The Child in the Midst
by Mary Schauffler Platt · English · Gutenberg #46148 · 427,932 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Child in the Midst
Author: Mary Schauffler Platt
Release date: June 30, 2014 [eBook #46148]
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Language: English
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[Illustration: THE WORKSHOP AT NAZARETH
Picture Copyrighted and Owned by A. R. MOWBRAY & CO., LTD., and
printed by their permission.
E. P. DUTTON & CO., sole agents in America.]
THE CHILD IN THE
MIDST
_A Comparative Study of Child Welfare in
Christian and Non-Christian Lands._
BY
MARY SCHAUFFLER LABAREE
(MRS. BENJAMIN W. LABAREE)
“_And He took a little child and set him in the midst of them._”
PUBLISHED BY
The Central Committee on the United Study of Foreign Missions
West Medford, Massachusetts
COPYRIGHT, JANUARY, 1914
CENTRAL COMMITTEE ON THE UNITED
STUDY OF FOREIGN MISSIONS
FRANK WOOD, PRINTER
BOSTON, MASS.
FOREWORD
The Central Committee on the United Study of Foreign Missions sends
out the fourteenth text-book with hearty appreciation of the favor
with which the thirteen already issued have been received. The phases
of work which have been treated and the manner of their treatment have
appealed to a large constituency of various names, resulting in an
increase of knowledge and an impulse to pray and work and give.
This is not a book for children, but a book about children the world
over, and with its accurate statement of facts solicits attention to
the great need of new effort in behalf of children in non-Christian
lands. The author, Mary Schauffler Labaree (Mrs. Benjamin W.), a
missionary daughter, granddaughter, wife, and mother, was born into an
environment of missionary intelligence and activity in which her
girlhood was trained. Later years of experience in Persia, and
subsequent association with many nationalities in our own land, have
given her large opportunity to know whereof she writes with tender,
sympathetic touch. If the book may lead others to know and do, its
purpose will be fulfilled.
CENTRAL COMMITTEE ON THE UNITED STUDY
OF FOREIGN MISSIONS.
MRS. HENRY W. PEABODY.
MISS E. HARRIET STANWOOD.
MRS. DECATUR M. SAWYER.
MRS. FRANK MASON NORTH.
MRS. JAMES A. WEBB, JR.
MRS. A. V. POHLMAN.
MISS OLIVIA H. LAWRENCE.
MISS GRACE T. COLBURN.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
FOREWORD v
CHAPTER I.
The Child in its Helplessness. “The place where the
young Child lay” 1
CHAPTER II.
The Child at Home. “Train up a child in the way he
should go” 45
CHAPTER III.
The Child at Play and at Work. “Boys and girls
playing in the streets thereof” 87
CHAPTER IV.
The Child at School. “Come, ye children--I will
teach you the fear of the Lord” 131
CHAPTER V.
The Child at Worship. “Suffer the little children
to come unto Me” 177
CHAPTER VI.
The Child at Work for Christ. “I must be about my
Father’s business” 221
CHAPTER VII. Appendix
The Mother and the Christ-Child. “Behold the
handmaid of the Lord” 259
CHAPTER I.
THE CHILD IN ITS HELPLESSNESS
“The place where the young Child lay.”
What do the children need?--“The Age of the Child”--All children
to be included--Rights of every child and every
mother--Conservation of human resources--Eugenics and
heredity--Protection of motherhood--Suffering
mothers--Superstitions regarding new-born
infants--Twins--Infanticide--Bathing and clothing
children--Feeding--Hygiene--Starving children--Infant
mortality--Health--Diseases and their treatment--What missions are
doing for the helpless children.
[Sidenote: What do the children need?]
“What do the children of India most need?”
The question was asked of an earnest young teacher, at home on her
first furlough. It was easy to see how quickly her thoughts flew back
to that school for little low-caste children which had so recently
been started, and with a far-away look in her eyes she answered:--
“What the children of India need is _childhood_ itself. They are
little old men and women, and they need to learn what it means to be
happy, care-free children, to play, and to have good times.”
“What do the children of Syria most need?”
This time it was a beautiful, young missionary mother who answered
quickly:--
“The greatest need of the children in Syria is _educated motherhood_.
They are born, carried around, and then turned loose to do as they
please as soon as they are able to toddle. It would mean that they
would be kept clean physically, would be properly fed, taught, and
trained.”
“What is the greatest need of the children in Persia?”
The answer came from a father of little children who had himself been
a missionary’s child in Persia and knew well the country and its
needs.
“What Persian children need is _proper home environment_.” A splendid
Christian teacher was talking with one of the boys of our Moslem
school about personal purity. “That is all very well,” responded the
boy, “but what do you really expect of me with my training and home
life when my father has had one hundred and five wives?”
“What do the children of America need?”
We turn and ask ourselves and one another this question. And lo!--we
find that the needs of childhood are very much the same the world
around. What is being done to meet those needs? Ah! that is a very
different question, and startling, yes, more than startling, are the
contrasts discovered as the thoughtful woman studies the subject of
child life.
[Sidenote: “The Age of the Child.”]
The “unity of childhood” throughout the world makes this a vital
question to all fathers and mothers, to educators, religious and
social workers, to every thinking man and woman. So urgent a question
has it become in many Christian lands that this has been aptly called
“the age of the child.” In our own land the needs and rights of the
child are being discussed on every hand, and through the Public
Schools, Juvenile Courts, Juvenile Commissions, Federal Children’s
Bureau, Playground Movement, Child Welfare Exhibits, Child Labor laws,
and numerous other agencies we are striving to deal with the problem
that involves the whole future of our land for weal or woe.
[Sidenote: _All_ children must be included.]
But just as I cannot care for the interests of my child alone, but
must recognize that his life will be vitally influenced by whatever
concerns his playmates and schoolmates, so I must inevitably be drawn
into consideration of what is due to the children of the community,
the state, the country, the world. What right have I to demand that my
baby be well fed, my child be protected by laws that ensure his
safety, that proper schools be provided for his education, that my
daughter’s purity and girlhood be respected, unless I concede that
right to every mother in the world and _care_ whether she has that
right or not?
One earnest mother heart poured itself out in these words when it was
planned that the women’s missionary societies should take up the study
of the children of non-Christian lands:--
“Sometimes I almost resent the absurd extremes of tenderness and care
for babies here, when I think of the world of neglected children. It
seems to me, our Women’s Missionary Societies are just a great,
beautiful, organized motherhood for the world, and the women don’t
half know or appreciate this or they would be swarming in by
thousands and giving their money by millions.”
If any woman is tempted to feel that the problems of our own land are
so overwhelming and so imperative as to demand all our time and
strength and attention, let her read what is said on this subject by
Edward T. Devine, the eminent writer and professor and social worker,
who is one of the greatest leaders in all lines of child welfare and
general welfare work in America. Dr. Devine links our obligations to
foreign lands inseparably to our duties to our own country.
Our responsibility to foreign peoples,--our responsibility to
immigrants who come to live in America, and to the negroes whom
our own ancestors brought here by force, our responsibility to all
those who for any reason do not fully share in that degree of
prosperity and in that type of civilization which are our
heritage, thus becomes clear and is seen to be at one with our
direct personal responsibility towards those who for any reason
need our sympathy, our fraternal co-operation, and our personal
help.[1]
[Sidenote: Testimony of Alonzo Bunker.]
Couple with the utterances quoted above such words as the following by
Alonzo Bunker, whose faithful labors among the Karens of Burma have
worked wonders in the transformation of a race, and it seems as though
no conscientious, intelligent man or woman would need to go further
for proof that the awakening social conscience regarding the welfare
of children in our own land _must_ include in its study and its
efforts for improvement the children of _all_ lands.
This unity of childhood marks the unity of the human race, and the
saying that “human nature is the same in all the world” gains new
emphasis when studied from the standpoint of the child.
... These characteristics which mark the unity of childhood among
all races, sometimes appear to be accentuated among less
intelligent peoples; so that, before the fogs of sin and
ignorance have blurred the image of God in which they were
created, they show a strength and brightness more marked than in
their more favored brothers and sisters in enlightened lands.
This fact has not received due attention in ethnological
studies.[2]
[Sidenote: The rights of every child.]
_Every child has the inalienable right to be well-born, to be
welcomed, to be properly cared for and trained through the years
of helplessness and development, to follow his instinct for
healthful play, to receive an education sufficient to make him a
self-supporting, useful member of society, to have such moral and
spiritual training as will develop the highest type of character of
which he is capable._
[Sidenote: The rights of every mother.]
_Every mother has the right to accept the duties, responsibilities,
and sufferings of motherhood of her own free will, to be surrounded by
such conditions as will help her to bring her child into the world
with the greatest possible safety to her own life and health and to
those of her child, and to loving care during her days of weakness and
recuperation._
[Sidenote: Conservation of human resources.]
Where the rights of mothers and children are not thus recognized and
guarded, we have a condition that endangers the welfare of the race
and leads to its deterioration. Every nation has looked well to the
conservation of some part of its human resources,--to its royal line,
to its soldiers or sailors, to its wise men and astrologers, to its
priests and religious leaders.
The well-known methods of ancient Sparta, which consisted in
destroying all weak children and submitting all boys of seven years
old and upward to the most rigorous training under state educators,
resulted in producing a race of warriors. Fighting men were what
Sparta wanted, and fighting men she produced. The possible heir to a
throne in modern times must have no drop of common blood in his veins.
Royalty must therefore mate with royalty in order to conserve the
royal line. And so we might go on and prove how one country after
another observes the great law of conservation of human resources
along some favorite line.
[Sidenote: Importance of the children of a nation.]
But a nation to be truly great and to be sure of future development
and success must realize that its greatest wealth lies in its
children, its highest possibilities are wrapped up in all its little
ones, its one hope for the future is in the childhood of the nation.
Many earnest writers of to-day are emphasizing in one way or another
this great truth in relation to children.
Mrs. Frederick Schoff in an address at the National Congress on
Hygiene and Demography makes a most practical application of these
principles, showing some ways in which the desired results may be
attained.
It takes time to battle down the old wall of belief that mother
instinct teaches a woman all she need know about child nurture....
The great functions of fatherhood and motherhood should not be
ignored in the training of children for life. They should be held
up as the highest and most far-reaching functions of human
life....
“One generation, one entire generation of all the world of
children _understood_ as they should be, loved as they ask to be,
and so developed as they might be, would more than begin the
millennium,” has been truly said by that lover of childhood,
Frances Hodgson Burnett.
Child Welfare is at the foundation of world-welfare. Child
nurture is the greatest science of the age. To arouse the whole
world to a realization of its duty to the children ... is the
propaganda in which all who see the infinite possibilities of the
child should unite.[3]
[Sidenote: Eugenics and Heredity.]
In a study of Childhood such as this, undertaken by Christian women in
their missionary societies and mission study classes, it is not enough
to begin with the child at the day of his birth, but we must consider
also the pre-natal influences, the history of his parents, and, in
fact, all those deep and far-reaching subjects which are engrossing
the attention of students in America and England and on the Continent
of Europe. In studying the subjects of eugenics and heredity, in
watching the social investigator as he shows us how from one drunken,
vagabond woman in Germany there were 834 known descendants, the great
majority of whom were prostitutes, tramps, paupers, criminals, and
murderers, let us remember that the principles arrived at apply with
equal significance to the future of the citizens of China and of
Turkey.
A missionary mother from China tells us that Chinese mothers make no
preparation for the coming of their babies because of foolish
superstitions, fearing that, if they prepare, it will bring bad luck
and the baby will die. “So,” she continues, “Chinese mothers miss the
delightful months we American mothers consider the best in our lives,
and the babies are deprived of the right sort of pre-natal influence.”
One missionary draws our attention to the fact of the awful fears and
deadly terror that haunt the lives of so many people in India, and
asks if this may not well be the result of the fact that their mothers
are the little, shrinking, frightened child-wives of India. “The
wrongs of Hindu womanhood in all past ages,” says Edward Payson Tenney
in his volume on “Contrasts in Social Progress,” “have been avenged by
the propagation of a race inferior to that which would have peopled
Hindustan to-day, had the domestic and social status of the mothers of
a great people been of a different character.”
Dr. Charles C. Selden, assistant to Dr. John G. Kerr in the Asylum for
the Insane in Canton, says that there are no statistics that will
allow comparison between the number of insane in China and America.
“If conditions are in any particular worse in China than in America,
it is along the line of imbecility resulting from bad heredity. Under
the social ideals of China every man is anxious to marry, but no man
is permitted to seek a wife for himself. The contract of marriage is
always made by a third party, and often a man finds himself bound to
an imbecile, insane or chronically diseased wife whose father has paid
the marriage broker a high price to get her a husband. There is surely
a great need for the study and practice of eugenics in China.”
[Sidenote: Protection of motherhood.]
It is only within the last few decades that the protection of
motherhood has been recognized in civilized lands as an economic
principle. In the protection of the mother lies the welfare of the
nation. But alas! the light of this knowledge has not yet begun to
penetrate into the darkness of heathen and Mohammedan lands.
Intelligent Christian women will find much food for thought and
material for interesting study in looking up the history of races now
extinct or those that are dying out. Trace to their true source the
reasons for the decadence of a race and try to discover if the
principles of practical, applied Christianity, used betimes in all
their truest and most enlightened methods, would tend to save and
elevate such a race. In Robert H. Milligan’s recent book, “The Fetish
Folk of West Africa,”[4] his fourth chapter is on “A Dying Tribe.” A
few extracts will show some of the reasons for the adjective “Dying.”
[Sidenote: “A Dying Tribe.”]
This amiable and attractive people, the Mpongwe tribe, is now but
a dying remnant, hurrying to extinction. It is not long since they
were numbered by tens of thousands; now there are probably not
more than five hundred pure Mpongwe.... The first exterminating
factor was slavery.... The slave traffic was succeeded by the rum
traffic; and it would not be easy to say which of the two has
proved the greater evil for Africa.... Except among the few
Christians, an abundance of rum is used at every marriage and
every funeral and both men and women drink to drunkenness.... I
have known of parents getting their own children to drink to
intoxication for their amusement. It is doubtful whether there is
another tribe in all West Africa so besotted with alcoholism as
the Mpongwe. Physicians agree that it is one of the chief causes
of their increasing sterility.
Another factor in the extermination of the Mpongwe is the
demoralization of domestic life incident to methods of trade....
White traders all along the coast employ the Mpongwe as middlemen
between them and the interior people, who possess the export
products. The white man gives the middleman a certain quantity of
goods on trust. With these he goes to the interior and
establishes a small trading-post in one or several towns.... He
has a wife or wives at Gaboon, and he takes to himself a wife or
two at each of his interior trading-centres....
This demoralization of domestic life is even worse for the
Mpongwe women than for their absent husbands. There is a large
settlement of white men in Gaboon, most of them government
officials.... Nearly all the Mpongwe women become the mistresses
of these men.... The marriage tie in Gaboon has long ceased to be
a “tie.”... The Protestant Christians of Gaboon are a very small
community; but they are the best Christians I have known in
Africa. They alone of the Mpongwe have good-sized families of
healthy children. They are the living remnant of a dying tribe.
[Sidenote: The sufferings of motherhood.]
Two outstanding facts make the experience of motherhood in
non-Christian lands a time of almost intolerable anguish, both
physical and mental. The first of these facts is the absence of
skilful, intelligent care previous to and during childbirth, and the
second is the presence of innumerable superstitions that envelop the
mother and her little one and the whole household.
It is a most interesting study to learn how customs differ in various
lands and swing to extremes, from Persia, where the time of childbirth
is the occasion for a large neighborhood gathering of women and
children, to certain regions of China, where we are told that there is
an absolute interdict on seeing mother or child for forty days after
the birth, and during that time many and many a little one
mysteriously disappears, never to be heard of again. In China the
mother who loses her life before being able to give birth to her
child is consigned by popular opinion to the very lowest hell, which
is said to be reserved for the worst criminals. In a large Buddhist
temple on a hill outside of Ningpo hangs a huge bronze bell, over
which are tied numberless bunches of hair of women who have died in
childbirth. When the bell is rung, the motion is supposed to pull the
poor women out of the place of punishment. Among the Lao a woman dying
in childbirth is not allowed to be cremated, for her death is supposed
to have been caused by evil spirits and the victim is blamed and is
not deemed worthy of cremation wherein is _merit_. These suffering
mothers feel as if an angel from heaven had come to their aid, when
the loving face of a missionary physician stoops over them, and her
skilful hands minister to their needs. A few words by Dr. E. M. Stuart
of the Church Missionary Society, at work in Ispahan, Persia, give a
vivid picture of the need for women physicians and nurses to do this
work,--a need that exists not only in Mohammedan harems, but in the
zenanas of India and in the homes of other lands where women live in
seclusion.
[Illustration: HOW BEDOUIN MOTHERS CARRY THEIR BABIES]
In every Moslem land there are countless lives lost every year
from lack of skilled assistance when it is sorely needed.... This
work calls specially for women-doctors and nurses, for though
Moslem women will consent to see men-doctors for many of their
ailments, and will even crowd out the men-patients at dispensaries
taken by male doctors, very few will allow a man to give them the
assistance they need in difficult labour; were even the women
themselves willing, it is very uncommon for the husbands and other
male relations to consent to it. As a rule they would rather the
women died than allow a man to interfere; the only comfort they
give them is the assurance of the Prophet that women who die in
childbirth go straight to Paradise.
[Sidenote: Superstitions regarding newborn infants.]
There is scarcely a land outside the pale of Christian civilization
where the newborn infant is not surrounded by absurd, painful, or
distressing ceremonies because of superstitions that may not be
ignored, the “Evil Eye” that must be averted, or ceremonies that are
to be observed because handed down from generation to generation. One
of the most astonishing and picturesque of these observances is
described by the Swiss missionary, Henri A. Junod, in his careful
study of “The Life of a South African Tribe.”
The second act is the _rite of the broken pot_.... This is a
medical treatment and a religious ceremony combined. It is
performed by the family doctor on the threshold of the hut in the
following way: He puts into this piece of broken pottery pieces of
skin of all the beasts of the bush: antelopes, wild cats,
elephants, hippopotami, rats, civet cats, hyenas, elands, snakes
of dangerous kinds; and roasts them till they burn. The smoke then
rises, and he exposes the child to it for a long time, the body,
face, nose, mouth. The baby begins to cry; he sneezes, he coughs;
it is just what is wanted; then the doctor takes what remains of
the pieces of skin, grinds them, makes a powder, mixes it with
tihuhlu grease of the year before last, and consequently hard
enough to make an ointment. With this ointment he rubs the whole
body of the child, especially the joints, which he extends gently
in order to assist the baby’s growth.
All this fumigation and manipulation is intended to act as a
preventive. Having been so exposed to all the external dangers,
dangers which are represented by the beasts of the bush, the
child may go out of the hut. He is now able “to cross the
foot-prints of wild beasts” without harm.... This rite of the
broken pot is also the great preventive remedy against the much
dreaded ailment of babies, convulsions.
[Sidenote: The Evil Eye.]
From land to land you may travel, through Africa, Asia, and the
Islands of the Pacific, and all the poor little babies and their older
brothers and sisters will be found to be victims of superstitions that
surround and hamper and often injure their pitiful little lives. The
Evil Eye,--oh! how it is feared and how every possible and impossible
means is used to avert it. You must not think of openly admiring a
Mohammedan baby, or of wearing anything black on your head when making
your first call upon it, for you would certainly cast the Evil Eye on
it. A Maronite woman in the Lebanon mountains, Syria, had lost a baby
three or four weeks old,--her first baby boy. She told a missionary
that the child had died because while he was sick they opened an egg,
and found therein an eye (the life-germ) and that was the Evil Eye
which had killed the child.
[Sidenote: Teething.]
