BV 2616 .P6 
 
 I abartu:, M , - • auffler 
 Chi Id in the midst 
 
The Workshop at Nazareth 
 
 Picture Copyrighted and Owned by A. R. Mowbkay & Co., Ltd., 
 and printed by their permission. 
 
 E. P. DuTTON & Co., sole agents in America. 
 
The Child in the 
 Midst 
 
 A Comparative Study of Child Welfare in 
 Christian and Non-Christian Lands. 
 
 BY ^^ 
 
 MARY SCHAUFFLER LABAREE 
 
 (MRS. BENJAMIN W. LABAREE> 
 
 'And He took a little child and set him in the midst of them.^' 
 
 rUBL>«lED BY 
 
 dlje Central Committee on tfic ^niteb ^tubp of jforeign f^mitmi 
 WBitit iHebforb, iHa^Sacfjusctts 
 
Copyright, January, 1914 
 
 CENTRAL COMMITTEE ON THE UNITED 
 STUDY OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 
 
 Frank Wood, Printer 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 TiiK Central Committee on the United Study of 
 Foreign Missions sends out the fourteenth text-book 
 with hearty appreciation of the favor with which the 
 thirteen already issued have been received. The phases 
 of work which have been treated and the manner of 
 their treatment have appealed to a large constituency 
 of various names, resulting in an increase of know- 
 ledge and an impulse to pray and work' and give. 
 
 This is not a book for children, but a book about 
 children the world over, and with its accurate state- 
 ment of facts solicits attention to the great need of 
 new effort in behalf of children in non-Christian lands. 
 The author, Mary Schauffler Labaree (Mrs. Benjamin 
 W. ), a missionary daughter, granddaughter, wife, and 
 mother, was born into an environment of missionary 
 intelligence and activity in which her girlhood was 
 trained. Later years of experience in Persia, and sub- 
 sequent association with many nationalities in our 
 own land, have given her large opportunity to know 
 whereof she writes with tender, sympathetic touch. 
 If the book may lead others to know and do, its pur- 
 pose will be fulfilled. 
 
 Centrai, Committee on the United Study 
 OF Foreign Missions. 
 
 Mrs. Henry W. Peabody. 
 Miss E. Harriet Stanwood, 
 Mrs. Decatur M. Sawyer. 
 Mrs. Frank Mason North. 
 Mrs. James A. Webb, Jr. 
 Mrs. a. V. Pohlman. 
 Miss Olivia H. Lawrence. 
 Miss Grace T. Colburn. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 FOREWORD V 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The Child in its Helplessness. " The place where the 
 
 young Child lay "...... 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Child at Home. " Train up a child in the way he 
 
 should go " . . . . . . , 45 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Child at Play and at Work. " Boys and girls play- 
 ing in the streets thereof " . . . . .87 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Child at School. " Come, ye children — I will teach 
 
 you the fear of the Lord " . . . . . 131 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Child at Worship. "Suffer the little children to 
 
 come unto Me " ...... 177 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Child at Work for Christ. " I must be about my 
 
 Father's business "...... 221 
 
 CHAPTER VII. Appendix 
 
 The Mother and the Christ-Child. " Behold the hand- 
 maid of the Lord "...,.. 259 
 
(J 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE CHILD IN ITS HELPLESSNESS 
 "The place where the young Child lay." 
 
 What do the children need? — ^"The Age of the 
 Child"— All children to be included — Rights of 
 every child and every mother — Conservation of 
 human resources — Eugenics and heredity — Pro- 
 tection of motherhood — Suffering mothers — Su- 
 perstitions regarding new-born infants — Twins — 
 Infanticide— Bathing and clothing children — 
 Feeding ■ — Hygiene — Starving children — In- 
 fant mortality — Health — Diseases and their treat- 
 ment — T\liat missions are doing for the helpless 
 children. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE CHILD IN ITS HELPLESSNESS 
 
 "The place where the young Child lay." 
 
 "What do the children of India most need?" what do the 
 
 chudron need? 
 
 The question was asked of an earnest young 
 teacher, at home on her first furlough. It was 
 easy to see how quickly her thoughts flew back 
 to that school for little low-caste children which 
 had so recently been started, and with a far- 
 away look in her eyes she answered; — ■ 
 
 "What the children of India need is childhood 
 itself. They are little old men and women, 
 and they need to learn what it means to be 
 happy, care-free children, to play, and to have 
 good times." 
 
 "What do the children of Syria most need?" 
 
 This time it was a beautiful, young missionary 
 mother who answered quickly ;^ — ■ 
 
 "The greatest need of the children in Syria is 
 educated motherhood. They are born, carried 
 around, and then turned loose to do as they 
 please as soon as they are able to toddle. It would 
 mean that they would be kept clean physically, 
 would be properly fed, taught, and trained." 
 
4 The Child in the Midst 
 
 "What is the greatest need of the chikhen in 
 Persia?" 
 
 The answer came from a father of Httle chil- 
 dren who had himself been a missionary's child 
 in Persia and knew well the country and its 
 needs. 
 
 "What Persian children need is proper home 
 environment.^* A splendid Christian teacher was 
 talking with one of the boys of our Moslem 
 school about personal purity. "That is all very 
 well," responded the boy, "but w^hat do you 
 really expect of me with my training and home 
 life when my father has had one hundred and 
 five wives?" 
 
 "What do the children of America need?" 
 
 We turn and ask ourselves and one another 
 this question. And lo! — we find that the needs 
 of childhood are very much the same the world 
 around. What is being done to meet those 
 needs? Ah! that is a very different question, 
 and startling, yes, more than startling, are the 
 contrasts discovered as the thoughtful woman 
 studies the subject of child life. 
 "The Age of The "uuity of childhood" throughout the 
 
 the Child. . . . 
 
 world makes this a vital question to all fathers 
 and mothers, to educators, religious and social 
 workers, to every thinking man and woman. 
 So urgent a question has it become in many 
 Christian lands that this has been aptly called 
 "the age of the child." In our own land the 
 needs and rights of the child are being discussed 
 
The Child in its Helplessness 5 
 
 on every hand, and through the Pubhc Schools, 
 Juvenile Courts, Juvenile Commissions, Federal 
 Children's Bureau, Playground Movement, Child 
 Welfare Exhibits, Child Labor laws, and numer- 
 ous other agencies we are striving to deal with 
 the problem that involves the whole future of 
 our land for weal or woe. 
 
 But just as I cannot care for the interests of must^b^"* 
 my child alone, but must recognize that his life i'^'^'^'^^'^- 
 will be vitally influenced by whatever concerns 
 his playmates and schoolmates, so I must inev- 
 itably be drawn into consideration of what is 
 due to the children of the community, the state, 
 the country, the world. What right have I to 
 demand that my baby bo well fed, my child be 
 protected by laws that ensure his safety, that 
 proper schools be provided for his education, 
 that my daughter's purity and girlhood be 
 respected, unless I concede that right to every 
 mother in the world and care whether she has 
 that right or not? 
 
 One earnest mother heart poured itself out in 
 these words when it was planned that the women's 
 missionary societies should take up the study of 
 the children of non-Christian lands; — 
 
 "Sometimes I almost resent the absurd ex- 
 tremes of tenderness and care for babies here, 
 when I think of the world of neglected children. 
 It seems to me, our Women's Missionary Socie- 
 ties are just a great, beautiful, organized mother- 
 hood for the world, and the women don't half 
 
6 The Child in the Midst 
 
 know or appreciate this or they would be swarm- 
 ing in by thousands and gi\'1ng their money by 
 miUions." 
 
 If any woman is tempted to feel that the 
 problems of our own land are so overwhelming 
 and so imperative as to demand all our time and 
 strength and attention, let her read what is 
 said on this subject by Edward T. Devine, the 
 eminent writer and professor and social worker, 
 who is one of the gTeatest leaders in all lines of 
 child welfare and general welfare work in Amer- 
 ica. Dr. Devine links our obligations to foreign 
 lands inseparably to our duties to our own 
 country. 
 
 Our responsibility to foreign peoples, — our responsi- 
 bility to immigrants who come to live in America, and to 
 the negroes whom our own ancestors brought here by 
 force, our responsibility to all those who for any reason 
 do not fully share in that degree of prosperity and in that 
 type of civilization which are our heritage, thus becomes 
 clear and is seen to be at one with our direct personal 
 responsibiUty towards those who for any reason need our 
 sympathy, our fraternal co-operation, and our personal 
 help.* 
 
 Aiouz™°Bunker. Couplc with the uttcranccs quoted above such 
 words as the following by Alonzo Bunker, whose 
 faithful labors among the Karens of Burma have 
 worked wonders in the transformation of a race, 
 and it seems as though no conscientious, intelli- 
 gent man or woman would need to go further 
 for proof that the awakening social conscience 
 
 * E. T. Devine, "The Family and Social Life," p. 51. 
 
The Child in its Helplessness 7 
 
 regarding the welfare of children in our own 
 land viust include in its study and its efforts for 
 improvement the childi'en of all lands. 
 
 This unity of childhood marks the unity of the human 
 race, and the saying that "human natiu-e is the same in 
 all the world" gains new emphasis when studied from the 
 standpoint of the child. 
 
 . . . These characteristica which mark the unity of 
 childhood among all races, sometimes appear to be ac- 
 centuated among less intelligent peoples; so that, before 
 the fogs of sin and ignorance have blurred the image of God 
 in which they were created, they show a strength and 
 brightness more marked than in their more favored 
 brothers and sisters in enlightened lands. This fact hao 
 not received due attention in ethnological studies.* 
 
 Every child has the inalienable right to he well- The rishts of 
 
 every child. 
 
 horn, to he welcomed, to he properly cared for and 
 trained through the years of helplessness and devel- 
 opment, to follow his instinct for healthful play, 
 to receive an education sufficient to make him a 
 self-supporting, useful member of society, to have 
 such moral and spiritual training as will develop 
 the highest type of character of which he is capable. 
 
 Every mother has the right to accept the duties, The rights of 
 
 "^ _ ^1 7 every mother. 
 
 responsibilities, and sufferings of motherhood of 
 her own free will, to he surrounded by such con- 
 ditions as will help her to bring her child into the 
 world ivith the greatest possible safety to her own 
 life and health and to those of her child, and to 
 loving care during her days of weakness and recu- 
 peration. 
 
 * Alonzo Bunker, "Sketches from the Karen Hills." Revell. 
 
8 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 Conservation 
 of human 
 resources. 
 
 ImporUnc* of 
 
 th« childrta 
 of a nation. 
 
 Wliere the rights of mothers and children are 
 not thus recognized and guarded, ^vc have a 
 condition that endangers the welfare of the race 
 and leads to its deterioration. Every nation 
 has looked well to the conservation of some 
 part of its human resources, — to its royal line, 
 to its soldiers or sailors, to its wise men and 
 astrologers, to its priests and religious leaders. 
 
 The well-known methods of ancient Sparta, 
 which consisted in destroying all weak children 
 and submitting all boys of seven years old and 
 upward to tlie most rigorous training under 
 state educators, resulted in producing a race 
 of warriors. Fighting men were what Sparta 
 wanted, and fighting men she produced. The 
 possible heir to a throne in modern times must 
 have no drop of common blood in his veins. 
 Royalty must therefore mate with royalty in 
 order to conserve the royal line. And so we 
 might go on and prove how one country after 
 another observes the great law of conservation 
 of human resources along some favorite line. 
 
 But a nation to be truly great and to be sure 
 of future development and success must realize 
 that its greatest wealth lies in its children, its 
 highest possibilities are wrapped up in all its 
 little ones, its one hope for the future is in the 
 childhood of the nation. Many earnest writers 
 of to-day are emphasizing in one way or another 
 this great truth in relation to children. 
 
 Mrs. Frederick Schoff in an address at the 
 
The Child in its Helplessness 9 
 
 National Congress on Hygiene and Demography 
 makes a most practical application of these 
 principles, showing some ways in which the 
 desired results may be attained. 
 
 It takes time to battle down the old wall of belief that 
 mother instinct teaches a woman all she need know about 
 child nurture. . . . The great functions of fatherhood 
 and motherhood should not be ignored in the training 
 of children for life. They should be held up as the 
 highest and most far-reaching functions of human life. . . . 
 
 "One generation, one entire generation of all the world 
 of children understood as they should be, loved as they 
 ask to be, and so developed as they might be, would more 
 than begin the millennium," has been truly said by that 
 lover of childhood, Frances Hodgson Burnett. 
 
 Child Welfare is at the foundation of world- weKare. 
 Child nurture is the greatest science of the age. To 
 arouse the whole world to a rcahzation of its duty to the 
 children ... is the propaganda in which all who see 
 the infinite possibilities of the child shoidd unite.* 
 
 In a study of Childhood such as this, under- Eugenics and 
 taken by Christian women in their missionary 
 societies and mission study classes, it is not 
 enough to begin with the child at the day of his 
 birth, but we must consider also the pre-natal 
 influences, the history of his parents, and, in 
 fact, all those deep and far-reaching subjects 
 which are engTossing the attention of students in 
 America and England and on the Continent of 
 Europe. In studying the subjects of eugenics 
 and heredity, in watching the social investigator 
 
 * Child Welfare Magazine, Feb., 1913, p. 195, 
 
10 The Child in the Midst 
 
 as he shows us how from one drunken, vagabond 
 woman in Germany there were 834 known de- 
 scendants, the great majority of whom were 
 prostitutes, tramps, paupers, criminals, and 
 murderers, let us remember that the principles 
 arrived at apply with equal significance to the 
 future of the citizens of China and of Turkey. 
 
 A missionary mother from China tells us that 
 Chinese mothers make no preparation for the 
 coming of their babies because of foolish super- 
 stitions, fearing that, if they prepare, it will 
 bring bad luck and the baby will die. "So," she 
 continues, "Chinese mothers miss the dehghtful 
 months we American mothers consider the best 
 in our lives, and the babies are deprived of the 
 right sort of pre-natal influence." 
 
 One missionary draws our attention to the 
 fact of the awful fears and deadly terror that 
 haunt the lives of so many people in India, and 
 asks if this may not well be the result of the 
 fact that their mothers are the little, shrinking, 
 frightened child-wives of India. "The wrongs 
 of Hindu womanhood in all past ages," says 
 Edward Payson Tenney in his volume on "Con- 
 trasts in Social Progress," have been avenged by 
 the propagation of a race inferior to that which 
 would have peopled Hindustan to-day, had the 
 domestic and social status of the mothers of a 
 great people been of a different character." 
 
 Dr. Charles C. Seldcn, assistant to Dr. John 
 G. Kerr in the Asylum for the Insane in Canton, 
 
The Child in its Helplessness H 
 
 says that there arc no statistics that will allow 
 comparison between the number of insane in 
 China and America. "If conditions are in any 
 particular worse in China than in America, it is 
 along the line of imbecility resulting from bad 
 heredity. Under the social ideals of China every 
 man is anxious to marry, but no man is per- 
 mitted to seek a wife for himself. The contract 
 of marriage is alwaj^s made by a third party, and 
 often a man finds himself bomid to an imbecile, 
 insane or chronically diseased wife whose father 
 has paid the marriage broker a high price to get 
 her a husband. There is surely a great need for 
 the study and practice of eugenics in China." 
 
 It is only within the last few decades that the ^o°heri°od°^ 
 protection of motherhood has been recognized 
 in civilized lands as an economic principle. In 
 the protection of the mother lies the welfare of the 
 nation. But alas! the light of this knowledge 
 has not yet begun to penetrate into the darkness 
 of heathen and Mohammedan lands. 
 
 Intelligent Christian women will find much 
 food for thought and material for interesting 
 study in looking up the history of races now 
 extinct or those that are dying out. Trace to 
 their true source the reasons for the decadence 
 of a race and try to discover if the principles of 
 practical, applied Christianity, used betimes in 
 all their truest and most enlightened methods, 
 would tend to save and elevate such a race. In 
 Robert H. Milhgan's recent book, ''The Fetish 
 
12 The Child in the Midst 
 
 Folk of West Africa,"* his fourth chapter is on 
 "A Dying Tribe." A few extracts Avill show 
 some of the reasons for the adjective "Dying." 
 
 This amiable and attractive people, the Mpongwe 
 tribe, is now but a dying remnant, hiirrj'ing to extinction. 
 It is not long since they were numbered by tens of thous- 
 ands; now there are probably not more than five hundred 
 pure Mpongwe . . . The fij-st exterminating factor was 
 slavery. . . The slave traffic was succeeded by the rum 
 traffic; and it would not be easy to say which of the two 
 has proved the greater evU for Africa. . . Except among 
 the few Christians, an abundance of rum is used at every 
 marriage and every funeral and both men and women 
 drink to drunkenness. . . I have known of parents get- 
 ting their own children to drink to intoxication for thoir 
 amusement. It is doubtf id whether there is another tribe 
 in all West Africa so besotted with alcoholism as the 
 Mpongwe. Physicians agree that it is one of the chief 
 causes of their increasing sterility. 
 
 Another factor in the extermination of the Mpongwe is 
 the demoralization of domestic fife incident to methods 
 of trade. . . White traders all along the coast employ 
 the Mpongwe as middlem.en between them and the 
 interior people, who possess the export products. The 
 white man gives the middleman a certain quantity of 
 goods on trust. With these he goes to the interior and 
 establishes a small trading-post in one or several towns. ' . . 
 He has a wife or wives at Gaboon, and he takes to himself 
 a wife or two at each of his interior trading-centres. . . 
 
 This demoralization of domestic life is even worse for 
 the Mpongwe women than for their absent husbands. 
 There is a 1 arge settlement of white men in Gaboon, most 
 of them government officials. . . Nearly all the Mpongwe 
 women become the mistresses of these men. . . The 
 marriage tie in Gaboon has long ceased to be a "tie.". . . 
 
 * Fleming II. Revell. 
 
The Child in its Helplessness 13 
 
 The Protestant Christians of Gaboon are a very small 
 community; but they are the best Christians I have 
 known in Africa. They alone of the Mpongwe have good- 
 sized families of healthy children. They are the living 
 remnant of a dying tribe. 
 
 Two outstanding facts make the experience The sufferings 
 
 of motherhood. 
 
 of motherhood m non-Christian lands a time of 
 ahnost intolerable anguish, both physical and 
 mental. The first of these facts is the absence 
 of skilful, intelligent care previous to and during 
 childbirth, and the second is the presence of 
 innumerable superstitionsthat envelop the mother 
 and her little one and the whole household. 
 
 It is a most interesting study to learn how 
 customs differ in various lands and swing to 
 extremes, from Persia, where the time of child- 
 birth is the occasion for a large neighborhood 
 gathering of women and children, to certain 
 regions of China, where we are told that there 
 is an absolute interdict on seeing mother or child 
 for forty days after the birth, and during that 
 time many and many a little one mysteriously 
 disappears, never to be heard of again. In 
 China the mother who loses her life before being 
 able to give birth to her child is consigned by 
 popular opinion to the very lowest hell, which 
 is said to be reserved for the worst criminals. 
 In a large Buddhist temple on a hill outside 
 of Ningpo hangs a huge bronze bell, over which 
 are tied numberless bunches of hair of women 
 who have died in childbirth. When the bell is 
 
14 The Child in the Midst 
 
 rung, the motion is supposed to pull the i3oor 
 women out of the place of punishment. Among 
 the Lao a woman dying in childl)irth is not 
 allowed to be cremated, for her death is sup- 
 posed to have been caused by evil spirits and the 
 victim is blamed and is not deemed worthy of 
 cremation wherein is merit. These suffering 
 mothers feel as if an angel from heaven had come 
 to their aid, when the loving face of a missionary 
 physician stoops over them, and her sldlful 
 hands minister to their needs. A few words by 
 Dr. E. M. Stuart of the Church Missionary 
 Society, at work in Ispahan, Persia, give a vivid 
 picture of the need for women physicians and 
 nurses to do this work, — a need that exists not 
 only in Mohammedan harems, but in the zenanas 
 of India and in the homes of other lands where 
 women live in seclusion. 
 
 In every Moslem land there are countless lives lost 
 every year from lack of skilled assistance when it is sorely 
 needed. . . This work calls specially for women-doctors 
 and nurses, for though Moslem women wiU consent to see 
 men-doctors for many of their ailments, and wiU even crowd 
 out the men-patients at dispensaries taken by male 
 doctors, very few wiU allow a man to give them the 
 assistance they need in difficult labour; were even the 
 women themselves willing, it is very uncommon for the 
 husbands and other male relations to consent to it. As 
 a rule they would rather the women died than allow a man 
 to interfere; the only comfort they give them is the assur- 
 ance of the Prophet that women who die in chUdbirth 
 go straight to Paradise. 
 
The Child in its Helplessness 15 
 
 There is scarcely a land outside the pale of re"ga^rdfng n'lfw- 
 Christian civilization where the newborn infant ^"™ infants. 
 is not surrounded by absurd, painful, or dis- 
 tressing ceremonies because of superstitions that 
 may not be ignored, the "Evil Eye" that must 
 be averted, or ceremonies that are to be ob- 
 served because handed dowm from generation to 
 generation. One of the most astonishing and 
 picturesque of these observances is described by 
 the Swiss missionary, Henri A. Jmiod, in his 
 careful study of "The Life of a South African 
 Tribe." 
 
 The second act is the rite of the broken pot. . . This is a 
 medical treatment and a religious ceremony combined. 
 It is performed by the family doctor on the thi'eshold of 
 the hut in the following way: He puts into this piece of 
 broken pottery pieces of skin of all the beasts of the bush: 
 antelopes, wild cats, elephants, hippopotami, rats, civet 
 cats, hyenas, elands, snakes of dangerous kinds; and 
 roasts them till they bm-n. The smoke then rises, and 
 he exposes the child to it for a long time, the body, face, 
 nose, mouth. The baby begins to cry; he sneezes, he 
 coughs; it is just what is wanted; then the doctor takes 
 what remains of the pieces of skin, grinds them, makes 
 a powder, mixes it with tihulilu grease of the year before 
 last, and consequently hard enough to make an ointment. 
 With this ointment he rubs the whole body of the child, 
 especially the joints, which he extends gently in order 
 to assist the baby's growth. 
 
 All tlais fumigation and manipulation is intended to 
 act as a preventive. Having been so exposed to all the 
 external dangers, dangers which are represented by the 
 beasts of the bush, the child may go out of the hut. He 
 ia now able "to cross the foot-prints of wild beasts" 
 
IG The Child in the Midst 
 
 without harm. . , This rite of the broken pot is also 
 the great preventive remedy against the much dreaded 
 ailment of babies, convulsions. 
 
 The Evil Eye. From land to land you may travel, through 
 Africa, Asia, and the Islands of the Pacific, and 
 all the poor little babies and their older brothers 
 and sisters will be found to be victims of super- 
 stitions that surround and hamper and often 
 injure their pitiful little lives. The Evil Eye, — ■ 
 oh! how it is feared and how every possible and 
 impossible means is used to avert it. You must 
 not think of openly admiring a Mohammedan 
 baby, or of wearing anything black on your head 
 when making your first call upon it, for you 
 would certainly cast the Evil Eye on it. A 
 Maronite woman in the Lebanon mountains, 
 Syria, had lost a baby three or four weeks old, — ■ 
 her first baby boy. She told a missionary that 
 the child had died because while he was sick they 
 opened an egg, and found therein an eye (the 
 life-germ) and that was the Evil Eye which had 
 killed the child. 
 
 Teething. "Children in Nyago, Africa," we read in a 
 
 Church Missionary Society report, "receive the 
 tribal mark by being branded on their foreheads 
 with a hot iron. Some of the front teeth are 
 extracted as soon as the child can speak." The 
 teething period as well as every other part of a 
 child's life has to be safe-guarded from malicious 
 influences. For instance, a child of the Thonga 
 Tribe in South Africa has a white bead tied to a 
 
F 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 wl 
 
 ^]^ 
 
 Pi 
 
 B»V 
 
 hIh 
 
 
 Iwy 
 
 ^^^^^^^nL^' mJH 
 
 
 ^•^■BB' -4^B^^^^^V 
 
 
 t.j^'^^^^^i 
 
 jj^fflu 
 
 p-jl|li>Vta^^^^^^^^^Kte 
 
 
 V^P9^^^^^' ^^H 
 
 . .ci^^^^H 
 
 How Bedouim Mothers Cakkv Iheir Babies 
 
The Child in its Helplessness 17 
 
 hair about the forehead as soon as it has cut the 
 two upper and lower incisors, for, unless this is 
 done, there is no hope that the child will become 
 intelligent; he would shiver instead of smiling, 
 and the other teeth would not come out nor- 
 mally. 
 
 Thank God that there are sometimes mission- EvU spirits 
 
 driven out by 
 
 aries near at hand who have won the love and the missionary. 
 confidence of the mothers and who are allowed 
 to "drive out the evil spirits" by means of ap- 
 plied Christianity, common sense, and cleverness. 
 Here is an examjDle of all three means used for a 
 baby on the borders of Piginy Land. 
 
 One mormng a woman brought down to the dispensary 
 a wee morsel of tluee weeks; it was a pitiful little object 
 of mere skin and bone. The mother explained that it 
 had been poisoned out of spite, or it wag possessed of an 
 evil sph-it. "See," said she, "I have done all I could to 
 let out the poison or devil." Looking at its body I saw 
 it waa covered with a number of small, deep cuts, and the 
 blood had been left to dry. Low moans and a tired cry 
 came from the poor, Uttle, helpless mite as the fhes tortm'ed 
 its mutilated body. After questioning the mother the 
 "evU spirit" took the form of bananas and mushrooms, 
 on which she had been bringing up the tliree weeks' infant 1 
 Feeding bottles were an unknown luxury, and, as no 
 equivalent had been invented, babies were compelled 
 to lap from the hand, an art they never properly learned 
 and thrived on very poorly. Some thi'ee dozen india 
 rubber "comforters" were sent out to me, and these I 
 managed to fix on empty ink bottles or medicine bottles, 
 and so a new fashioned "Allenbury feeder" was introduced. 
 The demand far exceeded the supply, so they could only 
 be lent out by the month.* 
 
 * Ruth B. Fisher, "On tho Borders of Pigmy Land." Revcll. 
 
18 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 Superstitions 
 regarding twins. 
 
 Infanticide. 
 
 Strangely enough the birth of twins scorns to 
 be regarded with horror or disgust, or at least 
 as a misfortune, in almost all lands where Christ, 
 the Lover of children, is not known. In some 
 parts of Africa the little twin babies are stuffed 
 into a pot and thrown into the woods to die, 
 and their mother is considered disgraced for life 
 or sent into exile. A missionary of the Church 
 Missionary Society of London tells us that in 
 West Africa the idea is that by the law of God 
 human births should be single; therefore, if a 
 mother has twins, she has been degraded to the 
 level of a beast, the children are also beasts, and 
 their death is necessary in order to preserve the 
 human race pure and to prevent misfortune. 
 Japanese fathers will not let a little child look 
 into a mirror and see its double, for fear that 
 when grown it will be unfortunate enough to 
 have twins! 
 
 As there is no phase of life that Christian 
 missions cannot touch and change, so among 
 some of the African West Coast tribes, as the 
 people have learned of Christianity, twin murder 
 has been abandoned along with human sacrifice, 
 though even harder to eradicate. 
 
 Were twin murder alone prevalent among non- 
 Christian races, it would be reason enough for 
 earnest effort and prayer on the part of every 
 Christian mother in the world until it could be 
 stamped out. But the crime of infanticide is 
 so frightfully prevalent in China, India, and 
 
The Child in its Helplessness 19 
 
 the Pacific Islands that it is a loud challenge to 
 Christian parents to bring into darkened hearts 
 and homes the knowledge of Him who considered 
 it a capital offense even to "cause one of these 
 little ones to stumble." 
 
 In very few cases do we read of infanticide 
 being practiced at the present time on boy babies. 
 Twin murder as mentioned above, the killing in 
 Central Africa of "monstrosities" who have been 
 born with a tooth cut, or who cut their upper 
 teeth first, and the putting away of illegitimate 
 children among some Mohammedans, seem to be 
 almost the only exceptions to this rule. The 
 poor little girl babies, not wanted, not welcomed, 
 considered a disgrace and an expense, must 
 again and again pay the penalty for being girls 
 with their lives. 
 
 "Why should the girl live?" the Pacific Islander 
 would say to the early missionaries, "She cannot 
 poise the spear, she cannot wield the club."* 
 
 Rev. E. Storrow has made a careful study of Pt^s*^??] . 
 
 ^ infanticide in 
 
 the causes of infanticide in India, and his con- i^'^^- 
 elusions are worthy of our attention. 
 
 Oui knowledge, at the best imperfect, is confined to the 
 present century, the period of British supremacy. 
 Tlu-ee causes have led to it : — 
 
 1. Great moral laxity, combined with indifference to 
 infantine hfe, and a desire to conceal wrong doing, which 
 the privacy of native habits renders comparatively easy. 
 
 2. Religious fanaticism has led to the crime in re- 
 stricted areas. . . 
 
 * Alexander, "The Islands cf the Pacific." Am. Tract Soc. 
 
20 The Child in the Midst 
 
 3. But infanticide, springing out of disappointment 
 at the birth of girls, because of their assumed inferiority' 
 to boys, the lowering of the family repute, and the in- 
 evitable expense demanded by asage on their marriage, 
 chiefly requires our attention; because it grew into a 
 system which was hardly concealed, and became pre- 
 valent in Rajputana, Gujarat, Cutch, and other great 
 districts in Central and Western India. . . 
 
 The Uttle ones w^ere usually destroyed immediately 
 after birth. . . The reasons for such a usage, widely es- 
 tablished among such people, and perpetuated tluough 
 many generations, are worthy of close attention. 
 
 Cruelty is not a Hindu characteristic. . . But the people 
 are callous and apathetic. They would not deliberately 
 inflict suffering and take pleasiu-e in it, but they would 
 not move hand or foot to rescue such as were greatly 
 suffering. . . This goes far to explain the unchallenged 
 prevalence for ages of such atrocities as suttee and in- 
 fanticide. . . 
 
 "A mother of sons" is one of the highest compliments 
 that can be paid to a wife; "a mother of daughters" is 
 one of the most contemiituous and scornful of all terms of 
 reproach. This explains the gladness with which the 
 birth of sons is welcomed, the disappointment manifest 
 at the birth of daughters, and the disposition to put 
 them away. . . 
 
 But whilst these were the causes generally operative, 
 there were two special ones, which were influential among 
 the haughty, liigh-caste Rajputs and kindred tribes — 
 the difficulty of procuring suitable husbands for their 
 daughters, when the customary age for marriage arrived; 
 with the supposed disgrace of having unmarried daughters, 
 and the difficulty of defraying the heavy expenses which 
 usage demands. . . 
 
 Happily, the crime is abating through the persistent 
 action of the government, and yet more because of that 
 great wave of renewed opinion and sentiment passing 
 
The Child in its Helplessness 21 
 
 over the people. But that this crime is yet frequent, 
 and the law evaded, is evident.* 
 
 Was there a dry eye in the auditorium at 
 Northfield when Mrs. James Cochran, only a 
 few weeks before her death, told of the little girl 
 babies in China who are thrown out to die? All 
 could feel the throbbing love of her mother heart 
 as she told the story in such simple words to the 
 hundreds of young women gathered before her. 
 Who among them could ever again be guiltless 
 if she did not do her share towards saving the 
 baby girls of China? Listen to her words:** 
 
 Confucianism wants no little gii'ls, for they are of no 
 use. It is very nice to have one or two, but in the part 
 of China from which I come it is absolutely a custom, if 
 there are more than two or tliree, to mm'der the others 
 in some horrible way. One night one of my pupils 
 came to my class very soberly. At first she whispered 
 to the women about her and then they began to whisper 
 to each other. Finally I inquired the reason. One of the 
 women replied, "She ia feeling badly because they are 
 killing a Uttle baby down at her house." 
 
 "IviUing a little baby!" 
 
 "Yes," the girl replied, "they have three little gu-ls and 
 another girl has just come. I feel so badly because she 
 is a dear, fat, little baby. I did not want to see her die, 
 but my sister is determined to kill her." 
 
 "Oh," I said, "you go and bring that baby to me. I 
 can take care of her." 
 
 So she went, but before she arrived the baby had been 
 murdered in a way too dreadful to tell. 
 
 FaU 
 
 * E. Storrow, "Our Sisters in India." Rcvell. 
 
 ** Record of Christian Work, Sept., 1912, "How Chinese Religions 
 
22 The Child in the Midst 
 
 dfiidren."^ It Is lather entertaining to pick up, one after 
 
 another, books and magazine articles wi'itten 
 for children about the children of missionary- 
 lands, and to find them all starting out with the 
 proposition, "Children are very much the same 
 the world around." How are we going to 
 reconcile this statement with the fact that some 
 children survive and even thrive upon treatment 
 that would mean certain death to others? What 
 would happen to the little American baby first 
 opening his eyes on the world, if he were taken 
 out of doors as the babies are in Central Africa 
 between four and five o'clock in the morning, 
 when the cold night winds are still abroad, and 
 cold water were dashed over him, and he were 
 left naked out there to dry? The cold water 
 treatment of the Africans and the Lao differs 
 widely from the baths of little ones in Japan 
 where the water must be nearly boiling hot to 
 be of the proper temperature. But in Persia it 
 would be sure death to a newborn baby to be 
 bathed at all, — he must be carefully rubbed with 
 salt as were the propcrly-cared-for infants of 
 Ezekiel's time! (Ez. 16:4.) Then into a cradle 
 he is not laid, but strapped, womid round and 
 round until his little legs and arms are rigid and 
 immovable, and the soft bones of the back of his 
 head are flattened as he hes there day after day. 
 Oh, how we long to pick him up and let him 
 change places occasionally with one of the im- 
 perial babies of Japan, who must be held in 
 
The Child in its Helplessness 23 
 
 some one's arms clay and night from the time of 
 his birth until he can walk. But no, there he 
 must lie, and, in order that he may not take 
 cold and fall a victim to that dangerous enemy, 
 fresh air, over the ridgepole of the cradle are 
 thrown various coverings, most of which hang 
 to the floor. A missionary told me that once 
 when she wanted to look at a Syrian baby, she 
 took off four blankets which had been thrown over 
 the whole cradle, and then removed a Turkish 
 towel folded double over the child's face. 
 
 It is strange to learn in hoAV many lands the clothing of 
 
 '^ "^ children. 
 
 mothers feel that they must wrap and tie and 
 bind and swathe their babies until they are 
 deprived of all power of motion, and lives and 
 health are sadly endangered by too much rather 
 than too little clothing. The Chinese mother 
 dresses her baby in a tiny wadded jacket, then 
 another, then another, saying perhaps, "It is 
 five jackets cold to-day." He is wrapped and 
 tied up until the bundle with a baby at the centre 
 can be rolled on the floor without hurting him, 
 or may perchance act as a life-preserver if he 
 falls off the houseboat into the canal. It is 
 pretty sure to keep afloat until it can be pulled 
 in with a boat hook. 
 
 Very differently clad are the "Coral Island 
 Brownies" or the babies of Africa, who are not 
 hampered with any clothes at all, and as they 
 grow older simply wear a fringe of grass or a 
 strip of calico about their waists. 
 
24 The Child in the Midst 
 
 It is easy to trace many of the cases of terrible 
 eye disease among children in Egj'pt, Syria, and 
 other warm countries to the utter lack of any 
 protection to the eyes from the glaring sunlight. 
 Often boat women are seen romng in the bright 
 sunlight in China wdth babies asleep on their 
 backs, and nothing over the sensitive little eyes 
 as their heads bob up and do^vn in time with the 
 oars. 
 
 It is often a great shock to the American mis- 
 sionary mother to see httle heads wrapped and 
 swathed in numerous cloths and kerchiefs, while 
 the little feet are blue with cold. But then, the 
 shock is reciprocal, and, while the mother is 
 off conducting a meeting, her nm-se is carefully 
 maldng up for her negligence by wrapping up 
 the head of the missionary baby until he is 
 bathed in perspiration! 
 Infant The stud}'' of Infant Mortality is now engrossing 
 
 the thought and attention of many earnest men 
 and women. It is most difficult to get vital 
 statistics from any non-Christian lands in order 
 to give comparative tables. In comparing the 
 mortality statistics of the United States for 1890 
 and 1909 we find marked improvement in the 
 "opportunity for life and health" granted to 
 American children. If George B. Mangold is 
 right in saying that "the infant and child mor- 
 tality of a people is a barometer of their social 
 progress/' then we have reason to believe that 
 our land is making real advance in this respect. 
 
The Child in its Helplessness 25 
 
 In 1890 the total number of deaths of children 
 under five years was 307,562; in 1909 the total 
 number of deaths of children under five years 
 was 196,534. 
 
 From the first mortality table of the principal 
 cities of the world in 1912 that has been made 
 public we learn that — 
 
 Stockholm has 82 deaths per 1,000 births. 
 
 London " 90 " " " 
 
 New York '' 105 " " " 
 
 Contrast with these figures the following, 
 based upon careful study and research by high 
 authorities: — 
 
 "It is by no means improbable that more than 
 half the whole number of Chinese children die 
 before they are two years old." (Arthur H. 
 Smith.) 
 
 In Syria the infant mortality is 75% of the 
 births. 
 
 In Persia the infant mortality is 85% of the 
 births. 
 
 At a meeting of the National Association for 
 the' Prevention of Infant Mortality in Great 
 Britain, the Right Honorable John Burns, 
 P. C, M. P., speaking on "Infant Life Protection" 
 gave many interesting facts and figures to show 
 how infant mortality is being decreased in Great 
 Britain through scientific and systematic efforts 
 along many lines. One sentence is significant: 
 
 "Let me decide the food, the home, and the 
 condition of life of every child from birth to 
 
26 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 Feeding of 
 children. 
 
 Ignorant 
 mothers. 
 
 seven years of age, and the rest of mankind can 
 do with the chilchen after seven years of age 
 what they hke." 
 
 Constant and increasing attention is being 
 paid in these days to the proper feeding of chil- 
 dren, to the study of dietetics, to the preparation 
 of suitable food for infants, and to the proper 
 intervals for administering the food. Any mother 
 of average intelligence in our land may secure 
 one of the carefully prepared books such as Dr. 
 Holt's on "The Care and Feeding of Children," 
 or the smaller leaflets such as "What Children 
 Should Eat," and by maldng a study of them and 
 of her child may hope to see that it is well and 
 properly nourished. But what chance is there 
 for the mother in Asia or Africa who, even if 
 she cares to learn, has no means of knowing how 
 to feed her child properly? 
 
 I was making a call of condolence on a neigh- 
 bor in Persia who had just buried a dearly loved 
 baby, the fourth or fifth she had lost. With 
 such a pathetic look she said, "It seems as if we 
 did not know how to care for our babies. You 
 missionaries take such beautiful care of yours," 
 A wonderful o^Dening, by the way, for starting a 
 mothers' meeting at which we used to discuss 
 the care and training of our little ones. A 
 mother arrived early one meeting day to tell 
 me, "I tried on my children what you suggested 
 last week, and it worked." 
 
 Quite different was this set of mothers who 
 
The Child in its Helplessness 27 
 
 had long been in contact with the missionaries, 
 
 from the mother in a Persian village who begged 
 
 a missionary to put a cent on her baby's head and 
 
 •WTite a prayer that it might not die as six others 
 
 had done in that family. The missionary replied 
 
 with some severity that it was much more to 
 
 the purpose to have the mother learn to take 
 
 proper care of it, for the baby was not yet a 
 
 year old and she was feeding it with meat and 
 
 fruit. 
 
 In most if not all of the non-Christian lands 
 
 whose child life we are studying there seems to 
 
 be the tendency to two extremes. The children 
 
 are often nursed by the mother for two, three, 
 
 five, or even more years, and at the same time 
 
 they are allowed to eat anything that their fancy 
 
 dictates or that they can get hold of. Mrs. Noyes 
 
 of China says that if the mother has no milk she 
 
 cannot afford to buy canned milk, and of course 
 
 fresh milk is entirely out of her reach. So she 
 
 chews rice most carefully until it is soft and 
 
 mushy, then takes it from her own mouth and 
 
 puts it, germs and all, into the baby's mouth. 
 
 This diet is supplemented with rich cakes and 
 
 the inevitable tea. Another missionary tells us 
 
 that, if a child in China is ill, his appetite is 
 
 tempted by rich, heavy food or fruit, and adds 
 
 "the mortality of children is frightful." 
 
 Mrs. Underwood, an experienced mother and An unwhole- 
 some diet. 
 physician who has lived and worked many years 
 
 in Korea, says: 
 
28 The Child in the Midst 
 
 Every imaginable practice which comes under the 
 definition of unliygienic or unsanitary is common. Even 
 young children in arms eat raw and green cucumbers, 
 unpeeled, acriti berries, and heavy, soggy bread. They 
 bolt quantities of hot or cold rice, with a tough, indi- 
 gestible cabbage, washed in ditch water, prepared with 
 turnips, and flavored with salt and red pepper. Green 
 fruit of every kind is eaten with perfect recklessness of all 
 the laws of nature, and with impunity. . . 
 
 But even these, so to speak, galvanized-iron interiors are 
 not always proof. It takes time, but every five or six 
 years, by great care and industry, a bacillus develops 
 itself . . . and then there is an epidemic of cholera.* 
 
 It is one of the most difficult lessons to im- 
 press on those who have become Christians that 
 true Christianity, lived out to its logical con- 
 clusion, includes all that proper physical care of 
 the child which, with the right mental and 
 spiritual training, shall prepare it to take its 
 place in the world. 
 
 Dr. Exner, recently in physical educational 
 work in the Y. M. C. A. at Shanghai, says: — 
 Hygiene and "The nccd of the knowledge of hygiene has 
 
 the child prob- in-xi • j^i i-ii 11 
 
 lem. a very definite bearing on the child problem. 
 
 Thousands upon thousands of children are killed 
 simply for the lack of knowledge of the simplest 
 elements of feeding and care. To illustrate: 
 A well educated Chinese teacher, graduate of a 
 mission school, fed his five months' old daughter 
 a piece of rich cake. It developed intestinal 
 
 * L. H. Underwood, "Fifteen Years among the Top-Ivnota." 
 Am. Tract Soc. 
 
The Child in its Helplessness 29 
 
 trouble from which it died in spite of expert 
 medical care. When I expressed my sympathy, 
 he said, 'Well, it is the Lord's will.' I added 
 to myself, 'You should know better!' " 
 
 How much easier it is to say piously, "It is 
 the Lord's will," than to take trouble and bear 
 expense and lay aside age-long custom and 
 prejudice in order that little ones may live! 
 But we must not judge too harshly when we 
 remember how long it has taken more enlight- 
 ened lands to learn the great value of the lives 
 of the children and hoAV to care for these lives. 
 Rather should we be all the more ready to send 
 and carry to them the light and knowledge that 
 have come to us. Then there will be fewer such 
 scenes as one missionary mother witnessed in 
 Syria. It was in a Jewish family where there 
 were four little girls. The baby was a mass 
 of sores from head to foot, and the missionary 
 physician said that they were merely the result 
 of mal-nutrition. But the mother said that her 
 husband was utterly unwilling to buy a little 
 milk each day,— "It is not worth while, for she 
 is only another little girl." 
 
 It is a most legitimate and absolutely essential |f/ ^iLi^M^ 
 part of missionary work, — and not one of the mothers, 
 easiest tasks, either,- — to teach parents that 
 "children intelligently fed during infancy, child- 
 hood, and youth may hope for normal health in 
 adult life, with natural physical strength, en- 
 durance, buoyancy." Here is a special field of 
 
80 The Child in the Midst 
 
 labor for missionary mothers, who have thia 
 advantage over physicians and teachers that they 
 can teach by object lessons which always make 
 a deeper impression than exhortation or verbal 
 instruction. Of course the missionary mother 
 often has the great handicap of an adverse cli- 
 mate in which to bring up her child. But her 
 intelligent application of the principles she should 
 learn in order to fit her for motherhood, and 
 her willingness to teach these principles to the 
 ignorant mothers so interested in all that per- 
 tains to the little foreign baby, may be some of 
 the greatest factors in the future welfare, sta- 
 mina, and development of great nations such as 
 China and India. 
 Children starv- Whicli is moro harmful to a child, reckless, 
 indiscriminate over-feeding or under-feeding and 
 starvation diet? In lands swept periodically by 
 famine or flood or devastated by war and mas- 
 sacre, there are thousands of little children who 
 literally starve to death while other thousands 
 continue to exist, — but what an existence it is! 
 How can it but have its evil effect on the mind 
 and morals of a child as well as on its physical 
 well-being to be deprived of proper or sufficient 
 nourishment during the years of growth and 
 development? If child welfare is the legitimate, 
 rightful responsibility of every Christian woman, 
 then it behooves us to see that such scenes as 
 the following cease to be possible anyv\^here in 
 the world. 
 
 ing. 
 
The Child in its Helplessness 31 
 
 One mother, a widow with four children dependent 
 on her, told me, with tears streaming down her face, how 
 she had tried to tkrow away the skeleton-like little baby 
 she carried in her arms, but she said the child always found 
 its way back to her, and she added, "It is not easy to give 
 one's own child away." She said she felt sometimes 
 she would just have to drink poison, and put an end to 
 her miserable existence, and one of the others asked licr 
 what would become of her children if she did that, and 
 she said, with despair in every featm'e, "Don't ask me."* 
 
 In a later chapter we shall learn of what is 
 being done through Christian orphanages for 
 many little famine waifs and the orphans of 
 those killed in battle and- massacre, but, when 
 we consider the imtold harm to body and mind 
 that has befallen these children before help 
 reaches them, we realize that we must hereafter 
 work with heart and soul at the task of prevention . 
 of these great evils if we believe in the welfare 
 of the human race. 
 
 "Health," we are told by Dr. E. T. Devine, Health, 
 "is influenced by the occupations and habits of 
 growing children; by their play and their at- 
 tendance at school; by the attention given to 
 their eyesight, hearing, breathing, and digestion, 
 to their spines, and to the arches of their feet, 
 to their position at the desk, and to the type from 
 which their text books are printed; by the 
 reachness with which they make friends and so 
 enter into the natural sports and exercises of 
 
 * Missionary Review of the World, June, 1911, W. D. & A. T. 
 Bostick. 
 
32 The Child in the Midst 
 
 childhood; by the development of their self- 
 control, and their more or less miconscious 
 acceptance of standards of conduct and prin- 
 ciples of action which will be their ultimate safe- 
 guard against those diseases and weaknesses 
 which come from indulgence of wrong appetites 
 and desires." 
 Foot-binding. Judged by these standards, what chances 
 
 have the children of Asia and Africa and the 
 Pacific Islands for being safeguarded against 
 disease and weakness and death? Consider the 
 one matter of "attention to the arches of their 
 feet" and comi:)are such a standard of health 
 with the age-long custom of foot-binding in 
 China, and what hope is there for perfect, 
 blooming health among the women of China or 
 their children? A full description of the horrible 
 custom of foot-binding may be found in Dr. 
 James S. Dennis's "Christian Missions and Social 
 Progress" (vol. 1, p. 212). The effects of it 
 upon the little girl victims are thus described by 
 one who has every right to speak on the subject. 
 
 Mrs. Archibald Little, whose position as president of 
 the Natiu-al-feet Society has given her special reason for 
 investigating, says in her book, "Intimate China"; "Dur- 
 ing the first three years (of foot-binding) the girlhood of 
 China presents a most melancholy spectacle. Instead 
 of a hop, skip, and a jump, with rosy cheeks like the 
 httle girls of England, the poor little things are leaning 
 heavily on a stick somewhat taller than themselves, or 
 carried on a man's back, or sitting sadly crying. They 
 have great black lines under their eyes, and a special cu- 
 
E J= 
 
The Child in its Helplessness 33 
 
 rious paleness that I have never seen except in connection 
 with foot-binding. Their mothers sleep with a big stick 
 by the bedside, with which to get up and beat the little 
 girl should she disturb the household by her wails; but 
 not uncommonly she is put to sleep in an outhouse. 
 The only relief she gets is either from opium, or from 
 hanging her feet over the edge of her wooden bedstead, so 
 as to stop the circulation. The Chinese saying is, "For 
 each pair of bound feet there has been a whole kang, or 
 big bath, full of tears." And they say that one girl out 
 of ten dies of foot-binding or its after-effects."* 
 
 Among the changes that are sweepmg over 
 China, the Anti-foot-binding Movement ranks 
 high in importance. It is receiving daily im- 
 petus by reason of all the new things Chinese 
 women and girls want to do, which are impossible 
 to accomplish unless they can walk instead of 
 hobble. When this movement has really con- 
 quered the custom and "fashion" of centuries, 
 there will be a better health report from the girls 
 of China. 
 
