Christian missions in the Telugu country - Uecf.net

Religious
teaching
in the
schools.
144 MISSIONS IN THE TELUGU COUNTRY
It is easy to see how missions gain, as well as lose,
by this excessive attention to English. So long as it is
necessary for missionaries to go out from England to
build up and guide the Church in India, so long wiU it be
easier for them to exercise effective control and to avoid
mistakes if there exists a body of EngUsh-speaking
agents. It is not right, nor is it the practice, to make
the knowledge of English a substitute for character or
experience ;
but the assistant who can speak English is
undeniably useful in administration. Moreover, for the
more educated of the agents, and especially for the
clergy, English opens the door to a vast world of helpful
literature, and this in itself is no small gain.
The amount of success achieved in this one direction
is really remarkable, for it is indeed proportionate to the
effort. The Indian schoolboy knows that nearly all the
higher careers are closed to the man who is ignorant of
Enghsh, and he is therefore supremely eager to learn it.
As he advances, the incentives increase rather than
diminish, and the young student at college more and
more imbibes his ideas through the English language
and from EngUsh sources. The candid critic, much as
he may deplore the underlying educational policy, can
scarcely refuse to admit the fact that the assimilation by
India on so vast a scale of the English language and
literature is one of the most striking phenomena in the
country.
A few words are needed to give our readers some idea
of the rehgious teaching given in our schools. In the
village schools the teaching is necessarily of the simplest
kind, and is mainly given through the short collections