6 



per cent, is none too high for the proportion of farmers, while 

 the percentage living under an essentially rural environment is 

 nearly 90. Out of the 400,000,000 people of China only 50,000,- 

 000 live in communities larger than 10,000 population. The 

 remainder are rural. 



From sheer weight of numbers then it is evident that the 

 rural people constitute a major item in plans for the Christian 

 occupation of China. And they are not at present being reached 

 in large numbers. It is significant that when the Central China 

 Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church formulated plans 

 for broadening the base of mission work by proposing ' ' to build 

 and equip a sort of primary unit," or "typical village plant," 

 it defined villages as "communities of from 1,500 to 20,000 

 people," and said that "so long as we still have many compact 

 communities of from 10,000 to 20,000 people without Gospel 

 approach, we are far from the time when we can locate chapels 

 and schools in small villages or homesteads or farmsteads." 

 It appears, therefore, that in an effort to push out into untouch- 

 ed fields, an important and aggressive mission finds it necessary 

 to confine its enlarged effort to small cities, with only out-station 

 work in the farm villages. And yet 350, 000, 000 people are livings 

 in communities smaller than the "compact communities of 

 10,000 to 20,000 people." The rural field in China is still a vast 

 empire to be won for the church. 



It must be noted further that these villages are a multitude 

 in number. It is stated that India has 700,000 of them. No 

 one seems to know how many China has. During the floods of 

 last summer in the lower Yellow River, in one district of the 

 relief committee, over 6,000 of these hamlets and villages were 

 completely wiped out. Statistics rather carefully gathered in 

 three hsien in Anhwei show the following groupings: 



3 small cities, averaging 20,000 people, have 60,000 population 

 400 villages, averaging 750 people, have 300,000 

 20,000 hamlets, averaging 82 people, have 1,640, 000 



Total population 2, 000, 000 



This classification suggests the following scheme of grouping 

 the Chinese population: 



(1) The hamlet, with a population from 10 to 250 people 



(2) ' farm village ,, ,, 250 to 2500 



(3) town 2500 to 20, 000 



