Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen. — Background and Themes

Direct Address and the Child Reader

Scudder consistently uses the phrase 'My dear children' to open chapters, creating a simulated classroom or fireside setting. This device is not merely ornamental; it structures the reader's relationship to the material. In Chapter I, he recalls his own childhood prayer and invites his audience to learn it, then shows it in Tamil—a move that both exoticizes and domesticates the foreign language. The tone is often admonitory: 'I hope that you will learn it now.' Later, after describing the Phansiagars' methods, he asks, 'How could such ever relish its pure joys?' The question is rhetorical, but it implicates the child reader in a judgment that the text has already made. This technique transforms ethnographic description into a call for moral action, specifically missionary dedication.

Ethnographic Detail as Moral Evidence

Scudder compiles information from sources like Duff and Dubois, but he selects details that serve his argument. The chapter on the Phansiagars is a case in point: he describes the training of stranglers, the role of women as decoys, and a specific escape story from Coorg. The narrative is precise—'he tries his skill in strangling a person the first opportunity that offers'—yet it is immediately followed by a theological conclusion: 'it is a charity which has no foundation, to suppose that the heathen can go to heaven.' The structure implies that the accumulation of such evidence leaves no room for alternative interpretations. Similarly, the chapter on self-tortures (partially excerpted) lists practices without contextualizing them within Hindu theology, presenting them as proof of a religion without a Bible.

Pace and the Rhetoric of Urgency

The book's pace varies markedly between descriptive passages and exhortatory conclusions. Chapters on customs—dress, houses, eating—move at a measured, cataloguing pace. But when Scudder turns to the 'duty of praying and contributing,' the rhythm accelerates. The preface itself is a direct appeal: 'Should the eyes of any Christian father or mother rest upon it, I would ask them if they have not a son or a daughter to dedicate to the missionary work.' This urgency is embedded in the text's structure: the final chapters shift from 'what the heathen do' to 'what Christians must do.' The closing chapter on 'Success of the Gospel in India and Ceylon' offers a counter-narrative of hope, but it is brief relative to the preceding litany of practices. The imbalance in pace—slow description, rapid moral application—mirrors the work's didactic purpose.

Readers should note that Scudder's 'Tales' is not a neutral survey but a polemical compilation designed to mobilize young Christians. The excerpts reveal a consistent pattern: vivid, often shocking descriptions are followed by direct theological conclusions. The work's value lies less in its ethnographic accuracy—which is filtered through a missionary lens—than in its demonstration of how 19th-century American Protestantism constructed 'the heathen' as a category requiring intervention. For modern readers, the book offers a historical artifact of cross-cultural representation and religious rhetoric.