turned iny of ready tions, other ards t in rge ian al se d e e THE LOCAL COMMUNITY IN THE FAR EAST Robert A. Woods, Head Resident, South End House, Boston ial worker, in going to the Orient, sees social problems everywhere. reason why we have not approached the problem of the Orient definitely ally from the point of view of social work has been because we had become ith the idea that the problem was too overwhelming to be considered or ive been told by many authorities that the oriental mind was inscrutable, he civilization of China and India had been one of status for thousands of could not be changed. But now, very largely as the result of Christian we find that the problem is not crudely overwhelming. It has, by dint of elligence and administrative ability, been so organized and classified and ed that it is appreciable and approachable from all sorts of practical points of was not the case in the past. We have also learned, through the missionaries illy, that the oriental is not inscrutable; and to my mind one of the happiest about the best recent writings in regard to oriental life is the assertion that this ilizing conception must be given up. Today, as we get behind what seems to us : the mask of the oriental face and find increasing vital common interests with rson there, we come to have a whole new sense of the meaning of the one human y. And thanks in large part to Christian missions the Orient is changing. the caste system in India is being sapped by the powerful missionary appeal to lepressed classes. The missionary compounds were built years ago to face a dangerously hostile ation. They present to the stranger something of the aspect of an entrenchment, ot a fortification. The psychology of that situation is one that yields itself only y gradually to the most humanly minded and neighborly person. But if the trained ghborhood worker, whose whole experience has been in the direction of using every t atom of potential friendliness in everybody that he or she can enlist, should come to the situation, the restraints of that entrenchment would soon begin to disappear. could not help but feel envious, as I had the privilege of getting into the life-giving tmosphere of those missionary circles, of the overflow of that life which should now egin freely but systematically to pass out into the local community. In Japan, while the idea of neighborhood and community organization is still undeveloped, one had the feeling that it was at many points ready to spring into infectious life. The Garden of the Friendly Neighbor in Tokio, under Mrs. Omori and Mr. Matsuda, and the remarkably downright work of Mr. Kagawa in the unspeakable slums of Kobe challenge the admiration of the settlement craft. There are also several very promising beginnings of this sort under missionary initiative. It is expected that the day nurseries which were opened during the war with government encouragement will grow into more general neighborhood centers. In the organization of village life Japan has of recent years made broad progress, which might well receive the attention of the interdepartmental conference on the local community at Washington. In great numbers of villages there are now organizations of women, of young women, and of young men. The young men's associations are beginning to be recognized as one of the most important educational agencies in the country. The inculcation of a high standard of personal morality is one of their chief objects. They have a central building, with an administrative staff, in Tokio. THE LOCAL COMMUNITY Competitions are held among the villages, based upon a score card com finance, sanitation, and education, with the chief emphasis upon nothing more t than friendliness. I went to visit the village of Hiro, which stood first in the recent competition. It is very distinctly of the elder world. It apparently much to the village master or mayor, who has grown old in the service, having p always a policy of careful economy combined with a kind of publicity which the up to date moralizing advertising men might envy. With an elementary machine he has for years sent out through the village from week to week his de financial statements, his instructions as to improved methods of agriculture, a sage moral reflections. Unity of sentiment is due largely to absence of sec strife, as the people are all of one denomination of Buddhists, who hold do somewhat akin to those of the Protestant reformation. The seclusion of the has been its protection; but the modern world threatens to invade it with diva problems. A great naval arsenal some miles away has established a branch w the village territory. Its employees are new and strange. The village master fears th the spitit of the village and his gentle guidance and instruction may not be suffices hold it to its standards. The scene is one to inspire some Japanese Oliver Goldsm At the present time the "student movement" is the most notable phenomen in the larger life of China. Roused by the Shantung question and stung further b incidental phases of Japanese aggression, it has become the custom for college high school students to declare school strikes, sometimes of several days, as a way expressing patriotic sentiment. It might seem to the average American student th patriotism expressed by taking a vacation from recitations is like the kind of altruss which would sacrifice all of one's wife's relations. But in many instances, at least every student is held strictly to duty during the strike. There are impressive p cessions, many addresses from the Chinese equivalent of the soap box, and a ver thoroughgoing system for boycotting Japanese goods. On the whole, while there has been much unwisdom in the methods of the students, they have done more to that has happened since the creation of the republic. Less spectacular, but in the long run more significant, is the very general