We propose, therefore, in this bewildering maze of mixed purposes and ideas, to follow the line which seemed possible in the case of medical missions--to accept the idea that there is an educational need of the people which it is the business of the educational mission to meet so far as it can; and then to add a further inquiry concerning the direct evangelistic influence of the educational mission, and its relation to the evangelistic and medical work.
But in educational mission survey there is an added difficulty which arises from the fact that scholastic education is divided into many grades, and this division has no common standard in different countries, sometimes not even in the same country.

We, then, who are seeking light not from one country only but from all, are compelled to simplify these grade distinctions as much as possible, and to accept the local definitions.

This does not really invalidate comparisons between different areas so seriously as we might at the first glance be tempted to expect.

There is in every country a grade which is primary; there is a secondary, or middle, or high school; there is a normal, or college, or arts course.

The primary in one country may run into higher primary and be at its best far in advance of the primary in another country; and so far the two are incomparable; but, nevertheless, this primary grade is the lowest grade in each country, and if the inquiry is, what number of pupils are taught in this local first grade, then the comparison is admissible.