 Utter carelessness or ignorance of the first 
 principles of cleanliness is responsible for much 
 ill-health and death. A " swat-the-fly campaign" 
 would save thousands of unprotected baby faces 
 from being covered with loathsome disease or 
 disfigured with dangerous eye trouble, but it 
 would encounter not only hopeless mertia, — it 
 would arouse serious religious opposition. In 
 some countries the "sacredness of life" means, — 
 Protect the fly, no matter what happens to the 
 baby. 
 
 *M. E. Ritzman in Mixsionary Review of the World, Feb., 1911. 
 
34 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 Medical prac- 
 tice in non- 
 Christiau 
 lands. 
 
 One subject, upon which Dr. Devine has not 
 touched in his hst given above, is the necessity 
 for the protection of well children from contagious 
 diseases, and of skilful, tender care of the sick. 
 We might easily fill a chapter with the study of 
 so-called "medical practice" as conducted in 
 non-Christian lands, — a practice composed largely 
 of mingled superstition, ignorance, cruelty, and 
 avarice — but a few pages on the subject in addi- 
 tion to our earlier study of what takes place at 
 the time of childbirth will suffice, we trust, to 
 make earnest Christian women desire to study 
 it further. It is easy to shrink from contem- 
 plating the sufferings of innocent children, and 
 many a woman is tempted to say, "I am tot) 
 sensitive, I cannot hear about such things." 
 But are we more sensitive than the little, shrink- 
 ing, pitiful children to whom these things happen 
 daily? Therefore, not to encourage morbid 
 curiosity, but in order that as Christian mothers 
 and sisters we may lift the burden from little 
 shoulders unable to bear it, let us fearlessly face 
 the facts as they are. 
 
 The frightful ravages made by smallpox, 
 diphtheria, scarlet fever, and even the milder 
 " children's diseases," such as measles and whoop- 
 ing-cough, often devastate whole towns and carry 
 away the larger part of the children in a com- 
 munity. Smallpox, for instance, is so common 
 in Korea that it is not considered worth while to 
 try to escape it. It is caused by the visit of a 
 
The Child in its Helplessness 35 
 
 very great and honored spirit, and while he re- 
 mains the children are addressed in high sounding 
 terms in honor of their great guest. When he 
 is about ready to return to the south land, i.e., 
 when the child has nearly recovered, a feast is 
 made in honor of the visitor and he is provided 
 with a wooden horse for his journey. 
 
 On an itinerating journey in Korea Dr. and 
 Mrs. Underwood with their little boy stopped 
 at a village called Pak Chun and had a rather 
 disturbing experience. 
 
 Just before leaving, I saw a child quite naked, covered 
 with smallpox pustules in full bloom, standing near our 
 door. I asked one of the natives if there was much of 
 that disease in the village at present. "In every house," 
 was the concise reply. "Why, there is none in the house 
 we are in," said I with confidence. "Oh, no, they took 
 the child out the day you came in order to give you the 
 room," was the reassuring answer. We had eaten and 
 slept in that infected httle room, our blankets all spread 
 out there, our trunks opened, everything we had exposed. 
 We had even used their cooking utensils and spoons and 
 bowls before our own packs had arrived. For ourselves 
 we had been often exposed, and believed ourselves immune. 
 Mr. Underwood had nursed a case of the most malignant 
 type, and I had been in contact with it among my patients, 
 — but our child! So we sent a swift messenger with a 
 despatch to the nearest telegraph station, twenty-four 
 hours away, to Dr. Wells, in Pyeng Yang. He at once 
 put a tube of virus into the hands of a speedy runner, 
 who arrived with it a week later. 
 
 We found the country full of smallpox, measles, and 
 whooping-cough, and added to our smallpox experience 
 an exactly similar one with measles.* 
 
 * L. H. Underwood, "Fifteen Years among the Top-Knots," Am 
 Tract Soc . 
 
86 The Child in the Midst 
 
 The loud death wail goes up from a village 
 home in Persia where a little life has been snatched 
 away by diphtheria. Instantly every mother in 
 the village seizes her baby and the next-to-the- 
 youngest toddles after, and all gather in the fam- 
 il}^ room of the little mud home, where the body 
 lies, and show their sympathy by adding their 
 voices to the general din. Fortunately custom 
 decrees that burial take place as speedily as 
 possible, but the mischief has already been 
 done, and echoes of the death wail are heard from 
 far and near. 
 
 Call over the roll of physicians of your own 
 Board. A wonderful report it would be if each 
 could respond and give the number of epidemics 
 tlirough which he or she has worked unflinch- 
 ingly, bringing hope and comfort and life to 
 hundreds and thousands stricken down not only 
 by the diseases already mentioned but by typhus, 
 cholera, and plague. Call the roll of the coun- 
 tries where no law demands isolation or pre- 
 cautions of any kind, and one after another 
 would respond, if it could, in terms of loving 
 gratitude to missionaries who have introduced or 
 freely used vaccine, anti-toxin, cholera serum, 
 and other products of medical science. Many 
 lands are now awaking to the possibility and 
 desirability of using preventive measures, and 
 vaccination, for instance, is very prevalent in 
 China. It is good to hear Dr. Estella Perkins 
 of China say, after an epidemic of scarlet fever, 
 
The Child in its Helplessness 37 
 
 "I must say, however, that these young mothers 
 have been very obedient to orders. I know by 
 the number of dispensary cases of sequelae in 
 patients I did not treat, that the careful follow- 
 ing of directions by the mothers of my children 
 must have saved half of them from bad results 
 of the disease. It is a comfort to be able to 
 do something more than prescribe a little medi- 
 cine." 
 
 We spoke above of the ignorance, cruelty, su- Cruci treat- 
 
 _ ^ , ^ ' "^ ' ment of sick 
 
 perstition, and avarice that compose so largely the children. 
 medical practice of the Orient. Disease is very 
 frequently considered the work of an evil spirit 
 which must either be appeased by offerings or 
 driven out by harsh and cruel treatment. And 
 so the tender little bodies are branded with hot 
 irons, pierced by needles, or burned with rags 
 dipped in oil and set on fire. While the little 
 one suffers, a witch doctor may be called in to 
 use his incantations, or the mother may take a 
 little rag from some article of the child's clothing 
 and tie it to a sacred tree already covered with 
 hundi'ecls of these rags, or the string of beads or 
 the entrails of a beast are consulted to see if the 
 omen is favorable for administering medicine. 
 Let me give just one case from Central Africa 
 which can be duplicated many times over from 
 the records of other lands. 
 
 As an example let me give the case of a lad who was 
 suffering from tuberculosis. He had consulted the witch 
 doctor, and after having paid his fee w^as told that he had 
 
38 The Child in the Midst 
 
 been poisoned. Whereupon the "surgeon" drew his 
 knife out from his belt and made a number of small in- 
 cisions. He then declared he could see the poison inside 
 the youth, and took it away. But the lad was not cured, 
 and so came down to give the European's wisdom a trial.* 
 
 forsickchitdrcn. Thank God, there is a brighter side to the 
 story. In the name of the little Child of Bethle- 
 hem the little children of sorrow and darkness 
 and suffering are being reached and helped and 
 cured and loved. In many a mission hospital 
 and many a humble home the blind are receiving 
 sight, the crooked limbs are being straightened, 
 the burning fever is checked, the hollow cheeks 
 are growing round and rosy. The last word pic- 
 ture of this chapter shall be from the pen of Mrs. 
 Gerald F. Dale, the mother-saint who presides 
 over the women's and children's hospitals in 
 Beirut, Syria. 
 Children's The Children's Pavilion is the arena which calls into 
 
 Beirut!'^' pJ^Y 'the whole gamut of one's emotions. Such poor, 
 
 wasted faces; such robust, jolly faces; so much pain; 
 so much fun; twisted limbs before operation, straight 
 ones after; noses and mouths cobbled and mended, a 
 stitch here, a fold there, and what a change! It requires 
 the standpoint of the East to unravel the full meaning of 
 little Hindiyeh's exclamation, who, gazing in admiration 
 at her straightened legs, looked up with a meiTy laugh 
 and said: "Curse the religion of the father of my legs 
 as they used to be!" A baby-boy was to have no say 
 in the matter of his poor crumpled-up little club-feet, 
 for the mother begged that only one might be straightened, 
 in order to save him from militaiy service in the future. . . 
 The children's favorite game is "operations," the patient 
 
 * Ruth B. Fisher, "On the Borders of Pigmy Land." Revell. 
 
The Child in its Helplessness 39 
 
 being in turn a real child or a doll. Everything is repro- 
 duced to the life. A jnn stuck into the doll's mouth is a 
 thermometer; sawdust stuffing makes a most realistic 
 draining wound; bits of wire and gauze are twisted into 
 a mask, and chloroform is poured from an empty spool. 
 The scientific bandaging of head, legs, and arms shows 
 how intently the httle brains have observed. They are 
 busy with other things too; hymn after hymn is learned, 
 the commandments, verses, psalms. 
 
 Everything that is dropped into these receptive minds 
 stays, and once there will be shared, who can tell by how 
 many? It is the little child who shall lead, and it is the 
 handful of corn whose fruit shall shake like Lebanon.* 
 
 "The place where the young Child lay" was Tho christ- 
 
 the place where the brooding mother love shining iittie ones.* ^^° 
 
 from the tender mother eyes hovered over the 
 
 little One to guard and protect and care for Him 
 
 in His appealing helplessness. And from those 
 
 lips, once cooing in sweet babyhood, come down 
 
 to lis the words, — "Inasmuch as ye did it unto 
 
 one of the least of these little ones, ye did it unto 
 
 Me." 
 
 QUOTATIONS 
 
 Childbirth — China 
 
 Mary V. Glenton, Wuchang, China, writes in the 
 Spirit of Missions for July, 1902 : 
 
 Recently I was called to a case of childbirth away out in 
 the country. My native assistant had asked for a hoh- 
 day; she had gone that morning. After a long ride in 
 the chair through country roads, past the pagoda, I was 
 ushered into a small house of two rooms and then into 
 one of these rooms to my patient. When I shut the door 
 to keep the crowd out, and had thrown water out the 
 window several times for the same purpose, ineffectually, 
 * Wofnan's Work, Dec, 1911, p. 271. 
 
40 The Child in the Midst 
 
 1 found that I must have some light and also some air; 
 so I stationed one chair coolie at the door and another at 
 the window, and started in. I had to give chloroform 
 myself, as well as do the rest of the work. But after 
 four hours' hard work, so hard that while my feet were 
 cold on the earth floor (it was February), the upjier part 
 of my body was in profuse perspiration, I got through, 
 and saved the woman's life. 
 
 Immediately there arose a most tumultuous screaming, 
 shrieking, stamping, calling, flapping doors back and 
 forth on their hinges, and any sort of noise that could be 
 made. I had never heard such a din in my hfe. What 
 was coming I could not imagine. I was miles away from 
 home; it was growing dark; I had no one with me, 
 whom I knew or could reason with, but the chair coolies, 
 one of whom was a mere boy, the other a perfect goose, 
 who thinks himself unusuall}^ intelligent. I managed to 
 make myself heard after a while, enough to ask what they 
 were doing, and found that all the din and racket were to 
 frighten away the spirit of the dead baby that had just 
 been, born. 
 
 MOHAMMEDAN BABIES AND CHRISTIAN SOL- 
 DIERS 
 
 During the Balkan War a number of Bulgarian soldiers 
 came into a village which had been deserted by the 
 Turks, and there they found eight little Turkish babies 
 who had been left behind, — girls of course. They were 
 in a dreadful condition, but the tender heart of one of the 
 soldiers could not bear to leave them so. He found a 
 tub, and they undressed the babies, bathed them, and, 
 taking some cloth from a store, bound them all up again 
 in Oriental fashion. The tiny ladies, being very hungry, 
 continued to cry. The dilemma was how to find food 
 for these eight babies, all under a year of age. The 
 kind-hearted Bulgarian was equal to the emergency. 
 Dispatching one of his comrades to a neighboring village 
 
The Child in its Helplessness ^^1 
 
 for some milk, lie proceeded to kill eight geese. Remov- 
 ing and cleaning the crops from these, he filled them with 
 the milk, using goose quills for nipples, and soon the 
 eight babies were fast asleep. Then they sent them on 
 into Bulgaria to be cared for, with greetings from Turkey. 
 (Told by Mrs. E. E. Count of the Methodist Episco- 
 pal Mission in Bulgaria.) 
 
 BIBLE READING 
 
 "What manner of Child shall this be?" Luke 1: 5-14, 
 57-66, 80. 
 
 The little child greatly longed for — promised by God's 
 messenger — rejoiced over at birth — named "Jehovah is 
 gracious," not according to custom but with peculiar 
 significance — grew in stature — waxed strong in spirit — 
 God's hand w^as with him. 
 
 "When I see a child he inspires me with two feelings; 
 tenderness for what he is now, respect for what he may 
 become hereafter." Louis Pasteur. 
 
 PRAYER 
 
 O Lord Jesus Christ, we beseech Thee, by the innocence 
 and obedience of Thy Holy childhood, guard the children 
 of this our land and of all lands; preserve their innocence, 
 strengthen them when ready to slip, recover the erring, 
 and remove all that may hinder them from being really 
 brought up in Thy faith and love; Who livest and reign- 
 est with the Father and the Holy Ghost ever, one God, 
 world without end. Amen. 
 
 QUESTIONS 
 
 1. What do you consider the greatest need of the 
 children of your community? 
 
 2. How does this need compare with the needs of 
 children in the mission land in which you are most inter- 
 ested? 
 
42 The Child in the Midst 
 
 3. Name the organizations in your community that 
 deal with Child Welfare (i.e., milk station, children's 
 hospital ward, etc.). How many of these exist in non- 
 Christian lands? By whom were they introduced? 
 
 4. What can a ruling power like the British Govern- 
 ment in India do to bring about better conservation of 
 motherhood? 
 
 5. How would you go to work to eradicate harmful 
 superstitions in a Mohammedan land? 
 
 6. If you were conducting a series of six mothers' 
 meetings in China, what topics would you select? 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. CHAPTERS I AND II. 
 
 Child Problems, George B. Mangold — Macmillan. 
 "Em-opean Institutions for Protection of Motherhood," 
 
 etc. Theodore L. Smith, Pedagogical Seminary, Mar. 
 
 1912. 
 The Problem of Race Regeneration, Havelock Ellis. 
 Parenthood and Race Culture, Saleeby. 
 The Family and Social Life, E. T. Devine. 
 Fifteen Years Among the Top-ICnots, L. H. Underwood — 
 
 Am. Tract Soc. 
 Home Life in Turkey, Lucy M. J. Garnett — Macmillan. 
 Fetish Folk of West Africa, R. H. Milhgan— Revell. 
 Jungle Days, Arley Munson, M.D. — D. Appleton & Co. 
 Our Sisters in India, Rev. E. Storrow, Chapter vii — 
 
 ReveU. 
 "The Unbinding of Bright Blossom's Feet," Evenjland, 
 
 March, 1913. 
 The Light of the World, R. E. Spcer, Infanticide, pp. 
 
 353, 354. 
 Christian Missions and Social Progress, J. S. Dennis, 
 
 Infanticide, vol. i, p. 133. 
 When I Was a Boy in China, Ian Phon Lee— Y. M. C. A. 
 
 Press. 
 Village Life in China, Arthur H. Smith — Revell. 
 
The Child in its Helplessness 43 
 
 Village Life in Korea, J. R. Moose — M. E. Church, South. 
 
 The Chinese at Home, J. Dyer Ball — Revell. 
 
 On the Borders of Pigmy Land, Ruth B. Fisher — Revell. 
 
 "The Training of a Japanese Child," Francis Little — Cen- 
 tury,- June, 1913. 
 For leaflets and Children's Magazines see Bibliography 
 
 for Chapter II. 
 
 Much valuable material will he found for this and the 
 
 following chapters in all the earlier text-books of the Central 
 
 Committee on the United Study of Foreign Missions. These 
 
 books, studied with special reference to The Child, will bring 
 
 new light and interest to their readers. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE CHILD AT HOME 
 
 "Train up a child in the way he should go. 
 
 A Mohammedan home in Persia — A heathen 
 home in Africa — ^A Christian home in Zululand 
 — The home the centre of a nation's life — 
 Christianity's gift to non-Christian homes — 
 Greatness of the task — Disorderly homes — Moral 
 influences — Need of teaching the mothers — Lack 
 of proper discipline— Lack of innocence coupled 
 with appalling ignorance — Sex knowledge — ^A 
 missionary mother's " dream" — Position of fathers 
 — Fathers transformed by Christianity — Mother- 
 hood — Cliristian wives and mothers — Child mar- 
 riage — Betrothal customs — Dying child-wife — 
 Child widows — Homes of the world need Christ — 
 Vocation of a missionary wife — Missionary homes. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE CHILD AT HOME 
 "Train up a child in the way he should go." 
 
 Scene One: A Mohammedan home in Persia. AMoham- 
 
 medan home in 
 
 The women s apartments openmg onto an Persia. 
 inner court-yard present an animated scene, for 
 some ladies from another harem have come with 
 children and servants to make a call; i.e., to 
 spend the afternoon, drink unlimited quantities 
 of tea and pussy-willow-water, smoke unnum- 
 bered cigarettes alternating with the water pipe, 
 and nibble at sweetmeats and fruits provided in 
 large abundance. The greetings are conducted 
 with due decorum by women and children, and 
 then, while the servants and concubines of the 
 home move to and fro with the proper refresh- 
 ments, and while the children dispose of large 
 quantities of sweets, the gossip of the neighbor- 
 hood is discussed with animation. The conver- 
 sation,^ — no, it cannot be repeated here, for it is 
 not fit for the printed page; but little girls sit 
 eagerly drinking it in, and little boys stop in 
 their play to wink at each other with knowing 
 looks as they catch the drift of the talk, A 
 
48 The Child in the Midst 
 
 mere baby crawls up to attract his mother's 
 attention and, not succeeding, slaps her with 
 all his tiny might as she sits on a cushion on the 
 floor. "Oh brave boy! oh splendid boy! just 
 see how he hits me when I do not listen to him!" 
 And the little boy is hugged and his wishes are 
 granted while he learns well his lesson of the 
 inferiority of a woman, — even his mother. Pres- 
 ently a little girl begins to scream vigorously, 
 having been pounded and scratched by a small 
 boy in the party. The lad is rewarded for his 
 manliness with a big piece of saffron candy, but 
 the girl, being a visitor, must be consoled; and 
 so the delightful promise is made: "Never mind; 
 stop crying, and Ave will find you a nice husband. 
 Now wouldn't it be fine to arrange a marriage 
 for her with the son of — ?" and so the whole 
 matter is discussed in the child's hearing, and 
 she too learns her lesson, — that the one ambition 
 of a girl must be to get married as early as pos- 
 sible, and the more valuable she is, the greater 
 settlement must her prospective husband make 
 upon her, to be paid in case he wishes to divorce 
 her. 
 
 It is evening, the visitors are gone, and the 
 head of the home with the older boys will take 
 his evening meal in the anderun (women's apart- 
 ment). No cloth is spread for the whole family. 
 The husband and sons are served on large copper 
 trays by the women of the household, who eat 
 later what is left. The husband is in a wretched 
 
In a Korean Home 
 
The Child at Home 49 
 
 mood and vents his anger right and left. Even 
 the favorite wife, a young girl who has recently 
 superseded in his affections the mothers of his 
 children, trembles for her position when the rice 
 is not to his taste; and suddenly at some further 
 provocation he turns upon her, and with the 
 words, "I divorce you," sends her cowering from 
 him, a divorced woman of fifteen, amid the 
 sneers and insults of those who served and 
 fawned on her earlier in the day. 
 
 Scene Two : A hut in Central Africa. 
 
 Soon after sunrise a numl^cr of women and ^^^hk-T^^^^ 
 girls, laden with hoes, baskets, and babies, start 
 out from the grass hut which is home to them, 
 and make their way to the field to work all day 
 in the hot sun. Having leisurely smoked his 
 pipe in preparation for the day's labors, the man 
 of the house starts with sons and neighbors on 
 a hunting expedition, or goes to a neighboring 
 town to exchange his stock for some coveted 
 article. Towards evening all is bustle and con- 
 fusion about the home, as the women have re- 
 turned and are preparing the evening meal. 
 All goes merrily, for here comes the head of the 
 house in an excellent humor. Picking up the 
 nearest baby, he fondles it and says, "A man in 
 the next to^^^l has just bought this baby of me 
 as wife for his son. Being strong and fat and 
 lusty, she has brought a good price." Where- 
 upon a small brother shouts with delight, for 
 
t 
 
 50 The Child in the Midst 
 
 this means that the dowry for his wiie is provided 
 and the girl on whom he has set his affections 
 can be procured without further delay. His 
 mother is pleased, — the prosiDect adds to her 
 importance, — but the seventeen year old mother 
 of the fat, cooing baby turns away to hide her 
 face and surreptitiously to hug her two other 
 children. "Anyway, they are boys; they cannot 
 Ije taken from me." 
 
 The boy who is to profit by the sale of his little 
 sister is not suited with his evening meal, and, 
 catching a chicken, he cuts off one leg and de- 
 mands that it be cooked for him. No thought 
 of the suffering fowl interferes with his appetite, 
 any more than of the little sister so soon to be 
 sent out on the forest trail, her little brown 
 body carefully oiled, to be subjected to the blows 
 and ill-treatment of an unknown mother-in- 
 law. But even before the little one goes, she 
 has learned her life lessons, — that a lie is a crime 
 only if it is discovered, — that if she does not hke 
 her husband she may console herself with some 
 other man so long as she is not found out. And, 
 after all, the relation may be of short duration, 
 for, if her future husband is unkind, one of his 
 wives will surely be an adept in the art of poison- 
 ing, and then all of them will be inherited by his 
 brother. And so the little brown baby, fondled, 
 petted, spoiled today, is sent out tomorrow with 
 foul words on her tongue and foul thoughts in 
 her heart, to be a wife and the future mother of 
 
The Child at Home 51 
 
 little broA;\ai babies whose possibilities are in- 
 finite, whose opportunities are to be, — what? 
 
 Scene three: A Christian Home in Zululand.* a christian 
 
 ,,-r 1 1 1 • 1 T r. home in Zulu- 
 
 I have already given you a peep at the life land. 
 in a heathen kraal. Now repair to a Christian 
 home. Here we find everything simpler and 
 more quiet. Here polygamy, with all its attend- 
 ant sensualities and riot, has given place to 
 restraint of passions and a purer union. Here 
 is but one house and one wife. The Christian 
 man's love is now undivided, and all his efforts 
 are centred in one objective. The single house 
 is no longer a stack of grass enclosing a dungeon 
 of darkness, but a square-walled building, humble 
 indeed, but airy and bright. In place of being 
 obliged to crawl like animals on our knees into 
 the heathen hut, we may enter erect as becomes 
 the dignity of man, through swinging doors. 
 We come not into a smoky darkness, but into 
 a dwelling flooded with the light of glazed win- 
 dows. In the kraal v^e found the whole family, 
 old and young, male and female, huddled to- 
 gether night and day in the one small room; 
 here we have a dwelling with separate rooms, so 
 that parents and children and strangers may 
 each enjoy some privacy. The air is not only 
 light with sunshine; it is also pure and clean, 
 for no cooking operations are performed herein, 
 
 * John L. Dube, Orange, Natal, Missionary Review, June, 1912, 
 p. 410. 
 
52 The Child in the Midst 
 
 but in a special kitchen outside. In the lieathen 
 hut, whether for sitting or sleeping, we were 
 accommodated on the floor; now we may sit 
 more respectably on chairs, eat our meals from 
 a table, and rest our weary bones on a raised 
 bed. 
 
 "At four or five o'clock in the morning, ac- 
 cording to season,^ — for the Zulu is an early riser, — 
 all are up. We hear a gentle murmur from within. 
 Ah! it is the familiar sound, so sweet to us, but 
 never heard in the heathen kraal. It is the hour 
 of morning prayer, when husband and wife and 
 little ones join their hearts and voices together 
 in a fervent hymn of praise or hopeful supplica- 
 tion for protection and aid." 
 The home, Tho liomc Is tlio centro of a nation's life. 
 
 the ci'iitiu of a 
 
 nation's life. More and more emphasis is being laid in en- 
 lightened communities on the need of proper 
 home environment and on the grave risks and 
 great dangers that accompany the lack of such 
 environment. If one studies the labors and 
 v/ritings of the great social and religious workers 
 of today, this note of emphasis on home life and 
 training will be heard to ring out loud and clear, 
 above all other sounds of harmony or discord, — 
 a call to meet a definite need. 
 
 Dr. Devine has voiced this thought and en- 
 larged upon it in its various phases in his recent 
 book, "The Family and Social Work," in which 
 he claims that "To maintain normal family life, 
 to restore it when it has been interfered with, 
 
The Child at Home 53 
 
 to create conditions more and more favorable 
 
 to it, is thus the underlying object of all our 
 
 social work. Efforts to relieve distress and to 
 
 improve general conditions arc shaped Ijy our 
 
 conception of what constitutes normal family 
 
 hfe." 
 
 Any candid woman who has studied the "home- chnatiamty'a 
 '' gift to non- 
 
 scenes" at the beginning of this chapter and has ^onipg'''''* 
 
 then proceeded (as it is hoped and expected that 
 she will) to study home conditions and surround- 
 ings in other lands, will sui-ely be ready to achnit 
 that the greatest gift Christianity has to offer 
 to a non-Christian land is the introduction of 
 the power of the Christ life mto the homes of 
 that land. Dr. Dennis lays great emphasis on 
 the necessity and opportunity for missionary 
 endeavor along this line. 
 
 The reconstruction of the family, next to the regenera- 
 tion of individual character, is the most precious contri- 
 bution of missions to heathen society, and we may add 
 that it is one of the most helpful human influences wliich 
 can be consecrated to the service of social elevation. In 
 the cfTort to hallow and i:)m-ify family life we stir the secret 
 yeanling of fatherliood and motherhood; we enter the 
 precincts of the home, and take childhood by the hand; 
 we restore to its place of power and winsomeness in the 
 domestic circle the ministry of womanhood; and at the 
 same time we strike at some of the most despicable evilg 
 and desolating WTongs of our fallen world. Notliing in 
 the history of human society, except the teaching and 
 example of Jesus Christ, has WTOught with such energy 
 and wisdom in introducing sa^^ng power into social 
 development as a sanctified home life. If parental 
 
54 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 training can be made loving, faitliful, conscientious, and 
 helpful, if womanhood can be redeemed and crowned, if 
 childhood can be guided in tenderness and wisdom, if the 
 home can be made a place where virtue dwells, and moral 
 goodness is nourished and becomes strong and brave for 
 the conflicts of life, we can conceive of no more effective 
 combination of invigorating influences for the rehabili- 
 tation of fallen society than will therein be given.* 
 
 The task fairly staggers us with its greatness 
 and its limitless scope; but let us be big enough 
 to look even beyond all this, and, with the glorious 
 capacity for motherhood that lies in every good 
 woman's breast, let us see not only the millions 
 of homes that are in darkness and sorrow and 
 degradation today, but also realize that the 
 children of today are to be the fathers and mothers 
 of tomorrow. Our work as a "great, beautiful, 
 organized motherhood for the world" must in- 
 clude the preparation of these children to as- 
 sume the duties of parenthood in the future, and 
 to raise from generation to generation the stand- 
 ards of individual and home and national life 
 "till we all attain unto a full grown man, unto 
 the measure of the stature of the fulness of 
 Christ." 
 
 The physical conditions of a home, and the 
 moral and spiritual characters developed in the 
 home act and re-act on each other with clock- 
 like precision. Would you expect a neat and 
 orderly housemaid if you engaged a girl from a 
 
 * J. S. Dennis, "Chr. Miss. & Soc. Prog.," vol. ii, p. 176, ReveU. 
 
The Child at Home 55 
 
 home in China which Mrs. S. C. Perkins thus 
 describes? — 
 
 The great mass of the people live in what can only be 
 called hovels, the family occupying one room, shared 
 with pigs and chickens; damp, dark, unventilated, and 
 unclean. Even in the houses of the rich there is a certaia 
 cheerlcssness owing to the lack of carpets, the absence 
 of sunlight, and the stiff aiTangcment of the furniture. 
 The odor of incense in all houses renders the atmosphere 
 close and unpleasant. The people will not use white- 
 wash, because white is an unlucky color; indeed, their 
 many superstitions interfere with the comfort of the 
 poorer classes quite as much as does their poverty. In 
 Northern China every house has its kang, a platform 
 of stone about two feet high, underneath which a fij-e is 
 kindled for warmth and for cooking, the heat being 
 carried through it by a flue into the chimney. Here the 
 family sleep at night, sit by day, and on it they cook 
 their food.** 
 
 How much ambition would one be able to arouse 
 m a school girl coming from this home in Burma? 
 
 The home of one of the mission school girls is described 
 in this way: "It is a large teakwood house, and we walk 
 right in, for there is no door bell. The large hall is half 
 filled with piles of wood, for the family Hves on the second 
 floor. A servant tells us to go up, and we climb the long 
 stairs. At the top we find the lady of the house sitting on 
 a mat smoking. She motions us to be seated. In the 
 large room are two mats, two chairs, and two tables.* 
 
 Innocent childhood, modesty, purity can Absence of 
 hardly be counted on in the unnumbered homes 
 of Africa, India, Persia, Korea, and other lands 
 
 ** Mrs. S. C. Perkins, "Home Life in China." Pres. Worn. Bd. 
 of Miss. 
 
 * Mrs. O. W. Scott, "Child Life in Burma." Worn. For. Miss. 
 Soc. M. E. Ch. 
 
 innocence. 
 
56 The Child in the Midst 
 
 whcTc the \vholc family lives iu one room, where 
 sons bring their brides to swell the nmnber of 
 those whose every act and word is seen or heard 
 by the whole patriarchal family. If further 
 evidence is needed of the inter-relation of the 
 physical home sm-roundings and the formation 
 of character, study the history of those savage 
 communities that have come under the power 
 of *the Go;'.pel, as for instance the New Hebrides 
 Islands, and it will be very evident that "godli- 
 ness is profita])le for all things," even for intro- 
 ducing a comfortable, tidy home in which one 
 can stand upright and enjoy some degree of 
 privacy! 
 Momiinflu- In order to learn what should be done for 
 
 eucca. 
 
 little children in non-Christian lands, w^e must 
 know in addition to their physical needs some- 
 thing of the moral and spiritual influences that 
 surromid them. Of the spiritual influences we 
 shall speak in a later chapter, and, though the 
 moral effects on life and character have already 
 been touched on in various W'ays, it seems wise 
 to sum up briefly some of the special home 
 influences that affect child life in the lands of 
 which we are studying. We must be humble 
 and teachable too, for it is true that we Ameri- 
 cans could well be learners when it comes to the 
 lessons in filial piety taught to Chinese children, 
 and the careful attention to etiquette and social 
 graces which form an important piirt of the 
 training of Japanese girls. 
 
The Child at Home 57 
 
 In Ji most interesting and enlightening atudy Mothor'ideai 
 of " The Chinese Mother Id(>al "*— Mrs. Gannnon 
 shows that "even a cursory ghinc.e through 
 Chinese Hteraturc reveals teachings which if 
 carried into effect might transform the whole 
 empire." But alas! "to the majority of the 
 women of China the printed page is a sealed 
 book," and in many of the moral as well as the 
 spiritual teachings we find minute instructions 
 for outward observances, but no life-principles 
 upon which true character may be built. 
 
 Immodesty, shocking impurity, dishonesty, EvIi influences 
 
 1 • TIT r 1 1 1 • 1 surrounding 
 
 lymg, disobedience, loul and abusive language, tho children. 
 quarrelsomeness, bad habits, cruelty, anger, 
 jealousy, — we might go on with the long terrible 
 list of influence's that surround the child from 
 babyhood up, that are a part of his heritage, and 
 are not treated as evils to be uprooted by care- 
 ful training and wholesome example, but as 
 qualities to be emulated. One of the "Sacred 
 Books" of Burma says, "A statement consti- 
 tutes a lie when discovered by the person to 
 whom it is told to be untrue!" In the same way 
 millions of children are today being taught that 
 sin is sin only when it is found out or when it 
 inconveniences a superior avenging power. How 
 to teach the mothers so that their example and 
 precepts may produce different children, that 
 is our great problem. We hear of a convert in 
 India who told a missionary that she "often 
 
 * Life and Li&ht, Aug., 1912, 
 
68 The Child in the Midst 
 
 prays for power to forget the words she heard 
 and the things she saw and the games she played 
 when she was a little child in her mother's room." 
 I often recall an impromptu mothers' meeting 
 held on the mud roof of a village home in Persia, 
 where the text was furnished by a self-righteous 
 mother whose child had misbehaved at the 
 afternoon service conducted by my husband. 
 The mother boasted that she had dragged her 
 child out of the meeting and beaten him on the 
 head till his nose bled. 
 
 dSdpUn.^'^^^'"^ 0^ ^^^^ discipline, — pimishment administered 
 in love, not in anger, for the purpose of teaching 
 great life principles, I have yet to discover a 
 trace in homes untouched by the love of Christ 
 in the lands of which we are speaking. Love 
 there is, and how often the unexpressed yearning 
 of the mother heart finds utterance at last when 
 she comes into contact with a mother who knoios 
 of these things. A young missionary mother 
 from China told me about a pleasant gathering of 
 
 "No plan." women in her parlor after her youngest baby was 
 born. One woman said to her, "I wish I knew 
 what to do when my children are naughty. I 
 have no plan." The poor woman was nm-sing 
 her fourth baby, and worn by wakeful nights and 
 constant nursing was in no condition, physically, 
 mentally, or morally, to rule wisely her mischiev- 
 ous, disobedient, crying children. 
 
 MisaHoiiiday From the vast amount of interesting informa- 
 
 on child train- . i . i ... , , , 
 
 ing in Persia, tion which our missiouaries are glad to share 
 
The Child at Home 59 
 
 with us the moment this subject is broached, it 
 is difficult to select something for the limited 
 space in this chapter. In this as in other in- 
 stances, the intention is rather to whet the 
 appetite for more, than to make an exhaustive 
 study of the subject. Miss G. Y. Holliday of 
 Persia says, — 
 
 I find children passionately longed for, much loved, 
 though not at all wisely; often the t3Tants of the house- 
 hold. It is a sad commentary on the depravity of human 
 nature, that no matter what outrage a child commits or 
 how abominable his conduct may be, it is considered an 
 all-sufficient excuse to say, "He is a child," as if there were 
 no such things as good and well behaved children, and 
 nothing else was to be expected but disorder and dis- 
 obedience from them. The atmosphere of a Moslem 
 home is so bad for them, with the continual swearing and 
 vile language. I was talking one day to a small boy, 
 the idol of his grandparents, with whom he spends most 
 of his time. The subject was family discipline; I said, 
 "Parents sometimes find it necessary to punish the chil- 
 dren." He replied with emphasis, his eyes opening wider 
 and wider, "Yes, parents whip, they kick, they strike." 
 
 One of the most terrible results to children of Lackofinno- 
 
 cence coupled 
 
 the lack oi j)roper home life and trammg is loss y-'^^^ appalling 
 
 of iimocence coupled with appalling ignorance. 
 
 This condition existing also in our own land is 
 
 being faced in these days with new purpose and 
 
 determination by earnest, conscientious men and 
 
 women who are seeking in many ways to find 
 
 and apply a remedy. From the many strong, 
 
 true writers and speakers on this subject we 
 
 select a few words "OTitten by Professor E. P. 
 
 Ignorance. 
 
60 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 St. John of the Hartford School of Religious 
 Pedagogy. 
 
 It is unsafe to leave a child ignorant about sex. The 
 WTiter firmly believes that a majority of the evils that 
 appear in connection with this phase of human nature 
 could be avoided by 6imi)le, frank instruction of children 
 and youth. The great trouble has been that parents 
 who have clean ideas about sex and its relations have 
 kept their lips sealed on the subject. . . Even if it were 
 desirable, children camiot be kept in ignorance of these 
 vhings. Through the -parents' neglect their thoughts of 
 these matters have too often been perverted and imjiure 
 from the first. The aim should be to pre-empt the ground 
 for cleanness and truth. 
 
 All honor and assistance be given to the 
 missionary mother who, feeling the horrible need 
 of China's cliildren and youth in this respect, is 
 spending much of her furlough year in working 
 out a plan, — a "dream" she calls it. Will you 
 listen to her dream, and then see if it is not in 
 your power to help the missionary mothers 
 whom 7J0U know to make this dream a great and 
 living reality in many of the dark hal^itations of 
 the earth? "A Chinese child knows all there is 
 to be Imown about the deep life truths, and knows 
 it without the beauty of life being impressed 
 on him. I am going to tell j^ou a dream I liavc. 
 Perhaps it is not necessary to speak of it, but 
 it will show how strongly the a'wfulness of con- 
 ditions has forced certain truths on me. I am 
 inquiring among my friends, those who would 
 know, what are the best books of sex Imowledge 
 
The Child at Home 61 
 
 for men and Monien, mid espccinlly the books or 
 stories for children. I am already beginning 
 the little nature stories with my oa\ti. boys and 
 intend to teach them scientifically all the truths 
 about themselves so beautifully and so naturally 
 and so early that they will never laiow when 
 they weren't acquainted with these facts, and 
 will never have aught but the deepest love for 
 the knowledge I give them. I think I can do 
 it, with plenty of study and determination. 
 Then as I know Chinese better, I want to conduct 
 classes for mothers and for children, and also to 
 get hold of our school boys and talk to them or 
 put literature in their hands that will make better 
 men of them. If I stayed in this country, I 
 should push such knowledge at every turn. I 
 expect to keep a library that I can loan to Ameri- 
 can sailors and other young men. I thoroughly 
 believe that the propagation of such information 
 will do more to change the life of children and 
 the atmosphere of the Chinese home than any- 
 thing else. For with this knowledge one learns 
 the beauty and wonder of a God that could 
 make such a beautiful human body. It is won- 
 derful to see what Christian homes are doing, 
 but how much more they could do with knowledge, 
 scientific Christian knowledge, in the hearts of 
 the parents!" 
 
 The position of the husband and father in f°^if°°- °^ *^° 
 most non-Christian lands is that of supreme 
 ruler and despot in his home. In many cases 
 
62 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 An Egyptian 
 father. 
 
 An African 
 father. 
 
 he has the power of Hfe and death over his chil- 
 dren, during infancy at least, and where polygamy- 
 exists many a wife has suddenly disappeared, 
 never to be heard of again; but no one thinks 
 of questioning the rights of the husband in the 
 matter. His attitude toward the mothers of 
 his children is the "sample copy" for his boys 
 to imitate, and right faithfully do they follow 
 his example. 
 
 In the native quarter of Alexandria, Egypt, I saw a 
 little boy who was very fond of making mud-pies in front 
 of the house. One afternoon his mother stepped into 
 the doorway and called : 
 
 "Come in, darling; don't get your clothes so dirty. 
 Come in, sweet one." No answer from the four-year-old. 
 
 The mother stepped into the road, looking about to 
 see that there were no men near to watch her, and laid a 
 kind motherly hand on the child to take him into the 
 house. 
 
 "Come, little one. I will give you sweets; come!" 
 
 Her husband at that moment came around the next 
 corner, and stood still to see what would happen. The 
 child turned on his mother, and, doubling up his little 
 dirty fist, he beat her right in the face, and snarled, 
 "Bint el kelb!" (Daughter of a dog), tearing himself 
 loose. 
 
 The father stepped up, and, in place of giving the little 
 scoundrel a thrashing, he patted his son on the back, 
 smiled upon him, and said: "Brave little fellow! Thou 
 magnificent httle fellow!" Proud of the son who could 
 treat a woman thus!* 
 
 Through the jungle of Africa strides the man 
 carrying his pipe and a big hunting knife; after 
 
 * Missionary Review, June, 1912, Karl Kumm, F.R.G.S. 
 
The Child at Home 63 
 
 him comes his wife with a baby slmig at her side, 
 
 stooping midcr the great pack on her back, to 
 
 hghtcn which ho wdll not hft his httle finger. 
 
 Oh! it is a sight to make angels rejoice when ^'^^^^"b'"^"®" 
 
 the grace of God touches the heart, and manh- christiauity. 
 
 ness and chivalry are aroused in him w^ho had 
 
 all his life seemed absolutely callous to the 
 
 needs and sufferings of those dependent on him! 
 
 In a Persian village where a missionary lady was 
 
 touring, a man came to evening prayers and 
 
 slipped a note into her hand that read, ''Receive 
 
 M. B. with love, — he is a brother." Several 
 
 years later she again visited the village, but 
 
 though she had no opportunity to talk with 
 
 M. B. she saw something that spoke louder and 
 
 more forcibly than a dozen conversations would 
 
 have done. When he w^as ready to go home 
 
 from the meeting in the missionary's rooms, he 
 
 said to his wife, "Give me the child," and took 
 
 the heavy, sleeping boy out of her arms. In 
 
 all her long years of work among IVIohammedans 
 
 this missionary had never seen a Mohammedan 
 
 man do such a thing. 
 
 "A Japanese W'oman whose husband is a 
 Christian," writes Miss Ransome, "though she 
 is as yet only an inquirer, said recently that 
 the change for the better had been so marvelous 
 in her husband that she had decided to try to 
 rear her boy in such a way that he would eventu- 
 ally become an evangelist. She wanted others 
 to know of the power of Christianity which could 
 
64 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 Motherhood. 
 
 A motlier of 
 girls. 
 
 change a quarrelsome, drinking man to a kind, 
 sober, industrious father." That boy's chance 
 for a happy, useful life was the direct result of 
 what the knowledge of Christ had done for his 
 father. 
 
 The sacred vocation of motherhood is regarded 
 almost entirely from a commercial or social 
 standpoint in non-Christian lands. The free 
 woman who remains unmarried is wellnigh an 
 impossibility, — she has no chance for winning 
 respect or position in this life, and, according to 
 Mohammedan belief, has a very inferior place in 
 heaven. The woman who marries and has no 
 children needs one's sympathy almost as much 
 as does her umnarricd sister. In many cases 
 she may be divorced after a certain number of 
 years if no child has been born to her, or she 
 lives in dread of having another wife brought 
 into the home, who will make her life miserable 
 with taunts such as Peninnah heaped upon 
 Haimah in days of old. And. there is no hope that 
 her lord and master will comfort her as Elkanah 
 comforted Hannah, offering her the devotion of 
 ten sons. ^ 
 
 But the unmarried woman and the childless 
 wife are rot alone in their degradation and 
 distress. Never can I forget my feelings when 
 told of a neighbor in Persia who had just given 
 birth to her seventh daughter. Her husband on 
 visiting the room crossed over to where she 
 lay on her Ixul on tlie floor^ looked at her with 
 
Mother and Child in Egypt 
 
The Child at Home 65 
 
 disgust and disapproval, spat in her face and 
 covered it with a cloth to show that she was a 
 disgraced wife. To be the mother of sons is the 
 great wish of a woman's heart, to have many 
 daughters-in-law brought into the home to serve 
 her and cower before her tyranny is her fondest 
 ambition, and when she attains it her influence 
 is indeed great, and in one respect at least she 
 is queen of her home. 
 
 Is it a mistake in this study of child life to f^'^^^^^jlr' "* 
 pay so much attention to the subjects of father- 
 hood and motherhood? Nowhere can we find 
 the real remedy for the evils that degrade and 
 debase and oppress and crush the sweet inno- 
 cence and dependence of childhood unless we 
 go back of the child to the very foundations of 
 family life. Many great authorities in America 
 and Europe, as well as those who have labored 
 and studied in Oriental lands, will testify to the 
 truth of this statement. Rev. J. Sadler of 
 Amoy says, ''You would be profoundly impressed 
 if you could realize how the strength of heathen- 
 ism is in the women. From earliest years they 
 teach their children concerning demons, and to 
 be early eager as to inheritance, and thus inspire 
 selfish and quarrelsome ideas leading to divisions 
 and life-long conflicts. The importance of wom- 
 en's work cannot be estimated. The destiny of 
 the country is largely in their hands." * 
 
 * Missionary Review of the World, Oct., 1911. 
 
66 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 Training 
 Christian 
 wives and 
 mothers. 
 
 This is one side of the picture. The other is 
 equally true. Dr. Daniel McGilvary, for half a 
 century a missionary among the Siamese and 
 Lao, tells of the wonderful result of a school for 
 girls that provides Christian wives and mothers. 
 
 Notwithstanding our disappointment in the delay of 
 the school for boys, it proved a wise arrangement that 
 the girls' school was started first. A mission church is 
 sure to be greatly handicapped whose young men must 
 either remain single, — which they will not do, — or be 
 compelled to take ignorant non-Christian wives. . . 
 After marriage the almost universal custom of the coun- 
 try has been that the husband lives with the wife's fam- 
 ily. . . Where all the atmosphere of the family is strongly 
 Buddhist, with daily offerings to the spirits and gala days 
 at the temple, the current would be too strong for a 
 father, with his secondary place in the family, to with- 
 stand. For a while it was feared that Christian girls 
 would have difficulty in finding husbands. But, on the 
 contrary, our educated girls become not only more intelli- 
 gent, but more attractive in manners, dress, and char- 
 acter; and therefore, have been much sought after. The 
 homes beconie Christian homes, and the children are 
 reared in a Christian atmosphere. The result is that, in- 
 stead of the wife's dragging the husband down, she gener- 
 ally raises the husband up; and, as a general rule, the 
 children early become Christians.* 
 
 The Mohammedan girl educated in a Christian 
 school, even though she must marry and live 
 her life according to Mohammedan customs, 
 takes with her to her father-in-law's home new 
 ideas and customs that are going far to break 
 
 * Daniel McGilvary, "A Half Century among the Siamese and 
 Lao." Re veil. 
 
The Child at Home 67 
 
 down the old walls of prejudice. IMrs. C. M. 
 Wherry of India writes: — 
 
 One of the most interesting facts that has come to 
 light during recent years is this: We do not know of any 
 educated Moslem girl who has spent four or five years 
 in our schools, — and I include those of the British work- 
 ers too, — who has ever been subjected to the indignity 
 of a second wife brought into her home. They seem to 
 have gained strength of character and graces enough to 
 hold their own against the bad influences of Moham- 
 medanism. More and more we hear of Moslem famihes 
 who practically adopt the Christian idea of marriage, 
 that is, one woman in the home: these families frequently 
 in giving away their daughters take pledges from the 
 bridegroom that she is to be the only wife, while still 
 more encouraging is the fact that many of these educated 
 girls absolutely refuse to be given in marriage vmless their 
 parents insist on this single wife.* 
 
 A little Mohammedan girl had attended for 
 a few months a small day school on the mission 
 premises. Years afterwards her nlissionary 
 teacher found her in a village, and the woman 
 gathering her children about her led them in the 
 Lord's Prayer, explaining that she and the 
 children prayed together every day. 
 
 Who can foretell the influence that will go ^ c^ "^*'*° 
 
 ^ mother in 
 
 on down through the years because of one mother ^y^^- 
 in Syria who has recently passed to her reward 
 at the age of ninety years? She was the mother 
 of eight children, two of whom were ordained 
 pastors, two licensed preachers, one the wife of 
 a pastor, another a helper in the Sidon Mission- 
 
 * Mrs. C. M. Wherry in "Daylight in the Harem," Revell. 
 
68 
 
 The Child In the Midst 
 
 Child 
 marriage. 
 
 Testimony of 
 aa Egyptian. 
 
 ary School, one is employed by the Church 
 Missionary Society in Nazareth, and two more 
 are teaching and preaching in the German 
 Orphanage in Jerusalem. Think what the land 
 of our Saviour's sojourn would have lost had 
 not that one mother learned to love and follow 
 Him, and to train her children as a Christian 
 mother should. 
 
 Many chapters might easily be devoted to 
 the subjects of child marriage and child widow- 
 hood and their frightful effect on past, present, 
 and future generations. They have, however, 
 been treated quite fully in recent mission study 
 books, and so much authoritative literature on 
 these subjects exists that it does not seem best to 
 dwell on them at length in this connection. 
 
 But every Christian mother should pause and 
 ask of herself earnestly, "What if it were my 
 daughter, my son, how could I stand it? Would 
 I not move heaven and earth to see that some 
 remedy were found for this monstrous evil?" 
 What if your daughter were that widowed 
 teacher in a missionary school in China who 
 had been married at nineteen to a boy of twelve, 
 and who every morning after washing his face 
 and combing his hair had to see that he started 
 off properly to school, often crying and protesting, 
 and then turn to her weaving, in order to earn 
 money for his education? 
 