“Children in Nyago, Africa,” we read in a Church Missionary Society
report, “receive the tribal mark by being branded on their foreheads
with a hot iron. Some of the front teeth are extracted as soon as the
child can speak.” The teething period as well as every other part of a
child’s life has to be safe-guarded from malicious influences. For
instance, a child of the Thonga Tribe in South Africa has a white bead
tied to a hair about the forehead as soon as it has cut the two
upper and lower incisors, for, unless this is done, there is no hope
that the child will become intelligent; he would shiver instead of
smiling, and the other teeth would not come out normally.
[Sidenote: Evil spirits “driven out” by the missionary.]
Thank God that there are sometimes missionaries near at hand who have
won the love and confidence of the mothers and who are allowed to
“drive out the evil spirits” by means of applied Christianity, common
sense, and cleverness. Here is an example of all three means used for
a baby on the borders of Pigmy Land.
One morning a woman brought down to the dispensary a wee morsel of
three weeks; it was a pitiful little object of mere skin and bone.
The mother explained that it had been poisoned out of spite, or it
was possessed of an evil spirit. “See,” said she, “I have done all
I could to let out the poison or devil.” Looking at its body I saw
it was covered with a number of small, deep cuts, and the blood
had been left to dry. Low moans and a tired cry came from the
poor, little, helpless mite as the flies tortured its mutilated
body. After questioning the mother the “evil spirit” took the form
of bananas and mushrooms, on which she had been bringing up the
three weeks’ infant! Feeding bottles were an unknown luxury, and,
as no equivalent had been invented, babies were compelled to lap
from the hand, an art they never properly learned and thrived on
very poorly. Some three dozen india rubber “comforters” were sent
out to me, and these I managed to fix on empty ink bottles or
medicine bottles, and so a new fashioned “Allenbury feeder” was
introduced. The demand far exceeded the supply, so they could only
be lent out by the month.[5]
[Sidenote: Superstitions regarding twins.]
Strangely enough the birth of twins seems to be regarded with horror
or disgust, or at least as a misfortune, in almost all lands where
Christ, the Lover of children, is not known. In some parts of Africa
the little twin babies are stuffed into a pot and thrown into the
woods to die, and their mother is considered disgraced for life or
sent into exile. A missionary of the Church Missionary Society of
London tells us that in West Africa the idea is that by the law of God
human births should be single; therefore, if a mother has twins, she
has been degraded to the level of a beast, the children are also
beasts, and their death is necessary in order to preserve the human
race pure and to prevent misfortune. Japanese fathers will not let a
little child look into a mirror and see its double, for fear that when
grown it will be unfortunate enough to have twins!
As there is no phase of life that Christian missions cannot touch and
change, so among some of the African West Coast tribes, as the people
have learned of Christianity, twin murder has been abandoned along
with human sacrifice, though even harder to eradicate.
[Sidenote: Infanticide.]
Were twin murder alone prevalent among non-Christian races, it would
be reason enough for earnest effort and prayer on the part of every
Christian mother in the world until it could be stamped out. But the
crime of infanticide is so frightfully prevalent in China, India, and
the Pacific Islands that it is a loud challenge to Christian parents
to bring into darkened hearts and homes the knowledge of Him who
considered it a capital offense even to “cause one of these little
ones to stumble.”
In very few cases do we read of infanticide being practiced at the
present time on boy babies. Twin murder as mentioned above, the
killing in Central Africa of “monstrosities” who have been born with a
tooth cut, or who cut their upper teeth first, and the putting away of
illegitimate children among some Mohammedans, seem to be almost the
only exceptions to this rule. The poor little girl babies, not wanted,
not welcomed, considered a disgrace and an expense, must again and
again pay the penalty for being girls with their lives.
“Why should the girl live?” the Pacific Islander would say to the
early missionaries, “She cannot poise the spear, she cannot wield the
club.”[6]
[Sidenote: Causes of infanticide in India.]
Rev. E. Storrow has made a careful study of the causes of infanticide
in India, and his conclusions are worthy of our attention.
Our knowledge, at the best imperfect, is confined to the present
century, the period of British supremacy.
Three causes have led to it:--
1. Great moral laxity, combined with indifference to infantine
life, and a desire to conceal wrong doing, which the privacy of
native habits renders comparatively easy.
2. Religious fanaticism has led to the crime in restricted
areas....
3. But infanticide, springing out of disappointment at the birth
of girls, because of their assumed inferiority to boys, the
lowering of the family repute, and the inevitable expense
demanded by usage on their marriage, chiefly requires our
attention; because it grew into a system which was hardly
concealed, and became prevalent in Rajputana, Gujarat, Cutch, and
other great districts in Central and Western India....
The little ones were usually destroyed immediately after
birth.... The reasons for such a usage, widely established among
such people, and perpetuated through many generations, are worthy
of close attention.
Cruelty is not a Hindu characteristic.... But the people are
callous and apathetic. They would not deliberately inflict
suffering and take pleasure in it, but they would not move hand
or foot to rescue such as were greatly suffering.... This goes
far to explain the unchallenged prevalence for ages of such
atrocities as suttee and infanticide....
“A mother of sons” is one of the highest compliments that can be
paid to a wife; “a mother of daughters” is one of the most
contemptuous and scornful of all terms of reproach. This explains
the gladness with which the birth of sons is welcomed, the
disappointment manifest at the birth of daughters, and the
disposition to put them away....
But whilst these were the causes generally operative, there were
two special ones, which were influential among the haughty,
high-caste Rajputs and kindred tribes--the difficulty of
procuring suitable husbands for their daughters, when the
customary age for marriage arrived; with the supposed disgrace of
having unmarried daughters, and the difficulty of defraying the
heavy expenses which usage demands....
Happily, the crime is abating through the persistent action of
the government, and yet more because of that great wave of
renewed opinion and sentiment passing over the people. But that
this crime is yet frequent, and the law evaded, is evident.[7]
Was there a dry eye in the auditorium at Northfield when Mrs. James
Cochran, only a few weeks before her death, told of the little girl
babies in China who are thrown out to die? All could feel the
throbbing love of her mother heart as she told the story in such
simple words to the hundreds of young women gathered before her. Who
among them could ever again be guiltless if she did not do her share
towards saving the baby girls of China? Listen to her words:[8]
Confucianism wants no little girls, for they are of no use. It is
very nice to have one or two, but in the part of China from which
I come it is absolutely a custom, if there are more than two or
three, to murder the others in some horrible way. One night one of
my pupils came to my class very soberly. At first she whispered to
the women about her and then they began to whisper to each other.
Finally I inquired the reason. One of the women replied, “She is
feeling badly because they are killing a little baby down at her
house.”
“Killing a little baby!”
“Yes,” the girl replied, “they have three little girls and
another girl has just come. I feel so badly because she is a
dear, fat, little baby. I did not want to see her die, but my
sister is determined to kill her.”
“Oh,” I said, “you go and bring that baby to me. I can take care
of her.”
So she went, but before she arrived the baby had been murdered in
a way too dreadful to tell.
[Sidenote: Bathing of children.]
It is rather entertaining to pick up, one after another, books and
magazine articles written for children about the children of
missionary lands, and to find them all starting out with the
proposition, “Children are very much the same the world around.” How
are we going to reconcile this statement with the fact that some
children survive and even thrive upon treatment that would mean
certain death to others? What would happen to the little American baby
first opening his eyes on the world, if he were taken out of doors as
the babies are in Central Africa between four and five o’clock in the
morning, when the cold night winds are still abroad, and cold water
were dashed over him, and he were left naked out there to dry? The
cold water treatment of the Africans and the Lao differs widely from
the baths of little ones in Japan where the water must be nearly
boiling hot to be of the proper temperature. But in Persia it would be
sure death to a newborn baby to be bathed at all,--he must be
carefully rubbed with salt as were the properly-cared-for infants of
Ezekiel’s time! (Ez. 16:4.) Then into a cradle he is not laid, but
strapped, wound round and round until his little legs and arms are
rigid and immovable, and the soft bones of the back of his head are
flattened as he lies there day after day. Oh, how we long to pick him
up and let him change places occasionally with one of the imperial
babies of Japan, who must be held in some one’s arms day and night
from the time of his birth until he can walk. But no, there he must
lie, and, in order that he may not take cold and fall a victim to that
dangerous enemy, fresh air, over the ridgepole of the cradle are
thrown various coverings, most of which hang to the floor. A
missionary told me that once when she wanted to look at a Syrian baby,
she took off four blankets which had been thrown over the whole
cradle, and then removed a Turkish towel folded double over the
child’s face.
[Sidenote: Clothing of children.]
It is strange to learn in how many lands the mothers feel that they
must wrap and tie and bind and swathe their babies until they are
deprived of all power of motion, and lives and health are sadly
endangered by too much rather than too little clothing. The Chinese
mother dresses her baby in a tiny wadded jacket, then another, then
another, saying perhaps, “It is five jackets cold to-day.” He is
wrapped and tied up until the bundle with a baby at the centre can be
rolled on the floor without hurting him, or may perchance act as a
life-preserver if he falls off the houseboat into the canal. It is
pretty sure to keep afloat until it can be pulled in with a boat hook.
[Illustration: A PERSIAN BABY IN HIS CRADLE]
Very differently clad are the “Coral Island Brownies” or the babies of
Africa, who are not hampered with any clothes at all, and as they grow
older simply wear a fringe of grass or a strip of calico about their
waists.
It is easy to trace many of the cases of terrible eye disease among
children in Egypt, Syria, and other warm countries to the utter lack
of any protection to the eyes from the glaring sunlight. Often boat
women are seen rowing in the bright sunlight in China with babies
asleep on their backs, and nothing over the sensitive little eyes as
their heads bob up and down in time with the oars.
It is often a great shock to the American missionary mother to see
little heads wrapped and swathed in numerous cloths and kerchiefs,
while the little feet are blue with cold. But then, the shock is
reciprocal, and, while the mother is off conducting a meeting, her
nurse is carefully making up for her negligence by wrapping up the
head of the missionary baby until he is bathed in perspiration!
[Sidenote: Infant mortality.]
The study of Infant Mortality is now engrossing the thought and
attention of many earnest men and women. It is most difficult to get
vital statistics from any non-Christian lands in order to give
comparative tables. In comparing the mortality statistics of the
United States for 1890 and 1909 we find marked improvement in the
“opportunity for life and health” granted to American children. If
George B. Mangold is right in saying that “the infant and child
mortality of a people is a barometer of their social progress,” then
we have reason to believe that our land is making real advance in this
respect.
In 1890 the total number of deaths of children under five years was
307,562; in 1909 the total number of deaths of children under five
years was 196,534.
From the first mortality table of the principal cities of the world in
1912 that has been made public we learn that--
Stockholm has 82 deaths per 1,000 births.
London „ 90 „ „ „ „
New York „ 105 „ „ „ „
Contrast with these figures the following, based upon careful study
and research by high authorities:--
“It is by no means improbable that more than half the whole number of
Chinese children die before they are two years old.” (Arthur H.
Smith.)
In Syria the infant mortality is 75% of the births.
In Persia the infant mortality is 85% of the births.
At a meeting of the National Association for the Prevention of Infant
Mortality in Great Britain, the Right Honorable John Burns, P. C., M.
P., speaking on “Infant Life Protection” gave many interesting facts
and figures to show how infant mortality is being decreased in Great
Britain through scientific and systematic efforts along many lines.
One sentence is significant:
“Let me decide the food, the home, and the condition of life of every
child from birth to seven years of age, and the rest of mankind can
do with the children after seven years of age what they like.”
[Sidenote: Feeding of children.]
Constant and increasing attention is being paid in these days to the
proper feeding of children, to the study of dietetics, to the
preparation of suitable food for infants, and to the proper intervals
for administering the food. Any mother of average intelligence in our
land may secure one of the carefully prepared books such as Dr. Holt’s
on “The Care and Feeding of Children,” or the smaller leaflets such as
“What Children Should Eat,” and by making a study of them and of her
child may hope to see that it is well and properly nourished. But what
chance is there for the mother in Asia or Africa who, even if she
cares to learn, has no means of knowing how to feed her child
properly?
[Sidenote: Ignorant mothers.]
I was making a call of condolence on a neighbor in Persia who had just
buried a dearly loved baby, the fourth or fifth she had lost. With
such a pathetic look she said, “It seems as if we did not know how to
care for our babies. You missionaries take such beautiful care of
yours.” A wonderful opening, by the way, for starting a mothers’
meeting at which we used to discuss the care and training of our
little ones. A mother arrived early one meeting day to tell me, “I
tried on my children what you suggested last week, _and it worked_.”
Quite different was this set of mothers who had long been in contact
with the missionaries, from the mother in a Persian village who begged
a missionary to put a cent on her baby’s head and write a prayer that
it might not die as six others had done in that family. The missionary
replied with some severity that it was much more to the purpose to
have the mother learn to take proper care of it, for the baby was not
yet a year old and she was feeding it with meat and fruit.
In most if not all of the non-Christian lands whose child life we are
studying there seems to be the tendency to two extremes. The children
are often nursed by the mother for two, three, five, or even more
years, and at the same time they are allowed to eat anything that
their fancy dictates or that they can get hold of. Mrs. Noyes of China
says that if the mother has no milk she cannot afford to buy canned
milk, and of course fresh milk is entirely out of her reach. So she
chews rice most carefully until it is soft and mushy, then takes it
from her own mouth and puts it, germs and all, into the baby’s mouth.
This diet is supplemented with rich cakes and the inevitable tea.
Another missionary tells us that, if a child in China is ill, his
appetite is tempted by rich, heavy food or fruit, and adds, “the
mortality of children is frightful.”
[Sidenote: An unwholesome diet.]
Mrs. Underwood, an experienced mother and physician who has lived and
worked many years in Korea, says:
Every imaginable practice which comes under the definition of
unhygienic or unsanitary is common. Even young children in arms
eat raw and green cucumbers, unpeeled, acrid berries, and heavy,
soggy bread. They bolt quantities of hot or cold rice, with a
tough, indigestible cabbage, washed in ditch water, prepared with
turnips, and flavored with salt and red pepper. Green fruit of
every kind is eaten with perfect recklessness of all the laws of
nature, and with impunity....
But even these, so to speak, galvanized-iron interiors are not
always proof. It takes time, but every five or six years, by
great care and industry, a bacillus develops itself ... and then
there is an epidemic of cholera.[9]
It is one of the most difficult lessons to impress on those who have
become Christians that true Christianity, lived out to its logical
conclusion, includes all that proper physical care of the child which,
with the right mental and spiritual training, shall prepare it to take
its place in the world.
Dr. Exner, recently in physical educational work in the Y. M. C. A. at
Shanghai, says:--
[Sidenote: Hygiene and the child problem.]
“The need of the knowledge of hygiene has a very definite bearing on
the child problem. Thousands upon thousands of children are killed
simply for the lack of knowledge of the simplest elements of feeding
and care. To illustrate: A well educated Chinese teacher, graduate of
a mission school, fed his five months’ old daughter a piece of rich
cake. It developed intestinal trouble from which it died in spite of
expert medical care. When I expressed my sympathy, he said, ‘Well, it
is the Lord’s will.’ I added to myself, ‘You should know better!’”
How much easier it is to say piously, “It is the Lord’s will,” than to
take trouble and bear expense and lay aside age-long custom and
prejudice in order that little ones may live! But we must not judge
too harshly when we remember how long it has taken more enlightened
lands to learn the great value of the lives of the children and how to
care for these lives. Rather should we be all the more ready to send
and carry to them the light and knowledge that have come to us. Then
there will be fewer such scenes as one missionary mother witnessed in
Syria. It was in a Jewish family where there were four little girls.
The baby was a mass of sores from head to foot, and the missionary
physician said that they were merely the result of mal-nutrition. But
the mother said that her husband was utterly unwilling to buy a little
milk each day,--“It is not worth while, for she is only another little
girl.”
[Sidenote: Special work for missionary mothers.]
It is a most legitimate and absolutely essential part of missionary
work,--and not one of the easiest tasks, either,--to teach parents
that “children intelligently fed during infancy, childhood, and youth
may hope for normal health in adult life, with natural physical
strength, endurance, buoyancy.” Here is a special field of labor for
missionary mothers, who have this advantage over physicians and
teachers that they can teach by object lessons which _always_ make a
deeper impression than exhortation or verbal instruction. Of course
the missionary mother often has the great handicap of an adverse
climate in which to bring up her child. But her intelligent
application of the principles she should learn in order to fit _her_
for motherhood, and her willingness to teach these principles to the
ignorant mothers so interested in all that pertains to the little
foreign baby, may be some of the greatest factors in the future
welfare, stamina, and development of great nations such as China and
India.
[Sidenote: Children starving.]
Which is more harmful to a child, reckless, indiscriminate
over-feeding or under-feeding and starvation diet? In lands swept
periodically by famine or flood or devastated by war and massacre,
there are thousands of little children who literally starve to death
while other thousands continue to exist,--but what an existence it is!
How can it but have its evil effect on the mind and morals of a child
as well as on its physical well-being to be deprived of proper or
sufficient nourishment during the years of growth and development? If
child welfare is the legitimate, rightful responsibility of every
Christian woman, then it behooves us to see that such scenes as the
following cease to be possible anywhere in the world.
One mother, a widow with four children dependent on her, told me,
with tears streaming down her face, how she had tried to throw
away the skeleton-like little baby she carried in her arms, but
she said the child always found its way back to her, and she
added, “It is not easy to give one’s own child away.” She said she
felt sometimes she would just have to drink poison, and put an end
to her miserable existence, and one of the others asked her what
would become of her children if she did that, and she said, with
despair in every feature, “Don’t ask me.”[10]
In a later chapter we shall learn of what is being done through
Christian orphanages for many little famine waifs and the orphans of
those killed in battle and massacre, but, when we consider the untold
harm to body and mind that has befallen these children before help
reaches them, we realize that we must hereafter work with heart and
soul at the task of _prevention_ of these great evils if we believe in
the welfare of the human race.
[Sidenote: Health.]
“Health,” we are told by Dr. E. T. Devine, “is influenced by the
occupations and habits of growing children; by their play and their
attendance at school; by the attention given to their eyesight,
hearing, breathing, and digestion, to their spines, and to the arches
of their feet, to their position at the desk, and to the type from
which their text books are printed; by the readiness with which they
make friends and so enter into the natural sports and exercises of
childhood; by the development of their self-control, and their more or
less unconscious acceptance of standards of conduct and principles of
action which will be their ultimate safeguard against those diseases
and weaknesses which come from indulgence of wrong appetites and
desires.”
[Sidenote: Foot-binding.]
Judged by these standards, what chances have the children of Asia and
Africa and the Pacific Islands for being safeguarded against disease
and weakness and death? Consider the one matter of “attention to the
arches of their feet” and compare such a standard of health with the
age-long custom of foot-binding in China, and what hope is there for
perfect, blooming health among the women of China or their children? A
full description of the horrible custom of foot-binding may be found
in Dr. James S. Dennis’s “Christian Missions and Social Progress”
(vol. 1, p. 212). The effects of it upon the little girl victims are
thus described by one who has every right to speak on the subject.
Mrs. Archibald Little, whose position as president of the
Natural-feet Society has given her special reason for
investigating, says in her book, “Intimate China”: “During the
first three years (of foot-binding) the girlhood of China presents
a most melancholy spectacle. Instead of a hop, skip, and a jump,
with rosy cheeks like the little girls of England, the poor little
things are leaning heavily on a stick somewhat taller than
themselves, or carried on a man’s back, or sitting sadly crying.
They have great black lines under their eyes, and a special
curious paleness that I have never seen except in connection
with foot-binding. Their mothers sleep with a big stick by the
bedside, with which to get up and beat the little girl should she
disturb the household by her wails; but not uncommonly she is put
to sleep in an outhouse. The only relief she gets is either from
opium, or from hanging her feet over the edge of her wooden
bedstead, so as to stop the circulation. The Chinese saying is,
“For each pair of bound feet there has been a whole kang, or big
bath, full of tears.” And they say that one girl out of ten dies
of foot-binding or its after-effects.”[11]
Among the changes that are sweeping over China, the Anti-foot-binding
Movement ranks high in importance. It is receiving daily impetus by
reason of all the new things Chinese women and girls want to do, which
are impossible to accomplish unless they can walk instead of hobble.
