196 STUDY OF NATIVE PHILOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY. 



says : — " Trusting to an ignorant and unqualified interpreter is 

 attended with consequences, not only ludicrous, but dangerous to 

 the very objects which lies nearest the missionary's heart. Since 

 acquiring the language" (Secoana, in his case) "I have had 

 opportunities of discovering this with my own ears, by hearing 

 sentences translated, which at one moment were calculated to 

 excite no more than a smile*, while others would j)roduce intense 

 agony of mind, from their bordering on blasphemy, and which 

 the interpreter gave as the w^ord of God." 



But it is not only training in philological studies that is neces- 

 sary. The life and customs of the natives need much deeper and 

 systematic study, the pigeon holes of which should be provided, 

 and the elements acquired, before the worker ends his academic 

 training in England or elsewhere. Many a fatal mistake, not 

 only in dealing with individuals, but also of general policy, might 

 have been avoided by a grounding in ethnology and comparative 

 religion. This last is now receiving attention in theological and 

 missionary colleges, t and one is glad to find that a mission working 

 on the Rand sends up some of its men for a training in phonetics, 

 the science which is the doorkee})er to modern philology. But 

 almost everything remains to be done; I speak of scientific pre- 

 paration. 



We need, then, a fuller use of all that science can contribute 

 to our work, and especially (surely) in the highly technical busi- 

 ness of missions to heathen, whose languages and customs, so 

 remote from our own — though much allied to those of Bible times 

 — demand all the consideration the Church can afford them, and 

 all the encouragements to adequate scientific study which we, 

 both in State and Church, at jM-esent so generally neglect. 



I always feel tliat we should increasingly decline the services 

 of untrained men, just as we would those of a non-first-aider in 

 .an accident. Some seem to think that religious zeal makes up 

 for training, but it will not be those who are fated to sufifer the 

 experiments of such practitioners- I also hope to see our students 

 boycott those missions wliich require no adequate training, and 

 probably will not fail to waste their labour 



For the encouragement of such studies provision should be 

 made. South Africa is teeming with University Colleges, sup- 

 ported by the State, but I submit that no University is worthy 

 of that august name which does not make provision for the study 



* One is reiniii(k-cl of tlic Xatal lady who left out the chck of mna- 

 aaiida. and wa.s brought, not the eggs, hut tlie heads of her fowls. 



t As a writer has written in "'The East and the West," in regard u< 

 the work of missions : " Xo man can talk reasonably on religious questions 

 with other men until lie knows their religion. How can he stand before 

 the people and speak to them in a brother's tone about their religious life, 

 unless he knov.'s what they believe? It is impossible to form a reasonable 

 estimate of the influence of a religion and its value for those who follow it 

 without careful -;tudy. In conversation and in addresses the man without 

 knowledge says a hundred unintelligent things which wound his audience 

 without his realising it." Native religion is largely folk-custom, which 

 tiierefore needs stiulv, witli the help of comparative ethnolog\ . 