 Are we overestimating the evil because of our 
 Occidental customs and prejudices? Listen to 
 
Tke Child at Home B9 
 
 the words of an Egyptian, translated and re- 
 printed from a Cairo daily paper. 
 
 I am an Egyptian, and Bpeak of that which is customary 
 in my land; yet I wait to be shown that the Moslems of 
 India, of Yemen, of Syria, or of Persia are in any better 
 case. . . . 
 
 The first step in our faulty marriage system is that of 
 marrying boys of thirteen to girls not more than ten 
 years of age, as is the custom. This custom is like mak- 
 ing a fire of tender green branches; you benefit not by 
 its warmth, but you suffer much from its smoke. How 
 many of us have suffered from this cause? The excuse 
 given for it is that it is to preserve our youth from im- 
 purity. But what a feeble excuse! Silence were better 
 than such.* 
 
 Strange customs prevail in different lands re- Jhe betrothed 
 
 ° ^ boy in Korea. 
 
 garding betrothal and marriage. Their effect 
 upon the life and status of the boy seems to be 
 peculiarly marked in Korea. 
 
 The matter of becoming a full-fledged man does not 
 depend upon years, but is a matter to be decided on its 
 merits by the parents or guardians of the subject in Ltind. 
 The badge of manhood is none other than the topknot, 
 which is made by combing all the hair to the top of the 
 head and making it into a coil about an inch and a half in 
 diameter and four or five inches high. From the time 
 the boy's hair is long enough, it is plaited into a straight 
 braid and left hanging down his back. When the time 
 comes for him to be engaged to marry, his topknot is 
 put up, and from that time forth he is recognized as a 
 man. This usually takes place between the ages of ten 
 and twenty, though he is not likely to be so old as twenty. 
 
 *M. Fadil, Atbara, in Missionary Review, Feb., 1912, p. 131, 
 
70 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 Customs pre- 
 ceding marriage. 
 
 The burden 
 of motherhoo J . 
 
 As long as a boy wears his hair plaited and hanging down 
 his back, he is addressed in low talk. His age has nothing 
 to do with the form of speech, but the style of his hair 
 settles that. It sometimes happens that a very poor 
 family will not be able to contract a marriage for their 
 son, and so we occasionally meet a man thirty years old 
 with his hair still hanging down his back. . . . But the 
 boy who is honored with the precious topknot is addressed 
 in middle or high talk, though he may be only eight or 
 ten years old.* 
 
 A girl's hair receives special attention among 
 the Persian Mohammedans, and must be banged 
 when she is taken to the public bath on the day 
 preceding her marriage. In one of the islands of 
 the New Hebrides the struggling girl is held down 
 by several old women while her two upper front 
 teeth are knocked out as a necessary preparation 
 for marriage. 
 
 Among the Lao, where marriage is much more 
 honored and considered more sacred than in many 
 other countries, the boys are freer to do their 
 courting in person, and both boys and girls 
 have far more voice in the selection of a life 
 partner than in countries where women live in 
 seclusion and where polygamy abounds. 
 
 Through long years there has run in my ears 
 the brief story of a Christian servant in one of 
 tiie missionary homes in Persia. "I was married 
 at twelve years and had a baby when I was 
 thirteen, and, oh! how glad I was when it died!" 
 
 * Robert Moose, "Village Life in Korea." 
 Ch. Soc. 
 
 Pub. House of M. E. 
 
The Child at Home 71 
 
 Glad? Of course she was glad. What child of 
 thirteen would want the burd.en of motherhood? 
 
 Who of us who has witnessed the agonies of 
 the little dying child-mother can ever for a 
 moment think with carelessness or indifference 
 of the awful custom of child marriage? 
 
 "A girl of fifteen was dying," writes a friend a dying chiid- 
 from India. *'Her husband, a man of fifty or 
 more, is a man of good position and considerable 
 means. The girl lay in a bare room with noth- 
 ing but an unbaked earthenware vessel near 
 her. Her seco7id baby had been born a few days 
 or weeks before and something was wrong. . . . But 
 she was a purdah woman and could not see the 
 doctor. He had asked a few questions from 
 outside and had diagnosed the illness as tubercu- 
 losis, was treating it as such,^and had given it 
 as his opinion that she would die. Our pastor's 
 wife, dear Mrs. Roy, had somehow gone to see 
 her. Even her non-professional eye saw that a 
 mistake had been made, and she tried to persuade 
 the mother to send for a woman doctor. 'What 
 was the use? She was doing to die.' 
 
 "Mrs. Roy expostulated indignantly with the 
 mother for having married this child of twelve 
 to a grown-up man, just for money. The poor 
 child seemed so sad. Mrs. Roy told her of the 
 Christian's hope and a Saviour's love. The child 
 listened with the tears running down her face. 
 Then she asked, 'May I touch you?' (Being 
 a mother of a few days she was still unclean and 
 
72 The Child in the Midst 
 
 no one would touch her). So Mrs. Roy went 
 
 to her and held her hands and stroked her face 
 
 and hair and tried to give her comfort for the 
 
 journey for which she was so little prepared. 
 
 Thus is the 'hope of India' MURDERED by 
 
 custom and carelessness and greed. Oh, India is 
 
 horrible!" 
 
 from'^\ndia From the Missionary Review of the World 
 
 Chiid-wki"w-^^' (August, 1911) we quote the following statistics, 
 
 ^°°^- each word and figure of which cries out to us 
 
 Christian women, "How long, oh, how long, 
 
 shall these things be?" 
 
 The figures are appalling in respect of child-marriages. 
 The census of 1901 showed 121,500 married boys and 
 243,500 married girls, whose age was under five: 760,000 
 boys and 2,030,000 girls between the ages of five and ten; 
 2,540,000 and 6,586,000 between ten and fifteen. Of these, 
 all except a certain number of girls under the last class 
 were married before they were able to realize what mar- 
 riage is. The most deplorable result of euch marriages 
 is seen in the number of widowed children; 6,000 widow- 
 ers and 96,000 widows were between five and ten ; 113,000 
 widowers and 276,000 widows between ten and fifteen. 
 
 The homes of The homes of the world need nothing so 
 
 the world need i i i • e ,^ r^i • 
 
 Christ. much as the presence and blessmg of the Christ 
 
 who brought cheer to the home in Cana, comfort 
 to the widow's home at Nain, resurrection and 
 life to the home at Bethany, vision to the home 
 in Emmaus. How are ive to help to make it pos- 
 sible that fathers, mothers, and children in homes 
 where He is not known should hear Him as He 
 stands at the door and knocks, and shall open 
 
The Child at Home 73 
 
 to Him that He may sup with them and they with Jf^bHngfng'^^ 
 Him? There are at least three practical methods ^^^^^ ^° ""^^^^ 
 by which Christian women may help to bring 
 about this result. 
 
 First: Through Christian schools which take 
 children and youth in their impressionable years 
 and train them to be the Christian fathers and 
 mothers of the future. We have briefly alluded 
 to this method and shall speak of it more at 
 length in a later chapter. 
 
 Second: In Zenana work and other forms of 
 visiting in the homes, in crowded cities, and 
 isolated villages, taking to each individual home 
 the story of the Christ who gathered the little 
 ones in His arms, and the practical, homely 
 lessons of efforts that Christian civilization is 
 making in behalf of home life. 
 . Third: Through the great object lesson, the 
 missionary home. 
 
 Never again let it be asked in church or mis- 
 sionary society of a young woman starting for 
 the foreign field, "Are you going out as a mis- 
 sionary, or only as a missionary's wife?" At a 
 conference for outgoing missionaries,a beautiful, 
 talented college graduate, leader in many activi- 
 ties and full of capacity and consecration, said 
 to a returned missionary, — ^"I am to be married, 
 and have listened and listened at this conference 
 to know what particular work is waiting for me, 
 but there has been nothing for me as yet." When 
 it was pointed out to her that by means of her 
 
74 The Child in the Midst 
 
 paramount 'duties and obligations as wife and 
 mother in a' missionary home she would have an 
 opportunity of living the missionary message 
 such as few of her fellow missionaries might 
 have, her beautiful face lighted up with a look 
 that illumined it. The making of a missionary 
 home was a vocation indeed to call forth all the 
 highest powers of her consecrated womanhood, 
 on mu^ilZ!^"^ Mr. E. A. Lawrence has stated so clearly the 
 homes. possibilitics and opportunities of the missionary 
 
 home that he is worth quoting at length. 
 
 There is an element of missionary life which is seldom 
 presented, yet most important. It is the mission home. 
 ... It underlies the whole of the work, and discloses 
 the ideal of Protestant missions more clearly than any 
 other point. . . . 
 
 The first thing the Protestant missionary does among 
 the heathen is to establish a home. He approaches them 
 not as a priest, not simply as a man, but as the head of a 
 family, presenting Christianity quite as much in its social 
 as in its individual characteristics. This Christian home 
 is to be the transforming centre of a new corn muni ty. 
 Into the midst of pagan masses, where society is coagu- 
 lated rather than organized, where homes are degraded 
 by parental tyranny, marital multiplicity, and female 
 bondage, he brings the leaven of a redeemed family, 
 which is to be the nucleus of a redeemed society. ... It 
 is on this mission home that everything else is founded — 
 the school, the college, the kingdom itself. . . . 
 
 When they are at their homes, this new institution, 
 with its monogamy, its equality of man and woman, its 
 sympathy between child and parent, its co-operative 
 spirit of industry, its intelligence, its recreation, its 
 worship, is at once a new revelation and a striking object- 
 
The Child at Home 75 
 
 lesson of the meaning and possibility of family life. 
 Whether they come to his church and school or not, the 
 natives seem always ready to visit the missionary's home, 
 and to remain there so long, arc! to conduct themselves so 
 familiarly, that it sometimes becomes necessary to teach 
 them by object-lesson another feature of the Christian 
 home — its privacy. . . . 
 
 If the family in its very existence is an important 
 missionary agent, having a distinct work to do, not only 
 for its own members, but for the natives, . . . then there 
 must be a distinct acceptance of this office by its members, 
 and it must play its part in the outreaching work of the 
 missionary. The natives must be brought in contact 
 with this domestic sphere. The walls of the home should 
 be at least translucent, that its light may continually 
 shine through to them; its doors should be often open, 
 its table often spread for them; a distinct social as well 
 as Christian fellowship should be cultivated.* 
 
 "Given to Hospitality" might be the true At the mission- 
 
 ^ "^ "^ ary a table. 
 
 epitaph on the headstone of most missionary 
 wives, and untold lessons in love and deference 
 between husband and wife, obedience of chil- 
 dren, interesting and profitable table conversa- 
 tion, self-control, and courtesy, are taught in 
 the missionary dining room as they could never 
 be taught in church or school room. 
 
 "Won't you write an article on the orderly ^^^y^^^'^^o^t^ 
 management of a home for the paper published 
 by the mission?" begged a young Christian 
 teacher who was spending her vacation week as 
 a guest in the missionary home. ''The work of 
 
 * E. A. Lawrence, "Modern Missions in the East," Chap. viii. 
 Harper's. 
 
% 
 
 *rhe Child In the Midsi 
 
 Learning to 
 cook. 
 
 The baby who 
 made her 
 smile. 
 
 each servant and person in this house is arranged 
 for every day, and everything goes on quietly 
 and regularly. Our women have no plan for 
 their day's work, and I wish they might know 
 how you do it." 
 
 "I was taking dinner at the home of Mr. C," 
 said a native pastor, ''and his little boy cried 
 for some more of the food he liked. Instead of 
 giving it to him, his mother actually sent him 
 away from the table to stay until he could be 
 pleasant! I never heard of such a thing, but I 
 went home and told my family about it." 
 
 Mrs. J. C. Worley of Matsuyama, Japan, 
 writes: "One woman whom Mr. Worley bap- 
 tized a year ago walked thirty-five miles over 
 the mountains and carried a baby on her back 
 to get to us so she could learn foreign cooking in 
 a week. I could not do too much after she had 
 made such an effort. She came over every morn- 
 ing into our kitchen, and we proceeded to cook; 
 she with paper and pencil in hand and watching 
 with both eyes. I am wondering what I shall 
 be expected to eat next time we go there. I 
 taught her some new songs for the Sunday 
 School she and her husband hold in their little 
 mountain village. I just wanted to fill her up 
 with good thoughts and helps to take home, as 
 she had made such an effort to get here." * 
 
 Even the little missionary children may have 
 their unconscious share in kindling a new light 
 
 * The Continent, April 17, 1913. 
 
The Child at Home 77 
 
 that shall shine in palace and hovel, and be re- 
 flected in the faces of parents and children who 
 have long since lost the radiant look they were 
 meant to wear. A woman of high position was 
 making a very formal call in the missionary 
 home, accompanied by many retainers. Every 
 effort was made by the ladies of the station to 
 entertain her fittingly and to bring some gleam 
 of interest to the weary, hopeless face. The 
 piano, beautiful pictures, the wonderful writing 
 machine (type-v\Titer), dainty refreshments, — all 
 were acknowledged courteously, but i neither 
 interest nor heart was touched. At last in des- 
 peration the tiny baby in her dainty, long dress 
 was brought out from the bedroom, and, as the 
 visitor's arms were stretched out eagerly for the 
 cunning form, so different from any baby she 
 had ever seen, the little face looked up into the 
 sad, wondering eyes, and a beautiful smile crept 
 into the baby eyes and hovered about the rose- 
 bud mouth. "Oh, see," whispered the servants 
 in eager watchfulness, "our lady is smiling, — 
 smiling for the first time since her brother died. 
 God bless the little baby who made her smile !" 
 
 Ah yes! God bless the missionary babies, and 
 the missionary fathers and mothers, and every 
 one of the men and women whose hearts glow 
 with the love of the great Father whose supreme 
 will it is that "not one of these little ones should 
 perish!" 
 
78 The Child in the Midst 
 
 QUOTATIONS— CHAPTER II. 
 CHRISTIANITY AND THE HOME 
 
 Christianity will call into existence a sympathy between 
 parents and children hitherto unknown, and one of the 
 greatest needs of the Chinese home. It will teach par- 
 ents to govern their children, an accomplishment which 
 in four millenniums they have never made an approach to 
 acquiring. This it will do, not as at present by the mere 
 iterative insistence upon the duty of subjection to par- 
 ents, but by showing parents bow first to govern them- 
 selves, teaching them the completion of the first relations 
 by the addition of that chiefest one hitherto unknown, 
 expressed in the words Our Father. It will redeem 
 many years during the first decade of childhood, of what 
 is now a mere animal existence, filling it with fruitfulness 
 for a future intellectual and spiritual harvest. 
 
 It will show Chinese parents how to train as well as 
 how to govern their children — a divine art of which they 
 have at present no more conception than of the chem- 
 istry of soils. (Dr. Arthur H. Smith, "Village Life in 
 China." Revell.) 
 
 MOTHERS' MEETINGS 
 
 I have been much interested in our Mothers' Meetings 
 this winter. They meet at our house twice a month, and 
 we have been trying to have some very practical talks 
 which shall help them to be better mothers and women. 
 The need for such talks is very great, and I wonder more 
 and more that so many children escape physical and moral 
 wreck. Our more intelligent women realize their need 
 for instruction and help, and are very grateful for the 
 opportunities given them by these meetings, but a large 
 number come only out of curiosity. Some of the young 
 women say, "You ought to have these meetings for our 
 mothers-in-law instead of for us. They govern the house 
 
The Chiia at Home T9 
 
 and our children. We would like to try these methods. 
 We know they are right, but we are not allowed our way." 
 But I know it is hopeless to do anything with the grand- 
 mothers, and I believe that at least these young women 
 will learn enough to keep their hands off when their 
 turn comes to be mothers-in-law! It's a long look ahead, 
 but well worth while to plan for the future generation, 
 even though we cannot do all we long to for the present 
 one. (Mrs. Henry Riggs, Harpoot, Turkey.) 
 
 A TRANSFORMED HOME 
 
 In a small village near Hoi-How Uved Sitli Nin, a poor 
 woman, worn out by a life of hard work, bitter poverty, 
 and sorrow. Her husband had become a victim of the 
 opium habit, and squandered what little property she 
 had. When her eldest boy was eight years old, the 
 inhuman father, in order to gratify his cravings, sold 
 him to a Hong Kong boatman, and the mother never 
 heard from him since. Eight times she had attempted 
 suicide, three times by drowning, three times by hanging, 
 and twice by taking opium; but in the latter case she 
 had failed to take enough, and the other times love for 
 her children restrained her at the last moment. By some 
 chance the ladies of our mission found her. Her husband 
 was persuaded to take the opium cure at the hospital. 
 , . . While he was in the hospital, she attended the ser- 
 vices at the mission, and was genuinely converted. Her 
 husband was cured, and they went home rejoicing in 
 their new-found happiness. (Josephine P. Osmond, 
 "Home Life in Hainan," leaflet of Women's Foreign 
 Missionary Society of the Presbyterian Church.) 
 
 CHILD MARRIAGE, INDIA 
 
 Sir W. W. Hunter says, "In Bengal, out of every 
 thousand girls between five and nine years of age, two 
 
80 The OiiM in the Midst 
 
 hundred and seventy-one are married. More than ten 
 boy3 in every thousand between five and ten years old 
 are bridegrooms; while of girls, twenty-eight in one hun- 
 dred are wives or widows at an age when, if they were 
 in Europe, they would be in the nursery or infant school." 
 
 In England, out of every hundred females of twenty 
 years of age and upwards, 25.80 are single, 60.60 are 
 married and 13.60 widows. 
 
 "A Brahmin of Bengal gave away his six aunts, eight 
 sisters, and four daughters in a batch of altogether eight- 
 een, in marriage to one person — a boy less than ten years 
 old. The brides of three generations were in age from 
 about fifty years to three months at the lowest. The 
 baby bride was brought to the ceremony on a brass 
 plate. (Quoted from Times of India.) 
 
 The origin and authority for early marriage are worthy 
 of inquiry. Like so many Hindu customs, it claims a 
 quasi-divine authority, and is based on certain reasons 
 which, from the Hindu point of view, are of great weight. 
 "Reprehensible," says Manu, "is the father who gives 
 not his daughter in marriage at the proper time." And 
 all commentators say the proper time is before the age 
 of puberty. ... A high legal authority, Mr. Justice 
 Moothoswami Tyer, recently said, "According to custom 
 now obtaining, a Brahmin girl is bound to marry, for 
 fear of social degradation, before she attains maturity. 
 Marriage is of the nature of a sacrament which no Brahmin 
 is at liberty to neglect without forfeiting his caste." . . . 
 Thus a rehgious or sacramental purpose has been opera- 
 tive here, as in most other departments of Hindu life 
 and thought. . . . There has been one strong incentive 
 to early marriage, which in the past might be urged in 
 its justification. The unsettled, precarious conditions of 
 life, from the remotest times until the establishment of 
 British power, encouraged parents to have their children 
 married as soon as possible. (Rev. E. Storrow, "Our 
 Sisters in India." Revell.) 
 
A Little Goanese Bride in India 
 
the Child at Home 81 
 
 CHILD-WIVES, PERSIA 
 
 The usual age for a Mohammedan girl to marry is 
 thirteen or fom-teen, but in many places they marry as 
 early as eight. . . . Poor little girl wives! They are 
 taken away from home before they are grown up, and 
 although they are now married women they cannot help 
 behaving as children. There was one yoiuig wife of a 
 Government ofRcial who received her visitors with the 
 - utmost dij^nity and propriety, and then could not resist 
 the temptation to pinch the old black woman who was 
 handing the tea and make her jump. . . . 
 
 Even when the children grow older their mothers, 
 gi'own-up children themselves, do not know how to 
 manage them. , . . One woman bit her little boy's hand 
 till it bled badly. lie was about seven, and had cried to 
 have his best coat on when he went to see the missionary. 
 Another woman bit the cheek of a poor little consumptive 
 girl of eight or nine so that there was a great bruise and 
 the skin was broken. She told a neighbor, with a laugh, 
 that she had got angry with the child because she was 
 tiresome about taking her medicine, which was very nasty. 
 
 There is no command in the Koran that girls should be 
 married so young, but the mothers declare that it was 
 the command of Mohammed, and certainly he himself 
 set the example by marrying a girl of nine. . . . 
 
 The man is absolute master in his owti house, and 
 unless his wife has powerful relations he may do what he 
 likes to her and her children, and no one will take any 
 notice. I knew one woman whose husband treated her 
 like a slave. He forced her not only to do all the work 
 of the house, but the work of the stable too, for he was 
 well enough off to keep a horse. He killed one child in 
 her arms, and twice stole another away from her, sending 
 it once to a town a week's journey off, and once to an- 
 other part of the town. Finally he divorced her, without 
 giving any reason, and left her ill and destitute. And 
 she had at no time any redress. . . 
 
82 The Child in the Midst 
 
 Little Bagum, the child-wife, was deliberately and 
 cruelly burnt by her husband, and was brought to the 
 mission hospital. There was no hope of recovery, but 
 all was done that was possible to relieve her pain and 
 brighten her last days. She had heard something of the 
 Gospel story from a missionary who had paid a visit 
 to her native village, and she had been so interested that 
 she asked two Persian children to teach her more. When 
 she was brought to the hospital even the terrible pain she 
 was suffering did not make her forget the wonderful 
 story, and she begged to be told more and more. And, 
 resting in the love of Christ and trusting wholly in Him 
 and His salvation, she loved to sing of the joy to which 
 He wag going to take her, and kept begging for "Here 
 we suffer grief and pain," until even the Mohammedan 
 women would sit beside her and sing the hymn that 
 comforted her so much. . . 
 
 "I have a foolish husband," said one little girl, "He 
 says he will beat Jesus Christ out of me, but he can only 
 beat my body, and Jesus Christ is in my heart, so he 
 cannot beat Him out." 
 (Mrs. Malcolm, "Children of Persia," Oliphant, Anderson 
 
 & Ferrier.) 
 
 BIBLE READING 
 
 THE IDEAL HOME 
 Psalm 128 
 
 V. 2. The busy father working with joy for the mainte- 
 nance of the home. 
 
 V. 3. The happy, willing, successful mother, striking the 
 keynote of the home. 
 
 V. 3. The vigorous young children growing up in the 
 home. 
 
 V. 4, 5. All this is the token of God's rich blessing to him 
 who puts God first, and who is interested in the growth 
 of God's kingdom as well as in his own home. 
 
The Child at Home 83 
 
 V. 6. Not only as parents but as grandparents God's 
 blessing will be enjoyed. 
 
 PRAYER 
 
 We thank Thee, O Lord, 
 
 For the sweet and silent years of the Holy Childhood. 
 
 For the light and gladness brought into the world by 
 httle children. 
 
 For Thy servants who, by word and good example, are 
 protecting and guiding Thy lambs in the dark and waste 
 places. 
 
 For the Christian nurture, Christian homes, and Chris- 
 tian parents, which are the gifts of the Christ-Child to 
 our nation; the strength of its life and the hope of its 
 future. 
 
 For Thine assurance that inasmuch as we have done it 
 unto the least of Thy little ones, we have done it unto 
 Thee. 
 
 For the growing interest and co-operation of the chil- 
 dren of the Church in the up-building of the world-wide 
 Kingdom. 
 
 May it please Thee — • 
 
 To guard and protect the innocence of children, and 
 by their example to win men and women to a worthier life. 
 
 To bless family life, and direct parents in their sacred 
 task, that Thy children may have a fear and love of Thy 
 Holy Name. 
 
 To bring to the mothers of the world the knowledge 
 which alone can sanctify their joy and soothe their sor- 
 row. 
 
 {Spirit of Missions, February, 1910.) 
 
 QUESTIONS 
 
 1. What is the saddest part of the life of a girl in India? 
 
 2. What do you consider the greatest sorrow of 
 Mohammedan motherhood? Of heathen motherhood? 
 
 3. Wliat methods can you suggest for effecting a bene- 
 ficial change in the home life of the Chinese? 
 
84 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 4. What feature of home hfe in Mohammedan lands 
 most needs to be improved? 
 
 5. What effect would it have on your boy to be mar- 
 ried at the age of fourteen? 
 
 6. If you could make marriage laws, what would you 
 set as the lowest marriage age for boys? For girls? 
 
 7. Name the missionary wives and mothers of your 
 acquaintance. In what ways do they serve and help the 
 communities in which they live? 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. CHAPTERS I & 11. 
 
 LEAFLETS 
 Home Life in China 
 
 Home Life in Syria 
 
 Home Life in Siam 
 
 Home Life in Persia 
 
 Home Life in Hainan 
 
 Home Life in Korea 
 
 Home Life in Africa 
 
 Home Life in India 
 
 Home Life in Japan 
 
 Child Life among the Lao 
 
 Other Children 
 
 Women's Foreign Mis- 
 sionary Society of the 
 Presbyterian Church. 
 
 Being a Boy in Korea 
 Selma (Beirut) 
 A Faithful Follower 
 Auntie's Explanation 
 
 Child Life in China 
 Story of Satabia 
 
 Child Life in Burma 
 Foot Binding in China 
 Little Daughters of Islam 
 Motherhood in Heathen 
 
 Lands 
 Young Ladies here, Young 
 
 Ladies there 
 Childhood in Heathen 
 
 Lands 
 
 Woman's Board of For- 
 eign Missions of the 
 Presbyterian Church. 
 
 Woman's Presbyterian 
 Board of Missions of 
 the Northwest. 
 
 Woman's Foreign Mis- 
 sionary Society of the 
 Methodist Episcopal 
 Church. 
 
The Child at Home 85 
 
 Child Life in Turkey Woman's Board of Mis- 
 
 Chih, the little Chinese Girl sions of the Congrega- 
 tional Church. 
 
 Sister May's Impressions Woman's Board of For- 
 
 Village of the Milky River eign Missions Reformed 
 
 Church in America. 
 
 Sorrows of Heathen Mother- Woman's Baptist Foreign 
 hood Missionary Society. 
 
 CHILDREN'S MISSIONARY MAGAZINES 
 
 World Wide American Baptist Publica- 
 
 tion Society, Ford Bldg., 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
 Over Sea and Land Pres. Bd. For. Miss., 156 
 
 Fifth Ave., New York 
 City. 
 
 Day Star Woman's Bd. of For. Miss. 
 
 Ref. Ch. in Am., 25 E. 
 22d St., N. Y. 
 
 Lutheran Boys and Girls Lutheran Board, 1424 Arch 
 
 St., Phila. 
 
 Children'' s Missionary Friend Woman's For. Miss. Soc. 
 
 of the M. E. Church, 581 
 Boylston St., Boston, 
 Mass. 
 
 Everyland Everyland Publishing Co., 
 
 156 Fifth Ave., New 
 York, N. Y. 
 
 See magazines of the Women's Foreign Missionary Boards. 
 See also Bibliography for Chapter I. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE CHILD AT PLAY AND AT WORK 
 "Boys and girls playing in the streets thereof." 
 
 Questions concerning play and work — Two 
 great movements, Playground movement and 
 Child Labor movement — The importance of 
 play — Children at play in Japan — Games known 
 the world over — Children at play in Africa — in 
 the desert — Why play stops so early in non- 
 Christian lands— Need of the "Spirit of Play" 
 in children and parents — The message of a doll — 
 Child labor — Bedouin and African girls at work 
 — Children at work in many lands — Child slav- 
 ery — Rescue homes for slave children — Defective 
 and dependent children — Orphans and orphan- 
 ages — Famine waifs — Blind, deaf and dumb 
 children — Homes for untainted children of lepers 
 —A crime in the name of civilization — The 
 Child in the Midst. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE CHILD AT PLAY AND AT WORK 
 ''Boys and girls playing in the streets thereof." 
 
 What is play? 
 
 What are the advantages and disadvantages of How would 
 
 you answer 
 play? these questions? 
 
 At what age would you wish your child to stop 
 playing? 
 
 What would be the physical and moral conse- 
 quences to a child who practically stopped play- 
 ing at or before the age of ten years? 
 
 At what age would you advise that a child 
 begin to work for commercial profit? 
 
 If it is good for the children in whom you are 
 interested to have time and opportunity for play, 
 how far would the same rule hold good for other 
 children in America? For children of other coun- 
 tries? 
 
 Name the countries in which defective and 
 dependent children may be neglected or over- 
 worked without danger to world-welfare. 
 
 Reversing the stereotyped text-book arrange- 
 pient, we place our questions at the beginning 
 
90 The Child in the Midst 
 
 rather than at the end of this chapter. Every 
 thoughtful woman is begged to stop and answer 
 these questions, — in writing, if feasible, — as fully 
 and as honestly as possible, and then, after care- 
 fully studying the subject, to see if her opinions 
 have altered in any particulars. 
 
 Two great Two of the great movements that are sweep- 
 
 movements. . 1 1 1 T-«1 
 
 mg over our land, — the Playground move- 
 ment and the movement to create and enforce 
 proper laws concerning Child Labor, — are en- 
 grossing the attention of some of our greatest 
 and wisest men and women. The abundance 
 of literature on these subjects, the time devoted 
 to them in great conventions and in lesser gather- 
 ings, the very opposition encountered in the ranks 
 of those who profit by the exploitation of Amer- 
 ica's growing children, — all go to prove that they 
 belong to the living issues of the day. Our 
 grandmothers would doubtless have been shocked 
 beyond words to be told that the subject of their 
 children's play belonged to the "Child Prob- 
 lems" studied by the country at large through its 
 Juvenile Commission, and had become a matter 
 for legislation and financial appropriation by state 
 and municipality! But so it is, and Hygiene 
 and Psychology and various other learned sciences 
 each claim a voice in the subject of the play and 
 the work of the nation's children. 
 The importance A fcw extracts from camest writers and think- 
 
 of play 
 
 ers on this subject will illustrate their view pomt. 
 
The Child at Play and at Work 91 
 
 All animals play. Play is likewise one of the funda- 
 mental instincts of the child. If there are any inherent 
 rights of childhood, the right to play must be considered 
 one of them. It carries with it immeasurable benefits, 
 but the exact results still remain comparatively uncertain. 
 It is unquestionable, however, that play promotes the 
 physical and mental development of the child, and that 
 it is no mean factor in his social and moral elevation. . . 
 The ancient attitude toward play was that of toleration 
 of the ebullient spirits of the growing boy. . . The utili- 
 tarian function of play was undreamed of. The physical 
 weakness of the child and his incapacity for concentrated 
 thought and endeavor saved to him the enjoyment of 
 play until his parents could use his services in some 
 gainful occupation. . . Play — the most enjoyable right 
 of childhood — was unduly curtailed, and even at the 
 present day its value is minimized by many who do not 
 recognize its varied functions. . . 
 
 Whatever be the correct theory of play — that it is 
 practice in the line of future methods of conduct, that it 
 is simply the discharge of the surplus energy of the young, 
 or that it is for the purpose of relaxation and recreation 
 only — whatever theory be adopted, the inestimable 
 value of play to the child and to the nation cannot be 
 gainsaid. Play is an irrepressible method of self-expres- 
 sion. . . 
 
 The social and moral influences of play produce indel- 
 ible effects upon the child mind. . . The recognition of 
 mutual rights is one of its initial values. These rights 
 are but little understood by the unthinking child, and 
 when brute force permits, are often entirely overthrown 
 or perverted into a mere toleration of privileges. . . On 
 the supervised playground a new regime is put into opera- 
 tion. . . The growth of the instinct of co-operation is 
 perhaps the most valuable result of play. . . Ability to 
 co-operate spells ability to excel.* 
 
 * George B. Mangold in "Child Problems." 
 
92 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 on"pra>!'^'*"'^ Miss Jane Addams of Hull House, Chicago, 
 
 speaks with no uncertain sound and with un- 
 disputed authority on this subject. 
 
 This stupid experiment of organizing work and failing 
 to organize play has, of course, brought about a fine 
 revenge. The love of pleasure will not be denied, and, 
 when it has turned into all sorts of mahgnant and vicious 
 appetites, then we, the middle aged, grow quite dis- 
 tracted, and resort to all sorts of restrictive measures. 
 We even try to dam up the sweet fountain itself because 
 we are affrighted by these neglected streams; but almost 
 worse than the restrictive measures is our apparent belief 
 that the city itself has no obligation in the matter, an 
 assumption upon which the modern city turns over to 
 commercialism practically all the provisions for publio 
 recreation.* 
 
 Professor St. 
 John on the 
 little girl and 
 her doll. 
 
 Singling out one type of the play instinct, the 
 little girl and her doll, Professor St. John of 
 the Hartford School of Religious Pedagogy says: — 
 
 Altruistic feeling had its origin in motherhood, and it 
 has reached no greater heights of self-denial and service 
 than in that same relationship. In playing with her doll 
 the child is in thought and feeling making that experience 
 her own. At a very formative period of her life it givea 
 her much the same training that the race has received 
 through the actual experience. . . Every impulse toward 
 loving care of the doll should be encouraged. To the 
 child in her play it is a living child, and hence the experi- 
 ence provides the same kind of emotional training that 
 would come from the care of a baby, without the ob\'iou3 
 disadvantages to the infant. 
 
 Kate Douglas Wiggin says, "Every mother knows the 
 
 * Jane Addams, "The Spirit of Youth." Macmillan. 
 
The Child at Play and at Work 93 
 
 development of tenderness and mothcrliness that goes on 
 in her Uttle girl through the nursing and petting and 
 teaching and caring for her doll." * 
 
 If we agree with an axiom laid down in the 
 first chapter (p. 7) of this book, that one of the 
 inalienable rights of every child is to follow his 
 instinct for healthful play, it is now our privilege 
 and pleasure to watch the little ones of many 
 lands with their tripping feet and merry voices 
 and lithe little bodies. We instinctively turn 
 to Japan, "the paradise of children," where annu- 
 ally at the "Feast of Dolls" the whole home 
 becomes a big playhouse for the girls of the 
 family, and where the "Feast of Flags" is the 
 day dedicated to the boys of the nation. We 
 certainly must stop long enough to see what is 
 done at these feasts. 
 
 And then there is the feast most loved in the whole ^''east of Dolls, 
 year, the Feast of Dolls, when on the third day of the 
 third month the great fire-proof store-house gives forth 
 its treasures of dolls, — in an old family, many of them 
 hundreds of years old, — ^and for three days, v/ith all their 
 belongings of tiny furnishings, in silver, lacquer, and 
 porcelain, they reign supreme, arranged on red-covered 
 shelves in the finest room of the house. Most prom- 
 inent among the dolls are the effigies of the Emperor and 
 Empress in antique court costume, seated in dignified 
 cahn, each on a lacquered dais. Near them are the 
 figures of the five court musicians in their robes of office, 
 each with his instrument. Beside these dolls, which are 
 always present and form the central figures at the feast, 
 
 * E. P. St. John, "ChUd Natvire and Child Nurture." Pilgrim 
 Press. 
 
94 The Child in the Midst 
 
 numerous others, more plebeian, but more lovable, find 
 places on the lower shelves, and the array of dolls' fur- 
 nishings wliich is brought out on these occasions is some- 
 thing marvelous. . . 
 Feast of Flags. As the Feast of Dolls is to the girls, so is the Feast of 
 Flags to the boys, — their own special day, set apart for 
 them out of the whole year. It comes on the fifth day 
 of the fifth month. . . When the great day at last arrives, 
 the feast within the home is conducted in much the same 
 way as the Feast of Dolls. There are the same red- 
 covered shelves, the same offerings of food and drink; 
 but instead of the placid images of the Emperor and 
 Empress and the five court musicians, the household 
 furnishings, and toilet articles, there are effigies of the 
 heroes of history and folk-lore. . . Behind each figure 
 stands a flag with the crest of the hero in miniature. 
 The food offered is mochi wrapped in oak leaves, because 
 the oak is among trees what the carp is among fishes, the 
 emblem of strength and endurance. The flower of the 
 day is the iris or flag, because of its sword-shaped leaves,— 
 hence the name, Shobu Matsuri, feast of iris or flag.* 
 
 Playground It IS a matter for heartfelt rejoicing that the 
 
 movement in /^ i • i i • i 
 
 Japan. Japanese Government has seized upon the idea 
 
 of the Playground Movement as one of the really 
 essential activities of some of the great Christian 
 nations, and is introducing playgrounds for the 
 benefit of Japanese children, who certainly de- 
 serve a suitable place and opportunity to follow 
 their instinct for play. We hope that hammocks 
 and sandpiles for babies will soon eliminate one 
 feature of the play hour which is described by 
 many missionaries and tourists. 
 
 ♦Alice Mabel Bacon, "Japanese Girls and Women." Houghton 
 Mifflin & Co. 
 
The Child at Play and at Work 95 
 
 *'We have such hosts of children here in 
 Tokyo," writes Mrs. J. K. McCauley. "We 
 go out and see boys on high stilts, with babies on 
 their backs, and we tremble lest they fall and drop 
 the baby; but I have never heard of one who 
 did; and we see girls, jumping the rope with 
 babies on their backs, and playing battledore 
 and shuttlecock, dodging, hopping, stooping, and 
 the wee baby's head bobbing up and down, 
 laughing, and sometimes crying; but the playing 
 goes on, winter, summer, no matter how cold, 
 unless raining or snowing. The streets swarm 
 with children, with bright colored kimonos, 
 bright eyes, rosy cheeks, and on wooden shoes, 
 making such a clatter; but seldom are they 
 noisy in their play, but fun-loving as any chil- 
 dren in the world!" * 
 
 That other lands than Japan are beginning [^euhi^^ed of 
 to be aroused on the subject of Child Play by p^^^- 
 America's example is proved by the fact that in 
 April, 1913, letters were received by the Play- 
 ground and Recreation Association of America 
 from Persia, Russia, China, and Uruguay regard- 
 ing recreation in those countries. The sugges- 
 tion is made that perhaps as Rome gave to the 
 world law , and Greece gave art, so America may 
 contribute play as her share towards the world's 
 progress. 
 
 There are some games that seem to be as in- ^rt™known*tho 
 stinctive to mankind as are the processes of ^°'^^'^ **^"' 
 
 *The Foreign Post, May, 1910. 
 
96 The Child in the Midst 
 
 eating and sleeping. Kites, tops, and marbles 
 appear at their proper seasons in Korea, India, 
 and Persia, the rules of "Hop-Scotch," "tag," 
 "hide and seek," "crack the whip" seem to be 
 very similar whether played by the Lao children 
 or European immigrant children on an American 
 pavement. Jack-stones and "Fox and Gee.-e" 
 are popular among the small, bound-footed girls 
 in China. The rhythmic movement and exciting 
 choices of "London Bridge" are recognized in 
 the very heart of Africa in a game so prettily 
 described by Miss Jean McKenzie that we long 
 to join in the fun. 
 
 African A mother and her children file under the arms of two 
 
 Bridge." players. The cliild caught is drawn aside for the choice 
 
 between a cake of gourd seed or a peanut porrid;^c, a 
 necklace of beads or a bow and arrow — we all know the 
 phantom bliss of such choices. The children are caught 
 and ranged until there remains none but the mother 
 and one who is now called "the only child." This rem- 
 nant of a once numerous family takes to the bush, but 
 the mother sallies forth from time to time and tosses a 
 handful of grass toward the companj^, who ask her in 
 chorus : 
 
 "How big is the only child now?" 
 
 "The only child creeps," says the mother. 
 
 "Hay-a-a!" exclaims tlie astonished chorus after this 
 and all other complacent maternal announcements. 
 
 "How old is the only child now?" 
 
 "The only child walks." 
 
 "Hay-a-a!" 
 
 To this chorus of astonished approval, the only cliild 
 comes to be a young girl, has a sweetheai-t, is married, 
 and has a baby! 
 
The Child at Play Sitid at Work 97 
 
 Having achieved so much success, the only child ceases 
 to figure in this drama, and the grandmother is plied 
 with questions about the child of the only child. 
 
 "How old is the child of the only child now?" 
 
 "The child of the only child creeps." 
 
 "Hay-a-a!" 
 
 He walks, he sets traps, one day he has killed a little 
 antelope, another day he has killed a big antelope, and 
 now he has killed an elephant! 
 
 Here surely is a climax. "Hay-a-a!" The chorus 
 disintegrates; one after another comes to beg a piece of 
 elephant meat from the child of the only child, who 
 emerges from hiding. One after another is refused, until 
 that one comes who pleases the child of the only child. 
 He gives her a piece of elephant meat for a sign that she 
 is his sweetheart — and they are obliged, of course, to 
 run away. After them the entire company is, of course, 
 obliged to follow. 
 
 Here, you see, is a rehearsal of life as it is to be. Here 
 is the dissension, the gossip, the greed, the romance, and 
 the adventure of life.* 
 
 "Kidd in his book on 'Savage Childhood' ^iJfiJren-s pb 
 describes the Bantu children of Africa as showing 
 great power of imagination in their games. Be- 
 fore the missionary they appear dull and unre- 
 sponsive, but when no stranger is about they 
 delight in playing missionary, holding a play 
 service, singing hymns, and mimicking the padre's 
 bad dialect. The insistence of the motor idea is 
 strong in the native; he likes to play games in- 
 volving motor skill, is fond of acrobatic tricks, of 
 mimicking animals, and delights in dolls and 
 
 * "Other Children," Jean McKenzie. Worn. For. Miss. Soc. Prea. 
 Ch. 
 
98 The Child in the Midst 
 
 play animals. In fact, the whole picture is that 
 of an intensely human little animal, decidedly 
 attractive, and one feels pity that it should grow 
 up into an unattractive and troublesome Kaffir 
 problem." * 
 Children of the How invariably true is the child's instinct for 
 imitation, for making his play largely a "re- 
 hearsal of life as it is to be." The little Bedouin 
 boys, each with a pet locust harnessed to a bit 
 of string, enjoy the exciting races of their "fiery 
 steeds," and prepare eagerly for the great game 
 in which the bigger boys show their budding 
 manhood. A dweller in the region of the Dead 
 Sea thus describes some of the games of the 
 desert: 
 
 "The boys of the desert are glad when the first 
 of the month comes. For that day their fathers 
 allow them to have a horse each and ride away 
 from their black tent homes into the open desert, 
 their athletic field. A few of the men, heroes of 
 the tribe, meet there with the boys and act as 
 judges in the horse-racing. They divide the 
 boys in two rows, and then select a boy from each 
 side, and start off this first pair in their race (on 
 horseback) to the distant goal, a pole with a 
 prize on it such as eggs, money, or clothes. The 
 one who arrives first takes the prize off the pole 
 or knocks it down with his staff. The judge 
 keeps the conqueror on one side, the conquered 
 
 * "On tho Education of Backward Races," E. W. CafEn, Peda- 
 gogical Seminary, Mar., 1908. 
 
lands. 
 
 The Child at Play and at "Work 99 
 
 on the other. A new prize is put up, another pair 
 races, and so on till all the victors are on one side, 
 and the poor defeated ones on the other. 
 
 "A sham battle takes place, the conquerors 
 shooting the conquered with paper or some harm- 
 less shot. Then the beaten soldiers are taken 
 captive and led to their homes, while the proud 
 victors are allowed to go to the meeting place of 
 the men and drink coffee with the heroes of their 
 tribe." 
 
 All too soon the games of childhood merge why piay stops 
 into the stern realities of life, and, as we watch non-Christian 
 and hsten and smile, we suddenly wonder why 
 the laughter is hushed, why the smiling, girlish 
 hps are covered by a woman's thick veil, why the 
 little backs stoop beneath loads far too heavy 
 for them. Then from far and near comes the 
 testimony of those who have lived and worked 
 among the children in non-Christian lands. 
 The physical director of a Y. M. C. A. says: — 
 "One of the strongest impressions made on me in 
 China was by the lack of opportunity which the 
 average child has for normal physical develop- 
 ment and for the adequate expression of its play 
 instinct." 
 
 Deaconess Phelps of St. Hilda's School for 
 girls in Hankow says: "When Chinese girls 
 come to our mission schools we find it difficult 
 to teach them how to play, and in the case of 
 elder children we often fail completely, because 
 from time immemorial the idea of learning and 
 
100 The Child in the Midst 
 
 scholarship has been entirely inconsistent with 
 fun and good times." * 
 
 So great an authority as Dr. Arthur H. Smith 
 says: "The outdoor games of Chinese children 
 are mostly of a tame and uninteresting type. 
 Even in the country Chinese lads do not appear 
 to take kindly to anything which involves much 
 exercise. Their jumping and climbing are of 
 the most elementary sort." ** 
 
 Mrs. Napier Malcolm after discussing the play 
 hfe of Persian children adds: 
 
 "But when all is said, the games and toys are 
 very few in Persia as compared to those j^ou are 
 accustomed to. No great distinction is made 
 between children and grown-ups, and really 
 there is not so much difference as we find at 
 home. The children are taught to take life 
 very seriously. . . . and they have no time to 
 grow up into proper men and women. The 
 result is that we find the children too grown-up 
 and the grown-ups too childish." *** 
 Need of the "Little old men and women" the missionary 
 
 "Spirit of '' 
 
 Play." called them m her plea that to the children of 
 
 India might be brought the gift of child- 
 hood, and so we must not be surprised that our 
 missionaries find the lesson of "how to play" 
 one of the most essential and one of the most 
 difficult to teach in many lands. They have 
 
 * spirit of Missions, Feb., 1911. 
 
 ** "Village Life in China." Revell. 
 
 *** "Children of Persia." Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier. 
 
The Child at Play anci at Wotk 101 
 
 been at it for many years in a quiet, unpre- 
 tentious way, these pioneers of thought and 
 action. Now that the whole American pubHc is 
 being aroused as never before to the value and 
 need of play for gZZ children, let us see to it that 
 all necessary facilities are in the hands of our 
 missionaries, and that their numbers are suffi- 
 ciently reinforced so that the ''Spirit of Play" 
 may flit from land to land and bring smiles and 
 joy and health and lessons of unselfishness and 
 co-operation to little children who have long 
 since forgotten how to play. 
 
 Not only because they are children today, but Parents ought 
 
 ,.„.„, to know how to 
 
 because they will m a few short years become piay. 
 parents, must we give the little ones this oppor- 
 tunity. If the fathers and mothers of the near 
 future know how to value the development of 
 the play instinct at its true worth, there is great 
 hope for their children. If they can enter 
 into the play spirit with their boys and girls, 
 there will be a revolution in home ideals and 
 companionships. That the lesson is not an 
 easy one to learn or to teach, we are assured 
 by Elizabeth Harrison, who says, "How many 
 parents and teachers are there who can enter 
 into this world of play and not spoil it? In 
 my classes for mothers I have found that one of 
 the most difficult things I have had to teach 
 many of them has been how to play simply and 
 genuinely as a child will play." 
 
 But whether the parents themselves know how 
 
102 The Child in the Midst 
 
 to play or not, the quickest and surest way into 
 thcJr hearts is through sj'mpathy with the play 
 instinct of a little child. The missionary who 
 can enter into even that realm of the life of a 
 child has the wondering appreciation of the 
 parent. A little mountain girl lay dangerously 
 ill at the girls' school in Urumia, Persia. The 
 principal, who was tenderly caring for her in 
 her o^vn room, came to ask if by any chance I 
 knew how to get hold of a dollie for the little 
 child, who had seen such a toy in the possession 
 of a missionary's child. Yes, a thoughtful friend 
 had tucked a couple of dolls into one of my 
 boxes for just such an emergency, and the one 
 whose head had survived the eight thousand mile 
 journey was found and sent to the little girl. 
 Such rapturous smiles, such motherly hugs and 
 caresses, such appreciation when her school- 
 mates gave up their recreation hours in order to 
 make proper Persian clothes to replace the queer 
 American garments! And when the little one 
 went to be with Him who "gathers the lambs 
 in His arms," her weeping parents selected ac- 
 cording to custom her chief treasure to lay into 
 the casket, — in this instance, the cheap little 
 American doll that had travelled so far to bring 
 joy to the heart of a dying child. Up into the ■ 
 rugged Kurdish mountains the crude casket was 
 carried on the back of a sure-footed horse, and at 
 every village where there were friends of the 
 family the caravan was halted for a last glimp)se 
 
The Child at Play and at Work 103 
 
 of the little face and a wondering look at the 
 fascinating toy. "How they must have loved 
 her!" was the text from which the doll preached 
 many a sermon that day. 
 
 In order that the ''Spirit of Play" may have Need of pubiio 
 
 . "^ sentiment con- 
 
 full right of way, a great, united, preliminary cerning child 
 effort is needed, that the little ones of all lands 
 may come into their rightful heritage. What 
 time, what strength, what zest is there left for 
 play when the children have to work and con- 
 tribute toward the family support? With shame 
 we confess that the Christian nations are far 
 from guiltless in this matter, — the blood of 
 thousands of their children cries to God from 
 the ground. But, thank God, they are aroused, 
 and changes are taking jDlace with wonderful 
 rapidity, and nations like China and Japan are 
 looking to us as examples. Shall we fail them 
 in their hour of crisis, or shall we lead and help 
 and encourage them and other lands awaking 
 from age-long sleep in this matter of their duty 
 to the children? 
 
