Chips from a German Workshop, Volume 4: Essays Chiefly on the Science of LanguageMüller, F. Max (Friedrich Max)
Religion
Chips from a German Workshop, Volume 4: Essays Chiefly on the Science of Language
Müller, F. Max (Friedrich Max)
Comparative linguistics; Folklore; Literature -- History and criticism; Mythology; Religions
Now it seems to me that, first of all, our Universities, and I think
again chiefly of Oxford, might do much more for missions than they do at
present. If we had a sufficient staff of professors for Eastern
languages, we could prepare young missionaries for their work, and
should be able to send out from time to time such men as Patteson, the
Bishop of Melanesia, who was every inch an Oxford man. And in these
missionaries we might have not only apostles of religion and
civilization, but at the same time, the most valuable pioneers of
scientific research. I know there are some authorities at home who
declare that such a combination is impossible, or at least undesirable;
that a man cannot serve two masters, and that a missionary must do his
own work and nothing else. Nothing, I believe, can be more mistaken.
First of all, some of our most efficient missionaries have been those
who have done also the most excellent work as scholars, and whenever I
have conversed on this subject with missionaries who have seen active
service, they all agree that they cannot be converting all day long, and
that nothing is more refreshing and invigorating to them than some
literary or scientific work. Now what I should like to see is this:
I should like to see ten or twenty of our non-resident fellowships,
which at present are doing more harm than good, assigned to missionary
work, to be given to young men who have taken their degree, and who,
whether laymen or clergymen, are willing to work as assistant
missionaries on distant stations, with the distinct understanding that
they should devote some of their time to scientific work, whether the
study of languages, or flowers, or stars, and that they should send home
every year some account of their labors. These men would be like
scientific consuls, to whom students at home might apply for information
and help. They would have opportunities of distinguishing themselves by
really useful work, far more than in London, and after ten years, they
might either return to Europe with a well-established reputation, or if
they find that they have a real call for missionary work, devote all
their life to it. Though to my own mind there is no nobler work than
that of a missionary, yet I believe that some such connection with the
Universities and men of science would raise their position, and would
call out more general interest, and secure to the missionary cause the
good-will of those whose will is apt to become law.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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