Research for the People, God and Power

"We must feel the compelling urge to know the why and how of things," William Reginald Morse said on January 27, 1923, "to discover truth and turn it to the betterment of our fellow men."[1] Morse spoke these words to a crowded room of missionaries, educators and students at the West China Union University, in an address to the first meeting of the West China Border Research Society, a new scientific organization that was then taking root in Chengdu, Sichuan province. In two simple clauses, Morse's remarks neatly encapsulate the several prongs of the new institution's goals, as well as the underlying political significance of the group. The missionaries emphasized an energetic and thoroughgoing commitment to the ideal of science, albeit one squarely focused on "practical" application and service of human interests. The Society's members generally conceived of these human interests as those of the people of West China, although the missionaries inevitably considered their own goals for the people to be synonymous with the general good. Indeed, Morse's invocation of "the betterment of our fellow men" alludes to the use of knowledge to transform the local people and their culture - a goal that was, as we have seen, fundamental to the projects of Orientalism and imperialism.

Established in 1923, the West China Border Research Society had deep roots in the Western community of Sichuan, a province in southwestern China. One of the Society's most prominent and active members, James Huston Edgar, had been in West China since 1903, when the China Inland Mission appointed him to a post at Romi Chrango. Starting with a 1904 trip to the Badi-Bawang region, Edgar paved the way for the Society's work by conducting many expeditions and investigations into the West China landscape.[2] During the same period, representatives of four American and British missions pooled resources to start the West China Union University in Chengdu, which opened its doors in 1910. "The Society was made possible by the previous institution of the University," wrote Society president S.H. Liljestrand in 1934, because it created a precedent for organized, academic activity by missionaries in West China. The Society was an outgrowth of the University, as its journal published research conducted by WCUU faculty and the school provided resources and facilities for Society use. Guided by Edgar, early members undertook the Society's first official expedition in the summer of 1922, travelling through Yachow and Tatsienlu; the following January, the West China Border Research Society met at the University for its first public meeting. David Crockett Graham was a charter member of the Society, published often, and served in a variety of positions, including Secretary and (in 1937) President.

William Morse's focus on "the how and why of things" is only the vaguest reference to science in the published writings of the Society, which continually trumpeted its own adherence to the ideals of science. Members never seemed to doubt the importance of research. "I need not argue with you today as to the value of research," David Crockett Graham wrote in 1934. "The fact that you are members of this society and attend its meetings is evidence that you appreciate its value."[3] Each year's Presidential Address, printed in the opening pages of the Society's Journal, reaffirmed this value, usually in sonorous terms. The importance of scientific research may have been taken for granted, but members stated less clearly and straightforwardly the particular nature of this importance. In his 1923 Address, Morse had given a clear and simple definition of their objective: "The term research, as far as this talk is concerned, means investigation by exploring."[4] This was a pleasantly concise and straightforward definition of the Society's aims, but a close examination of The Journal of the West China Border Research Society and related writings reveals that the research that Society members valued so much was more complex than any notion of "pure science."

As David Crockett Graham's career exemplified, members of the West China Border Research Society generally acted in a variety of roles, and these varying positions often overlapped with scientific work to generate highly idiosyncratic notions of what it meant to do research. For instance, W.R. Morse's use of the word "exploring" above points to a view that jumbled adventure and science. Working in a "strange and uninvestigated region," members equated research with investigation itself, with exploration and discovery of the unknown.[5] The West China Border Research Society worked at the border of existing knowledge, of Western influence and experience, and often of political authority. This characteristic filled their work with an air of romance and adventure, as some authors even used the term "romantic" to describe their work.[6] Beginning with a quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Morse exalted his listeners to scale new heights of adventure and make great, manly accomplishments, all under the heading of science:

There are other sorts of combat more decent, more honorable, and more productive of better and more permanent results than physical combat." Why climb Mount Everest? Why expedition after expedition to the North and South Poles? Why explorers, football players? Why fly over the Atlantic in an aeroplane? Why missionaries? Why this university?[7]