When this movement has really conquered the custom and “fashion” of
centuries, there will be a better health report from the girls of
China.
Utter carelessness or ignorance of the first principles of cleanliness
is responsible for much ill-health and death. A “swat-the-fly
campaign” would save thousands of unprotected baby faces from being
covered with loathsome disease or disfigured with dangerous eye
trouble, but it would encounter not only hopeless inertia,--it would
arouse serious religious opposition. In some countries the “sacredness
of life” means,--Protect the fly, no matter what happens to the baby.
[Sidenote: Medical practice in non-Christian lands.]
One subject, upon which Dr. Devine has not touched in his list given
above, is the necessity for the protection of well children from
contagious diseases, and of skilful, tender care of the sick. We might
easily fill a chapter with the study of so-called “medical practice”
as conducted in non-Christian lands,--a practice composed largely of
mingled superstition, ignorance, cruelty, and avarice--but a few pages
on the subject in addition to our earlier study of what takes place at
the time of childbirth will suffice, we trust, to make earnest
Christian women desire to study it further. It is easy to shrink from
contemplating the sufferings of innocent children, and many a woman is
tempted to say, “I am too sensitive, I cannot hear about such things.”
But are we more sensitive than the little, shrinking, pitiful children
to whom these things happen daily? Therefore, not to encourage morbid
curiosity, but in order that as Christian mothers and sisters we may
lift the burden from little shoulders unable to bear it, let us
fearlessly face the facts as they are.
[Sidenote: Contagious diseases.]
The frightful ravages made by smallpox, diphtheria, scarlet fever, and
even the milder “children’s diseases,” such as measles and
whooping-cough, often devastate whole towns and carry away the larger
part of the children in a community. Smallpox, for instance, is so
common in Korea that it is not considered worth while to try to escape
it. It is caused by the visit of a very great and honored spirit, and
while he remains the children are addressed in high sounding terms in
honor of their great guest. When he is about ready to return to the
south land, _i.e._, when the child has nearly recovered, a feast is
made in honor of the visitor and he is provided with a wooden horse
for his journey.
On an itinerating journey in Korea Dr. and Mrs. Underwood with their
little boy stopped at a village called Pak Chun and had a rather
disturbing experience.
Just before leaving, I saw a child quite naked, covered with
smallpox pustules in full bloom, standing near our door. I asked
one of the natives if there was much of that disease in the
village at present. “In every house,” was the concise reply. “Why,
there is none in the house we are in,” said I with confidence.
“Oh, no, they took the child out the day you came in order to give
you the room,” was the reassuring answer. We had eaten and slept
in that infected little room, our blankets all spread out there,
our trunks opened, everything we had exposed. We had even used
their cooking utensils and spoons and bowls before our own packs
had arrived. For ourselves we had been often exposed, and believed
ourselves immune. Mr. Underwood had nursed a case of the most
malignant type, and I had been in contact with it among my
patients,--but our child! So we sent a swift messenger with a
despatch to the nearest telegraph station, twenty-four hours away,
to Dr. Wells, in Pyeng Yang. He at once put a tube of virus into
the hands of a speedy runner, who arrived with it a week later.
We found the country full of smallpox, measles, and
whooping-cough, and added to our smallpox experience an exactly
similar one with measles.[12]
The loud death wail goes up from a village home in Persia where a
little life has been snatched away by diphtheria. Instantly every
mother in the village seizes her baby and the next-to-the-youngest
toddles after, and all gather in the family room of the little mud
home, where the body lies, and show their sympathy by adding their
voices to the general din. Fortunately custom decrees that burial take
place as speedily as possible, but the mischief has already been done,
and echoes of the death wail are heard from far and near.
Call over the roll of physicians of your own Board. A wonderful report
it would be if each could respond and give the number of epidemics
through which he or she has worked unflinchingly, bringing hope and
comfort and life to hundreds and thousands stricken down not only by
the diseases already mentioned but by typhus, cholera, and plague.
Call the roll of the countries where no law demands isolation or
precautions of any kind, and one after another would respond, if it
could, in terms of loving gratitude to missionaries who have
introduced or freely used vaccine, anti-toxin, cholera serum, and
other products of medical science. Many lands are now awaking to the
possibility and desirability of using preventive measures, and
vaccination, for instance, is very prevalent in China. It is good to
hear Dr. Estella Perkins of China say, after an epidemic of scarlet
fever, “I must say, however, that these young mothers have been very
obedient to orders. I know by the number of dispensary cases of
sequelae in patients I did not treat, that the careful following of
directions by the mothers of my children must have saved half of them
from bad results of the disease. It is a comfort to be able to do
something more than prescribe a little medicine.”
[Sidenote: Cruel treatment of sick children.]
We spoke above of the ignorance, cruelty, superstition, and avarice
that compose so largely the medical practice of the Orient. Disease is
very frequently considered the work of an evil spirit which must
either be appeased by offerings or driven out by harsh and cruel
treatment. And so the tender little bodies are branded with hot irons,
pierced by needles, or burned with rags dipped in oil and set on fire.
While the little one suffers, a witch doctor may be called in to use
his incantations, or the mother may take a little rag from some
article of the child’s clothing and tie it to a sacred tree already
covered with hundreds of these rags, or the string of beads or the
entrails of a beast are consulted to see if the omen is favorable for
administering medicine. Let me give just one case from Central Africa
which can be duplicated many times over from the records of other
lands.
As an example let me give the case of a lad who was suffering from
tuberculosis. He had consulted the witch doctor, and after having
paid his fee was told that he had been poisoned. Whereupon the
“surgeon” drew his knife out from his belt and made a number of
small incisions. He then declared he could see the poison inside
the youth, and took it away. But the lad was not cured, and so
came down to give the European’s wisdom a trial.[13]
[Sidenote: Christian help for sick children.]
Thank God, there is a brighter side to the story. In the name of the
little Child of Bethlehem the little children of sorrow and darkness
and suffering are being reached and helped and cured and loved. In
many a mission hospital and many a humble home the blind are receiving
sight, the crooked limbs are being straightened, the burning fever is
checked, the hollow cheeks are growing round and rosy. The last word
picture of this chapter shall be from the pen of Mrs. Gerald F. Dale,
the mother-saint who presides over the women’s and children’s
hospitals in Beirut, Syria.
[Sidenote: Children’s Pavilion, Beirut.]
The Children’s Pavilion is the arena which calls into play the
whole gamut of one’s emotions. Such poor, wasted faces; such
robust, jolly faces; so much pain; so much fun; twisted limbs
before operation, straight ones after; noses and mouths cobbled
and mended, a stitch here, a fold there, and what a change! It
requires the standpoint of the East to unravel the full meaning of
little Hindiyeh’s exclamation, who, gazing in admiration at her
straightened legs, looked up with a merry laugh and said: “Curse
the religion of the father of my legs as they used to be!” A
baby-boy was to have no say in the matter of his poor crumpled-up
little club-feet, for the mother begged that only one might be
straightened, in order to save him from military service in the
future.... The children’s favorite game is “operations,” the
patient being in turn a real child or a doll. Everything is
reproduced to the life. A pin stuck into the doll’s mouth is a
thermometer; sawdust stuffing makes a most realistic draining
wound; bits of wire and gauze are twisted into a mask, and
chloroform is poured from an empty spool. The scientific bandaging
of head, legs, and arms shows how intently the little brains have
observed. They are busy with other things too; hymn after hymn is
learned, the commandments, verses, psalms.
Everything that is dropped into these receptive minds stays, and
once there will be shared, who can tell by how many? It is the
little child who shall lead, and it is the _handful_ of corn
whose fruit shall shake like Lebanon.[14]
[Sidenote: The Christ-Child and these little ones.]
“The place where the young Child lay” was the place where the brooding
mother love shining from the tender mother eyes hovered over the
little One to guard and protect and care for Him in His appealing
helplessness. And from those lips, once cooing in sweet babyhood, come
down to _us_ the words,--“Inasmuch as ye did it unto _one of the least
of these little ones_, ye did it unto Me.”
[Illustration: Little Abraham found living alone in a ruined house,
and brought to the door of the Mission Hospital in Persia]
[Illustration: Abraham 18 months later, ready to be dismissed from the
Hospital]
QUOTATIONS
CHILDBIRTH--CHINA
Mary V. Glenton, Wuchang, China, writes in the _Spirit of Missions_
for July, 1902:
Recently I was called to a case of childbirth away out in the country.
My native assistant had asked for a holiday; she had gone that
morning. After a long ride in the chair through country roads, past
the pagoda, I was ushered into a small house of two rooms and then
into one of these rooms to my patient. When I shut the door to keep
the crowd out, and had thrown water out the window several times for
the same purpose, ineffectually, I found that I must have some light
and also some air; so I stationed one chair coolie at the door and
another at the window, and started in. I had to give chloroform
myself, as well as do the rest of the work. But after four hours’ hard
work, so hard that while my feet were cold on the earth floor (it was
February), the upper part of my body was in profuse perspiration, I
got through, and saved the woman’s life.
Immediately there arose a most tumultuous screaming, shrieking,
stamping, calling, flapping doors back and forth on their hinges, and
any sort of noise that could be made. I had never heard such a din in
my life. What was coming I could not imagine. I was miles away from
home; it was growing dark; I had no one with me, whom I knew or could
reason with, but the chair coolies, one of whom was a mere boy, the
other a perfect goose, who thinks himself unusually intelligent. I
managed to make myself heard after a while, enough to ask what they
were doing, and found that all the din and racket were to frighten
away the spirit of the dead baby that had just been born.
MOHAMMEDAN BABIES AND CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS
During the Balkan War a number of Bulgarian soldiers came into a
village which had been deserted by the Turks, and there they found
eight little Turkish babies who had been left behind,--girls of
course. They were in a dreadful condition, but the tender heart of one
of the soldiers could not bear to leave them so. He found a tub, and
they undressed the babies, bathed them, and, taking some cloth from a
store, bound them all up again in Oriental fashion. The tiny ladies,
being very hungry, continued to cry. The dilemma was how to find food
for these eight babies, all under a year of age. The kind-hearted
Bulgarian was equal to the emergency. Dispatching one of his comrades
to a neighboring village for some milk, he proceeded to kill eight
geese. Removing and cleaning the crops from these, he filled them with
the milk, using goose quills for nipples, and soon the eight babies
were fast asleep. Then they sent them on into Bulgaria to be cared
for, with greetings from Turkey.
(Told by Mrs. E. E. Count of the Methodist Episcopal Mission in
Bulgaria.)
BIBLE READING
“What manner of Child shall this be?” Luke 1:5-14, 57-66, 80.
The little child greatly longed for--promised by God’s
messenger--rejoiced over at birth--named “Jehovah is gracious,” not
according to custom but with peculiar significance--grew in
stature--waxed strong in spirit--God’s hand was with him.
“When I see a child he inspires me with two feelings: tenderness for
what he is now, respect for what he may become hereafter.” Louis
Pasteur.
PRAYER
O Lord Jesus Christ, we beseech Thee, by the innocence and obedience
of Thy Holy childhood, guard the children of this our land and of all
lands; preserve their innocence, strengthen them when ready to slip,
recover the erring, and remove all that may hinder them from being
really brought up in Thy faith and love; Who livest and reignest with
the Father and the Holy Ghost ever, one God, world without end. Amen.
QUESTIONS
1. What do you consider the greatest need of the children of your
community?
2. How does this need compare with the needs of children in the
mission land in which you are most interested?
3. Name the organizations in your community that deal with Child
Welfare (i.e., milk station, children’s hospital ward, etc.). How many
of these exist in non-Christian lands? By whom were they introduced?
4. What can a ruling power like the British Government in India do to
bring about better conservation of motherhood?
5. How would you go to work to eradicate harmful superstitions in a
Mohammedan land?
6. If you were conducting a series of six mothers’ meetings in China,
what topics would you select?
BIBLIOGRAPHY. CHAPTERS I AND II.
Child Problems, George B. Mangold--Macmillan.
“European Institutions for Protection of Motherhood,” etc. Theodore L.
Smith, _Pedagogical Seminary_, Mar., 1912.
The Problem of Race Regeneration, Havelock Ellis.
Parenthood and Race Culture, Saleeby.
The Family and Social Life, E. T. Devine.
Fifteen Years Among the Top-Knots, L. H. Underwood--Am. Tract Soc.
Home Life in Turkey, Lucy M. J. Garnett--Macmillan.
Fetish Folk of West Africa, R. H. Milligan--Revell.
Jungle Days, Arley Munson, M.D.--D. Appleton & Co.
Our Sisters in India, Rev. E. Storrow, Chapter vii--Revell.
“The Unbinding of Bright Blossom’s Feet,” _Everyland_, March, 1913.
The Light of the World, R. E. Speer, Infanticide, pp. 353, 354.
Christian Missions and Social Progress, J. S. Dennis, Infanticide,
vol. i, p. 133.
When I Was a Boy in China, Ian Phon Lee--Y. M. C. A. Press.
Village Life in China, Arthur H. Smith--Revell.
Village Life in Korea, J. R. Moose--M. E. Church, South.
The Chinese at Home, J. Dyer Ball--Revell.
On the Borders of Pigmy Land, Ruth B. Fisher--Revell.
“The Training of a Japanese Child,” Francis Little--_Century_, June,
1913.
For leaflets and Children’s Magazines see Bibliography for Chapter II.
_Much valuable material will be found for this and the following
chapters in all the earlier text-books of the Central Committee on the
United Study of Foreign Missions. These books, studied with special
reference to The Child, will bring new light and interest to their
readers._
FOOTNOTES:
[1] E. T. Devine, “The Family and Social Life,” p. 51.
[2] Alonzo Bunker, “Sketches from the Karen Hills.” Revell.
[3] _Child Welfare Magazine_, Feb., 1913, p. 195.
[4] Fleming H. Revell.
[5] Ruth B. Fisher, “On the Borders of Pigmy Land.” Revell.
[6] Alexander, “The Islands of the Pacific.” Am. Tract Soc.
[7] E. Storrow, “Our Sisters in India.” Revell.
[8] _Record of Christian Work_, Sept., 1912, “How Chinese Religions
Fail.”
[9] L. H. Underwood, “Fifteen Years among the Top-Knots.” Am. Tract
Soc.
[10] _Missionary Review of the World_, June, 1911, W. D. & A. T.
Bostick.
[11] M. E. Ritzman in _Missionary Review of the World_, Feb., 1911.
[12] L. H. Underwood, “Fifteen Years among the Top-Knots.” Am. Tract
Soc.
[13] Ruth B. Fisher, “On the Borders of Pigmy Land.” Revell.
[14] _Woman’s Work_, Dec., 1911, p. 271.
CHAPTER II.
THE CHILD AT HOME
“Train up a child in the way he should go.”
A Mohammedan home in Persia--A heathen home in Africa--A Christian
home in Zululand--The home the centre of a nation’s
life--Christianity’s gift to non-Christian homes--Greatness of the
task--Disorderly homes--Moral influences--Need of teaching the
mothers--Lack of proper discipline--Lack of innocence coupled with
appalling ignorance--Sex knowledge--A missionary mother’s
“dream”--Position of fathers--Fathers transformed by
Christianity--Motherhood--Christian wives and mothers--Child
marriage--Betrothal customs--Dying child-wife--Child widows--Homes
of the world need Christ--Vocation of a missionary
wife--Missionary homes.
Scene One: A Mohammedan home in Persia.
[Sidenote: A Mohammedan home in Persia.]
The women’s apartments opening onto an inner court-yard present an
animated scene, for some ladies from another harem have come with
children and servants to make a call; _i.e._, to spend the afternoon,
drink unlimited quantities of tea and pussy-willow-water, smoke
unnumbered cigarettes alternating with the water pipe, and nibble at
sweetmeats and fruits provided in large abundance. The greetings are
conducted with due decorum by women and children, and then, while the
servants and concubines of the home move to and fro with the proper
refreshments, and while the children dispose of large quantities of
sweets, the gossip of the neighborhood is discussed with animation.
The conversation,--no, it cannot be repeated here, for it is not fit
for the printed page; but little girls sit eagerly drinking it in, and
little boys stop in their play to wink at each other with knowing
looks as they catch the drift of the talk. A mere baby crawls up to
attract his mother’s attention and, not succeeding, slaps her with all
his tiny might as she sits on a cushion on the floor. “Oh brave boy!
oh splendid boy! just see how he hits me when I do not listen to him!”
And the little boy is hugged and his wishes are granted while he
learns well his lesson of the inferiority of a woman,--even his
mother. Presently a little girl begins to scream vigorously, having
been pounded and scratched by a small boy in the party. The lad is
rewarded for his manliness with a big piece of saffron candy, but the
girl, being a visitor, must be consoled; and so the delightful promise
is made: “Never mind; stop crying, and we will find you a nice
husband. Now wouldn’t it be fine to arrange a marriage for her with
the son of ----?” and so the whole matter is discussed in the child’s
hearing, and she too learns her lesson,--that the one ambition of a
girl must be to get married as early as possible, and the more
valuable she is, the greater settlement must her prospective husband
make upon her, to be paid in case he wishes to divorce her.
It is evening, the visitors are gone, and the head of the home with
the older boys will take his evening meal in the anderun (women’s
apartment). No cloth is spread for the whole family. The husband and
sons are served on large copper trays by the women of the household,
who eat later what is left. The husband is in a wretched mood and
vents his anger right and left. Even the favorite wife, a young girl
who has recently superseded in his affections the mothers of his
children, trembles for her position when the rice is not to his taste;
and suddenly at some further provocation he turns upon her, and with
the words, “I divorce you,” sends her cowering from him, a divorced
woman of fifteen, amid the sneers and insults of those who served and
fawned on her earlier in the day.
* * * * *
Scene Two: A hut in Central Africa.
[Sidenote: A heathen home in Africa.]
Soon after sunrise a number of women and girls, laden with hoes,
baskets, and babies, start out from the grass hut which is home to
them, and make their way to the field to work all day in the hot sun.
Having leisurely smoked his pipe in preparation for the day’s labors,
the man of the house starts with sons and neighbors on a hunting
expedition, or goes to a neighboring town to exchange his stock for
some coveted article. Towards evening all is bustle and confusion
about the home, as the women have returned and are preparing the
evening meal. All goes merrily, for here comes the head of the house
in an excellent humor. Picking up the nearest baby, he fondles it and
says, “A man in the next town has just bought this baby of me as wife
for his son. Being strong and fat and lusty, she has brought a good
price.” Whereupon a small brother shouts with delight, for this means
that the dowry for _his_ wife is provided and the girl on whom he has
set his affections can be procured without further delay. His mother
is pleased,--the prospect adds to her importance,--but the seventeen
year old mother of the fat, cooing baby turns away to hide her face
and surreptitiously to hug her two other children. “Anyway, they are
boys; _they_ cannot be taken from me.”
The boy who is to profit by the sale of his little sister is not
suited with his evening meal, and, catching a chicken, he cuts off one
leg and demands that it be cooked for him. No thought of the suffering
fowl interferes with his appetite, any more than of the little sister
so soon to be sent out on the forest trail, her little brown body
carefully oiled, to be subjected to the blows and ill-treatment of an
unknown mother-in-law. But even before the little one goes, she has
learned her life lessons,--that a lie is a crime only if it is
discovered,--that if she does not like her husband she may console
herself with some other man so long as she is not found out. And,
after all, the relation may be of short duration, for, if her future
husband is unkind, one of his wives will surely be an adept in the art
of poisoning, and then all of them will be inherited by his brother.
And so the little brown baby, fondled, petted, spoiled today, is sent
out tomorrow with foul words on her tongue and foul thoughts in her
heart, to be a wife and the future mother of little brown babies
whose possibilities are infinite, whose opportunities are to
be,--what?
* * * * *
Scene three: A Christian Home in Zululand.[15]
[Sidenote: A Christian home in Zululand.]
