THE DIRECTORY OF Missionary Organizations will be open to criticism both because of its inclusiveness and because of its exclusiveness. Again and again the compiler's judgment hesitated as to the limits of scope. Usefulness rather than scientific achievement in classification was regarded as the more desirable, but precision in detail was faithfully sought. What entries might reasonably be looked for in such a directory was the question asked again and again. In such fields as Japan, China and India the Christian yearbooks and directories give great help, but there are many fields for which as yet no ready handbook is available. The form of the Directory follows, for the most part, that of the similar section in Dr Dennis' Centennial Survey of Missions. Dr Dennis had primary responsibility for the Directory in the Atlas prepared for the World Missionary Conference at Edinburgh, and the form used in the World Missionary Atlas continues to show the impress of his thought in this connection. The listing of the developing church bodies on the fields and those union institutions which have each its own status as an incorporated body are for the most part new features of the Atlas just published. Neither groups are to be considered as 'missionary societies,' yet they seemed to call for presentation.
The problems of what to include in or to exclude from such a Directory shade off in the direction of relative importance as well as in that of kind. Various elements entered into the decision made in almost every case. No hard-and-fast rule was or could be applied.
A question may fairly be raised as to what values should be sought in missionary maps. The present Atlas is based on the principle of showing residence stations of missionaries. That principle has prevailed in most of the missionary atlases. The interest of Christian groups in their own personnel scattered to far places justifies this type of presentation especially if the Atlas is primarily intended to serve the supporting constituencies in home base lands. With almost thirty thousand Christian folk who have crossed either national or racial boundaries, or both, to extend the faith, there is abundant reason for an adequate exhibit of the regional distribution of these thousands and of their places of residence. However, the trend of development in many missionary lands is away from keeping the missionary in the primary place of importance, and a basis of mapping the Christian advance which puts a red underline under some place-name to indicate the residence of a British or Continental or American missionary, but does not indicate where an Azariah or a Kagawa serves his people, fails to give needful perspective, however useful it may be for other purposes. Yet from the point of view of the writer, to attempt the mapping of the work of the indigenous Churches in any adequate way is still impracticable. A real advance in this direction was made in The Christian Occupation of China, but this was achieved under unusual circumstances and pertained to only a single field. An atlas of present-day Protestant forces for all the world, or an atlas of Christianity, covering all communions for all lands, may be compiled in the years ahead, but an entirely new technique of presentation will be required. In the preparation of maps for the World Missionary Atlas it was not found practicable to depart essentially from the technique of the earlier atlases of the same general kind.
A feature of the World Missionary Atlas which occupies but little space, yet one which will probably be more widely quoted than any other section of the volume, is the table of 'Growth of Protestant Missions since 1900.' This table has been made possible by the fact that several major efforts at world statistics of missions have been made in the United States in the last quarter century, and there has been sufficient continuity and relatedness in these various efforts to make a table of comparative statistics possible. But the cost in effort of preparing that table was out of all proportion to its size. For instance, in the 1903 Atlas of Protestant Missions, in the column giving the number of residence stations, duplicate entries were not omitted. Thus Tokyo, Shanghai and Calcutta were counted as many times as there were different boards, which reported these places as residence stations of missionaries. To get the basis of comparison, therefore, with the atlases of 1911 and 1925, all the entries in the station index of the 1903 atlas had to be checked and classified by areas. Again, in the 1903 atlas the Turkish Empire was entered in the tables as a unit. In order to get a basis for comparison by continents for this Atlas it was necessary to eliminate from the 1903 table all work existing in Turkey-in-Europe as it then was. This was brought about by an examination of the annual reports for that period, and the subtraction from the 1908 table for the Turkish Empire of the numbers credited in the reports to the European section of the Empire.
These are given as two samples only of adjustments made necessary in the one case by a change in editorial method and in the other by both change of method and change in historical situation. Yet it would seem to be desirable that out of these successive atlases there should come comparisons which reveal something of trend and developments otherwise perhaps not so easily discoverable. A desire to make possible comparisons from decade to decade was one consideration which led at the beginning of the preparation of the present Atlas to the decision to depart as little as possible from the column headings used in the World Atlas of Christian Missions of 1911.