Morse situated their work within a line of heroic achievements represented by icons like Charles Lindbergh. He went on to invoke the names of Sherlock Holmes and Robinson Crusoe to describe the possibilities that Society members could pursue in research.[8] Indeed, he seems to have placed "scientist" in the same category as "football player," "explorer" and "soldier," conceptualizing research as a strenuous, masculine pursuit. This self-perception as explorers interacted with their other roles - as intellectuals and missionaries, for instance - to produce a unique identity, which joined the pursuit of knowledge to a mission of service and a desire for adventure. "There is in all of us a yearning for originality, to do something no one else has done," Morse wrote. "Such a spirit coupled with altruism is behind investigation and research in the obscurer places of this old earth. A service for ourselves, for the Chinese, for the world."[9]

A distinctive conception of science emerges from their published writings, emphasizing research that is pragmatic, progressive and humanitarian. The "value" to which Graham referred is the applicability of knowledge to solving human problems. "There is a real social and economic value to research," Dr. Morse asserted in a later Presidential Address. "All research hinges on the knowledge that what is learned, can be applied to ameliorate, remove or remedy adverse conditions." Members roundly denounced a science that was aloof from the real conditions of human existence. "Science must not only accumulate the dry bones of facts," President A.J. Brace wrote. "It must clothe its system with flesh and blood." What made science meaningful was its "human significance."[10] In some ways, this conception of science appears to have approached a subjectivist, post-modern perspective that was ahead of its time. Brace, for instance, argued that scientists must "consider sensations, the technique of apprehending knowledge, and the motives and feelings which lie behind the gathering of knowledge..."[11] To his mind, "pure research" could not be insulated from the influence of the individual human who carried it out.

Still, the system of "flesh and blood" that Brace describes was motivated more by goals of service and human progress, rather than an intellectual critique of objective, modernist science. As Brace stated, "The fusing of the scientific method with practical humanism will help solve some of the pressing problems of real everyday life which alone matter to the great masses of humanity."[12] This humanistic view of science can be understood by seeing the Society as an outgrowth of the mission community. The West China Border Research Society was a missionary organization from the outset and for the most part remained so throughout its existence. "The idea of forming this society," Morse explained in his first Presidential Address, "was born under the stress and excitement of the knowledge of the profound neglect of unknown peoples right at our doors."[13] As Morse indicated, the Society grew out of the unique circumstances of missionaries and reflected their concerns in its mission of "research." Members were generally straightforward about this fact. "All of us recognize that there is a God of an orderly universe," Morse declared.[14] "We are missionaries, and the religious principle for which we strive are those [sic] which we as teachers, preachers, and laymen can and should be preserved by our actions as scientists," Morse said at the Society's June 1933 meeting.[15]

For Morse, the work of the missionary and the scientist not only could be mutually supportive but should be. Their self-perception as scientists was bound up with their identity as missionaries, so that research blended in with the overall aim of "helping" the native population. "It can be said," W.R. Morse explained, "that true scientists spend their lives freely in helping those in need and in the cause of the spiritual unity of mankind."[16] Aiding in the cause of "the spiritual unity of mankind" sounds more like a missionary's job description, but Society members did not recognize any contradiction or even distinction between the two fields of activity. The "true scientist," as Morse implied, was one who thought like a missionary - as nearly everyone in the Society did.

This blurring of missionary and scientific goals gives some sense of how the Society meant to help the local population. On one hand, their ethic of pragmatic, humanistic service related to the influence of the Social Gospel movement among missionaries of the early twentieth century. In the United States, this movement had led to the reorientation of Protestant church priorities to ameliorating social problems such as poverty. The Social Gospel also transformed the activities of missionaries. "In the 1910's, evangelists from America attempted to capture the souls of a new generation of Chinese people by stringing Christianity to Western science," writes Lian Xi, who has analyzed the intellectual culture of mission work.[17] Missionaries of the early twentieth century devoted much of their efforts to "education, medical work, famine relief, and campaigns against illiteracy and opium smoking."[18]