“I have already given you a peep at the life in a heathen kraal. Now
repair to a Christian home. Here we find everything simpler and more
quiet. Here polygamy, with all its attendant sensualities and riot,
has given place to restraint of passions and a purer union. Here is
but one house and one wife. The Christian man’s love is now undivided,
and all his efforts are centred in one objective. The single house is
no longer a stack of grass enclosing a dungeon of darkness, but a
square-walled building, humble indeed, but airy and bright. In place
of being obliged to crawl like animals on our knees into the heathen
hut, we may enter erect as becomes the dignity of man, through
swinging doors. We come not into a smoky darkness, but into a dwelling
flooded with the light of glazed windows. In the kraal we found the
whole family, old and young, male and female, huddled together night
and day in the one small room; here we have a dwelling with separate
rooms, so that parents and children and strangers may each enjoy some
privacy. The air is not only light with sunshine; it is also pure and
clean, for no cooking operations are performed herein, but in a
special kitchen outside. In the heathen hut, whether for sitting or
sleeping, we were accommodated on the floor; now we may sit more
respectably on chairs, eat our meals from a table, and rest our weary
bones on a raised bed.
“At four or five o’clock in the morning, according to season,--for the
Zulu is an early riser,--all are up. We hear a gentle murmur from
within. Ah! it is the familiar sound, so sweet to us, but never heard
in the heathen kraal. It is the hour of morning prayer, when husband
and wife and little ones join their hearts and voices together in a
fervent hymn of praise or hopeful supplication for protection and
aid.”
[Sidenote: The home, the centre of a nation’s life.]
The home is the centre of a nation’s life. More and more emphasis is
being laid in enlightened communities on the need of proper home
environment and on the grave risks and great dangers that accompany
the lack of such environment. If one studies the labors and writings
of the great social and religious workers of today, this note of
emphasis on home life and training will be heard to ring out loud and
clear, above all other sounds of harmony or discord,--a call to meet a
definite need.
Dr. Devine has voiced this thought and enlarged upon it in its various
phases in his recent book, “The Family and Social Work,” in which he
claims that “To maintain normal family life, to restore it when it has
been interfered with, to create conditions more and more favorable to
it, is thus the underlying object of all our social work. Efforts to
relieve distress and to improve general conditions are shaped by our
conception of what constitutes normal family life.”
[Sidenote: Christianity’s gift to non-Christian homes.]
Any candid woman who has studied the “home-scenes” at the beginning of
this chapter and has then proceeded (as it is hoped and expected that
she will) to study home conditions and surroundings in other lands,
will surely be ready to admit that the greatest gift Christianity has
to offer to a non-Christian land is the introduction of the power of
the Christ life into the homes of that land. Dr. Dennis lays great
emphasis on the necessity and opportunity for missionary endeavor
along this line.
The reconstruction of the family, next to the regeneration of
individual character, is the most precious contribution of
missions to heathen society, and we may add that it is one of the
most helpful human influences which can be consecrated to the
service of social elevation. In the effort to hallow and purify
family life we stir the secret yearning of fatherhood and
motherhood; we enter the precincts of the home, and take childhood
by the hand; we restore to its place of power and winsomeness in
the domestic circle the ministry of womanhood; and at the same
time we strike at some of the most despicable evils and desolating
wrongs of our fallen world. Nothing in the history of human
society, except the teaching and example of Jesus Christ, has
wrought with such energy and wisdom in introducing saving power
into social development as a sanctified home life. If parental
training can be made loving, faithful, conscientious, and helpful,
if womanhood can be redeemed and crowned, if childhood can be
guided in tenderness and wisdom, if the home can be made a place
where virtue dwells, and moral goodness is nourished and becomes
strong and brave for the conflicts of life, we can conceive of no
more effective combination of invigorating influences for the
rehabilitation of fallen society than will therein be given.[16]
[Sidenote: Greatness of the task.]
The task fairly staggers us with its greatness and its limitless
scope; but let us be big enough to look even beyond all this, and,
with the glorious capacity for motherhood that lies in every good
woman’s breast, let us see not only the millions of homes that are in
darkness and sorrow and degradation today, but also realize that the
children of today are to be the fathers and mothers of tomorrow. Our
work as a “great, beautiful, organized motherhood for the world” must
include the preparation of these children to assume the duties of
parenthood in the future, and to raise from generation to generation
the standards of individual and home and national life “till we all
attain unto a full grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the
fulness of Christ.”
[Sidenote: Disorderly homes.]
The physical conditions of a home, and the moral and spiritual
characters developed in the home act and re-act on each other with
clock-like precision. Would you expect a neat and orderly housemaid if
you engaged a girl from a home in China which Mrs. S. C. Perkins thus
describes?--
The great mass of the people live in what can only be called
hovels, the family occupying one room, shared with pigs and
chickens; damp, dark, unventilated, and unclean. Even in the
houses of the rich there is a certain cheerlessness owing to the
lack of carpets, the absence of sunlight, and the stiff
arrangement of the furniture. The odor of incense in all houses
renders the atmosphere close and unpleasant. The people will not
use whitewash, because white is an unlucky color; indeed, their
many superstitions interfere with the comfort of the poorer
classes quite as much as does their poverty. In Northern China
every house has its kang, a platform of stone about two feet high,
underneath which a fire is kindled for warmth and for cooking, the
heat being carried through it by a flue into the chimney. Here the
family sleep at night, sit by day, and on it they cook their
food.[17]
How much ambition would one be able to arouse in a school girl coming
from this home in Burma?
The home of one of the mission school girls is described in this
way: “It is a large teakwood house, and we walk right in, for
there is no door bell. The large hall is half filled with piles of
wood, for the family lives on the second floor. A servant tells us
to go up, and we climb the long stairs. At the top we find the
lady of the house sitting on a mat smoking. She motions us to be
seated. In the large room are two mats, two chairs, and two
tables.”[18]
[Sidenote: Absence of innocence.]
Innocent childhood, modesty, purity can hardly be counted on in the
unnumbered homes of Africa, India, Persia, Korea, and other lands
where the whole family lives in one room, where sons bring their
brides to swell the number of those whose every act and word is seen
or heard by the whole patriarchal family. If further evidence is
needed of the inter-relation of the physical home surroundings and the
formation of character, study the history of those savage communities
that have come under the power of the Gospel, as for instance the New
Hebrides Islands, and it will be very evident that “godliness is
profitable for all things,” even for introducing a comfortable, tidy
home in which one can stand upright and enjoy some degree of privacy!
[Sidenote: Moral influences.]
In order to learn what should be done for little children in
non-Christian lands, we must know in addition to their physical needs
something of the moral and spiritual influences that surround them. Of
the spiritual influences we shall speak in a later chapter, and,
though the moral effects on life and character have already been
touched on in various ways, it seems wise to sum up briefly some of
the special home influences that affect child life in the lands of
which we are studying. We must be humble and teachable too, for it is
true that we Americans could well be learners when it comes to the
lessons in filial piety taught to Chinese children, and the careful
attention to etiquette and social graces which form an important part
of the training of Japanese girls.
[Sidenote: The Chinese Mother Ideal.]
In a most interesting and enlightening study of “The Chinese Mother
Ideal”[19] Mrs. Gammon shows that “even a cursory glance through
Chinese literature reveals teachings which if carried into effect
might transform the whole empire.” But alas! “to the majority of the
women of China the printed page is a sealed book,” and in many of the
moral as well as the spiritual teachings we find minute instructions
for outward observances, but no life-principles upon which true
character may be built.
[Sidenote: Evil influences surrounding the children.]
Immodesty, shocking impurity, dishonesty, lying, disobedience, foul
and abusive language, quarrelsomeness, bad habits, cruelty, anger,
jealousy,--we might go on with the long terrible list of influences
that surround the child from babyhood up, that are a part of his
heritage, and are not treated as evils to be uprooted by careful
training and wholesome example, but as qualities to be emulated. One
of the “Sacred Books” of Burma says, “A statement constitutes a lie
when discovered by the person to whom it is told to be untrue!” In the
same way millions of children are today being taught that sin is sin
only when it is found out or when it inconveniences a superior
avenging power. How to teach the mothers so that their example and
precepts may produce different children, that is our great problem. We
hear of a convert in India who told a missionary that she “often
prays for power to forget the words she heard and the things she saw
and the games she played when she was a little child in her mother’s
room.” I often recall an impromptu mothers’ meeting held on the mud
roof of a village home in Persia, where the text was furnished by a
self-righteous mother whose child had misbehaved at the afternoon
service conducted by my husband. The mother boasted that she had
dragged her child out of the meeting and beaten him on the head till
his nose bled.
[Sidenote: Lack of proper discipline.]
[Sidenote: “No plan.”]
Of real discipline,--punishment administered in love, not in anger,
for the purpose of teaching great life principles, I have yet to
discover a trace in homes untouched by the love of Christ in the lands
of which we are speaking. Love there is, and how often the unexpressed
yearning of the mother heart finds utterance at last when she comes
into contact with a mother who _knows_ of these things. A young
missionary mother from China told me about a pleasant gathering of
women in her parlor after her youngest baby was born. One woman said
to her, “I wish I knew what to do when my children are naughty. I have
no plan.” The poor woman was nursing her fourth baby, and worn by
wakeful nights and constant nursing was in no condition, physically,
mentally, or morally, to rule wisely her mischievous, disobedient,
crying children.
[Sidenote: Miss Holliday on child training in Persia.]
From the vast amount of interesting information which our missionaries
are glad to share with us the moment this subject is broached, it is
difficult to select something for the limited space in this chapter.
In this as in other instances, the intention is rather to whet the
appetite for more, than to make an exhaustive study of the subject.
Miss G. Y. Holliday of Persia says,--
I find children passionately longed for, much loved, though not at
all wisely; often the tyrants of the household. It is a sad
commentary on the depravity of human nature, that no matter what
outrage a child commits or how abominable his conduct may be, it
is considered an all-sufficient excuse to say, “He is a child,” as
if there were no such things as good and well behaved children,
and nothing else was to be expected but disorder and disobedience
from them. The atmosphere of a Moslem home is so bad for them,
with the continual swearing and vile language. I was talking one
day to a small boy, the idol of his grandparents, with whom he
spends most of his time. The subject was family discipline; I
said, “Parents sometimes find it necessary to punish the
children.” He replied with emphasis, his eyes opening wider and
wider, “Yes, parents whip, they kick, they strike.”
[Sidenote: Lack of innocence coupled with appalling ignorance.]
One of the most terrible results to children of the lack of proper
home life and training is loss of innocence coupled with appalling
ignorance. This condition existing also in our own land is being faced
in these days with new purpose and determination by earnest,
conscientious men and women who are seeking in many ways to find and
apply a remedy. From the many strong, true writers and speakers on
this subject we select a few words written by Professor E. P. St.
John of the Hartford School of Religious Pedagogy.
[Sidenote: Prof. St. John on sex knowledge.]
It is unsafe to leave a child ignorant about sex. The writer
firmly believes that a majority of the evils that appear in
connection with this phase of human nature could be avoided by
simple, frank instruction of children and youth. The great trouble
has been that parents who have clean ideas about sex and its
relations have kept their lips sealed on the subject.... Even if
it were desirable, children _cannot_ be kept in ignorance of these
things. _Through the parents’ neglect_ their thoughts of these
matters have too often been perverted and impure from the first.
The aim should be to pre-empt the ground for cleanness and truth.
[Sidenote: A missionary mother’s “dream.”]
All honor and assistance be given to the missionary mother who,
feeling the horrible need of China’s children and youth in this
respect, is spending much of her furlough year in working out a
plan,--a “dream” she calls it. Will you listen to her dream, and then
see if it is not in your power to help the missionary mothers whom
_you_ know to make this dream a great and living reality in many of
the dark habitations of the earth? “A Chinese child knows all there is
to be known about the deep life truths, and knows it without the
beauty of life being impressed on him. I am going to tell you a dream
I have. Perhaps it is not necessary to speak of it, but it will show
how strongly the awfulness of conditions has forced certain truths on
me. I am inquiring among my friends, those who would know, what are
the best books of sex knowledge for men and women, and especially the
books or stories for children. I am already beginning the little
nature stories with my own boys and intend to teach them
scientifically all the truths about themselves so beautifully and so
naturally and so early that they will never know when they weren’t
acquainted with these facts, and will never have aught but the deepest
love for the knowledge I give them. I think I can do it, with plenty
of study and determination. Then as I know Chinese better, I want to
conduct classes for mothers and for children, and also to get hold of
our school boys and talk to them or put literature in their hands that
will make better men of them. If I stayed in this country, I should
push such knowledge at every turn. I expect to keep a library that I
can loan to American sailors and other young men. I thoroughly believe
that the propagation of such information will do more to change the
life of children and the atmosphere of the Chinese home than anything
else. For with this knowledge one learns the beauty and wonder of a
God that could make such a beautiful human body. It is wonderful to
see what Christian homes _are_ doing, but how much more they could do
with _knowledge_, scientific Christian knowledge, in the hearts of the
parents!”
[Sidenote: Position of the father.]
The position of the husband and father in most non-Christian lands is
that of supreme ruler and despot in his home. In many cases he has
the power of life and death over his children, during infancy at
least, and where polygamy exists many a wife has suddenly disappeared,
never to be heard of again; but no one thinks of questioning the
rights of the husband in the matter. His attitude toward the mothers
of his children is the “sample copy” for his boys to imitate, and
right faithfully do they follow his example.
[Sidenote: An Egyptian father.]
In the native quarter of Alexandria, Egypt, I saw a little boy who
was very fond of making mud-pies in front of the house. One
afternoon his mother stepped into the doorway and called:
“Come in, darling; don’t get your clothes so dirty. Come in,
sweet one.” No answer from the four-year-old.
The mother stepped into the road, looking about to see that there
were no men near to watch her, and laid a kind motherly hand on
the child to take him into the house.
“Come, little one. I will give you sweets; come!”
Her husband at that moment came around the next corner, and stood
still to see what would happen. The child turned on his mother,
and, doubling up his little dirty fist, he beat her right in the
face, and snarled, “Bint el kelb!” (Daughter of a dog), tearing
himself loose.
The father stepped up, and, in place of giving the little
scoundrel a thrashing, he patted his son on the back, smiled upon
him, and said: “Brave little fellow! Thou magnificent little
fellow!” Proud of the son who could treat a woman thus![20]
[Sidenote: An African father.]
[Sidenote: Fathers transformed by Christianity.]
Through the jungle of Africa strides the man carrying his pipe and a
big hunting knife; after him comes his wife with a baby slung at her
side, stooping under the great pack on her back, to lighten which he
will not lift his little finger. Oh! it is a sight to make angels
rejoice when the grace of God touches the heart, and manliness and
chivalry are aroused in him who had all his life seemed absolutely
callous to the needs and sufferings of those dependent on him! In a
Persian village where a missionary lady was touring, a man came to
evening prayers and slipped a note into her hand that read, “Receive
M. B. with love,--he is a brother.” Several years later she again
visited the village, but though she had no opportunity to talk with M.
B. she saw something that spoke louder and more forcibly than a dozen
conversations would have done. When he was ready to go home from the
meeting in the missionary’s rooms, he said to his wife, “Give me the
child,” and took the heavy, sleeping boy out of her arms. In all her
long years of work among Mohammedans this missionary had never seen a
Mohammedan man do such a thing.
[Illustration: MOTHER AND CHILD IN EGYPT]
“A Japanese woman whose husband is a Christian,” writes Miss Ransome,
“though she is as yet only an inquirer, said recently that the change
for the better had been so marvelous in her husband that she had
decided to try to rear her boy in such a way that he would eventually
become an evangelist. She wanted others to know of the power of
Christianity which could change a quarrelsome, drinking man to a
kind, sober, industrious father.” That boy’s chance for a happy,
useful life was the direct result of what the knowledge of Christ had
done for his father.
[Sidenote: Motherhood.]
The sacred vocation of motherhood is regarded almost entirely from a
commercial or social standpoint in non-Christian lands. The free woman
who remains unmarried is wellnigh an impossibility,--she has no chance
for winning respect or position in this life, and, according to
Mohammedan belief, has a very inferior place in heaven. The woman who
marries and has no children needs one’s sympathy almost as much as
does her unmarried sister. In many cases she may be divorced after a
certain number of years if no child has been born to her, or she lives
in dread of having another wife brought into the home, who will make
her life miserable with taunts such as Peninnah heaped upon Hannah in
days of old. And there is no hope that her lord and master will
comfort her as Elkanah comforted Hannah, offering her the devotion of
ten sons.
[Sidenote: A mother of girls.]
But the unmarried woman and the childless wife are not alone in their
degradation and distress. Never can I forget my feelings when told of
a neighbor in Persia who had just given birth to her seventh daughter.
Her husband on visiting the room crossed over to where she lay on her
bed on the floor, looked at her with disgust and disapproval, spat
in her face and covered it with a cloth to show that she was a
disgraced wife. To be the mother of sons is the great wish of a
woman’s heart, to have many daughters-in-law brought into the home to
serve her and cower before her tyranny is her fondest ambition, and
when she attains it her influence is indeed great, and in one respect
at least she is queen of her home.
[Sidenote: Foundations of family life.]
Is it a mistake in this study of child life to pay so much attention
to the subjects of fatherhood and motherhood? Nowhere can we find the
real remedy for the evils that degrade and debase and oppress and
crush the sweet innocence and dependence of childhood unless we go
back of the child to the very foundations of family life. Many great
authorities in America and Europe, as well as those who have labored
and studied in Oriental lands, will testify to the truth of this
statement. Rev. J. Sadler of Amoy says, “You would be profoundly
impressed if you could realize how the strength of heathenism is in
the women. From earliest years they teach their children concerning
demons, and to be early eager as to inheritance, and thus inspire
selfish and quarrelsome ideas leading to divisions and life-long
conflicts. The importance of women’s work cannot be estimated. The
destiny of the country is largely in their hands.”[21]
[Sidenote: Training Christian wives and mothers.]
This is one side of the picture. The other is equally true. Dr. Daniel
McGilvary, for half a century a missionary among the Siamese and Lao,
tells of the wonderful result of a school for girls that provides
Christian wives and mothers.
Notwithstanding our disappointment in the delay of the school for
boys, it proved a wise arrangement that the girls’ school was
started first. A mission church is sure to be greatly handicapped
whose young men must either remain single,--which they will not
do,--or be compelled to take ignorant non-Christian wives....
After marriage the almost universal custom of the country has been
that the husband lives with the wife’s family.... Where all the
atmosphere of the family is strongly Buddhist, with daily
offerings to the spirits and gala days at the temple, the current
would be too strong for a father, with his secondary place in the
family, to withstand. For a while it was feared that Christian
girls would have difficulty in finding husbands. But, on the
contrary, our educated girls become not only more intelligent, but
more attractive in manners, dress, and character; and therefore,
have been much sought after. The homes become Christian homes, and
the children are reared in a Christian atmosphere. The result is
that, instead of the wife’s dragging the husband down, she
generally raises the husband up; and, as a general rule, the
children early become Christians.[22]
The Mohammedan girl educated in a Christian school, even though she
must marry and live her life according to Mohammedan customs, takes
with her to her father-in-law’s home new ideas and customs that are
going far to break down the old walls of prejudice. Mrs. C. M. Wherry
of India writes:--
One of the most interesting facts that has come to light during
recent years is this: We do not know of any educated Moslem girl
who has spent four or five years in our schools,--and I include
those of the British workers too,--who has ever been subjected to
the indignity of a second wife brought into her home. They seem to
have gained strength of character and graces enough to hold their
own against the bad influences of Mohammedanism. More and more we
hear of Moslem families who practically adopt the Christian idea
of marriage, that is, one woman in the home: these families
frequently in giving away their daughters take pledges from the
bridegroom that she is to be the only wife, while still more
encouraging is the fact that many of these educated girls
absolutely refuse to be given in marriage unless their parents
insist on this single wife.[23]
A little Mohammedan girl had attended for a few months a small day
school on the mission premises. Years afterwards her missionary
teacher found her in a village, and the woman gathering her children
about her led them in the Lord’s Prayer, explaining that she and the
children prayed together every day.