 Prominent among the rights of the child must be the 
 right to abstain from the task of earning money either 
 for his own support or to increase the family income. 
 Prematui'e child labor is an absolute evil and is wholly 
 without justification. . . The enhghtened view of today 
 refuses to regard the child as a mere commercial asset of 
 the parent. On the contrary, the relation of the two is 
 exactly reversed. Until children reach a certain age it is 
 absolutely necessary that they be supported by their 
 parents, and society must enforce this obligation.* 
 
 ♦ George B. Mangold, "Child Problem^," 
 
104 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 Bedouin girls 
 at work. 
 
 The burden of 
 the African 
 girl. 
 
 "How hard the Bedouin girls have to work," 
 we read in " Topsy-Turvcy Land," * "treated Hke 
 beasts of burden as if they had no souls! They 
 go barefoot carrying heavy loads of wood or 
 skins of water, grind the meal and make fresh 
 bread every morning, or spin the camel's hair 
 or goat's hair into one coarse garment." 
 
 One httle Bedouin girl said, "I tote my two 
 small brothers on my back all day long, and they 
 kill me a thousand times with their crying." 
 Another said, "What do I do? Why, nothing 
 but work — that's what children are for." ** 
 
 The familiar Chinese proverb, — ^"A child of 
 six should earn his own salt," is an indication 
 of public opinion that needs revision. 
 
 On the African girl the burden falls early and 
 heavily, while her brother, joining the men in 
 their occupations, finds life much easier and more 
 enjoyable than she does. 
 
 "The girl follows her mother to the plantation 
 (distance one-half to one mile from the village), 
 imitating her mother in carrying a basket on her 
 back, its weight supported by a broad strap 
 going around it and over her forehead. Some 
 burden is always put into that basket, often one 
 beyond the child's strength, as a jug of water. 
 The little one staggers under it, leaning far for- 
 ward to lessen the direct traction over her 
 forehead. With that daily bending the child 
 
 * A. E. and S. M. Zwomer. Revell. 
 
 ** Dr. Ira Harris in Over Sea and Land, Dec, 1912, 
 
The Child at Play and at Work 105 
 
 would become deformed, were it not counter- 
 acted by the carrying at other times of a log 
 of firewood or some lighter burden on her head."* 
 
 The little coolie children of Hong Kong toiling ^Ij^'k^'l^'^^lny 
 up a steep road under the broiling sun with great *'^'^^^- 
 loads of bricks slung on either end of a bamboo 
 pole; the th<»usands of Chinese children gather- 
 ing and carrying home great loads of fuel and 
 manure; the Japanese girls sitting closely on 
 their heels and painting cheap crockery for $1.00 a 
 week; the little children of a Japanese village 
 helping to support themselves by making match 
 boxes for the sum of eight cents a thousand; 
 the mere babies picking tea leaves under the hot 
 sun in Bengal; the seven year old girls working 
 from five in the morning to six at night in the 
 cotton and silk mills in China; — these and 
 countless others seem to be calling to us in the 
 name of the Child of Bethlehem to lighten in 
 some way their heavy load. 
 
 And, oh, what heroic efforts your missionaries 
 are making to lessen the great evil, but how 
 powerless they seem in lands where no law, no 
 custom, no religion gives the child any rights. 
 Once more we turn to Mrs. Napier Malcolm for 
 a vivid word picture from Persia.** 
 
 But for the horrors of child labor in the carpet trade we '^^^ ^^^^^'^ 
 
 . '■ carpet weavers 
 
 must turn to the factories of Kirman. of Persia. 
 
 * Rev. R. H. Nassau, D.D., "Home Life in Africa." Worn. For. 
 Miss. See. Pros. Ch. 
 
 'If* "Qhil4ren of Persia." Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier. 
 
106 The Child in the Midst 
 
 These factories are filled with children from four years 
 old upward, underfed, overworked, living a loveless, 
 joyless, hopeless life. The factories are built without 
 windows lest the children's attention should be distracted, 
 and the bad air, want of food, and the constantly keeping 
 in one position produce rickets and deformity in nearly 
 all. Of thirty-eight children examined in one factory, 
 thirty-six were deformed. 
 
 One of the Governors of Kirman forbade the employ- 
 ment of children under twelve in the factories, but the 
 order did not last beyond his governorship. The same 
 Governor gave the order still in force, which forbids the 
 employment of children before dawn or after sunset, 
 thus reducing their working hours to an average of twelve 
 hours a day. A recent Governor added to this an order 
 limiting the Friday work to about two and a half hours, 
 "from sunrise to full sunshine," so now the chikh-en share 
 in part the general Friday holiday of Mohammecanism. 
 
 One of our medical missionaries was called to attend 
 the wife of the owner of one of these factories, and con- 
 sented to do so on condition he made windows in his 
 factory to allow the children air and light. He objected 
 at first, saying that it would prevent their working, but 
 finally consented, and admitted afterwards that the chil- 
 dren did more work with the windows than they had done 
 without them. 
 
 The factory owners are glad to get the children, for 
 they say children work better than grown-up people at 
 carpet-making, and of course they expect less wages. 
 But how can the parents allow their chikh-en to five this 
 cruel life? You will find the answer in the Persian say- 
 ing that "of every three persons in Kirman, four smoke 
 opium." . . . Over and over again comes the terrible 
 story, the father and mother smoke opium; the little 
 deformed child toils through the long days to earn the 
 money that buys it, 
 
The Child at Play and at Work 107 
 
 Is the picture sad enough, are the colors 
 gloomy enough, are the weary cries loud enough 
 to reach and touch every womanly heart in a 
 Christian land, — every mother or sister or 
 teacher who has ever loved or helped or taught 
 a child? Ah, but we must go into darker depths 
 than these if we are to be even ordinarily intelli- 
 gent concerning child life and its needs. What of 
 the little slave children who are stolen from their 
 homes "in darkest Africa," who are sold by their 
 parents in China and Assam, who live lives of un- 
 speakable misery in Korea, in Siam, in Turkey, 
 Morocco, and Arabia? Paid child labor is ter- 
 rible enough, but the countless slave children 
 of the world live under a far more cruel system. 
 
 In his revelations concerning "The Crime of 
 the Congo," A. Conan Doyle gives proof of the 
 atrocious crimes perpetrated on little children 
 as well as on men and women by employees of 
 the Congo government. The selling, beating, 
 mutilation, and murder of children were proved 
 to be common occurrences. 
 
 It is said to be difficult for even the mission- 
 aries to realize the awful extent of the traffic in 
 girls in China. In famine times girls may be 
 bought for a mere song, sometimes being peddled 
 about the streets in a basket and sold like poul- 
 try. In Siam the problem of slavery has as- 
 sumed such large proportions that the king 
 issued an edict a few years ago that thereafter 
 all children born of slaves should be free. 
 
10$ The Child in the Midst 
 
 SrXve^chT "To set at liberty them that are bound" is 
 dren in Arabia, gtjn the work of Jchovah's servaiits, and here and 
 there throughout mission lands will be found 
 Rescue Homes for slave children where new life 
 and hope and opportunity are given to children 
 who have been stolen from their homes or delib- 
 erately sold into slavery. The rescued-slave 
 school in Muscat, Arabia, was started by the 
 Rev. Peter Zwemer for some African slave boys 
 caught by Arab traders, who were in turn caught 
 by a British consul whose servant saw the slave- 
 dhow and reported it. The rescued children 
 were turned over to Christian people, most of 
 them being cared for and trained for useful Chris- 
 tian manhood at the Muscat school. 
 
 The Spirit of Missions for June, 1905, tells 
 of a woman's conference held at Shanghai at 
 which one of the subjects chosen for discussion 
 was "Chinese Slave Girls." A successful effort 
 was made to enlist the co-operation of non- 
 missionary ladies, and the result was the opening 
 of a home for slave children under the direction 
 of a committee on which the missionaries and the 
 foreign residents were represented. After four 
 years they were able to report the presence of 
 fifteen girls, most of them very young and look- 
 ing even younger than they really were because 
 stunted l)y harsh treatment and lack of sufficient 
 food. Not a child in the home but had been 
 taken from a life of pain and cruel hardship, and 
 none is too wretched or maimed or low to be 
 
 In China. 
 
child. 
 
 The Child at Play and at Work 100 
 
 received. They arc taught to sew, to read and 
 write in their own language, and to know and 
 love Christ who put it into the hearts of His 
 children to save and help them. 
 
 If you are tempted to query, — Can a stunted, ^^"["^1^ a^iave- 
 maimed, degraded slave child ever repay such 
 an outlay of effort and toil and expense? — please 
 read the following extract from a letter from 
 Miss Muir of the Methodist Episcopal Mission 
 in China. 
 
 One year ago last spring Dr. B. was called to see a little 
 slave girl in one of China's most prominent official's 
 families. She was five years old. She was caught nap- 
 ping when she should have been fanning one of the young 
 ladies of the family. This young lady, sixteen years old, 
 a spoiled pet, struck the child over the head and face, 
 leaving deep scars, tied her hands and feet together, and 
 threw scalding water upon her. When Dr. B. saw her 
 he persuaded them to let her go to the Hospital, where 
 her feet and all fingers except the stump of her right 
 thumb had to be amputated. Then Dr. B. wanted to 
 put her into the school, and so he told this official he 
 would have to settle a certain amount of money on her 
 for life or he (Dr. B.) would expose him to the public 
 and the foreign countries where he had lived. After he 
 had tried in every way to creep out of it. Dr. B. holding 
 fast, $3000.00 was settled upon the child as long as she 
 lives, but whatever has not been spent of it at her death 
 goes back to the family. This is poor little Mary, who 
 is compelled to walk on her knees the rest of her life just 
 because she was too sleepy to keep awake one afternoon 
 when only five years old. But her influence in the school 
 cannot be estimated. Her being there has helped to 
 Boften and make more kind and thoughtful every girl 
 from the oldest to the youngest. It is beautiful to watch 
 
110 The Child m the Midst 
 
 the little ones try to carry her or pick her up when she 
 faUs. It has been the redemption of "Pontsi" (Fattie), 
 who used to be the mischief of the school: she would not 
 study for any teacher, and was the hopeless case of every 
 one. "Pontsi" appointed herself the guardian and care- 
 taker of Mary as soon as Mary came to school; she is 
 Mary's partner in the hne; she wheels Mary in her httle 
 chair; helps her up and down from the bench in chapel; and 
 is always alert to do the many httle helpful things where 
 Mary needs help. She has become very studious and 
 good in her classes, no more in mischief. But Mary has 
 such a bright, happy disposition that she is a great help 
 to herself, and many a time will beat half a dozen with 
 two good feet running across the compound on her knees. 
 
 Sf ^Indlnt *chii- ^® started our chapter with children at play; 
 
 dren. -^q found that all too soon in countless instances 
 
 the play must cease and hard grinding work 
 must begin; we learned that in many lands great 
 masses of little children are in hopeless slavery. 
 One other large group of pathetic little ones 
 claims our attention, sympathy, and help in 
 this connection, — children who know little or 
 nothing of play and fun and laughter, — for whom 
 no provision is made in lands where Christ is 
 not known. These are the defective and de- 
 pendent children, — cripples, deaf mutes, the 
 blind, orphans, famine waifs, children of lepers. 
 Why is it that until missionaries started to work 
 for these classes of children, or governments 
 were inspired to such efforts by the examples of 
 Christian governments, there was no chance or 
 hope for the great mass of defective and depend- 
 ent children in non-Christian lands? Why is it 
 
The Child at Play and at Work HI 
 
 that blind girls in Korea had no other prospect 
 than that of being sold to be trained as sorcer- 
 esses, or that parents of blind Chinese girls 
 find a ready market for them in brothels? 
 Search diligently and find out if you can what 
 would have become of the famine waifs of India 
 and China, or the massacre orphans of Turkey, 
 had not Christian missionaries considered their 
 need a call to new and more difficult service, and 
 had not Christians in Europe and America heard 
 and answered the call for more funds to support 
 the new work. 
 
 The World Atlas of Christian Missions, pub- statistics. 
 lished in 1911, gives the statistics for Africa, 
 Asia, and the Pacific Islands as follows : 
 
 Missionary Orphanages 266 
 
 Inmates 20,303 
 
 Homes for Untainted Children of Lepers 21 
 
 Inmates 567 
 
 The Armenian massacres in 1894-96 cast some Armenian 
 fifty thousand children in Turkey without warn- phans. 
 ing onto the care of the missionaries, who had 
 to face the alternative of letting these children 
 die or drift hopelessly into lives of wretchedness 
 and vice, or else of caring for them in some 
 adequate, systematic way. Many pages might 
 be written to show how Christian missions rose 
 to the occasion, but one instance must suffice 
 as an illustration of the task, how it was met, 
 and its consequences. We quote from a letter 
 written in 1912 by Rev. George C. Reynolds, 
 
112 The Child In the Micist 
 
 M. D., for forty-four j^ears a missionary in Van, 
 Turkey. 
 
 "In 1896 occurred the great massacre, when 
 for a week our premises became the place of 
 refuge for the Armenians, of which from 10,000 
 to 15,000 availed themselves. And then our 
 streets became filled with helpless orphans, 
 whose plaintive cry for help we tried to voice as 
 an appeal to Christian philanthropy in America 
 and Europe. Thank God, the appeal brought 
 response, and we were enabled to gather in a 
 few of these helpless waifs to feed and shelter 
 and clothe and educate in books and trades. 
 For fifteen years this God-given work was con- 
 tinued, and several temporary buildings were 
 erected for its accommodation. When our Ger- 
 man friends withdrew their part of the institu- 
 tion to separate quarters, promising sufficient 
 orphanage provision for the province, the Amer- 
 ican Orphanage was allowed to pass into history; 
 but we feel as we review this history, that this 
 effort at least was worth while. Nearly a 
 thousand children were rescued from the streets 
 to find a loving Christian home, and the elevation 
 which it gave them over the mass of even well- 
 to-do villagers from among whom most of them 
 were taken might almost make them thankful 
 for the massacre. Forty-five of the five hun- 
 dred and seventy-five boys have graduated 
 from our high school, thirty-nine of whom have 
 given some years of their lives to teaching. A 
 
r 
 
 f^fo^immmmmmmmmmmmilll/^fm 
 
 The Merrv-go-round at an Arab Fair 
 
 Little Manure Gatherers in a Persian Mountain Village 
 
The Chil^ at Play and at Work 113 
 
 good number have continued their studies in 
 higher institutions in this country or abroad. 
 Two have secured the degree of M. D. in Amer- 
 ica, and are engaged in successful practice of 
 their profession there, while others are on their 
 way to the same goal. One has just taken his 
 M. D. degree from Edinburgh University, and 
 another is soon to graduate from London Uni- 
 versity, while three or four are successfully pur- 
 suing university studies at Harvard. Three 
 have graduated from colleges in Turkey. Po- 
 litical and economic conditions in this land not 
 being attractive, many have emigrated, of whom 
 fifty are now in the United States, and two in 
 South America. Most of these are fully making 
 good. This orphanage episode of my life brings 
 me much of joy and satisfaction." 
 
 Seventeen years pass, and the scene changes. chiid?^™in *° 
 Then it was Christian children, helpless and 
 starving because the Mohammedans had killed 
 their parents. Now it is Mohammedan children 
 homeless and suffering because Christian nations 
 have devastated their land by war. Then and 
 now it is the Christian missionary who sees the 
 need and realizes that "it is not the will of our 
 Father that one of these little ones should perish. 
 "Some of these children are simply irresistible," 
 WTites Professor Arthur Reed Cass of the Inter- 
 national College, Smyrna, "The stories they tell 
 are sad indeed. Hundreds of Moslem babies 
 are being born on transport ships and in schools 
 
 need. 
 
114 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 The "Polishing 
 Jade Estab- 
 lishment." 
 
 Orphanages 
 in India 
 
 where lessons have been suspended to make 
 room for homeless folk. Here is a chance for 
 American Christianity to prove its recognition 
 of need regardless of lines of race and creed." * 
 
 Reports full of thrilling interest come to hand 
 concerning the work of Christian orphanages in 
 non-Christian lands, — institutions founded and 
 maintained by those who consider it their privi- 
 lege to act as the human agents of Him who is 
 the "Father of the fatherless." We are told 
 that St. Mary's Orphanage maintained in Shang- 
 hai, China, by the Episcopal Board of Missions 
 has been dubbed by the Chinese, "The Polishing 
 Jade Establishment," which is a reference to 
 their own classic teaching that as jade must be 
 cut and polished to be of value, so children must 
 be taught and trained. 
 
 The plan of establishment of orphanages in 
 India under the Methodist Episcopal Mission 
 dates back to 1857, and is a fine example of how 
 Christian missionaries are on the lookout for 
 suitable openings for work, and how to them is 
 apt to be granted the far vision that labors for 
 the present and future generations and for 
 eternity. 
 
 The orphanage for girls was first established in the 
 city of Lucknow, but up to the close of 1860 only thirteen 
 orphans had been received. Owing to the famine that 
 spread over the land after the great mutiny, it became 
 
 * The Congregalionalisl, lay 8, 1913. 
 
The Child at Play and at Woffc 115 
 
 an easy matter to secure girls, and the following year 
 the number increased to forty-one. . . At the close of 
 the mutiny, Dr. Butler made application to the govern- 
 ment for a number of girls to be placed in the orphanage, 
 to be cared for by the mission. The government waa 
 very wiUing that the children should be thus provided 
 for. . . . Dr Butler says: 
 
 "Upon reaching the city we found that the Moham- 
 medan officers connected with the magistrate's court, at 
 whose disposal the girls had been placed, had distributed 
 many of them in houses of infamy throughout the city 
 to be brought up to a Ufe of sin. This matter was pre- 
 sented to the governor, and the children were ordered 
 to be immediately recovered and forwarded to the mis- 
 sion. They were sent in large carts, each containing 
 twenty girls. The oldest was probably twelve or thirteen 
 years, the youngest a mere babe; but three-fourths of 
 them were under eleven years of age. Each driver had 
 his list for his load. He lifted out the largest one first 
 and laid her down, then the rest, placing them around 
 her as if building them into a bee-hive shape. Then 
 the heaps were counted and the signature affixed to each 
 list, and the carts moved out. 
 
 "The children were all untidy, and their countenances 
 bore the traces of the hunger through which they had 
 passed. . . But these were girls, and the glad thought 
 was that they were our own to save and train and elevate. 
 We accepted them as a trust from God. All hands were 
 soon at work in loving labor to change the aspect of 
 things. The missionary women and their native helpers 
 before the sun went down had accomplished a delightful 
 transformation. Bodies were washed, clean clothing put 
 on, and* a hearty meal of wholesome food banished the 
 gloomy looks and brought forth the first smiles on those 
 Httle faces." * 
 
 * Mrs. J. T. Graccy, "Bareilly Orphanage." Worn. For. Misa. 
 Soc. M. E. Church. 
 
116 The Child in the Midst 
 
 Famine waifa. ^^^ ^^^y q^^ orphanagGS established, but mis- 
 sionaries use many other means to provide for 
 helpless, dependent, or neglected children who 
 are thrown on their care. After one of India's 
 great famines the Rev. Rockwell Clancy of 
 Allahabad formed a distributing station for 
 famine waifs and collected and placed hundreds 
 of them in various schools and institutions 
 throughout the land. A new missionary to 
 China after only a month's study of the language 
 had rather an interesting trip with his collection 
 of famine orphans. He writes : — 
 
 "The trip to Nanking, including a ten-mile 
 trip on the Presbyterian motor boat to the rail- 
 road station and the one hundred miles by rail, 
 was full of wonders to these little country lads. 
 On the cars when eating our slim lunch, consist- 
 ing of a bun and a boiled egg for each boy, one 
 of the boys who was a little older than most of 
 them politely offered part of his share to the 
 people who were occupying the same seat with 
 him, and this in spite of the fact that he had 
 been going hungry for weeks or months. 
 
 "After entering the city wall at Nanking we 
 drove the seven miles to a rented Chinese house 
 where I was living, which was to sei-ve as their 
 home for the time being. One of the drivers told 
 the boys that we were going to dig out their 
 eyes and cut out their stomachs. This awesome 
 news, coupled with a little homesickness, was 
 probably the cause of two of them rurming away 
 
The Ckiid at Play and at Work H? 
 
 the very next day. Wc had to send four or five 
 to the JVIethodist hospital to be treated, and two 
 of the older boys who were allowed to go along 
 ran away. But their places have been filled 
 by three others, two of whom I had to leave in 
 the hospital at Hwai Yuan." * 
 What provision is there for the blind, the deaf a Persian 
 
 Helen 
 
 and dumb, the crippled children in non-Christian KeUer." 
 lands? Would you care to know the number of 
 children whose fate is like that of the Moham- 
 medan girl who was brought by her grandmother 
 to the missionary dispensary in Persia? She 
 was deaf, dumb, and blind, and her grandmother 
 pleaded with the lady physician to do something 
 to cure her. The girl shrank in fright as a 
 strange hand touched her and then every tense 
 muscle in her body showed amazement and relief 
 when the hand proved to be gentle and loving. 
 Again the grandmother brought her, saying, 
 "You must find a remedy. There is nothing we 
 can do with her. Must I kill her?" and the mis- 
 sionary's heart was broken because she could 
 not cure and there was absolutely no institution 
 to which to take the girl. Some years later a 
 younger deaf and dumb girl w^as brought to 
 the dispensary by a woman whose face seemed 
 familiar and who turned out to be the despairing 
 old grandmother. "Where is the older girl?" 
 asked the doctor. "Oh," exclaimed the old 
 
 * John Magee in HoUhkiss Record, Jan. 21, 1913. 
 
118 
 
 The Child in the Micist 
 
 Blind children 
 in India. 
 
 Work for the 
 deaf. 
 
 woman, while the tears rained do^Ti her face, "I 
 had to kill her. There was nothing else to do!" 
 
 Who knows what there was behind that wall 
 of blindness and deafness, — who knows what 
 might have been the result had the Moham- 
 medan Helen Keller had her fair chance? Which 
 members of the "organized motherhood for the 
 children of the world" will see to it that there 
 are means and workers enough to give these 
 children their inalienable rights? The work is 
 barely begun, but is full of promise. 
 
 "According to the last census, the number of 
 blind persons in the Indian Empire is 600,000. 
 Little was done for them until Miss Asquith, 
 superintendent of the school for Tamil girls in 
 Palamcotta, founded a school for blind children 
 a few years ago. Her success was so great that 
 she resigned her lucrative position and gave her- 
 self and all her time to the care of the blind. 
 Now the English Government will aid her in 
 the erection of two substantial school buildings, 
 one for boys, the other for girls, that she may give 
 both a more complete education." * 
 
 "The Martha A. King Memorial School for the 
 Deaf has been started as a department of the 
 work of the Woman's Board of Missions at 
 Marsovan. The oral method is used, and it is 
 the intention to teach each pupil the language of 
 his own home. The present year the Greek de- 
 
 * Missionary Review of the World, Feb., 1911. 
 
The Child at Play and at Wotk 119 
 
 partment has been opened, an Armenian depart- 
 ment will be opened in September, 1911, and one 
 in Turkish as soon as there is a demand for it. 
 
 "Children (both boys and girls) will be re- 
 ceived at from six to eight years of age. Older 
 children may be accepted, but it is important 
 for the attainment of the best results that pupils 
 begin the work within the age limits named. 
 Miss Philadelpheus, the teacher, has spent two 
 years at the Clark School for the Deaf, North- 
 ampton, Mass., in preparation for this work. 
 Both the home and school life of the children are 
 under the most careful supervision." * 
 
 One in every five hundred of China's vast Deaf and dumb 
 population is estimated to be deaf and dumb, china. 
 The only school in China for such unfortunates 
 is in Chefoo and was started in 1898 as an inde- 
 pendent work by Mrs. A. T. Mills, for many years 
 a member of the Presbyterian Mission, which 
 heartily approves of the school, but has no funds • 
 with which to support it. Boys and girls are 
 taught in this school to read, write, and speak, 
 and are given as much elementary knowledge 
 as is possible, while being trained to useful occu- 
 pations by which they may hope to be self- 
 supporting. Such constructive work for chil- 
 dren who are handicapped is considered abso- 
 lutely necessary in America and Europe. Is 
 there in your opinion any necessity for multiply- 
 ing such agencies in non-Christian lands? 
 
 * Missionary Review of the World, April, 19 H, 
 
120 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 The blind 
 reader of 
 Amritsar. 
 
 A leprous 
 mother. 
 
 Does it pay to help in. Christ's name even one 
 of these httle ones? Are they worth helping? 
 Which one of us could do the work of the blind 
 reader of Ann-itsar m India? 
 
 "A peculiarly bright, happy-looking girl of about 
 eighteen, sitting down at the beginning of the morning in 
 one of our Amritsar dispensaries, with her large Gospel 
 of St. Matthew, in Dr. Moon's system of raised characters 
 for the blind, open on her knees; she can see nothing, 
 but her fingers move swiftly across the page, and she 
 begins to read better than some persons who have the 
 use of their eyes! As the morning goes on, all the sick 
 who come for medicine will listen with astonishment and 
 pleasure, and she will have opportunities of witnessing 
 for Jesus to those who ask her a reason for the hope that 
 is in her. She was once herself in the darkness of Mo- 
 hammedanism, and in the Bhnd School found Christ. 
 She is now a rejoicing and consistent Christian. Do 
 you think that, as we stood and watched her delight in 
 reading the comfortable words of our Saviour Christ, we 
 asked ourselves if to bring such to the Lord were work 
 worth doing? Rather, is it not a service which angels 
 might envy?" * 
 
 A leprous mother, outcast of society, doomed 
 to spend the rest of her life in a leper village 
 and to drag out a miserable existence among those 
 who are afflicted and suffering like herself! 
 What, oh what, shall she do with her children, 
 as yet untainted by the frightful disease, but sure 
 to develop it if they too go to the leper village? 
 And yet who is there in the wide world to care for 
 her little ones? Her husband is up at the village, 
 
 * Sarnes, "Behind the PardaU." 
 
The Child at Play and at Work 121 
 
 hands gone, sightless eyes, disfigured face, — 
 he cannot help. No relatives or neighbors will 
 be bothered with the children of the outcast, 
 and yet that mother heart beats with an intense, 
 despairing mother love as yours or mine might, — 
 with a love that can bear all suffering and even 
 slow death for herself if only her children are safe. 
 Hark, a neighbor calls to her from a safe dis- 
 tance, — ^"Do you know that those foreign Jesus 
 people have a place where they take the children 
 of those who are accursed of God like yourself? 
 They take them and feed them and teach them 
 their Jesus religion and train them to earn their 
 living." Oh, it is the one word of hope and 
 courage, the one ray of light in utter darkness, 
 and the little children are left on the threshold 
 of the Home for Untainted Children, and the 
 leper mother learns of a Home where she her- 
 self may go and where she and her husband may 
 receive loving care and unheard-of comfort, and 
 where the years of suffering are illumined by the 
 knowledge of another Home where she may 
 meet her darlings once more, and ''where the 
 inhabitant shall not say, I am sick." 
 
 "Twenty-one Homes for the untainted children unt^n^Jd"^ chu- 
 of leprous parents in which about five hundred '^^^'^ °^ lepeTa. 
 boys and girls are being brought up to healthy 
 and useful lives and saved from adding to the 
 terrible total of diseased outcasts," * this is the 
 
 * Missio>iary Review of the World, May, 1911, John JacksoDi 
 
 r.R.G.s 
 
122 The Child in the Midst 
 
 record of the work of Christian missions thus far. 
 Compare with it the record of what in this modern 
 day has been done in the name of an attempt at 
 civiUzation which leaves Christianity entirely out 
 of account. 
 dviiilaUo^buS "Wellesley G. Bailey of Edinburgh, the super- 
 Christianity. Intcudent of the Mission to Lepers, has received 
 authoritative information concerning the terrible 
 massacre of lepers by government soldiers which 
 was perpetrated at the city of Nanning, the re- 
 mote capital of the province Kwang-si in south- 
 ern China. The massacre was instituted under 
 the direct orders of the governor general of the 
 province. . . In this case the offense of his 
 cruelty is aggravated by the fact that, taking 
 advantage of the trend to modern ideas in China, 
 the vicious old general pretended to be acting in 
 the interest of scientific hygiene. The excuse 
 he has made for the massacre is that leprosy is a 
 great menace to humanity and the destruction of 
 those afflicted with it is the surest way of stamp- 
 ing out the scourge. . . 
 
 ''The English Missionaries had been anxious 
 for some time to build a leper hospital, but could 
 not spare the energy for it from their other work. 
 And for a long time the Catholics seemed entirely 
 indifferent to the needs of lepers. But finally, 
 there arrived in the latter mission a very earnest 
 and sympathetic priest, whose attention was 
 early attracted to the collection of miserable 
 hovels outside the city, where the community of 
 
The Child at Play an^ at "Work 123 
 
 suffering had drawn together a larger group of 
 outcast lepers. The priest determined that some- 
 thing must be done for them. . . 
 
 "But it appears that the intrusion of the French 
 into the matter angered General Luk so much 
 that he took measures immediately to dispose of 
 the question in another way. Soldiers were 
 sent out to dig a deep trench near by the leper 
 village, and early on a Saturday morning soon 
 after a large body of troops completely sur- 
 rounded the lepers' wretched huts. Shouts 
 brought them out of the door of their hovels, and 
 immediately the soldiers opened fire, shooting 
 relentlessly until the whole community — men, 
 women and children — were dead or helplessly 
 wounded. Then the whole mass, many still 
 living, were dropped into the trench, kerosene 
 poured over them and the pile set alight. The 
 victims at this one point numbered fifty-three. 
 Of course there was immense excitement in the 
 city, and to defend himself the governor general 
 issued a proclamation urging that all lepers 
 should be put out of the way, and advising that 
 those who did not voluntarily kill themselves 
 should be killed by their friends and relatives. 
 How many more died in this way is not known. 
 
 "Many crimes have been committed in the 
 name of civilization, as of liberty, but perhaps 
 never one quite so monstrous as this in the name 
 of 'hygiene.' Certainly the incident illustrates 
 
1^4 the OiiU m tiie Midst 
 
 how keenly China needs not civilization simply, 
 but civilization based upon Christian religion." * 
 th?mS"° "The child in the midst," playful, trustful, 
 loving, helpless, exalted by our Saviour into a 
 type to be admired and copied if one would enter 
 into the Kingdom of Heaven! The Master 
 placed him in the very midst of His disciples, 
 where he might find shelter, protection, and love. 
 But today we find the little ones, thousands, 
 millions of them, in the midst of suffering, neg- 
 lect, vice, crime, torture, despair, danger to 
 body and soul. And ever and anon the Master's 
 voice echoes in our ears, "Whosoever shall receive 
 one such little one in My name, receiveth Me." 
 
 QUOTATIONS 
 FEAST DAY, ARABIA 
 
 What Christmas Day, with its toys and sweets and 
 merry-making, is to the Christian child, the Moslem 
 Feast Day, at the close of the Ramadhan Fast, is to the 
 little men and women of Arabia. At that time every 
 child must have a new gown of some bright color. On 
 that gay day, in the bazaar, are sold delicious sweetmeats 
 made only on this one occasion in the whole yeai*. Every 
 one is happy, for the weary month of fasting is at an end. 
 Friend meets friend with the greeting, "May your feast 
 be blessed," and is answered, "May your day be happy." 
 
 Out on the edge of the town, where the houses end and 
 the desert begins, some enterprising Ai-ab, who has "seen 
 Bombay," has constructed the crudest and most danger- 
 ous of Ferris Wheels, and a merry-go-round to match. 
 Here the youthful inhabitants congregate, with their 
 
 * The Continent, March 27, 1913. 
 
The Child at Play and at Work 125 
 
 precious coppers, eager for a ride on these wonderful 
 machines. There are big boys and little boys and middle- 
 sized boys. There are little girls with their faces uncov- 
 ered, and a few older ones with their faces veiled, but most 
 of the larger girls must stay at home, as it would be a 
 shame for them to appear in public. There are the 
 proud sons of the rich Arab merchants, and the children 
 of the wild Bedouins. "WTiat better opportunity could 
 one have to study the rising generation? 
 
 If a Westerner, wearing a hat, passes through the 
 crowd, he is immediately followed by a mob of impudent, 
 mischievous boys, caUing out in Arabic: 
 "The English, the EngUsh! 
 
 They don't pray! 
 
 Even the chickens 
 
 Are better than they!" 
 
 The Moslems say that the chickens are praying when 
 they raise their heads before swallowing water. (Letter 
 from E. T. Calverley) 
 
 PLAY, AMONG THE LAO 
 
 We have 110 girls in school this term, over half of them 
 boarders, and they are so gentle and tractable it is a 
 pleasure to work with them. It is pitiful to see how little 
 they know about playing. Their greatest pleasure is 
 watching us play tennis. A few evenings ago I heard an 
 unusual noise under my window, and, looking out, Baw 
 a towel tied across the walk between the hedges. On 
 either side of this stood a girl with a flat stick in her 
 hand, and they were knocking across the towel a bundle 
 of rags which they had tied up in some semblance of a 
 ball. Later we took them out, and let each one have a 
 few minute's real play with real racquets and balls, and, 
 when I put the racquet in a girl's hand, she would gasp, 
 as if to say, "Can this be really true, or am I dreaming?" 
 (Miss Lucy Starling in Foreign Post, May, 1910.) 
 
126 The Child in the Midst 
 
 DOLLS, CENTRAL AFRICA 
 
 The first two dolls that arrived in Toro met with a very 
 mixed welcome; the cliildren howled and fled in terror, 
 but their mothers showed a most profound admiration 
 for them. At first they held the doll very gingerly, but 
 finding that nothing happened to either one or the other, 
 and the doll still smiled at them like the Cheshire cat, 
 they became great friends, and begged that they might 
 borrow it for a few days to play with. 
 
 Whether it was the large circulation that those two 
 dolls got, or the gradually increasing confidence of the 
 Toro children in the white ladies, the fact remains that 
 in a few months all childish prejudice had disappeared, 
 and often a little voice was heard asking for "a child 
 that causes play." When this was known in England, 
 over one hundred dolls were sent to me from two working 
 parties. I never saw such a wonderful doll show as they 
 made. They were all displayed on our verandah, and the 
 house was literally besieged with men, women, and chil- 
 dren for some days. 
 
 A bride, beautifully dressed in white satin and kid shoes, 
 who even in her wedding attire cried "mamma" and 
 "papa," was sent to httle Princess Ruth, but the report 
 reached me that King Kasagama had constituted himself 
 guardian, and kept it locked up in his study for slack 
 moments! 
 
 Apolo, our faithful native deacon— confirmed bachelor 
 — asked me in secret if men ever played with dolls, and 
 beamed with satisfaction as he most triiunphantly carried 
 one off, peacefully sleeping. 
 
 The others were given out to the little girls who had 
 been most regular at the school, and were noted for having 
 come with clean faces and bodies. 
 
 When the boys saw that the dolls were only given to girls, 
 some borrowed their sisters' garments to try and appear 
 ehgible! I did not know till then they were versed in 
 
The Child at Play and at Work 127 
 
 such cunning! It was so pretty to watch the joy and 
 even phxyfulness that those dolls brought into the lives 
 of so many httle ones who had scarcely known what this 
 meant till then. Christianity has completely revolu- 
 tionized child-life in Toro. 
 
 SAVING A BOY, CHINA 
 
 Rev. F. E. Lund, of Wuhu, tells this incident in con- 
 nection with a visit to the out-station at Nanking: 
 
 "On going back to the school about ten o'clock at night 
 I found in a dark corner on the street a poor boy, half 
 frozen to death. His piteous groaning attracted my 
 attention. His legs were already numbed and his feet 
 swollen and covered with chilblains which made him 
 quite unable to move. He told me he had been driven 
 out from his home a few days ago, as his father and younger 
 brother were on the point of starvation. His mother 
 died last year in the famine. I knew that it was up to 
 me to save him. There was no one else to do it. The 
 cold night would have finished him. So I had him car- 
 ried to our school, where we gave him a warm bath and 
 put him into new wadded clothes. During the night he 
 was in great pain and delirious, but in the morning he 
 seemed hale and hearty, and proved to be a most straight- 
 forward and clever little man. He is ten years old, but 
 very small for his age. It was most interesting to see 
 how heartily our Chinese neighbors endorsed this little 
 bit of charity. One gave me $2.00 to help pay for the 
 clothes. Another brought two pairs of socks. Some one 
 sent a hat, and an innkeeper sent bedding. If we only 
 had a trade school to put such boys in, we could do a little 
 work along this line and it would certainly meet with 
 the approval of the best class, who would be sure to give 
 substantial help. At any rate, it would be a work that 
 the best Chinese would appreciate and understand." 
 {Spirit of Missions, April, 1913.) 
 
128 The Child in the Midst 
 
 SCRIPTURE READING 
 "The Child in the Midst," Matthew, 18: 1-6, 10-14. 
 Christ commends the humility of the little child and the 
 spirit of those who receive a child gladly, whether into 
 the home, the school room, or into any part of their 
 sphere of influence. There is no place in Christ's King- 
 dom for the one who "does not want to be bothered with 
 children" or who provokes, injures, neglects, despises, or 
 causes one little one to sin. 
 
 "The feature of child-nature which forms the special 
 point of comparison is its unpretentiousness. What 
 children are unconsciously, that Jesus requii-es His dis- 
 ciples to be voluntarily and deliberately." (A. B. Bruce.) 
 
 PRAYER 
 
 Grant, O Heavenly Father, that as Thy holy angels 
 always behold Thy face in heaven, so they may evermore 
 protect Thy little ones on earth from all danger, both of 
 soul and body, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. 
 
 Father of the fatherless, let the cry, we pray Thee, of 
 the orphan and the destitute enter into Thine ears; 
 rescue them from the perils of a sinful world and bring 
 them to the refuge of Thy Heavenly Home, for the sake 
 of Thy Holy Child Jesus, our only Saviour and Redeemer. 
 Amen. 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY, CHAPTER III. 
 BOOKS 
 Christian Missions and Social Progress, Vol. ii, J. S. 
 
 Dennis, (Revell.) 
 Centennial Survey of Christian Missions, J. S. Dennis, 
 
 (Revell.) 
 Gloria Christi, Chap, v, "Philanthropic Missions," Anna 
 
 R. B. Lindsay, (Macmillan.) 
 Children at Play in Many Lands, Katherine Stanley Hall 
 
 (Missionary Education Movement of the United States 
 
 and Canada.) 
 
The Child at Play and at Work 129 
 
 The Chinese Boy and Girl, Isaac T. Headland, (Revell.) 
 
 Village Life in China, A. H. Smith, (Rcvcll.) 
 
 Japanese Girls and Women, Alice M. Bacon, (Houghton 
 
 Mifflin & Co.) 
 The Happiest Girl in Korea, Minerva L. Guthapfel, 
 
 (Revell.) 
 Village Life in Korea, J. R. Moose, (Smith & Lamar.) 
 The Laos of North Siam, Lilian Johnson Cm-tis, (West- 
 minster Press.) 
 The Jungle Folk of Africa, R. H. Milligan, (Revell.) 
 Congo Life and Folklore, J. H. Weeks, (Religious Tract 
 
 Society.) 
 Home Life in Turkey, L. M. J. Garnett, (Macmillan.) 
 Children of Persia, Mrs. Napier Malcolm, (Oliphant, 
 
 Anderson & Ferrier.) 
 Topsy-Turvey Land, E. A. & S. M. Zwemer, (Revell.) 
 Recreation. — ^A World Need. C. M. Goethe in Survey, 
 Oct. 4, 1913. 
 
 LEAFLETS 
 
 The Bareilly Orphanage 
 
 Ai Meis' Busy Fingers Won an's Foreign Mis- 
 
 As They Play in China sionary Soc. of the Meth- 
 
 O Kei San, the Child With odist Episcopal Church. 
 
 No Hands 
 St. Mary's Orphanage, Board of Missions (Epis- 
 
 Shanghai. copal). 
 
 March Third in Japan Board of Missions of 
 
 Pres. Church 
 Home Life in Africa Woman's Foreign Mis- 
 
 Other Children sionary Soc. of the Pres- 
 
 byterian Church. 
 
 Autobiography of a Suc- 
 cessful Life 
 
 My little Blind Neighbor Woman's _ Bd. of Miss. 
 
 of Interior 
 
 Chinese Slave Girls Woman's Board Foreign 
 
 Of Such is the Kingdom Missions of Reformed 
 
 of Heaven Church in America. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE CHILD AT SCHOOL 
 
 "Come, ye children — I will teach you the fear of 
 the Lord." 
 
 The call for schools from Mission Lands — 
 Is missionary educational work still needed in 
 the awakening East? — Divergent views on edu- 
 cation — Reasons why missionary education should 
 be continued — Comparative illiteracy — Testi- 
 mony from Japan — From China — From India — 
 From Mohammedan lands — Can we refuse the 
 united demand? — Kindergarten Union in Japan 
 —The impressionable years of childhood and the 
 call for Christian Kindergartens — Inventive and 
 adaptable missionaries — Primitive education 
 among backward nations — Lack of power of 
 concentration — Evils of the memorizing method — • 
 Old methods hard to discard — Education of 
 girls — Early marriage a barrier — Now is the time 
 to educate the future mothers — Mission schools 
 and physical training — Building up a "great 
 personality" — The need for good literature — 
 Industrial training in mission schools — Extent of 
 American missionary education — Where shall 
 we put the emphasis? — How mission schools 
 lead children to Christ — Mission school-children 
 in after life. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE CHILD AT SCHOOL 
 
 "Come, ye children — I will teach you the fear of 
 the Lord." 
 
 Four little boys less than ten years of age came The call fo» 
 
 •^ ^ o schools from 
 
 trudging over the muddy Korean road three long mission lands, 
 miles to school. In their chilly, little, bare hands 
 they carried bowls of cold rice for dinner. But 
 cheerfully they marched along, for the daily 
 six-mile walk took them to and from the mission 
 school, and oh! what a wonderful privilege 
 it was to be able to study, — a privilege not en- 
 joyed by all the boys of their village.* 
 
 The closing session of a school for Jewish 
 children in the heart of Asia was being held, 
 and many mothers listened with awe and admira- 
 tion as child after child took part in the simple 
 exercises. "See," the mothers exclaimed to each 
 other, ''see how our daughters are learning to 
 read, instead of growing up to be like donkeys 
 as we have done!" 
 
 A woman in the capital city of Persia, head of 
 
 * Told in "Among the Top-Knots," Mrs. Underwood (Am. Tract 
 Soc.) 
 
134 The Child in the Midst 
 
 a Bahaist school, insisted on sending her Httle 
 daughter to the American mission school, pay- 
 ing all tuition charges gladly. "Lady," she said 
 to the teacher in charge, "whenever I come into 
 this school my life is renewed." 
 
 Over the African trail came a young man who 
 had given his heart to Christ and was now ready 
 to enter the Bible Training School in order to 
 fit himself for a life work that no foreign mission- 
 ary could hope to accomplish. Earnestly he 
 plead with the missionaries to let him bring his 
 little eleven-year-old wife to be taught and 
 trained so that she might some day be a true 
 help-meet in his work. But there was no board- 
 ing school for girls, no available place for the 
 child. Think what that future home and work 
 might have been had the little wife received a 
 Christian education! 
 
 A missionary was returning from an evangelistic 
 tour over one of the lonely roads of Palestine. 
 Suddenly he was accosted by several armed men 
 in disguise, who demanded that he should promise 
 to grant their request before it was stated to 
 him. He naturally demurred, but, becoming 
 convinced that they were not robbers, he finally 
 consented, realizing that his journey could not 
 otherwise be continued. Whereupon they de- 
 manded that certain mission schools which had 
 been closed for lack of funds should be re-opened, 
 promising to give as much as possible towards 
 the necessary sum. "It is like depriving our 
 
The Child at School 135 
 
 children of bread and water and air," they ex- 
 claimed, "to deprive them of the opportunity for 
 religious teaching and useful education."* A 
 peaceful missionary held up by a set of masked 
 bandits in a Mohammedan land, who demanded, 
 not his money nor his life, but a Christian educa- 
 tion for their children! 
 
 Loud and clear and insistent are the voices from 
 country after country. In many tongues they 
 call to us Christian women, — "Give us a chance 
 to learn, let us children have what our parents 
 never had, put books into our hands, train our 
 hands and eyes and ears and hearts as well as 
 our minds, show us how people who love that 
 Jesus whom you tell about may read of Him and 
 may make their lives good and happy and 
 useful!" 
 
 It may be the honest conviction of many that is missionary 
 
 .11 . ..... , , ,. . , educational 
 
 With advancmg civilization and the great political, work stiii 
 
 . ... needed in the 
 
 social, and educational awakening m many lands, awakening 
 there is no further need for mission schools or for 
 pushing missionary educational work. Japan 
 has her public school system with six years of 
 compulsory school attendance, and higher courses 
 combining cultural with practical education in a 
 way that Western nations might well follow. 
 China has done away with the old educational 
 regime and is patterning her new system after 
 those of Christian lands. In India we hear that 
 "Mr. Gokhale's bill for universal primary edu- 
 
 * Told ia Missionary Review of the World, Nov., 1911. 
 
 East? 
 
136 The Child in the Midst 
 
 cation has stirred the whole country and will be 
 a constant issue until it is an accomplished fact. 
 Already the government has voted to increase 
 immediately the number of primary schools from 
 120,000 to 210,000."* The demand for educa- 
 tion of girls as well as of boys in Persia, Turkey, 
 and Egypt has caused a marvelous overturn- 
 ing and re-arranging of custom, prejudice, public 
 opinion, and government action. In view of all 
 this and much more in the same line, has the time 
 come when the matter of education can be left 
 in the hands of the awakening East, and does our 
 obligation to the little ones of non-Christian 
 lands cease at the door of the school room? 
 Divergent jj^ order to arrive at a fair answer to these ques- 
 
 views on ^ 
 
 education. tious it might be well to study and discuss some 
 
 divergent views on education and then to learn 
 how these questions are answered by those who 
 were born in non-Christian lands or who have 
 lived and worked there for many years. 
 
 Some Views on Education 
 
 "To educate a girl is like putting a knife into 
 the hands of a monkey." Hindu Proverb. 
 
 "The hope of our country is in the education of 
 our girls, and we shall never have statesmen 
 till the mothers are educated." A Persian 
 Nobleman. 
 
 "Men are superior to women on account of the 
 
 * "Foreign Mail Anmial," 1913, For. Dep. Int. Com. Y. M. C. A, 
 
The Child at School 137 
 
 qualities with which God has gifted the one 
 above the other." The Koran, Sura 4.38. 
 
 "No scheme of education for primitive races 
 can succeed that neglects the woman's influence 
 in the family and the tribe." E. W. Coffin.** 
 
 "When a man does not ask, 'What shall I 
 think of this and of that?' I can do nothing with 
 him. Learning without thought is labor lost; 
 thought without learning is perilous." Confucius 
 Quoted in "Oriental Religions," Samuel Johnson. 
 
 "Education should lead and guide man to 
 clearness concerning himself and in himself, to 
 peace with nature and to unity with God." 
 Froebel. 
 
 "The aim of female education is perfect sub- 
 mission, not cultivation and development of the 
 mind." Confucius. 
 
 "Not knowledge or information, but self- 
 realization is the goal. To possess all the world 
 of knowledge and lose one's own self is as awful 
 a fate in education as in religion." John 
 Dewey. 
 
 The Head Master of an English school declared 
 it to be his ideal of education to create an atmos- 
 phere of loyalty that should teach the pupils 
 to adapt themselves to the sphere in which their 
 lives should be cast, at the same time giving them 
 self-reliance through the knowledge that they are 
 responsible for doing the things that are worth 
 
 ** Pedagogical Seminary, March, 190S, "Da the Education of 
 Backward Races." 
 
138 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 Reasons why 
 missionary 
 education 
 should be 
 continued. 
 
 Statistics of 
 illiteracy. 
 
 Mobile, and arousing their ambition to achieve 
 that which is highest and best. 
 
 As a practical basis for the study of our topic, 
 "The Child at School," write out if you will 
 your own definition of the scope and ideals of 
 education, drawing up a list of those members 
 of the human family who would benefit by such 
 an education. 
 