This phase of Christian missions considered the solving of material problems of human existence as essential to the work of conversion, and David Crockett Graham's mission community in Sichuan was no exception. In true Social Gospel form, Graham told an audience in 1931 that the three parts of mission work are "medical, educational and evangelistic."[19] Graham exuded enthusiasm for this approach in a personal description published by the American Baptist Foreign Society in 1920: "Evangelism embraces in a broad sense all the activities that may be instrumental in winning men to Christ and developing them in Christian character and Christian service."[20] If establishing schools and hospitals in addition to churches proved "instrumental," then missionaries should pursue those projects as well. The entry on Graham went on to say: "Mr. Graham thinks that in a real sense of evangelism is an educational process, that is, a development of all the powers of man, ethical, mental, moral and spiritual."[21]

This "development" related primarily to secular Western ideals of progress, and Graham's mission work treated Western science and Western religion as a singular package, to be bequeathed upon a people suffering for lack of both. D.C. Graham initiated numerous humanitarian projects and institutions during his career, such as the China Blind Welfare Association, the China's Children Fund, and a local Rotary Club. His immediate predecessors in the area had founded the West China Union University, and Graham too sought to spread foreign knowledge through schools, as when he brought the first-ever elementary school to the Miao people.[22] Moreover, Graham used his YMCA-like Young Men's Institute as an outlet for knowledge of Western improvements. In addition to Bible classes, the Institute offered a weekly lecture series "on hygiene or some other branch of Western science," Graham wrote.[23]

Thus, to some extent, the conflation of science and spiritual work in the Society's texts was symptomatic of a larger trend among Christian missions that tied Western religion to innovations of secular Western culture. The West China Border Research Society, however, did not consider the connection between science and religion to be limited to a generalized effort toward bringing Western scientific and technological progress to China. Indeed, their own research carried a deeper and more direct relevance to the work of missionizing. They would help the people through the introduction of Western medicine or sanitation, but they would also study the people and their environment and, thus, become better equipped to "help" them through conversion. After all, the "betterment of our fellow men" was not limited to the construction of elementary schools or providing services for the blind; the Social Gospel movement still considered these material and social services as supportive of the more basic goal of conversion. The ABFMS entry on Graham assured readers that, "He is aiming to make each of the primary schools in the city and outstations of which he has charge a center of evangelization."[24] The schools were a humanitarian social service and a point of dissemination for Western learning, but the Christianizing aim was never left out of the picture. The same applied to hospitals. "Religious work is systematically carried on in the hospital," Graham wrote in a 1915 circular to friends. "Dr. Tompkins himself gives personal attention to the spiritual needs of his patients."[25] The work of the West China Border Research Society connected science and religion in a different way, while still bearing directly upon the work of conversion. While as missionaries these men provided social services that tied Western scientific progress to Christianity, as scientists they used research to arm missionaries themselves with knowledge about their potential converts.

The intention of applying the Society's scientific output was central to the Society's mission from the very beginning. In his first Presidential Address, W.R. Morse asserted that their research will "not only impart knowledge but render a service to China and contribute not a little to the solution of problems of future missionaries." David Crockett Graham alluded to how this knowledge could be used in his 1961 study, Folk Religion in Southwest China. "In the preparation of religious leaders in the future who are to be missionaries to other peoples and other cultures," Graham explained, "a knowledge of the world's great religions and the history of these religions is very important."[26] A text like Folk Religion, of course, would facilitate this kind of work by providing in-depth knowledge of the values, beliefs and practices of potential converts. As Graham goes on to say, "One should know what these people are thinking about and what they are seeking in order to be able to arrange a helpful [emphasis added] program of moral and religious education."[27] Missionaries had to come to know the people's minds in order to change them.

