superadded to Chinese learning; and therefore, though the school is essentially a school for Chinese learning, the children as a rule learn something also of Western knowledge. Out of these schools naturally arise others which have the third aim of missionary education as their object, namely, the preparation of preachers and teachers who in the future shall be the real missionary body of China. Every thinking man realises that the alien missionary can only exist in a brief transitional period. The true teachers of a race must be those who are linked to it by ties of blood and tradition, and nearly every mission has therefore set to work to create a native ministry which is sooner or later to take over the task of the conversion of China. This is regarded by many, nay, by most, as the great aim of missionary educational work. The degree of preparation, however, differs widely in different missions. {260} Some missions, drawing their teachers from the lower ranks of society, are quite content to give them an education which will enable them to lead and teach the lower class among whom they move; other missions held that the Christian teacher must not merely he able to lead the ignorant but must be able also to meet in controversy those who may be well equipped with Western knowledge; and therefore while in some missions the education of native pastors is conducted solely in Chinese, in others the teaching is in English, to enable the teachers and preachers to keep abreast with the thought of Western countries and to defend their land by pen and sermon as much against the errors of the West as against the superstition of the East.