Large College Building End of Chapel College Bell (formerly Kwan Yin Temple) Small Schoolroom] These are homely details, but we cannot overlook them, and understand the life of the Mateers in its connection with this work. Discipline in any school composed of so many boys and of such varied age could not be an easy task; in this Chinese school it was peculiarly perplexing. There were some unusual incidents. Falsehood, stealing, quarreling, gluttony, and even sodomy were offenses that had to be dealt with according to the circumstances attending each case. One instance of discipline was so distinctively Chinese that the description of it by Mateer in his Journal deserves a place here. Under date of April 9, 1869, he wrote: One very distressing thing has happened within a month. Leon Chin Chi was being persecuted by his father in relation to the matter of his marriage engagement with Shang Yuin, when in a fit of desperation he went and bought opium, and took it to kill himself. Some of the boys suspected him, and went to see. They found him lying on his bed evidently in great distress of mind, and refusing to answer any questions save to say that his affairs were all over with. I inferred from this, as also from his saying to one of the boys that he would never see him again, that he had taken poison—most likely opium. I went and got a strong emetic, and mixed it up, but he refused to take it. I then got a stick and used it to such good purpose that in a very short time he was glad to take the medicine. It had the desired effect, and in a very short time he vomited up the opium. He seemed to lay the beating to heart very much. It was evidently a new idea to him to be put through in such a style. After a day or two, when he had gone to school again, I gave him a formal and severe whipping in the presence of the school. I thought very seriously over the matter of whipping him, and concluded that it was my duty to do it. I believe now that it did the boy good. He was called before the session last week, when he manifested a good deal of sorrow and penitence. He was publicly reproved and admonished on Sabbath morning. I am sorry that he had such a weakness; it greatly decreases my reliance on him, and my belief in his genuine Christian character. It must be allowed that there is some little excuse, in the way in which the Chinese all regard suicide. He had not got those ideas all educated out of him. While Mateer differed in opinion from those missionaries who favored schools simply as effective agents for the conversion of the pupils, he regarded this as one of the leading results to be sought and expected. It was almost two years after the opening of his school when he had the great joy of baptizing one of the pupils. In describing the event to a secretary of the Board, he said: