India - New Era

( Originally Published Early 1900's )

India's Present Outlook. A survey of present conditions in India emphasizes the fact that like all the rest of Asia it is undergoing a fundamental re-construction, and that the lines along which it hardens will determine its future. Conditioned on the one hand by the iron-bound social system of caste, and on the other by the almost absolute sway of religious tradition, India is in many respects the most conservative of all the countries of the world. Yet in spite of this fact her present development is relatively rapid. Within a decade India may be more open to the influences of the new era than the Far East is today. In many respects India is entering upon her most plastic period, and if we are to be ready to help her we must enter the field in full force at once.

Political Unity Due to the Occident. Politically, the government of India was without unity, stability, or security before the advent of the English. Though partially conquered by the Mogul emperors, never before 1858 was all India united under one government. Divided in race and religion, and speaking 147 different languages, the peoples of India lacked all sense of nationality and of unity. The country was devastated by endless wars ; almost every town was fortified, and every farmer hid his grain from the marauding bands which might sweep down upon him.

Former Educational Lack. Although her philosophers and sages had worked out noble systems of thought and religion, education under the old régime was confined to a small aristocracy of the Brahman priesthood and of the upper castes. Not one man in a hundred could read and the women were utterly illiterate. India's golden age, like the rest of the East, lay in the past, and it lacked the dynamic principle of progress.

Extreme Poverty. Economically, India was poor. Like China, she had early attained a relatively high degree of civilization, and was at one time one of the chief manufacturing countries in the world. Even as late as the eighteenth century she was on a par with Europe in industrial matters, but she was unable to compete with modern nations and lost many of her early arts and industries, until she finally sank to the position of one of the poorest countries in the world.

1 According to Mr. P. Banerjea in his Study of Indian Economics, the wealth per capita has been variously computed from $50 to $125, while that of the United Kingdom is $1,510; of France, $1,260; of the United States, $1,080; and of Germany, $780. The average farm production per head is only $13 a year in India. The average income in India is about $10 per capita. The average income in the United Kingdom is eighteen times as great as that of India. Forty millions have to lie down hungry every night upon a mud floor who have had only one meal, or at most two scanty meals during the day. Even during the last fifty years, twenty-two famines have swept away twenty-eight millions of people.

Causes of Poverty. The causes of this poverty are not far to seek. The almost exclusive dependence of the population upon agriculture when the monsoon so frequently fails, an overcrowding of population, primitive methods of agriculture, the hoarding of wealth which is congested in the hands of the few and not released in trade, the absence of manufactures, the prevalence of debt, the inordinate use of jewels, have all impoverished the country. Added to all this was the oppressive rule under the old autocratic or paternal forms of government. In one native state the writer found recently that its ruler had six hundred wives, and had left his territory undeveloped, without roads, without schools, or adequate security in trade. Naturally the population was crossing over the border into British territory, and rich land can now be bought in that native state at thirty cents an acre. This was typical of other parts of India during much of the old era before the en-trance of the British.

Social Blight of Caste. Socially, the life of India was conditioned by the tyrannous caste system. Arising originally from the necessity of preserving race purity and the early trade-gilds, it gradually hardened into the most binding and blighting of all the social institutions ever devised by man. It has bound the individual, crushed initiative, stifled aspiration, prevented progress. It has produced early marriage, it has wronged womanhood, enfeebled childhood, fixed arbitrarily the conditions of capital and labor, petrified economic conditions, and enslaved the individual to society. While caste has preserved much that was good, it has hardened and petrified many evil customs and has been and continues to be the one great barrier to India's progress.

Hinduism Religiously Misguiding. Religiously, the old era was conditioned by Hinduism. The most amorphous and undefinable of all religions, Hinduism might be described as a tangled jungle of the beliefs and practises of the peoples of India, springing from the soil of philosophic pantheism and of popular polytheism, enclosed by the thorny hedge of caste, and perpetuating its perennial growth by the laws of karma and transmigration. Tested by its views of God, man, and life, the three principles referred to in our opening chapter, which lie at the basis of Western civilization, we find that it is lacking as an adequate source of life and progress. In the Hindu triad, or sacred trinity of gods, not one has an untarnished moral record. There is not one of the three deities who has not broken the seventh commandment. The stories of the sensuality and impurity of the gods as recorded in the sacred books and told by its votaries have polluted the imagination of the child-hood of India. As Professor Hopkins of Yale says : " The Hindu moral code is savage and antique. Few of the older gods are virtuous."

Caste an Immense Moral Barrier. As opposed to the doctrine of the brotherhood of man, the caste system stands as the deepest denial of brotherhood and perhaps the strongest barrier to human progress which has ever been devised. Life instead of being real, progressive, free, and eternal,, is overshadowed as by a dark cloud in the law of karma and the weary cycle of rebirth by transmigration. It lacks just the abounding good news which Christ can give to all men.

India's Old Era Hopelessly Defective. As we survey the India of the old era politically, intellectually, economically, socially, and religiously, it is unmistakably evident that she needs something radical and transforming, and that nothing less than the great dynamic principles which produced the best in our Western civilization are adequate finally to transform and uplift India.

New Life under British Rule. The benefits of British rule are evident to any impartial observer. One unmistakable evidence of Great Britain's good government is that the peoples of India are being drawn together into a deeper unity by a stronger sense of nationality. Peace and security have been guaranteed to all. The population of India has in-creased by over a hundred millions under British rule since 1858. An efficient government has been built up, and an increasingly large measure of self-government granted to the people.

Present Discontent. That there is unrest in India cannot be denied, but it is natural and inevitable. It is a divine discontent, awakened by the conditions left by the old era when challenged by the conscience and ideals created by the new. It is caused by the conflict of the old civilization with the new. 'As Sir Valentine Chirol says: "Swadeshi and Swaraj are the battle-cries of this new Hindu ' nationalism,' but they mean far more than a mere claim to fiscal or even political independence. They mean an organized uplifting of the old Hindu traditions, social and religious, intellectual and moral, against the imported ideals of an alien race and an alien civilization." The unrest bears witness alike to the nobility of Indian aspiration and of British rule.

Possible Nationality. There are those who believe and who tell us repeatedly that India can never be a nation, can never be united, can never form a self-governing member of the British Empire like Canada or Australia. It is true that there are almost in-superable obstacles in the divisions of races, languages, and religions. But British rule, the English language, Western education, and Christian ideals working together are drawing the peoples of India increasingly toward political unity. It seemed an impossible dream that the divided peoples of Germany or of Italy could ever be united, but the seemingly impossible has come to pass. It is true that India is not a compact nation like Japan, nor has she a common race and written language like China, but she has a growing sense of nationality. The enlarged councils of Lord Morley, which constitute the beginnings of little parliaments, the firm yet friendly measures of government under the present Viceroy, the wider diffusion of education, the gradual leavening of the masses, the growing aspirations of the people, all point toward the goal of India taking her place at some distant day as a great and self-governing member of the British Empire, the Kohinoor amid the splendid but lesser jewels of its crown.

Intellectual and Educational Progress. Intellectually as well as politically, the new era is unmistakable in India. With all its faults, the English system of education in India introduced by Duff and Macaulay has diffused widely the leaven of the new era. With more than thirty thousand students in its arts and professional colleges, the number of students in the universities is nearly equal to that in the United Kingdom, and about three times as great as that in Japan. The proclamation of the King-Emperor at Delhi announced a more liberal grant for education, which will increase the number of primary schools by seventy-five percent, and double the school-going population. That only one woman in 144 can read in India is not surprising when we remember the conservatism of the people and their unwillingness to send their daughters to school. But a comparison of the Quinquennial Review of Indian Education of recent years shows a rapid and gratifying increase in female education.1 The system of education introduced by Great Britain in placing an over-emphasis upon higher education, often of an impracticable character, and in not laying sufficient stress upon primary and industrial training, as did Japan, has created more discontent in the number of educated men who cannot find suitable employment than would otherwise have been the case. But nevertheless the ideas and ideals of a new and higher civilization are steadily permeating from the educated classes to the masses, and from the cities to the remotest villages. Intellectually, India is awakening.

Economic Advance. The economic development of India is equally unmistakable. It is true that India lost the place which she once held in the ancient world as one of the chief manufacturing countries. Her methods of agriculture are antiquated, and the two thirds of her total population dependent upon it are left in partial famine with the failure of the monsoon. Yet in spite of all these many handicaps, India is making slow but steady progress in the industrial world. Her trade has increased during the last half century from $300,000,000 to over $1,500,000,000. The value of her land has increased under British rule by $1,500,000,000. There are 32,000 miles of railway in operation, which places India fourth in the world in its railway mileage, carrying 330,000,000 passengers annually at the rate of five miles for one cent.1 There are 76,000 miles of telegraph line, over which messages can be sent for over 2,000 miles at a cost of only twelve cents. Her post-offices handle annually over 900,000,000 letters and newspapers and other matter.

Exports and Commerce. She is now the largest exporter of rice in the world. She holds first place in her exports of tea, and together with Ceylon exports more than half the tea crop of the world. Next to Argentine she is the largest exporter of hides, and next to the United States the largest exporter of cot-ton in the world. Next to the United States she is the largest wheat-producing country. in the- world, while Bengal holds the virtual monopoly of the jute trade. Her increase in the production of iron and steel is most encouraging. The Tata Iron Works in Bengal, employing 8,000 men, have laid down iron in San Francisco at less than the price charged by the United States Steel Corporation. India's export of steel, which was an almost negligible quantity of $200,000 in 1910, doubled the next year, and multiplied four-fold the year following, so that in 1912--1913 it was $1,700,000. During the last ten years between 1900 and 1909 India's trading companies increased from 252 to 6o8, her coal-mining companies from 34 to 122, her cotton mills from 152 to 218, and the total number of her stock companies from 1,340 to 2,156.1 The trade of India now holds the first place in all Asia, with $788,000,000 exports and $746,000; 000 imports.

Irrigation and Improved Agricultural Methods. Her system of irrigation stands easily first in the world, being far more extensive than that of Egypt or America. Her more than 46,000 miles of irrigation canals have reclaimed more than 22,000,0o0 acres of land, and famine has been prevented forever in some districts. But encouraging as these facts are, they do not indicate a final solution of India's economic problem. The dependence of two thirds of the population upon agriculture, and in the rural districts of nearly go per cent. who are connected directly or indirectly with it, makes it imperative that the scientific methods, which obtain in japan and in the West, should be more widely introduced in India also. Even China, without Western improved methods, through her system of fertilization described in King's Farmers of Forty Centuries, is far more productive.

Need of Protection of Industries. But more than improved methods of agriculture, India needs the development of her industries. With a large supply of cheap labor, many useful branches of industry could be introduced. Already we see " Swadeshi " cotton fabrics, iron goods, matches, soap, and other home-made articles being placed upon the Indian market. But compared to India's vast population and economic need her manufactures are pathetically inadequate. As Sir Bampfylde Fuller and many other open-minded English writers have said, India needs a protective tariff to develop her manufactures. As Benjamin Kidd points out in his Control of the Tropics, England will soon have to choose in this matter between her own self-interest and the higher interests of the Indian people. The enlarged councils of Lord Morley's plan of government will in time doubtless at their own initiative introduce demands for such a protective tariff.

Social Gains. The social development of India also unmistakably indicates a new era. The humane laws of the British government have abolished suttee and other wrongs of Indian womanhood. They have raised the age of marriage, they have protected the weak, and have improved social conditions. The 2,700 hospitals and dispensaries of the British government are now treating some 28,000,000 patients each year. The ravages of plague, cholera, fever, and smallpox have been reduced. The death-rate in India, however, from 1900 to 1908 averaged thirty-four per thousand, while the death-rate in England is about fifteen per thousand, so that nearly 6,000,000 lives are lost annually in India that could be saved if the English death-rate prevailed. But the death-rate is constantly decreasing.

Native Efforts toward Reform. Of far greater significance and encouragement than the social re-forms introduced by the British government are the changes which are taking place under native leadership in the Indian social structure itself. As Mr. A. Yusuf Ali, in his Life and Labor in India, points out:

Within the last few years there has been a complete remodeling of many of the old village customs and institutions, which have got stereotyped in the imagination of persons who have made the unchanging East' their fetich." During a tour in India last year nothing was more marked than the striking development of a social conscience and the rapid growth in social service among the educated classes in the non-Christian as well as the Christian communities.