[Sidenote: A Christian mother in Syria.]
Who can foretell the influence that will go on down through the years
because of one mother in Syria who has recently passed to her reward
at the age of ninety years? She was the mother of eight children, two
of whom were ordained pastors, two licensed preachers, one the wife of
a pastor, another a helper in the Sidon Missionary School, one is
employed by the Church Missionary Society in Nazareth, and two more
are teaching and preaching in the German Orphanage in Jerusalem. Think
what the land of our Saviour’s sojourn would have lost had not that
one mother learned to love and follow Him, and to train her children
as a Christian mother should.
[Sidenote: Child marriage.]
Many chapters might easily be devoted to the subjects of child
marriage and child widowhood and their frightful effect on past,
present, and future generations. They have, however, been treated
quite fully in recent mission study books, and so much authoritative
literature on these subjects exists that it does not seem best to
dwell on them at length in this connection.
But every Christian mother should pause and ask of herself earnestly,
“What if it were my daughter, my son, how could I stand it? Would I
not move heaven and earth to see that some remedy were found for this
monstrous evil?” What if your daughter were that widowed teacher in a
missionary school in China who had been married at nineteen to a boy
of twelve, and who every morning after washing his face and combing
his hair had to see that he started off properly to school, often
crying and protesting, and then turn to her weaving, in order to earn
money for his education?
[Sidenote: Testimony of an Egyptian.]
Are we overestimating the evil because of our Occidental customs and
prejudices? Listen to the words of an Egyptian, translated and
re-printed from a Cairo daily paper.
I am an Egyptian, and speak of that which is customary in my land;
yet I wait to be shown that the Moslems of India, of Yemen, of
Syria, or of Persia are in any better case....
The first step in our faulty marriage system is that of marrying
boys of thirteen to girls not more than ten years of age, as is
the custom. This custom is like making a fire of tender green
branches; you benefit not by its warmth, but you suffer much from
its smoke. How many of us have suffered from this cause? The
excuse given for it is that it is to preserve our youth from
impurity. But what a feeble excuse! Silence were better than
such.[24]
[Sidenote: The betrothed boy in Korea.]
Strange customs prevail in different lands regarding betrothal and
marriage. Their effect upon the life and status of the boy seems to be
peculiarly marked in Korea.
The matter of becoming a full-fledged man does not depend upon
years, but is a matter to be decided on its merits by the parents
or guardians of the subject in hand. The badge of manhood is none
other than the topknot, which is made by combing all the hair to
the top of the head and making it into a coil about an inch and a
half in diameter and four or five inches high. From the time the
boy’s hair is long enough, it is plaited into a straight braid and
left hanging down his back. When the time comes for him to be
engaged to marry, his topknot is put up, and from that time forth
he is recognized as a man. This usually takes place between the
ages of ten and twenty, though he is not likely to be so old as
twenty....
[Illustration: IN A KOREAN HOME]
As long as a boy wears his hair plaited and hanging down his
back, he is addressed in low talk. His age has nothing to do with
the form of speech, but the style of his hair settles that. It
sometimes happens that a very poor family will not be able to
contract a marriage for their son, and so we occasionally meet a
man thirty years old with his hair still hanging down his
back.... But the boy who is honored with the precious topknot is
addressed in middle or high talk, though he may be only eight or
ten years old.[25]
[Sidenote: Customs preceding marriage.]
A girl’s hair receives special attention among the Persian
Mohammedans, and must be banged when she is taken to the public bath
on the day preceding her marriage. In one of the islands of the New
Hebrides the struggling girl is held down by several old women while
her two upper front teeth are knocked out as a necessary preparation
for marriage.
Among the Lao, where marriage is much more honored and considered more
sacred than in many other countries, the boys are freer to do their
courting in person, and both boys and girls have far more voice in the
selection of a life partner than in countries where women live in
seclusion and where polygamy abounds.
[Sidenote: The burden of motherhood.]
Through long years there has run in my ears the brief story of a
Christian servant in one of the missionary homes in Persia. “I was
married at twelve years and had a baby when I was thirteen, and, oh!
how glad I was when it died!” Glad? Of course she was glad. What
child of thirteen would want the burden of motherhood?
Who of us who has witnessed the agonies of the little dying
child-mother can ever for a moment think with carelessness or
indifference of the awful custom of child marriage?
[Sidenote: A dying child-wife.]
“A girl of fifteen was dying,” writes a friend from India. “Her
husband, a man of fifty or more, is a man of good position and
considerable means. The girl lay in a bare room with nothing but an
unbaked earthenware vessel near her. Her _second_ baby had been born a
few days or weeks before and something was wrong.... But she was a
purdah woman and could not see the doctor. He had asked a few
questions from outside and had diagnosed the illness as tuberculosis,
was treating it as such,--and had given it as his opinion that she
would die. Our pastor’s wife, dear Mrs. Roy, had somehow gone to see
her. Even her non-professional eye saw that a mistake had been made,
and she tried to persuade the mother to send for a woman doctor. ‘What
was the use? She was doing to die.’
“Mrs. Roy expostulated indignantly with the mother for having married
this child of twelve to a grown-up man, just for money. The poor child
seemed so sad. Mrs. Roy told her of the Christian’s hope and a
Saviour’s love. The child listened with the tears running down her
face. Then she asked, ‘May I touch you?’ (Being a mother of a few days
she was still unclean and no one would touch her). So Mrs. Roy went
to her and held her hands and stroked her face and hair and tried to
give her comfort for the journey for which she was so little prepared.
Thus is the ‘hope of India’ MURDERED by custom and carelessness and
greed. _Oh, India is horrible!_”
[Sidenote: Statistics from India. Child-marriage; Child-widowhood.]
From the _Missionary Review of the World_ (August, 1911) we quote the
following statistics, each word and figure of which cries out to us
Christian women, “How long, oh, how long, shall these things be?”
The figures are appalling in respect of child-marriages. The
census of 1901 showed 121,500 married boys and 243,500 married
girls, whose age was under five: 760,000 boys and 2,030,000 girls
between the ages of five and ten; 2,540,000 and 6,586,000 between
ten and fifteen. Of these, all except a certain number of girls
under the last class were married before they were able to realize
what marriage is. The most deplorable result of such marriages is
seen in the number of widowed children; 6,000 widowers and 96,000
widows were between five and ten; 113,000 widowers and 276,000
widows between ten and fifteen.
[Sidenote: The homes of the world need Christ.]
[Sidenote: Three methods of bringing Christ to needy homes.]
The homes of the world need nothing so much as the presence and
blessing of the Christ who brought cheer to the home in Cana, comfort
to the widow’s home at Nain, resurrection and life to the home at
Bethany, vision to the home in Emmaus. How are _we_ to help to make it
possible that fathers, mothers, and children in homes where He is not
known should hear Him as He stands at the door and knocks, and shall
open to Him that He may sup with them and they with Him? There are at
least three practical methods by which Christian women may help to
bring about this result.
_First_: Through Christian schools which take children and youth in
their impressionable years and train them to be the Christian fathers
and mothers of the future. We have briefly alluded to this method and
shall speak of it more at length in a later chapter.
_Second_: In Zenana work and other forms of visiting in the homes, in
crowded cities, and isolated villages, taking to each individual home
the story of the Christ who gathered the little ones in His arms, and
the practical, homely lessons of efforts that Christian civilization
is making in behalf of home life.
_Third_: Through the great object lesson, the missionary home.
Never again let it be asked in church or missionary society of a young
woman starting for the foreign field, “Are you going out as a
missionary, or only as a missionary’s wife?” At a conference for
outgoing missionaries, a beautiful, talented college graduate, leader
in many activities and full of capacity and consecration, said to a
returned missionary,--“I am to be married, and have listened and
listened at this conference to know what particular work is waiting
for me, but there has been _nothing_ for me as yet.” When it was
pointed out to her that by means of her paramount duties and
obligations as wife and mother in a missionary home she would have an
opportunity of _living_ the missionary message such as few of her
fellow missionaries might have, her beautiful face lighted up with a
look that illumined it. The making of a missionary home was a vocation
indeed to call forth all the highest powers of her consecrated
womanhood.
[Sidenote: E. A. Lawrence on missionary homes.]
Mr. E. A. Lawrence has stated so clearly the possibilities and
opportunities of the missionary home that he is worth quoting at
length.
There is an element of missionary life which is seldom presented,
yet most important. It is the mission home.... It underlies the
whole of the work, and discloses the ideal of Protestant missions
more clearly than any other point....
The first thing the Protestant missionary does among the heathen
is to establish a home. He approaches them not as a priest, not
simply as a man, but as the head of a family, presenting
Christianity quite as much in its social as in its individual
characteristics. This Christian home is to be the transforming
centre of a new community. Into the midst of pagan masses, where
society is coagulated rather than organized, where homes are
degraded by parental tyranny, marital multiplicity, and female
bondage, he brings the leaven of a redeemed family, which is to
be the nucleus of a redeemed society.... It is on this mission
home that everything else is founded--the school, the college,
the kingdom itself....
When they are at their homes, this new institution, with its
monogamy, its equality of man and woman, its sympathy between
child and parent, its co-operative spirit of industry, its
intelligence, its recreation, its worship, is at once a new
revelation and a striking object-lesson of the meaning and
possibility of family life. Whether they come to his church and
school or not, the natives seem always ready to visit the
missionary’s home, and to remain there so long, and to conduct
themselves so familiarly, that it sometimes becomes necessary to
teach them by object-lesson another feature of the Christian
home--its privacy....
If the family in its very existence is an important missionary
agent, having a distinct work to do, not only for its own
members, but for the natives, ... then there must be a distinct
acceptance of this office by its members, and it must play its
part in the outreaching work of the missionary. The natives must
be brought in contact with this domestic sphere. The walls of the
home should be at least translucent, that its light may
continually shine through to them; its doors should be often
open, its table often spread for them; a distinct social as well
as Christian fellowship should be cultivated.[26]
[Sidenote: At the missionary’s table.]
“Given to Hospitality” might be the true epitaph on the headstone of
most missionary wives, and untold lessons in love and deference
between husband and wife, obedience of children, interesting and
profitable table conversation, self-control, and courtesy, are taught
in the missionary dining room as they could never be taught in church
or school room.
[Sidenote: Planning the day’s work.]
“Won’t you write an article on the orderly management of a home for
the paper published by the mission?” begged a young Christian teacher
who was spending her vacation week as a guest in the missionary home.
“The work of each servant and person in this house is arranged for
every day, and everything goes on quietly and regularly. Our women
have no plan for their day’s work, and I wish they might know how you
do it.”
“I was taking dinner at the home of Mr. C.,” said a native pastor,
“and his little boy cried for some more of the food he liked. Instead
of giving it to him, his mother actually sent him away from the table
to stay until he could be pleasant! I never heard of such a thing, but
I went home and told my family about it.”
[Sidenote: Learning to cook.]
Mrs. J. C. Worley of Matsuyama, Japan, writes: “One woman whom Mr.
Worley baptized a year ago walked thirty-five miles over the mountains
and carried a baby on her back to get to us so she could learn foreign
cooking in a week. I could not do too much after she had made such an
effort. She came over every morning into our kitchen, and we proceeded
to cook; she with paper and pencil in hand and watching with both
eyes. I am wondering what I shall be expected to eat next time we go
there. I taught her some new songs for the Sunday School she and her
husband hold in their little mountain village. I just wanted to fill
her up with good thoughts and helps to take home, as she had made such
an effort to get here.”[27]
[Sidenote: The baby who made her smile.]
Even the little missionary children may have their unconscious share
in kindling a new light that shall shine in palace and hovel, and be
reflected in the faces of parents and children who have long since
lost the radiant look they were meant to wear. A woman of high
position was making a very formal call in the missionary home,
accompanied by many retainers. Every effort was made by the ladies of
the station to entertain her fittingly and to bring some gleam of
interest to the weary, hopeless face. The piano, beautiful pictures,
the wonderful writing machine (typewriter), dainty refreshments,--all
were acknowledged courteously, but, neither interest nor heart was
touched. At last in desperation the tiny baby in her dainty, long
dress was brought out from the bedroom, and, as the visitor’s arms
were stretched out eagerly for the cunning form, so different from any
baby she had ever seen, the little face looked up into the sad,
wondering eyes, and a beautiful smile crept into the baby eyes and
hovered about the rosebud mouth. “Oh, see,” whispered the servants in
eager watchfulness, “our lady is smiling,--smiling for the first time
since her brother died. God bless the little baby who made her smile!”
Ah yes! God bless the missionary babies, and the missionary fathers
and mothers, and every one of the men and women whose hearts glow with
the love of the great Father whose supreme will it is that “not one of
these little ones should perish!”
QUOTATIONS--CHAPTER II.
CHRISTIANITY AND THE HOME
Christianity will call into existence a sympathy between parents and
children hitherto unknown, and one of the greatest needs of the
Chinese home. It will teach parents to _govern_ their children, an
accomplishment which in four millenniums they have never made an
approach to acquiring. This it will do, not as at present by the mere
iterative insistence upon the duty of subjection to parents, but by
showing parents how first to govern themselves, teaching them the
completion of the first relations by the addition of that chiefest one
hitherto unknown, expressed in the words Our Father. It will redeem
many years during the first decade of childhood, of what is now a mere
animal existence, filling it with fruitfulness for a future
intellectual and spiritual harvest.
It will show Chinese parents how to _train_ as well as how to govern
their children--a divine art of which they have at present no more
conception than of the chemistry of soils. (Dr. Arthur H. Smith,
“Village Life in China.” Revell.)
MOTHERS’ MEETINGS
I have been much interested in our Mothers’ Meetings this winter. They
meet at our house twice a month, and we have been trying to have some
very practical talks which shall help them to be better mothers and
women. The need for such talks is very great, and I wonder more and
more that so many children escape physical and moral wreck. Our more
intelligent women realize their need for instruction and help, and are
very grateful for the opportunities given them by these meetings, but
a large number come only out of curiosity. Some of the young women
say, “You ought to have these meetings for our mothers-in-law instead
of for us. They govern the house and our children. We would like to
try these methods. We know they are right, but we are not allowed our
way.” But I know it is hopeless to do anything with the grandmothers,
and I believe that at least these young women will learn enough to
keep their hands off when their turn comes to be mothers-in-law! It’s
a long look ahead, but well worth while to plan for the future
generation, even though we cannot do all we long to for the present
one. (Mrs. Henry Riggs, Harpoot, Turkey.)
A TRANSFORMED HOME
In a small village near Hoi-How lived Sitli Nin, a poor woman, worn
out by a life of hard work, bitter poverty, and sorrow. Her husband
had become a victim of the opium habit, and squandered what little
property she had. When her eldest boy was eight years old, the inhuman
father, in order to gratify his cravings, sold him to a Hong Kong
boatman, and the mother never heard from him since. Eight times she
had attempted suicide, three times by drowning, three times by
hanging, and twice by taking opium; but in the latter case she had
failed to take enough, and the other times love for her children
restrained her at the last moment. By some chance the ladies of our
mission found her. Her husband was persuaded to take the opium cure at
the hospital.... While he was in the hospital, she attended the
services at the mission, and was genuinely converted. Her husband was
cured, and they went home rejoicing in their new-found happiness.
(Josephine P. Osmond, “Home Life in Hainan,” leaflet of Women’s
Foreign Missionary Society of the Presbyterian Church)
CHILD MARRIAGE, INDIA
Sir W. W. Hunter says, “In Bengal, out of every thousand girls between
five and nine years of age, two hundred and seventy-one are married.
More than ten boys in every thousand between five and ten years old
are bridegrooms; while of girls, twenty-eight in one hundred are wives
or widows at an age when, if they were in Europe, they would be in the
nursery or infant school.”
In England, out of every hundred females of twenty years of age and
upwards, 25.80 are single, 60.60 are married and 13.60 widows.
“A Brahmin of Bengal gave away his six aunts, eight sisters, and four
daughters in a batch of altogether eighteen, in marriage to one
person--a boy less than ten years old. The brides of three generations
were in age from about fifty years to three months at the lowest. The
baby bride was brought to the ceremony on a brass plate.” (Quoted from
_Times_ of India.)
The origin and authority for early marriage are worthy of inquiry.
Like so many Hindu customs, it claims a quasi-divine authority, and is
based on certain reasons which, from the Hindu point of view, are of
great weight. “Reprehensible,” says Manu, “is the father who gives not
his daughter in marriage at the proper time.” And all commentators say
the proper time is before the age of puberty.... A high legal
authority, Mr. Justice Moothoswami Iyer, recently said, “According to
custom now obtaining, a Brahmin girl is bound to marry, for fear of
social degradation, before she attains maturity. Marriage is of the
nature of a sacrament which no Brahmin is at liberty to neglect
without forfeiting his caste.”... Thus a religious or sacramental
purpose has been operative here, as in most other departments of Hindu
life and thought.... There has been one strong incentive to early
marriage, which in the past might be urged in its justification. The
unsettled, precarious conditions of life, from the remotest times
until the establishment of British power, encouraged parents to have
their children married as soon as possible. (Rev. E. Storrow, “Our
Sisters in India.” Revell.)
CHILD-WIVES, PERSIA
The usual age for a Mohammedan girl to marry is thirteen or fourteen,
but in many places they marry as early as eight.... Poor little girl
wives! They are taken away from home before they are grown up, and
although they are now married women they cannot help behaving as
children. There was one young wife of a Government official who
received her visitors with the utmost dignity and propriety, and then
could not resist the temptation to pinch the old black woman who was
handing the tea and make her jump....
[Illustration: A LITTLE GOANESE BRIDE IN INDIA]
Even when the children grow older their mothers, grown-up children
themselves, do not know how to manage them.... One woman bit her
little boy’s hand till it bled badly. He was about seven, and had
cried to have his best coat on when he went to see the missionary.
Another woman bit the cheek of a poor little consumptive girl of eight
or nine so that there was a great bruise and the skin was broken. She
told a neighbor, with a laugh, that she had got angry with the child
because she was tiresome about taking her medicine, which was very
nasty.
There is no command in the Koran that girls should be married so
young, but the mothers declare that it was the command of Mohammed,
and certainly he himself set the example by marrying a girl of
nine....
The man is absolute master in his own house, and unless his wife has
powerful relations he may do what he likes to her and her children,
and no one will take any notice. I knew one woman whose husband
treated her like a slave. He forced her not only to do all the work of
the house, but the work of the stable too, for he was well enough off
to keep a horse. He killed one child in her arms, and twice stole
another away from her, sending it once to a town a week’s journey off,
and once to another part of the town. Finally he divorced her, without
giving any reason, and left her ill and destitute. And she had at no
time any redress....
Little Bagum, the child-wife, was deliberately and cruelly burnt by
her husband, and was brought to the mission hospital. There was no
hope of recovery, but all was done that was possible to relieve her
pain and brighten her last days. She had heard something of the Gospel
story from a missionary who had paid a visit to her native village,
and she had been so interested that she asked two Persian children to
teach her more. When she was brought to the hospital even the terrible
pain she was suffering did not make her forget the wonderful story,
and she begged to be told more and more. And, resting in the love of
Christ and trusting wholly in Him and His salvation, she loved to sing
of the joy to which He was going to take her, and kept begging for
“Here we suffer grief and pain,” until even the Mohammedan women would
sit beside her and sing the hymn that comforted her so much....
“I have a foolish husband,” said one little girl, “He says he will
beat Jesus Christ out of me, but he can only beat my body, and Jesus
Christ is in my heart, so he cannot beat Him out.”
(Mrs. Malcolm, “Children of Persia,” Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier.)
BIBLE READING
THE IDEAL HOME
Psalm 128
v. 2. The busy father working with joy for the maintenance of the
home.
v. 3. The happy, willing, successful mother, striking the keynote of
the home.
v. 3. The vigorous young children growing up in the home.
v. 4, 5. All this is the token of God’s rich blessing to him who puts
God first, and who is interested in the growth of God’s kingdom as
well as in his own home.
v. 6. Not only as parents but as grandparents God’s blessing will be
enjoyed.
