,
there will be general agreement; and which, if kept in mind, may give
increased clearness and definiteness to the debate.
In the first place, it is admitted that all seminaries should provide
missionary instruction of such a character that all graduates, whether
they are to labor as ministers at home or abroad, will be intelligent and
enthusiastic leaders of the missionary enterprise. Such provision will
35

PREPARATION OP ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

necessarily modify the present curricula of many seminaries; but such
modification is imperative. The missionary instruction will include
some of the branches usually classified under the caption of "special
missionary training," as, for example, the History of Religion, Comparative Religion, Pedagogy, Sociology, the Science and History of
Missions. Evidently, as such instruction is increased in the regular
three years' course of the seminary, there will be less and less need of
a fourth year. However, this discussion is to proceed on the hypothesis that, in addition to all such general missionary training, an amount
of special training equal to a full year of study is still needed; and the
question before us is whether such special and technical training in
languages, history, customs, conditions and problems of particular
fields should form a fourth year of study, or should displace parts of
existing courses so as to be included in the usual three years of theological instruction.
It is further admitted that the establishment of schools on the
foreign field for the special training of newly appointed missionaries
will vitally affect the final solution of our problem. A number of such
schools are already in existence. The Board of Missionary Preparation
at its second annual meeting declared in favor of the multiplication of
such institutions (see Report, p. 5 1 ) ; and a special committee, appointed by the Continuation Committee of the World Missionary Conference, is concerned with furthering their development. The increase
of these institutions will certainly render less necessary the provision
by our seminaries of specialized missionary training, and, least of all,
of a fourth year for such training. We are discussing, however, a
hypothetical question; whatever such schools on the field may or may
not be doing, in case a theological school at home is to give an adequate
special training for the field, should this be attempted during the three
years, or in a fourth year of the theological course?
In the third place, it is evident that, in any event, not all seminaries
should be expected to give such a fourth year of special training as is
advocated in this paper. Such technical instruction is expensive, and
should be exact and scientific. It should not be attempted by institutions which lack equipment and endowments for such work. Nor is
there need of imposing such a burden on all institutions. Missionary
candidates form only a small fraction of the whole body of ministerial
students, and their specialized training might well be undertaken by a
small number of the stronger institutions representing certain denominations or localities. However, our problem is to determine whether
any institution which undertakes to give technical, specialized missionary training should do so as a part of its present, but necessarily modified, curriculum, or as a fourth year of study.
So, too, it is evident that not every missionary candidate could
afford to take a fourth year of study in a theological institution. To
many the expenditure of time and money would appear prohibitive.
After the long years of school and college and seminary work candidates are naturally impatient of any further delay, and are often under
financial obligations which they should be unwilling to increase. It is,
36

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

of course, true, on the other hand, that an expenditure of time in
preparation is usually a saving of time in the years of service; that the
financial demands of the usual theological year are quite moderate;
and that many candidates have gone to the field, and many will continue to do so, with imperfect training, not only in technical missionary
subjects, but in academic and theological disciplines. Our problem is
to consider an ideal, and to ask whether those candidates who are
willing to pay the price will be better prepared for missionary service
by taking a fourth year of special study, or by substituting this technical training for a part of the usual theological course.
In the fifth place, it is undoubtedly true that by private reading
and study during the three years of theological training, and, especially,
during the long summer vacations, much can be accomplished by a
missionary volunteer in the line of preparation which will be invaluable
to him in his future work. We are dealing, however, with such
specialized training in phonetics, languages, religions, and similar subjects as demands instruction of the most exact and scientific character.
So, too, it is evident that extra-curriculum and elective courses can
afford considerable training in such special lines. In some instances,
they are so employed at present; but, usually, elective courses are regarded as a needed supplement to the disciplines of the required theological curriculum; and the question before us is whether, at the expense of the regular curriculum, these courses should be multiplied, or
whether they should form the substance of a fourth year of study. We
are asked to supply the equivalent of a year of special training; shall
it be secured by reducing the theological curricula by one-third in their
content, or by adding one-third to their allotted time?
With these preliminary statements in mind, the following considerations are suggested as favoring a fourth year, devoted exclusively
to special missionary training, for missionary candidates who have
previously completed the usual three years of theological study:
1. The Brevity of Theological Training.—While this period of
study is nominally three years, it is actually less than half that time in
length. In American theological institutions, after deducting the five
months of summer vacation, the two weeks at Christmas, and the time
spent in examinations, the "year" of study is found to be scarcely six
months. To this consideration must be added the fact that theological
students universally allow more serious interruptions to their weekly
work than do the students of other professional schools. The "weekend" is very frequently spent in filling preaching engagements, which
not only demand time and strength in their performance, but demand
portions of other days for preparation. Furthermore, during the week
work outside of the seminary is frequently assumed. All these labors
may be regarded as profitable, even necessary training for their life
work; but they mean a definite lessening of the time actually devoted to
study, and suggest a "year" which is less than six months in length,
and a "three years' course" which is actually less than eighteen months
in length. If, then, this period is abbreviated by one-third, to make
room for "special missionary training," there would be left but twelve
37

