Examples (Details)
RG 93. Box 1. Folder 2
Letter to Robert E. Speer on Nov.11, 1911
Information on Finances:
…The Committee has communicated with Mrs. Hall [an American teacher in Japan] and learns…3. she will need, and has already obtained the services of a capable and trusty woman to look after her children, so as to enable her to devote as much time as possible to missionary work. 4. She will require also the services of a man to look after the furnace and grounds, and also to take her back and forth to Kindergarten and other meetings in a ricksha [sic]. It is the judgment of the Committee therefore, that under there circumstances, in order to enable Mrs. Hail to live in comfort and work to the best advantage, she will require a salary of $900 gold. We submit therefore the resolution below for adoption by the Executive Committee.
Letter from William Imbrie [in Japan] to Robert Speer. Nov. 20, 1912
The second resolution is as follows: Resolved that the Mission request the Board to increase the salary of married couples to $1500 and of single missionaries to$750 per year…
The reasons have already been given in detail and are so familiar that it will be sufficient to emphasize the main points.
1. It is not necessary to prove that the World over there has been a great increase in the cost of living…
2. In Japan there is no subject that is attracting so much attention or causing so much anxiety. Carefully prepared tables are published showing that the increase in Japan is greater than in any other country. Not only is Japan affected by general economic conditions. It is a relatively poor country carrying the debt of a great war, and at the same time striving to maintain and increase a great military establishment. To this everyone living in Japan, directly or indirectly, must contribute his share. It would be easy to show by specific instances that the increase in the cost of labor and everything produced in Japan in extraordinary: and it is a fact that every month brings a new increase of some kind. To this it should be added that foreigners must make use of many necessities of food, clothing et cetera that are imported; and that these, in addition to the prices paid in the countries which produces them, the charges of freight and the tariff must be met.
Letter to Robert Speer, Jan. 24, 1912
[page 5] Dissatisfaction with the conservatism of the Elder Statesmen, who still are the chief governing power in the nation, is loudly expressed during these days of troubles in China, when the Japanese feel—whether with justification or not, I cannot say—that they have been completely outmaneuvered by the other Powers.
RG 93. Box 1. Folder 5
Report of the Wakayama Field. Received December 27, 1911
[Includes reports of the number of “professing Christians” at each church, as well as reports on the treatment of Christians in the area. For example, the reason for the falling off in the attendance was the arrest and execution of the anarchists. The Christians and workers have been under suspicion of the Government…]
The Japan Mission
[Typed. First page has a list of churches in Japan]
[page 3] Sooner or later the question of the true seat and source of holiness must be met squarely in Japan and the nation, high and low, like Isaiah in the year that King Uzziah died, must see the Lord high and lifted up and the seraphim crying “holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.” Instead of this soul-humbling but life-giving doctrine, there is systematically propagated in Japan—in schools and army and navy and among the common people—a legent of a sacrosanct Emperor and another of a transcendentally valorous and virtuous nation as far above the common run of western nations as the Emperor is above the common run of Kings and Presidents. Prof. B.H.Chamberlain, writing on this subject lately, quoted a Japanese official as saying, “We believe in it, although we know that it is not true”. That is, this fiction so pleasing to national vanity and already half accepted in the West, though not believed by Japanese officials and educators, is believed in by them as “a means of united all the scattered elements of national feeling into one focus” and carrying out national aims. But nothing lasting was ever builded [sic] on such a foundation, and Japan must become willing to take her chances with Truth…
RG 93. Box 1. Folder 18
Japan – Informational Report and State of the Church: 1964
[first document in folder] V. As the United Church of Christ carries out its mission, it senses the double tension of witnessing within an ancient yet highly developed culture based upon Buddhistic and pantheistic thought and in modern technological society. From the one side, Christianity is seen as too western, too individualistic. From the other, the Church seems to be irrelevant to the tempo of a society which is becoming affluent or too bourgeoisie for workers who are part of a very self-conscious laboring class.
[This folder also contains detailed Account Sheets for Tokyo Joshi Daigaku (Tokyo Woman’s Christian College) in the year 1964.]
RG 251. Box 1. Folder 2
Letter, A.A. Fulton to W.S. Springer, December 26, 1916
Very glad indeed I am, and very grateful, to acknowledge your generous gift of $100 and to learn of your interest in this mightiest of all causes on this earth. I do not believe there is a field on earth where that money could be invested that will bring in as large dividends as it will in China…But look at these facts. China is the largest nation on earth, numerically speaking. Her people have the very qualities that go to make a great nation. They are among most industrious, economical, patient, and persevering people on the globe. No nation outside of Christian nations can approach them in point of high civilization, and they can give many fine points to Christian nations. Again no caste here. They are eminently a democratic people. They are a proud people, and for that reason an able people, but they are a very practical people, and the solitary reason that they worship idols is because they must, in common with all humanity, worship something, and not having our glorious Doctrines, they turned to the empty, worthless worship of idols, as instructed by equally ignorant Buddhist priests, in hope of some kind of reward, at some future time.
Recommendations from Anne Ostendarp, Manager of Public Services and Outreach:
United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations. Records, 1892-1965. Call no. RG 81 Finding aid: http://www.history.pcusa.org/finding/phs%2081.xml
United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations. Secretaries' files: Japan Mission, 1879-1972 (bulk : 1911-1969). Call no. RG 93 Finding aid: http://www.history.pcusa.org/finding/phs%2093.xml
Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Korea Mission. Records, 1940-1982. Call no. RG 197 http://www.history.pcusa.org/finding/phs%20197.xml
Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Hainan Mission Records, 1893-1923. American Presbyterian Mission in Hainan. (Microform) Call no. MF/POS./340
United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations. Secretaries' files : [microform] Japan Mission, 1911-1952. Materials dating before 1911 are available on microfilm:
Call no. MF/POS./1195/r.1-4
Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Korea Mission. Records, 1903-1957 microform / Korea Mission. Call no. MF/POS./907/r.1-31
Also, the following microfilm may be in Haverford's holdings already. It is available for purchase from Primary Source Media.
United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Board of Foreign Mission. Correspondence and Reports, 1833-1911 (Includes Japan, 1859-1911; Korea, 1884-1911; Thailand (Siam), 1840-1910; China, 1837-1911; Philippines, 1898-1910.
Calendar to Microfilmed Missionary Correspondence of the Board of Foreign Mission, Presbyterian Church USA, 1833-1911
United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations. Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations.
United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Board of Foreign Mission. Korea Mission Records, 1903-1957.
United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Board of Foreign Mission. Japan Mission Secretaries' Files, 1879-1950.
United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Board of Missions for Freedmen Annual Reports, 1866-1923
Woman's Work for Woman, 1871-1885
Woman's Work: A Foreign Mission's Magazine, 1885-1924
The Missionary, 1868-1911
The Missionary Survey, 1911-1924