Becoming familiar with the local culture, they could also utilize parts of that culture to present their own case more effectively. Studies of local culture usually centered on the prospects for transforming the culture, rather than attempting a purely objective analysis. For instance, in marking the passing of leading member J.H. Edgar in 1936, Journal editor W.G. Sewell focused on his research into Tibetan religious culture. "I have heard Edgar say that to the Lamaist his religion is so bound up with his 'citizenship' that to become a Christian he would of necessity cease to be a Tibetan," Sewell wrote, quoting a colleague of Edgar's. "What bearing would a statement like this have on missionary activity among the people?" The editor considers the knowledge only in terms of how missionaries may use it, wondering how a Christian agent would most effectively alter the identity of the "Lamaist."[28]

A.J. Brace also illustrated this tendency in his article "Spirits and Magic in Chinese Religion," published in the Journal in 1935. Brace devoted most of the article to the practice of "ancestor worship." Although he considered many aspects of the tradition to be "perverse," he also noted the supreme importance of ancestor worship to Chinese cultural life. Thus, he asked Chinese Christian leaders about how elements of traditional ancestor worship could be used to advance the cause of Christianity. "In how far can we incorporate the main tenets," he asked, "or beliefs and practices of ancestor worship in the Christian faith?" He and the native leaders compiled a list of the "strong points" and "weak points" of ancestor worship, which the Society published. Brace's article was not a disinterested, scholarly description of Chinese traditions; rather, it was a pointed and practical attempt to provide missionaries with cultural knowledge that would improve their conversion efforts.[29] This consistent mingling of anthropology and mission work may seem out of place in an ostensibly scientific journal, but such an approach was concordant with the ideology of the West China Border Research Society. If they considered the function of missionaries and scientists to be the service of mankind, then how could they better help the people than by learning how to transform their deficient culture into something superior?

---

[1] William R. Morse, "President's Address," Journal of the West China Border Research Society 1 (1923): p. 1

[2] S.H. Liljestrand, "A Resume of Border Research and Researchers. Presidential Address," Journal of the West China Border Research Society 6 (1934): p. xi

[3] David C. Graham, "Methods and Equipment for Research on the China Tibetan Border," Journal of the West China Border Research Society 6 (1934): p. viii

[4] Morse, "President's Address," p. 2

[5] Ibid., p. 3

[6] J. Beech, "University Beginnings: A Story of the West China Union University," Journal of the West China Border Research Society 6 (1934): p. 91

[7] Morse, "President's Address," p. 5

[8] Ibid., p. 6

[9] Morse, "President's Address," p. 5

[10] A.J. Brace, "Spirits and Magic in Chinese Religion," Journal of the West China Border Research Society 7 (1935): p. 139

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Morse, "President's Address," p. 3

[14] Ibid., p. 4

[15] William R. Morse, "Presidential Address," Journal of the West China Border Research Society 6 (1934): iv

[16] Morse, "President's Address," p. 4

[17] Lian Xi, The Conversion of Missionaries (University Park: Pennsylvania State University, 1997), p. 153

[18] Ibid., p. 156

[19] "Missionary Meeting, Wakefield, Mass. Nov. 1931," David C. Graham Missionary Register and Biographical File, Board of International Ministries (BIM), American Baptist Historical Society, Valley Forge, PA

[20] American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, "Rev. D.C. Graham," David C. Graham Missionary Register and Biographical File, Board of International Ministries (BIM), American Baptist Historical Society, Valley Forge, PA

[21] Ibid.

[22] Astrid Peterson, to Hugh Smith, 26 August 1987, David C. Graham Official Correspondence, 1911-1960. Board of International Ministries, Archival Collection of American Baptist Historical Society, Valley Forge, PA

[23] David C. Graham, "Circular Letter," 13 November 1915, David C. Graham Official Correspondence, 1911-1960. Board of International Ministries, Archival Collection of American Baptist Historical Society, Valley Forge, PA

[24] Ibid.

[25] David C. Graham, "Circular Letter," 17 June 1915, David C. Graham Official Correspondence, 1911-1960. Board of International Ministries, Archival Collection of American Baptist Historical Society, Valley Forge, PA

[26] David C. Graham, Folk Religion in Southwest China (Baltimore: Port City Press, 1961), p. 215

[27] Ibid., p. 216

[28] William G. Sewell, "Foreword," Journal of the West China Border Research Society 8 (1936): p. 5

[29] Brace, "Spirits and Magic in Chinese Religion," p. 145