 Referring again to the question of whether 
 our missionary obligation ceases when the child's 
 education begins, we must first of all realize 
 clearly how recent has been the awakening in 
 most of these lands, how appalling is the illiteracy, 
 how long it will take the most advanced govern- 
 ment to meet the need without assistance, and 
 how infinitely more a Christian education will 
 do for the little ones than a merely secular edu- 
 cation can possibly accomplish. 
 
 From the new Cyclopedia of Education* the 
 following latest available statistics are taken: — 
 
 Country 
 
 Illiterate 
 
 America 7.7 % 
 
 England & Wales 1.8 % 
 German Empire . 03 % 
 
 Ceylon (all races) 78.3 % 
 India 92.5 % 
 
 Cape of Good Hope 
 (Other than Euro- 
 pean.) 86.2 % 
 Egypt 92.7 % 
 
 Basis 
 Pop. over 10 yrs. 
 Marriage 
 Army Recruits 
 All ages 
 Over 10 years. 
 
 Year 
 
 1910 
 
 1901-1910 
 
 1904 
 
 1901 
 
 1901 
 
 1904 
 1907 
 
 * Edited by Paitl Monroe, 1912. (Macmillan.) 
 
The Child at School 139 
 
 Quoting further from the Cyclopedia we learn 
 that "in Turkey, India, and China we find a 
 high illiteracy among the males, and an almost 
 complete illiteracy among the females. The 
 least illiteracy today is to be found among the • 
 people in the countries to the north and west of 
 Europe, and of Teutonic or mixed Teutonic 
 stock. It was in these countries that the Protest- 
 ant Revolt made its greatest headway and the 
 ability to read the Word of God and to participate 
 in the church services were regarded as of great 
 importance for salvation." 
 
 Sir J. D. Rees, an official of high position and sir j d. Rees 
 
 ' _ ... ^^ illiteracy in 
 
 distinction in India, makes this significant state- -^s'=^- 
 ment in his volume on "Modern India," dated 
 1910 — ^" While it is true that only half the boys of 
 school-going age were following a course of 
 primary education when the last census was 
 taken it is extremely improbable that in any 
 other part of Asia anything approaching that 
 number has been ever attained, or in any Orien- 
 tal country under European control." 
 
 Let us go back to Japan as to the one of all non- Education in 
 Christian lands that has made the greatest ad- 
 vance along educational lines. After a visit 
 to Japan with many opportunities for observa- 
 tion and study of the subject, Miss Kate G. 
 Lamson says:* 
 
 Education for the masses has long since justified itself 
 to the Japanese. That education is universal and com- 
 
 * Life and Light, Oct., 1912. 
 
140 The Child in the Midst 
 
 pulsory is abundantly proved by the crowds of Bchool 
 children seen in every part of the country. This naturally 
 leads the observer to question the need of outside help, 
 especially missionary help, along educational lines, and 
 outside of two or three large centres our Board has applied 
 itself largely to the development of church organization 
 and evangeUstic work. Yet the experien(?e of years has 
 revealed an imperative need of the missionary even in 
 the ranks of education in Japan. . . 
 
 With schools everywhere, under an able and full staflf 
 of instructors, with up-to-date appliances for every branch 
 that is to be taught, moral and religious training are not 
 provided for, and the well-polished husk of educated 
 manhox-d and womanhood without the inner Hfe is the 
 result. The dangers attending non-religious education 
 have not failed to make themselves apparent to the 
 watchful Japanese. . . 
 
 In every land we believe the hope of the nations lies 
 largely in the training of little children. Christianity in 
 Japan has laid hold upon this and has set the pace in the 
 establishing of kindergartens. . . 
 
 Although education in Japan is compulsory, it is a 
 fact that it is beyond the reach of the poorest people. 
 This anomalous situation is caused by the charges for 
 tuition and books imposed upon all scholars. These 
 charges are so high as to be prohibitive for the very poor, 
 and the result shows in the absence of their children from 
 school. In thi? lies a direct invitation for missionary 
 effort. 
 Opinion of a These words from a Christian observer and 
 
 leading Japa- 
 
 »•«•• student of missions find an echo in the remark 
 
 of a leading Japanese, himself a non-Christian, 
 to one of the team of workers of the Men and 
 Religion Movement: — "I am convinced that 
 Japan must become Christian or she will never 
 become a great nation." 
 
The Child at School 141 
 
 So much is being said and published about the awakonkigia 
 wonderful developments in China and the new chma. 
 system of education that is taking the place of 
 the old, time-honored memorizing of the "Four 
 Books" and the ''Five Classics," that we need 
 not here go into the subject in detail. But we 
 must stop to query: — Where is China to procure ^tclcheribe 
 the hundreds and thousands of teachers who are t'"ained? 
 needed to train not only the children at present 
 but the teachers of future generations of chilchen? 
 For many long years she must look largely to 
 missionary schools to prepare her future educators. 
 From a report on the Educational Work of the 
 Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions we quote 
 the following: 
 
 The wisdom of the West in matters of courses of study, 
 together with methods of teaching, discipUne, etc., are 
 brought directly from our best institutions and freely 
 offered upon the altar of Chinese regeneration. The 
 results of these years have also proven that these best 
 things are adapted to the young Chinese minds, and that 
 they appreciate them when they once come to know them. 
 The products of these years show that our Christian 
 schools have been getting hold of some excellent material, 
 and that there is such true worth and high possibility 
 that all effort to develop these bright minds and sincere 
 hearts is well worth while, and that in doing so a great 
 service is rendered to Chinr.. . . A number of young 
 women of fine type have been educated in the schools 
 for girls, who are proving themselves apt to teach and 
 work for their own people in the conduct of boarding and 
 day schools and women's classes. 
 
 So highly does the Indian government prize JoSion^"** 
 the work of the missionary schools that each ^^^°°^- 
 
142 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 New demand 
 for education in 
 Persia and 
 Turkey. 
 
 Messages from 
 Persian par- 
 ents. 
 
 of them which is held to the required standard 
 of efficiency receives a grant for partial support. 
 The American Board Bulletin saj'^s, "Our tre- 
 mendous school system in Ceylon of more than 
 ten thousand pupils is carried on practically 
 at government expense." 
 
 In a village in India the parents' request for a 
 school was answered by the statement that if 
 such a school were opened, the Bible would be 
 taught in it. Quickly the reply came, "Teach 
 your religion, but educate our boys." 
 
 When the century opened, Persia and Turkey 
 were asleep. Suddenly came the awakening, the 
 reaching out for something new and different, 
 and, as in the case of China, one of the first 
 thoughts was, — Our children must be educated. 
 Instinctively they turned to the missionaries 
 who for long years had quietly, steadily, sown 
 the seed, prepared literature, set up printing 
 presses, trained pieachers and teachers. Boys 
 and girls began to flock into the mission schools. 
 
 "Fathers sent pleasant messages," wrote a 
 missionary in Teheran in 1911. "One said, 'Your 
 girls make better wives and mothers and in every 
 way better women, than others.' Another, 'I 
 "wish my wife had been educated, but I am deter- 
 mined my daughter shall be.' An Armenian of 
 wealth and influence is reported to have answered 
 to a remonstrance against sending his little 
 daughter to us instead of to their national 
 school: 'Did I ever refuse to give you money? 
 
The Child at School 143 
 
 I will continue to help support our national 
 schools, but I must send my daughters (he has 
 five) where they can really obtain an education. 
 They can learn in one week all you can teach 
 them about going to theatricals and dances.' 
 A friend was telling us that her sister would 
 send her girls to us. 'Why?' 'Because every 
 Moslem in this city understands that your 
 school is the only one where girls really learn. 
 Why should my sister be the only fool? ' "* 
 
 These messages are significant in view of the f^r^irL'Tn^^ 
 fact that in a brief time seventy girls' schools Teheran. 
 were reported to have sprung up suddenly in 
 Persia's capital city, with an enrolment of five 
 thousand pupils.** But scarcely half a dozen 
 of those at the head of the schools had ever 
 been to school themselves, and the testimony 
 from all over Persia was the same as that at the 
 capital, — "The missionary schools are the best." 
 
 Here is the eager call from Turkey:*** 
 
 The gi-adual awakening of the villages to the need of The call for 
 
 , , . ,, ~ teachers in 
 
 better schools increases yearly the calls for teachers. The Turkey. 
 Sivas Normal School reports that the work of the past 
 summer was very hard. "We were obliged to refuse 
 calls for more than forty teachers, not a few of them 
 from places to which we had never supplied teachers. 
 The following quotation from a letter from the Armenian 
 Bishop of one of our large cities is a fair sample: 'We wish 
 to call for the Armenian schools of our city the following 
 
 * Woman's Work, Aug., 1911. Cora C. Bartlett. 
 
 ** Told by Miss A. W. Stockingin Moslem World. Oct., 1912. 
 
 *** Congregalionalist and Christian World, 'D^:c. 20, 1912. 
 
144 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 teachers: a principal, a lady principal, teachers for 
 Armenian, Turkish, and French, and three teachers for 
 Bcientific branches. If you have among your experi- 
 enced teachers or among the new graduates persons to 
 recommend, please inform us at once in order that we 
 may invite them.' " 
 
 A Kurdish 
 
 father. 
 
 Can we 
 refuse the 
 demand? 
 
 One hardly knows whether to laugh or to 
 cry over the Kurdish father up in the wild 
 mountains of Kurdistan who brought his boy to 
 the little school taught by a native helper, whack- 
 ing him with a stick to make the reluctant youth 
 walk in the paths of learning, while he declared, 
 "I am not going to let 7ny boy grow up in the 
 street." 
 
 When great governments, ecclesiastical au- 
 thorities, wealthy noblemen, and fierce warriors 
 from the mountain fastnesses all clamor for what 
 the missionary schools can do for their children, 
 have we a right to refuse their request? Can we 
 claim freedom from responsibility? 
 
 Rather let us glory in the unparalleled oppor- 
 tunity for giving to the needy children of non- 
 Christian lands that which has proven to be the 
 only true source of mental preparation for life- 
 work, — a Christian education. Hear the testi- 
 mony of Dr. F. W. Foerster, author and special 
 lecturer in Ethics and Psychology in the Univer- 
 sity of Zurich, a man who began his educational 
 work with sympathies strongly socialistic and 
 entirely aloof from all forms of religion. In the 
 author's preface to his book, "Marriage and the 
 
Chinese Mary 
 
 A Cripple for life, because she took a nap at the 
 wrong; time 
 
The Child at School 145 
 
 Sex Problem," he speaks with no uncertain sound 
 of his own experience and conviction. 
 
 The author of this book comes from the ranks of those ^l- Foerster on 
 
 , ,. ■ 1 11 1- • -n i ji 1 ,.1 i/ducation and 
 
 who dispense with all religion, rsut as the result of long Christianity, 
 experience, theoretical and practical, in the difficult work 
 of character-training, he has been led to reaUze for him- 
 self the deep meaning and the profoimd pedagogical 
 wisdom of the Christian method of caring for souls, and 
 to appreciate, through his own experience, the value of 
 the old truths. . . He has absolutely no doubt that mod- 
 ern education, in discovering the extraordinary practical 
 difficulties of character-training, will be increasingly 
 cured of its optimistic illusions and led back to an under- 
 standing and appreciation of Christianity. 
 
 How about the children themselves? Do they 
 enjoy and appreciate school privileges offered 
 them by the missionaries, and does the work 
 show results that are worth while? 
 
 If, as Miss Lamson claims, ''the hope of the Sla^ Japan, 
 nations lies in the training of little children," 
 there is hope for Japan in the nmety-eight 
 mission kindergartens that are maintained by 
 fourteen Protestant Boards and have an enrol- . 
 ment of four thousand and sixty-eight children. 
 The report of the Kindergarten Union of Japan 
 is a most fascinating volume, with its presentation 
 of opportunity, need, method, and the result 
 of teaching the tiny children who are to be the 
 future parents, teachers, and leaders of thought 
 and action in that Empire. A few extracts will 
 give a httle idea of what is being done for the 
 children and through them for their homes and 
 friends. 
 
146 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 A Japanese 
 toachcr on 
 Christian 
 kindergartens. 
 
 Results of 
 sending the 
 children to 
 kindergarten. 
 
 The kindergarten in our country today is at its most 
 critical stage, and therefore needs the best and most 
 profound thinkers who can put their ideals into practice 
 most tactfully. This must be accomplished by native 
 Christian kindergartncrs. Education without religious 
 foundations is like an egg without the germ of life in it. 
 Most of our pubHc and government kindergartens, which 
 have the purely so-called educational views of today, are 
 leaving the very springs of child life untouched, and 
 therefore are not fulfilling the real meaning of education. 
 They are not disciples of Froebel, because he based his 
 philosophy on the Christian faith. (Fuji Takamori of 
 Holy Love Kindergarten, Methodist.) 
 
 A teacher writes, "A little gu'l whose father and mother 
 were Christians entered our school. At first a little 
 nursemaid brought her, then her grandmother came with 
 her. This grandmother was a devoted Buddhist. She 
 would not even look at the foreign teacher, much less 
 listen to anything being taught, but at last she began to 
 listen, and eventually became convinced that she needed 
 Christ for her Saviour. Today she is a truly converted 
 woman." . . . 
 
 The blessing asked at the noon lunch seemed to make a 
 deep impression on some children, and doing it at home 
 attracts the parents' attention, so that a nimiber of them 
 have been known to come to the church services to hear 
 more about the meaning of prayer and praise. (Mrs. A. D. 
 Gordon.) 
 
 We are told that the songs, the games, the stories, and 
 sometimes the prayers, are household exercises in many 
 homes. On a recent morning, which we spent by invita- 
 tion of the wife of tlie Governor in her garden, the little 
 son of the family, not yet of kindergarten age, took an 
 active part with the otlier children. His mother told me 
 that the older sister comes home and "plays kindergarten" 
 with her small brother, and that, when they have guests 
 to entertain, the children are often called in to give some 
 
The Child at School 147 
 
 kindergarten exercise. I did not tell her how strongly I 
 disapprove of "showing off" children before company. 
 I only prayed that "a little child might lead them." (Mrs. 
 Genevieve F. Topping, of Morioka Kindergarten, Bap- 
 tist.) 
 
 An amusing incident happened one day when the chil- 
 dren were off on an observation trip. They had to stop 
 to let a detachment of soldiers pass, and spontaneously 
 burst out singing "Soldier Boy, soldier Boy," to the 
 great amusement of the soldiers. Then they all saluted 
 the officer in proper fashion, but he only smiled. "Sensei, 
 we saluted politely, why didn't he return the salute?" 
 
 Later as the soldiers were drawn up in circular forma- 
 tion on the parade ground, the children said, "Oh, now 
 they are going to play just as we do in kindergarten, 
 let's watch!" So the expedition which started out to 
 study insect life changed into a lesson on soldiers and 
 their absolute obedience to orders. (Alice Fyock of 
 Sendai Aoba Yochion, American Episcopal.) 
 
 A similar Kinderffarten Union is being formed The caii for 
 
 ... missionary 
 
 in China, and from all missionary lands comes kindergartner? 
 the m-gent cry for trained kindergartners who can 
 not only start schools, but, far more than this, 
 can train native kindergartners to take up the 
 work. It would be hard to overemphasize the 
 importance of this particular service which mis- 
 sions are rendering. 
 
 Dr. Thomas M. Balliet of New York Univer- Dr. Baiueton 
 
 the early yeai 
 
 sity voices the opinion of modern educators of childhood. 
 when he says, "All the more recent studies in 
 child psychology emphasize the great plasticity 
 of the early years of childhood. The habits 
 which the child then forms, and the attitude both 
 intellectual and emotional which is then given 
 
148 The Child in the Midst 
 
 him, are more lasting and more determining for 
 his adult life than was even suspected some years 
 ago."* 
 chnsUan^^ After a hasty mental review of what has been 
 
 neededT'^^'^ studicd in earlier chapters regarding the home 
 life and training of little children in non-Chris- 
 tian lands, it is surely a mild statement to make 
 that the Christian kindergarten is an absolute 
 necessity if these little ones, so cunning and 
 capable and helpless, are to have any chance at 
 all for proper development. The words "Chris- 
 tian kindergarten" are used advisedly, and agree 
 with utterances of experts such as Elizabeth 
 Harrison, who says, — ■ 
 
 "The foundation of the kindergarten is based 
 upon the psychological revelation that, if man 
 is the child of God, he must possess infinite 
 possibilities, and that these possibilities can only 
 develop as he, man, makes use cf them — that in 
 other words, man is a self-making being, that his 
 , likeness to the Divine Father consists in this 
 power within him to unfold and develop his 
 divine nature."** 
 Children of Students of primitive and backward races tell 
 
 backward races ii i -i i 
 
 respond to early us that the Small children show as much promise 
 
 traaning. 
 
 and as many signs of undeveloped capability 
 as do children of civilized lands, but before many 
 years a cloud seems to overcast their minds, 
 
 * "Kindergartens and 'Near Kindergartens,' " Child Welfare Mag- 
 azine, Sept., 1912. 
 
 ** "Mountain Tops and Valleys of Humanity," Child Welfare 
 Magazine. Dec, 1912. 
 
The Child at School 149 
 
 while selfishness and sin and passion take posses- 
 sion of their moral natures. Never again is 
 there the same chance to make them what they 
 might have been, as there was during those first 
 early days when the kindergarten should have 
 opened wide her doors to receive them. This 
 argument would in itself seem sufficient to urge 
 missionary Boards to speedy, thorough action 
 in this matter, but there is another far-reaching 
 argument to be considered. All through the 
 East, wherever there are missionary kinder- 
 gartens, mothers come to them to learn how to 
 train their children, and countless homes have 
 caught and passed on a reflection of the Christ 
 fife because of what the mothers have heard and 
 observed and what the children have taken 
 home with them. Make a flying trip to the 
 Fuchow Kindergarten and watch "the irrepres- 
 sible John." 
 
 "This little lad's father died, after a period of 
 faithful service in Miss Wiley's kitchen, and when 
 the widowed mother came back to Miss Wiley 
 from her country home to earn a living for herself 
 and John and baby Joseph, John w^as already 
 master of the situation and of his mother, and 
 enforced his "udll on that by no means weak- 
 minded woman by kicking, biting, pulhng her 
 ears, and similar methods. Now Miss Wiley 
 is a famous trainer of boys, and she soon taught 
 the young mother that the masculine will is not 
 necessarily law at the age of two plus; the kinder- 
 
150 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 Kindcrgart- 
 ners must bo 
 inventive and 
 adaptable. 
 
 A West 
 African 
 kindorgarten. 
 
 garten carried out the same idea, and now John 
 devotes vast energ>' and determination to the 
 shaping of inanimate clay into pigs and other 
 fascinating things, and treats animate nature as 
 a well-mannered and kindly, little gentleman 
 should."* 
 
 It would be most interesting and instructive 
 to make a tour of missionary kindergartens for 
 the purpose of seeing how ingenious our mis- 
 sionary teachers are, how they adapt Froebel's 
 ideas and methods to the most extraordinary 
 circumstances which would have made that 
 great educator gasp, how they must not only 
 translate and adapt songs and tunes and games, 
 but compose and create and invent, — all in an 
 acquired language which has perhaps been only re- 
 cently reduced to writing by some pioneer mission- 
 ary. It might be pertinent to ask if all Women's 
 Boards provide the kindergartners and other 
 teachers whom they send to the foreign field with 
 a first-class outfit of all needed material, and if 
 they remember that such an outfit needs to be 
 replenished at least as often as a similar one 
 does in the home land. It is not fair to require 
 a missionary to make bricks without straw. 
 
 A visit to a West African Kindergarten will 
 show an inventive and adaptable missionary in 
 charge. 
 
 We have a new primary Sunday-School room which will 
 be my kindergarten. It is a low wall covered by a round 
 
 * "The Children's Gardens," Woman's Board of Missions, (Cong.) 
 
The Child at School 
 
 151 
 
 thatched roof high enough to leave a good big space for 
 air. The floor is mudded and marked in squares. It 
 looks very nice, but I shall take pains to get the cracks 
 filled up, for they catch too much dirt and jigger seeds. 
 The benches are not j'et made, so the children who were 
 cleaned up for Sunday went after leaves to sit on. The 
 classes have to go out under trees to separate, but it is 
 a great improvement upon the dirty and dangerous saw 
 pit where they have met for so long. The only advantage 
 about the saw pit was the roof for shade and pieces of 
 wood and logs to sit upon. The big folks have been 
 getting most of the attention and all of the advantages, 
 but we feel that the children should have most because 
 they are in the future. They do not show such shining 
 results at once, but work with them will lay a foundation 
 which is greatly needed here for really effective work. . . . 
 I have a box cupboard, a sand table, two long low 
 tables marked with squares, and strong benches. I have 
 not much kindergarten material, but I do not need more 
 at present. My first "gift" is a basin of water. They 
 march in singing "Good morning, kind teacher" (only 
 I am thankful to say the Umbundu words leave out the 
 "kind"). Then we sing another song or two, and the 
 prayer with bowed heads. I have no music, so I have 
 to learn the tunes myself before I come to school. The 
 children are the dearest, cunning things and they do want 
 to learn.* 
 
 There are lands such as large sections of Africa Primitive edu- 
 
 ^ cation among 
 
 and many of the Pacific Islands where no edu- backward na- 
 
 -^ _ tions. 
 
 cation whatever existed, where the language was 
 not even reduced to writing, until Christian 
 missionaries began their work. Other countries 
 gave a certain so-called education to their boys 
 or to the sons of certain privileged classes, leav- 
 
 *,Life and Light, March, 1912. Janette E. Miller. 
 
152 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 Lack of con- 
 centration. 
 
 Evils of the 
 memorizing 
 method. 
 
 ing the girls absolutely illiterate. They agreed 
 in principle if not in expression with that man in 
 the mountains of Kurdistan who was asked by 
 a missionary to send his bright little daughter 
 down to the mission school at the beginning of the 
 fall term, "Do you want my girl?" questioned 
 the man in amazement and disgust. "Why don't 
 you take my cow?" 
 
 Again in other sections girls have a brief 
 chance to learn, but are not expected to keep 
 pace with their brothers or to attain to any- 
 thing beyond the rudiments of book learning. 
 
 A missionary educator from Turkey sa.ys that 
 one of the greatest difficulties in school work 
 arises from the fact that the children have no 
 power of concentration, no idea of how to think 
 and study on one line for any length of time. 
 It often takes five or six years for a child really 
 to learn how to study. Obviously, the earlier 
 these preparatory years occur in a child's life, 
 the more benefit may he hope to derive from his 
 education. 
 
 Then again, if children learn their first 
 lessons in the native schools of Turkey, Persia, 
 Korea, and various other countries, they will 
 become fixed in the habit of memorizing without 
 giving any intelligent thought to what they 
 learn. Dr. S. M. Zwemer says: 
 
 "A Moslem lad is not supposed to know what 
 the words and sentences mean which he must 
 recite every day; to ask a question regarding the 
 
The Child at School 153 
 
 thought of the Koran would only result in a 
 rebuke or something more painful. Even gram- 
 mar, logic, history, and theology are taught by 
 rote in the higher Mohammedan schools. . . 
 Thousands of Moslem lads, who know the whole 
 Koran nearly by heart, cannot explain the 
 meaning of the first chapter in every-day lan- 
 guage. Tens of thousands can * read ' the 
 Koran at random in the Moslem sense of reading, 
 who cannot read an Arabic newspaper intelli- 
 gently."* 
 
 How utterly this differs from the theory and 
 practice of Dr. Montessori, who ''calls a child 
 disciplined who is master of himself, and there- 
 fore able to dispose of or control himself when- 
 ever he needs to follow a rule of life. The liberty 
 of the child must have as its limit only the col- 
 lective interest. To interfere with this spon- 
 taneity is, in Dr. Montessori's view, perhaps to 
 repress the very essential of life itself."** How 
 can a child be master of himself who is not even 
 allowed to inquire into the meaning of what he 
 reads and studies? 
 
 It is not always easy for the missionary suddenly hifd™rd°s-^ 
 to introduce changes of method and practice, '^^'■''• 
 and many a missionary school which is infinitely 
 superior to the native institution might shock 
 an American school superintendent beyond re- 
 
 * "How Orthodox IMohammedans Educate a Child." Bd. of For. 
 Miss. Ref. Ch. 
 
 ** "Tbe ^Ipntessori System," Theodate L. Smith, (Harper.J 
 
154 The Child m the Midst 
 
 covery. A missionary from China wrote, — 
 "I found I must still keep many old methods or 
 the Chinese would not send their children. I 
 have found it necessary to let them learn portions 
 of Scripture and classics and shout them at the 
 tops of their voices, then gradually work in music, 
 geography, and arithmetic." Another argument 
 for beginning as early as possible with the children 
 who can so easily adapt themselves to ideas of a 
 quiet, orderly school if they have never enjoyed 
 exercising their lungs in one of the other kind! 
 
 giriaTn'plrsL ^^^ Speaking of primitive education among 
 backward nations, mention was made of the scant 
 attention given to girls as compared to boys. 
 The London Times not long ago stated in com- 
 menting on the women of Persia, ''As a matter 
 of fact, probably not one girl in a thousand 
 twenty years ago ever received any education. 
 When the parents were rich enough, tuition of a 
 sort was given at home, but in the case of poorer 
 persons it was enough if their sons were taught 
 to read and write." 
 
 In contrast we learn that in the spring of 1913 
 about one thousand children from Moslem homes 
 were in attendance at Protestant missionary 
 schools in Persia, over two hundred of them 
 being girls. 
 
 Early marriage In Mohammcdau and other lands the custom 
 
 a barrier to 
 
 education. of carly marriage is an almost insuperable barrier 
 
 to an adequate education for a girl. That this 
 custom must be changed, if men are to have 
 
The Child at School 155 
 
 worthy wives and if children are to be properly- 
 trained, is a truth that is beginning to be realized. 
 The recent great awakening and desire for educa- 
 tion is creating a marvelous change in age-long 
 customs. 
 
 Lord Cromer says: "The position of women in Egypt, ^on^iSonriL"" 
 and in Mohammedan countries generally, is a fatal obstacle Egypt, 
 to the attainment of that elevation of thought and char- 
 acter which should accompany the introduction of Euro- 
 pean civilization, if that civilization is to produce its full 
 measure of beneficial effect. The obvious remedy would 
 appear to be to educate the women. . . When the first 
 efforts to promote female education were made, they met 
 with little sympathy from the population in general. . . 
 Most of the upper-class Egyptians were not merely indiffer- 
 ent to female education; they were absolutely opposed to 
 it. . . 
 
 "All this has now been changed. The reluctance of 
 parents to send their daughters to school has been largely 
 overcome. . . The younger generation are beginning to 
 demand that their wives shall possess some qualifications 
 other than those which can be secured in the seclusion of 
 the harem." 
 
 In 1912 Lord Kitchener states that "There is probably 
 nothing more remarkable in the social history of Egypt 
 during the last dozen j^ears than the growth of public 
 opinion among all classes of Egyptians in favor of the edu- 
 cation of their daughters. The girls' schools belonging 
 to the Ministry of Education are crowded, and to meet 
 the growing demand sites have been acquired and fresh 
 schools are to be constructed, one at Alexandria and two 
 in Cairo. Very many applications have, however, to be 
 refused." * • 
 
 * "Education of Girls in the Levant." T. H. P. Sailer in Worn' 
 an's Work, Aug., 1912. 
 
156 The Child in the Midst 
 
 ^ws^in the '^^ these quotations Dr. Sailer adds the signifi- 
 
 '^*^- cant words, — ^"The missionary schools for girls 
 
 are yet in the lead in their moral atmosphere. 
 The government officials were prompt in ac- 
 knowledging that missionary teachers brought 
 to their work a spirit which money could not 
 buy." 
 
 Scant justice can be done in these few pages 
 to the whole vast subject of the education of 
 girls in the East, and the rapid changes that are 
 taking place in regard to it. A careful study of 
 the subject will well repay the thoughtful woman. 
 As all roads lead to Rome, so all reading and 
 observation along this line will lead the candid 
 Now is the studcnt to onc conclusion : — Now is the time to 
 
 time to educate 
 
 the future determine the character of the mothers of the next 
 
 generation of children in non-Christian la7ids. 
 What those little bright-eyed baby girls of 
 Africa and India, Turkey and Korea are to be 
 and do, what their homes are to be like, what 
 start in life their children are to have, will be 
 largely determined by what we Christian women 
 do or fail to do for them today. If it is too late 
 to do much for their mothers before these children 
 have left their homes, why not gather the children 
 into kindergartens and primary schools, why not 
 teach the little ones now while their minds are 
 plastic and impressionable? Why not do our 
 share toward bringing Christian civilization into 
 darkened lands by educating in Christian schools 
 today the mothers of tomorrow? 
 
 mothers. 
 
The Child at School 157 
 
 In the preceding chapter great emphasis was J^n^to^piaJ."' 
 laid on the necessity for teaching the children of 
 many mission lands how to play, not only for 
 the benefit of their health and to bring joy and 
 brightness into their lives, but also in order to 
 teach them what ''fair play" and co-operation 
 mean. It is the missionary school, from kinder- 
 garten up to university, that gives the golden 
 opportunity for this teaching, as is shown by the 
 testimony of a missionary from Tientsin, China: — 
 "We believe that such games teach them to be 
 honest in business dealings later, to be truthful, 
 unselfish, quick-witted, and self-controlled. The 
 change which I have seen in these little, un-taught, 
 ill-cared-for children after five years in the mis- 
 sion school is due in part, I believe, to the lessons 
 of 'fair play' learned in their games." 
 
 But the school must go even further than this 
 and include in its curriculum physical education • 
 of a very definite kind if it is to meet all the needs 
 of the children it is serving. Taking as an 
 example of all mission lands, China, whose system 
 of education antedates by many centuries all 
 our western civilization, let us observe through 
 the eyes of the former physical director of the 
 Shanghai Y. M. C. A. what the real situation is. 
 
 Physical training should be dignified by giving it an Physical 
 equal place with the sciences, philosophies, and languages ''^'°'°^* 
 in the curriculum, and the same careful provision of means 
 and trained men to direct it. No educational system is 
 adequate which does not aim at the whole man, which 
 
158 The Child in the Midst 
 
 does not recognize the physical basis of intellectual and 
 Bpiritual efficiency. Professor Tyler of Amherst says, 
 "Brain and muscle are never divorced in the action of 
 healthy higher animals and in healthy men. They should 
 not be divorced in the education of the child." . . . 
 
 It is clear that physical training, in the largest sense, 
 must play an important part in the making of the "New 
 China." The questions involved in her uplift are most 
 largely physical questions. The personal, domestic, and 
 public observance of the laws of health and life is a 
 physical question; the combating of that terrible scourge, 
 tuberculosis, is a physical question; the checking of the 
 fearful infant mortality is a physical question; etc. . . . 
 
 The progress which has been made in physical training 
 in China must be viewed in the light of the fact that 
 physical exercise for its own sake has had no part in the 
 national hfe of China for centuries. It has been consid- 
 ered improper for a Cliinese gentleman to indulge in it. 
 The popular conception of a Chinese scholar has been 
 that of a man with a great head, emaciated body, and 
 hollow chest, sitting and contemplating the problem of 
 life by thinking dissociated from doing. Until ten 
 years ago athletics were almost unknown. When for- 
 eigners were seen playing football the Chinese were greatly 
 puzzled, and wanted to know how much these men were 
 being paid for cutting up such foolish antics, conceiving 
 it as out of the question that any one would work so hard 
 without being well paid for it. All that is rapidly being 
 changed. Physical training is changing China's concep- 
 tion of a gentleman. The ideal of all-round manhood, 
 well-balanced in its physical, mental, and spiritual as- 
 pects, is rapidly gaining ground.* 
 
 Could all China's children today be taught 
 this ideal, the task would be far easier than it 
 will be when they have reached adult life. 
 
 * "Physical Training for the Chinese." M. J. Exner, M.D. 
 
The Child at School 159 
 
 The story of the Missionary School for Boys in ^il^thoff*''' 
 Srinagar, Kashmir, is as thrilling as a novel, i^ashnur." 
 and illustrates to a remarkable degree how body, 
 mind, and soul must be trained and disciplined 
 and developed in order to realize the ideal of the 
 Principal, the Rev. C. E. Tyndale-Biscoe, who 
 says, ''We are making citizens, of what sort re- 
 mains to be seen. But we hope without waver- 
 ing that these citizens will be Christian citizens, 
 for Christ is our ideal." Some of the difficulties 
 are thus described: 
 
 "To teach the three R's in Kashmir is easy work. 
 The boys are willing to squat over their books and 
 grind away for as many hours a day as nature 
 makes possible. To get an education means 
 sedentary employment cum rupees. And that 
 to the Kashmiri is hving. 
 
 "But to educate is a very different matter. To 
 make men of a thousand or more boys who care 
 nothing for manliness; among whose ancestors 
 for hundreds of years, chicanery, deceit, and 
 cruelty had been the recognized and honored paths 
 to success, while generosity and honesty had been 
 the mark of a fool ; to try to quicken and develop 
 the good in such boys, — boys coming from impure 
 homes, squatting in unclean rows, with bent backs 
 and open mouths — was flatly pronounced folly 
 by many a visitor to Kashmir."* 
 
 The story tells how boxing, swimming, rowing, 
 
 * "The Athletic Method ia Kashmir," Henry Forman in Out- 
 look, Sept. 24, 1910. 
 
160 The Child in the Midst 
 
 and gymnastics are required of the students as a 
 most necessary and vital part of their education, 
 and how they are trained to be proud of using 
 these accompHshments in helping others. By 
 the time a Brahmin boy, — they are almost all 
 Brahmins in this school,— has saved a child from 
 drowning, rescued a family of despised sweepers 
 from the roof of their flood-swept house, delivered 
 a poor woman from being beaten, and helped 
 clean up the streets and alleys of a city during a 
 cholera epidemic, he has received an education 
 such as no books in the world can give him, and 
 Kashmir is one step nearer to the Kingdom of 
 Heaven. 
 St"pe^r- "Train not thy child," says Emerson, "so that 
 
 BOQaiity." ^^ ^]^g g^gg Qf thirty or forty he shall have to say, 
 
 'This great work could I have done but for the 
 lack of a body.' " EHzabeth Harrison, after 
 quoting Emerson, adds, "Is not this carelessness 
 as to health one of the ways in which we are not 
 conserving the forces that make for righteousness 
 and truth, one of the ways in which we are neg- 
 lecting to build up 'a great personality' in our 
 children?"* 
 
 Up to this point our study of The Child in non- 
 Christian lands has shown that the missionary 
 must touch the home life, the customs and ideals 
 handed down from remote ancestors, the play and 
 work and education and physical development 
 
 * "Mountain Tops and Valleys of Humanity," Child Welfare 
 Magazine, Jan., 1913. 
 
z •- ^ 
 
 O " '^ 
 
 H ^ -c 
 
 «( « ._ 
 
The Child at School 161 
 
 of the child, in order to give him his inahenable 
 rights, while in the next chapter we shall dwell on 
 his right to know of Jesus Christ, the children's 
 Friend. It may seem to the reader (as it does 
 to the writer) that the chapters overlap one 
 another in spite of the heroic effort to treat each 
 subject by itself. But most of us find, — do we 
 not? — that it is a bit difficult to attend to the 
 spiritual culture of our boys when they are 
 clamoring to go out and play ball, or to get our 
 little girls to tell what they learned at school, 
 when they are hungry for their dinner. The 
 mother must train all parts of her child's nature 
 by attending to the need that is uppermost at 
 the time, — the missionary must do the same for 
 her foster children, and the woman at home, 
 behind the missionary, has to recognize the same 
 inseparable inter-relation of body, mind, and soul 
 in the little ones of whom she is studying. Our 
 divisions into '"subjects" must be more or less 
 artificial. However, to this particular subject 
 of "The Child at School" belong naturally two 
 more matters which must be touched on briefly. 
 
 When the Turkish girl has learned to read, when The need for 
 
 . good literature. 
 
 SIX thousand boys have annually been trained 
 in that great chain of Aiiglo-Chinese schools 
 started by the Methodists in Malaysia, when 
 Korean children have acquired a taste for reading 
 and study, where are they to find suitable, in- 
 teresting books? The Cyclopedia of Education 
 pays a wonderful tribute to what 07ie Book has 
 
162 The Child in the Midst 
 
 done for Korea, saj-ing that "the translation of 
 the Bible into Korean and its rapid distribution, 
 and revivals marked with habitual study of the 
 Bible, compelled many to learn the alphabet to 
 master a sacred library so rich, and has con- 
 stituted a national school of intelligence and 
 culture." But other books than the Bible must 
 be translated and written in order to give clean, 
 interesting, wholesome literature to the children 
 of countless thousands who never had any use for 
 a literature for themselves. As Miss Lilian 
 Trotter of Algiers says, — "Those who have been 
 patiently toiling over the schooling of Moslem 
 girls and women begin to feel that the powers 
 of reading gained in school days should be used as 
 a means to an end, not left to lapse in the first 
 years that ensue for want of following up. Letters 
 from the whole reach of the Moslem world give the 
 same refrain, — the girls drop their reading largely 
 because there is nothing published' that interests 
 them. The few upper class women who read, 
 read little but newspapers and French novels. 
 Could not some one who understands child minds 
 work out bright beginnings for the use of their 
 waking powers in stories and pictures with 
 colored lettering and borders? Easterns must 
 have color to make them happy!"* 
 
 Here is a call to missionary work for some one 
 who never dreamt that her particular literary 
 
 * "Daylight in the Harem." 
 
The Child at School 163 
 
 and artistic talents are absolutely needed today 
 by the children of the East. 
 The second matter mentioned above is the Jn^uatriai 
 
 training in 
 
 need for industrial training. Great progress fj^^^^i^ 
 has been made in this respect in recent years, but 
 much more progress is needed, and trained teachers 
 and suitable equipment are required. As a 
 missionary in Persia says when urging that more 
 industrial training be given the school girls, — 
 "A woman may be able to read, but, if unable 
 to bake or prepare a good meal, her husband 
 will not care if she reads about the Bread of 
 Life. She may play the organ, but, if she cannot 
 wash, mend, make the children's clothes, and 
 make a happy home, he will have little interest 
 in hearing her play or sing 'The Home over 
 there.' " 
 
 There is abundant testimony to prove that America°n 
 America is already doing great things in the line ^ucaUon^ 
 of missionary education. Here is the testimony 
 of a traveler and newspaper man. 
 
 The number of mission schools and colleges supported 
 by Americans with American money is nearly as large as 
 that of all the schools conducted by the missionaries of 
 all other countries combined. We have approximately 
 10,000 schools in lands that are not under our flag and 
 from which we receive not a cent of revenue. 
 
 If a man in quest of material for an American educa- 
 tional exhibit were to sail out of San Francisco Bay with 
 a phonograph recorder, he would come up on the other 
 side of Sandy Hook with a polyglot collection of records 
 that would give the people of the United States a new con- 
 ception of their part in the world's advance toward light. 
 
164 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 Languages 
 used. 
 
 Where shall we 
 put the empha- 
 sis? 
 
 His audience might hear a spelling class recite in the 
 tuneful Hawaiian tongue or listen to Moros, Tagalogs, 
 and Igorrotea reading from the same "McGuffey's 
 Reader." A change of records might bring the sound of little 
 Japanese reciting geography, or of Chinese repeating the 
 multiplication table in a dozen dialects. Another record 
 would tell in quaint Siamese the difference between a 
 transitive or an intransitive verb, or conjugate the verb 
 "to be" in any one of the languages of India. One might 
 hear a professor from Pennsylvania lecturing on anatomy 
 to a class of young men in the ancient kingdom of Darius; 
 or a young woman from Massachusetts explaining the 
 mysteries of an eclipse to a group of girls in Constanti- 
 nople; or a Princeton man telling in Arabic the relation 
 between a major and a minor premise. And when the 
 audience had listened to all this and to "My country, 'tis 
 of thee" in Eskimo and in Spanish, the exhibit of American 
 teaching would have only begun.* 
 
 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.** 
 
 But in spite of all that is being done, we con- 
 tinue to make our plea for the little children. 
 Whatever emphasis may be laid on the need for 
 
 * "The Land of the White Helmet," E. A. Forbes (Revell.) 
 
 ** "Ediioatiotia' Work of thn Tld Fpr Miss of the Pres. Ch." 
 
The Child at School 165 
 
 boarding schools, colleges,, normal, and indus- 
 trial training schools, let us r(>mcmbcr 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 quickly and easily and naturally the little s^ehoob'ieLT''"^ 
 ones learn of Jesus, the children's Friend, and chr^r *° 
 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 momitains and became dread- 
 fully 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 
 heait 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 grand- 
 mother 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.* 
 
 * "A Little Child Shall Lead Them." Worn. Bd. For. Miss. Ref. 
 Ch. Am. 
 
166 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 Mission school 
 childron in 
 after-life. 
 
 Boya of West 
 Africa. 
 
 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 missionar}'' schools. 
 
 "The home in Syria whose mother was taught 
 in a school can always be distinguished at a 
 glance, whether it belongs to the Protestant 
 community or to one of the old Christian sects. 
 Neatness and good taste prevail, the children 
 are more carefully trained, the members of the 
 family work for each other's benefit. One of 
 our school girls, who was married to an unedu- 
 cated man, told us years after; 'Letter by letter 
 I taught him to read, figure by figure I taught 
 him arithmetic, and then I drew him down upon 
 his knees and word by word I taught him to 
 pray.' "* 
 
 From the Spirit of Missions we quote the 
 following about the boys at Cape Mount, West 
 Africa: — ■ 
 
 "These people can be reached by Christianity 
 best in their childhood, before superstitions, be- 
 lief in the Gregre, or the influence of the life of a 
 Mohammedan has become grafted into their 
 lives. If allowed to grow up in their native 
 villages they often become leaders of tribal wars, 
 and, unknowingly, men of the vilest character. 
 In one tribe from which several boys are at the 
 mission, the mother tattoos curious marks on the 
 forehead of her babe, in order that if during war 
 
 *"Home Life in Syria," Eltreda Post, Worn. Pres. Bd. For. Miss. 
 
The Child at School 167 
 
 he is captured and in after years she becomes able 
 to redeem him from slavery, she may be able to 
 recognize her own child. With the influence and 
 training of a Christian mission, even though 
 the boys go back to native life, they do not go 
 back to all of its vileness, and one can soon dis- 
 tinguish between them and the un-Christianized 
 heathen." 
 
 It takes faith and hope and love and a vision 
 far into the future to teach boys like these. But 
 it pays, and the "bread cast on the waters" is 
 often found again in most unlikely places, such as 
 those described in a letter from Mr. W. C. 
 Johnson of West Africa: — ■ 
 
 ''Everywhere I find in the village schools sources 
 oi Christian influence. In one village where I 
 stayed all night, all of the boys and all but two 
 of the women were Christians. This was entirely 
 the w'ork of Christian school boys. In another 
 place a young man told me that there were only 
 two j'oung men in the community who were not 
 trjdng to lead Christian lives. This too was the 
 work of the Christian school boys." 
 
 A little Mohammedan girl attended for a very 
 few months the mission day school in a near-by ^ompiLhTd.^^ 
 city street. Her cruel step-mother persecuted 
 her bitterly, throwing her school books on the 
 floor and trampling them under foot to show her 
 contempt of Christian learning. Some kind 
 friend at the school gave the child forty cents, — 
 unheard-of wealth to the little one, — and the 
 
 A few montha 
 at school and 
 
168 The Child in the Midst 
 
 missionary suggested that a teacher should 
 help the child spend it for something she greatly 
 needed before the mother could take it away. 
 "No," said the little girl, "I don't want to spend 
 it in that way. I want to give it all to the Lord 
 and then I shall have treasure in heaven. I 
 learned that at school." She was married, — 
 without any choice in the matter, — to a man 
 who had known Christians and was favorable to 
 them, and the little wife lived a consistent Chris- 
 tian life and died trusting in Christ as her Saviour. 
 Only a few months at school for a few hours of 
 each day, but they made all the difference for 
 time and for eternity! How many children are 
 having such an opportunity because of us and 
 our missionary society? How many are deprived 
 of the opportunity because it is "not our busi- 
 ness" to help them realize the truth of what was 
 said in days of old, — "Wisdom is the principal 
 thing, therefore get wisdom. The fear of the 
 Lord is the beginning of wisdom." 
 
 QUOTATIONS 
 EDUCATIONAL WORK IN SIAM 
 
 American missionaries were the pioneers in true edu- 
 cational work in Siam. They gave to Siam its first real 
 school. They aided Siam in establishing the Government 
 Educational system, and encouraged the Department of 
 Education to establish normal training schools. They 
 introduced the printing press into Siam, made the first 
 Siamese type, and taught Siam the art of printing. 
 
 American missionaries gave Siam its first newspaper iq 
 
, The Child at School 169 
 
 tlie Siamese language, and gave tlie first Geography, 
 Astronomy, Anatomy, and Physiology, Chemistry, Arith- 
 metic, and Geometry in the Siamese language. 
 
 When the Iving of Siam made the first move for the 
 establishment of a school system over Siam, he placed an 
 American missionary at the head of the work. The 
 present Minister of Education was at one time pupil of 
 a missionary, later on he became fellow student of one 
 of the missionaries in Sanscrit, and still consults the 
 missionaries on educational questions and literary subjects. 
 
 In the past twenty-five years the Presbyterian Mission 
 at Siam has received more money from the Siamese king, 
 princes, nobles, and common people for the maintenance 
 of educational work, than it has received from the Presby- 
 terian Church in America. (Educational Work of the Bd. 
 For. Miss, of the Pres. Ch.) 
 
 PERSIAN SCHOOLS 
 
 An English boy learns to read his own language first, 
 and does not always go on to a^foreign language. A 
 Persian boy learns to read a foreign language first, and 
 does not always go on to his own language. When a 
 httle Persian boy goes to school he is given a big Arabic 
 book, with a great many long words in t, and he is not 
 taught how the words are spelt, but is told what they are, 
 and made to repeat them from memory, pointing to each 
 word in the book as he says it, and gradually he gets some 
 idea of wliich word is which. . . The Mohammedans 
 think that reading the Koran, quite apart from under- 
 standing it, is a very good action, so the httle Persian 
 boys work away at it, and they do not tliink it hard 
 lines because all men and big boys began in the same way, 
 so it seems the natural thing to do. And perhaps it is 
 a little consolation to know that when they reach certain 
 points they will be given sweets. One little boy who was 
 asked how far he had got in the Koran, said that he had 
 just got his first sweet§, 
 
170 The Child in the Midst 
 
 Having finished the Koran, our little Persian boy goes 
 on to Persian books. These, too, he studies in much the 
 same way as he did the Koran, but it is more useful, 
 because now he understands what he reads. After plod- 
 ding through the Koran it is a pleasant change for little 
 Ghulam Husain to turn to the "War between the Cats 
 and Mice" or the "Hundred Fables." Later on he reads 
 the poems of Hafiz and Sa'adi, and other great Persian 
 poets. 
 
 The Persians do not apparently think much of their 
 own system of education, for they are always laughing 
 at their schoolmasters. They have a story of a charvadar, 
 or muleteer, one of whose mules strayed one day into a 
 school. It was quickly driven out, and the muleteer 
 claimed damages to the extent of half the value of a 
 mule. The schoolmaster indignantly asked on what he 
 based his claim. The muleteer turned to the crowd which 
 had gathered to listen to the argument. "My beast," 
 said he, "went into his school a mule and it has come out 
 a donkey." You seJ^ a donkey counts half a mule in 
 caravan traveling, just as child counts half a person in 
 train traveling. 
 
 When a boy is caned in punishment he lies on his back 
 and holds out his feet instead of his hands. Sometimes 
 his feet are held in a kind of stocks while he is caned across 
 the soles. They call it "eating sticks" or "eating wood." 
 (Mrs. Napier Malcolm in "Children of Persia.") 
 
 EDUCATION, BULU TRIBE, AFRICA 
 
 There is no more extraordinary feature of the work 
 among the Bulu than the readiness with which this little 
 forest creature submits himself to the discipline of school. 
 From a heritage of liberty he comes to knock at the 
 Mission door and to set his little jiggered feet upon the 
 new way of order. He who came and went at will keeps 
 the commandments of the school drum. He who has 
 been bred to inter-tribal hatred eats out of the pot with 
 
The Child at School ITl 
 
 his hereditary enemy. lie earns his food in all honor under 
 the Mission law of labor. He permits himself to be 
 "tied" with "ten tyings" to a standard of conduct which 
 is the reverse of his racial standards. 
 