Growing numbers of students are now devoting them-selves to education and sanitation, to famine relief, to the uplift of the depressed classes of " untouchables," and many other forms of social service. The interest shown in the lectures of Professor Henderson of Chicago University, and the demand for social literature dealing with education, citizenship, housing, and sanitation, the relief of poverty, the depressed classes, temperance, and other forms of social service is a sign of the times. Mr. Gokhale's Servants of Indian Society is typical of the new social movement. Here the ablest Indian graduates are preparing themselves by five years of post-graduate study and practical service for a life-work of public usefulness under Mr. Gokhale's direction. The Seva Sad and numbers of other societies are also doing useful work. The recent two anna fund for famine relief in West-ern India, where 90,000 persons contributed $25,000, chiefly in amounts of four cents each, shows the development of the new social conscience. The connection between this social service and Christianity is not always recognized by the non-Christians, but it is none the less Christian. The growing sentiment against early marriage, and against the prohibition of Hindu widow remarriage, the founding of orphanages, schools, and benevolent institutions, the encouragement of female education, work for the out-castes, and a hundred other reforms have sprung directly or indirectly from Christian teaching or ex-ample. In most cases the movement for social reform has been led by men like its founders, Rajah Rammohan Roy and Justice Ranade, who were powerfully influenced by Christian teaching, and many of the leaders to-day are non-Christian graduates of mission colleges.

Relative Advance of Christianity. The religious changes evident under the new era are even more marked than the political, intellectual, economic, and social developments. Owing to the incalculable blessing of religious toleration granted under the Pax Britannica, all the world's greatest faiths, save Confucianism, are here brought into open and friendly competition. As we survey the Christian and non-Christian communities in India, we find three marked evidences of the new era. First of all there has been a large ingathering into the Christian community. The census of India, which is the most unique and remarkable in the world, is taken in a single night between sunset and sunrise. According to the census of 1911, which shows the relative growth of the various religions during the last decade, while the Buddhists increased i 1 percent the Mohammedans and Parsees each 6 percent, the Hindus 4 percent the Jams decreased 9 per cent the Christian community increased over 32 per cent. But as caste gives way there will be a rapid gain also in the rate of increase. The growth of the Christian community during the last four decades is striking. It is as follows :

1881 1,862,634

1891 2,284,380

1901 2,923, 241

1911 3,876,203

Thus in the last thirty years the Christian community has doubled ; in the last ten years alone it has increased by almost a million adherents. If, however, we confine ourselves to the Protestant Indian community, we find that it is increasing at the rate of about 50 per cent. a decade. During the last ten years it has increased seven times as fast as the population, and twelve times as fast as the Hindu community. There has been a gain by conversion of over 600,000 in a decade. More than 5,000 every month, or more than 1,200 every week have been received in the faith of the Christian Church during the last ten years. Thus India is becoming slowly but surely Christian.

Mass Movements. The second evidence of a new era is found in the great mass movement which has set in toward Christianity. More than 50,000,000 "untouchables" lay without the pale and beyond the help of Hinduism. These classes are now being received into the Christian Church, educated, civilized, and uplifted. These mass movements have taken place in five great areas in India: in Tinnevelli, and in Travancore, South India ; in the Telugu country, north of Madras ; in Chota Nagpur, in the United Provinces; and now in the Punjab. In each of these an average of about one hundred thousand have been added to the Christian community, and the numbers are rapidly increasing. For instance, in the United Provinces where the American Methodists and Presbyterians are working the movement began among the Sweepers, but soon extended to the great Chamar caste. The Northwest India Conference of the Methodist Church alone has gathered over 100,000 converts from these castes in the last twenty years. Thus caste, which was so long the greatest hindrance, is now becoming the greatest help to the work. The Chamar caste alone numbers over eleven millions and may be reached by Christian forces if the missions are sustained and reenforced at once. The Hindus and the Arya Samaj are beginning to work to receive these people. The Mohammedans alone are said to be gaining some 50,000 every year from these low castes. It is inconceivable that the Church at home should be so blind that it should not press its advantage in this great providential movement which is at our very doors abroad. The numbers gained in the mass movement alone are greater than in any other mission field, and are entitled to place India among the most hopeful and urgent mission fields of the world. Doubtless there are evident shortcomings in these mass movements, if you focus upon the individual, but viewed broadly there is an unmistakable uplift of the entire community from their former condition, often from filth, ignorance, and superstition, carrion-eating and devil-worship. Numbers of these outcaste converts are today university graduates working in the higher professions.

