4 oo THE LAND OF THE LION 



me good fellows, trained at , who could conduct a 



Massai prayer meeting admirably, I am sure, but they have 

 no idea how to plough a bit of land, build a house, or take 

 care of themselves, much less teach the ignorant and obsti- 

 nate savage how to do these things." It reminded me of 

 what Mackay of Uganda, perhaps the greatest missionary 

 that ever laboured there, wrote long before to England, when 

 I was a young man. "Send us," he said, "not university 

 men who know Latin and Greek, but healthy, Christian 

 ploughmen and blacksmiths these are what we need 

 in Uganda." 



I greatly dislike to criticise the methods of these self- 

 sacrificing men and women, who willingly give their all 

 to save and uplift the black man, but I am forced to con- 

 fess, that to me. the missionary plan of campaign seems 

 mistaken in some important particulars. The native is 

 not capable of benefiting by what is offered him ; the offerer 

 is not able, and sometimes not permitted, to offer anything 

 else. Three things I would insist on: 



First: The native is only capable of understanding 

 the very simplest of religious ideas. Protestant and Roman 

 Catholic missionaries have not simplified the message 

 enough for him. 



Second: He needs industrial education. As it is, the 

 effort is everywhere being made, where there is any effort 

 made at all, to give him a poor sort of English school 

 training. 



Third: To advance at all he must be firmly, lovingly 

 forced to work, kept at his job, for his one strongest defence 

 against all civilization and religion is the fact that at heart 

 he is a nomad still. 



I say he is necessary to Africa; his well-being spells 

 Africa's progress. Therefore, for that very reason, he must 

 not be, cannot be, left to his own devices, any more than 

 an ignorant and sometimes vicious child can be safely 