It would be unprofitable to list further the questions that perplexed editors and staff workers as they pursued the Atlas processes. Whatever be the value of the result, the editors were faced by a challenging opportunity, and probably, all in all, did their work under the most favourable conditions possible. The results must be tested by scrutiny and use. Just as this Atlas has departed at many points from earlier procedure, so probably no editor will ever be called upon to do again just what was done this time. A changing world, shifting situations within Christian organizations and institutions, growing demands and a developing technique will doubtless call a decade or so hence for a new atlas, possibly very different in scope and method. Till then, the World Missionary Atlas of 1925 is available. If it serves as worthily and helpfully as did some of its predecessors, those who edited it will not feel that their labours have been in vain.
Charles H. Fahs
The problems of what to include in or to exclude from such a Directory shade off in the direction of relative importance as well as in that of kind. Various elements entered into the decision made in almost every case. No hard-and-fast rule was or could be applied.
A question may fairly be raised as to what values should be sought in missionary maps. The present Atlas is based on the principle of showing residence stations of missionaries. That principle has prevailed in most of the missionary atlases. The interest of Christian groups in their own personnel scattered to far places justifies this type of presentation especially if the Atlas is primarily intended to serve the supporting constituencies in home base lands. With almost thirty thousand Christian folk who have crossed either national or racial boundaries, or both, to extend the faith, there is abundant reason for an adequate exhibit of the regional distribution of these thousands and of their places of residence. However, the trend of development in many missionary lands is away from keeping the missionary in the primary place of importance, and a basis of mapping the Christian advance which puts a red underline under some place-name to indicate the residence of a British or Continental or American missionary, but does not indicate where an Azariah or a Kagawa serves his people, fails to give needful perspective, however useful it may be for other purposes. Yet from the point of view of the writer, to attempt the mapping of the work of the indigenous Churches in any adequate way is still impracticable. A real advance in this direction was made in The Christian Occupation of China, but this was achieved under unusual circumstances and pertained to only a single field. An atlas of present-day Protestant forces for all the world, or an atlas of Christianity, covering all communions for all lands, may be compiled in the years ahead, but an entirely new technique of presentation will be required. In the preparation of maps for the World Missionary Atlas it was not found practicable to depart essentially from the technique of the earlier atlases of the same general kind.
A feature of the World Missionary Atlas which occupies but little space, yet one which will probably be more widely quoted than any other section of the volume, is the table of 'Growth of Protestant Missions since 1900.' This table has been made possible by the fact that several major efforts at world statistics of missions have been made in the United States in the last quarter century, and there has been sufficient continuity and relatedness in these various efforts to make a table of comparative statistics possible. But the cost in effort of preparing that table was out of all proportion to its size. For instance, in the 1903 Atlas of Protestant Missions, in the column giving the number of residence stations, duplicate entries were not omitted. Thus Tokyo, Shanghai and Calcutta were counted as many times as there were different boards, which reported these places as residence stations of missionaries. To get the basis of comparison, therefore, with the atlases of 1911 and 1925, all the entries in the station index of the 1903 atlas had to be checked and classified by areas. Again, in the 1903 atlas the Turkish Empire was entered in the tables as a unit. In order to get a basis for comparison by continents for this Atlas it was necessary to eliminate from the 1903 table all work existing in Turkey-in-Europe as it then was. This was brought about by an examination of the annual reports for that period, and the subtraction from the 1908 table for the Turkish Empire of the numbers credited in the reports to the European section of the Empire.
These are given as two samples only of adjustments made necessary in the one case by a change in editorial method and in the other by both change of method and change in historical situation. Yet it would seem to be desirable that out of these successive atlases there should come comparisons which reveal something of trend and developments otherwise perhaps not so easily discoverable. A desire to make possible comparisons from decade to decade was one consideration which led at the beginning of the preparation of the present Atlas to the decision to depart as little as possible from the column headings used in the World Atlas of Christian Missions of 1911.
It would be unprofitable to list further the questions that perplexed editors and staff workers as they pursued the Atlas processes. Whatever be the value of the result, the editors were faced by a challenging opportunity, and probably, all in all, did their work under the most favourable conditions possible. The results must be tested by scrutiny and use. Just as this Atlas has departed at many points from earlier procedure, so probably no editor will ever be called upon to do again just what was done this time. A changing world, shifting situations within Christian organizations and institutions, growing demands and a developing technique will doubtless call a decade or so hence for a new atlas, possibly very different in scope and method. Till then, the World Missionary Atlas of 1925 is available. If it serves as worthily and helpfully as did some of its predecessors, those who edited it will not feel that their labours have been in vain.
Charles H. Fahs