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

months of true theological study in the preparation of ordained missionaries. This allotment of time seems to be inadequate. Instead of
shortening the present course, then, let us try to secure the addition of
a fourth "year," of six or seven months, for technical missionary
training.
2. The Character of the Theological Course.—It is such as to
demand at least the amount of time assigned to it at present.
(a) It is a difficult course. Contrary to the popular opinion, which
is supported by many attempted "short-cuts to the ministry," a theological curriculum includes the consideration of the most serious problems which have ever confronted the human mind; and, if properly
constructed, is so wide in its scope as to include disciplines demanding
for their pursuit fully as much time as is given to preparation of medicine or the law. The very essence of the theological course is such
that it demands time for deliberate thought, and its value is utterly
destroyed by crowding and haste. It will not be denied that many
existing lecture systems reduce the work of theological students to the
low level of mere memorizing of dictations; but to shorten the time
allowed for the course would only increase existing evils and hamper
the best work now being done.
({)) It is a fundamental course and can not be materially shortened. Contrary to the belief of the usual critic of theological education, the course is not technical and specialized, so that part of it can be
omitted by a man who is to labor at home, and part by the man who is
to labor abroad. There is a popular delusion that large portions of the
course are designed to prepare specifically for the work of home pastorates. As a matter of fact, even the small fraction of the course
known as "Pastoral Theology" deals with principles of Christian work
and religious activity which are not only of wide application, but are
frequently prized most of all by candidates for foreign missionary service. Surely the main body of the theological course is of such a
character that to omit one-third of its content to make a place for
technical missionary training would mean for the missionary candidate
a serious loss of fundamental theological preparation. One must, of
course, speak with modest reserve of the content of an ideal theological curriculum. Certain changes seem inevitable. Yet even the most
radical reformers are not advocating fewer courses so much as substituted courses. The study of the ancient languages is regarded by
many as antiquated. The greatest satisfaction is expressed when students no longer acquire even the rudiments of Hebrew, so that they
are debarred from the use of the best commentaries and enjoy the
liberty of interpreting the psalms and prophecies quite independently
of the meaning of the original writers. Yet even those most gratified
by the extinction of Hebrew and Greek professors interpret their joy
in terms of the possibility, not of less study, but of larger opportunity
for more "practical courses." However the content of the course may
be changed, few thoughtful men advocate the lessening of this content,
or regard with hope the day when graduates in theology will be more
ignorant than at present.
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3. The Imperfect Preparation of Candidates.—A third consideration against lessening the time now allowed for specific theological
Study is found in the increasing crowding of the course due to the
imperfect preparation of candidates for the course. This deficiency
is commonly found, even in the case of intending missionaries, to include lack of training in Rhetoric, History and other academic and
even elementary branches; but the defect is most serious in three particulars : (1) Philosophy has not been studied; or, more unfortunately
still, it has! The instruction, so commonly given in colleges and universities, based upon a purely naturalistic theory of the universe, forms
a poor introduction to the study of theism; of Christianity, still worse;
of Christian missions, worst of all. The necessity of laying even a
ground-work of true metaphysical and philosophic conceptions is
placing ever increasing burdens on such departments as those of Apologetics and Systematic Theology. (2) Greek is truly an "unknown
tongue" to an increasing majority of men who enter our schools of
theology. The necessity of providing instruction in the elements of
this language is making ever greater demands upon hours and energies
formerly devoted to theological study. Of course, many feel that the
study of Greek is not necessary for success in the ministry, and that
men should be ordained to teach Christianity although ignorant of
New Testament exegesis. The fact remains that, whether required or
not, Greek is still desired by a large number of candidates, and it is a
serious question whether it should be denied even to those who are to
labor on the foreign field. (3) The most serious, if the most surprising, defect in the preliminary training of candidates for the ministry is
discovered in their ignorance of the contents of the English Bible.
Professor Phelps has been quoted as saying that "in reference to the
Bible, the ignorance of university students is absolute and profound."
Whether the quotation is accurate or not, the correctness of the sentiment will be avowed by many less famous authorities, who will affirm
that the ignorance alleged is not cured by the university courses, nor
by the summer vacation which intervenes between the graduation in
the spring and the entrance into the seminary in the fall. Some attempts at remedying these serious defects are beginning to be made
in certain of our seminaries, but it is admitted that even the little time
allowed for these attempts is taken from the other theological disciplines. It is this increasing demand for time, due to imperfect preparation, that raises the question whether it would be wise to shorten, by
introducing technical missionary training, a theological course already
so overburdened.
4. The Lateness of Missionary Decisions.—The lateness of the
decision to enlist in missionary service and the delay of missionary
Societies in appointing candidates to specific fields are strong considerations for postponing "special missionary training" until a "graduate" or fourth year. If students for the ministry do not decide to enlist for foreign service until the end of their second or third year in
the seminary, it is obvious that a fourth year of special training must
be provided for them; so, too, if mission Boards do not assign candi39

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

dates to special fields until their theological course is nearly or quite
completed, the seminary must provide a further year for their special
training; if, as we are supposing, the training is to be done by the
seminary.
It is true that the Student Volunteer Movement and other agencies are doing much to hasten decisions, and enlist men who are in
academic and collegiate training; but it will probably always be the
case that many of the strongest men will decide during their seminary
courses to volunteer for the foreign field; and if, as suggested, no
fourth year of study is provided, they will be denied all or an integral
part of the special training they need.
So, too, the mission Boards are probably doing the best they can
under the conditions, but the time is not near when they can so arrange
that the constant emergencies on the various fields will not demand the
selection of men who are far on in their theological training, for the
special needs and the definite fields. It is, indeed, during the very
course of theological study that specific aptitudes are developed and
discovered which lead to the specific appointments. How evident,
then, that a further year of study should be provided to prepare for
these particular places and forms of missionary service!
In this matter of delay, probably, the candidates are more at fault
than the Boards, if "fault" there be. It is the fact with which we
are concerned. Secretary Speer was speaking for the Boards when he
emphasized "the very great difficulty of getting men and women to
commit themselves to going to the mission field a long time in advance
of the actual period at which they go." The theological students
wanted to put off the decision "until near the end of their seminary
course." (See Report of the Board of Missionary Preparation, 1912,
p. 45.) If, then, any considerable number of students do not decide
upon foreign missionary service until late in their seminary course, it
would be an injury to the course and an injustice to candidates to
shorten the course of theological training by changing the curriculum
of studies to include the needed special missionary training. The need
of these students could only be met by a fourth year devoted exclusively to such special missionary training.
5. The Economy of a Fourth Year,—This last consideration suggests the great advantage from the point of view of economy of a
fourth year of special training for all missionary candidates; not that
the provision of a fourth year would be less expensive than the method
of an altered three years' course, if the latter met the whole need; the
reverse might be true; but since some candidates must have a fourth
year because of late decisions and appointments, evidently it will be
less expensive in time, money and effort to provide the one necessary
method than to provide both.
But the point of economy is more obvious from another point of
view. An institution which offered a "fourth year of special missionary training" would be patronized by students of many different denominations and shades of religious belief; but if the special training
is made a part of a three years' course of theological training, then
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only those students could be expected who felt that the institution
represented their exact opinions and creeds. Such an arrangement
would compel practically every sectarian and denominational college,
no matter how small, to provide this specialized training, or, what
would more commonly result, to allow its graduates to go to the field
unprepared for their work. Economy, therefore, suggests that it will
be cheaper for any institution to provide one form of instruction than
two; and for a few institutions to furnish the needed preparation,
than for all.
6. The Demand for Greater Efficiency.—Another consideration
to be submitted is the demand for increased efficiency made upon
seminary graduates, whether they are to labor at home or abroad.
This demand suggests that a shortening of the seminary curriculum
for the introduction of special missionary training would be less wise
than the provision, for such training, of a fourth seminary year.
The old question emerges as to the proper content of a theological
curriculum; but most educators would agree that it should include the
departments of Biblical Literature, of Christian Doctrine, of Church
History, of Apologetics, and of practical methods of Christian work.
However these may be termed or thought to include, the conditions of
the modern world call for an enlargement rather than a lessening of
the emphasis placed upon each of them in present seminary curricula.
(1) As to Biblical Literature, the world has never known an age when
problems of Biblical criticism were so acute and pressing. These
problems form the substance of newspaper editorials even in Cairo and
Japan. The theological student must know today what he believes and
why, and what others believe as well. (2) Christian Doctrine, or
Systematic Theology, has assumed protean shapes of late. Never was
it so necessary as today for a Christian missionary to have a message
and to be able to define the message in terms intelligible to the modern
mind. (3) Church History needs to be studied to guard the present
generation against the re-appearance of exploded heresies which troubled generations of the past; and to be vastly enlarged to include the
history of religion as well as the history of doctrine and of missions.
(4) Apologetics must be recast in form and broadened in scope to
confront modern attitudes of rationalistic attacks, and to meet the
claims of the great ethnic faiths. (5) Practical Theology is continually widening its field to prepare Christian ministers for changed conditions and to equip them with the best methods for work in differing
and difficult fields.
With the increased demand made by the great social and religious
world movements of our day, would it be wise, for any reasons whatever, to so alter our theological curricula as to make way for a year of
specialized work, unless we add a corresponding year of time for study ?
7. The Technical Character of Missionary Training.—A last
consideration is the necessity for special technical missionary training
of a really high order. The recognition of this need was a prime
factor in bringing into being the Board of Missionary Preparation.
There was little thought of changing the fundamental theological dis41

