Whatever may be the views adopted by some supporters of missions, as to the wisdom of devoting missionary energy and funds to educational work in other mission fields, in Madagascar such work has always been regarded as of the greatest importance. Unless the first missionaries had established schools, the people must have grown up ignorant, and the translation of the Scriptures would have been utterly useless, as none would have been able to read them. School work has therefore been carried on at all our stations, and in connexion with almost all our village churches, and some of the best work that has been done in the mission has been done in the schools, where the minds and memories of the children have been charged with Gospel truth, which was able to make them wise unto salvation. Distinctions have been drawn--sometimes absurdly enough--between what are called evangelistic and mere educational work. It is true there _is_ a sense in which distinctions may be drawn; but all educational work in the mission field ought to sustain a vital relation to evangelization. The same may be said of literary and medical mission work. In some fields, medical missionary work constitutes an absolutely essential factor. Still, all these instrumentalities are but _means to an end_. The value of educational, literary, medical, and all other forms of missionary activity must be measured by the extent to which they prepare the way for the Gospel, and promote its acceptance by the natives. They should manifest its spirit, and multiply the points of contact with the life of the people, and thus increase the efficiency of those who preach the Gospel. ‘The test of every religious, political, or educational system is the man who is formed.’ ‘Ignorance the mother of devotion’ has never been the watchword of Protestantism at home or abroad. It expresses the policy of a very different order of religious teachers.