The Awakening of China Part 26

Shut up in the purlieus of Canton, it is astonishing how much Dr.

Williams was able to effect in the way of making China known to the Western world. His book on "The Middle Kingdom," first published in 1848, continues to be, after the lapse of half a century, the highest of a long list of authorities on the Chinese Empire. Beginning like Benjamin Franklin as a printer, like Franklin he came to perform a brilliant part in the diplomacy of our country, aiding in the [Page 284]

negotiation of a new treaty and filling more than once the post of charge d'affaires.

EXPANSION OF THE WORK

The next period of missionary activity dates from the treaty of Nanking, which put an end to the Opium War, in 1842. The opening of five great seaports to foreign residence was a vast enlargement in comparison with a small suburb of Canton; and the withdrawal of prohibitory interdicts, first obtained by the French minister Lagrene, invited the efforts of missionary societies in all lands.

In this connection it is only fair to say that, in 1860, when the Peking expedition removed the remaining barriers, it was again to the French that our missionaries were indebted for access to the interior.

MEDICAL WORK

From the earliest dawn of our mission work it may be affirmed that no sooner did a chapel open its doors than a hospital was opened by its side for the relief of bodily ailments with which the rude quackery of the Chinese was incompetent to deal. Nor is there at this day a mission station in any part of China that does not in this way set forth the practical charity of the Good Samaritan.

This glorious crusade against disease and death began, so far as Protestants are concerned, with the Ophthalmic Hospital opened by Dr. Peter Parker at Canton in 1834.

MEDICAL TEACHING

The training of native physicians began at the same date; and those who have gone forth to bless their [Page 285]

people by their newly acquired medical skill may now be counted by hundreds. In strong contrast with the occult methods of native pract.i.tioners, neither they nor their foreign teachers have hidden their light under a bushel. Witness the Union Medical College, a n.o.ble inst.i.tution recently opened in Peking under the sanction and patronage of the Imperial Government. A formal despatch of the Board of Education (in July, 1906) grants the power of conferring degrees, and guarantees their recognition by the state. For many years to come this great school is likely to be the leading source of a new faculty.

THE SEEDS OF A NEW EDUCATION

Not less imperative, though not so early, was the establishment of Christian schools. Those for girls have the merit of being the first to shed light on the shaded hemisphere of Chinese society. Those for boys were intended to reach all grades of life; but their prime object was to raise up a native ministry, not merely to cooperate with foreign missions, but eventually to take the place of the foreign missionary.

THE EARLIEST UNION COLLEGE

One of the earliest and most successful of these lighthouses was the Tengchow College founded by Dr. C. W. Mateer. It was there that young Chinese were most thoroughly instructed in mathematics, physics, and chemistry. So conspicuous was the success of that inst.i.tution that when the Government opened a university in Peking, and more recently in Shantung, [Page 286]

it was in each case to Tengchow that they had recourse for native teachers of science. From that school they obtained text-books, and from the same place they secured (in Dr. Hayes) a president for the first provincial university organised in China.

METHODIST EPISCOPAL UNIVERSITY IN PEKING

The missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church have of late taken up the cause of education and carried it forward with great vigour.

Not to speak of high schools for both s.e.xes in f.u.kien, they have a flourishing college in Shanghai, and a university in the imperial capital under the presidency of H. H. Lowry. Destroyed by the Boxers in 1900, that inst.i.tution has now risen phoenix-like from its ashes with every prospect of a more brilliant future than its most sanguine friends ever ventured to antic.i.p.ate.

AMERICAN BOARD COLLEGE AT TUNGCHOW

A fine college of the American Board at Tungchow, near the capital, met the same fate and rose again with similar expansion. Dr. Sheffield, its president, has made valuable contributions to the list of educational text-books.

These great schools, together with the Medical College of the London Mission, above referred to, and a high school of the United States Presbyterians, have formed a system of cooperation which greatly augments the efficiency of each. Of this educational union the chief cornerstone is the Medical College.

A similar cooperative union between the English [Page 287]

Baptists and American Presbyterians is doing a great work at Weihien, in Shantung. I speak of these because of that most notable feature--union international and interdenominational. s.p.a.ce would fail to enumerate a t.i.the of the flourishing schools that are aiding in the educational movement; but St. John's College, at Shanghai (U. S. Episcopal), though already mentioned, claims further notice because, as we now learn, it has been given by the Chinese Government the status of a university.

PREPARATION OF TEXT-BOOKS

Schools require text-books; and the utter absence of anything of the kind, except in the department of cla.s.sical Chinese, gave rise to early and persistent efforts to supply the want. Manuals in geography and history were among the first produced. Those in mathematics and physics followed; and almanacs were sent forth yearly containing scientific information in a shape adapted to the taste of Chinese readers--alongside of religious truths. Such an annual issued by the late Dr. McCartee, was much sought for.

A complete series of text-books in mathematics was translated by Mr. Wylie, of the London Mission; and text-books on other subjects, including geology, were prepared by Messrs. Muirhead, Edkins, and Williamson. At length the task of providing text-books was taken in hand by a special committee, and later on by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, now under the direction of the Rev. Dr. Richard.

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So deeply was the want of text-books felt by some of the more progressive mandarins that a corps of translators was early formed in connection with one of the government a.r.s.enals--a work in which Dr. John Fryer has gained merited renown. Those translators naturally gave prominence to books on the art of war, and on the politics of Western nations, the one-sided tendency of their publications serving to emphasise the demand for such books as were prepared by missionaries.

Text-books on international law and political economy were made accessible to Chinese literature by Dr. W. A. P. Martin, who, having acted as interpreter to two of the American emba.s.sies, was deeply impressed by the ignorance of those vital subjects among Chinese mandarins.

On going to reside in Peking, in 1863, Dr. Martin carried with him a translation of Wheaton, and it was welcomed by the Chinese Foreign Office as a timely guide in their new situation. He followed this up by versions of Woolsey, Bluntschli and Hall. He also gave them a popular work on natural philosophy--not a translation--together with a more extended work on mathematical physics. Not only has the former appeared in many editions from the Chinese press, but it has been often reprinted in j.a.pan; and to this day maintains its place in the favour of both empires. To this he has lately added a text-book on mental philosophy.

A book on the evidences of Christianity, by the same author, has been widely circulated both in China and in j.a.pan. Though distinctly religious in aim, it [Page 289]

appeals to the reader's taste for scientific knowledge, seeking to win the heathen from idolatry by exhibiting the unity and beauty of nature, while it attempts to show the reasonableness of our revealed religion.

THREE PRESIDENTS OF GOVERNMENT COLLEGES

It is not without significance that the Chinese have sought presidents for their highest schools among the ranks of Protestant missionaries.

Dr. Ferguson of the Methodist Episcopal Mission was called to the presidency of the Nanyang College at Shanghai; Dr. Hayes, to be head of a new university in Shantung; and Dr. Martin, after serving for twenty-five years as head of the Diplomatic College in Peking, was, in 1898, made president of the new Imperial University. His appointment was by decree from the Throne, published in the Government _Gazette_; and mandarin rank next to the highest was conferred on him. On terminating his connection with that inst.i.tution, after it was broken up by Boxers, he was recalled to China to take charge of a university for the two provinces of Hupeh and Hunan.

CREATORS OF CHINESE JOURNALISM

In the movement of modern society, no force is more conspicuous than journalism. In this our missionaries have from the first taken a leading part, as it was they who introduced it to China. At every central station for the last half-century periodicals have been issued by them in the Chinese language.

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The man who has done most in this line is Dr. Y. J. Allen, of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. He has devoted a lifetime to it, besides translating numerous books.

Formerly the Chinese had only one newspaper in the empire--the _Peking Gazette_, the oldest journal in the world. They now have, in imitation of foreigners, some scores of dailies, in which they give foreign news, and which they print in foreign type. The highest mandarins wince under their stinging criticisms.

THEY LEAD A VERNACULAR REVOLUTION

It is one of the triumphs of Christianity to have given a written form to the language of modern Europe. It is doing the same for heathen nations in all parts of the earth. Nor does China offer an exception. The culture for which her learned cla.s.ses are noted is wholly confined to a cla.s.sic language that is read everywhere, and spoken nowhere, somewhat as Latin was in the West in the Middle Ages, save that Latin was really a tongue capable of being employed in speech, whereas the cla.s.sical language of China is not addressed to the ear but to the eye, being, as Dr. Medhurst said, "an occulage, not a language."

The mandarin or spoken language of the north was, indeed, reduced to writing by the Chinese themselves; and a similar beginning was made with some of the southern dialects. In all these efforts the Chinese ideographs have been employed; but so numerous and disjointed are they that the labour of years is required to get a command of them even for reading in a vernacular [Page 291]

dialect. In all parts of China our missionaries have rendered the Scriptures into the local dialects. so that they may be understood when read aloud, and that every man "may hear in his own tongue the wonderful works of G.o.d." In some places they have printed them in the vernacular by the use of Chinese characters. Yet those characters are clumsy instruments for the expression of sounds; and in several provinces our missionaries have tried to write Chinese with Roman letters.

The experiment has proved successful beyond a doubt. Old women and young children have in this way come to read the Scriptures and other books in a few days. This revolution must go forward with the spread of Christianity; nor is it too much to expect that in the lapse of ages, the hieroglyphs of the learned language will for popular use be superseded by the use of the Roman alphabet, or by a new alphabet recently invented and propagated by officials in Peking.

In conclusion: Our missionaries have made our merchants acquainted with China; and they have made foreign nations known to the Chinese.

They have aided our envoys in their negotiations; and they have conferred on the Chinese the priceless boon of scientific text-books.

Also along with schools for modern education, they have introduced hospitals for the relief of bodily suffering.

W. A. P. M.

PEKING, Aug. 4. 1906.