tendency among students to interest themselves more or less actively in adding to the appallingly meager provision for elementary education. The students' schools for poor boys and girls and beginnings of work covering leisure time as well as school hours contain the widely disseminated germs of such social work as has had its origin in the universities of England and America. to young men in commercial employment, is in every case an important center for thor It is surprising to find how largely prejudice against Christian propaganda has disappeared in China, just as to the stranger the almost total decay of the native religions comes with a distressing realization. This situation curiously gives the base.1 missionaries a much freer opportunity than church workers have at home to develop broad community interests in direct connection with the evangelistic motive. It is most gratifying to find that at least 50 per cent of the members of the missionary staffs are keenly alive to this great strategical opening; and in many instances they have behind them the same fundamental training which gives quality and outlook to the social service commissions of the various churches in America. In the cities the different missionary compounds often have what are in effect parish limits, and these local units pieced together will cover a large part of the city's territory. In Peking, under the lead of J. S. Burgess,' of the Y.M.C.A., a very suggestive general study of conditions and forces is being made by the combined and co-ordinated effort of the missionary groups. This is the beginning of a method which the missionary staffs of the other cities are hoping to adopt. The real life of China is in the villages, however, and here perhaps does one realize most distinctly how the direct teaching of the Christian faith has begun to create the germs of a better order. The itinerating work of the missionaries, including many of the wisest and broadest of them, must command absolute respect from this point of view. It is clear that the task of actually educating people to higher specific standards of living and of life must be performed chiefly through voluntary effort and with new types of leadership from without. There are several directions in which representatives of American social work could make contributions that might well be of historic importance to the China which may be a dominating figure in the world within a generation or two. In the first enthusiasm which followed the revolution considerable interest was aroused in the improvement of the public institutions for the dependent and delinquent groups. In not a few instances missionaries have been called in to advise and help in this process; and there is real readiness for suggestion and initiative out of the best Western experience in these directions. In Peking and several other cities the situation is ripening to the point where the type of charity organization which is not held too closely to the problem of poverty could easily be brought into being and would soon accomplish results that would win the allegiance of the practical, generous Chinese mind. The Christian forces in this case would join hands with all other people of good will; and the executive staff, which should on all accounts be definitely in sympathy with Christianity, would not be in any official way attached to it. Similarly the way is open for comprehensive city programs of neighborhood organization. The splendid medical college in Peking provided by the Rockefeller Foundation is to take the lead in the thorough training of physicians and will emphasize public health work and medical social service. The medical missionaries greatly desire such reenforcement as will enable them to reach out in this direction. The larger, more coherent city program among the missionaries, and including the Chinese churches, will serve to create the structure for a community health service; and a few experienced specialists from America in this field would find an immeasurable opportunity and meet with steady and increasing re-enforcement. A carefully studied recreational program in relation to home and neighborhood, profoundly significant at home, is a matter of life and death for China, and is so "China's Social Challenge," Survey, September 8, 1917; October 13, 1917; December 15, 1917; and September 7, 1918. understood by her younger leaders. The Chinese home in all grades is gravely lacking in every resource of happy fellowship. The men never think of the women of their families as companions, or of inviting men friends to meet them. There are certain professions of women to whom men always turn for entertainment. There are no wholesome centers for neighborly acquaintance and association. In a few cities certain large assembly halls have been provided; but it remains true that the possibility of that positive fulfilment of emotion through wholesome sociability upon which a sound moral balance so largely depends is almost wholly lacking. Our own healthy tradition as to association between the sexes and the great gains that have been made of recent years in the intelligent release of the spirit of gaiety should be, with all due discrimination, imparted to China. Missionaries of wholesome play in mixed company would meet a pathetically eager reception from the educated young men and women,. who have begun, as by a new revelation, to realize the emancipation and exaltation of the American way of combined chivalry and unrestraint. In India, Christianity not only holds out opportunities of education and of broad association among its established following, but, by a curious irony, it is recognized by the Hindus as removing the disabilities even of the outcastes. It is thus easy to understand the remarkable response to missionary effort from the villages and the girding of Christian forces for the greater harvest of