To understand the importance of this controversy the various aims of missionary education must be realised, and it is because those aims are different that the controversy has been confused and the value of education as an assistance to missionary effort in China misunderstood. There are really seven aims: three which are common to all missionary effort in all lands, and four which especially apply to countries like China which are passing through a transitional period of thought. The three which are common to all missionary effort are (1) evangelisation; (2) edification of the Christian body; (3) education of preachers and teachers. The four that are peculiar to China in her present transitional condition are (4) preparation of secular leaders; (5) leavening of the whole public opinion; (6) opposition {258} to Western materialism; (7) association of Christianity with learning. The arguments for the first three are applicable to every land. Evangelisation can no doubt be carried on most efficiently before the mind has received any intellectual bias. The Jesuit priest is reported to have said, "If I have the child till he is ten, I do not care who has him afterwards;" and therefore, as in all the world so in China, the Roman Catholics have always made a great effort to educate children. They have preferred those who have had no home-ties, orphans and waifs, and have by this policy built up a huge Christian population numbering over a million. This population is thoroughly Christian in sentiment; they have never known an idolatrous atmosphere, and they live to a great extent by themselves in communities. While they are thoroughly Christian, they are also absolutely Chinese; no effort is made to Westernise the children in any way. From this great Christian body Catholic priests are drawn, and I believe so completely Christian are they, that no difference is made between them and white men by such an important body as the Jesuits. When other Christian bodies began missionary work in China they also started schools, but the difference of their schools was that they aimed much more at the second than at the first object. The school was not merely a place to attract homeless children and bring them up as Christians; it was also intended to edify and adorn with knowledge the children of Christians. {259} Non-Christians were largely admitted, but I think that I am right in stating that the object was much more edification than evangelisation. In a corrupt society like China, where all knowledge is intermingled with vice, it is inevitable that Christian schools should be erected for the Christian body, and it is equally inevitable that those who are non-Christians but who admire the schools greatly should try and enter them. The feature of these schools for the most part, though not invariably, in contrast to the earlier Roman Catholic schools, is that Western education is to a certain extent, varying in each mission,