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Student Volunteer Movement Stumbling-Block THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
Sociology (New York, 1880); Life of Immanuel Kant (London, 1882); Final Science (New York, 1885); Introduction to the Study of Philosophy (1888); The Age and the Church (Hartford, Conn., 1893); Tendencies in German Thought (1896); Introduction to the Study of Sociology (New York, 1897); The Social Problem (York, Pa., 1897); and Sociology: or, The Science of Human Society (2 vols., New York, 1903). He also translated C. R. Hagenbach's German Rationalism in its Rise, Progress, and Decline (in collaboration with W. L. Gage; Edinburgh, 1865).
STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT FOR FOR
EIGN MISSIONS: A movement originated at the
first international conference of Christian college
students, held at Mount Hermon, Mass., in 1886, at
the invitation of the late D. L. Moody.
Origin, Or- Of the 250 delegates who attended,
ganization, twenty-one had definitely decided. to
Purpose. become foreign missionaries when the
conference opened. Of this number
Robert P. Wilder of Princeton, Tewksbury of Har
vard, and Clark of Oberlin had come with the con
viction that God would call from that large gather
ing of college men a number who would consecrate
themselves to foreign missions. Before the confer
ence closed 100 of the delegates had recorded their
" purpose, if God permit, to become foreign mis
sionaries." At the conference it was decided that
a deputation should be sent among the colleges,
and four students were selected for this purpose.
Of the four selected, Wilder alone was able to go,
and John N. Forman, also of Princeton, was induced
to join him. The expenses of the deputation were
borne by Mr. D. W. McWilliams, of Brooklyn.
Messrs. Wilder and Forman visited 176 institutions,
including a majority of the leading colleges and
divinity schools of Canada and the United States.
In the summer of 1888 about fifty volunteers at
tended the student conference at Northfield. It
was there decided that some organization was nec
essary, and a committee was appointed by the
volunteers present to effect such an organization.
This committee met in Dec., 1888, and an organ
ization was effected, taking the name of the Stu
dent Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions
which is incorporated under the laws of the state
of New York. There is an executive committee,
a board of trustees, and an advisory committee.
This movement is in no sense a missionary board.
It never has sent out a missionary, and never will.
It is simply a recruiting agency. Those who be
come student volunteers are expected to go out as
missionaries under the regular missionary organ
izations of the Church. It does not usurp or en
croach upon the functions of any other missionary
organization. It is unswervingly loyal to the
Church, and has received the endorsement of every
leading missionary board on the continent. It is
primarily a movement of students, and it is not in
any sense an organization forced upon the students.
The purposes are as follows: (1) To awaken and
maintain among all Christian students of the United
States and Canada intelligent and active interest in
foreign missions; (2) to enroll a sufficient number
of properly qualified student volunteers to meet the successive demands of the various missionary boards of North America; (3) to help all such intending missionaries to prepare for their life-work and to enlist their cooperation in developing the missionary life of home churches; (4) to lay an equal burden of responsibility on all students who are to remain as ministers and lay workers at home, that they may actively promote the missionary enterprise by intelligent advocacy, gifts, and prayer.
Student volunteers are drawn from, those who are or have been students in institutions of higher learning in the United States and Canada. Each
student volunteer signs the " declaraMethods of tion," which is as follows: " It is my Work. purpose, if God permit, to become a foreign missionary." The work for which the movement, as an agency of the Church, is held responsible is the promotion of the missionary life and activity in the institutions of higher learning in the United States and Canada, in which more than 250,000 students are matriculated. From these should come the future missionaries and missionary leaders of the Church. Therefore no work can be more important than that of making each student center a stronghold of missionary intelligence, enthusiasm, and activity. To accomplish this a staff of secretaries is employed, offices are maintained in New York City, and conferences and conventions are held. Besides administrative secretaries, there are traveling secretaries; and this position is usually held for one year by a student volunteer ready to go to the mission field. Returned missionaries also have been employed. The number of traveling secretaries is determined by the funds at the disposal of the executive committee. The traveling secretaries visit the colleges, deliver addresses on missions, meet with missionary committees and volunteer bands, organize mission-study classes, and in every way possible promote the missionary activities of the colleges-but the chief object of their work is by public address and personal interview to lead students to give their lives to missionary service. The student volunteers in an institution are organized into a volunteer band, which has as its objects to deepen the missionary purpose and spiritual lives of the members, to secure other volunteers, and to promote missions in the college and in the college community. Once in four years an international convention is held. Six such conventions have been held; at that of 1910 there were present 2,954 students and professors representing 735 institutions.
The Volunteer Movement has reached by its propaganda nearly if not quite 1,000 institutions of higher learning in North America. In a large ma-
jority of these the work was the first Results. real missionary cultivation which they
ever received. It is the testimony of professors and other observers that even in the institutions which had already been influenced in different ways by the missionary idea, the Volunteer Movement has very greatly developed missionary interest and activity. Because the Student Volunteer Movement is a movement for foreign missions, the principal proof of its efficiency is to be found