the near future. This so-called 'mass movement," in its different phases, is recognized of course as carrying with it almost overwhelming responsibilities. It brings courage, but no easy optimism. Besides emphasizing more highly than ever the necessity of education, it is inclining the missionaries strongly to different forms of practical social work, especially at present to the formation of co-operative savings societies to protect the people from the everywhere present, rapacious money lender. Some excellent local work toward improving agricultural methods is being done; and specific effort toward sanitary reform and health education is being eagerly undertaken, though as yet with slight resources. Members of the mission staffs are often giving much if not all their time to promoting co-operative banks and other forms of self-help in the villages. As four-fifths of India's three hundred millions live in villages, the great problems and possibility of the future lie there. The government has shown an increasing tendency of recent years to understand the very considerable economic and moral resources that lie in the village tie, and the ancient institutions and customs that go with it. It is not as yet any sort of protest from the unprivileged that is commanding the attention of the powers that be; it is the wide, quiet response which the low-caste people of the villages are making to the overtures of the missionaries. In Rome the success of Christianity with the common people compelled the attention of the higher orders and of the government. The same thing is true in India today, with democracy looming in the offing. The government, always hesitant about invading Indian tradition and custom, has of late been allowing the children of the depressed classes to come to school with high-caste children. After some blustering, opposition gradually subsided; and now in at least one of the largest provinces orders have been issued that if the schools are not so located as to be accessible to low-caste children they must be relocated. This tendency is also becoming quite marked among the various groups of reformed Hindus, whether within or without the orthodox fold. Their rising interest in the task of social betterment and progress is keen and genuine in the highest degree. It has in some instances even led them to take the hand of the untouchables and to break bread with them. One was impressed in India, as in China, not only by the readiness, but by the earnest desire, on the part of representative men for such help as might come from Europe and America toward the solution of fundamental national problems, provided it not only recognized but re-enforced oriental initiatives and responsibilities. This is clearly exhibited in the readiness with which non-Christian leaders co-operate with the Y.M.C.A. in its broad program, not merely for building up a much needed institution, but for providing leadership in community betterment, urban and rural. In the cities definite steps are being taken in the direction of organized social work. The vast evil of beggary in its various forms, including the religious mendicant, is beginning to be confronted by private agencies and by the government. One hindrance to progress lies in the elementary benevolence of the Indian people. It is in fact so universal and unfailing, on the part of the poorest, that there has never been the necessity of public relief in India. Now one of the objects of the leagues of social service which are springing up in the larger places is to introduce, with modifications, some of the principles of Western organized charity. But these leagues are focusing their efforts upon preventive work, and first of all upon the appalling evils of low vitality. The infant death-rate is twice that of England. A profound student of India has observed that a sufficient explanation of the brooding atmosphere of gloom and fear which pervades the people and gives the dominant character to their religion is that every mother loses two or three out of four of her babies. The general average length of life in India is twenty-three years—what is supposed to have been the figure for Europe in the Middle Ages, half the average of the United States. With the cooperation of the government a series of remarkably successful health exhibits have been given. In Delhi the attendance was so great that it was decided to require a small fee from the men. Certain hours were set apart for women. At these times there were crowds from the Hindu zenanas, among which mingled many veiled women from the Mohammedan harems—a company standing in strange contrast with many of the most up-to-date health charts. A women's medical college, with 150 students, gives promise of great service in this direction; but as one of the many illustrations that might be given of the way in which Indian custom trips progress, the women medical graduates find much difficulty, even in their own minds, in going about freely through the community. There is a substantial basis for what might truly be called an entente cordiale in the new current of adventurous fraternity which is reaching around the world, finding everywhere its needed local application, eliciting everywhere the like initiative. Gradually penetrating Asia with its varied ministry, and coalescing in the Near East Relief with the vast work of the Red Cross and related agencies throughout Europe, it gives promise of actual countervailing equivalents to the ultimate loyalties and devotions of war. It suggests the rise of a quality both of internal social development and of international reciprocity which will create a new protective alignment not only against war but against crude aggressive attitudes closely allied to militarism; for even if war should begin to disappear, in ways less material but not less dangerous the purpose of world domination will remain. |