 In the rude school house, with his alphabet before him, 
 or in the open, cutlass in hand, he performs daily acts 
 of order and discipline, and these little tasks are regen- 
 erative. His little sister is beside him and subjected to 
 the same process. The presence of the Mission in a 
 Bulu community is a great blessing to a little girl. It is 
 a kind of sanctuary and a police patrol. I cannot think 
 that you would like to know from what perils it saves 
 her. . . Such little gii'ls, following in the paths after their 
 brothers, have come to own a slate, to own a primer, to 
 ply a needle, to sleep at night in peace under a Christian 
 thatch and in innocent company. ("Other Children" 
 by Jean IMackenzie, Wom. For. ]Miss. Soc. Pres.) 
 
 A GIRLS' SCHOOL IN THE KURDISH 
 MOUNTAINS 
 
 Ever since coming here I have talked to both men and 
 women, as occasion offered, about the folly of not allow- 
 ing gii-ls to learn anything. When I felt pretty sure of 
 two little girls, I announced one Sunday to the women 
 who were gathered in my room that on Thursday I should 
 begin a girls' school for any who cared to come. What 
 was my surprise and delight on Thursday to have one of 
 the Kashas (Old Church pastors) come bringing, not two 
 but four little girls who promptly walked up to me and 
 kissed my hand. The next day another, who had not 
 heard of the school the first day, came. After three days 
 one girl disappeared. On Saturday I visited her home 
 and found they w^ere keeping her to work, and this, 
 according to my idea of the circumstances, seemed very 
 unnecessary, for I keep them only two hours a day at 
 present. When I expostulated with the father, he said, 
 "Why should I take the trouble to let her go to school^ 
 
172 The Child in the Midst 
 
 when after a little time I'U marry her into some other 
 family?" Here girls are married very young, at twelve 
 years, many of them. All I could say was of no avail. 
 During all this conversation poor Rachel sat between 
 us, the tears running down her face, and saying repeatedly, 
 "Father, let me go." The father was too selfish to be 
 moved by her pleadings. (Letter from IMrs. E. W. 
 McDowell.) 
 
 BIBLE READING 
 TEACHING THE CHILDREN 
 Deut. 11:18-21 with 2d Tim. 1:5 and 3:14-17. 
 
 The natiu-al, constant teaching of God's commandments 
 in the daily life of the home by parents and grandparents 
 will prepare the children to lead prosperous, successful, 
 useful lives. What is learned in childhood "furnishes" 
 the man or woman for life. 
 
 "Therefore if to the goodness of nature be joined the 
 wisdom of the teacher in leading young wits into a right 
 and plain way of learning, surely children, kept up in 
 God's fear, and governed by His grace, may most easily 
 be brought well to serve God and couiitry both by virtue 
 and wisdom." (Roger Ascham in the year 1570.) 
 
 PRAYER 
 
 O Lord Jesus Christ, Thou Child of Bethlehem, bless, 
 we beseech Thee, the children gathered in Christian 
 schools; may they be truthful, pure, obedient, and ever 
 ready to do their duty in that state of life to which Thou 
 shalt be pleased to call them, Who Uvest and reignest with 
 the Father and Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. 
 Amen. 
 
 QIIESTIONS 
 
 1. Give five reasons for multiplying kindergartens and 
 primary schools in non-Christian lands. 
 
 2. In the missionary Forward Movement in China, 
 should the emphasis in advance educational work be 
 put on primary or on secondary education? 
 
The Child at School 173 
 
 3. Give the reasons for and against an increase in 
 Missionary educational work in Japan. What is your 
 personal opinion on the subject? 
 
 4. Should the missionary teacher aim to secure a large 
 number of scholars, or to give more time and personal 
 attention to a few? Give your reasons for your answer. 
 
 5. If you were facing a school of fifty httle children 
 who had absolutely no idea of education, cleanliness, 
 manners, morals, or Christianity, what would you try 
 to teach them during the first week? How would you 
 go about it? (This takes it for granted that you know 
 their language.) 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The School and the Child, John Dewey. 
 
 Stages in Missionary Education, T. H. P, Sailer, Wom- 
 an's Work, Sept., 1912. 
 
 Cliristian Missions and Social Progress, J. S. Dennis. 
 (Revell) vol. ii. 
 
 "On the Education of Backward Races," E. W. Coffin, 
 Pedagogical Seminary, March, 1908. 
 
 Report on Educational Work of Bd. For. Miss, of Pres. Ch. 
 
 Daylight in the Harem, Van Sommer and Zwemer, 
 (ReveU.) 
 
 Children of Persia, Mrs. Napier Malcolm, (Oliphant, 
 Anderson & Ferrier.) 
 
 Education of Girls in Persia, Moslem World, Oct., 1912. 
 
 The Education of the Women of India, M. G. Gowan, 
 (Revell.) 
 
 Modern India, Sir J. D. Rees, (George Allen and Sons.) 
 
 The Athletic Method in Kashmir, Henry Forman, Out- 
 look, Sept. 24, 1910. 
 
 Village Life in China, Arthur H. Smith, (Revell.) 
 
 The Education of Chinese Women, Margaret Burton. 
 
 Possibilities of the Kindergarten in China, L. Pearl 
 Bogg^s. Child Welfare Magazine, Feb., 1913- 
 
174 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 "The Opportunity and Need for the Mission School in 
 
 China." F. L. Hawks Pott, D.D., Intern'l Review 
 
 of Missions, Oct., 1912. 
 Report of the Kindergarten Union of Japan. 
 Fifteen Years among the Top-Knots, Mrs. Underwood, 
 
 (Am. Tract Soc.) 
 The Land of the White Helmet, Edgar Allen Forbes, 
 
 (Revell.) 
 
 LEAFLETS 
 Into a New Life 
 
 Kwuli, a South Sea Maid 
 
 The Story of Aghavnitza 
 
 The Children's Gardens 
 
 The Story of the Imadegawa 
 
 Kindergarten 
 
 The Cesarea Kindergarten 
 
 Coral Island Brownies 
 
 Woman's Board of Mis- 
 sions of the Congrega- 
 tional Church. 
 
 Ling Te's Letter 
 
 The New Persia 
 
 Our Investments in India 
 Schools in the Arcot Mission, 
 
 India 
 Hindu Girls' School in Arcot 
 
 Mission 
 Key to Hindu Homes 
 Educational Work in Japan 
 
 From Kindergarten to Col- 
 lege 
 
 A Peep into Yokohama 
 Day Schools 
 
 A School Day at Aoyama 
 
 Luchmi 
 
 Woman's Foreign Mission- 
 ary Society of the Pres- 
 byterian Church. 
 
 Board of Foreign Missions 
 of the Presbyterian 
 Chui'ch. 
 
 Woman's Board of For- 
 eign Missions of the Re- 
 formed Church in Amer- 
 
 Woman's Foreign Mis- 
 sionary Society of the 
 Methodist Episcopal 
 Church. 
 
The Child at School 175 
 
 How Orthodox Moham- Board of Foreign Missions 
 medans Educate a of the Reformed Church 
 Child in America. 
 
 Messages to Mass. from Black- 
 
 mer Home, 1912 Woman's Universalist Mis- 
 
 Story of Matsu Koyama sionary Society of Mas- 
 
 Midori Kindergarten sachusetts. 
 
 Concerning the Blackmer Woman's National Mis- 
 Home sionary Association, Uni- 
 versalist. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Child at Worship 
 "Suffer the little children to come unto Me." 
 
 Children worshiping — The child at worship 
 in Thibet — In India — In Mohammedan Lands — 
 In Africa — Religious needs greater than all 
 others — The place of the child in non-Christian 
 religions — In the Koran — In the Hindu Vedas and 
 Shastras— Confucianism and Christianity — Fail- 
 ure of non-Christian religions to influence lives 
 for righteousness — Religious acts and their results 
 to children — Temple girls of India — Heathen 
 mothers and their dead children — Only the Bible 
 gives the child a place — The motive for teaching 
 the children about Christ — The means to be used 
 — Sunday-Schools — Christian Endeavor Societies 
 — The power of God's Word — Cbj"istian hymns 
 • — Obstacles to bringing children to Christ- - 
 "After many days" — Our great privilege. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE CHILD AT WORSHIP 
 
 "Suffer the little children to come unto Me." 
 
 What wonderful pictures flash before the mind ft^pfng" ''°'" 
 as one repeats the words, "The Child at Worship" ! 
 The picture, familiar to childhood, of the boy 
 Samuel, kneeling in the temple with folded hands 
 and uplifted eyes; the picture on the nursery 
 M^all of vested choir boys or earnest-faced children 
 singing praises in the sanctuary; the bowed 
 heads of little ones in the primary room at Sun- 
 day-School, while with hushed voices they sing 
 their prayer song; the hour far back in childhood 
 when you knelt at your mother's knee; or the 
 sweet moment when your sleepy baby cuddled 
 in your arms and learned to lisp, "Now I lay 
 me." All that is sweetest, purest, holiest in 
 childhood seems to find full expression and 
 highest reality as we see the child at worship, 
 for "except ye turn and become as little children, 
 ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of 
 heaven, ... for their angels do always behold 
 the face of my Father which is in heaven." 
 
180 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 The Child at 
 Worsliip in 
 Thibet. 
 
 The Child at 
 Worship in 
 India. 
 
 The Child at Worship! Far off in distant 
 Thibet today thousands of children are prating 
 morning, noon, and night, joining their parents 
 in the constant repetition of one six-syllabled 
 sentence, "Om mani padme Hum" ("Om! the 
 Jewel in the Lotus! Hum"!) This prayer they 
 are taught from earliest childhood to use as "a 
 panacea for all evils, a compendium of all knowl- 
 edge, a treasury of all wisdom, a summary of 
 all religion." It is engraved on the outside of 
 metal cylinders, written on rolls within rolls of 
 paper inserted into the cylinders, which are held 
 in the right hand and whirled round and round 
 like a child's toy, — each revolution storing up 
 merit to the worshipper. But alack! if the 
 careless boy whirls the prayer cylinder in the 
 wrong direction, i. e., not with the sun, he is adding 
 to the debit side of his account, and the more 
 zealously he "prays," the less good will his pray- 
 ers do him.* "They think they shall be heard 
 for their much speaking." 
 
 The Child at Worship in India! "All the way 
 up the bank they are killing and skinning their 
 goats. You look to the right and put your hands 
 over your eyes. You look to the left, and do it 
 again. You look straight in front of you and 
 see an extended skinned victim hung from the 
 branch of a tree. Every hanging rootlet of the 
 great banyan-tree is hung with horrors, — all 
 dead most mercifully, but horribly still. . . . 
 
 • Told in "Buddhism." by Monier-Williama. (Macmillan.) 
 
The Child at Worship 181 
 
 "Wo SCO little children watching the process 
 delightedly. There is no intentional cruelty, 
 for the god will not accept the sacrifice unless 
 the head is severed by a single stroke. But it is 
 most disgusting and demoralizing. And to think 
 that these children are being taught to connect 
 it with religion! 
 
 "With me is one who used to enjoy it all. She 
 tells me how she twisted the fowls' heads off with 
 her own hands. I look at the fine little brown 
 hands, and I can hardly believe it. 'You, yoii, 
 do such a thing!' And she says, 'Yes; when the 
 day came round to sacrifice to our family divinity 
 my little brother held the goat's head while my 
 father struck it off, and I twisted the chickens' 
 heads. It was my pleasure.' "* 
 
 Truly, "the dark places of the earth are full 
 of the habitations of cruelty!" 
 
 The Mohammedan Child at Worship! From ^edan^chlid" 
 the minaret of the Sunni Mosque or the roof of ^^ worship. 
 the Shi'ite Mosque sounds the call to prayer. 
 Children of seven or older are supposed to join 
 their elders in obeying the summons five times 
 a day, — in the early dawn, at noon, two hours 
 before sunset, at sunset, and two hours later. 
 The religious law, however, provides that no 
 child shall be beaten for neglecting his prayer 
 until he is ten years of age. 
 
 Praying, however, is not as easy a task for the 
 Mohammedan lad as for his Thibetan cousin- 
 
 ♦"Things as They Are,'' Amy Wilson Carmichasl. (Kevell.) 
 
182 The Child in the Midst 
 
 He must first wash his face, hands, and arms, 
 feet, and logs, learning which side of the face, 
 which hand and foot to wash first, whether the 
 arms should be stroked from the wrist to the 
 elbow ( r in the opposite direction. His prayer 
 will not count before the great "Allah" if the 
 ablutions are not correct. Then he must learn 
 the words of the prayers, and these are in Aral^ic, 
 which three-fourths of the Mohammedan children 
 of the world cannot understand. Turning toward 
 Mecca, he must stand, kneel, and bow himself 
 with his forehead to the ground, at just the 
 proper intervals during the prayer. At the age 
 of twelve he begins to observe the month of 
 Ramazan, and his nine-year-old sister must do 
 the same, when from sunrise to sunset no morsel 
 of food or drop of drink may cross their lips. 
 "Is such the fast that I have chosen? wilt thou 
 call this a fast and an acceptable day unto 
 Jehovah?" With deep insight into the truth 
 has Mrs. Malcolm said: — 
 
 "Here again we see Mohammed giving his 
 people what we may call 'nursery rules,' treating 
 them as children, while our Master expects 
 us to grow up so that we can arrange these matters 
 for ourselves. The very fact that the detailed 
 rules of Mohammedanism are binding through 
 life shows that the Mohammedan is not expected 
 to grow up as we understand growing up."* 
 
 * "Children of Persia," Mrs. Napier Malcolm. (Oliphaot, Ander- 
 son, & Ferrier.) 
 
The Child at Worship 183 
 
 Once more the Child at Worship, this time in chfi/a't°Wor- 
 the African jungle! ''Ancestor-worship is the ^"^'p- 
 highest form of African Fetishism, — The usual 
 fetish is the skull of the father, which the son 
 keeps in a box. The father occasionally speaks 
 to the son in dreams, and frequently communi- 
 cates with him by omens. He helps him in all 
 his enterprises, good and evil, and secures his 
 success in love, in hunting, and in war. All 
 those who have skulls are a secret society, which 
 is powerful to rule and to tyrannize over others. 
 Young boys are initiated into this society by 
 rites and ceremonies that are revolting. ... In 
 the mild ceremony of the more civilized Fang 
 towns, the boy who is to be initiated is made 
 very drunk and taken blindfolded to the bush, 
 to a place set apart for the use of the society. 
 The ceremony continues several days. In one 
 part of it the bandage is removed from his eyes 
 at midnight, a low fire is burning, which gives a 
 feeble light, and he finds himself surrounded by 
 members of the society with faces and bodies 
 frightfully distorted, and all the skulls of their 
 ancestors exposed to view, together with the 
 heads of persons who have recently died. Some 
 one asks him what he sees. He replies that he 
 sees only spirits, and solemnly declares that these 
 are not men. . . 
 
 "Further up the river, a boy during initiation 
 is usually placed for several days in a house alone, 
 after being made to look so long at the sun that 
 
184 The Child in the Midst 
 
 sometimes he faints, nnd when he is taken into 
 the house he cannot at first see anything. Mean- 
 time the door is closed, and they all go away. 
 Gradually he sees things around him, and at 
 length discovers opposite him a corpse, in an 
 early state of decomposition. He is kept there 
 day and night during the ceremony. The men 
 visit him and subject him to all sorts of indigni- 
 ties, in order to impress him with the necessity 
 of absolute obedience to the society. . . . They 
 believe that the skull of the father or other 
 ancestor, when it has been properly prepared, 
 becomes the residence of the ancestor. The son 
 . . . will keep the skull comfortably warm and 
 dry, occasionally rubbing it with oil and red- 
 wood powder, and will feed it bountifully." * 
 Religious needs Q^j, hearts are touched by the child in its help- 
 
 greater than -^ ^ 
 
 non°-christran Icssncss, by the suffering and sorrow of neglected 
 lands. little ones, by the agonies of child wives and 
 
 widows, and the yearning cry for teachers and 
 books, but how can we endure it when all that is 
 sweetest and holiest and best in the beautiful 
 child heart is defiled and polluted in the name of 
 religion; when senseless repetition in an unknown 
 tongue takes the place of the trustful words, "Our 
 Father"; when sticks and stones, ancestral 
 tablets, spirits and devils are worshipped by 
 those to whom the Christ cries out in yearning 
 love, "Suffer the little children to come unto 
 
 * "The Jungle Folk of Africa," R. H. Milligan. (Revell.) 
 
The Child at Worship 185 
 
 me"? If our hearts are touched, not to the 
 breaking point, but to the acting point, then 
 these horrors must cease, and the children will 
 be taught to worship aright, and Christ "shall 
 see of the travail of His soul and shall be satisfied." 
 
 "The people in the country from which you 
 have come have a religion of their own, is it not 
 good enough for them? Why should you insult 
 them by trying to foist your religion upon them?" 
 These and many similar questions meet the ^^"c^lid^in^ 
 missionary on furlough, and cause her more woe relTgSn^^*'*" 
 than does many a hard experience on the mission 
 field. The best answer to such questions is to 
 induce the questioners to study carefully what 
 the non-Christian religions have to say regarding 
 children, and the direct result of their systems 
 on child life. 
 
 A careful search in the Koran, the sacred book ^" *^® Koran, 
 of the Mohammedans, is rewarded by finding 
 several passages strictly enjoining kindness and 
 justice to orphans, and a set of minute regulations 
 regarding inheritance in which children, parents, 
 husbands, and wives shall share, prefaced by 
 these words; "God hath thus commanded you 
 concerning j'our children," and followed up later 
 by the remark; "Ye know not whether your 
 parents or your children be of greater use unto 
 you." (Sura IV.) 
 
 "Children," says Rev. S. M. Zwemer, "are 
 scarcely mentioned in the Koran; of such is not 
 the Kingdom of Islam." 
 
186 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 In Hindu 
 Vedas. 
 
 In Hindu 
 Shastras. 
 
 "The Hindu Vedas enjoin that by a girl, or by 
 a young woman, or by a woman advanced in 
 years, nothing must be done, even in her own 
 dwelling place, according to her mere pleasure; 
 in childhood a female must be dependent on 
 (or subject to) her father; in youth, on her hus- 
 band; her lord being dead, on her sons; a woman 
 must never seek independence." (Manu V. 158.) 
 
 "The Hindu Shastras have made no provisions 
 of affection and regard for a daughter. She is 
 viewed by them, as far as her parents are con- 
 cerned, merely as an object to be 'given away,' 
 and that as soon as possible. She is declared by 
 them to be marriageable, even in her infancy, to 
 a person of any age ; and of course without her o"v\ti 
 choice or intelligent consent. . . According to 
 the letter of the law, the parents are not to sell 
 their daughters, but they may receive valuable 
 gifts, the equivalent of a price, on her behalf." 
 (Manu ni, 51.)* 
 
 The code of Manu further teaches that by 
 honoring his mother a son gains the terrestrial 
 world, by honoring his father, the ethereal, — 
 intermediate, — and by assiduous attention to his 
 preceptor, even the celestial world of Brahma.** 
 
 How different are the words of the Apostle 
 Paul regarding the relation between parents and 
 children. "Fathers, provoke not your children 
 
 * "The Wrongs of Indian Womanhood," Mrs. Marcus E. Fuller. 
 (ReveU.) 
 
 ** Quoted by E. Storrow in "Our Sisters in India." (Ilevell.) 
 
The Child at Worship 187 
 
 that they be not discouraged. Children, obey 
 your parents in the Lord. Honor thy father 
 and thy mother, which is the first commandment 
 with promise." 
 
 The Right Reverend Logan H. Roots, Bishop J„°d chrl^tfa™- 
 of Hankow, has iUustrated so forcibly the dif- '*^- 
 ference in the practical working out of the pre- 
 cepts of Confucianism and Christianity, that it 
 is well worth while to quote him at length. 
 
 In conversation with a group of Chinese gentlemen 
 some time ago, I made the remark that outside the Jewish 
 and Christian religions there was no serious recognition of 
 the inherent dignity of cliildren, and that no sage had 
 ever made a statement comparable to that of our Lord. — 
 "Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid 
 them not, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." Such 
 a remark as this on my part would have ehcited scarcely 
 any interest a few years ago. The warm discussion it 
 aroused this time was a sign of the new life that is now 
 stirring among the Chinese. The keenest of these gentle- 
 men were in sympathy with Christianity, but they were 
 all inclined to look upon Confucianism as a real prepara- 
 tion for Christianity, and one after another brought forth 
 sayings of the Confucian sages which they thought could 
 be reasonably compared to that of Christ. 
 
 They quoted the praises of King Wen in the "Great 
 Learning," where it is said, "As a father he rested in 
 kindness": the sayings of Confucius himself in the 
 "Analects" as to his own wish: "In regard to the young, 
 treat them tenderly"; the advice to a ruler in "The Great 
 Learning"; "Act as though you were watching over an 
 infant"; and the fine saying of Mencius: "The great man 
 is he who does not lose his child .'s heart." . . . 
 
 The eagerness of these gentlemen in discussing the 
 question with me, to find a place for their worthies in 
 
188 The Child in the Midst 
 
 the ample folds of Christian teaching is far from vmvvhole- 
 6ome or blameworthy, especially when there is such readi- 
 ness as they showed to appeal to Christian teaching rather 
 than to the sages as their standard, and to prove the 
 greatness of their sages by their agreement with the 
 Christ. . . 
 
 My purpose, however, is not to give an exposition of 
 these classical gems, but rather to contrast them briefly 
 with certain popular Chinese conceptions of childhood 
 which are foolish or cruel, but which these lofty sayings 
 of the sages have been powerless to correct. 
 
 Should a child fall ill, his relatives or friends very likely 
 remark, "His spirit has gone seeking another incarnation." 
 Or some one suggests, "Some ghost has frightened the 
 child to the point of losing its soul." . . . Should the child 
 die, the parents will grieve as surely and as sorely as 
 parents anywhere; but . . . they will be told; "Nevermind, 
 the child was misguided to your home, and was not in- 
 tended for you." Or, "It was only a creditor collecting a 
 debt you owed in a former existence." Or, "Don't 
 grieve, it was but one of those demon spirits that always 
 die young." . . . ' 
 
 I put these popular sayings beside the exalted senti- 
 ments of the Chinese Classics, not to disparage the sages, 
 but to show how utterly dark the popular mind is, in 
 spite of these sayings which seem so full of light. Is not the 
 difficulty that the sages after all could not go to the root 
 of the' matter? They knew nothing of God as Father.* 
 
 Failure to What 13 hero illustrated of the failure of Con- 
 
 influence lives 1 • I 
 
 forrighteous- fucianism to influence lives toward righteousness 
 
 and faith is true of the other non-Christian 
 
 religions. Even the young Mohammedan girl 
 
 realized the power and claim of Christianity as 
 
 she was a chance listener to the Gospel story 
 
 * spirit of Missions, Feb., 1912. 
 
 uess. 
 
The Child at 'Worship 189 
 
 while a missionary toured in central Persia. "Why, 
 lady," she exclaimed, "if one understands clearly 
 that Book, there is nothing left but to obey!" 
 
 The direct results of the way children are- 
 taught to worship in non-Christian lands deserve 
 careful, unprejudiced study, with the question 
 constantly in mind, "Is this religion good enough 
 for viy children, or for those in whom I am 
 interested?" If the study results in a negative 
 answer to the question, it is fair to ask further, 
 "Is it good enough for any children in the whole 
 wide world?" 
 
 What should ])e the results, physical, mental, ^'iid'of reul- 
 moral, and spiritual, cf a child's rehgious acts? °"3act3. 
 Which of all the world religions produces these 
 results? Study Mohammedanism, for instance, 
 of which we have already noted some of the 
 religious acts expected of the child. These 
 must necessarily inculcate formalism, thoughtless 
 repetition, deep-rooted superstition, and the idea 
 that God can be appeased and sin can be for- 
 given through certain acts unconnected with life 
 and character. 
 
 "When I die," said a poor, blind Mohammedan 
 girl, "I shall be visited by two angels, the chief 
 of whom will make an examination of my deeds, 
 and remind me of everything I have done, and 
 left undone; he will then cut off a piece of my 
 shroud and record upon it my good and bad 
 deeds, and attach it firmly to my neck with a piece 
 of rope. If my good deeds outweigh my bad ones, 
 
190 The Child in the Midst 
 
 I shall go straight into heaven. If my bad deeds 
 outweigh my good deeds, my intercessor Mo- 
 hammed will easily get permission for me to enter 
 heaven, so it does not much matter how I live."* 
 Mohammedan The auHual month of mourning of the Shi'ite 
 mourning. Mohammcdaus is observed by children as well 
 
 as by adults, and little ones with their heads 
 covered with straw or ashes, or wearing chains, 
 are borne on horseback in the processions that 
 close the series of passion plays. A missionary 
 in Persia saw a mother carrymg her boy of five 
 or six years in the bloody procession, cutting 
 his head with a curved sword, while blood 
 streamed from five or six gashes. Poor, eager, 
 zealous mother, trying to store up merit for her 
 baby boy against the day of wrath! 
 Fear and horror Fear, dread, and horror are inseparably asso- 
 ciated in the minds of thousands of children with 
 the worship of their gods. From earliest child- 
 hood others grow so naturally into the forms of 
 ancestor, idol, and spirit worship that this be- 
 comes one of the most difficult factors in leading 
 them into Christianity. From the Missio7i 
 Day Spring we quote a few words about "how 
 Chinese children worship." 
 
 We must go up a flight of wide stone steps at the en- 
 trance of the temple, and as we enter we shall see two tall 
 images with very ugly faces and brilliantly painted coats, 
 which are called "Guardians of the Gate." The mothers 
 bring their little children forward, and teach them to clasp 
 
 * "Children of Egypt," Miss Crowthcr, (Oliphant, Anderson & 
 Ferrier.) 
 
The Child at Worship 191 
 
 their hands and bow down, knockmg their heads to the 
 ground as they worship the image. If it is the first time, 
 the children are afraid and often say, "Oh, I can't do 
 it, I never can do it!" Then they have to watch closely 
 while their mothers once more show them how to worship. 
 Afterwards they are sometimes rewarded with httle 
 presents, which they are told have been given them by 
 the idol. If they are still too afraid to worship, stories 
 of the terrible things that happen to people who do not 
 ask the protection of the idols are repeated to them. 
 
 Up on the mountain slopes of the Hakone 
 District in Japan, is the great children's god, 
 Jizo, carved centuries ago out of the solid rock. 
 The heathen mother has been taught that, when 
 the souls of her little children pass over the sullen 
 stream of death, they must be saved from the 
 clutches of a cruel hag residing on the banks. 
 She steals their clothes and forces them to the 
 endless task of .piling stones at the river side. 
 In order to induce Jizo to save them from the 
 hag, the weary heathen mother climbs the steep 
 paths leading to the children's god, and there 
 makes her supplication. And the little one tied 
 to her back or led by the hand, with highly strung 
 nerves and weary limbs, shrinks in terror at the 
 sight of the ugly idol, and at the stories of dire 
 vengeance which will befall her unless she wor- 
 ships properly. 
 
 Many children die from the effects of fright and Death from 
 exposure connected with religious rites, as in the exposure, 
 case of some of the African boys whose initiation 
 into ancestor worship was described above. 
 
192 
 
 The Child In the Midst 
 
 Soul -stains. 
 
 Temple girls. 
 
 Worse then all the results yet mentioned 
 are the deep soul-stains, the utter ruin of all 
 moral and spiritual character, which fall to the 
 lot of countless thousands of innocent children 
 through the direct influence of their religion. One 
 longs to turn away from scenes like these, but we 
 mothers, sisters, and daughters of Christian homes 
 cannot be honest with ourselves and with our 
 God, unless we are willing to know things as they 
 really arc, in order to help to make them as they 
 really ought to be. Such conditions exist to a 
 larger or smaller degree in many lands, but to 
 be really understood in their baldest, most re- 
 volting form, it is only necessary to visit India. 
 Bishop Caldwell saj^s that "the stories related 
 of the life of the god Krishna do more than any- 
 thing to destroy the morals and corrupt the imagi- 
 nations of Hindu youth." The temple girls, 
 nautch girls, and muralis are living witnesses to 
 India's need of a pure and holy religion. 
 
 The nautch-£,irl often begins her career of training 
 under teachers as early as five years of age. She is taught 
 to read, dance, and sing, and instructed in everj'^ seductive 
 art. Her songs are usually amorous; and while she is 
 yet a mere girl, before she can realize fully the moral 
 bearings of her choice of life, she makes her debut as a 
 nautch-girl in the community. 
 
 Khandoba is tlie deity cf the IMarathi country and is 
 popularly believed to be an avator, or incarnation of 
 Shiva. Muralis are girls devoted to him by their parents 
 in infancy or early childhood. Outside the main entrance 
 of the temple court, a stone column stands on the wall 
 on the left side. It is about three feet high, and on the 
 
The Child at Worship 193 
 
 head of it is cut a filthy design. The column is called by 
 the name of Yeshwantrao. . . He it is who gives children 
 to barren women. . . It is to this image the poor deluded 
 women promise to sacrifice their fu-st-born daughters if 
 Khandoba will make them mothers of many children. 
 Then after the vow, the first-born girl is offered to Khan- 
 doba and set apart for him by tying a necklace of seven 
 co\^Ties around the little girl's neck. When she becomes 
 of marriageable age she is formally married to the Ivhanda 
 or daggar of Khandoba, and becomes his nominal wife. 
 Henceforth she is forbidden to become the wedded wife 
 of man, and the result is that she usually leads an infamous 
 life, earning a livelihood by sin.* 
 
 The stories told by Amy Wilson Carmichael 
 and many others corroborate and emphasize 
 the facts stated by Mrs. Fuller, and tell of what 
 the British Government and Christian missions 
 are trying to do to counteract and stop the 
 monstrous evil. From the Missionary Review 
 of the World for February, 1913, we quote: — 
 
 "A bill lately introduced into the viceroy's Legislation to 
 
 •^ "^ abolish young 
 
 legislative council by Mr. Dadabhai, the Parsee temple giria. 
 member of that body, touches upon some of 
 oldest and darkest social evils of India. It 
 proposes to make it criminal for a parent or other 
 lawful guardian to dedicate a girl under sixteen 
 years of age to 'the service of a deity/ which 
 always means dedicating her to a life of infamy, 
 and to make the crime punishable with ten 
 years penal servitude. It prohibits under very 
 severe penalties, the practice which obtains 
 whereby priests enter into temporary alliance 
 
 * "The Wrongs of Indian Womanhood," Mrs. Marcus B. Fuller. 
 (ReveU.) 
 
194 The Child in the Midst 
 
 with young girls thus dedicated, in order to 
 initiate them into the life of professional prof- 
 ligacy." To this we may add from an authori- 
 tative source that in 1913 the native state of 
 Mysore had already abohshed dancing girls 
 from all its temples. 
 
 While the British Government is trying to 
 prevent any of India's daughters from being 
 hereafter ruined, body and soul, in the name of 
 religion, what is being done for the thousands 
 who through no fault of their own have already 
 become "the servants of the gods"? Is it possi- 
 ble to do anything to redeem the lives of these 
 children whose earliest memories cluster about 
 the most hideous forms of evil? 
 Rescuing the Another picture. A group of women lounging within 
 
 gods. the temple enclosure in the cool shade of the fragrant 
 
 cork trees. A beautiful little girl of five years is running 
 up and down the great stone steps of the tank, laughing 
 and playing. Now and then one of the women calls tlie 
 child to her and tries the effect of some article of jewlery 
 against the bright little face. Little Moothi, the Pearl 
 of the Temple, as she is called, is full of life and happiness. 
 Too young to understand the sin and wrong about her, 
 she loves the bright jewels and silken garments, the 
 excitement of the dancing and singing. The daily exer- 
 cise on the whirling wheel is only fun for her. She never 
 grows dizzy and falls off as do her stupid companions, to 
 be beaten by cross old Ramana, their teacher. "She will 
 bring plenty of money by and by," said one of the women 
 to Moothi's mother. "You had better let her go to the 
 Christian school in the village. She will be taught to 
 read and sing without any expense to you, and there is 
 no danger of her remembering what she hears of that 
 
The Child at Worship 195 
 
 foolish religion." But the mother's face did not light up 
 in response. Sitting in her little hut she has listened to 
 the Gospel as it was told to a group of outcast women who 
 had gathered weekly in the village palim on the other side 
 of the wall. The wonderful story had penetrated her 
 dark heart. But it is too late for her. She is too old 
 to change, but oh, that her little Moothi, her beautiful 
 one, might be spared the life of sin and shame to which 
 she is doomed as a dancing girl devoted to the service of 
 the temple. What can she do? Through the long nights 
 she thought and thought, until finally she came to the 
 decision to part with the little one though her heart 
 break. One night she took the child with a little bundle 
 of clothing and stole away. After weary miles of travel 
 she appeared at the home of a missionary and begged her 
 to take the little girl. "I give her to you," she said, 
 "to be taught your religion, and to be your child, but she 
 must never know who her mother was." She laid down 
 twenty rupees which she had saved toward her support, 
 and disappeared, leaving no clue to her name and village. 
 There was consternation among the women of the 
 temple when it was discovered that Moothi was gone, 
 but the mother gave no sign, and it was finally concluded 
 that some one had stolen her because of her beauty, and 
 such things are too common in a heathen land to cause a 
 disturbance. As Moothi grew and developed into a 
 beautiful Christian woman and earnest worker, the 
 missionary often wondered whence came the God-given 
 trust so strangely sent. Now and then, but less fre- 
 quently as the years pass on, a woman, growing increas- 
 ingly old and bent, was seen near the school, whom they 
 associated with Moothi, but no one knew until upon her 
 deathbed she sent for the missionary and told her story. 
 Only a heathen mother, degraded and heart-broken, 
 parted from her only joy in life, watching hungrily in the 
 distance for a sight of the loved face. Can we not believe 
 that the Christ of love was revealed to her heart also? * 
 * "The Sorrows of Heathen Motherhood," Helen D. Newcomb. 
 
dead childrea. 
 
 196 The Child in the Midst 
 
 What Christian mother will make it possible 
 that some other heart-broken heathen mother may- 
 hear the Gospel message, and may find a place 
 of refuge for her sweet, innocent child? 
 I^rand°th"cif ''" While our hearts go out in tenderness to the 
 heathen mother deprived of her living child, 
 what can we do or say to comfort the mother 
 whose little one is cold in death? Our statistics of 
 infant mortality in Chapter I give some slight 
 idea of the vast multitudes of mourning mothers 
 for whom there is no hope, no knowledge that, — 
 "around the throne of God in heaven, thousands 
 of children stand;" no vision of Him who 
 "shall gather the lambs with His arm and carry 
 them in His bosom." NoAvhere but among 
 Christians do hope and faith and self-control and 
 comfort abide in the house where death has 
 come, and none but the Christian cemetery is a 
 place of order and beauty and peace. Among 
 the Thonga Tribe of South Africa, the mother 
 who loses a baby is considered deeply contami- 
 nated with the defilement of death. She must 
 bury the child alone, not even her husband 
 helping her. Mrs. George Heber Jones said 
 recently that in all her many years of life in 
 Korea she had never seen any funeral service 
 for a child of non-Christians. The baby is 
 buried anj^where at the back of the house as a 
 dog would be, or put up in the branches of a 
 tree for the vultures to find. Do the mothers 
 have hearts and feelings? Listen to the ex- 
 
The Child at Worship 197 
 
 perience of Mrs. U. S. G. Jones of India, and 
 ansAvcr the question for yourselves. 
 
 ''I went into a Brahmin home where several 
 widows were gathered. One old woman with 
 eyes that were dimmed from much weeping said, 
 peering into my face, 'Yes, it is the same, I was 
 sure of it. You came here some ten or twelve 
 years ago, and told us how when your beloved 
 were taken from you, you did riot mourn and wail 
 as we did. When my daughter died, I tried to 
 recall what you had said about another life 
 and hope beyond the grave, but I could not 
 remember. Tell it all again now.' So I told 
 her again of our glorious hope and of the resmTec- 
 tion. How earnestly they all listened! Poor, 
 poor things!"* 
 
 'The Child for Christ" must be the watchword g^'^ tfe^ihlfd 
 of our ''organized motherhood for the children of * p^**'®* 
 the world." The Bible is the only sacred book 
 that gives the child a place of importance. Christ 
 was the only founder of a religion who raised 
 childhood into a tj'pe of those who were fit to 
 enter His Kingdom. As E. G. Romanes says, 
 "Tenderness toward child life, appreciation of 
 the simplicity and the helplessness of children, 
 affection of parents for tlioir children, and children 
 for their parents; — all these are features of the 
 Bible which the most superficial reader cannot 
 fail .to observe."** 
 
 * Woman's Work, July, 1912. 
 ** Hastings Bible Dictionaiy. 
 
198 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 The motive for 
 teiiching the 
 cliilflren of 
 Christ. 
 
 The means to 
 be used. 
 
 In liis "Challenge to Christian Missions," 
 R. E. Welsh utters these significant words, — 
 
 ''Why is it a matter of urgent duty and con- 
 cern on a parent's part to teach his child the 
 story of Christ and train him in Christian truth 
 and life? . . What is the parent's motive? . . . 
 Simply the sharp sense of the value of Christ 
 to every human being, young or old — the per- 
 ception of the child's need and peril if he does 
 not get the saving power of Christ upon him; 
 the sense of the native worth and value of being 
 a Christian in soul and character; the desire to 
 lift him out of 'the natural man' to 'the measure 
 of the stature of the fulness of Christ.' If that 
 motive be not strong enough to inspire us with 
 zeal for taking the blessing of Christ to the 
 heathen, then Christ has still much work to do 
 upon us to make us Christian in mind and 
 spiritual sympathy." 
 
 If it is our duty and privilege to win the 
 children of the world to Christ, how is it to be 
 done? What special means are our missionaries 
 using to bring about this result? All missionary 
 work for children, in the homes, in day school 
 and boarding school, in church and Sunday- 
 School, in hospital and orphanage, must have the 
 great two-fold aim ever in view, — to win the child 
 to Christ, to train the child for Christ. It re- 
 mains for us to study briefly several agencies .not 
 yet touched upon, that have been greatly blessed 
 in their effect upon children of many lands. 
 
The Child at Worship 109 
 
 First in the list of these child-winning agencies IchooYstatu- 
 stands the Sunday-School. From a series of *'•=''• 
 statistics appearing in the January, 1913, number 
 of the Missionary Review of the World, we 
 take the following figures, concerning Sunday- 
 Schools conducted by the Protestant Missionary 
 Societies of the world. 
 
 Miss. Soc's U. S. Of other 
 & Canada Countries 
 
 No. Heathen Children bap- 
 tized 1912 27,997 68,567 
 
 No. Sunday-Schools 19,230 11,375 
 
 No. Pupils in same 908,007 580,012 
 
 Would that every Christian woman who 
 glances at these figures could dimly realize what 
 they stand for, — the efforts, the time and energy 
 and love expended, the disappointments and 
 trials, the encouragements and victories. One 
 must never be discouraged, one must never lose 
 faith and hope, one may never stop sowing seeds 
 in little hearts, even though the work seems as 
 small and insignificant as it did in the Japanese 
 Sunday-School at Kawazoe. 
 
 Every Sunday at twelve o'clock the children begin to Japanese 
 clatter up on their wooden shoes to a Sunday-School IchooL" 
 which does not begin till two o'clock. . . When it begins 
 they sing hymns vigorously if not tunefully, and listen 
 as patiently as any children of the same age. The nurse 
 girls, aged ten or eleven, come with babies on their backs, 
 and, if the babies remonstrate too vigorously, they are 
 trotted out in the sunshine for a breathing space. An 
 average of forty children come every Sunday to hear the 
 
200 The Child in the Midst 
 
 Christian stories, and often, passinj^ on the street, one 
 hears the familiar tune and unfamiUar words of "Jesus 
 loves me." One, two, or more Sunday- Schools seem like 
 but a drop in the bucket in a toNXTi of twenty thousand 
 people, but we can only hope that through hynm, or 
 story, or picture, or card, the good news of the love of 
 God may be spread more widely.* 
 
 But many " drops" fill a bucket, and some day- 
 Japan is going to feel the mighty power of the 
 children who have been taught in mission Sunday- 
 Schools. Here is a prophetic instance : — • 
 A Sunday- The teachings which produce the sweetest and most 
 
 Japan. beautiful things in the lives of children, and will make 
 
 them the truest and best ".soldiers and servants," are those 
 given in the Sunday- Schools which are multiplying in 
 Japan. Therefore there is no work better worth doing 
 than that in the Sunday-Schools, and no service more 
 valuable than that of the missionaries who teach the 
 children of Japan. . . On the Campus of the Reformed 
 Church College, Sendai, there was held last summer a 
 union gathering of the Sunday-Schools of the city. Some 
 of them were Satm-day Sunday-Schools, as there were not 
 hours enough on Sunday for the Christian teachers to 
 instruct all those who are eager to learn, and it is not 
 unprecedented for two or three Sunday-Schools to be 
 taught by the same persons. WTien the pupils in the 
 Christian schools of Sendai came together they were 
 one thousand seven hundred strong. An eye-witness 
 says : — 
 
 "I wish you could have seen them! Our own four Sun- 
 day-Schools furnished one himdred and fifty of the number. 
 It did my heart good! Do missions pay? Oh, njy, no! 
 One of our students in the training school is the direct 
 result of the Sendai Sunday-School, and another from 
 
 * Spiril of Missions, March, 1906. 
 
The Child at Worship 201 
 
 that Sunday-School enters next year. And to hear those 
 one thousand seven hun(h-cd children sing! And back 
 of that great gathering was the story of long and patient 
 labor, days of constant effort, and nights of discourage- 
 ment." * 
 
 With such a view of the value of the Sunday- schooi'^^fth 
 School to Japan, it is interesting to note that in ^^^^li^^^ 
 May, 1913, there were one thousand seven 
 hundred Protestant Sunday-Schools in Japan, 
 with an enrollment of about 100,000 pupils. If 
 the question is asked, Do the Sunday-Schools 
 have any effect on the lives of the children? 
 it is a pleasure to answer with a brief extract 
 from the personal letter of a new missionary 
 to Japan. — • 
 
 "This afternoon a lady called whose mother 
 belongs to the nobility and has older ideals, but 
 her father is American. She is a most earnest 
 Christian and has done a great deal. She has 
 access to the nobility's children and is forming 
 a Sunday-School, but she has many discourage- 
 ments. At one village they had started a school 
 of two himdred, and the children were showing its 
 influence, but the schoolmaster feared just this 
 and so managed to frighten the parents that all 
 were withdrawn. This village was built in 
 terraces Math a long flight of stairs, down which 
 many bhnd people went. The boys used to hang 
 cords across so as to trip them. But now they 
 have begun to take these poor people by the 
 
 * spirit of Missions, February, 1911. 
 
202 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 A Sunday- 
 School Parade 
 in Peking. 
 
 A Sunday- 
 School Union 
 in India. 
 
 hand, and lead them dov^Ti." A Sunday-School 
 that can teach such practical Christianity to 
 mischievous boys must be a power in the com- 
 munity. 
 
 In October, 1911, the city of Peking, China, 
 witnessed a Sunday-School parade in which two 
 thousand children took part. With banners 
 flying, and led by the Methodists with six hundred 
 children and a band, the parade passed through 
 the most important streets of the city to a 
 large church where a children's mass meeting 
 was held. 
 
 A noteworthy "forward movement" was under- 
 taken by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 
 1913, when the Rev. Wallace H. Miner, son of 
 a missionary, sailed for China, to become a 
 Sunday-School worker and organizer in that new 
 republic. His work will be to assist the mis- 
 sionaries in promoting the work of the Sunday- 
 Schools, to instruct native preachers in methods 
 of Sunday-School organization and adminis- 
 tration, and to train local teachers and native 
 field workers, introducing modern methods into 
 Chinese Sunday-Schools as far as they are 
 adapted to Chinese conditions. 
 
 Would that India had more men like the 
 rich coffee planter who gives his services to 
 Christian work, and who travels from end to 
 end of India organizing Sunday-Schools. The 
 statistics of the Sunday-School Union of Incha 
 are deeply significant, as is also the fact that 
 
The Child at Worship 203 
 
 there is such a Union. "The Sunday-School 
 Union of India has a membership of 458,945, 
 being an increase of 37,866 on the previous 
 year. The Union stands for the very best in 
 Bible instruction, equipment, and management. 
 It publishes 10,000,000 Enghsh and vernacular 
 pages of Scripture illustrated expositions, nearly 
 all of which are based on the international 
 syllabus. To meet the needs of Sunday-Schools 
 in fifty languages, there are about fifty editions 
 of 'helps' in twenty languages. A prominent 
 feature of the Union is that it stands for sal- 
 vation through Jesus Christ, and membership 
 in the church to which it belongs."* 
 
 It would be fascinating to visit the Sunday- g^^^ly^^^ 
 Schools in various lands, and to hear the same School. 
 dear children's hymns sung in many languages 
 by black children and white, red, and brown. 
 We have time for only a peep at an Egyptian 
 Sunday-School, but even this glimpse shows 
 how naturally and inevitably the love and power 
 of Jesus Christ can change the heart and life of 
 a little child. 
 
 At 2 P. M. the beating of the bell has the desired effect, 
 and presently there rises up from the edge of the river a 
 crowd of some of the dirtiest and yet some of the prettiest 
 Uttle boys and ghls you ever saw. Nearly every little 
 girl carries perched on her shoulder a baby brother or 
 sister. They rush without ceremony into the compound, 
 but there they are intercepted, and made to walk quietly 
 and orderly into the classes provided for them. 
 
 * Missionary Review of the World, January, 1911. 
 
204 The Child in the Midst 
 
 A kind Syrian nurse from the Hospital takes her place 
 in a class of some thirty or forty girls, and, if only you could 
 peep behind the scenes, you would hear such sad stories 
 connected with the Uves of several of her giils. Some 
 have been married and cast aside by their husbands for 
 some trivial fault, and then how glad they are once more 
 to find their way back to school, where they know they 
 are loved and cared for. 
 
 A blind girl sits among a class of the very naughtiest 
 but sweetest little folk, who try her patience to the utmost. 
 A kind missionary takes another class, and I am sure 
 that, although she is accustomed to teaching all through 
 the week, she has never taught such pieces of humanity 
 as those before her. Still another class of mischievous 
 little boys is taught by one of the day-school boys, who 
 Bometimes has to appeal to the superintendent to restore 
 order. . . . Now the bell has to be beaten, gently too, 
 and, after much noise, all shaggy heads are bent in prayer, 
 then sentence by sentence, the Lord's Prayer is said, and 
 a very elongated "Amen" comes in at the end. Now 
 three rooms are occupied instead of one, for if all the 
 classes were kei^t in one room the noise would be deafening. 
 What are all those dirty httle bags hung around the 
 children's necks? Ah! those bags contain the most 
 precious thing the children have, viz., an old Christmas 
 card which serves as a register. If by some unfortunate 
 chance that ticket gets lost, genuine tears form a stream- 
 let down the troubled little face of the owner, for he or 
 she knows it is just a mere chance if the superintendent 
 will relent so far as to provide another, and j^et without 
 it admittance to the yearly Christmas tree is a thing 
 impossible. 
 
 These registers are marked and a tiny box handed 
 around to receive many little widows' mites, for although 
 the children are of the poorest, we try to teach them that 
 it is more blessed to give than to receive. And now we 
 are all in the room again, and a time is spent in catechising 
 
The Child at Worship 205 
 
 the whole school so as to make sure they have been listen- 
 ing to theii' lesson. The story had boon told of the ten 
 lepers, and the ingratitude of the nine, who wont away 
 without saying "thank you." Z., a very regular member, 
 looked up with glowing eyes, and said, "I would very 
 much like to say thank you to Jesus for all He has done 
 for me, but I am afraid He would not care to bend His 
 hand from heaven to let a little girl like me kiss it." . . . 
 Another httle girl is all eagerness to speak. Her name 
 means "Cast Out," and when her turn comes she says, 
 "I love pickles, oh! so much, and when my mother 
 said, 'Go to the market and bring back pickles in vinegar,' 
 I used to dip my fingers into the vinegar all the way 
 home, — they would creep into the basin in spite of my- 
 self, — ^but now since my teacher has told me it is Hke 
 stealing, I try not even to look at the basin, but run all 
 the way home with it to my mother." * 
 
 It would take pages to tell what Junior Chris- christian 
 tian Endeavor Societies, Epworth Leagues, and fodeUes.'" 
 similar organizations are doing for the children 
 of Asia and Africa, and how through them the 
 children of Christian households are being 
 trained to live and work for Christ,^ — a training 
 which most of their parents lacked in childhood. 
 A missionary from Japan tells how a little fellow 
 praj^ed at the Christian Endeavor meeting, "Oh 
 God, I just want to thank you for the good 
 time we had last Saturday, I can taste it yet; 
 help us not to forget what we promised then." 
 