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

ciplines, but provision was sought for furnishing the lines of special
study which were not needed by ministers at home, but were indispensable to men who were to labor as missionaries. These studies
have been considered by the Board of Missionary Preparation to be so
numerous and so important as to demand at least one year of time from
every candidate. We are now suggesting that this year of time should
not be taken from the three years of theological training, but should
form a fourth year to the previous theological course. To attempt
to take the time from the established theological curricula would imperil the special training we are seeking to insure.
In case these technical missionary branches are compelled to fight
their way into existing curricula, delay is certain to occun Theological faculties are notoriously conservative and are certain to oppose
innovations which threaten to lessen the time now given to their
various disciplines. It is unfair to the special missionary studies to
bring them into unnecessary competition with established courses.
They will be in peril of being slighted and hampered in their growth
and development. To introduce a fourth year would meet with the
general approval and hearty support of all faculties in institutions so
equipped and endowed as to make such a fourth year possible. It is,
then, in the interest not so much of the existing theological curricula
as of special missionary training that we advocate, for such training,
the establishment of the fourth year.
Such are some of the considerations which may well be considered
as favoring the endeavor to provide, in certain of our theological
institutions, a fourth year to be devoted exclusively to special missionary training.
T H E DISCUSSION
Professor Capen.—There are really four questions that enter into this discussion of a fourth year. First, what studies additional to
those included in the standard curriculum are needed by would-be
missionaries ? Second, what studies can be reduced in order to make
place for these ? Third, can this special preparation be secured within
the three years of the standard course? Fourth, can the seminaries
furnish all this preparation?
First, with reference to the additional courses that should be provided for prospective missionaries, I would venture the opinion that
these men and women need instruction in certain phases of social
service, preparatory work in Phonetics and the Science of Language,
and training which will prepare them personally to appreciate and
interpret the history, social customs, and religious beliefs of the peoples among whom they are to live. They need to know something of
the science and art of Education, and of the principles and methods of
missionary work, studied historically and comparatively in the light
of their results.
Second, there is very little in the standard curriculum which is
not needed by the prospective missionary. He needs a broader and
deeper training in fundamental studies than does one who remains at
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home. If it were generally agreed that such subjects as Greek and
Hebrew should no longer be demanded from the average missionary
candidate, it would still be necessary to have him devote the time thus
saved to studies which are being added to the standard curriculum as
essential elements in the new preparation for the home pastorate.
Third, can missionary candidates be adequately trained in the
usual three years of theological training? Perhaps some can; but most
can not. In the majority of cases, the introduction of technical training will have one of two results: it will be done in so superficial a
fashion as to be of little value; or it will make impossible adequate
work in the important fundamental studies. This danger comes out
clearly in the study of suggested three year courses for ordained missionaries. There is abundant room for a full year of accurate scientific, highly specialized missionary training with the specific mission
field constantly in the candidate's mind. It has been suggested that
such specialized training might be provided in connection with the
union language schools which are springing up on the mission fields.
But, in that case, it would be almost inevitable that the taking of lectures in English and the study of English bopks would prevent sufficient use of the vernacular during the critical first year of language
study. The student would continue to think in his own tongue rather
than in that of his adopted country, and this would destroy or greatly
reduce the efficiency of the language school as such. This consideration alone would indicate that most of this specialized training should
be provided at home.
Fourth, most theological seminaries can not provide this training
because of the limited number of missionary candidates among their
students for any particular field; the lack of sufficient endowment: and
the lack of enough specialists. Some of them will be able to provide
part of this preparation; perhaps, a very few, all. Institutions are
being developed for meeting the specific need of a highly specialized
graduate year. In this way and through some form of cooperative
action between the institutions of different sections and denominations
adequate facilities can be provided.
T H E GENERAL DISCUSSION O F T H E LAST T H R E E
THEMES
President Schultze.—I want to put in a plea for the approval of
the study of Hebrew as a valuable asset in missionary preparation.
The Moravian Theological Seminary is one of the smaller Divinity
Schools which prepare missionaries for service in foreign lands, as
well as ministers for the home churches. Yet the Moravian Church
or Unitas Fratrum was the first Protestant or evangelical Church to
send forth missionaries to the heathen, when, in 1732, D. Nitschmann
and Leonard Dober went to St. Thomas. She has ever since continued to do missionary pioneering work and her experience is entitled
to receive consideration.
One of the first two missionaries, Leonard Dober, though simply

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a potter by trade, could read his Old Testament in Hebrew. In 1738
he began a mission work among the Jews of Amsterdam, in Holland,
as the first Christian missionary of modern times to preach the Gospel
to Israel. Although, at present, the Moravians have no special work
among the Jews, we consider the study of Hebrew important for at
least the leading men in the different mission fields.
Our theological students begin Hebrew in their sophomore year
at college. It is not so difficult a language to learn as some claim who
know only enough of it to give students the advice to forget their
Hebrew, because they themselves have so little to forget. When
rightly taught and studied, there is much joy and benefit in the study
of Hebrew. I testify from an experience of fifty years in teaching
Hebrew.
The knowledge of Hebrew is directly necessary for all mission
work among the Jews; it is almost indispensable for missionary work
among the Mohammedans, and as a preparation for the study of
Arabic. We find, furthermore, that the knowledge of the primitive
forms and constructions of Hebrew is very helpful for the acquiring
of agglutinative and Turanian languages, such as the Eskimo, the
Bantu and Kaffir, or even the Mongolian languages. While we recognize the fact that the language of a people can best be learned by being
in their country and learning it from them, it is necessary to enlarge
the faculty for acquiring that language, especially among the uncivilized nations. We teach our own candidates for the mission in Alaska
the elements of Eskimo, and the candidates for Nicaragua to read
Spanish.
As Moravian mission fields, not by choice but by divine overruling, are largely still among uncivilized races, we find it desirable
also to give to our mission candidates some practical and professional
training in surgery and medicine, in carpentering and general mechanical skill. If a choice must be made, they can rather get along with
less knowledge of Philosophy, Psychology and Economics than without
this practical knowledge.
Principal Smyth.—Our discussion has made evident two or
three facts of primary significance:
First: The fundamental difficulty is with the men rather than
with their training; it is the same problem which confronts us in the
work at home. We have been told that the missionary must be a
man with "iron in his constitution," a leader of men, a teacher, with
the faculty of training others to teach, and so on. Yes, but how are we
to secure these men ? We are not getting them for the home work.
. Again, the difficulty of devising a standard course is enhanced by
the immense differences in educational attainment of the students
sent to our theological seminaries. It would be comparatively easy to
devise a curriculum for university graduates, but we have candidates
with every variety of attainment, from the distinguished university
graduate to the young fellow who has only left the office or the counter
a few months previously, We seem to have been largely discussing
ideals—ideal candidates and an ideal course, which was possibly in44

