Pasumalai A Half Century Record of a Mission Institution

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mission-the first Missionary Society organized in the United States-begin work at Jaffna Ceylon in 1816. In 1834 sixty-one years ago two of the members of that mission came to Madura and opened the work of the present Madura Mission. The American Board represented then as it does now some of the most intelligent Christian churches in the United States-churches whose members have founded and maintained a large number of Colleges and Seminaries throughout that land and have always regarded a sound education as the next thing to and auxiliary of Christian faith and piety in the regeneration and elevation of a people. It is therefore natural that the society itself and the missionaries whom it has sent forth should in their work emphasize the importance of imparting to their converts at least a common education and raising an intelligent and well trained native agency. The many efforts and the abundant labors of the Madura Mission in this department of its work are well described by Dr. Washburn in the interesting paper which follows. That a consistent policy in this matter has not been maintained from the first is due not so much to a change of principle as to a difference of opinion concerning methods of applying the principle to our education work.