y, familiar, natural vehicle of expression; of the native
dress because it is almost always comfortable and comely; of the native
customs, whenever they are not unhealthy or demoralising, because they
are the distinctive heritage of a people; and again, of tongue, dress,
and customs alike, if you will, simply because they are dissimilar.

[Sidenote: A BARREN UNIFORMITY]

For it has always seemed a trumpery notion that uniformity in these
things has any connection with the upbuilding of a people, has any
ethical relation at all, and I have always wondered that so trumpery a
notion should have so wide an influence. Moreover, is it not a little
curious that, whereas the trend of biological evolution on its upward
course, as Spencer assures us, is towards differentiation and
dissimilarity, the trend of sociological evolution should be so marked
towards this bald and barren uniformity? But these be deep matters.

I have never been able to join in the reproach of superciliousness so
often applied to the lines of that noblest of missionary hymns in which
Bishop Heber asks, "Can we, whose souls are lighted with wisdom from on
high, Can we, to men benighted, the lamp of life deny?" If that be
superciliousness, it is an essential superciliousness of Christianity
itself, for the question lies at the very core of our religion and will
not cease to be asked so long as the world contains those who believe
with all their hearts, and those who do not believe because they have
not heard. I never listen to that hymn without emotion, it can still
"shake me like a cry Of trumpets going by." But the question that seems
to stir the souls of some missionaries and most school-teachers, "Can we
deny to these unfortunate heathen our millinery, our 'Old Oaken Bucket,'
our Mr. and our Mrs.," leaves me quite cold.

Here was the weekly afternoon routine at this mission, only the mornings
being devoted to books and classes: On Monday the children brought their
soiled clothes of the week to the schoolroom and washed them; on Tuesday
they were dried and ironed; on Wednesday they were mended; on Thursday a
juvenile "society" did some sort of work for another mission; on Friday
every child in the village had a hot bath. Now, let a routine of that
sort be kept up, week after week, month after month, year after year,
during the whole school life of a child, and it is bound to leave its
mark; and there is no other way in which the same mark may be made.