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

evitable and by no means without profit. We must not overlook,
however, the practical difficulties that confront us in our theological
schools.
Further, we should frankly recognize the limitations imposed by
questions of time and opportunity. Our missionaries can not know
everything. There is danger of overloading the course at the expense
of thoroughness; the most we can hope for is a good general knowledge of the more vital branches of learning, with specialization in
studies more peculiarly important to the missionary.
But it should be our chief aim to turn out men trained to think,
who are yet preachers with conviction. I am not solicitous about the
particular brand of theology. The history of religious revivals shows
this to be largely immaterial; but the supremely vital, the immensely
difficult task of the theological professor of today is to produce
preachers with conviction; to teach thoughtful young men to re-adjust
their theological preconceptions, and meet the problems raised by the
modern study of Comparative Religion, while still retaining a firm
belief in the uniqueness and pre-eminence of Christianity and the allsufficiency of the Gospel to meet the world's needs.
President Wardle.—In considering the number of years necessary for adequate missionary training, we should not forget the summer school opportunity. There seems to be a consensus of opinion
that three years of theological training afford insufficient time. But
the wise use of two long summer vacations would readily afford the
equivalent of another year. Once it was thought that the long vacation was needed for rest, but now all agree that four months of relaxation from study is unnecessary and often detrimental. The wise use
of summer time would also be a saving in the expense of preparation.
A first-rate summer school might be a cooperative affair between
several seminaries. It would attract many pastors, especially, if held
at well-equipped universities or training schools. Very often pastors
under appointment for foreign service could spend four summer
months in special preparation for their work before sailing, when a
school year of study would be beyond their reach.
Professor Soper.—I do not wish to be understood as opposing a
fourth seminary year, and yet I should like to state several facts which
render a fourth year less necessary now than it was under conditions
existing in our seminaries ten or twelve years ago. Reviewing the
eight items which Dr. Barton mentioned, I notice that all except the
last are provided for now in seminaries. Since I was a theological
student, our strongest seminaries have made generous provision for
Pedagogy, Sociology, and Comparative Religion, three very important
departments as regards missionary preparation.
The elective system has, likewise, been widely extended. Nearly
all theological students have the opportunity to specialize to some extent. At Drew, some thirty-five semester hours have been added to the
curriculum during the past five years. A judicious use of electives may
enable a student to secure the bulk of the training he needs within the
orescribed three years.
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PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

It has been suggested that a candidate might well make a thorough
study of the field to which he is about to go during a possible fourth
year. This is by no means essential to his success. Indeed, $uch a
study is a part of the life-work of a missionary, and must be carried
out on the field itself.
Professor Sailer.—When I was a child my imagination was much
stirred by stories of Russian travelers pursued by wolves, who found
it necessary to throw out some of their own children to the wolves
in order to delay the fierce animals and lighten the sleigh. We are,
today, in much the same situation with the curriculum. It has become top-heavy, and, in the interests of the sleigh itself, we must
sacrifice something, agonizing though the process may be.
With regard to Hebrew, I may say that I made it a main study
in a three years' seminary course, took a higher degree in Semitic
languages, and taught Hebrew for six years. It seems to me that the
little the average theological student learns of it is of much less value
than many other subjects might be to him. The chief objection is
that it takes so much time to gain anything like mastery. I would
gladly exchange what I used to know of Hebrew for a knowledge of
almost any other of the subjects on Dr. Barton's list.
In this day of specialization, it is impossible for any one missionary to be up in all the subjects needed. The unit should be the
group and not the individual missionary. We need a few missionaries
with a good knowledge, of Hebrew, but only a few. It is, in my opinion, a mistake to require it from the average missionary.
Professor Robinson.—Like Professor Sailer, I was once a
teacher of Hebrew. By the re-adjustment of courses, I was led to
become a teacher of the English Bible. I find my exegetieal experience of the greatest value in my present work. From another angle,
also, I would insist on the continuing importance of language study.
The great outstanding defect of foreign missionary work today is
the inability of the missionaries to use a vernacular. I call to witness
the fifth volume of the Report of the World Missionary Conference.
Too many missionaries are talking to their congregations through interpreters. The cure is not a fresh avoidance of linguistic study, but
a more scientific procedure.
Professor Macdonald.—The fundamental argument against the
dropping of Hebrew as a required study for the missionary is that
there is no adequate translation of the Old Testament. None of the
revised versions is remotely satisfactory. All have startling blunders
even in simple historical passages. On the basis of twenty years'
teaching of Hebrew, I can say, with confidence, that a single year of
Hebrew will demonstrate this to any attentive student. Therefore,
anyone who wishes to use the Old Testament must be in a position to
control the English version by means of the Hebrew original. Further,
he need not be afraid of the amount of work required to put him in a
position to do that.
It is especially advantageous for the missionary to have studied
Hebrew. He must learn the language of his field. But first he must
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know how to learn a language. Very many go through our schools and
colleges and spend time over Latin and Greek and modern languages,
but do not learn them. They are not taught how to study them, and
they are left with the impression that they can not master languages.
I have had many students who, if it. had been left to their choice, would
not have taken Hebrew. They had classified themselves, finally, as
non-linguistic. Yet under the favorable conditions and in the small
classes of a theological seminary, they discovered how to learn a language and, in proportion to the time they put on it, they mastered
Hebrew.
To the brilliant progress in Turkish of one of these, Dr. Barton
has already made reference. He came to the seminary convinced by
school and college experience that language was not his forte; yet he
was first in Hebrew in his year and thereafter did excellent work in
Arabic It is true that some men—but they are few—simply can not
learn a language. That they have not done so at school and college
is, in itself, no evidence; they may belong to the class above. But it is
eminently in the interests of the mission Boards that they should be
thoroughly tried out. No foreign mission Board wants a man who is
devoid of linguistic sense. And that trying-out can be dpne by the
Hebrew course of a theological seminary.
Much has been said on the value of courses for the study of the
English Bible. Such study is admirable and necessary, but who shall
conduct the courses ? Here my first point comes again into play. No
one can teach even the English Old Testament with safety, unless he
can control his English version by means of the Hebrew original.
Otherwise, he is not guiding in the study of the Old Testament, but
is carrying on an English Literature course in the King James version,
or the revised edition. But where are these teachers to come from?
Once let the idea get abroad that Hebrew is not necessary for the Old
Testament student and the number of students taking Hebrew will
at once dwindle. At present, the only practical method of demonstrating to a student the value of Hebrew is to teach him Hebrew,
and thus to show him how Hebrew can change the Old Testament
for him. But if he does not study Hebrew, he will cling to the venerable errors of our translations and uphold their inerrancy. Thus, our
supply of solidly based teachers of even the English Bible will be
cut off.
President White.—I am inclined to favor a fourth year of special training for the missionary candidate. Already there is too much
in the three years' theological curriculum for the average man to do
as well as it should be done, and more is coming all the time. And
this, to say nothing of the woeful absence of knowledge of the Bible
itself with which many a student begins his theological course. The
equivalent of a full year's time should be involved in the theological
course in the direction of mastery of the Bible. The only alternative
for this fourth year which I see is to catch the student younger and
give him beforehand the equivalent of one or two years' specialized
preparation before he reaches the seminary. If I had my own way,
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PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

