Content area
Full Text
In Colonial India Missionaries used education as a tool for propagating Christianity. The Scottish and Protestant Missions had profound ? on the educational set ups of India. This study examines the aims and objectives of the missionaries brought educational and religious ideas with them and pressures put forth by their own followers. The Missionaries had deep impact on the local culture. The Missionaries strategies were changed as they got feedback while achieving their goals. The missionaries also arranged with Government but both of them had different educational strategies and aims. The Missionary education was more secular than the education under Government in the context of Alexander Duff's strategy. There was a clear difference between the education ? at the town level through English medium of instruction and the attempt to impart knowledge at village level through local languages. The paper also focuses on missionaries aims and how they were successful at village level. The missionary's major aim was to develop local agencies in institutions. Due to many reasons this aim was diverted but ultimately became the strongest aim and strategy as it was highly commended by World Missionary Conference.
A number of questions regarding the aim of missionary education arise like: were the missionaries mainly concerned with using educational institutions to give training to local or people they considered themselves as outposts of evangelism? Were the Christians institutions meant to diffuse Christian knowledge through out the nation or intended specifically to raise the educational standards of the growing Christian community? In which direction there was a missionary ideas about the philosophy of education; the Baptist agency started work with main interest in the education.
In the mid of Nineteenth century missionary education had become part of a more general provision of education for India but without any focused aim. The greatest difference between the Government and the Missionary education was in case of higher schools. English was the medium of instruction and at primary schools vernacular language was medium of instruction. Some missions established a complete English system of education. An approach of the missionary educational agenda and an attempt to elaborate how this worked out in practice. It is clear that the missionary acted within in a peculiar context and a specific mould of...