y kindly and wisely exercised. There may arise a serious
danger of too much individualism in a mission. A mission which does not
have a policy of its own and conduct its whole work in harmony with that
policy, and so control the work of each of its members as to make it fully
contribute to the realization of its aims, will not attain unto the
largest success in its efforts. When each missionary is given absolute
independence to develop his own work on his own lines it will soon be
found that whatever mission policy there may have been will be crushed out
by rampant individualism. And when each man is at liberty to follow his
own inclination and to direct his work according to his own sweet will,
mission work will have lost its homogeneity. Each section and department
of the mission will be changed in direction and method of work upon the
arrival of every new missionary; and thus every blessing of continuity in
work and of a wholesome mission policy will be lost. I know of missions
(American, of course) which suffer seriously on this account. I also know
of other missions which are seriously affected by the opposite difficulty.
The mission controls its work so completely, even to its last detail, that
it leaves to the individual missionary no freedom of action and no power
of initiative. The mission, in solemn conclave, decides even the character
and quantity of food which must be given each child in a boarding school
conducted by one of its missionaries! A control which reaches into such
petty details as this, is not only a waste of time to the mission itself;
it seriously compromises the dignity, and destroys the sense of
responsibility, of the individual missionary. It takes away from him the
power of initiative and thus largely diminishes his efficiency.

The ideal mission is that which gives to each of its members some latitude
for judgment and direction, but which has a definite policy of its own and
sees to it that this policy is, in the main, respected and supported by
every one of its missionaries.

It is an interesting fact, in the study of the missions of India, that the
American Missions, on the whole, represent the largest degree, both of
mission autonomy and of missionary individualism. The farther we pass east
from America the more do we see mission autonomy yield to the control of
the home society; and the independence of the missionary lost in the
absoluteness of mission supervision.

How far shall miss