the student who comes out of the college of today would have five
years instead of three. There is much to commend in the suggestion
of Dr. Sailer that we seek to dovetail the college work with the seminary work.
President Evans.—The financing of a fourth year is a serious
problem for the average school of theology. It means additional professors for very few students in any one year, possibly no more than
two or three. Could not the financial problems, however, be solved at
minimum expense to mission Boards through fellowships, by means
of which a theological school could send such fourth-year students to
a university, either in America, or Europe, or Asia, to secure the
special training it itself does not have the facilities to give?
Principal Hill.—The regular three years' course will have to be
the standard preparation for the missionary no less than for the pastor
at home. Men are quite unwilling to delay for another year, after
many years of studying. They long to get quickly into their work.
Protracted years in scholastic life tend to cool the zest for the evangelistic portion of a pastor's or missionary's life. It might be good
policy to send candidates out after three years of study into personal
touch with the people for whom their life is to be given, to steady
their purpose. The learning of the language and the elementary
preaching would not be affected by lack of extra training. Having
made a short stay, during which the language has been mastered, they
could come back for the extra year. By that time, they would know
definitely the work they were to do, which they seldom do at the close
of their college course. The year then would meet a sense of need.
Professor Rowe.—-Men who prepare to specialize in the foreign
field are often deeply disappointed. They are given something else
to do. The fourth seminary year should come during the first furlough period. Every man will then know his powers and his limitations, and be able to make a wise use of his time. Let us further plan
to bring missionaries willing to study home for a year of furlough
study once every five years. By this method, we would develop great
ntissionaries.
The Chairman.—We must impress upon our Findings Committee, through which this Conference will speak with an authority previously without parallel, that it must not commit our theological schools
to any relinquishment of present standards in the preparation of men
for the ministry at home. There is no recognized profession, except
the ministry, that does not require more professional training today
than was required half or a quarter of a century ago.
Once a theological course invariably implied three strong years
in addition to full collegiate training. Since then, we have added many
studies to the standard theological course, and have enlarged those
which formerly were looked upon as alone essential. The result is a
more chaotic condition than is to be found in the training schools of
any other profession. On the whole, I fear that in many respects the
training of the ministry is less adapted to the sterner and wider demands of our day than it was, relatively, to the situation of the Church
fifty years ago.
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In medicine, they are talking about a fourth year and a fifth year.
They will demand all the years that are essential to professional efficiency. But the Church is permitting its candidates for ministerial
leadership to shorten or minimize their preparation. Let us demand
from the candidate whatever will make him a fit representative of the
Church, at home or abroad. The would-be missionary is a specialist.
That fact must not lessen his time of preparation, but rather lengthen
it. Any other conclusion will rather disastrously react upon the training of the pastor for the home field.

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PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

T H E FINDINGS OF T H E CONFERENCE
This Conference of the Board of Missionary Preparation with representatives of Theological Institutions and
Foreign Mission Boards of North America, expresses the
following judgment respecting the educational preparation
of the ordained missionary for service on the foreign mission
field.
I. STUDIES TO BE PURSUED BY THE MISSIONARY CANDIDATE.

The student preparing for work as an ordained missionary should take a full collegiate and theological course, the
latter including courses in special preparation for foreign
missionary service, or being supplemented by such studies.
His collegiate and subsequent courses should include the following studies:
Studies Ordinarily Pursued in College.
A modern language, in addition to the study of his mother tongue.
Greek.
General psychology.
Educational psychology, or the principles of education.
History of philosophy.
General history, or the history of civilization.
Biblical history and literature.
Social and religious survey of the world.
Economics.
Human society and the laws of its organization.
Some physical and biological science.
The above studies should ordinarily be pursued in college, but, failing this,
should be taken later.

Studies Ordinarily Pursued in Professional Schools.
The historical and interpretative study of the Bible, preferably including the study of the original languages.
Church history, especially of early Christianity in relation to other
religions.
Systematic theology.
Apologetics,
The effective presentation of the Christian message (missionary
homiletics).
The historical and comparative study of church organization and
activity (church polity).
The history, psychology, and philosophy of religion.
Principles of religious education.
The history of missions, especially the modern period, accompanied
by readings in the biographies of missionaries.

50

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES
Principles and methods of Christian missions.
Phonetics, and the scientific method of language study.
The above studies should be taken in a theological seminary, in a special
missionary training school, or in a university. They should be accompanied
by practical Christian work under competent guidance, and be pursued under
influences adapted to develop the Christian life.

Studies Usually Taken on the Field.
The language of the missionary's field.
Its history and literature, economic and social conditions.

To all the above it is desirable to add, in most eases,
Hygiene.
Sanitation.
Business methods.
First aid to the injured.
Music,
2. T H E LENGTH OF THE COURSE.

The amount and importance of work to be done in the
field of special missionary preparation is so great, that no
student ought to sacrifice the thoroughness and completeness
of his theological curriculum by attempting to cover both the
regular and the special studies in three annual sessions of the
ordinary length. With a sufficient faculty and with a school
year of sufficient length the curriculum might be so arranged
as to make the special missionary preparation an organic part
of the curriculum.
Such a course might, for example, include the following
studies :
Old Testament, 192 hours.
New Testament, 192 hours.
Church History, 192 hours.
Systematic Theology, 192 hours.
Missionary Homijetics, 96 hours.
Religious Education, 96 hours.
History of Missions, 96 hours,
Apologetics, 48 hours.
Church Polity, 48 hours.
Principles and Methods of Missions, 48 hours.

