A Tour of the Missions: Observations and ConclusionsStrong, Augustus Hopkins
Religion
A Tour of the Missions: Observations and Conclusions
Strong, Augustus Hopkins
East Asia -- Description and travel; Missions
There are doubtless seditious and anarchistic elements in the Indian
populations which need to be kept under and subdued. Let us remember
that only one-tenth part of the men, and only one-hundredth part of the
women, know how to read. There is a vast proletarian mass, ignorant and
inflammable, ready to follow leaders of better education, but less
principle, than themselves. This mass the British Government has failed
to educate, so that, while ninety per cent of the people in Japan can
read, in India only one-tenth as many can read. One of the greatest
mistakes of English administration has been its beginning of education
at the top, instead of at the bottom. It has established universities,
but not elementary schools. The excuse, of course, has been, that
differences of caste and of religion have made it impossible to put
Hindu children and Mohammedan children, Brahman children and Sudra
children, together, in the same schools. And yet, in the universities,
pupils of all these various classes sit side by side, and some plan, it
would seem, might have been devised to apply the same rule, so as to
secure universal and compulsory elementary education. The higher
education, taken alone, has its dangers; it is sought only by people of
means and intelligence; many seek it from no love of learning, but only
in order to prepare themselves for government offices. But there are not
enough offices to go round. The disappointed men will not work with
their hands; they find their avocation in the plotting of sedition. It
is the high-caste educated Brahmans who have edited the malcontent
periodicals, and have organized the revolutionary conspiracies, which
have of late bred so much trouble for the government in India. I rejoice
therefore in the rise of factories, and in the new emphasis that is
being laid on industrial education. These will do much to develop the
resources of India. But what is most needed is the spirit of peace and
justice; this is furnished by the gospel of Christ. I therefore believe
that the gospel is the only real guaranty to India of its political as
well as its religious welfare.
The Friday prayer-service in the great mosque of Delhi was a striking
spectacle. The open court in front of the mosque is four hundred and
fifty feet square, surrounded by a cloister, and paved with granite
inlaid with marble. Three or four thousand worshipers, in parallel rows,
stretched from side to side of the great enclosure. At the summons of
the mollah, or officiating priest, all these worshipers, in perfect
unison, prostrated themselves with folded hands, and repeated in a loud
voice, "God is great." Each devotee had previously purified himself, by
cleansing his mouth and hands and feet in the open tank in the center of
the great esplanade. Inasmuch as the Delhi mosque is the largest and
most splendid east of Cairo, the entire spectacle was most impressive.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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