Reflex Compromise Efforts. The third evidence of the new era in religion is shown in the effects of its contact with the non-Christian communities. There is on the one hand a large infusion of Christian ideas into the non-Christian religions, especially in Hinduism. There is the resultant founding of various eclectic systems which are a combination of Christian truth and Hindu tradition, and which represent an attempt at compromise between them. There is also, in opposition to both the foregoing movements, a passionate effort to revive Hinduism, to expurgate and reconstruct it, and adapt it to modern conditions. All of these movements are in one aspect encouraging. The conception of the Fatherhood of God and of the brotherhood of man in opposition to caste restrictions, and of the reality and eternal value of life, are found today on every hand in the literature, the addresses, the conversation, and the ideas of the educated classes. The Brahmo Samaj, founded in 1830 by Rajah Rammohan Roy, endeavored to found a Christian monotheism on the Vedas, and to oppose polytheism, idolatry, and caste. It has never moved the masses, however, and after more than seventy years numbers only about five thousand members. The Arya Samaj, founded in 1875 by Swami Dayanand, seeks to rid itself of the abuses of Hinduism, to avoid idolatry and caste, and to find all truth, even of modern science and invention, within the Vedas. Powerful, often anti-Christian and anti-British, it is gaining rapidly because of its fervid nationalism. The Aligarh College and the Aligarh Movement, founded by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, seeks by wider education and liberal ideas to broaden the outlook of the Mohammedan community, with its 66,000,000, and to adapt it to modern conditions of life. The New Vedantism, founded by Swami Vivekananda, is a clever compromise between pantheistic Vedantic philosophy and Christian and Western ideas which the founder gained in his own eclectic education. It seeks to blend Christian philanthropy and Vedantic philosophy. The Theosophical Society, under Mrs. Besant, has exercised considerable influence in the south and in the Hindu college at Benares, but with its defense of superstitious practises, even to idolatry and caste, it has not often proved so much an instrument for reformation as for retrogression.

Half-way Movements. All these movements, however, indicate the reaction of Christian thought upon the non-Christian communities. They are a half-way house between the old traditions and superstitions and the full acceptance of the Christian faith. With all their defects they are signs of encouragement, and, like the Gnostic and other movements in the early Christian centuries, they mark at least a great advance over the stagnation and superstition of the old era.

1. Growth in Strength and Unity. If we survey the Christian community itself, we find three other signs of encouragment that mark the new era. First of all is the growing strength and unity of the Christian Church and the Christian educational movement. There are today in India 5,401 missionaries, 4,088 Protestant churches, with 568,08o communicants, and a Protestant Christian community of 1,617,617. The total number of Indian Christians connected with the American missions is 817,150, while those connected with the missions of Great Britain number 568,865. Great Britain leads, however, in the matter of education with 25 colleges and 7,039 schools, enrolling 333,560 pupils; while connected with the American missions are 13 colleges, and 5,931 schools with 177,177 scholars. Connected with the Protestant Churches are 38 well-equipped colleges, in which more than five thousand of the brightest young men of India are studying, and more than half a million pupils are found in the 13,000 mission schools; while 1,433 ordained men and 38,458 Indian workers are connected with the various missions.

Union Movements. The Christians of India, like those of China and Japan, are setting an example in the spirit of unity which they are manifesting. It has been repeatedly stated by native Christians of Japan, China, and India, that they would come together were it not for the divisions of Western Christianity, perpetuated by the representatives of the Western Churches. Already in South India all the Christians connected with the Presbyterian, Congregational, Dutch Reformed, Free Church of Scotland, and Established Church of Scotland missions have come together into organic unity in The United Church of South India, with over 150,000 members having a common creed and a common ecclesiastical government. In numbers of instances throughout the whole of Asia, colleges and churches are coming together into a closer unity than has yet been realized on the home field. Will not this have a beneficial reaction upon the divisions of Christendom in the West?

2. Growth in Autonomy. A second sign of encouragement is found in the growth of a self-governing, self-supporting, and self-propagating Indian Church. The consecration of the Rev. V. S. Azariah at Calcutta at the close of 1912 as the first Indian Anglican Bishop marked a new departure in the self-government of the Indian Church. The formation of the National Missionary Society of India is a sign of the growth of an indigenous missionary spirit. This society is now successfully carrying on missions in five different provinces, in one of which it has en-rolled over a thousand converts. It is conducting missionary periodicals in six different languages, and is led by able Indian graduates. Its hold upon the affection and loyalty of many of the Indian churches is very encouraging.

