“The object of mission schools I take to be the education of native pupils, mentally, morally, and religiously, not only that they may be converted, but that, being converted, they may become effective agents in the hand of God for defending the cause of truth. Schools also which give a knowledge of western science and civilization cannot fail to do great good both physically and socially.”—THE RELATION OF PROTESTANT MISSIONS TO EDUCATION; a paper read before the Shanghai Missionary Conference of 1877. The Tengchow School in 1884 was authorized by the Board of Missions to call itself a college. For several years previous to that date it deserved the name because of the work which it was doing in its advanced department. On the other hand, it did not cease at that time to maintain instruction of an elementary and intermediate grade. In the present chapter we will for convenience confine our attention mainly to the twenty years lying between the opening of the school and the formal assumption of the name of a college. Beyond the end of that period lies the story of the institution under the title of the Shantung College, for another twenty years at Tengchow; and since then, of the Shantung Union College, at Wei Hsien. Under date of April 2, 1864,—less than three months after the Mateers arrived at Tengchow,—Dr. Mateer made this entry in his Journal, “We have it in prospect to establish a school.” Their plan at that time was to leave the Mills family in possession of the old Kwan Yin temple, and to find for themselves another house where they could reside and carry on this new enterprise. But when, during the latter part of that summer, they were left in sole possession of the temple, they proceeded at once so to fit up some of the smaller buildings in the court as to make it possible to accommodate the little school. In September the first term opened, with six little heathen boys, not one of whom had ever been to school before; and with quarters consisting of two sleeping rooms, a kitchen, and a small room for teaching. Chang, who was Mateer’s instructor in Chinese, was set to work also to teach these boys; and a native woman was put in charge of the cooking department. To Julia he always attributed the initiation of this entire work. For the first ten years the school was almost entirely hers, he being otherwise at work. In a conversation with Mrs. Fitch, of Shanghai, many years later he said: When Julia began the boarding school for boys in Tengchow I thought it a comparatively small work; but as it enlarged, and also deepened, in its influence, I saw it was too much for her strength alone. I knew that we must put our own characters into those boys, and I could do nothing less than give myself to the work she had so begun.