Such a curriculum can be covered in twenty-seven or
twenty-eight months, that is, in three years of nine months,
or in four years of seven months. But it is obvious that no
51

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

school should undertake thus to enlarge the curriculum unless it can both raise the new subjects to the level of the old,
and at the same time avoid sacrificing the old subjects. Two
summer sessions of a school of high scholastic standards and
spiritual atmosphere, which might be cooperatively conducted by all the institutions in a given region at an institution conveniently located and well equipped, might wisely
supplement the three years' course where no adequate training or special missionary courses are provided. Such a
method would be more effective and far more economical
than the lengthening of the course in all our theological
schools.
For the student who gives a fourth year to special preparation, it will be natural to continue at his own theological seminary, if it provides opportunities which are adequate
in amount and scholarly quality. Otherwise, he will be compelled to seek out another seminary which does offer these
opportunities, or proceed to one of the recently founded
schools for missionary training, or to some university centre
offering him his desired advantages.
3. ADVISING AND AIDING THE CANDIDATE.

Without involving the Mission Board in expense or in
definite acceptance of a candidate, it is our conviction that,
whenever possible, a candidate should be brought under the
consideration of his Board sufficiently early to enable the
Candidate Secretary and Board, or such other ecclesiastical
body as may be involved, to aid in the direction of his
preparation.
If, in the judgment of a Board, after the candidate has
been accepted, special preparation, in addition to that provided by the college and theological seminary, is desirable
for a candidate, in order to equip him the better for the
course to which he has been assigned, we believe it to be a
proper and economical use of the Church's funds for the
52

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

expenses of such special preparation to be provided on the
fellowship basis.
4. SOME COURSES TO BE PURSUED BY CANDIDATES FOR THE
HOME MINISTRY.

In the conviction that the responsibility of the missionary
enterprise rests equally upon those who stay at home and
those who go to the foreign field, we recommend that students looking forward to work in the home field should,
as far as practicable, include the following studies in their
courses of training:
The history, psychology and philosophy of religion, including
a clear presentation of the character and fruitage of each religion
at the present day.
History, principles and methods of Christian missions, including the basis of their claim upon the home church.
Home organizations, and administration of the student's denominational Board and of other missionary agencies.
The presentation of missions, and development of missionary
spirit within the parish.
The study of missionary movements, biography and work in
specific fields.

To these the student should add private reading in Missionary Biography.
5. T H E SPIRIT AND METHOD REQUIRED IN THEOLOGICAL
EDUCATION.

Under the guidance of the Spirit of God, Christian people have come in these recent years more or less consciously
to see that Christianity is in its very essence missionary; and
the changes in the curricula of our theological seminaries in
the direction of more adequate preparation for missionary
service have, therefore, meant in large part simply preparation for a more consistent and thorough-going presentation
of Christianity itself. The new emphases and subjects have
been demanded just because there could be no effective setting forth of the Christian message and life without them.
53

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

The spirit and method needed are themselves suggested, thus,
by the new emphases and the new subjects. And for final
results the right spirit and method may mean more than the
exact content of the course of study.
As to spirit, then, we are really asking in the Christian
missionary the same Christlike spirit that should characterize every Christian minister, every theological teacher, and
indeed every Christian disciple. The Christian missionary
needs to have drunk so deep of the spirit of Christ that he
may incarnate the spirit of brotherhood, of unwearied sympathy, of the ability to put himself with thought and imagination at the point of view of the man he would help, so as to
appreciate the best in him, and to respond to his deepest need.
He must have not less the sacrificial spirit that enables him
unhesitatingly, sternly to subordinate all the lesser goods to
the supreme goal of the Kingdom. And, as the prime condition of the successful performance of his task, he requires
such an actual, outgoing, invincible love for men as compels
him to share with other men the best which Christ has
brought to him. He needs, up to the full measure of his
ability, a contagious personality, convictions that breed conviction, character-begetting power. And all this holds not
less for theological teachers and for all those who are to go
into the home field. The spirit of the theological seminary
itself should be such as naturally to call out such men.
As to method, the theological seminary needs the simple
application of those methods that an honest, adequate and
effective presentation of Christianity in the foreign field demands. The method, therefore, must be characterized by
the scientific spirit—so essentially akin to our Lord's own
demand for utter inner integrity of spirit—by the determination to see straight, to report exactly, to give an absolutely
honest reaction upon the situation in which one is placed.
(Even minor adjustments in curricula go back to this.) The
method must be characterized secondly by the historical and
54

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

comparative spirit that can trace truth in its development,
that can see that, Church History is past Missions, and can
learn from all the past; and that has won the power to enter
intelligently and sympathetically into the life of other
churches, races, civilizations arid religions. The method
needs, too, the concrete, accurate, psychological approach
that will express itself in the whole field of religious education and in the practical presentation of the Christian message, and will affect the spirit of all other theological instruction. The theological seminary, too, will not be true even to
the spirit of religion if it does not strive to see life steadily,
to see it whole, to see it in its ultimate meanings, and so to
bring to its subjects the philosophic mind. Nor can it be
true to the deepest moral characteristic of our age—the social
consciousness—without earnestly trying to apply to the entire social life of our time at home and abroad the standards
and ideals of our Lord. If these methods truly prevail, the
theological seminary can hardly fail to give to its students
what is most important for their future growth,—points of
view, introduction to the sources, enduring impetus, and
right methods of work.

55

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES

T H E ROLL O F T H E CONFERENCE
Thirty-seven theological institutions were represented as
follows:
T H E CO-OPERATING THEOLOGICAL
WITH McGILL UNIVERSITY,

COLLEGES

AFFILIATED

Rev. JOHN SCRIMGER, D.D., Dean.

CONGREGATIONAL COLLEGE OF CANADA, Montreal,
Rev. EDWARD M. HILL, D.D., Principal.

DIOCESAN THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE, Montreal,
Rev. ELSON I. REXFORD, LL.D., Principal.

PRESBYTERIAN THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE, Montreal,
Rev. JOHN SCRIMGER, D.D., Principal.

WESLEYAN THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE, Montreal,
Rev. JAMES SMYTH, LL.D., Principal.

WYCLIFFE COLLEGE, Toronto,
Rev. T. R. O'MEARA, D.D., Principal.

HARTFORD THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, Hartford, Conn.,
Rev. W, DOUGLAS MACKENZIE, D.D., President.

Rev. Professor M. W. JACOBUS, D.D., Dean.
Professor DUNCAN B. MACDONALD, D.D.

THE YALE SCHOOL OF RELIGION, New Haven, Conn.,
Rev. Professor HARLAN P. BEACH, D.D.

THE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY OF EMORY UNIVERSITY OF T H E
METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SOUTH, Atlanta, Ga.,
Rev. PLATO T. DURHAM, D.D., Dean.