3. Growing Hold on Upper Classes. A third sign of encouragement is found in the growing hold of the Christian community upon the upper classes, and the appeal which the gospel is making to the educated leaders of India. During the recent tour of Dr. Mott and others in the evangelistic campaign of 1912-13, the hearing which was given to the gospel by the students of India was certainly an evidence of a new attitude toward Christianity. More than a thousand students a night in eight cities of India, Burma, and Ceylon crowded the largest theaters and halls which could be obtained for these student meetings. It is true that in one or two cities there was some opposition, but the old era of stagnation and superstition and indifference is gone forever. The writer will never forget the scenes which were witnessed in these cities. Upon arrival in India we began work in Madras. It was deeply impressive to see that vast audience of two thousand non-Christian students crowded into the great Parsee Theater, filling every seat, in spite of the rain, listening night after night to the straightest preaching of the gospel in English. En-trenched as they are in Hinduism by centuries of caste, their minds darkened by the mists of pantheism, polytheism, and idolatry, they formed one of the hardest audiences we have ever faced in Asia. Yet on the third night a thousand Hindu students stayed for the after-meeting, and many signed cards, promising to read the four Gospels with open mind and honest heart, to pray daily to God for guidance, and to follow Christ according to their conscience. These men, however, were at best only seekers after truth.

Response in the Punjab. At Lahore in the Pun-jab, in spite of the fact that examinations were on, and that the meetings came at the worst possible time, an audience of thirteen hundred non-Christian students crowded into the Bradlaugh Hall, where the sessions of the Indian National Congress were twice held. The white turbans and the black beards of the war-like Sikhs, the red fezzes of the Mohammedan students, and the eager faces of the members of the Arya Samaj, Brahmo Samaj, and the orthodox Hindus made the scene a picturesque one. Although placed under a severe strain at the presentation of Christ as Savior and Lord, they listened patiently with open mind, and finally many gave in their names as inquirers.

Interest in Calcutta. When we arrived in Cal cutta examinations were on, and some of the colleges were closing for vacation. Yet on the opening night eighteen hundred students crowded the Curzon Theater. If the students of the Punjab are the Scotch men of the East, the brilliant Bengalis are the Irish, enthusiastic, responsive, swept by strong currents of emotion. The subjects dealt with on the five succeeding nights were : Personal Purity ; The Results of Sin ; Moral Heroism ; Christ the Only Savior ; and, Religion a Matter of the Will. Although the Calcutta students form, perhaps, the most restless student audience in Asia, they listened with close and eager attention, even when we spoke of the exclusive claims of Jesus Christ. Some fifty students came every night seeking interviews.

Significant Baptism of Converts. When the first two converts were baptized the following week, the ceremony was performed by the new Indian Bishop in the presence of an audience of Christian students gathered at the All India Student Conference, rep-resenting some seventy institutions. A hundred and twelve years ago William Carey baptized his first convert in the Hooghly (or mouth of the Ganges) on the last Sunday of the year 1800. At that very spot, on the last day of the year 1912, Bishop Azariah, after a meeting held in the house and chapel which Carey had occupied, led down to the river two M. A. students to be baptized. Only the day before we had sat beside the river preparing these converts for baptism. On the left was a baptized Brahman student who had gone through great persecution, and on the right was another young Brahman who was to be baptized the next day. As we sat in Martyn's pagoda, where that man of God had wept and prayed, his despairing remark came back to one's memory that he would as soon expect to see a man rise from the dead as to see a Brahman converted." It was a scene never to be forgotten in the light of the torches that evening, the dark robes of the two Hindu students as they entered the river, the shining white apparel in which they appeared immediately after their baptism, and the ringing pean of victory that ascended from the Christian students gathered there from every part of India, as they sang by the river-side :

" Onward, Christian soldiers, Marching as to war."

Old Basis Removed. India is awakening, but are we awake and ready to help her? Let us not forget that the religion, the education, and the civilization which we have introduced from th. West have be-gotten the present unrest, and that these alone cannot satisfy it. We have inevitably destroyed the old-world view of the people of India, with its impossible conceptions of nature and of human life. We have taken from them the treasure that they had. Do we not owe them the pearl of great price, the one treasure that we prize above all others, to take its place? Or are we to lead them to agnosticism, materialism, and the destructive forces of a purely secular education, and leave them helpless and in despair?