 A Junior Endeavor Society in the Madura 
 District in India helps to support a Sunday- 
 School in a near-by village, the children bringing 
 
 * "Children of Egypt," L- Crowther. (Oliphaut, Anderson, 
 & Ferrier,) 
 
206 The Child in the Midst 
 
 their offerings of one pie each (one sixth of a cent) 
 with noble regularity. In one boarding-school 
 in Persia, four or five Endeavor Societies flour- 
 ished some years ago, and, when the girls went 
 home for their vacations, they led the singing 
 in the village churches, teaching the congrega- 
 tions new hymns learned at school. Each girl 
 saw to it that a Christian Endeavor Society was 
 formed in her village during the long summer 
 vacation. Often the school girl would be the 
 only member of the Society who could read, but 
 she gathered the village children about her, and 
 taught them to repeat Eible verses, sing hynms, 
 and offer simple prayers, and a great deal of 
 training and teaching can be accomplished in one 
 summer vacation! 
 Sie'^Bibk!' °^ What marvelous power there is in the Word 
 of God! A Mohammedan boy in a fanatical 
 Persian city, which had often been ^nsited by 
 colporteurs and missionaries, went one clay to 
 the bazaar where he saw a New Testament being 
 torn up to serve as wrapping paper. He remon- 
 strated with the shopkeeper, and finally bought 
 w^hat was left of the Book. Through its influence 
 both he and his mother were led to Christ. In 
 another Persian city, the missionary holds a 
 Bible lesson for boys under fifteen every Friday, 
 when they do not have to be at work. Picture 
 cards sent by thoughtful friends in America are 
 earned by boys learning the Lord's Prayer, the 
 Ten Commandments, or verses from the Sermon 
 
The Child at Worship 207 
 
 on the Mount. Some of the boys always repeat 
 the lesson at home to their mothers, and some 
 say openly, "If what the Bible says is true, the 
 Mohammedan religion is vain and useless." 
 Truly, "the entrance of Thy word giveth light." 
 Do American children prize their Bibles as 
 does this Korean boy? 
 
 Every day in the villase of Nulmok there is an exodus A Korean boy 
 
 •' -^ '^ /.111,- ^^^ ^3 Bible. 
 
 of small boys to the mountain for fuel. Wood being 
 scarce, it becomes necessary for each household to furnish 
 a fuel gatherer. This army of boys is winding its way 
 to the mountains some five miles off. Each boy has tied 
 to his jikcey, or rack carried on his back, a small package 
 of rice. This is his dinner, for it is an all-day job. As 
 they make their way up the well-nigh barren slopes, one 
 boy notices that his friend Kaiby has a second httle bundle 
 tied to his jikcey, and so he hails him to know why he is 
 carrying two dinners. 
 
 "Oh, one is for my body, and the other is dinner for 
 my soul," he replies. 
 
 After a morning spent in raking over a small area of 
 the mountain, each boy has succeeded in getting together 
 his bundle of dried grass, and all sit down beside a moun- 
 tain brook to eat of their dinner of cold rice and a relish 
 of greens or pickled cabbage in season. Soon Kaiby has 
 finished his meal and is untying his second bundle; taking 
 out a book he begins to read aloud, slowly, while the other 
 boys gather around to hear. It is about a great Man, 
 who, when the people wanted to make him king, went to 
 the mountain to pray. 
 
 Day after day at rest time Kaiby got out his book and 
 read from it, and the other boys were interested. About 
 this time, Ki Mun Ju, the Bible Society agent, came 
 again to the village with Bibles. After supper, Kaiby, 
 accompanied by several other boys, asked if there was 
 
208 The Child in the Midst 
 
 not a smaller copy of the New Testament, as a number of 
 the boys wanted to buy a Bible, but their only oppor- 
 tunity to read was at rest time on the mountain, and a 
 smaller copy would be more easily carried. Needless to 
 say, the colporteur did not fail to bring some on his next 
 trip, and now many of the boys have their own, and 
 frequently the hymnbook which they treasure next is 
 tied up with it.* 
 
 faTSngCni Koreaii boys are not the only ones who treasure 
 
 the hymnbook and love to learn and to sing 
 Christian hymns. The missionary who can play 
 and sing, and the one who knows enough about 
 music to translate hymns and adapt tunes, has 
 marvelous opportunities to work effectively among 
 children. Miss Ford's experiences in Palestine 
 illustrate the truth of this:— 
 
 "I should like to say a word about the use of 
 the organ. We are able sometimes to have very 
 large Moslem audiences in the villages. Scores 
 of boys will gather around to hear. When we 
 propose to teach them a hymn or chorus they 
 eagerly agree to learn. The subject of the song 
 is always salvation in Jesus Christ, and the way 
 of life is pointed out. We often hear the children 
 afterward singing these hymns in the streets. . . 
 God has given us large numbers of little children 
 to bring to Him. They learn hymns and psalms, 
 chapters of the Gospels, and verses from the 
 Bible with great facility, and they love to sing 
 the hymns. Now also we can use with profit, 
 
 * Over Sea and Land, April, 1913. 
 
The Child at Worship 209 
 
 large, illustrated, highly colored pictures of the 
 life and teachings of our Lord, as well as Old 
 Testament stories."* 
 
 Lest anyone be tempted to think that the work tHnSn'rchii- 
 is always easy, that one has but to sow the seed ^hri3t° 
 in order without further work and prayer to 
 reap a bountiful harvest, it is but fair to men- 
 tion a few of the obstacles that missionaries must 
 constantly meet while trjdng to win children to 
 Christ. Heredit}', age-long custom, supersti- 
 tion, fatalism, the shackles of caste and prejudice, 
 the home influences that so quickly counteract 
 what a child learns during a few brief hours at a 
 mission compound, — all these and many other 
 hindrances must be reckoned with and over- 
 come. ]\Iiss Carmichael graphically describes 
 some of these experiences of effort and disap- 
 pointment in India. 
 
 "Often we hear people say how excellent it is, ^^.'^f ^•^^-' ,. 
 
 ■■^ ^ "^ ' nuchael on d:3- 
 
 and how they never worship idols now, but only f°Yn(|t,"^*'''*'^ 
 
 the true God; and even a heathen mother will 
 
 make her child repeat its texts to you, and a 
 
 father will tell you how it tells him Bible stories; 
 
 and, if you are quite new to the work, you put 
 
 it in the Magazine, and at home it sounds like 
 
 conversion. All this goes on most peacefully; 
 
 there is not the slightest stir, till something 
 
 happens to show the people that the doctrine 
 
 is not just a creed, but contains a living Power. 
 
 And then, and not until then, there is opposition. 
 
 * Miss M. T. Maxwell Ford in "Daylight in the Harem." 
 
210 The Child in the Midst 
 
 In one village there was a little Brahmin child 
 who often tried to speak to us, but was never 
 allowed. One day she risked capture and its 
 consequences, and ran across the narrow stream 
 which divides the Brahmin street from the 
 village, and spoke to one of our band in a hurried 
 little whisper, 'Oh, I do want to hear about 
 Jesus!' And she told how she had learned at 
 school in her own town, and then she had been 
 sent to her mother-in-law's house in this jungle 
 village, 'that one,' pointing to a house where 
 they never had smiles for us; but her mother-in- 
 law objected to the preaching, and had threatened 
 to throw her down the well if she hstened to us. 
 Just then a hard voice called her and she flew. 
 Next time we went to that village she was shut 
 up somewhere inside."* 
 da^f" ^^^^ Sometimes God grants that bread cast on the 
 
 waters with loving, lavish hand, is found again 
 after many, many days. Often a Bible verse 
 or the words of a hymn, or the recollection of 
 what was seen and heard in a missionary home, 
 has not been forgotten, and has borne fruit in 
 after life. "A rich Japanese silk merchant sent 
 for the missionaries in his toTvn, and entertained 
 them most hospitably. He told how as a child 
 he had attended a Sunday-School. 'Very often,' 
 he said, 'right in the midst of my business the 
 words of the hymn, "Jesus loves me, this I know," 
 come to me, and, try as I may, I can't get them 
 
 * "Things as They Are," Amy Wilson Carmichael. (Revell.) 
 
The Child at Worship 211 
 
 out of my mind.' He then repeated the hymn 
 from beginning to end, and added, 'Though I 
 have Uved my Hfe without rehgion, I feel that it 
 is the most important thing there is, and I want 
 my httle girl to be a Christian; and it is for that 
 purpose,' he added emphatically, 'that I have 
 placed her in the mission school, that she may 
 become a Christian.' " 
 
 Do we realize the privilege and opportunity gre^Jr *^^ 
 that is ours to pray and give and go, to send privilege. 
 our money and our sons and daughters, that 
 the children of many Christless lands may learn 
 to know and love and serve the children's Friend 
 while they are young, and hearts and minds are 
 plastic and teachable? Have we as keen an 
 insight into the great truths of Christian privilege 
 as had the little Chinese girl, who, after beting 
 publicly baptized, was asked by her teacher, 
 "Are you glad of the privilege of attending a 
 school where you can hear of the Lord Jesus?" 
 Quickly she responded, "Are you not glad, teacher, 
 that you are in China, where you can teach of the 
 Lord Jesus?"* Yes, ours is the greater privilege, 
 and we must see to it carefully that we do not 
 miss any part of the joy that the Master has in 
 store for us. Our own children are so cunning 
 and lovable, so full of wonderful possibilities, 
 and in need of so much care and watchfulness, 
 that it is easy to forget the other children who 
 also need our love and help. In the Saviour's 
 
 * Told in Missionary Review of the World, December, 1911. 
 
212 The Child in the Midst 
 
 eyes there is no difference, — He loves and cares 
 for all children. Shall we imitate Him in this 
 respect? 
 ^Sm'°°*'^'^ A weary missionary fell asleep, and as she slept 
 she dreamed a dream. A message had arrived 
 that the Master was coming, and to her was 
 appointed the task of getting all the little children 
 ready for His arrival. So she arranged them on 
 the benches, tier on tier, putting the little white 
 children on the first benches, nearest to where 
 the Master would stand, and then came the 
 little yellow and red and browTi children and 
 far back on the farthest benches sat the black 
 children. When they were all arranged, she 
 looked, and it did not seem quite right to her. 
 Why should the black children be so far away? 
 They ought perhaps to be on the front benches. 
 She started to rearrange them, but just as all 
 was in confusion, the children stirring around, 
 and each trying to find his proper place, footsteps 
 were heard, and lo! it was the Master's tread, 
 and He was coming before the children were 
 ready. Overcome with shame and confusion 
 she hung her head. To think that the task en- 
 trusted to her had not been accomplished in 
 time! So she stood while the footsteps drew 
 nearer and nearer, till finally they paused beside 
 her, and she was obliged to look up. And lo! 
 as she did so, and her eyes rested on the children, 
 all shades of color and difference had vanished, 
 — the little children in the Master's presence were 
 all alike! 
 
The Child at Worship 213 
 
 QUOTATIONS 
 
 A HEATHEN BABY 
 
 An English missionary in Swatow, China, heard sounds 
 of bitter weeping by the wayside one night. Looking 
 for its source, he found a heathen woman bowed over a 
 child's grave, upon which, according to the local custom, 
 lay an overturned cradle. 
 
 A heathen baby, — that is all; — 
 
 A woman's lips that wildly plead; 
 Poor lips that never learned to call 
 
 On Christ, in woman's time of need! 
 
 Poor lips, that never did repeat 
 
 Through quiet tears, "Thy will be done," 
 
 That never knew the story sweet 
 Of Mary, and the Infant Son. 
 
 An emptied cradle, and a grave — 
 A little grave — cut through the sod; 
 
 O Jesus, pitiful to save, 
 
 Make known to her the mother's God. 
 
 O Spirit of the heavenly Love, 
 
 Stir some dear heart at home today, 
 
 An earnest thought to lift above, 
 For mother-hearts so far away. 
 
 That all may know the mercy mild 
 Of Him who did the nurselings bless: 
 
 The heathen and the homeborn child 
 Are one in that great tenderness. 
 
 (Clara A. Lindsay in Wovimi's Work.) 
 
 CASTE IN INDIA 
 
 In the village of the Wind a young girl became known 
 as an enquirer. Her Caste passed the word along from 
 village to village wherever its members were found, and 
 
214 The Child in the Midst 
 
 all these relations and connections were speedily leagued 
 in a compact to keep her from hearing more. When we 
 went to see her, we found she had been posted off some- 
 where else. When we went to the somewhere else (al- 
 ways freely mentioned to us, with invitation to go), we 
 found she had been there, but had been forwarded else- 
 where. For weeks she was tossed about like this; then 
 we traced her and found her. But she was thoroughly 
 cowed, and dared not show the least interest in us. . . . 
 Take a child of four or five, ask it a question concerning 
 its Caste, and you will see how that baby tree has begun 
 to drop branch rootlets. . . 
 
 The young girls belonging to the higher Castes are 
 kept in strict seclusion. During these formative years 
 they are shut up within the courtyard walls to the dwarf- 
 ing life within, and as a result they get dwarfed, and lose 
 in resourcefulness and independence of mind, and above 
 all in courage; and this tells terribly in our work, making 
 it so difficult to persuade such a one to think for herself. 
 It is this custom which makes work among girls exceed- 
 ingly slow and unresultful. 
 
 A few months ago a boy of twelve resolved to become a 
 Christian. His clan, eight thousand strong, were enraged. 
 There was a riot in the streets; in the house the poison 
 cup was ready. Better death than loss of Caste. In 
 another town a boy took his stand and was baptized, 
 thus crossing the line that divided secret belief from open 
 confession. His Caste men got hold of him afterwards; 
 next time he was seen he was a raving lunatic. The Caste 
 was avenged! (Amy Wilson Carmichael in "Things as 
 They Are.") 
 
 SPIRIT-WORSHIP AMONG THE LAO 
 
 Spirit-worship, as existing among the Lao, is not re- 
 duced to a system as is Buddhism. It has no temple, but 
 it is enshrined in the heart of every man, woman, and 
 child in the country. . . Children are seen with soot marks 
 
The Child at Worship 215 
 
 upon their foreheads. These are placed there by spirit- 
 doctors and are to ward off evil. They also wear around 
 their wrists charm-strings. This behef is by no means 
 confined to the peasantry. 
 
 Every person is believed to have thirty-two good 
 spirits pervading his body, called kwan. As long as these 
 kwan all remain as guardian spirits within, no sickness or 
 mishap can befall the person. But alas! these kwan 
 are freaky, vacillating spirits, and may leave the body 
 without a moment's warning, and at once sickness or 
 accident befalls. Much time and money are spent trying 
 to keep these kwan in a good humor, so that they will 
 not desert the body. . . 
 
 The folk-lore of this people is pregnant with this belief 
 in magic and spirit-worship, and so the children at the 
 knee learn to reverence and fear both, and in after years 
 when the saner reason of maturity would assert itself, 
 this belief has become a habit too deeply ingrained in the 
 mind to be cast aside. (Lillian Johnson Curtis in "The 
 Laos of North Siam," Westminster Press.) 
 
 SUNDAY-SCHOOL— NINGPO, CHINA 
 
 I wish some of you might be here tomorrow to go with 
 me to my Sunday-School for heathen children. This is 
 a school which had to be discontinued for some time, and 
 I re-opened it on Easter Sunday, with the assistance of 
 nine of our older girls and pupil teachers. One hundred 
 were present last Sunday, including some girls from our 
 two mission schools, and a few visitors. The majority 
 of the children are very poor and dirty, and they are 
 learning to sing "Jesus loves me, this I know," with as 
 much gusto as though they were as clean as pinks, and 
 they carry away with them a lesson leaf and a picture 
 card, to try to tell at home what they have learned that 
 day. I quite forget they are Chinese children, for their 
 human nature is very like that of the children at home. 
 One Sunday, two little girls from our mission school, clean 
 
216 The Child fn the Midst 
 
 and comfortably dressed, were sitting on the front seat, 
 when I brought in three little heathen girls, soiled and 
 untidy, to sit beside them. Whereupon one of the clean 
 little girls drew herself off in one corner, gathering her 
 clothes close about her for fear of touching the others; 
 while the second clean little girl moved toward the soiled 
 children and shared her hymnbook with them, pointing 
 out each character as we sang. Did you ever know any 
 little children at home who acted as did these two Chinese 
 children? (Edith C. Dickie in The Foreign Post.) 
 
 BIBLE READING 
 
 "Suffer the little children." Mark 10:13-16. 
 
 Various ways in which Christ's disciples hinder the 
 children, — consider them too young, — too irresponsible, — 
 feel that adults have the first claim to Christ's time and 
 attention. 
 
 How different was Christ's attitude! "In His words 
 over the little children, Christ has lifted childhood into 
 a type of character, and has given children their share in 
 the Kingdom of God." (Shailer Mathews.) 
 
 The touch of Christ on a little chiUl's life brings bless- 
 ing. Are we bringing tlie- children to Him or forbidding 
 them? "The place for the lambs is in the fold." (WoeK- 
 kin.) 
 
 A CHILDREN'S LITANY 
 
 Dear Heavenly Father of all the children of the earth; 
 Have mercy upon us. 
 
 O Lord Jesus Christ, who didst become a child to redeem 
 all nations; 
 
 Have mercy upon us. 
 
 That in all the families of the world parents and children 
 may learn to have a fear and love of Thy Holy Name; 
 We pray Thee, dear Lord. 
 
The Child at Worship 217 
 
 That a blessing may rest upon the homes of all mission- 
 aries, and that protection may be granted to all mis- 
 sionary fathers and mothers; 
 
 We pray Thee, dear Lord. 
 
 That we may earnestly desire to bring some child who 
 does not understand, into the light of the Star of Beth- 
 lehem; 
 
 We pray Thee, dear Lord. 
 
 That homes and hospitals which minister to the needs of 
 children may be blessed, and their number multiplied; 
 We pray Thee, dear Lord. 
 
 For Christian nurture. Christian homes, and Christian 
 parents ; 
 
 We thank Thee, dear Lord. 
 
 For the Babe of Bethlehem in the manger, and the Christ- 
 Child in the carpenter shop; 
 
 We thank Thee, dear Lord. 
 
 {Spirit of Missions.) 
 
 QUESTIONS 
 
 1. What would be the moral and physical effects on a 
 boy, of the religious rites of ancestor worship as practiced 
 among the Fang tribe of Africa? 
 
 2. What can we learn from Mohammedan methods in 
 teaching their children the Koran, and estabhshing them 
 in the doctrines and usages of their faith? 
 
 3. What are the principal difficulties met by repre- 
 sentatives of Christianity in efforts to come in contact with 
 and influence Mohammedan children? 
 
 4. Suggest methods best adapted for overcoming 
 these difficulties. 
 
 5. What methods have been most successful in reach- 
 ing the children in the missions of your denomination? 
 
 6. Wliat estimate should be placed on the Sunday- 
 gchool as a factor in the evangelization of mission lands? 
 
218 The Child in the Midst 
 
 7. What are the greatest needs for better equipment 
 in Sunday-School work in the lands where your Board is 
 at work? 
 
 8. What can American children be trained to do in 
 meeting these needs? 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Children of Persia, Mrs. Napier Malcolm, (Oliphant, 
 
 Anderson & Ferrier.) 
 Children of Egypt, Miss L. Crowther, (Oliphant, Ander- 
 son & Ferrier.) 
 "Little Wednesday," Everyland, June, 1913. 
 "A Social Settlement in the Slums of Okayama," Mis- 
 sionary Review of the World, Dec, 1912. 
 Sketches from the Karen Hills, Alonzo Bunker, (Revell.) 
 On the Borders of Pigmy Land, Chaps. 9, 10, 19-25, Ruth 
 
 B. Fisher, (Revell.) 
 The Light of the World, Chap. 6, R. E. Speer, (Mission 
 
 Study Series) 
 Lotus Buds, Amy Wilson Carmichael, (Geo. H. Doran Co.) 
 Things as They Are, Amy Wilson Carmichael, (Revell.) 
 Overweights of Joy, Amy Wilson Carmichael, (Revell.) 
 The Call of Moslem Children, Missionary Review of the 
 World, Oct., 1913. 
 
 LEAFLETS 
 
 Ought-to-have-been-a-boy Woman's Baptist Foreign 
 Sorrows of Heathen Moth- Missionary Society, 
 erhood 
 
The Child at Worship 
 
 219 
 
 How Chinese children learn 
 
 to worship idols 
 Boys and Girls in Korea 
 Christmas in India 
 How Koharu learned to woi'- 
 
 ship 
 A Little Girl and the Lions 
 A Sunday-School picnic in 
 
 India 
 
 The god of Hindu children 
 
 Three in a Temple 
 
 How a bamboo helped to 
 
 overthrow idol worship 
 Ping-ti's discoveries 
 
 A Road and a Song 
 I come to stay 
 
 Pen notes and pictures 
 Story of Ozeki San 
 How we do evangelistic work 
 in Japan 
 
 Woman's Foreign Mis- 
 sionary Society of the 
 Methodist Episcopal 
 Church. 
 
 Woman's Board of Mis- 
 sions of the Congrega- 
 tional Church. 
 
 Woman's Board of For- 
 eign Missions of the Pres- 
 byterian Church. 
 
 Woman's Board of Foreign 
 Missions Reformed 
 Church in America. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE CHILD AT WORK FOR CHRIST 
 "I must be about my Father's business." 
 
 Christ needs all the children of the world — 
 Work for the children in awakening lands, Japan, 
 China, India — Work for the children in lands 
 convulsed by war and revolution, Turkey, 
 Persia — ^Work for the children in lands asleep — 
 The world's tragedies — What a slave boy accom- 
 plished — Need for trained workers — How Bishop 
 Sehvyn obtained and trained them — Children at 
 work for Christ — Children from mission lands 
 helping to save America — Missionary children 
 at work — American children have a share in 
 the working and giving and going — The world 
 needs the Holy Child. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE CHILD AT WORK FOR CHRIST 
 "I must be about my Father's business." 
 
 The Children of the World need Christ. 
 Christ needs the Children, — all the Chil- 
 dren OF the World. 
 
 Unless the children of today are brought to the ^^"chute^n! 
 Master and trained for His service, the outlook 
 is dark indeed for coming generations. If 
 every child now living could be brought under 
 Christian influences, receive a Christian educa- 
 tion, and be sent out to hve and work for Christ, 
 what a marvelous transformation this world 
 would experience ! In a conspicuous place on the 
 wall at a recent Sunday-School convention hung 
 a barmer with the words "Childhood is the 
 Hope of the World," — the same thought that was 
 embodied in the remark of a prominent Japanese 
 Christian, who said to a missionary, "The grown- 
 up people are so ignorant and set in their ways, 
 they will not become Christians, but the hope 
 is in the children."* 
 
 * Woman's Work, July, 1911. 
 
224 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 TVork for the 
 phildron in 
 awakening 
 lands. 
 
 Chnnges in 
 Japan. 
 
 "He who helps a child," says Phillips Brooks, 
 "helps humanity with a distinctness, with an 
 immediateness, which no other help given to 
 human creatures in any other stage of their 
 human life, can possibly give again." Here is a 
 challenge to all who believe that the world needs 
 hope, that humanity needs help, that God needs 
 human agents to carry out His plans, that Christ 
 needs the child! 
 
 What is there for the child of today, — the 
 man and woman of tomorrow, — to do in coun- 
 tries that are awaking out of age-long sleep? 
 
 Sixty years ago Japan was in darkness. What 
 great transformations have taken place since 
 Commodore Perry sailed for Yedo Bay in Novem- 
 ber, 1852! As a commercial, military, and naval 
 power Japan has been taking her place with the 
 important nations of the earth. We have already 
 learned that her educational system contains 
 much that might well be copied in Western lands. 
 The manner in which Japan is "catching up" 
 with nations that have had centuries of advantage 
 over her reminds one of the educational experi- 
 menters who claim that a child need not be 
 bothered with mathematics until he is ten or 
 twelve years old, and that he will then speedily 
 "catch up" with children who have toiled over 
 their mathematics since they were of kinder- 
 garten age. During the serious outbreak of 
 bitter feeling in Japan regarding the proposed 
 Alien Land Holdmg Bill pending in the California 
 
The Child at Work For Christ 225 
 
 Legislature, a large reception was tendered in 
 Tokyo to Dr. John R. Mott, Hamilton Wright 
 Mabie and Dr. Peabody. In the course of his 
 address, Count Okuma, who is not in any sense a 
 Christian, remarked that diplomacy, the courts, 
 and commercial interests were alike helpless to 
 maintain peace on earth and good will among 
 men. "The only hope," he said, ''is in the power 
 of Christianity and in the influence of Christians 
 to maintain peace and righteousness in the spirit 
 of brotherly love."* 
 
 Not only from a political point of view, but ^ngug°"n 
 far more from an intellectual and religious point u™fve"sity. 
 of view, is Japan in great, urgent need of what 
 Christianity can give her. "It seems from the 
 figures of a religious census recently taken in the 
 Imperial University of Japan at Tokyo, that of 
 the students in attendance, three-fourths of 
 them declare themselves agnostics, while fifteen 
 hundred are content to be registered as atheists. 
 That leaves only five hmidred of the whole 
 student body to be accounted for: and of these, 
 sixty are Christian, fifty Buddhist, and eight 
 Shinto. . .The educated classes of Japan have 
 practically broken with Shintoism and Buddhism, 
 and are looking aroimd for some better basis 
 for ethics and faith. The issue in Japan is no 
 longer between Christianity and Buddhism, but 
 between Christianity and nothing."** 
 
 * Told in Missionary Review of the World, June, 1913. 
 ** Told in Missionary Review of the World, June, 1913. 
 
226 The Child in the Midst 
 
 ^udrenln^'' Side by side with this pregnant statement we 
 after-life. place a fcw Sentences from the Sixth Annual 
 
 Report of the Kindergarten Union of Japan. 
 "What influence has the kindergarten on the 
 lives of its graduates in later years? From many 
 churches we hear of them as church members 
 doing active service, like one young man who has a 
 class of twenty-five boys in Sunday-School. 
 As teachers, as mothers, in many walks of life, 
 they are showing the power of Christ in their 
 Uves, and all, whether Christians or not, are 
 better men and women for their training in 
 Christian schools." 
 
 The inference is so obvious that we need not 
 comment upon it. Rather let us do our share 
 to multiply the agencies that can embody in 
 their reports such incidents as the following from 
 the American Church Mission Kindergarten at 
 Sendai : — 
 
 "More than ever before have we emphasized 
 Christianity as the center of our thought and life, 
 and feel much encouraged to go much farther 
 next year. Yearning over our graduates, who, 
 when they leave us, may be separated for a long 
 time from Christian teaching, we earnestly 
 desired to see Christianity move definitely for- 
 ward in their hearts, so far as may be for little 
 children. So we based the last month's work on 
 Phil. 2:6-11. This seems deep, but was found 
 helpful by the teachers. . . Just before gradua- 
 tion, in the free talk at luncheon hour one day, 
 
The Child at Work for Christ 227 
 
 a boy whose parents were about to move to Akita 
 said most disconsolatel}^, 'There won't be any God 
 to take care of me when I go to Akita'! 'Oh, 
 yes, there will,' said Taguchi San, who, seeing his 
 need of a broader understanding of the Omnipo- 
 tent God, told of the God of all the earth, and 
 that He cared for us wherever we go, even when 
 farther than Akita.' "* 
 
 China's awakening has been so sudden and so ^;^^g'^ 
 rapid that even while the Christian women 
 of America were studying "China's New Day," 
 many facts in that up-to-date text-book became 
 ancient history, A few of the startling contrasts 
 between the Old China and the New were indi- 
 cated in the Congregationalist of April 24, 1913. 
 
 Associated Press despatches from Peking on Thursday 
 of last week reported that the Chinese Government has 
 made an appeal to all the Christian chm-ches in China to 
 set aside April 27 — next Sunday — as a day of prayer for 
 the Chinese National Assembly, for the new Government, 
 for the President of the new Repubhc yet to be elected, 
 for the constitution of the Republic, for the maintenance 
 of peace and for the election of strong and virtuous men 
 to office. Representatives of provincial authorities are 
 instructed to be present at these services. . . . 
 
 Thirteen years ago this coming summer the Imperial 
 Government of China hunted and slew her Christian 
 subjects hke wild beasts and brought all of the resources 
 at her command to aid in driving the hated religions of 
 the "foreign devils" from her shores. Today the new 
 Republic solemnly and officially sets apart a day and urges 
 all her Christian subjects, as well as foreigners, to assemble 
 
 * Sixth Annual Report of the Kindergarten Union of Japan. 
 
228 The Child in the Midst 
 
 and, in the presence of the officials, intercede for those 
 things which Chi-istian nations seek and supremely value. 
 
 In 1900 a despatch was sent from the throne to all 
 viceroys of all the provinces to exterminate all foreigners, 
 and the streets of Peking were placarded with posters 
 threatening with death all who provided them refuge. 
 A few weeks ago the President of the Republic, Yuan Shi 
 Kai, addressing in Peking an assembly of delegates to the 
 Annual Convention of the Y. M. C. A., said: 
 
 "You, my friends, who are members and delegates to 
 this Christian Association from every province of the 
 RepubUc, are examples for the men of every class of so- 
 ciety. By the help of your guiding light and uplifting 
 influence, milUons of young men, well equipped, morally, 
 intellectually, and jjliysically, will be raised up in tliis 
 nation to render loyal service to the Republic in her time 
 of need, and lift her to a position that shall add to the 
 civilized world an imdying luster." 
 
 China is doing her part to make amends for the past 
 and to demonstrate to the entire world the sincerity of 
 her purpose. Undoubtedly this is the first time in history 
 that such an appeal has been made by a non-Christian 
 nation. With commendable promptness both the Fed- 
 eral Council and Committee of Reference and Council 
 of the Foreign Missionary Societies of North America 
 have asked the churches to intercede' for China. 
 
 Was there ever a more striking proof of the presence of 
 God in the life of the world and of His purposes for men 
 in Jesus Christ the universal Saviour? Was there ever 
 greater encouragement to use the mighty enginery of 
 united prayer for a specific end? 
 
 Sun Yat Sen. Listen to the testimony of the son of a promi- 
 nent Christian official in China: — 
 
 "Where did the Chinese Repubhc ever come 
 from? You say from tlie reformers and revo- 
 lutionists. You don't go back far enough. Dr. 
 
The Child at Work for Christ 229 
 
 Sun was in a large measure responsible for it all, 
 but where does he come from? Where did he 
 get his principles of freedom and equality? 
 These were instilled into his heart by a missionary, 
 and who was he? He was a follower of Jesus 
 Christ, and in China for the direct purpose of 
 teaching how Jesus came to save the world. . . 
 Blot out of China today the education which 
 owes its origin to Jesus Christ, and where will 
 China be? In the depth of deepest ignorance."* 
 
 Sun Yat Sen, by many considered "the JBrst 
 citizen in the hearts of his countrymen," spoke 
 with no uncertain sound of China's greatest need 
 in this time of her crisis. "Brothers," he said, 
 when addressing a number of Chinese students, 
 "applied, practical Christianity is our true need. 
 Away with the commentaries and doubts. God 
 asks your obedience, not your patronage. He 
 demands your service, not your criticism."** 
 
 "Applied, practical Christianity," is what the cEnstiinit in 
 missionaries are trying to give China, and can China. 
 any part of their work be more practical or more 
 important than what they are doing for the chil- 
 dren who are soon to be the statesmen and edu- 
 cators, the military and social leaders, the 
 fathers and mothers of the great new Republic 
 of the East? 
 
 Many pages might be filled with true tales of ^^- ^ ^' C"- 
 how Chinese children, won to Christ in early 
 
 * "Testimony of a College Student," Worn. For. Miss'y Soc. 
 Pres. Ch. 
 
 ** Rev. C. R. Mayes, M. D., in N. American Student, May, 1913. 
 
230 The Child in the Midst 
 
 life, have brought blessing and uplift to hundreds 
 in their land. The story of Dr. Li Bi Cu and her 
 mother is a wonderful illustration of what 77iight 
 be multiplied many thousands of times if there 
 were always some one ready to rescue girl babies 
 and to give them a fair chance. 
 
 Dr. Li Bi Cu is one of China's new women. A forceful 
 speaker, using perfect English, with a charming person- 
 aUty, Dr. Li Bi Cu never fails to win the hearts of her 
 audiences. Those who heard her at Northfield can never 
 forget the appeal made by the little woman in Chinese 
 dress, to the women of the United States to come to the 
 help of her countrywomen. The mother of Dr. Li Bi Cu 
 was rescued from the street, where she had been throwTi 
 to die, when only a day or two old, and taken to a mission 
 school, where she was cared for, educated, and trained as 
 a Bible woman. She married a Methodist minister, Mr. 
 Li, and her daughter, Li Bi Cu, grew up in a Christian 
 home. One of the missionaries, seeing unusual ability in 
 the young girl, brought her to America for a more thorough 
 education than China afforded. She studied in Folts 
 Institute, and later entered the Women's Medical Col- 
 lege in Philadelphia. Graduating with honor, she re- 
 turned to China after eight years' residence in the United 
 States and was sent to the Fukien Province, where the 
 Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church had opened a hospital, and where she 
 has cared for the souls and bodies of thousands of pa- 
 tients.* 
 
 A charming sequel to the story shows how this 
 splendid Chinese woman is ready at a moment's 
 notice to do her duty as a Christian citizen of the 
 world. She was passing on her return to China 
 
 * Missionary Review of the World, March, 1913, 
 
The Child at Work for Christ 231 
 
 a point not far from Chicago, when the train 
 struck a track laborer and suddenly stopped. 
 The injured man, a Russian by birth, was brought 
 aboard, and Dr. Li, hearing of the accident, 
 volunteered her help. Then was seen the curious 
 combination of a Chinese Christian woman 
 physician caring for a wounded Slav in an Ameri- 
 can baggage car!* 
 
 "Applied, practical Christianity" is being ^ot^el-sin 
 taught to the mothers of China, and some of councu. 
 them are responding in a way that augurs well for 
 the future of their children and their land. Mrs. 
 T. N. Thompson of Tsining writes of a recent 
 women's convention to which Christians came from 
 far and near, some from a distance of sixty miles. 
 Women spoke from the platform with ease, 
 spirit, and eloquence. Some of the subjects 
 discussed were: — Equal authority of husbands 
 and wives — Partiality between sons and daughters 
 • — Duty of sending girls to school — Cleanliness and 
 order of the home as taught in mission schools — 
 Dedication of children to the Lord. The subject 
 of marriage engagements was thoroughly can- 
 vassed, and many laughed heartily at reminis- 
 cences of old heathen days when children were 
 betrothed in babyhood."** " Old heathen days !" 
 And yet it is but one hundred years since Robert 
 Morrison baptized his first Christian convert, 
 and but fourteen years since the great Boxer 
 
 * Record of Christian Work, March, 1013, 
 ** The Continent, June 12, 1913. 
 
232 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 Work for the 
 children in 
 India. 
 
 An Indian 
 girl redeemed. 
 
 uprising tried to rid the land of all Christians. 
 Thus it was ordained long centuries ago when 
 God "appomted a law in Israel, when He com- 
 manded our fathers, that they should make them 
 known to their children; that the generation to 
 come might know them, even the children that 
 should be born, who should arise and tell them 
 to their children." (Psalm 78 : 5, 6.) From father 
 to son, from mother to daughter, the loiowledge 
 of God's love and Christ's salvation is to be 
 transmitted, and those who gain that knowledge 
 in early childhood are the ones on whom China 
 can surely depend in the important years to 
 come. 
 
 "The children born of Christian parents in 
 India," says Rev. E. A. Arnett in the Sunday 
 School Times, "are probably not more than 
 half a million, but upon the thorough and syste- 
 matic character of the religious work done among 
 these depends the hope of the future of the 
 church of India. These are to be the army for 
 India's conquest. The day of opportunity is 
 soon to come to India as it has come to Japan 
 and to China. A great crisis is approaching when 
 there will be a death-grapple in the open between 
 Christianity and the opposing forces. Then 
 will be needed as never before an Indian church, 
 rich in men and women able and fit for the fight." 
 
 That India's children with all their handicaps 
 are capable of being made "fit for the fight" can 
 be abundantly proven. A letter from a missiou- 
 
The Child at Work for Christ 233 
 
 ary friend tells of a little Indian protege, now a 
 grown woman, who was the child of a drunken 
 father and a half crazy, evil-tempered mother, 
 who, in a brawl, lamed her poor baby for life. 
 The child was sent away to school after her 
 father's death, and it seemed as if it were to prove 
 her salvation. But at the age of fourteen the 
 old evil propensities broke forth. She became 
 foul-tongued, irreverent, disobedient, and diseased. 
 She was sent to visit her mother, then an inmate 
 of an insane asylum, where the girl was placed 
 imder observation and declared to be a moral 
 degenerate. The fact that she was perfectly 
 satisfied to stay at the asylum was a cause of great 
 distress to her missionary friend, and soon a 
 number of earnest workers banded themselves to 
 pray for her "literally night and day." A 
 wonderful change came over the girl; the seed 
 sown in earlier years sprang up and bore fruit. 
 She asked to be allowed to leave the asylum, 
 and soon after taking a position she gave her 
 heart to Christ. Far out on the western frontier 
 of India, a woman, growing in grace and character, 
 is compounding medicines, and otherwise help- 
 ing in a mission hospital, occupying a difficult 
 and trying position. Oh! was she not worth 
 saving,^that little, lame, degenerate baby, born 
 in the degradation of darkest India, and ac- 
 complishing a work today that you or I could 
 not do? 
 
234 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 Work for the 
 children of 
 Turkey and 
 Persia. 
 
 Persian school 
 boys. 
 
 What is there for the children to do in lands 
 that have lately been convulsed with war and 
 revolution? Who will fill the places of able- 
 bodied men, maimed and slain in battle? Who 
 is to reconstruct and upbuild and guide through 
 long years to come the countries that have been 
 shaken to their very foundations? The only 
 hope of Turkey and Persia is in their children, 
 and what is done by Christians for these children 
 today will determine very largely the course of 
 history in the "near East." 
 
 The boys' school at Teheran, Persia, has won 
 the name of a "factory"! Among the Moham- 
 medan boys brought here, is a little fellow whose 
 father said to the missionary, "I hear this is a 
 factory where you manufacture men. Do you 
 think you can turn out a man from my boy?" * 
 Such "factories" are needed throughout Turkey 
 and Persia, and those who know the boys of 
 these countries will assure you that they are 
 capable of turning out to be men if they have the 
 proper opportunities. When the self-supporting 
 Christian boarding school for Mohammedan 
 boys was started in Teheran, the missionaries 
 naturally felt a good deal of concern as to the 
 results of such an experiment. The actual re- 
 sults are thus reported, — 
 
 "Not only has it been somewhat more than 
 self-supporting financially, but, thanks to the 
 
 ♦ Told in Foreign Post, Dec, 190Q, 
 
The Child at Work for Christ 235 
 
 co-operative plan initiated from the beginning, 
 into which the boys entered \\dth enthusiasm, 
 and in which they showed a, most admirable 
 spirit throughout the year, a good share of the 
 management and government was taken by the 
 boys themselves in a most efficient manner, — 
 of course under the close supervision of my wife 
 and myself." * 
 
 The following testimony of William E. Curtiss, ^^^"l£°g^r?L. 
 the world-famous correspondent of the Chicago 
 Record Herald, written after an extended visit 
 to the Orient, would seem to be convincing 
 proof that missionaries can give and Turkish 
 children can profit by that which will re-mould 
 and upbuild the renmants of the Turkish Em- 
 pire. 
 
 "The influence of the American schools has 
 been carried to every corner of the Empire. 
 Every student leaving these American schools 
 has carried the germ of progress to his sleeping 
 town. He has become a force for the new order 
 wherever he has gone. This influence has been 
 working for a half century or more, and has been 
 preparing the minds of the people for the great 
 change that has recently come over them. The 
 missionaries do not teach revolution, they do not 
 encourage revolutionary methods; but they 
 have always preached and taught liberty, equal- 
 ity, fraternity, and the rights of man." ** 
 
 * Rev. S. M. Jordon in "The New Persia," Pros. Bd. For. Miss. 
 ** Missionary Review of the World, August, 1911. 
 
236 The Child in the Midst 
 
 lorrin^'^^ '* I* is well to remember that the children under 
 Bummer. missionary influence are being trained not only 
 
 for what they can be and do in the future, when 
 they are groAvn up, but are being taught to use 
 now what they have learned, for the benefit of 
 others. Listen to the report of what some 
 Syrian girls did during a summer vacation. 
 
 "An hour ago I came home from Sunday-School which 
 we are having this summer. We began it the &\st sum- 
 mer we came to K. . . and twenty children attend. We 
 are teaching them lessons from the Old Testament, and I 
 think I can say that our school is a real success this year." 
 
 "I am teaching some children Bible stories and have 
 given one of the boys two papers to make a study of some 
 chapters which I have appointed for him." 
 
 "1 brought a new Bible with me, and I try to teach our 
 servant to read it." 
 
 These few extracts are from letters which I have received 
 this summer showing how Beirut school-girls are trying to 
 give expression to the pass-it-on spirit. All over the 
 country they are busy according to their opportunities. 
 I know of one little girl who last year was in the lowest 
 class of om" Preparatory Department, but this year has a 
 school of seventeen every Sunday afternoon during the 
 vacation. One of her older brothers and a boy cousin 
 taught classes, but she was both organizer and super- 
 intendent. 
 
 One of the pleasantest gatherings we shall have this 
 fall will be the Report Meeting, when we shall hear from 
 all the pupils about results of their summer efforts for 
 others. Fourteen took certain Bibles home with them, 
 promising to use them in teaching others to read.* 
 
 Is there anything for children to do in coun- 
 tries where as yet no great awakening or startling 
 
 * Missionary Review of the World, August, 1911. 
 
The Child at Work for Chtist 237 
 
 political upheaval has taken place, but where 
 missionary influence has been quietly, steadily 
 at work? What about those "unoccupied mis- 
 sion fields" where not even a beginning has been 
 made toward giving the Gospel message? Does 
 Christ need the childre'n of these lands to be at 
 work for Him? 
 
 "Some one thus summarizes 'The World's xragldfes!'^ 
 Tragedies' 
 
 207,000,000 bound by caste — from Hinduism. 
 
 147,000,000 permeated with atheism — from 
 Buddhism. 
 
 256,000,000 chained to a dead past — from Con- 
 fucianism. 
 
 175,000,000 under the spell of Fatahsm— from 
 Mohammedanism. 
 
 200,000,000 sitting in darlmess — from Pagan- 
 ism." * 
 
 Let us try to realize that each unit of these 
 vast figures stands for a life that was once an 
 innocent little child, born into conditions or 
 surroundings similar to those of which we have 
 been studj-ing in this book. Think of the future 
 tragedies that may be averted if each little child 
 today is redeemed and begins to work for Christ. 
 Why should there not be thousands of averted bS^'ac^'com-''^ 
 or transformed tragedies like those surrounding p^^^^^- 
 the hfe of the little black boy, born in 1806 on 
 the West Coast of Africa? Because of certain 
 peculiar circumstances at his birth it was prophe- 
 
 ■* New V'gi-ft Citv Mission Monthly, MaV. 1913. 
 
238 The Child in the Midst 
 
 sied that he was not to be a devotee of any 
 idol, but one "celebrated and distinguished to 
 serve the great and highest God." At one time 
 when the house of his prosperous father caught 
 fire, the little boy rushed in and saved the idols. 
 Whereupon it was commonly said, — "This child 
 will be a great- worshiper of the gods; he will 
 one day restore the gods to our nation." 
 
 When the child was about fifteen, a raid was 
 made upon the village by Mohammedans, and 
 a large number of women and children were led 
 away captive with ropes around their necks, 
 young Aja.-^d and his mother and grandmother 
 among the number. Sold from one person to 
 another, often bartered for rum or tobacco, he 
 finally fell into the hands of Portuguese traders. 
 He and his fellow slaves were rescued by an 
 English man-of-war from the Portuguese vessel, 
 and he was educated by the Church Missionary 
 Society. He became a school-master, then 
 preacher, and finally Bishop of the native Church 
 on the Niger. Fourah Bay College, where he 
 pursued a part of his studies, was founded as a 
 result of the conviction forced upon the Church 
 Missionary Society that, if Africa were to be 
 evangelized, it must be done chiefly through 
 native agency, because of the devastating effects 
 of the climate on foreigners. In other words, 
 Christ needs the children of Africa, to be trained for 
 Him in places where no one else in the wide 
 world can accomplish the task. 
 
The Child at Work for Christ 239 
 
 On the beautiful white monument, erected over 
 the grave in Lagos, Sierra Leone, can be read 
 these words that give a brief outhne of the noble 
 life work of the little slave boy whom some one 
 thought worth saving and training for Christian 
 service. 
 
 Sacred to the memory of 
 
 THE RIGHT REV. SAMUEL AJAYI CROWTHER, 
 
 D.D. 
 
 A Native of Osogun, in the Yoruba Country; 
 
 A Recaptured and Liberated Slave; 
 
 The First Student in the Church Missionary Society's 
 
 College, 
 
 At Fourah Bay, Sierra Leone; 
 
 Ordained in England by the Bishop of London, June 11th, 
 
 1843; 
 The First Native Clergyman of the Church of England in 
 West Africa, 
 Consecrated Bishop, June 29th, 1864. 
 A Faithful, Earnest, and Devoted Missionary in Connec- 
 tion 
 With the Church Missionary Society for 62 Years, 
 At Sierra Leone, in the Timini and Yoruba Countries 
 
 And in the Niger Territory; 
 
 He Accompanied the First Royal Niger Expedition in 1841; 
 
 W^as a joint founder with others of the Yoruba Mission 
 
 in 1845, 
 
 And Founder of the Niger Mission in 1857; 
 
 And of the Self -Supporting Niger Delta Pastorale in 1891. 
 
 He fell asleep in Jesus at Lagos, on the 31st December, 1891, 
 
 Aged about 89 Years. 
 
 "Well done, thou good and faithful servant, . . . Enter 
 thou into the joy of thy Lord." Matt. 25: 5. 
 " Redeemed by His Blood." * 
 
 * "The Black Bishop," Jesse Page, p. 379. (Revell.) 
 
240 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 Trained 
 native workers 
 necessary. 
 
 Methods of 
 Bishop Selwyn 
 in the Pacitic 
 Islands. 
 
 Our story of The Child will not be complete 
 unless we paj^ close attention to one of the great 
 fundamental policies of Christian missions, — 
 alluded to above, — that the work of world evan- 
 gelization must be accomplished chiefly through 
 trained natives of the countries where the Gospel 
 is not laiowTi. And these agents, in order to be 
 most efficient and successful should be w^on to 
 Christ in early life. The methods used by Bishop 
 Selwyn in the New Hebrides were so successful 
 and interesting and illustrate this point so thor- 
 oughly that it will pay us to study them. 
 
 Bishop Augustus Selwj^n, of the Episcopalian Church of 
 New Zealand, proposed to secui-e children of the natives 
 in the new fields, educate these children in schools of a 
 Christian country, and send them as pioneer missionaries 
 to their own peoples. He proposed, also, that, after these 
 children had overcome the pagan opposition, white 
 missionaries should be introduced for co-operating with 
 them. "The white corks," he said, "were for floating 
 the black net." 
 
 With this in view, in 1848, he made a voyage of explora- 
 tion in H. M. S. Dido as far as to the Loyalty Islands. 
 Observing that the Fijis, the Southern Hebrides, and sev- 
 eral other groups were occupied by other religious denom- 
 inations which were doing successful work, he chose for his 
 field the groups not thus occupied. These were the 
 Northern Hebrides, Banks, Santa Cruz, Torres, Reef, 
 and Solomon Groups. . . 
 
 Over these islands the trail of the Serpent has extended. 
 A wilder, more besotted, and fiercer people than their 
 inhabitants it would be hard to find. With the exception 
 of the natives of the Santa Cruz and Reef Islands, they 
 
--"^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 The Children of Tunis are Worth Helping 
 
The Child at Work for Christ 241 
 
 all were formerly cannibals, and those of them in the 
 Solomon Group were also head-hunters. . . 
 
 The work of procuring boys proved to be difficult and 
 perilous. By great tact and a kind and courteous man- 
 ner the Bishop secured in his first trip five. In process 
 of time he was able to employ the boys, who had been 
 some time in his school, to do the soliciting, and then he 
 was more successful. Each succeeding year the natives 
 received him with greater cordiality, and more readily 
 supphed his vessel with stores of taro, yams, and fruit. 
 The number of boys in the school has been one hundred 
 and fifty to two hundred. 
 