CHICAGO THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, Chicago, 111.,
Professor ERNEST D. BURTON, D.D., Representative.

DIVINITY SCHOOL OF T H E UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, Chicago, 111.,
Professor ERNEST D. BURTON, D.D.

GARRETT BIBLICAL INSTITUTE, Evanston, 111.,
Rev. Professor W. D. SCHERMERHORN, Ph.D.

MCCORMICK THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY,

Chicago, in.,

Rev. Professor GEORGE L. ROBINSON, Ph.D.

WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, Westminster, Md.,
Rev. HUGH LATIMER ELDERDICE, D.D., President.

ANDOVER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, Cambridge, Mass.,
Rev. Professor JOHN WINTHROP PLATNER, D.D.

BOSTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL O F THEOLOGY, Boston, Mass.,
Rev. L. J. BIRNEY, D.D., Dean.

EPISCOPAL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, Cambridge, Mass.,
Rev. Professor MAX KELLNER, D.D.
Rev. Professor HENRY BRADFORD WASHBURN, D.D.

NEWTON THEOLOGICAL INSTITUTION, Newton Center, Mass.,
Professor HENRY K. ROWE, Ph.D.

DREW THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, Madison, N. J.,
Rev. Professor EDMUND D. SOPER, D.D.

THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF T H E PRESBYTERIAN
Princeton, N. J.,
Rev. J. Ross STEVENSON, D.D., President.

CHURCH,

Rev. Professor CHARLES R. ERDMAN, D.D.

THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF T H E REFORMED
AMERICA, New Brunswick, N. J.,
Rev. J. PRESTON SEARLE, D.D., President.

56

CHURCH IN

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES
ALFRED UNIVERSITY THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, Alfred, N. Y.,
Rev. Professor WILLIAM C. WHITFORD, D.D.

.

COLGATE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, Hamilton, N. Y.,
Rev. WILLIAM H. ALLISON, D.D., Dean,

GENERAL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF T H E PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH, New York City,
Rev. WILFORD L. ROBBINS, D.D., Dean.
Rev. Professor FRANCIS BRANCH BLODGETT, D.D.

ROCHESTER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, Rochester, N. Y.,
Rev. Professor HENRY B. ROBINS, Ph.D.

UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, New York City,
Rev. FRANCIS BROWN, D.D., President.
Rev. Professor ROBERT E. HUME, Ph.D.

CENTRAL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF T H E REFORMED CHURCH
IN T H E UNITED STATES, Dayton, Ohio,
Rev. A. D. WOLFINGER, D.D.

OBERLIN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, Oberlin, Ohio,
Rev. HENRY CHURCHILL KING, LL.D., President

UNITED PRESBYTERIAN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, Xenia, Ohio,
Rev. Professor M.'G. KYLE, D.D.

W. NAST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, Berea, Ohio,
Rev. JOHN A. VOLLENWEIDER.

CROZER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, Chester, Pa.,
Rev. MILTON G. EVANS, D.D., President.

MORAVIAN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, Bethlehem, P a ,
Rev. AUGUSTUS SCHULTZE, D.D., President.

Rev. Professor W. N. SCHWARZE, D.D.

PITTSBURGH THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, Pittsburgh, P a ,
Rev. Professor W. R. WILSON, D.D.

THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF T H E REFORMED CHURCH IN T H E
UNITED STATES, Lancaster, P a ,
Rev. JOHN C. BOWMAN, D.D, President.

THEOLOGICAL DEPARTMENT OF TEMPLE UNIVERSITY, Philadelphia, P a ,
Rev. W. B. SHUMWAY, D.D, Dean.

BIBLICAL DEPARTMENT OF VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY,
Rev. W. F. TILLETT, D.D, Dean.
Rev. Professor O. E. BROWN, «D.D.

THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF T H E PROTESTANT
CHURCH, Theological Seminary, V a ,

EPISCOPAL

Rev. EDMUND J. LEE.

XENIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, Xenia, Ohio,
Rev. Professor M. G. KYLE, D.D.

Five institutions interested in the training of missionaries were represented at the Conference by eight delegates.
BIBLE TEACHERS' TRAINING SCHOOL, New York City,
Rev. WILBERT W. WHITE, Ph.D., President.
Rev. Professor THOMAS F. CUMMINGS, Ph.D.

CINCINNATI MISSIONARY TRAINING SCHOOL, Cincinnati, Ohio,
President ADDIE GRACE WARDLE, M.A.

57

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES
COLLEGE OF MISSIONS, Indianapolis, Irid.,
Professor HARRY C. HURD, Registrar.

KENNEDY SCHOOL OF MISSIONS, Hartford, Coiih.,
Rev. Professor EDWARD W. CX*EN, Ph.D., Secretary.
TEACHERS COLLEGE OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSltY, New York City,
Professor JAMES E. RUSSELL, Ph.D., Dean.
Professor T. H. P. SAILER, Ph.D.

Of the Foreign Mission Boards and co-operating organizations represented in the Foreign Missions Conference of
North America twenty^ttine were represented by fifty-two
delegates.
AMERICAN BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS,
Rev. JAMES L. BARTON, £).D., Corresponding Secretary.
Rev. EDWARD LINCOLN SMITH, D.D., Corresponding Secretary.

WOMAN'S BOARD OF MISSIONS (CONGREGATIONAL),
Miss HELEN B. CALDER, Secretary.

AMERICAN BAPTIST FOREIGN MISSION SOCIETY,
Rev. EMORY W. HUNT, D.D., General Secretary.
Rev. FRED P. HAGGARD, D.D., Home Secretary.

FOREIGN MISSION BOARD, SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION,
Rev. T. B. RAY, D.D., Foreign Secretary.
CHRISTIAN WOMEN'S BOARD OF MISSIONS (DISCIPLES),
Rev. S. G. IN MAN.
THE CANADIAN CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY,
Rev. CANON T. R. O'MEARA, LL.D., Secretary.

DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF THE PROTESTANT ESPISCOPAL CHURCH IN THE U, S. A.,
Rt. Rev. ARTHUR S. LLOYD, D.D., President.
Rev. ARTHUR M. SHERMAN.

AMERICAN FRIENDS' BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS,
Miss CAROLENA M. WOOD.

Ross A. HADLEY, Assistant Secretary.
FOREIGN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION OF FRIENDS OF PHILADELPHIA,
HORACE E. COLEMAN.

BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL OF
THE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH IN N. A.,
Rev. GEORGE ORACH, General and Candidate Secretary.
BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL
CHURCH,
Rev. WILLIAM F. OLDHAM, D.D., Corresponding Secretary.
Rev. THOMAS S. DONOHUGH, Candidate Secretary.

