meaningless information. Only, we believe, when the information is of
vital importance and interest to the man who supplies it will it be
supplied carefully, correctly, willingly, and above all, intelligently.
We venture to hope that our tables may be one step towards the day when
the supply of statistical information by the missionary will cease to be
mere drudgery.

(iv) Seeing that the missionary task is essentially world-wide, it is
obvious that a world-wide work cannot be properly directed without a
world-wide view. Now, missionary survey is in its infancy, and in most
parts of the world it has yet to be begun. A full and complete
missionary survey of the whole world would necessarily be a considerable
undertaking, for many important facts could not be easily or quickly
collected. There is then a strong tendency for men to argue that, since
all the facts desirable cannot be known at once without much time and
expense, it is futile and dangerous to collect those facts which can be
collected speedily without great expense. A little knowledge, they say,
is a dangerous thing ... let us remain ignorant.

We would venture to suggest that a little knowledge is only dangerous
when it is mistaken for much knowledge; that it is far better to act on
knowledge which can be obtained than to act in total ignorance, blindly.
Where we must act it is our duty to know all that we can know, and if,
because we cannot collect all the information that we should wish to
possess, we refuse to collect that information which we can obtain,
because we realise that it will be incomplete, we commit a serious moral
and intellectual crime. If we can know only one factor out of one
hundred, we offend if we refuse to know that one. We must act. We have
no right to shut our eyes to knowledge which ought to guide our action
because we are aware that action taken on that one factor will be