The Educational Work of Missionary Societies

Extract

The educational work of missionary societies is a wide subject, and I propose to limit what I say to three topics: first, the quality of missionary education; secondly, missions and native society; thirdly, missions and governments.

When I was in Africa a few years ago I remarked on one occasion to a prominent official, ‘All the mistakes in native education in East Africa have been made by the missionaries.’ He looked at me in surprise at so frank an admission from a representative of missions. I added, ‘The reason is that they were the only people who could make them, since they have been the only people engaged in education.’ Throughout the greater part of Africa we are still only on the threshold of educational development. Ten years ago there were no education departments in Uganda or Nyasaland or Northern Rhodesia or the Belgian Congo or in Portuguese colonies, and those in other territories, British and non-British, were doing very little.