Languages used.
One American Mission Board alone (the Presbyterian) uses the following languages and dialects in its educational institutions:—Arabic, Armenian, Beng, Bulu, English, Fang, French, German, Hainanese, Hakka, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Laos, Mandarin (and many dialects in our eight China missions; the dialects of China are as diverse as the languages of Europe), Marathi, Mpongwe, Persian, Portuguese, Punjabi, Sanscrit, Siamese, Spanish, Syriac, Tagalog, Turkish, Urdu, Visayan.[72]
Where shall we put the emphasis?
But in spite of all that is being done, we continue to make our plea for the little children. Whatever emphasis may be laid on the need for boarding schools, colleges, normal, and industrial training schools, let us remember that those who are taught while small will make the most hopeful students in these more advanced schools, and the best workers in the future.
How missionary schools lead children to Christ.
How quickly and easily and naturally the little ones learn of Jesus, the children’s Friend, and their relation to Him, we have already seen illustrated in the kindergarten work of Japan. A little six-year-old Greek boy in Syria, who had attended the missionary kindergarten, spent the summer in the mountains and became dreadfully wild and profane. On his return to school the teacher asked why he had been so naughty. He replied, “I didn’t pray during the summer. Now I’m going to pray and be a good boy.”
To Mrs. Pitcher of Amoy we owe the following incident:—
A scholar in one of our schools, whose relatives were all idol worshippers and very ignorant, was led to give her heart to Jesus, and became a most active little Christian; but one day she was taken very ill with plague, and during her last hours she was so happy singing hymns she had learned at school and telling her parents and old grandmother about the Home beyond, where she would soon be with the Lord, that all that heathen family were led by this dying child to believe in a God of love, who could so comfort His little child, and save her from the terror and dread of the many evil spirits in whom they had blindly trusted.[73]
Mission school children in after-life.
This chapter cannot end before we follow into their later life some of the children whose early and perhaps whose only education was received in missionary schools.