PRAYER
We thank Thee, O Lord,
For the sweet and silent years of the Holy Childhood.
For the light and gladness brought into the world by little children.
For Thy servants who, by word and good example, are protecting and
guiding Thy lambs in the dark and waste places.
For the Christian nurture, Christian homes, and Christian parents,
which are the gifts of the Christ-Child to our nation; the strength of
its life and the hope of its future.
For Thine assurance that inasmuch as we have done it unto the least of
Thy little ones, we have done it unto Thee.
For the growing interest and co-operation of the children of the
Church in the up-building of the world-wide Kingdom.
May it please Thee--
To guard and protect the innocence of children, and by their example
to win men and women to a worthier life.
To bless family life, and direct parents in their sacred task, that
Thy children may have a fear and love of Thy Holy Name.
To bring to the mothers of the world the knowledge which alone can
sanctify their joy and soothe their sorrow.
(_Spirit of Missions_, February, 1910.)
QUESTIONS
1. What is the saddest part of the life of a girl in India?
2. What do you consider the greatest sorrow of Mohammedan motherhood?
Of heathen motherhood?
3. What methods can you suggest for effecting a beneficial change in
the home life of the Chinese?
4. What feature of home life in Mohammedan lands most needs to be
improved?
5. What effect would it have on your boy to be married at the age of
fourteen?
6. If you could make marriage laws, what would you set as the lowest
marriage age for boys? For girls?
7. Name the missionary wives and mothers of your acquaintance. In what
ways do they serve and help the communities in which they live?
BIBLIOGRAPHY. CHAPTERS I & II.
LEAFLETS
Home Life in China Women’s Foreign Missionary
Home Life in Syria Society of the
Home Life in Siam Presbyterian Church.
Home Life in Persia
Home Life in Hainan
Home Life in Korea
Home Life in Africa
Home Life in India
Home Life in Japan
Child Life among the Lao
Other Children
Being a Boy in Korea Woman’s Board of Foreign
Selma (Beirut) Missions of the
A Faithful Follower Presbyterian Church.
Auntie’s Explanation
Child Life in China Woman’s Presbyterian
Story of Satabia Board of Missions of
the Northwest.
Child Life in Burma Woman’s Foreign Missionary
Foot Binding in China Society of the
Little Daughters of Islam Methodist Episcopal Church.
Motherhood in Heathen Lands
Young Ladies here, Young
Ladies there
Childhood in Heathen Lands
Child Life in Turkey Woman’s Board of Missions
Chih, the little Chinese Girl of the Congregational Church.
Sister May’s Impressions Woman’s Board of Foreign
Village of the Milky River Missions of the Reformed
Church in America.
Sorrows of Heathen Motherhood Woman’s Baptist Foreign
Missionary Society.
CHILDREN’S MISSIONARY MAGAZINES
_World Wide_ American Baptist Publication
Society, Ford Bldg.,
Boston, Mass.
_Over Sea and Land_ Pres. Bd. For. Miss., 156
Fifth Ave., New York City.
_Day Star_ Woman’s Bd. of For. Miss.
Ref. Ch. in Am., 25 E.
22d St., N. Y.
_Lutheran Boys and Girls_ Lutheran Board, 1424 Arch
St., Phila.
_Children’s Missionary Friend_ Woman’s For. Miss. Soc.
of the M. E. Church, 581
Boylston St., Boston, Mass.
_Everyland_ Everyland Publishing Co.,
156 Fifth Ave., New
York, N. Y.
See magazines of the Women’s Foreign Missionary Boards.
See also Bibliography for Chapter I.
FOOTNOTES:
[15] John L. Dube, Orange, Natal, _Missionary Review_, June, 1912, p.
410.
[16] J. S. Dennis, “Chr. Miss. & Soc. Prog.,” vol. ii, p. 176. Revell.
[17] Mrs. S. C. Perkins, “Home Life in China.” Pres. Wom. Bd. of Miss.
[18] Mrs. O. W. Scott, “Child Life in Burma.” Wom. For. Miss. Soc. M.
E. Ch.
[19] _Life and Light_, Aug., 1912.
[20] _Missionary Review_, June, 1912, Karl Kumm, F.R.G.S.
[21] _Missionary Review of the World_, Oct., 1911.
[22] Daniel McGilvary, “A Half Century among the Siamese and Lao.”
Revell.
[23] Mrs. C. M. Wherry in “Daylight in the Harem,” Revell.
[24] M. Fadil, Atbara, in _Missionary Review_, Feb., 1912, p. 131.
[25] Robert Moose, “Village Life in Korea.” Pub. House of M. E. Ch.
Soc.
[26] E. A. Lawrence, “Modern Missions in the East,” Chap. viii.
Harper’s.
[27] _The Continent_, April 17, 1913.
CHAPTER III.
THE CHILD AT PLAY AND AT WORK
“Boys and girls playing in the streets thereof.”
Questions concerning play and work--Two great movements,
Playground movement and Child Labor movement--The importance of
play--Children at play in Japan--Games known the world
over--Children at play in Africa--In the desert--Why play stops so
early in non-Christian lands--Need of the “Spirit of Play” in
children and parents--The message of a doll--Child labor--Bedouin
and African girls at work--Children at work in many lands--Child
slavery--Rescue homes for slave children--Defective and dependent
children--Orphans and orphanages--Famine waifs--Blind, deaf and
dumb children--Homes for untainted children of lepers--A crime in
the name of civilization--The Child in the Midst.
What is play?
[Sidenote: How would you answer these questions?]
What are the advantages and disadvantages of play?
At what age would you wish your child to stop playing?
What would be the physical and moral consequences to a child who
practically stopped playing at or before the age of ten years?
At what age would you advise that a child begin to work for commercial
profit?
If it is good for the children in whom you are interested to have time
and opportunity for play, how far would the same rule hold good for
other children in America? For children of other countries?
Name the countries in which defective and dependent children may be
neglected or overworked without danger to world-welfare.
Reversing the stereotyped text-book arrangement, we place our
questions at the beginning rather than at the end of this chapter.
Every thoughtful woman is begged to stop and answer these
questions,--in writing, if feasible,--as fully and as honestly as
possible, and then, after carefully studying the subject, to see if
her opinions have altered in any particulars.
[Sidenote: Two great movements.]
Two of the great movements that are sweeping over our land,--the
Playground movement and the movement to create and enforce proper laws
concerning Child Labor,--are engrossing the attention of some of our
greatest and wisest men and women. The abundance of literature on
these subjects, the time devoted to them in great conventions and in
lesser gatherings, the very opposition encountered in the ranks of
those who profit by the exploitation of America’s growing
children,--all go to prove that they belong to the living issues of
the day. Our grandmothers would doubtless have been shocked beyond
words to be told that the subject of their children’s play belonged to
the “Child Problems” studied by the country at large through its
Juvenile Commission, and had become a matter for legislation and
financial appropriation by state and municipality! But so it is, and
Hygiene and Psychology and various other learned sciences each claim a
voice in the subject of the play and the work of the nation’s
children.
[Sidenote: The importance of play.]
A few extracts from earnest writers and thinkers on this subject will
illustrate their view point.
All animals play. Play is likewise one of the fundamental
instincts of the child. If there are any inherent rights of
childhood, the right to play must be considered one of them. It
carries with it immeasurable benefits, but the exact results still
remain comparatively uncertain. It is unquestionable, however,
that play promotes the physical and mental development of the
child, and that it is no mean factor in his social and moral
elevation.... The ancient attitude toward play was that of
toleration of the ebullient spirits of the growing boy.... The
utilitarian function of play was undreamed of. The physical
weakness of the child and his incapacity for concentrated thought
and endeavor saved to him the enjoyment of play until his parents
could use his services in some gainful occupation.... Play--the
most enjoyable right of childhood--was unduly curtailed, and even
at the present day its value is minimized by many who do not
recognize its varied functions....
Whatever be the correct theory of play--that it is practice in
the line of future methods of conduct, that it is simply the
discharge of the surplus energy of the young, or that it is for
the purpose of relaxation and recreation only--whatever theory be
adopted, the inestimable value of play to the child and to the
nation cannot be gainsaid. Play is an irrepressible method of
self-expression....
The social and moral influences of play produce indelible effects
upon the child mind.... The recognition of mutual rights is one
of its initial values. These rights are but little understood by
the unthinking child, and when brute force permits, are often
entirely overthrown or perverted into a mere toleration of
privileges.... On the supervised playground a new regime is put
into operation.... The growth of the instinct of co-operation is
perhaps the most valuable result of play.... Ability to
co-operate spells ability to excel.[28]
[Sidenote: Jane Addams on Play.]
Miss Jane Addams of Hull House, Chicago, speaks with no uncertain
sound and with undisputed authority on this subject.
This stupid experiment of organizing work and failing to organize
play has, of course, brought about a fine revenge. The love of
pleasure will not be denied, and, when it has turned into all
sorts of malignant and vicious appetites, then we, the middle
aged, grow quite distracted, and resort to all sorts of
restrictive measures. We even try to dam up the sweet fountain
itself because we are affrighted by these neglected streams; but
almost worse than the restrictive measures is our apparent belief
that the city itself has no obligation in the matter, an
assumption upon which the modern city turns over to commercialism
practically all the provisions for public recreation.[29]
[Sidenote: Professor St. John on the little girl and her doll.]
Singling out one type of the play instinct, the little girl and her
doll, Professor St. John of the Hartford School of Religious Pedagogy
says:--
Altruistic feeling had its origin in motherhood, and it has
reached no greater heights of self-denial and service than in that
same relationship. In playing with her doll the child is in
thought and feeling making that experience her own. At a very
formative period of her life it gives her much the same training
that the race has received through the actual experience.... Every
impulse toward loving care of the doll should be encouraged. To
the child in her play it is a living child, and hence the
experience provides the same kind of emotional training that would
come from the care of a baby, without the obvious disadvantages to
the infant.
Kate Douglas Wiggin says, “Every mother knows the development of
tenderness and motherliness that goes on in her little girl
through the nursing and petting and teaching and caring for her
doll.”[30]
If we agree with an axiom laid down in the first chapter (p. 7) of
this book, that one of the inalienable rights of every child is to
follow his instinct for healthful play, it is now our privilege and
pleasure to watch the little ones of many lands with their tripping
feet and merry voices and lithe little bodies. We instinctively turn
to Japan, “the paradise of children,” where annually at the “Feast of
Dolls” the whole home becomes a big playhouse for the girls of the
family, and where the “Feast of Flags” is the day dedicated to the
boys of the nation. We certainly must stop long enough to see what is
done at these feasts.
[Sidenote: Feast of Dolls.]
And then there is the feast most loved in the whole year, the
Feast of Dolls, when on the third day of the third month the great
fire-proof store-house gives forth its treasures of dolls,--in an
old family, many of them hundreds of years old,--and for three
days, with all their belongings of tiny furnishings, in silver,
lacquer, and porcelain, they reign supreme, arranged on
red-covered shelves in the finest room of the house. Most
prominent among the dolls are the effigies of the Emperor and
Empress in antique court costume, seated in dignified calm, each
on a lacquered dais. Near them are the figures of the five court
musicians in their robes of office, each with his instrument.
Beside these dolls, which are always present and form the central
figures at the feast, numerous others, more plebeian, but more
lovable, find places on the lower shelves, and the array of dolls’
furnishings which is brought out on these occasions is something
marvelous....
[Sidenote: Feast of Flags.]
As the Feast of Dolls is to the girls, so is the Feast of Flags to
the boys,--their own special day, set apart for them out of the
whole year. It comes on the fifth day of the fifth month.... When
the great day at last arrives, the feast within the home is
conducted in much the same way as the Feast of Dolls. There are
the same red-covered shelves, the same offerings of food and
drink; but instead of the placid images of the Emperor and Empress
and the five court musicians, the household furnishings, and
toilet articles, there are effigies of the heroes of history and
folk-lore.... Behind each figure stands a flag with the crest of
the hero in miniature. The food offered is mochi wrapped in oak
leaves, because the oak is among trees what the carp is among
fishes, the emblem of strength and endurance. The flower of the
day is the iris or flag, because of its sword-shaped
leaves,--hence the name, Shobu Matsuri, feast of iris or flag.[31]
[Sidenote: Playground movement in Japan.]
It is a matter for heartfelt rejoicing that the Japanese Government
has seized upon the idea of the Playground Movement as one of the
really essential activities of some of the great Christian nations,
and is introducing playgrounds for the benefit of Japanese children,
who certainly deserve a suitable place and opportunity to follow their
instinct for play. We hope that hammocks and sandpiles for babies will
soon eliminate one feature of the play hour which is described by many
missionaries and tourists.
“We have such hosts of children here in Tokyo,” writes Mrs. J. K.
McCauley. “We go out and see boys on high stilts, with babies on their
backs, and we tremble lest they fall and drop the baby; but I have
never heard of one who did; and we see girls, jumping the rope with
babies on their backs, and playing battledore and shuttlecock,
dodging, hopping, stooping, and the wee baby’s head bobbing up and
down, laughing, and sometimes crying; but the playing goes on, winter,
summer, no matter how cold, unless raining or snowing. The streets
swarm with children, with bright colored kimonos, bright eyes, rosy
cheeks, and on wooden shoes, making such a clatter; but seldom are
they noisy in their play, but fun-loving as any children in the
world!”[32]
[Sidenote: Other lands feel the need of play.]
That other lands than Japan are beginning to be aroused on the subject
of Child Play by America’s example is proved by the fact that in
April, 1913, letters were received by the Playground and Recreation
Association of America from Persia, Russia, China, and Uruguay
regarding recreation in those countries. The suggestion is made that
perhaps as Rome gave to the world law, and Greece gave art, so America
may contribute play as her share towards the world’s progress.
[Sidenote: Games that are known the world over.]
There are some games that seem to be as instinctive to mankind as are
the processes of eating and sleeping. Kites, tops, and marbles appear
at their proper seasons in Korea, India, and Persia, the rules of
“Hop-Scotch,” “tag,” “hide and seek,” “crack the whip” seem to be very
similar whether played by the Lao children or European immigrant
children on an American pavement. Jack-stones and “Fox and Geese” are
popular among the small, bound-footed girls in China. The rhythmic
movement and exciting choices of “London Bridge” are recognized in the
very heart of Africa in a game so prettily described by Miss Jean
McKenzie that we long to join in the fun.
[Sidenote: African “London Bridge.”]
A mother and her children file under the arms of two players. The
child caught is drawn aside for the choice between a cake of gourd
seed or a peanut porridge, a necklace of beads or a bow and
arrow--we all know the phantom bliss of such choices. The children
are caught and ranged until there remains none but the mother and
one who is now called “the only child.” This remnant of a once
numerous family takes to the bush, but the mother sallies forth
from time to time and tosses a handful of grass toward the
company, who ask her in chorus:
“How big is the only child now?”
“The only child creeps,” says the mother.
“Hay-a-a!” exclaims the astonished chorus after this and all
other complacent maternal announcements.
“How old is the only child now?”
“The only child walks.”
“Hay-a-a!”
To this chorus of astonished approval, the only child comes to be
a young girl, has a sweetheart, is married, and has a baby!
Having achieved so much success, the only child ceases to figure
in this drama, and the grandmother is plied with questions about
the child of the only child.
“How old is the child of the only child now?”
“The child of the only child creeps.”
“Hay-a-a!”
He walks, he sets traps, one day he has killed a little antelope,
another day he has killed a big antelope, and now he has killed
an elephant!
Here surely is a climax. “Hay-a-a!” The chorus disintegrates; one
after another comes to beg a piece of elephant meat from the
child of the only child, who emerges from hiding. One after
another is refused, until that one comes who pleases the child of
the only child. He gives her a piece of elephant meat for a sign
that she is his sweetheart--and they are obliged, of course, to
run away. After them the entire company is, of course, obliged to
follow.
Here, you see, is a rehearsal of life as it is to be. Here is the
dissension, the gossip, the greed, the romance, and the adventure
of life.[33]
[Illustration: “LONDON BRIDGE” AT THE MIDORI KINDERGARTEN, JAPAN]
[Sidenote: African children’s play.]
“Kidd in his book on ‘Savage Childhood’ describes the Bantu children
of Africa as showing great power of imagination in their games. Before
the missionary they appear dull and unresponsive, but when no stranger
is about they delight in playing missionary, holding a play service,
singing hymns, and mimicking the padre’s bad dialect. The insistence
of the motor idea is strong in the native; he likes to play games
involving motor skill, is fond of acrobatic tricks, of mimicking
animals, and delights in dolls and play animals. In fact, the whole
picture is that of an intensely human little animal, decidedly
attractive, and one feels pity that it should grow up into an
unattractive and troublesome Kaffir problem.”[34]
[Sidenote: Children of the desert at play.]
How invariably true is the child’s instinct for imitation, for making
his play largely a “rehearsal of life as it is to be.” The little
Bedouin boys, each with a pet locust harnessed to a bit of string,
enjoy the exciting races of their “fiery steeds,” and prepare eagerly
for the great game in which the bigger boys show their budding
manhood. A dweller in the region of the Dead Sea thus describes some
of the games of the desert:
“The boys of the desert are glad when the first of the month comes.
For that day their fathers allow them to have a horse each and ride
away from their black tent homes into the open desert, their athletic
field. A few of the men, heroes of the tribe, meet there with the boys
and act as judges in the horse-racing. They divide the boys in two
rows, and then select a boy from each side, and start off this first
pair in their race (on horseback) to the distant goal, a pole with a
prize on it such as eggs, money, or clothes. The one who arrives first
takes the prize off the pole or knocks it down with his staff. The
judge keeps the conqueror on one side, the conquered on the other. A
new prize is put up, another pair races, and so on till all the
victors are on one side, and the poor defeated ones on the other.
“A sham battle takes place, the conquerors shooting the conquered with
paper or some harmless shot. Then the beaten soldiers are taken
captive and led to their homes, while the proud victors are allowed to
go to the meeting place of the men and drink coffee with the heroes of
their tribe.”
[Sidenote: Why play stops so early in non-Christian lands.]
All too soon the games of childhood merge into the stern realities of
life, and, as we watch and listen and smile, we suddenly wonder why
the laughter is hushed, why the smiling, girlish lips are covered by a
woman’s thick veil, why the little backs stoop beneath loads far too
heavy for them. Then from far and near comes the testimony of those
who have lived and worked among the children in non-Christian lands.
The physical director of a Y. M. C. A. says:--“One of the strongest
impressions made on me in China was by the lack of opportunity which
the average child has for normal physical development and for the
adequate expression of its play instinct.”
Deaconess Phelps of St. Hilda’s School for girls in Hankow says: “When
Chinese girls come to our mission schools we find it difficult to
teach them how to play, and in the case of elder children we often
fail completely, because from time immemorial the idea of learning
and scholarship has been entirely inconsistent with fun and good
times.”[35]
So great an authority as Dr. Arthur H. Smith says: “The outdoor games
of Chinese children are mostly of a tame and uninteresting type. Even
in the country Chinese lads do not appear to take kindly to anything
which involves much exercise. Their jumping and climbing are of the
most elementary sort.”[36]
Mrs. Napier Malcolm after discussing the play life of Persian children
adds:
“But when all is said, the games and toys are very few in Persia as
compared to those you are accustomed to. No great distinction is made
between children and grown-ups, and really there is not so much
difference as we find at home. The children are taught to take life
very seriously ... and they have no time to grow up into proper men
and women. The result is that we find the children too grown-up and
the grown-ups too childish.”[37]
[Sidenote: Need of the “Spirit of Play.”]
“Little old men and women” the missionary called them in her plea that
to the children of India might be brought the gift of CHILDHOOD, and
so we must not be surprised that our missionaries find the lesson of
“HOW TO PLAY” one of the most essential and one of the most difficult
to teach in many lands. They have been at it for many years in a
quiet, unpretentious way, these pioneers of thought and action. Now
that the whole American public is being aroused as never before to the
value and need of play for _all_ children, let us see to it that all
necessary facilities are in the hands of our missionaries, and that
their numbers are sufficiently reinforced so that the “Spirit of Play”
may flit from land to land and bring smiles and joy and health and
lessons of unselfishness and co-operation to little children who have
long since forgotten how to play.
