4 o8 THE LAND OF THE LION 



confidence; tell the truth about the field it seeks to occupy, 

 the methods it wishes to pursue, and the difficulties it is 

 confronted with ; if this were only done, would not mission- 

 ary reports soon receive another greeting than that now 

 accorded to them ? Who now reads them ? Who quotes 

 them ? Who is influenced by them ? A comparatively 

 small knot of excellent, middle-aged or elderly philan- 

 thropists. 



They should be the most fascinating current literature 

 of the age. They should be read with the same absorb- 

 ing interest as that with which we study the reports from 

 a seat of war, where husbands and sons are fighting for the 

 fatherland. As it is, their destination is too often the waste- 

 paper basket! 



How can it harm the sheltered home-keeping sensibilities 

 of good people to know something of how the dark people 

 they want to help, live ? How can they really help them 

 if they do not know ? As it is, reports are doctored, facts 

 are suppressed, the religious public is given what it is 

 supposed to want to know, and what it is supposed not to 

 want to know is carefully kept from it. A policy of cate- 

 chism and rose water, I call it. Its result is bad enough 

 to-day, and will be worse to-morrow. This has been for 

 long the politician's plan, in reporting on Africa. God 

 knows, it has cost enough in blood and treasure. Is it to 

 be the Christian's plan, too? 



II. The African above all things needs industrial edu- 

 cation. This and this alone can fit him to fill the role 

 providence has destined, that for ages to come he must 

 surely fill. The Germans, always pioneers in such matters, 

 have grasped this fact, and have already laid the founda- 

 tion for such education to be given to the native of German 

 East Africa. Though English missions and French held 

 the strategically important positions in East Africa long 

 before German occupancy was more than a nominal affair, 



