Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1903-09-24
OUTSIDE POINT OF VIEW
Home Versus Foreian Missions.

some I'm 6 there appeared IN the
Examiner OF New York an article
showing the Advantages of New York
city as an opening unsurpassed for
missionary work. In it Robert Stuart
Macarthur said:
The city of New York is one of the
greatest mission fields in the whole
world. When one thinks of the oppor-
~tundties and obligations of this field, he
is disposed to say that ell the churches
OF the state ought to make annual Of
ferings for mission work in this city.
Calls constantly come to all the
churches in New York for state mis-
sions, home missions and foreign mis-
|sions. Money pours in streams from
New York to adj parts of the and and
of the world; but who ever thinks Of
making an offering to nelp struggling
churches in New York? Literally the
ends of the earth meet in New York
City. The census for 1900 gives the
following facts regarding the foreign
born population in New York, with the
country of birth of THE various immi-
grants: Austria, 71,427; Bohemia, 15,-
055: Canada (Englisn), 1899; Canada
{French), 2,527; Denmark, 1921; En-
gland, 6S.S36; France, IA. 1855; Germany.
322,344: Holland, 2,60S; Hungary, 3D.
516: Ireland, 275.102; Italy. 145,433:
Mexico, 2S2; Norway, 1887; Poland
(Austrian). 1895: Poland Germany,
.1.SS1; Poland (Russian), 1921; Poland
(unknown), 1,766; Russia, 155. POI;
Scotland, 1895; Sweden, 1890;
Switzerland. s.371: Wales, 1856;
Greece. Syria, Turkey, China and ia
pan. 37,502. These figures show a to-
tai of 1,270,0S0.
1T thus appears thai New York Is
one of the greatest missionary fields in
the world. These figures do not in
elude the children of foreigners born
m America. Our churches must not
consider this fact as only an evil. We
send missionaries at great expense to
many of these countries. Representa-
tives of these countries come to US at
their own expense. and we must meet
them with the American constitution
in one hand and the Bible in the other.
We must Americanize and Christian
ize them, or they will, to a great de-
gree, f~oreigTize and heathenize us. We
thus have a great opportunity to do
foreign mission work at our own
doors"
And soon after Professor Buck pub
lished an equally interesting article on
the surprising number of languages
spoken in Chicago.
In fact, Professor Buck calls the
linguistic situation which obtains in
Chicago AN unparalleled babel of for
eign tongues" and then he continues:
Il say unparalleled babel with all due
regard to claims of Co14stantinople,
Cairo and other cities OF the orient,
past and present. In Constantinople.
with the heterogeneous constituency of
the army and the harem, augmented by
tie ranks of European officials and Wis.,
itors, the number of languages repre-
serted may on occasions be as great as
in New York or Chicago. But 1T must
be remembered that only a few Of these
languages are spoken by large bodies
Of the population, whereas In Chicago
there are some fourteen languag ss be-
sides English. each Of which is spoken
by 10000 or more persons. Newspapers
appear regularly in ten languages and
church services may be heard in about
twenty languages.
Chicago is the second largest Bohe
nian city In the world, the third Swed-
ish, the third Norwegian, the fourth
Polish, the fifth German New York
being the fourth). In all, there are some
forty foreign languages spoken by
numbers ranging from half a dozen to
half a million and aggregating over
1000, 600"
Professor Buck carried on his inyes-
LEGATIONS by a temporary residence in
the various colonies in Chicago, which
are really little cities within the me-
tropolis, each speaking its w lam
guage, clinging to its hereditary Gus
toms and in large part governing 1t
self. Besides the mineral statistics
which he collected h. studied the
linguistic conditions OF the second and
third generations OF foreign-born per-
sons. finding that the children Of immi-
grants generally speak English as we'll
as their native tongue, but that the
grandchildren, as a rule, never learn
the foreign language n speak only
English.
Here are the nationalties which Pro-
fessor Buck found in the city and the
approximate number of persons speak
ing their native tongues:
Gernan 500, 900
polish 125, 900
swedish 100, 900
SV'ooV
Norwepian so, 900
so, 900
8 $1,000