 On Norfold Island a thousand acres of land were pur- 
 chased for the school at a cost of ten thousand dollars. 
 In this tract a beautiful chapel was built, and around it 
 houses for the teachers and pupils. The land was very 
 fertile, and was easily made to produce almost all the food 
 the school needed. The boys were taught the gospel of 
 work. They were trained in the mechanic trades, the 
 cultivation of the ground, and the care of livestock; and 
 to each of them was committed a small garden for him 
 to cultivate for himself. They were kept in the school 
 six to ten years, and then taken, as teachers, to their 
 homes or to other islands. 
 
 In 1854 Rev. John Coleridge Patteson joined the 
 mission. He had been moved when fourteen years of 
 age, by a sermon of Bishop Selwyn, to devote himself 
 to the missionary cause. In 1861 he was consecrated as 
 the First Bishop of Milanesia. . . 
 
 The Milanesians who have embraced Christianity 
 have ceased from their pannibalism, their head-hunting, 
 and their warfare, and have become an humble, upright, 
 and peace-loving people. In 1905 the number of baptized 
 persons in the groups of the mission was 2,811, of white 
 missionaries, 41, of native teachers, 689, of mission sta- 
 tions, 200.* 
 
 * "Islands of the Pacific," Alexander. Am. Tract Society, 
 
242 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 Children at 
 work for 
 Christ in 
 Korea. 
 
 In Burma. 
 
 The Child at work for Christ! Would that 
 it were possible to give to the women of our 
 American Missionary Societies and to the young 
 women of our schools and colleges a vision of the 
 children of many lands who are today at work, 
 • — realizing as did the Christ Child that they 
 must be about their Father's business. In 
 Korea, we shall find that a question asked of each 
 man, woman , and child who washes to become a 
 church member is, — ^"Have you tried to win a soul 
 for Jesus Christ?" Not long ago the children in 
 one section of Korea demanded a half holiday, 
 and in the leisure time thus obtained the five 
 hundred children won eight hundred others into 
 the church.* 
 
 Away up in the Karen Hills of Burma the first 
 mission tour of exploration to a certain point was 
 made \\ith a company which included a number 
 of school boys, among whom were some sweet 
 singers. On associating with the Red Karen 
 children, they quickly made acquaintance and 
 were valuable workers. Great was the enthu- 
 siasm among the little Red Karens when classes 
 were formed in reading and singing, and with 
 surprising quickness they learned from their eager 
 young teachers, who were glad to pass on to other 
 children what they had so recently acquired 
 themselves.** 
 
 * Told in Over Sea and Land, April, 1913. 
 
 ** Told in "Sketches from the Karen Hills," Alonzo Bunker. 
 (Revell.) 
 
The Child at Work for Christ 243 
 
 Generous 
 givers in 
 
 Not only are the children under missionary 
 influence trained to work, but they are also ''^'^^■^ 
 taught the joy and privilege of giving. Here 
 is the method employed by Mrs. McCauley of 
 Japan. 
 
 The Sunday-School children in Keimo No. 1 and No. 2, 
 Tokyo, under Mrs. McCauley, take up a collection every 
 Sabbath. . . The chjldren coming from heathen homes 
 cannot ask their parents for money to put into this col- 
 lection, so must practice self-denial to be able to give. 
 The money for a boiled sweet potato purchased near 
 the school building from a vendor, two rin, is saved by 
 taking a smaller potato, and the lunch is none the less 
 palatable because the child has made a little sacrifice, and 
 these two rin, as they rattle in the collection box, are music 
 in his ears and joy — the joy of giving, — in his heart. I 
 happen to be one of the Auditors of the accounts at the 
 Leper Home, and this year we closed the books with deficit, 
 — a debt of two himdred and sixteen yen, — and we were 
 troubled, having no resources. I looked over the Sunday- 
 School collections, and found we had in the treasury nearly 
 twenty-five yen, and I told the scholars about the dear little 
 girl just thirteen, who is a leper and can never again be well, 
 but is the light of the Home. When the women get 
 discouraged and cry, this little angel puts her arms about 
 them and says, "Aimtie, dear Auntie, don't cry; we will 
 soon, all of us, have new bodies." Two boys of fifteen 
 are there — their companions like themselves are lepers. 
 "Now, children, we need money; you have some; will 
 you give it there, all or some part of it? How many 
 say all? Let us see the hands": and every ]ittle hand, 
 kindergarten and all, went up, and we made it twenty- 
 five yen to send to the Treasurer of our Leper Home. 
 I then told them to tell their parents of how we spend the 
 money given by the little ones, and we reviewed the 
 places we had helped from our mite: For five years an 
 
244 The Child in the Midst 
 
 Ainu School; Red Cross Society, two years; Charity 
 Hospital, two years; Okayama Orphanage, two years; 
 destitute soldiers, one year; comfort bags during war; 
 famine sufferers, one year; flood sufferers, one year; 
 earthquake sufferers, one year; Lepers' Home, this year; 
 medicine for sick pupils, often; help at funerals for poor 
 famihes of school. 
 
 These children when they grow up and enter the church 
 will be systematic givers and know what benevolence 
 is. * * 
 
 giVtl^'hT^sion It brings tears to the eyes and joy to the heart 
 lands. ^Q ggg Ylow eagerly children of one mission land 
 
 devote their little gifts to sending the Gospel to 
 children of some other land. It seems the most 
 natural thing in the world to lead them into 
 missionary giving, and many a children's band 
 ■ in America might be put to shame by the joy 
 and spontaneity of those who are themselves 
 objects of missionary giving. 
 
 "One day early in the fall," writes Miss Alice B. Cald- 
 well of Marsovan, Turkey, "while walking in the school 
 garden I noticed two little girls strolling up and down 
 the path arm in arm. They were chattering in their 
 vivacious way, and one of them w'as making her crochet 
 needle fly as fast as her tongue. On my inquiring what 
 she was making, she held up a dainty bag, and several 
 little interpreters informed me that it was for the Chris- 
 tian Endeavor Bazaar. After that day I saw many busy 
 fingers on the playground making the most of the hours 
 out of doors. 
 
 " The Junior Endeavorers help to support a little girl 
 in a Chinese school, and they were getting ready for a 
 bazaar to help make the money for their adopted child."** 
 
 * J. K. McCauley in Foreign Post, October, 1908. 
 ** Life and Lmi, AprU. 1912^ p. 168. Alice B. CaldwelL 
 
The Child at Work fof Christ 245 
 If we are touched by such stories as the above, Children from 
 
 ■^ ' mission nelds 
 
 which can be multiphed many times over, what ^m^erifa*° ^'^^^ 
 is our feeUng about those who are serving and 
 helping our own Christian land because they 
 were won to Christ in childhood on the mission 
 field? We are thinking of one young woman 
 whose parents became Christians under mission- 
 ary influence, and who grew up in a Christian 
 home among many persecutions and adverse cir- 
 cumstances from without. When, in the course 
 of time, her widowed mother immigrated to 
 America, the girl, already a devoted Christian, 
 entered a training school in this country. Today 
 she is working in six languages for thousands of 
 immigrants in a New England city, — doing a 
 work that few Americans could ever hope to 
 accompHsh. Merely as a business investment or 
 a patriotic effort, the money contributed to the 
 Mission Board, which brought about this result, 
 has been more than profitable. 
 
 Here is the record of another good investment 
 made in China: — 
 
 Some years ago there entered the True Light Seminary 
 a bright httle girl of thirteen, who, under the wise and 
 gentle training of Miss Noyes, gave her heart to Christ 
 and united with the church, becoming thereafter one of 
 the best pupils in the school. Her great desire was to 
 become a teacher, but since three years of age she had 
 been betrothed by her father to the son of a heathen 
 family — the betrothal by Chinese law being almost 
 equivalent to a marriage — it became her duty to fulfil 
 the promise made for her, and at the completion of her 
 
246 The Child in the Midst 
 
 coixrse of study she married the man of her father's 
 choice. The marriage did not prove a happy one; the 
 husband'3 business took him much away, leaving hia 
 wife alone, and at the end of three years he died suddenly 
 of plague. The young wife, thus unexpectedly set free 
 for service, at once took up her desired work, and after 
 teaching for three years in Hongkong was called to a 
 position in a Congregational school in Canton. . . 
 
 In the spring of 1910 it came about that one of the 
 benefactions of Mr. Andrew Carnegie came to the Occi- 
 dental Home in San Francisco, and when the question 
 arose as to what should be done with the gift it could but 
 seem that the long-sought opportunity had come to se- 
 cure a Chinese teacher to live with the girls in the Home 
 and to train them in their own tongue. 
 
 So it came to pass that Yeung Mo Owen, or Mrs. 
 Yeung, as she is known in America, led in these various 
 ways, became an inmate of the Mission Home in San 
 Francisco, teacher of Chinese to the girls, both in the 
 Home and in the Occidental Board Day School, and 
 incidentally a blessing not only to the Home and to the 
 Chinese Church, but also to Chinatown, and to the 
 Board itseK. . . 
 
 "I have never seen such a lovely face, never been so 
 impressed by a Chinese woman," said one long in the 
 work in CaUfornia. "Now you see what om- native 
 Christian women are like," quickly responded a mission- 
 ary who was present.* 
 
 Missionary The storv of the Child at Work for Christ would 
 
 children at . , , . • /• i 
 
 work. not be complete without making mention of the 
 
 missionary children who in such large numbers 
 are trying to do their share toward bringing the 
 Kingdom of Christ to this world. "If one life 
 shines, the life next to it must catch the light," 
 
 * Woman's Work, June, 1912, p. 144. Mrs. E. F. Hdl, Berke- 
 ley, Cal. 
 
The Child at Wotk for Christ 247 
 
 and the joy and privilege of mission service in 
 all its beauty, — and in all its trial and discourage- 
 ment as well, — are well known to the missionary 
 boy and girl. Even little four year old Annie 
 had her share of discouragement when her par- 
 ents returned to their field of work after a fur- 
 lough during which Annie had forgotten all 
 languages but English. When she heard her 
 mother speaking of women's meetings and 
 various forms of work as she took them up, one 
 by one, Annie decided to do her share also. Pick- 
 ing up her dolly, she trotted down to the gate to 
 be a missionary to the little Turkish girls next 
 door. Sadly she came back again to report, 
 "Mother, the children cannot speak the Ameri- 
 can language." 
 
 Let no one think that because missionary 
 children are "used to" the country and the 
 language, the climate and food and presence of 
 the "natives," it is always easy and natural for 
 them to return to their parents' field of labor. 
 Just because they have been familiar with it all 
 from childhood, the surroundings and oppor- 
 tunities of the homeland, — their own rightful 
 heritage, — seem desirable beyond words and 
 hard to relinquish. To the missionary children 
 who return to the field, the halo of romance sur- 
 rounding the step is non-existent, — they go with 
 open eyes to what they know about. And yet 
 they go, large numbers of them, and it might be 
 well to ask of your Mission Boards whether their 
 
248 The Child in the Midst 
 
 • 
 
 services are valuable to the cause or not. A 
 newspaper clipping a few years ago gave these 
 statistics : — 
 
 "Nearly one-third of the missionaries of the 
 American Board of India and Ceylon are the 
 children or grandchildren of missionaries who 
 were sent out by the Board two or three genera- 
 tions ago. In the three India missions, including 
 Ceylon, there are now ninety-five American la- 
 borers, nineteen of whom were children and 
 eleven grandchildren of missionaries." 
 
 It would be interesting to get the statistics 
 of other Missions and Boards on this subject 
 and to compare the results of their work with 
 some of the psychological statements quoted in 
 the early chapters of this book regarding heredity 
 and early training. 
 Amoric-an What part are our own precious children in 
 
 children at . , . , . 
 
 work for Christian America to have m this great sub- 
 
 ject, — the Child at Work for Christ? Are they 
 alone to be left out, or to have but a paltry share 
 in the glorious work of giving the Gospel of 
 Christ to the whole world? If the work is worth 
 doing, if the result justifies the effort, if the 
 children of the world need Christ, then it is unjust, 
 unfair, un-Christian, to deny our children a share 
 in the labor and the reward. Nor may we deny 
 them the training and teaching that will make 
 them realize not only the need, but — the one 
 only adequate way in which that need may be 
 satisfied. A few words from the pen of Dr, 
 
The Child at Work for Christ 249 
 
 William Adams BroTMi emphasize verj^ practi- 
 cally the need of this ''only adequate way." 
 
 There are many persons today who are ready to recog- The one great 
 nize the beneficent work done by foreign missionaries for world, 
 the social welfare of the peoples among whom they have 
 been working, who have no sympathy with the religious 
 motives which animate them. Why, they ask, can we 
 not have the hospital and the school without the doc- 
 trines that go with them? They forget that it is faith in 
 the realities which the doctrines express which alone has 
 made the missionary enterprise possible. Had it not 
 been for the belief that man is an immortal spirit capable 
 of communion with God, and meant for fellowship with 
 Him throughout all eternity, we should have had no 
 Livingstone or Moffatt or Paton. James Russell Lowell 
 saw this clearly when he spoke the striking sentences 
 which have often been quoted, but which will bear quot- 
 ing again: — 
 
 "When the keen scrutiny of skeptics has found a place 
 on this planet where a decent man may Uve in decency, 
 comfort, and secm-ity, supporting and educating his chil- 
 dren unspoiled and unpolluted, a place where age is 
 reverenced, infancy protected, womanhood honored, and 
 human life held in due regard, — when skeptics can find 
 such a place ten miles square on this globe, where the 
 Gospel of Christ has not gone before and cleared the way 
 and laid foundations that made decency and security 
 possible, it will then be in order for these skeptical Uterati 
 to move thither and there ventilate their views. But so 
 long as these men are dependent on the very religion 
 which they discard for every privilege they enjoy, they 
 may well hesitate to rob the Christian of his hope and 
 humanity of its faith in the Saviom- who alone has given 
 to men that hope of eternal life which makes life tolerable 
 and society possible, and robs death of its terrors and the 
 grave of its gloom." * 
 
 * "The Christian Hope," W^ A. Brown, p. 200. (Scribner.) 
 
250 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 Children 
 trained to 
 systematic 
 giving. 
 
 From Chicago 
 to India. 
 
 Is there an>'-thing more beautiful and spon- 
 taneous than the generosity of a child who has 
 learned to give to others because of its love for 
 Christ? The churches that are systematically 
 training their children to give have a great 
 future before them. 
 
 Says The Spirit of Missions: "There is an old Scotch 
 proverb that 'Mony a mickle maks a muckle.' Nowhere 
 is this more effectively demonstrated than in the Lenten 
 offering given each year by the Sunday-Schools of the 
 church. This movement was begun thirty-five years 
 ago in the diocese of Pennsylvania, and almost at once 
 it spread throughout the church. Year by year the 
 volume of gifts has grown, until for the whole period they 
 have reached the amazing sum of $2,618,290.86. The 
 gifts which have produced this result have come from 
 all quarters of the earth and from all manner of children. 
 Youngsters in Alaska have shovelled snow and others in 
 California have raised flowers to earn their money for this 
 purpose. The negro boys and girls of Africa, the peons 
 of Mexico, the Igorotes of the Philippines, and the brown 
 and yellow children of Japan and China have gathered 
 the odd coins of their several countries in common with 
 the children of the mountains and prairies, the small towns 
 and the great cities of the United States." * 
 
 One who had spent some years in India tells 
 of an experience in Chicago that brings the quick 
 tears to one's eyes. 
 
 "I had been telling the children at Olivet 
 Institute in Chicago of the little girls in Fatehgarh 
 who called Christmas the Great Day and who 
 had never had any Great Day to look forward to 
 
 * Missionary Review of the World, April, 1913, p. 315. 
 
The Child at Work for Christ 251 
 
 at all until they had come to the mission school; 
 of Gunga De, who had worked so hard to deserve 
 a doll on the Great Day and learned the Beati- 
 tudes and her psalms and prayers, only to have 
 her Hindu father take her away to bathe in the 
 Ganges so that she would miss the prize giving, 
 and of her joy when she found the doll waiting 
 for her the next day. Afterwards as I stood 
 waiting for the car on a dreary sordid Halstead 
 Street corner, a little stranger who had wandered 
 into the meeting came and stood beside me. 
 A thin shawl was over her head, and the hand 
 that held it together under her chin was thin and 
 blue with the cold. There were dark circles 
 under her eyes, and the little face had no look 
 of childhood about it. 
 
 " 'Say, missus,' she began, 'you forgot some- 
 thing.' 
 
 " 'What did I forget?' I asked, puzzled. 
 
 " 'You forgot to tell us how we could send 
 things to those children out in India. I've got 
 a doll — she has no head — but I like her — and 
 two picture cards. Maybe I will get some 
 more, so I would like to send those.' "* 
 
 We can almost hear the Master say of the 
 little, pitiful, weary-eyed child, "Whosoever 
 shall humble himself as this little child, the same 
 is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven." 
 
 Perhaps some mother may fear that if she ^hniTrln""'^ 
 trains her child to feel a personal responsibility 
 
 * The Continent, March 27, 1913, "Dolls from Chicago to 
 Fatehgarh, India," Louise Atherton Dickey. 
 
252 The Child in the Midst 
 
 for the children of far-off lands the day may 
 come when the dear one will look into her face 
 and say, "Mother, I must go. I hear the call 
 to tell others of the Christ whom I love !" Blessed 
 is that mother who can answer, though there 
 may be a sharp catch of the breath and a tighten- 
 ing of the heart strings, "If He call thee, thou shalt 
 say, 'Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth.' " 
 A mother can never afford to let her child lose 
 out of its life the very best and highest possi- 
 bility, and when God calls to a service, there is 
 nothing greater that can come to a life than the 
 blessing found in the pathway of obedience. 
 
 What do the children of the world most need? 
 Who is going to supply that need? 
 How is it to be accomplished? 
 How quickly shall it be done? 
 
 In the name of the little Child of Bethlehem let 
 every Christian woman answer these questions 
 honestly and prayerfully, opening wide her heart 
 of hearts to love and care and work for The 
 Child in the Midst. 
 nildsThi*^ A traveller was visiting several missionary 
 
 Holy Child. lands, and while in Korea had the joy of training 
 twenty-four missionary children for an exercise 
 in the Gospel of Luke. She says, "As one little 
 boy stood before an audience to repeat the lines 
 quoted below, it seemed a call to the Christian 
 world for the children : 
 
The Child at "Work for Chtist 253 
 
 "The world was dark with care and woe, 
 
 With brawl and pleasure -udld; 
 When in the midst, His love to show, 
 
 God set a Child. 
 
 "The sages frowned, their heads they shook, 
 
 For pride their heart beguiled. 
 They said, each looking on his book, 
 
 'We want no Child.' 
 
 " The merchants turned toward their scales, 
 
 Around their wealth they piled; 
 Said they, ' 'Tis gold alone prevails; 
 
 'We want no Child.' 
 
 "The soldiers rose in noisy sport; 
 
 Disdainfully they smiled; 
 And said, ' Can babes the shield support? 
 
 'We want no Child.' 
 
 "Then said the Lord; 'O world of care. 
 
 So blinded and beguiled, 
 Thou must receive for thy repair 
 
 A Holy Child.' "* 
 
 QUOTATIONS 
 
 PRAYING CHILDREN IN KOREA 
 
 Sometimes little children learn about Jesus in some way 
 and become Christians before their parents do. Three 
 years ago, after a meeting in the country at a place called 
 Top Chai, in Korea, two small boys, each nine years old, 
 
 * Miss Caroline L. Palmer in Missionary Revrew of the Wbrtd; 
 Jair<i 1913. 
 
254 The Child in the Midst 
 
 came up and told me that they were friends and had been 
 beHeving in Jesus for a year, but that none of their par- 
 ents had been Christians. They said, "We want you to 
 pray every day with us that our parents may believe in 
 Jesus." I WTote their names in a little book and did 
 pray as they asked me to, and every time I met the boys 
 after that I would ask if their parents had become Chris- 
 tians yet. "No," they would say, "not yet, but they 
 are going to." Last spring, just before I left Korea, I 
 went to Top Chai to say good-bye, and one of the boys 
 came to me with the brightest smile you ever saw and 
 said, "My father has been sick for a long time but is better 
 now, and has promised to come to church just as soon as 
 he is able." And back of him stood the other boy hold- 
 ing a smaller boy by the hand. "Pastor," he said, "this 
 is my younger brother, who has become a Christian, and 
 my father has been coming to church all winter." 
 
 A bright, manly little fellow in my chvu-ch in Pyeng 
 Yang had been a Christian only about a year when he 
 succeeded in getting his mother to come to church with 
 him. Soon after the mother decided to be a Christian, 
 this boy became very sick and his mother was very angry 
 at God about it. "See," she said, "this is what I get for 
 being a Christian." He plead with her not to feel that 
 way about it, and tried to get her to pray with him; but 
 she refused, saying, "I will never pray again." One day, 
 just before he died, he held out his hands to her, saying, 
 "Mother, come pray with me now," but she turned her 
 face away and sat down in a corner, and he began praying 
 alone in Korean, "Hanale Kai sin, uri abage," "Our 
 Father who art in Heaven," and, as he was praying, he 
 died. The next day his poor mother came to oiu" house 
 and told my wife all about it and cried as if her heart 
 would break because she had let him die without praying 
 with him. I think God will let this boy know in some 
 way in heaven that his mother did repent after he went 
 away. (W. N. Blair, The Foreign Post, May, 1910.) 
 
The Chad at Work for Christ 255 
 
 TRAINING THE CHILDREN OF THE PACIFIC 
 ISLANDS 
 
 In 1888, Rev. W. Wyatt Gill, in a meeting in London, 
 gave a statement of his work as a missionary in the 
 Hervey Islands since 1851. "He spoke of the former 
 condition of the people, of their love of revenge and of 
 their human sacrifices, of the bloody feuds that existed 
 among them, of the rule, followed by all, of keeping aUve 
 only two children in the family, and of the whole aspect 
 of their lives as something fearful; and stated that all this 
 had been changed through the influence of Christianity. 
 He remarked that to see a people who were once canni- 
 bals partaking of the Lord's Supper has been most delight- 
 ful. Looking around upon the assembly gathered for 
 this purpose he had seen the bread administered by one 
 to a man whose father that man had murdered, or the 
 reverse. He stated that the work of evangehzation in 
 many of the South Pacific Islands had been done almost 
 entirely by natives trained in the Avarua School; that 
 hundreds of these natives have sacrificed their fives to 
 carry the Gospel to their brethren, and that sixty of Mr. 
 Gill's own church have been killed wliile acting as mis- 
 sionaries. (Alexander, "Islands of the Pacific," p. 121. 
 Am. Tract Soc.) 
 
 INFLUENCE OF A PICTURE CARD 
 
 Once a month we give each girl a picture card. These 
 were sent to us by children in American Sunday-Schools, 
 and each time we explain to the child that the card was 
 sent by a fittle boy or girl in far-away America. One day 
 on our way home we stopped at a shop, and two of our 
 little girls seeing us drew near with the cards in hand. 
 A man sitting by asked one, a clever little girl, where she 
 got her picture. She didn't say, "My teacher gave it 
 to me," but answered, "A little girl in far-away America 
 sent it to me." His next question, "Why did she send 
 
256 The Child in the Midst 
 
 it to you?" To wliich she replied, "Because she loves 
 me!" Then, as he continued to question her, she began 
 to explain the picture. It happened to be Christ deliver- 
 ing the Sermon on the Mount. It was only a child-like 
 explanation given by a child of seven or eight years, but 
 the man was really interested. As we wended our way 
 I thought of the hundred and twenty-seven cards we had 
 given out that day, and the many hundreds that had been 
 given in days past, and wondered how many real Christian 
 sermons had been preached by Uttle Hindu and Moham- 
 medan girls by means of these small cards. (Woman's 
 Work, April, 1912, Bessie Lawton, Fatehgarh.) 
 
 BIBLE READING 
 
 Revealed unto Babes — Expressed by Babes. 
 
 Luke 2: 41-49. Matt. 11:25, 27. Matt. 21: 14-16. 
 
 The things that are hidden from the wise and prudent 
 are understood by children. How near a child is to the 
 Heart of the Great Infinite; how natm-ally he expresses 
 his love and praise. As the twelve-year old Boy in the 
 Temple understood His connection with His Father's 
 work, as the children in the Temple comforted the sor- 
 rowing Saviour with their praise, so the children of today 
 may understand and do for Christ wliat the wise and 
 prudent cannot. 
 
 "We are facing tremendous problems and great con- 
 tests which our children have got to settle. Can we not 
 educate these men and women of tomorrow in the world 
 brotherhood that goes back through all the centuries and 
 finds its beginning in the heart of the Boy of Twelve?" 
 L. W. Peabody. 
 
 PRAYER 
 
 We beseech Thee, O most merciful Father, for all Thy 
 little children who dwell in darkness and in the shadow 
 of evil that is in the world ; that it may please Thee to 
 
The Child at "Work fot Christ 257 
 
 have pity on them, and to gather them by the kindly 
 hand of Thy true servants, into the light of the Christian 
 fold, that they may sit at the feet of Jesus and learn of 
 Him. So let Thy truth be manifest from generation to 
 generation, and the whole family of mankind rejoice 
 together in Thy mercy, through Jesus Christ, the Saviour 
 of the world. Amen. (The Book of Common Prayer.) 
 
 QUESTIONS 
 
 1. What are some of the problems that must in all 
 probability be confronted fifteen years hence in China? 
 in Japan? in India? in Thibet? Turkey? in Central Africa? 
 
 2. What agencies, native and foreign, are preparing 
 children to solve these problems? 
 
 3. How are the children of your home and church and 
 community being trained along missionary lines? 
 
 4. What are you doing to help them? 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 A Little Child Shall Lead Them. Wom. Bd. For. Miss. 
 
 Ref . Ch. in Am. 
 The Black Bishop, Jesse Page. (Revell.) 
 The Islands of the Pacific, Alexander. (Am. Tract Soc.) 
 
 See current newspapers and magazines for up-to-date 
 material for this chapter. 
 
APPENDIX 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE MOTHER AND THE CHRIST-CHILD 
 
 "Behold the handmaid of the Lord." 
 
 It is suggested that at some convenient time 
 during the Christmas season a mass meeting 
 be held for the mothers of the community. 
 Special efforts should be made to gather all 
 mothers, as far as possible; carriages might be 
 sent for the old mothers, for special love and 
 deference is due to them ; and arrangements should 
 be made for care of babies, so that young mothers 
 may be free to attend. 
 
 If so desired, the program may include selec- 
 tions of stories and quotations from the fore- 
 going chapters, and some of the prayers may 
 be used. Let all Christian mothers gather to 
 pray and plan for the children of the world, in 
 the Name of the little Child of Bethlehem. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE MOTHER AND THE CHRIST-CHILD 
 
 "Behold the handmaid of the Lord." 
 BIBLE READING 
 
 Luke 1:26-35, 38, 46-55 & 2:19, 51. 
 
 The angel addressed the holy mother as 
 "highly favored," "the Lord with thee." God's 
 presence in her life was a reason why she could 
 be trusted with the greatest responsibility ever 
 given to a woman, to bring up, to teach and guard 
 the most wonderful child ever born. Contrast 
 how royal princesses are seldom entrusted with 
 the care and training of future kings and em- 
 perors. 
 
 Vs. 46-55. Mary's appreciation of what God 
 had done for her personally, — her wider vision 
 of what her experience was to mean to the world. 
 She accepted the trust and believed the amazing 
 promise, (v. 38) but realized that the present and 
 future generations were to share in the blessing 
 (vs. 48, 54, 55.) 
 
 Ch. 2:19, 51. Mary kept in her heart all the 
 strange, wonderful occurrences, pondering them. 
 
262 The Child in the Midst 
 
 trying to understand God's dealings, and to bring 
 herself and her actions into line with them. She 
 realized that hers was an unusual task, and set 
 herself to watch and understand its meaning. 
 
 PRAYER 
 
 Oh Lord, our Heavenly Father, we pray for 
 Thy rich blessing upon this gathering of mothers, 
 and upon the mothers of this community. Grant 
 to each one of our children those blessings of 
 body, mind, and soul which Thou seest they 
 most need. Grant to each father and mother 
 the wisdom, love, and courage, and, above all, the 
 personal acquaintance with Thee that shall enable 
 them to train their children for useful, happy. 
 Christian manhood and womanhood, and to 
 love and serve Thee for time and for eternity. 
 
 We beseech Thee, in the name of the Holy 
 Child of Bethlehem, to remember our homes and 
 the homes of the whole earth with Thy Fatherly 
 blessing. Guard little children throughout the 
 world from sin and sorrow and suffering, from 
 cruel neglect and oppression, from growing up 
 in vice and ignorance. Stir the hearts of Thy 
 servants at this glad time of the Children's 
 Festival, to take the knowledge of the blessed 
 Christ-Child to the remotest corners of the 
 earth, that all children may learn to know Him, 
 and may grow up into His likeness. 
 
 We ask it in the name of Thy Holy Child Jesus. 
 Amen. 
 
The Mother and the Chnst-Child 263 
 
 "Holy night! peaceful night! 
 Tlirough the darkness beams a light 
 Yonder, where they sweet vigils keep 
 O'er the Babe, who, in silent sleep, 
 Rests in heavenly peace. 
 
 " Silent night ! holiest night! 
 Dai-kness flies and all is light ! 
 Shepherds hear the angels sing — 
 'Hallelujah! hail the Eng! 
 Jesus Christ is here!' 
 
 " Silent night ! holiest night! 
 Wondrous Star! oh, lend thy light! 
 With the angels let us sing, 
 Hallelujah to om* King! 
 Jesus Clirist is here! " 
 
 What a significant fact it is that, of all religions, 
 Christianity is the only one which lays emphasis 
 on the childhood of its Founder! Mohammedan 
 tradition weaves the most marvelous and fan- 
 tastic tales about the infancy and childhood of 
 the man who founded it, though none of these are 
 mentioned in the Koran. But how different 
 are these extravagant and often disgusting stories, 
 from the wonderful Gospel story of the Christ- 
 Child. 
 
 No other child ever born into this world has 
 had such honor done to the event of his birth, or 
 has been able to inspire in millions of hearts 
 through generation after generation the joy of 
 remembering others, the delight of expressing 
 love by gifts, the glory of "goodwill among na^ii," 
 that mark the Christmas time. 
 
264 The Child in the Midst 
 
 Few of those who Hve in a Christian land can 
 reahze the effect of the mere observance of the 
 Christmas festival on those who never heard of 
 Christ. Christmas Day, although of course not 
 celebrated by non-Christians, is nevertheless 
 called in India "the great day of the j^ear," by 
 thousands of Hindus and Mohammedans. Dr. 
 Badley of Lucknow, in commenting on the fact, 
 says;— 
 
 "The heathen people of course do not celebrate 
 Christmas; they know that Christians do, how- 
 ever, and this simple fact, so constantly observed, 
 causes them to think about the power of Chris- 
 tianity. Many are led to ask, 'Who was Christ? 
 What did He do? Why do the Christians ob- 
 serve His birthday?' These inquiries call forth 
 various answers, discussion follows, and thus the 
 whole nation with its many miUions of people, 
 is thinking and talking about the world's 
 Saviour." 
 
 Would that every mother in America might have 
 a vision today of a Christless home in a Christ- 
 less land, and then of that home transformed, 
 and taking its share in the festival of the Christ- 
 Child ! When once the spirit of the blessed Christ 
 has touched a heart or a home or a community, 
 there is a transformation. Is there any other 
 anniversary that inspires the blessed joy of 
 giving that belongs to the Christmas season? 
 The Missionary Link gives a sample of what 
 Christmas has come to mean to some Japanese 
 
The Mother and the Christ-Child 265 
 
 children in Kyoto, and the consequences of their 
 celebration: — 
 
 "Last Christmas the children used the money 
 they had collected in Sunday-School to buy 
 charcoal for the poor. As they did not know 
 to whom they should give it, they asked the 
 policeman to give it to the poorest people he 
 knew. They did not hear any more about it for 
 some time, when one Sunday an old woman came 
 to Sunday-School, and asked if this was the place 
 where poor people were helped. She then 
 thanked the children for the charcoal, telling 
 them it had kept her warm most of the winter. 
 She told them she Hved in a tiny room with 
 another old woman, and, although she worked very 
 hard sewing, she could only earn about three 
 cents a day. She had no money to buy charcoal 
 to keep her warm, and about Christmas time 
 thought she would throw herself into the river, 
 as she was of no use to any one. Just at that 
 time the children sent her the charcoal, so she 
 felt that some one really cared for her. She 
 helped in the heathen temple for a little while, 
 but said the people were so unkind to her she 
 could not stay. Now she is studying about Jesus, 
 and goes every week to the Sunday-School." 
 
 If such effects follow when little heathen chil- 
 dren are taught the story of Christmas and its 
 significance, why, oh why, should not we moth- 
 ers send the beautiful message to every little 
 child in the world? 
 
266 The Child in the Midst 
 
 MOTHERHOOD 
 I see them come crowding, crowding, 
 
 Children of want and pain. 
 Dark sorrow their eyes enshrouding. 
 
 Where joy's touch should have lain. 
 
 They stand in silence beseeching. 
 
 Gaunt faces lifted up, 
 And wan little hands outreaching 
 
 For Love's forbidden cup. 
 
 Their hearts are restless with yearning, 
 The hearts of my own are stilled. 
 
 Their lips are parched and burning, 
 The cups of my own are filled! 
 
 I cry in love unsatisfied 
 
 For these without the fold, 
 My mother's arms are open wide 
 
 These weary ones to hold. 
 
 What though my arms are open wide, 
 
 Only mine own lie near, 
 Without still stand those long denied, 
 
 Compassed in want and fear. 
 
 Bowed with the crown of Motherhood, 
 
 I seek that Shepherd of old; 
 "How can mine own receive the good 
 With some left out of the fold?" 
 (Isabel Kimball Whiting in The Survey. By per- 
 mission.) 
 
 Is it enough for us to plan that our own chil- 
 dren and those near and dear to us shall be made 
 happy by our Christmas tokens of love and 
 remembrance? Truly it is such a busy, rushing 
 time that even our regular church work must 
 
The Mother and the Chnst-Child 267 
 
 often be set aside that the Christmas obligations 
 may be met. But a true mother heart is big 
 enough to take in more, and ever more, and the 
 blessing of growth is bestowed on each heart that 
 opens to admit new objects of love. 
 
 "Recently," says the Outlook, "a tender, 
 gentle, refined woman who has identified herself 
 with those movements which seek to improve 
 the conditions of child life, said, 'I have had a 
 new thought come to me that has made me accept 
 the loss of my little girl with patience, almost 
 with resignation. God never meant that a 
 woman should be the mother to just one little 
 girl. He meant that every woman should be 
 mother to every child in the world.' " 
 
 "How I wish I could give a Christmas present 
 to Jesus!" said a loving little girl, her eyes danc- 
 ing with Christmas joy as she surveyed the 
 small gifts, so long planned and carefully pre- 
 pared for her clear ones. For her the very es- 
 sence of Christmas was its expression in visible 
 tokens to those whom she loved. If we mothers 
 long to "give a Christmas present to Jesus," 
 what could be more acceptable to Him, than the 
 dedication of an hour of this busy, nappy Christ- 
 mas season to loving prayer and thought for 
 the mothers and children in our own community 
 and throughout the "wide world? Thus shall we 
 be draw^i near to the heart of the great Father, 
 and, if during this hour some angel messenger 
 whispers to our hearts of a special task which 
 
268 The Child in the Midst 
 
 He is willing to entrust to us, may we be ready 
 to answer with Mary of old, — "Behold the hand- 
 maid of the Lord; be it unto me according to 
 thy word!" 
 
 What blessings shall we ask for the mothers of 
 the world? ^What do we need for ourselves? 
 Unselfish love, infinite patience, wisdom and 
 insight, tact and sympathy, health to bear the 
 daily strain, quiet nerves, a sense of humor that 
 smooths rough places, a sweet, strong cheerful- 
 ness, a likeness to Christ that shall be reflected in 
 the lives of all the members of the household. 
 "According to the riches of His grace," He is 
 waiting to bestow His blessings on the mother 
 hearts waiting here before Him, and through 
 their intercession, on the mother hearts of the 
 world. 
 
 What blessings shall we ask for the children 
 of the world? The same that we ask for our 
 own as we kneel at their bedside, and our eyes 
 are dim with tears of yearning love, while we 
 pray that our darlings may be kept from haym 
 and accident, from all soul stains, that they 
 may "grow in wisdom and stature and in favor 
 with God and man," Is there any blessing you 
 ask for your boy and girl that is not needed by 
 the other children of the world? 
 
 "Prayer is cheap," some say, "it costs nothing 
 to say a prayer for missions." Real prayer is 
 not cheap, — it costs the deepest, strongest 
 thought one can expend; it costs time; it costs 
 
The Mother and the Chnst-Child 269 
 
 the willingness to help to answer one's own pray- 
 ers in terms of interest and gifts and service. 
 In Christ's name, then, let us pray, and let us 
 not rest nor be satisfied until every mother in 
 the world, clasping her child to her bosom, is 
 truly a holy mother, and every little child is a 
 holy child. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Addams, Miss Jane, p. 92. 
 "Age of the Child," p. 4. 
 American children at work, pp. 
 
 248, 251, 252. 
 Anti-foot-binding movement, p. 
 
 33. 
 Applied Christianity, p. 17. 
 
 Bathing, pp. 22, 23. 
 Bible, place of the child in, p. 
 197 ; the power of, pp. 207, 208. 
 Bible reading, pp. 41, 82, 128, 
 
 172, 216, 256, 261. 
 Bibliography, pp. 42, 84, 128, 
 
 173, 218, 257. 
 
 Blind children, pp. 118, 120. 
 Bunker, Alonzo, p. 6. 
 Burma, a home in, p. 55. 
 Burma, Christian children in, p. 
 
 243. 
 Burnett, Mrs. Frances Hodgson, 
 
 p. 9. 
 
 Caste, India, p. 213. 
 
 Childbirth, China, p. 39; suffer- 
 ing during, pp. 13, 14. 
 
 Child labor, among Bedouins, 
 p. 104; in Africa, p. 104; in 
 Persia, pp. 105, 106; in many 
 lands, p. 105; need of public 
 sentiment concerning, p. 103. 
 
 Child marriage, India, pp. 68-72, 
 79. 
 
 Child slavery, pp. 107-110. 
 
 Child training, Persia, pp. 58, 59. 
 
 Child wives, Persia, p. 81 ; In- 
 dia, p. 10. 
 
 Child welfare agencies, p. 5. 
 
 Child at worship, Thibet, p. 180 ; 
 India, pp. 180, 181; Moslem 
 lands, pp. 181, 182; Africa, 
 pp. 183, 184. 
 
 Children, of India, needs of, p. 
 3; of Persia, p. 4 ; of Syria, p. 
 3; importance of, p. 8. 
 
 Children's pavilion, Beirut, p. 38. 
 
 China's awakening, p. 227. 
 
 Chinese, mother ideal, p. 57; 
 
 mothers, p. 10; mothers in 
 
 council, p. 231. 
 Christ needs the children, p. 223. 
 Christianity, in the home, p. 78 ; 
 
 place of child in, p. 263. 
 Christmas, in India, p. 264; in 
 
 Japan, p. 265. 
 Clothing, p. 23-24. 
 Cochran, Sirs. James, p. 21. 
 Confucianism, attitude towards 
 
 girls, p. 21 ; and Christianity, 
 
 pp. 187, 188. 
 Conservation of human re- 
 sources, p. 8. 
 Contagious diseases, pp. 34-37. 
 Curtis'", Wm. E , p. 2-35. 
 Crowther, Bishop Samuel A., 
 
 pp. 237-239. 
 
 Dale, Mrs. G. F., p. 38. 
 
 Deaf and Dumb children, pp. 
 118, 119. 
 
 Defective and dependent chil- 
 dren, pp. 110-124. 
 
 Death of children, pp. 196, 197. 
 
 Discipline, lack of, p. 58. 
 
 Devine, Dr. E. T., pp.6, 31, 52. 
 
 Dolls, in Central Africa, p. 126. 
 
 Dying child's doll, pp. 101-103. 
 
 Education, Africa, pp. 170, 171; 
 divergent views on, pp. 136- 
 138; Japan, pp. 139, 140; 
 China, p. 141; India, pp. 141, 
 142; Persia, pp. 142-144, 154, 
 2.34; Turkey, pp. 142-144; 
 Siam, pp. 168, 169; extent of 
 American Miisionarj', pp,163, 
 104 ; among backward nations, 
 pp. 151-153; of future moth- 
 ers, p. 156. 
 
 Egypt, Lord Cromer on, p. 155. 
 
 Eugenics, pp. 9-11. 
 
 Evil Eye, pp. 15-16. 
 
 Evil spirits, p. 17, 
 
 Exner, Dr., p. 28. 
 
 Family life, foundations of, p. 
 65. 
 
Index 
 
 271 
 
 Famine waifs, pp. IIG, 117. 
 
 Fathers, position of, pp. 01-64; 
 Egyptian, p. 02; African, p. 
 62; transformed by Christian- 
 ity, p. 68. 
 
 Feast day, Arabia, p. 124. 
 
 Feast of dolls, Japan, p. 93. 
 
 Feast of flags, p. 94. 
 
 Feeding, pp. 20-28. 
 
 Foerster, Dr. F. W. on educa- 
 tion and Christianity, pp. 144, 
 145. 
 
 Foot-binding, pp. 32, 33. 
 
 Games, pp. 95-99. 
 Girls, mothers of, pp. 64, 65. 
 Giving to missions, pp. 243, 244, 
 251; systematic, p. 250. 
 
 Harrison, Elizabeth, p. 128. 
 
 Health, pp. 31-32. 
 
 Heathen baby. A, p. 213. 
 
 Heredity, pp. 9, 10. 
 
 Hindu Vedas, p. 186. 
 
 Holy Child, The, pp. 252, 253. 
 
 " Holy Night," p. 263. 
 
 Home, the center of a nation's 
 life, pp. 52-54; a transformed, 
 p. 79; a Mohammedan in Per- 
 sia, p. 47 ; a heathen in Africa, 
 p. 49; a Christian in Zulu- 
 land, p. 51. 
 
 Homes, disorderly, p. 54; how 
 to bring Christ to, pp. 72, 73. 
 
 Hygiene, pp. 28-29. 
 
 Hymns, p. 208. 
 
 Idol worship, pp. 190, 191. 
 India, infanticide in, pp. 19-21; 
 work for children of, pp. 232, 
 
 Industrial training, p. 163. 
 Infant mortality, pp. 24, 25. 
 Infanticide, pp. 18-21. 
 Influence of a picture card, p. 
 
 255. 
 Influences, moral and imnioral, 
 
 pp. 56-58. 
 Illiteracy, statistics, pp. 138, 139 ; 
 
 Sir J. O. Rees on, p. 139. 
 Innocence, absence of, p. 55. 
 
 Japan, changes in, pp. 224-227. 
 Japan, Imperial University, p. 
 
 225. 
 Junior Endeavor, pp. 205-206. 
 
 Kashmir, the athletic method 
 in, pp. 1.59, 160. 
 
 Kindergarten children grown 
 up, p. 226. 
 
 Kindergartens, need of Chris- 
 tian, pp. 147-149. 
 
 Kindergartners, qualifications 
 of, p. 150; a West African, 
 pp. 1.50, 151; Union, Japan, 
 pp. 14,5-147; China, p. 147. 
 
 Koran, p. 185. 
 
 Korea, praying children in, pp. 
 253, 254; Christian children 
 in, p. 242. 
 
 Languages used in Presbyterian 
 
 schools, p. 164. 
 Li Bi Cu, Dr. pp. 229-231. 
 Literature, need for good, pp. 
 
 161-163. 
 Lepers, pp. 120-124. 
 "London Bridge" in Africa, 
 
 pp. 96-97. 
 
 Mary, the slave child, pp. 109, 
 110. 
 
 Marriage, early, a barrier to ed- 
 ucation, pp. 154, 155. 
 
 Medical practice in non-Chris- 
 tian lands, pp. 34-36, 39. 
 
 Milligan, Robt. H., p. 11. 
 
 Missionary children, p. 77; at 
 work, pp. 246-248. 
 
 Missionary's dream. A, p. 212. 
 
 Missionary education, reasons 
 for continuing, p. 138; is it 
 needed, pp. 135-136. 
 
 Missionary homes, pp. 74-77; 
 wives, pp. 73, 74; mothers, 
 pp. 29, 30. 
 
 Mothers, ignorant, pp. 26, 36. 
 
 Mothers' meetings, p. 78. 
 
 Motherhood, protection of, p. 
 11; suffering of, p. 13; the 
 burden of, pp. 64, 70, 71. 
 
272 
 
 Index 
 
 " Motherhood " (poem), p. 20(5, 
 
 Mpongwe, adjing tribe, pp. 12. 
 13. 
 
 Mohammedan girls, pp. GG, G7. 
 
 Mohammedan month of mourn- 
 ing, p. 190. 
 
 Montessori, Dr., p. 1.53. 
 
 Moslem lands, need of women 
 doctors, p. 14. 
 
 Needs of childhood, pp. 3, 4. 
 Need of the world, the one 
 
 great, p. 249. 
 Non-Christian religions, place 
 
 of child in, pp. 18.J-1SS. 
 
 Obstacles, pp. 209, 210. 
 
 " Organized motherhood for 
 
 the world," pp. 5, 54. 
 Orphans, American massacre, 
 
 pp. 111-113; Mohammedan, p. 
 
 113. 
 Orphanages, India, pp. 114, 115. 
 
 Pacific Islands, pp. 240, 241; 
 
 training children of, p. 255. 
 Persian girls, education of ,p. 154. 
 Persian " Helen Keller." pp. 
 
 117, 118. 
 Persian schoolboys, p. 234. 
 Physical training, pp. 157-160. 
 Play, teaching children to, p. 
 
 157; among the Lao, p. 125; 
 
 importance of, pp. 90-93; 
 
 stops early in non-Christian 
 
 lands, pp. 99, 100. 
 Playground Movement, p. 90; 
 
 America leading in, p. 95 ; in 
 
 Japan, p. 94. 
 Prayer, pp. 41, 83, 128, 172,210, 
 
 256, 262. 
 "Polishing Jade Establish- 
 ment," p. 114. 
 
 Questions, pp. 41, 83, 89, 172, 
 217, 257. 
 
 Rights of every child, p. 7; of 
 
 every mother, p. 7. 
 Rite of the broken pot, p. 15. 
 Religious acts, results of, pp. 
 
 189-193. 
 
 ' Religious needs of children, p. 
 
 184. 
 Rescue homes, for slave chil- 
 { dren, pp. 108, 109. 
 
 Rescuing the servant of the 
 1 gods, pp. 194, 195. 
 I Saving a boy, China, p. 127. 
 Schools, the call for, pp. 133- 
 
 135; missionary, pp. 1G5-1G8; 
 
 Persia, pp. 109^170; Kurdish 
 
 Mountains, pp. 171, 172. 
 Sunday schools, statistics, p. 
 
 199;' Japan, pp. 199-202; 
 
 China, pp. 202, 215 ; India, pp. 
 
 202, 203: Africa, pp. 203-205 
 Schoff, Mrs. Frederick, p. 8. 
 Selden, Dr. Chas. C, p. 10. 
 Sex instruction, pp. CO, 61. 
 Soldiers and babies, p. 40. 
 " Spirit of Play," need of, pp. 
 
 100, 101. 
 Spirit worship, p. 214. 
 Starvation diet, pp. 30, 31. 
 St. John, Prof. E. P., pp. 59-60, 
 
 92. 
 Stuart, Dr. E. M., p. 14. 
 Superstitions regarding infants, 
 
 pp. 15-18. 
 Sun Yat Sen, pp. 228, 229. 
 Syrian girls at work, p. 236. 
 Teachers, Avhere to be trained, 
 
 pp. 141, 143. 
 Teething, p. 16. 
 
 Temple girls, pp. 192, 193; leg- 
 islation concerning, pp. 193, 
 
 194. 
 Training children for service, 
 
 pp. 240, 241 : Christian wives 
 
 and mothers, pp. 6G-G8. 
 Twins, superstitions regarding, 
 
 p. 18. 
 Underwood, Mrs. H. G., p. 27. 
 
 West Africa, boys of, pp. 166, 
 
 167. 
 "World's Tragedies, The," p. 
 
 237. 
 Yeung, Mrs., of China, pp. 245, 
 
 246. 
 
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