Robert Morrison and the Protestant Plan for China

Chapter 2. The New Approach to Missions: Gosport Academy and David Bogue’s Strategy

Guided by the ‘Report on Missionary Training’, presented in the previous chapter, David Bogue began to develop a three-year training programme which included lessons on biblical languages, evangelical theologies, rhetoric skills, and mission histories. Since ‘the design [of the programme] being to confine their education to theology, at least, with such slender additions of languages as might be compatible with the shortness of time’, Bogue weighted his efforts towards instilling evangelical theologies into the missionaries’ worldviews.1 In terms of the strategy he proposed for communicating the Gospel, Bogue suggested ‘that the missionary be carefully trained to inculcate the heathen with all the tenets of the Christian faith’.2 To accomplish such an ambitious plan, Bogue argued, the missionary must be prepared ‘to go to great lengths to accomplish this task properly , including setting up schools and translating the Bible into native tongue’.3 Consequently he insisted that ‘to learn the language of the heathen is necessary ’.4 Thus, in sum, Bogue proposed mandatory linguistic training to accompany Gosport’s theological programme so that the missionaries could better communicate with the locals, efficiently translate the Scriptures, and quickly establish training centres in the ‘heathen nations’. Only after such efforts proved successful , Bogue predicted, would the evangelicals be prepared to communicate the Gospel by propagating or preaching.5 Aware of the difficulties confronting the establishment of such missionary-induced translations and foreign evangelical academies, Bogue urged the Society to approach future missions with patience and perseverance.6 The LMS, though still immature in its experiences of crosscultural communication, submitted to Bogue’s suggestions. Anxious to test their new strategy, the Board of Directors meanwhile looked towards a different part of the globe and chose their next geographical target: Asia. Chapter 2 The New Approach to Missions Gosport Academy and David Bogue’s Strategy 38 Robert Morrison and the Protestant Plan for China Bogue and the Scottish Education System It is understandable why David Bogue, a Scot, recommended a specialised educational programme for the preparation of the LMS missionaries. By the late eighteenth century, higher education was available to a good percentage of the general population in Scotland, much more so than in England, which restricted higher education to the Anglican elite. As a consequence, since Scots tended to be better educated, they were more appreciative of the benefits of learning for vocational occupations and more likely to promote such an approach for the LMS mission strategy. The Scottish education system has a lengthy history that begins with St Columba’s arrival at Iona, Scotland in 563 and the subsequent establishment of Celtic monasteries, with seminaries attached, throughout the country over the course of the following five centuries. After the rise of Roman Christianity in Scotland towards the end of the eleventh century, a cathedral-centred educational system was introduced and, by 1500, virtually every town in Scotland possessed a system of schools that included ‘a pattern of cathedral schools, abbey schools, collegiate schools, parish schools, and “song schools” for choristers’.7 Moreover, during the course of the fifteenth century three national universities were founded (St Andrew’s in 1411, Glasgow in 1450, and Aberdeen in 1494) and by the Scottish Education Act of 1496 education became compulsory for the eldest sons of barons and property owners.8 With the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century, education became an even greater component of Scottish society; Roman Catholic establishments, such as the cathedral-centred school system, were purged from Scotland but the Protestant Church of Scotland launched a modified and greater national education system. This schema, proposed by a committee that included John Knox and five other Scottish Protestant reformers, set out to provide a national programme of education that ignored class distinctions, provided educational opportunities for all citizens, and awarded students, regardless of their financial background, for their academic abilities. Although the plan was officially rejected by Parliament, the Scottish church was nonetheless allowed to steer the development of education in Scotland and Knox’s universal design served as its unofficial guide, meaning that the goal to make education readily available to all was central to the church’s agenda.9 The New Approach to Missions 39 During the seventeenth century, under the leadership of the Kirk, the Scottish education system continued to expand, financial support for the system increased, additional rural schools were founded, and the curricula of schools improved.10 By the dawn of the eighteenth century...