Lastly,
the government has rendered possible the establishment of a number
of excellent mission schools in older stations, where considerable
numbers of children of the pagan tribes have been made Christians and
trained to fill subordinate posts in the administrative service, or
to return to leaven the native villages with a wider knowledge and a
better understanding of the principles which underlie the white man's
conduct and culture. The missionaries have exerted also among the Sea
Dayaks a strong influence making for peace and order; but they have
hardly yet come into contact with Kayans or Kenyahs. Mention must also
be made of the Malay schools which the government has instituted and
supported in the principal stations, and in which many young Malays
receive the elements of a useful education.
In all its undertakings the success of the government has only been
rendered possible by the high prestige that the white man everywhere
enjoys; and this in turn has been acquired and maintained, not so much
by his command of the mechanical resources of western civilisation,
as by the fact that, with very few exceptions, the white men with
whom the natives have had intercourse have been English gentlemen,
animated by the spirit and example of the two white Rajahs, and
keenly conscious of their individual and collective responsibility
as representatives of their race and country in a foreign land.
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