[Sidenote: Parents ought to know how to play.]
Not only because they are children today, but because they will in a
few short years become parents, must we give the little ones this
opportunity. If the fathers and mothers of the near future know how to
value the development of the play instinct at its true worth, there is
great hope for their children. If they can enter into the play spirit
with their boys and girls, there will be a revolution in home ideals
and companionships. That the lesson is not an easy one to learn or to
teach, we are assured by Elizabeth Harrison, who says, “How many
parents and teachers are there who can enter into this world of play
and not spoil it? In my classes for mothers I have found that one of
the most difficult things I have had to teach many of them has been
how to play simply and genuinely as a child will play.”
But whether the parents themselves know how to play or not, the
quickest and surest way into their hearts is through sympathy with the
play instinct of a little child. The missionary who can enter into
even that realm of the life of a child has the wondering appreciation
of the parent. A little mountain girl lay dangerously ill at the
girls’ school in Urumia, Persia. The principal, who was tenderly
caring for her in her own room, came to ask if by any chance I knew
how to get hold of a dollie for the little child, who had seen such a
toy in the possession of a missionary’s child. Yes, a thoughtful
friend had tucked a couple of dolls into one of my boxes for just such
an emergency, and the one whose head had survived the eight thousand
mile journey was found and sent to the little girl. Such rapturous
smiles, such motherly hugs and caresses, such appreciation when her
schoolmates gave up their recreation hours in order to make proper
Persian clothes to replace the queer American garments! And when the
little one went to be with Him who “gathers the lambs in His arms,”
her weeping parents selected according to custom her chief treasure to
lay into the casket,--in this instance, the cheap little American doll
that had travelled so far to bring joy to the heart of a dying child.
Up into the rugged Kurdish mountains the crude casket was carried on
the back of a sure-footed horse, and at every village where there were
friends of the family the caravan was halted for a last glimpse of
the little face and a wondering look at the fascinating toy. “How they
must have loved her!” was the text from which the doll preached many a
sermon that day.
[Sidenote: Need of public sentiment concerning child labor.]
In order that the “Spirit of Play” may have full right of way, a
great, united, preliminary effort is needed, that the little ones of
all lands may come into their rightful heritage. What time, what
strength, what zest is there left for play when the children have to
work and contribute toward the family support? With shame we confess
that the Christian nations are far from guiltless in this matter,--the
blood of thousands of their children cries to God from the ground.
But, thank God, they are _aroused_, and changes are taking place with
wonderful rapidity, and nations like China and Japan are _looking to
us_ as examples. Shall we fail them in their hour of crisis, or shall
we lead and help and encourage them and other lands awaking from
age-long sleep in this matter of their duty to the children?
Prominent among the rights of the child must be the right to
abstain from the task of earning money either for his own support
or to increase the family income. Premature child labor is an
absolute evil and is wholly without justification.... The
enlightened view of today refuses to regard the child as a mere
commercial asset of the parent. On the contrary, the relation of
the two is exactly reversed. Until children reach a certain age it
is absolutely necessary that they be supported by their parents,
and society must enforce this obligation.[38]
[Sidenote: Bedouin girls at work.]
“How hard the Bedouin girls have to work,” we read in “Topsy-Turvey
Land,”[39] “treated like beasts of burden as if they had no souls!
They go barefoot carrying heavy loads of wood or skins of water, grind
the meal and make fresh bread every morning, or spin the camel’s hair
or goat’s hair into one coarse garment.”
One little Bedouin girl said, “I tote my two small brothers on my back
all day long, and they kill me a thousand times with their crying.”
Another said, “What do I do? Why, nothing but work--that’s what
children are for.”[40]
The familiar Chinese proverb,--“A child of six should earn his own
salt,” is an indication of public opinion that needs revision.
On the African girl the burden falls early and heavily, while her
brother, joining the men in their occupations, finds life much easier
and more enjoyable than she does.
[Sidenote: The burden of the African girl.]
“The girl follows her mother to the plantation (distance one-half to
one mile from the village), imitating her mother in carrying a basket
on her back, its weight supported by a broad strap going around it and
over her forehead. Some burden is always put into that basket, often
one beyond the child’s strength, as a jug of water. The little one
staggers under it, leaning far forward to lessen the direct traction
over her forehead. With that daily bending the child would become
deformed, were it not counteracted by the carrying at other times of a
log of firewood or some lighter burden on her head.”[41]
[Sidenote: Children at work in many lands.]
The little coolie children of Hong Kong toiling up a steep road under
the broiling sun with great loads of bricks slung on either end of a
bamboo pole; the thousands of Chinese children gathering and carrying
home great loads of fuel and manure; the Japanese girls sitting
closely on their heels and painting cheap crockery for $1.00 a week;
the little children of a Japanese village helping to support
themselves by making match boxes for the sum of eight cents a
thousand; the mere babies picking tea leaves under the hot sun in
Bengal; the seven year old girls working from five in the morning to
six at night in the cotton and silk mills in China;--these and
countless others seem to be calling to us in the name of the Child of
Bethlehem to lighten in some way their heavy load.
[Illustration: LITTLE MANURE GATHERERS IN A PERSIAN MOUNTAIN VILLAGE]
And, oh, what heroic efforts your missionaries are making to lessen
the great evil, but how powerless they seem in lands where _no law, no
custom, no religion_ gives the child any rights. Once more we turn to
Mrs. Napier Malcolm for a vivid word picture from Persia.[42]
[Sidenote: The little carpet weavers of Persia.]
But for the horrors of child labor in the carpet trade we must
turn to the factories of Kirman.
These factories are filled with children from four years old
upward, underfed, overworked, living a loveless, joyless,
hopeless life. The factories are built without windows lest the
children’s attention should be distracted, and the bad air, want
of food, and the constantly keeping in one position produce
rickets and deformity in nearly all. Of thirty-eight children
examined in one factory, thirty-six were deformed.
One of the Governors of Kirman forbade the employment of children
under twelve in the factories, but the order did not last beyond
his governorship. The same Governor gave the order still in
force, which forbids the employment of children before dawn or
after sunset, thus reducing their working hours to an average of
twelve hours a day. A recent Governor added to this an order
limiting the Friday work to about two and a half hours, “from
sunrise to full sunshine,” so now the children share in part the
general Friday holiday of Mohammedanism.
One of our medical missionaries was called to attend the wife of
the owner of one of these factories, and consented to do so on
condition he made windows in his factory to allow the children
air and light. He objected at first, saying that it would prevent
their working, but finally consented, and admitted afterwards
that the children did more work with the windows than they had
done without them.
The factory owners are glad to get the children, for they say
children work better than grown-up people at carpet-making, and
of course they expect less wages. But how can the parents allow
their children to live this cruel life? You will find the answer
in the Persian saying that “of every three persons in Kirman,
four smoke opium.”... Over and over again comes the terrible
story, the father and mother smoke opium; the little deformed
child toils through the long days to earn the money that buys it.
Is the picture sad enough, are the colors gloomy enough, are the weary
cries loud enough to reach and touch every womanly heart in a
Christian land,--every mother or sister or teacher who has ever loved
or helped or taught a child? Ah, but we must go into darker depths
than these if we are to be even ordinarily intelligent concerning
child life and its needs. What of the little slave children who are
stolen from their homes “in darkest Africa,” who are sold by their
parents in China and Assam, who live lives of unspeakable misery in
Korea, in Siam, in Turkey, Morocco, and Arabia? Paid child labor is
terrible enough, but the countless slave children of the world live
under a far more cruel system.
In his revelations concerning “The Crime of the Congo,” A. Conan Doyle
gives proof of the atrocious crimes perpetrated on little children as
well as on men and women by employees of the Congo government. The
selling, beating, mutilation, and murder of children were proved to be
common occurrences.
It is said to be difficult for even the missionaries to realize the
awful extent of the traffic in girls in China. In famine times girls
may be bought for a mere song, sometimes being peddled about the
streets in a basket and sold like poultry. In Siam the problem of
slavery has assumed such large proportions that the king issued an
edict a few years ago that thereafter all children born of slaves
should be free.
[Sidenote: Rescue Homes for slave children in Arabia.]
“To set at liberty them that are bound” is still the work of Jehovah’s
servants, and here and there throughout mission lands will be found
Rescue Homes for slave children where new life and hope and
opportunity are given to children who have been stolen from their
homes or deliberately sold into slavery. The rescued-slave school in
Muscat, Arabia, was started by the Rev. Peter Zwemer for some African
slave boys caught by Arab traders, who were in turn caught by a
British consul whose servant saw the slave-dhow and reported it. The
rescued children were turned over to Christian people, most of them
being cared for and trained for useful Christian manhood at the Muscat
school.
[Sidenote: In China.]
_The Spirit of Missions_ for June, 1905, tells of a woman’s conference
held at Shanghai at which one of the subjects chosen for discussion
was “Chinese Slave Girls.” A successful effort was made to enlist the
co-operation of non-missionary ladies, and the result was the opening
of a home for slave children under the direction of a committee on
which the missionaries and the foreign residents were represented.
After four years they were able to report the presence of fifteen
girls, most of them very young and looking even younger than they
really were because stunted by harsh treatment and lack of sufficient
food. Not a child in the home but had been taken from a life of pain
and cruel hardship, and none is too wretched or maimed or low to be
received. They are taught to sew, to read and write in their own
language, and to know and love Christ who put it into the hearts of
His children to save and help them.
[Sidenote: Result of saving a slave-child.]
If you are tempted to query,--Can a stunted, maimed, degraded
slave child ever repay such an outlay of effort and toil and
expense?--please read the following extract from a letter from Miss
Muir of the Methodist Episcopal Mission in China.
One year ago last spring Dr. B. was called to see a little slave
girl in one of China’s most prominent official’s families. She was
five years old. She was caught napping when she should have been
fanning one of the young ladies of the family. This young lady,
sixteen years old, a spoiled pet, struck the child over the head
and face, leaving deep scars, tied her hands and feet together,
and threw scalding water upon her. When Dr. B. saw her he
persuaded them to let her go to the Hospital, where her feet and
all fingers except the stump of her right thumb had to be
amputated. Then Dr. B. wanted to put her into the school, and so
he told this official he would have to settle a certain amount of
money on her for life or he (Dr. B.) would expose him to the
public and the foreign countries where he had lived. After he had
tried in every way to creep out of it, Dr. B. holding fast,
$3000.00 was settled upon the child as long as she lives, but
whatever has not been spent of it at her death goes back to the
family. This is poor little Mary, who is compelled to walk on her
knees the rest of her life just because she was too sleepy to keep
awake one afternoon when only five years old. But her influence in
the school cannot be estimated. Her being there has helped to
soften and make more kind and thoughtful every girl from the
oldest to the youngest. It is beautiful to watch the little ones
try to carry her or pick her up when she falls. It has been the
redemption of “Pontsi” (Fattie), who used to be the mischief of
the school: she would not study for any teacher, and was the
hopeless case of every one. “Pontsi” appointed herself the
guardian and caretaker of Mary as soon as Mary came to school; she
is Mary’s partner in the line; she wheels Mary in her little
chair; helps her up and down from the bench in chapel; and is
always alert to do the many little helpful things where Mary needs
help. She has become very studious and good in her classes, no
more in mischief. But Mary has such a bright, happy disposition
that she is a great help to herself, and many a time will beat
half a dozen with two good feet running across the compound on her
knees.
[Illustration: CHINESE MARY
A Cripple for life, because she took a nap at the wrong time]
[Sidenote: Defective and dependent children.]
We started our chapter with children at play; we found that all too
soon in countless instances the play must cease and hard grinding work
must begin; we learned that in many lands great masses of little
children are in hopeless slavery. One other large group of pathetic
little ones claims our attention, sympathy, and help in this
connection,--children who know little or nothing of play and fun and
laughter,--for whom no provision is made in lands where Christ is not
known. These are the defective and dependent children,--cripples, deaf
mutes, the blind, orphans, famine waifs, children of lepers. Why is it
that until missionaries started to work for these classes of children,
or governments were inspired to such efforts by the examples of
Christian governments, there was no chance or hope for the great mass
of defective and dependent children in non-Christian lands? Why is it
that blind girls in Korea had no other prospect than that of being
sold to be trained as sorceresses, or that parents of blind Chinese
girls find a ready market for them in brothels? Search diligently and
find out if you can what would have become of the famine waifs of
India and China, or the massacre orphans of Turkey, had not Christian
missionaries considered their need a call to new and more difficult
service, and had not Christians in Europe and America heard and
answered the call for more funds to support the new work.
[Sidenote: Statistics.]
The World Atlas of Christian Missions, published in 1911, gives the
statistics for Africa, Asia, and the Pacific Islands as follows:
Missionary Orphanages 266
Inmates 20,303
Homes for Untainted Children of Lepers 21
Inmates 567
[Sidenote: Armenian massacre orphans.]
The Armenian massacres in 1894-96 cast some fifty thousand children in
Turkey without warning onto the care of the missionaries, who had to
face the alternative of letting these children die or drift hopelessly
into lives of wretchedness and vice, or else of caring for them in
some adequate, systematic way. Many pages might be written to show how
Christian missions rose to the occasion, but one instance must suffice
as an illustration of the task, how it was met, and its consequences.
We quote from a letter written in 1912 by Rev. George C. Reynolds, M.
D., for forty-four years a missionary in Van, Turkey.
“In 1896 occurred the great massacre, when for a week our premises
became the place of refuge for the Armenians, of which from 10,000 to
15,000 availed themselves. And then our streets became filled with
helpless orphans, whose plaintive cry for help we tried to voice as an
appeal to Christian philanthropy in America and Europe. Thank God, the
appeal brought response, and we were enabled to gather in a few of
these helpless waifs to feed and shelter and clothe and educate in
books and trades. For fifteen years this God-given work was continued,
and several temporary buildings were erected for its accommodation.
When our German friends withdrew their part of the institution to
separate quarters, promising sufficient orphanage provision for the
province, the American Orphanage was allowed to pass into history; but
we feel as we review this history, that this effort at least was worth
while. Nearly a thousand children were rescued from the streets to
find a loving Christian home, and the elevation which it gave them
over the mass of even well-to-do villagers from among whom most of
them were taken might almost make them thankful for the massacre.
Forty-five of the five hundred and seventy-five boys have graduated
from our high school, thirty-nine of whom have given some years of
their lives to teaching. A good number have continued their studies
in higher institutions in this country or abroad. Two have secured the
degree of M. D. in America, and are engaged in successful practice of
their profession there, while others are on their way to the same
goal. One has just taken his M. D. degree from Edinburgh University,
and another is soon to graduate from London University, while three or
four are successfully pursuing university studies at Harvard. Three
have graduated from colleges in Turkey. Political and economic
conditions in this land not being attractive, many have emigrated, of
whom fifty are now in the United States, and two in South America.
Most of these are fully making good. This orphanage episode of my life
brings me much of joy and satisfaction.”
[Sidenote: Mohammedan children in need.]
Seventeen years pass, and the scene changes. _Then_ it was Christian
children, helpless and starving because the Mohammedans had killed
their parents. _Now_ it is Mohammedan children homeless and suffering
because Christian nations have devastated their land by war. Then and
now it is the Christian missionary who sees the need and realizes that
“it is not the will of our Father that _one_ of these little ones
should perish.” “Some of these children are simply irresistible,”
writes Professor Arthur Reed Cass of the International College,
Smyrna, “The stories they tell are sad indeed. Hundreds of Moslem
babies are being born on transport ships and in schools where lessons
have been suspended to make room for homeless folk. Here is a chance
for American Christianity to prove its recognition of need regardless
of lines of race and creed.”[43]
[Sidenote: The “Polishing Jade Establishment.”]
Reports full of thrilling interest come to hand concerning the work of
Christian orphanages in non-Christian lands,--institutions founded and
maintained by those who consider it their privilege to act as the
human agents of Him who is the “Father of the fatherless.” We are told
that St. Mary’s Orphanage maintained in Shanghai, China, by the
Episcopal Board of Missions has been dubbed by the Chinese, “The
Polishing Jade Establishment,” which is a reference to their own
classic teaching that as jade must be cut and polished to be of value,
so children must be taught and trained.
[Sidenote: Orphanages in India.]
The plan of establishment of orphanages in India under the Methodist
Episcopal Mission dates back to 1857, and is a fine example of how
Christian missionaries are on the lookout for suitable openings for
work, and how to them is apt to be granted the far vision that labors
for the present and future generations and for eternity.
The orphanage for girls was first established in the city of
Lucknow, but up to the close of 1860 only thirteen orphans had
been received. Owing to the famine that spread over the land after
the great mutiny, it became an easy matter to secure girls, and
the following year the number increased to forty-one.... At the
close of the mutiny, Dr. Butler made application to the government
for a number of girls to be placed in the orphanage, to be cared
for by the mission. The government was very willing that the
children should be thus provided for.... Dr. Butler says:
“Upon reaching the city we found that the Mohammedan officers
connected with the magistrate’s court, at whose disposal the
girls had been placed, had distributed many of them in houses of
infamy throughout the city to be brought up to a life of sin.
This matter was presented to the governor, and the children were
ordered to be immediately recovered and forwarded to the mission.
They were sent in large carts, each containing twenty girls. The
oldest was probably twelve or thirteen years, the youngest a mere
babe; but three-fourths of them were under eleven years of age.
Each driver had his list for his load. He lifted out the largest
one first and laid her down, then the rest, placing them around
her as if building them into a bee-hive shape. Then the heaps
were counted and the signature affixed to each list, and the
carts moved out.
“The children were all untidy, and their countenances bore the
traces of the hunger through which they had passed.... But these
were girls, and the glad thought was that they were our own to
save and train and elevate. We accepted them as a trust from God.
All hands were soon at work in loving labor to change the aspect
of things. The missionary women and their native helpers before
the sun went down had accomplished a delightful transformation.
Bodies were washed, clean clothing put on, and a hearty meal of
wholesome food banished the gloomy looks and brought forth the
first smiles on those little faces.”[44]
[Illustration: BASKET OF BABIES FROM THE ORPHANAGE, GUNTUR, INDIA]
[Sidenote: Famine waifs.]
Not only are orphanages established, but missionaries use many other
means to provide for helpless, dependent, or neglected children who
are thrown on their care. After one of India’s great famines the Rev.
Rockwell Clancy of Allahabad formed a distributing station for famine
waifs and collected and placed hundreds of them in various schools and
institutions throughout the land. A new missionary to China after only
a month’s study of the language had rather an interesting trip with
his collection of famine orphans. He writes:--
“The trip to Nanking, including a ten-mile trip on the Presbyterian
motor boat to the railroad station and the one hundred miles by rail,
was full of wonders to these little country lads. On the cars when
eating our slim lunch, consisting of a bun and a boiled egg for each
boy, one of the boys who was a little older than most of them politely
offered part of his share to the people who were occupying the same
seat with him, and this in spite of the fact that he had been going
hungry for weeks or months.
“After entering the city wall at Nanking we drove the seven miles to a
rented Chinese house where I was living, which was to serve as their
home for the time being. One of the drivers told the boys that we were
going to dig out their eyes and cut out their stomachs. This awesome
news, coupled with a little homesickness, was probably the cause of
two of them running away the very next day. We had to send four or
five to the Methodist hospital to be treated, and two of the older
boys who were allowed to go along ran away. But their places have been
filled by three others, two of whom I had to leave in the hospital at
Hwai Yuan.”[45]
[Sidenote: A Persian “Helen Keller.”]