WOMAN'S FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF THE METHODIST
EPISCOPAL CHURCH,
Mrs. JOHN M. CORNELL, Corresponding Secretary, New York Branch.
Mrs. EDWARD S. FERRY, Acting President, New York Branch.
Miss FLORENCE HOOPER, General Treasurer.
Miss ELIZABETH R. BENDER, General Office^ Secretary.

58

PREjBARATIOlT OP G^DAINEEf

MI?SIONARipS

Mrs. J. H. KNOWLBS, Recording $ecretary, New York Branch.
Mrs. W. IF. OLDHAM.
Mrs. T. EDGAR LEAYCRAFT.

Miss W. R* LEWIS.
Mrs. DION WYLIE KENNEDY.

MISSIONARY SOCIETY O F T H E METHODIST CHURCH, Canada,
Rev. JAMES ENDICOTT, D.D., General and Candidate Secretary.
BOARD O F FOREIGN MISSIONS, METHODIST
PROTESTANT
CHURCH,
Rev. FRED C. KLEIN, D.D., Corresponding Secretary and Treasurer.
SOCIETY OF UNITED BRETHREN FOR PROPAGATING T H E GOSPEL
AMONG THE HEATHEN (MORAVIAN CHURCH),
Rev. W. N. SCHWARZE, D.D.

BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF T H E PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
IN U. S. A.,
ROBERT E. SPEER, D.D., Secretary.
Rev. ARTHUR J. BROWN, D.D., Secretary.

T. H. P. SAILER, Ph.D., Educational Secretary.
BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE REFORMED CHURCH IN
AMERICA,
President W. H. S. DEMAREST, D.D.

Rev. WILLIAM I. CHAMBERLAIN, Ph.D., Foreigti Secretary.
BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF T H E REFORMED CHURCH IN
THE UNITEE) STATES,
Rev. A. R. BARTHOLOMEW, D.D., Secretary.
A. D. WOLFINGER, Secretary.

BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE UNITED PRESBYTERIAN
CHURCH OF N. A.,
Rev. M. G. KYLE, D.D., President.

Rev. CHARLES R. WATSON, D.D., Corresponding and Candidate Secretary.
W. B. ANDERSON, Associate Secretary.
AMERICAN COUNCIL, AFRICA INLAND MISSION,
FRANK

H. MANN, Secretary.

STUDENT DEPARTMENT, INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF
YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS,
Rev. PAUL MICOU, Secretary for Theological Seminaries.
FOREIGN DEPARTMENT O F T H E NATIONAL BOARD O F T H E
YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS, U. S. A.,
Miss BERTHA CONDE.
Miss CLARISSA H. SPENCER.

CHRISTIAN AND MISSIONARY ALLIANCE,
Rev. J. D. WILLIAMS, Foreign Secretary.
STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS,
FENNELL P. TURNER, General Secretary.
JOSEPH C. ROBBINS, Candidate Secretary.

TRUSTEES OF T H E CANTON CHRISTIAN COLLEGE,
W. HENRY GRANT, Secretary and Treasurer.

TRUSTEES O F T H E SYRIAN PROTESTANT COLLEGE,
Rev. FRANCIS BROWN, D.D.

CONTINUATION COMMITTEE OF T H E WORLD MISSIONARY CONFERENCE,
JOHN R. MOTT, LL.D., Chairman.

59

PREPARATION OF ORDAINED MISSIONARIES
DOMINION COUNCIL OF THE YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS, Canada,
Miss UNA SAUNDERS, National Secretary.

There were present eight missionaries on furlough.
Rev. HORACE E. COLEMAN, Tokyo, Japan,

The Friends' Foreign Missionary Society,
Professor HENRY B. GRAYBILL, M.A., Canton, China,
The Canton Christian College.
Rev. S. G. IN MAN, Mexico,
Secretary Committee on Co-operation in Latin America.
Rev. EDMUND J. LEE, Nanking, China,
The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
Dr. B. L. LOCKETT, Oyo, Nigeria, South Africa,
The Southern Baptist Convention.
Rev. Professor HARRY F. ROWE, Nanking, China,
The Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Epicopal Church.
Rev. ARTHUR M. SHERMAN, Hankow, China,

The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
Rev. Professor LEIGHTON STUART, Nanking, China,
The Union Theological School of Nanking.

60

PUBLICATIONS OF THE BOARD
The First Annual Report (1911)
Of historical value, giving full details of the first year of organization.
Paper, price 25 cents, postpaid.

The First and Second Annual Reports (1911, 1912)
A few copies bound in one volume.
Paper, price 50 cents, postpaid.

Valuable for completing sets.

The Third Annual Report (1913)
Rich in suggestions concerning the special training which evangelistic,
educational, medical, and women missionaries should seek. It also contains a report on the userof the missionary furlough, a list of the institutions which offer special courses for candidates, and suggestions of valuable courses of reading.
Paper, price 25 cents, postpaid.

The Fourth Annual Report (1914)
Containing reports on preparation for different fields, such as China,
India, Japan, Latin America, the Near East and Pagan Africa. It also
includes full reports of the two important Conferences on Preparation of
Ordained Missionaries and Administrative Problems.
Paper, price 50 cents, postpaid.

The Fifth Annual Report (1915)
Including the reports of the two important Conferences on Preparation of Women for Foreign Service and Preparation of Medical Missionaries.
Paper, price 50 cents, postpaid.

The Sixth Annual Report (1916)
Containing, besides the report of the Annual Meeting, the full report
of the important Conference on Educational Preparation.
Paper, price 50 cents, postpaid.

The Seventh Annual Report (1917)
Containing the minutes and proceedings of the Annual Meeting.
Paper, price 25 cents, postpaid.
CONFERENCE REPORTS
The Report of a Conference on the Preparation of Women for Foreign
Missionary Service. Paper, 25 cents.
The Report of a Conference on the Preparation of Medical Missionaries.
Paper, 25 cents.
The Report of a Conference on the Preparation of Ordained Missionaries.
Paper, 25 cents.
The Presentation of Christianity in Confucian Lands. Paper, 50 cents.
The Presentation of Christianity to Hindus. Paper, 50 cents.
The Presentation of Christianity to Moslems. Paper, 50 cents.

Preparation
Preparation
Preparation
Preparation
Preparation
Preparation
Preparation
Preparation
Preparation
Preparation

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REPRINTS OF SPECIAL REPORTS
Ordained Missionaries (revised). 10 cents.
Medical Missionaries (revised). 10 cents.
Educational Missionaries (revised). 10 cents.
Women for Foreign Service (revised). 10 cents.
Missionaries Appointed to China. 10 cents.
Missionaries ,Appointed to India. 10 cents.
Missionaries Appointed to Japan. 10 cents.
Missionaries Appointed to Latin America. 10 cents.
Missionaries Appointed to the Near East. 1Q cents.
Missionaries Appointed to Pagan Africa. 10 cents.