4. Seeing that all survey is scientifically governed by the object for which it is made, it is essential that in a survey such as we propose the end for which it is made should be stated in each case as clearly and definitely as possible. This involves often such a definition of the end as implies a certain missionary policy. Realising this, we have not hesitated to set forth the policy implied in the terms which we use and the questions which we ask.[1] We are well aware that this lays us open to attack from men who may question the policy and dispute the value of the survey. It would be far more easy to set down simply the facts which we think any true survey should contain, leaving them unrelated to one another, so that no one could tell exactly what we were driving at. This is the common plan. Men say they want to know the facts of the missionary situation, any facts, all facts, indiscriminately, and they draw up a list of all the facts that they can think of and issue a _questionnaire_ which leaves the compiler of the answers in complete ignorance concerning the purpose of the questions. Such heaps of information might be used anyhow if they were really complete; but in fact since they have not been designed for any definite use they are generally deficient for any definite use, and remain mere masses of information on which no true judgments can be based. So far from revealing the missionary situation they obscure it. We have, therefore, taken the risk of explaining why we want each piece of information, how we think it might be used, and have drawn our tables in such a form that it is actually seen at work. By so doing we open the door at once, both for intelligent co-operation and intelligent opposition. We frankly make criticism easy; we invite it; for we believe that frank criticism on the basis of agreed facts is extremely fruitful. [Footnote 1: It does not follow that we approve the policy implied.] We may well acknowledge that the aim which above all others has appealed to us is the aim of the establishment in the world of a Christian Church, native, indigenous, living, self-supporting, self-governing, self-extending, independent of foreign aid. That has no doubt coloured our work and will perhaps render it less acceptable to some; for the facts which must be included in a survey which accepts that aim are precisely the facts which societies do not now tabulate and are often estimated with some difficulty. But though this thought has inevitably governed our conception of survey and we have made no attempt to conceal it, we have nevertheless tried to avoid the danger of selecting for survey only those facts which might serve to support a theory of the method by which that aim is to be attained; and we have kept in our minds constantly the needs of men whose idea of the aim of foreign missions differs from our own.