What provision is there for the blind, the deaf and dumb, the crippled
children in non-Christian lands? Would you care to know the number of
children whose fate is like that of the Mohammedan girl who was
brought by her grandmother to the missionary dispensary in Persia? She
was deaf, dumb, and blind, and her grandmother pleaded with the lady
physician to do something to cure her. The girl shrank in fright as a
strange hand touched her and then every tense muscle in her body
showed amazement and relief when the hand proved to be gentle and
loving. Again the grandmother brought her, saying, “You _must_ find a
remedy. There is nothing we can do with her. Must I kill her?” and the
missionary’s heart was broken because she could not cure and there was
absolutely no institution to which to take the girl. Some years later
a younger deaf and dumb girl was brought to the dispensary by a woman
whose face seemed familiar and who turned out to be the despairing old
grandmother. “Where is the older girl?” asked the doctor. “Oh,”
exclaimed the old woman, while the tears rained down her face, “I had
to kill her. There was nothing else to do!”
Who knows what there was behind that wall of blindness and
deafness,--who knows what might have been the result had the
Mohammedan Helen Keller had her fair chance? Which members of the
“organized motherhood for the children of the world” will see to it
that there are means and workers enough to give these children their
inalienable rights? The work is barely begun, but is full of promise.
[Sidenote: Blind children in India.]
“According to the last census, the number of blind persons in the
Indian Empire is 600,000. Little was done for them until Miss Asquith,
superintendent of the school for Tamil girls in Palamcotta, founded a
school for blind children a few years ago. Her success was so great
that she resigned her lucrative position and gave herself and all her
time to the care of the blind. Now the English Government will aid her
in the erection of two substantial school buildings, one for boys, the
other for girls, that she may give both a more complete
education.”[46]
[Sidenote: Work for the deaf.]
“The Martha A. King Memorial School for the Deaf has been started as a
department of the work of the Woman’s Board of Missions at Marsovan.
The oral method is used, and it is the intention to teach each pupil
the language of his own home. The present year the Greek department
has been opened, an Armenian department will be opened in September,
1911, and one in Turkish as soon as there is a demand for it.
“Children (both boys and girls) will be received at from six to eight
years of age. Older children may be accepted, but it is important for
the attainment of the best results that pupils begin the work within
the age limits named. Miss Philadelpheus, the teacher, has spent two
years at the Clark School for the Deaf, Northampton, Mass., in
preparation for this work. Both the home and school life of the
children are under the most careful supervision.”[47]
[Sidenote: Deaf and dumb school in China.]
One in every five hundred of China’s vast population is estimated to
be deaf and dumb. The _only_ school in China for such unfortunates is
in Chefoo and was started in 1898 as an independent work by Mrs. A. T.
Mills, for many years a member of the Presbyterian Mission, which
heartily approves of the school, but has no funds with which to
support it. Boys and girls are taught in this school to read, write,
and speak, and are given as much elementary knowledge as is possible,
while being trained to useful occupations by which they may hope to be
self-supporting. Such constructive work for children who are
handicapped is considered absolutely necessary in America and Europe.
Is there in your opinion any necessity for multiplying such agencies
in non-Christian lands?
Does it pay to help in Christ’s name even one of _these_ little ones?
Are they worth helping? Which one of us could do the work of the blind
reader of Amritsar in India?
[Sidenote: The blind reader of Amritsar.]
“A peculiarly bright, happy-looking girl of about eighteen,
sitting down at the beginning of the morning in one of our
Amritsar dispensaries, with her large Gospel of St. Matthew, in
Dr. Moon’s system of raised characters for the blind, open on her
knees; she can see nothing, but her fingers move swiftly across
the page, and she begins to read better than some persons who have
the use of their eyes! As the morning goes on, all the sick who
come for medicine will listen with astonishment and pleasure, and
she will have opportunities of witnessing for Jesus to those who
ask her a reason for the hope that is in her. She was once herself
in the darkness of Mohammedanism, and in the Blind School found
Christ. She is now a rejoicing and consistent Christian. Do you
think that, as we stood and watched her delight in reading the
comfortable words of our Saviour Christ, we asked ourselves if to
bring such to the Lord were work worth doing? Rather, is it not a
service which angels might envy?”[48]
[Sidenote: A leprous mother.]
A leprous mother, outcast of society, doomed to spend the rest of her
life in a leper village and to drag out a miserable existence among
those who are afflicted and suffering like herself! What, oh what,
shall she do with her children, as yet untainted by the frightful
disease, but sure to develop it if they too go to the leper village?
And yet who is there in the wide world to care for her little ones?
Her husband is up at the village, hands gone, sightless eyes,
disfigured face,--he cannot help. No relatives or neighbors will be
bothered with the children of the outcast, and yet that mother heart
beats with an intense, despairing mother love as yours or mine
might,--with a love that can bear all suffering and even slow death
for herself if only her children are safe. Hark, a neighbor calls to
her from a safe distance,--“Do you know that those foreign Jesus
people have a place where they take the children of those who are
accursed of God like yourself? They take them and feed them and teach
them their Jesus religion and train them to earn their living.” Oh, it
is the one word of hope and courage, the one ray of light in utter
darkness, and the little children are left on the threshold of the
Home for Untainted Children, and the leper mother learns of a Home
where she herself may go and where she and her husband may receive
loving care and unheard-of comfort, and where the years of suffering
are illumined by the knowledge of another Home where she may meet her
darlings once more, and “where the inhabitant shall not say, I am
sick.”
[Sidenote: Homes for untainted children of lepers.]
“Twenty-one Homes for the untainted children of leprous parents in
which about five hundred boys and girls are being brought up to
healthy and useful lives and saved from adding to the terrible total
of diseased outcasts,”[49] this is the record of the work of
Christian missions thus far. Compare with it the record of what in
this modern day has been done in the name of an attempt at
civilization which leaves Christianity entirely out of account.
[Sidenote: In the name of civilization, but without Christianity.]
“Wellesley G. Bailey of Edinburgh, the superintendent of the Mission
to Lepers, has received authoritative information concerning the
terrible massacre of lepers by government soldiers which was
perpetrated at the city of Nanning, the remote capital of the province
Kwang-si in southern China. The massacre was instituted under the
direct orders of the governor general of the province.... In this case
the offense of his cruelty is aggravated by the fact that, taking
advantage of the trend to modern ideas in China, the vicious old
general pretended to be acting in the interest of scientific hygiene.
The excuse he has made for the massacre is that leprosy is a great
menace to humanity and the destruction of those afflicted with it is
the surest way of stamping out the scourge....
“The English Missionaries had been anxious for some time to build a
leper hospital, but could not spare the energy for it from their other
work. And for a long time the Catholics seemed entirely indifferent to
the needs of lepers. But finally, there arrived in the latter mission
a very earnest and sympathetic priest, whose attention was early
attracted to the collection of miserable hovels outside the city,
where the community of suffering had drawn together a larger group of
outcast lepers. The priest determined that something must be done for
them....
“But it appears that the intrusion of the French into the matter
angered General Luk so much that he took measures immediately to
dispose of the question in another way. Soldiers were sent out to dig
a deep trench near by the leper village, and early on a Saturday
morning soon after a large body of troops completely surrounded the
lepers’ wretched huts. Shouts brought them out of the door of their
hovels, and immediately the soldiers opened fire, shooting
relentlessly until the whole community--men, women and children--were
dead or helplessly wounded. Then the whole mass, many still living,
were dropped into the trench, kerosene poured over them and the pile
set alight. The victims at this one point numbered fifty-three. Of
course there was immense excitement in the city, and to defend himself
the governor general issued a proclamation urging that all lepers
should be put out of the way, and advising that those who did not
voluntarily kill themselves should be killed by their friends and
relatives. How many more died in this way is not known.
“Many crimes have been committed in the name of civilization, as of
liberty, but perhaps never one quite so monstrous as this in the name
of ‘hygiene.’ Certainly the incident illustrates how keenly China
needs not civilization simply, but civilization based upon Christian
religion.”[50]
[Sidenote: “The child in the midst.”]
“The child in the midst,” playful, trustful, loving, helpless, exalted
by our Saviour into a type to be admired and copied if one would enter
into the Kingdom of Heaven! The Master placed him in the very midst of
His disciples, where he might find shelter, protection, and love. But
today we find the little ones, thousands, millions of them, in the
midst of suffering, neglect, vice, crime, torture, despair, danger to
body and soul. And ever and anon the Master’s voice echoes in our
ears, “Whosoever shall receive _one_ such little one in My name,
receiveth Me.”
QUOTATIONS
FEAST DAY, ARABIA
What Christmas Day, with its toys and sweets and merry-making, is to
the Christian child, the Moslem Feast Day, at the close of the
Ramadhan Fast, is to the little men and women of Arabia. At that time
every child must have a new gown of some bright color. On that gay
day, in the bazaar, are sold delicious sweetmeats made only on this
one occasion in the whole year. Every one is happy, for the weary
month of fasting is at an end. Friend meets friend with the greeting,
“May your feast be blessed,” and is answered, “May your day be happy.”
Out on the edge of the town, where the houses end and the desert
begins, some enterprising Arab, who has “seen Bombay,” has constructed
the crudest and most dangerous of Ferris Wheels, and a merry-go-round
to match. Here the youthful inhabitants congregate, with their
precious coppers, eager for a ride on these wonderful machines. There
are big boys and little boys and middle-sized boys. There are little
girls with their faces uncovered, and a few older ones with their
faces veiled, but most of the larger girls must stay at home, as it
would be a shame for them to appear in public. There are the proud
sons of the rich Arab merchants, and the children of the wild
Bedouins. What better opportunity could one have to study the rising
generation?
If a Westerner, wearing a hat, passes through the crowd, he is
immediately followed by a mob of impudent, mischievous boys, calling
out in Arabic:
“The English, the English!
They don’t pray!
Even the chickens
Are better than they!”
The Moslems say that the chickens are praying when they raise their
heads before swallowing water. (Letter from E. T. Calverley.)
[Illustration: THE MERRY-GO-ROUND AT AN ARAB FAIR]
PLAY, AMONG THE LAO
We have 110 girls in school this term, over half of them boarders, and
they are so gentle and tractable it is a pleasure to work with them.
It is pitiful to see how little they know about playing. Their
greatest pleasure is watching us play tennis. A few evenings ago I
heard an unusual noise under my window, and, looking out, saw a towel
tied across the walk between the hedges. On either side of this stood
a girl with a flat stick in her hand, and they were knocking across
the towel a bundle of rags which they had tied up in some semblance of
a ball. Later we took them out, and let each one have a few minute’s
real play with real racquets and balls, and, when I put the racquet in
a girl’s hand, she would gasp, as if to say, “Can this be really true,
or am I dreaming?” (Miss Lucy Starling in _Foreign Post_, May, 1910.)
DOLLS, CENTRAL AFRICA
The first two dolls that arrived in Toro met with a very mixed
welcome; the children howled and fled in terror, but their mothers
showed a most profound admiration for them. At first they held the
doll very gingerly, but finding that nothing happened to either one or
the other, and the doll still smiled at them like the Cheshire cat,
they became great friends, and begged that they might borrow it for a
few days to play with.
Whether it was the large circulation that those two dolls got, or the
gradually increasing confidence of the Toro children in the white
ladies, the fact remains that in a few months all childish prejudice
had disappeared, and often a little voice was heard asking for “a
child that causes play.” When this was known in England, over one
hundred dolls were sent to me from two working parties. I never saw
such a wonderful doll show as they made. They were all displayed on
our verandah, and the house was literally besieged with men, women,
and children for some days.
A bride, beautifully dressed in white satin and kid shoes, who even in
her wedding attire cried “mamma” and “papa,” was sent to little
Princess Ruth, but the report reached me that King Kasagama had
constituted himself guardian, and kept it locked up in his study for
slack moments!
Apolo, our faithful native deacon--confirmed bachelor--asked me in
secret if men ever played with dolls, and beamed with satisfaction as
he most triumphantly carried one off, peacefully sleeping.
The others were given out to the little girls who had been most
regular at the school, and were noted for having come with clean faces
and bodies.
When the boys saw that the dolls were only given to girls, some
borrowed their sisters’ garments to try and appear eligible! I did not
know till then they were versed in such cunning! It was so pretty to
watch the joy and even playfulness that those dolls brought into the
lives of so many little ones who had scarcely known what this meant
till then. Christianity has completely revolutionized child-life in
Toro.
SAVING A BOY, CHINA
Rev. F. E. Lund, of Wuhu, tells this incident in connection with a
visit to the out-station at Nanking:
“On going back to the school about ten o’clock at night I found in a
dark corner on the street a poor boy, half frozen to death. His
piteous groaning attracted my attention. His legs were already numbed
and his feet swollen and covered with chilblains which made him quite
unable to move. He told me he had been driven out from his home a few
days ago, as his father and younger brother were on the point of
starvation. His mother died last year in the famine. I knew that it
was up to me to save him. There was no one else to do it. The cold
night would have finished him. So I had him carried to our school,
where we gave him a warm bath and put him into new wadded clothes.
During the night he was in great pain and delirious, but in the
morning he seemed hale and hearty, and proved to be a most
straightforward and clever little man. He is ten years old, but very
small for his age. It was most interesting to see how heartily our
Chinese neighbors endorsed this little bit of charity. One gave me
$2.00 to help pay for the clothes. Another brought two pairs of socks.
Some one sent a hat, and an innkeeper sent bedding. If we only had a
trade school to put such boys in, we could do a little work along this
line and it would certainly meet with the approval of the best class,
who would be sure to give substantial help. At any rate, it would be a
work that the best Chinese would appreciate and understand.” (_Spirit
of Missions_, April, 1913.)
SCRIPTURE READING
“The Child in the Midst,” Matthew, 18:1-6, 10-14.
Christ commends the humility of the little child and the spirit of
those who receive a child gladly, whether into the home, the school
room, or into any part of their sphere of influence. There is no place
in Christ’s Kingdom for the one who “does not want to be bothered with
children” or who provokes, injures, neglects, despises, or causes one
little one to sin.
“The feature of child-nature which forms the special point of
comparison is its unpretentiousness. What children are unconsciously,
that Jesus requires His disciples to be voluntarily and deliberately.”
(A. B. Bruce.)
PRAYER
Grant, O Heavenly Father, that as Thy holy angels always behold Thy
face in heaven, so they may evermore protect Thy little ones on earth
from all danger, both of soul and body, through Jesus Christ, our
Lord.
Father of the fatherless, let the cry, we pray Thee, of the orphan and
the destitute enter into Thine ears; rescue them from the perils of a
sinful world and bring them to the refuge of Thy Heavenly Home, for
the sake of Thy Holy Child Jesus, our only Saviour and Redeemer. Amen.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. CHAPTER III.
BOOKS
Christian Missions and Social Progress, Vol. ii, J. S. Dennis,
(Revell.)
Centennial Survey of Christian Missions, J. S. Dennis, (Revell.)
Gloria Christi, Chap. v, “Philanthropic Missions,” Anna R. B. Lindsay,
(Macmillan.)
Children at Play in Many Lands, Katherine Stanley Hall, (Missionary
Education Movement of the United States and Canada.)
The Chinese Boy and Girl, Isaac T. Headland, (Revell.)
Village Life in China, A. H. Smith, (Revell.)
Japanese Girls and Women, Alice M. Bacon, (Houghton Mifflin & Co.)
The Happiest Girl in Korea, Minerva L. Guthapfel, (Revell.)
Village Life in Korea, J. R. Moose, (Smith & Lamar.)
The Laos of North Siam, Lilian Johnson Curtis, (Westminster Press.)
The Jungle Folk of Africa, R. H. Milligan, (Revell.)
Congo Life and Folklore, J. H. Weeks, (Religious Tract Society.)
Home Life in Turkey, L. M. J. Garnett, (Macmillan.)
Children of Persia, Mrs. Napier Malcolm, (Oliphant, Anderson &
Ferrier.)
Topsy-Turvey Land, E. A. & S. M. Zwemer, (Revell.)
Recreation.--A World Need. C. M. Goethe in _Survey_, Oct. 4, 1913.
LEAFLETS
The Bareilly Orphanage Woman’s Foreign Missionary
Ai Mei’s Busy Fingers Soc. of the Methodist
As They Play in China Episcopal Church.
O Kei San, the Child With
No Hands
St. Mary’s Orphanage, Board of Missions
Shanghai. (Episcopal).
March Third in Japan Board of Missions of
Pres. Church.
Home Life in Africa Woman’s Foreign Missionary
Other Children Soc. of the Presbyterian
Church.
Autobiography of a Woman’s Bd. of Miss.
Successful Life of Interior.
My little Blind Neighbor
Chinese Slave Girls Woman’s Board of Foreign
Of Such is the Kingdom Missions of the Reformed
of Heaven Church of America.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] George B. Mangold in “Child Problems.”
[29] Jane Addams, “The Spirit of Youth.” Macmillan.
[30] E. P. St. John, “Child Nature and Child Nurture.” Pilgrim Press.
[31] Alice Mabel Bacon, “Japanese Girls and Women.” Houghton Mifflin & Co.
[32] _The Foreign Post_, May, 1910.
[33] “Other Children,” Jean McKenzie. Wom. For. Miss. Soc. Pres. Ch.
[34] “On the Education of Backward Races,” E. W. Coffin, _Pedagogical
Seminary_, Mar., 1908.
[35] _Spirit of Missions_, Feb., 1911.
[36] “Village Life in China.” Revell.
[37] “Children of Persia.” Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier.
[38] George B. Mangold, “Child Problems.”
[39] A. E. and S. M. Zwemer. Revell.
[40] Dr. Ira Harris in _Over Sea and Land_, Dec., 1912.
[41] Rev. R. H. Nassau, D.D., “Home Life in Africa.” Wom. For. Miss.
Soc. Pres. Ch.
[42] “Children of Persia.” Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier.
[43] _The Congregationalist_, May 8, 1913.
[44] Mrs. J. T. Gracey, “Bareilly Orphanage.” Wom. For. Miss. Soc. M.
E. Church.
[45] John Magee in _Hotchkiss Record_, Jan. 21, 1913.
[46] _Missionary Review of the World_, Feb., 1911.
[47] _Missionary Review of the World_, April, 1911.
[48] Barnes, “Behind the Pardah.”
[49] _Missionary Review of the World_, May, 1911, John Jackson,
F.R.G.S.
[50] _The Continent_, March 27, 1913.
CHAPTER IV.
THE CHILD AT SCHOOL
“Come, ye children--I will teach you the fear of the Lord.”
The call for schools from Mission Lands--Is missionary educational
work still needed in the awakening East?--Divergent views on
education--Reasons why missionary education should be
continued--Comparative illiteracy--Testimony from Japan--From
China--From India--From Mohammedan lands--Can we refuse the united
demand?--Kindergarten Union in Japan--The impressionable years of
childhood and the call for Christian Kindergartens--Inventive and
adaptable missionaries--Primitive education among backward
nations--Lack of power of concentration--Evils of the memorizing
method--Old methods hard to discard--Education of girls--Early
marriage a barrier--Now is the time to educate the future
mothers--Mission schools and physical training--Building up a
“great personality”--The need for good literature--Industrial
training in mission schools--Extent of American missionary
education--Where shall we put the emphasis?--How mission schools
lead children to Christ--Mission school-children in after life.
[Sidenote: The call for schools from mission lands.]
Four little boys less than ten years of age came trudging over the
muddy Korean road three long miles to school. In their chilly, little,
bare hands they carried bowls of cold rice for dinner. But cheerfully
they marched along, for the daily six-mile walk took them to and from
the mission school, and oh! what a wonderful privilege it was to be
able to study,--a privilege not enjoyed by all the boys of their
village.[51]
The closing session of a school for Jewish children in the heart of
Asia was being held, and many mothers listened with awe and admiration
as child after child took part in the simple exercises. “See,” the
mothers exclaimed to each other, “see how our daughters are learning
to read, instead of growing up to be like donkeys as we have done!”
A woman in the capital city of Persia, head of a Bahaist school,
insisted on sending her little daughter to the American mission
school, paying all tuition charges gladly. “Lady,” she said to the
teacher in charge, “whenever I come into this school my life is
renewed.”
Over the African trail came a young man who had given his heart to
Christ and was now ready to enter the Bible Training School in order
to fit himself for a life work that no foreign missionary could hope
to a
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