Dr. Blyden's opportunities for knowing the facts are unquestioned, and his book presents in very striking array the advantages which in some respects Islam enjoys over Christianity in the propagation of its faith in Africa. The discussion has been continued by Canon Taylor of York, England, and, more recently, in a very clear article in the Nineteenth Century, by Dean R. Bosworth Smith. Our space does not permit us either to summarize the facts as to this progress, nor can we present all the reasons for it. But one of these reasons touches so nearly a point that is of such vital interest to American Christians, that we feel called upon to state it and emphasize it. We abridge the full statement thus: Christianity has labored under the great disadvantage of coming to the Negro in "a foreign garb." Its teachers came from a land that first reached the Negro by capturing him as a slave; they came to him with the conscious or unconscious air of superiority born of race-prejudice. Christianity came to him as the creed, not of his friends, his well-wishers, his kindred, but of his masters and oppressors. They differed from him in education, in manners, in color, in civilization. Mohammedanism, on the other hand, reached the Negro in his own country, in the midst of his own surroundings. When it had acclimatized itself and taken root in the soil of Africa, it was handed on to others, and then no longer exclusively by Arab missionaries, but by men of the Negro's own race, his own proclivities, his own color. The advantages of this method of approach cannot be over-estimated. We care not to enter at all into the question of the value of the two religions nor of the good they may respectively do for poor Africa. We wish simply to deal with the methods and means, and with the peoples who may best employ them. We again summarize the language of Dean Smith: The very fact that there are millions of Negroes in America and the West India Islands, many of whom are men of cultivation and lead more or less Christian lives, is proof positive that Christianity is welcomed by them. Is there not room to hope that many of these men, returning to their own country, may be able to present Christianity to their fellow-countrymen in a shape in which it has never yet been presented,—in which it would be very difficult for Europeans or Americans ever to succeed in presenting it—to them, and may so develop a type of Christianity and civilization combined which shall be neither American nor European, but African, redolent alike of the people and of the soil?
This is a point which the American Missionary Association has frequently urged, and which it had begun to exemplify by sending colored missionaries to Western Africa. The experiment was in many respects satisfactory, but we realized that a longer training and a more thorough maturing of character were needed in those who had just emerged from the darkness and limitations of slavery. But what greater hope can there be for Africa than in the training of these millions, so apt in learning, so earnestly religious, and so well qualified to meet as brothers and friends their kindred in the Dark Continent! Here is a work for American Christians, full of promise of a glorious harvest.
THE VERNACULAR IN INDIAN SCHOOLS.
After some considerable delay, Commissioner Atkins has issued revised Regulations in regard to the teaching of Indian languages in schools. That our readers may have them in distinct form we append them:
"1. No text books in the vernacular will be allowed in any school where children are placed under contract, or where the Government contributes, in any manner whatever, to the support of the school; no oral instruction in the vernacular will be allowed at such schools. The entire curriculum must be in the English language.
"2. The vernacular may be used in missionary schools only for oral instruction in morals and religion, where it is deemed to be an auxiliary to the English language in conveying such instruction.
"3. No person other than a native Indian teacher will be permitted to teach in any Indian vernacular, and these native teachers will only be allowed in schools not supported in whole or in part by the Government, at remote points, where there are no Government or contract schools where the English language is taught. These schools under native teachers only, are allowed to teach in the vernacular with a view of reaching those Indians who cannot have the advantages of instruction in English, and they must give way to the English-teaching schools as soon as they are established where the Indians can have access to them."
In response to a special application for authority to instruct a class of theological students in the vernacular, at the Santee School, the Commissioner says:
"There is no objection to your educating a limited number of Indians in the vernacular, as missionaries, in some separate building, entirely apart from the Santee School. This instruction in the vernacular must be conducted entirely separate from the English course, and must not interfere with English studies or be considered part of the ordinary course for any other pupils of the school than the limited number agreed upon, not to exceed thirty, and all instruction in the vernacular must be conducted at no expense to the Government."
Since writing the above, we have received from Commissioner Atkins a copy of rules designed to explain the orders quoted above. We are constrained to say that these explanations will probably not remove the objections that have been widely entertained against the rulings of the Department. It must be admitted, however, that there are difficulties in the way of formulating regulations that in their details shall meet the views of all parties concerned. On the one hand, there is the aim of Commissioner Atkins, in which we all coincide, to introduce the English language among the Indians as speedily as possible. On the other hand, there is the aim of the churches, in which we are glad to believe the Commissioner coincides, to spread the gospel as rapidly as possible among the Indians. The churches feel that it is a duty they owe to God and to those Indians who cannot understand English to teach them in the language in which they were born, and they believe, too, as the result of long experience, that Christian schools in the vernacular are among the most important means to that end, especially as pioneer movements. American Christians believe, too, that they have the right as American citizens to use their own methods—tested by experience—without the interference of the Government; and we believe they will feel constrained to protest in every legitimate and honorable way against such interference. We hope that the Department of the Interior will yet make the needful concessions.