Doctor C. W. Mateer, who founded the leading American Presbyterian
University, situated at Wei Hsien in Shangtung province, is perhaps
best known as the translator of the New Testament into northern
(Mandarin) Chinese. President A. J. Bowen, an American, of the great
Nanking Union University (Presbyterian, Methodist, Disciples), wields
a vast influence with the rising republicans and officials of Middle
China. Doctor Paul W. Bergen is president of the great Presbyterian
College at Wei Hsien, Shangtung province. These men have vast power
to influence the East in favor of the West, if the western business
men were not so parsimonious in providing funds for the colleges and
hospitals in China. An endowment of $30,000 is given for a university
where at least $100,000 should be given, because the missionary of the
educational and medical class is the pioneer of trade. Cure a Chinese,
teach him modern methods, and he will in his gratitude favor western
trade and intercourse. The debt American and British expansion owes
to the missionary educator and medical man is greater than is owed
to the man behind the gun, or the diplomat behind the flag and the
protocol, who, while they serve, often serve harshly. Doctor J. H.
Judson is president of the American Presbyterian College at beautiful
cultured Hangchow, and has great influence with the sons of officials
and leading merchants of Southern China. The most influential and
interesting foreigners in China are the medical missionaries. There
are too any names to quote, but all the church boards in America and
Britain will furnish scores of names, if the inquirer is interested in
the men and women who are doing the forward work of his denomination.
Next to these men come the translators and educators, the great
college presidents and professors in China, like Doctor Pott, of St.
John’s, Shanghai. Missionaries of the old type, diplomats, merchants,
travelers, treaty port editors, etc., are also performing their
interesting part as types in interpreting the West to the great East,
and ten thousand Chinese are gathered around each, eagerly watching
every act and listening for every word. As one travels into different
sections of China, some foreign name or personality stands there for
good or ill, more prominently than the native’s own pailoo arch,
before the eyes and in the speech of the awakening people, who are
weighing the types of men who, coming among them, have excited their
emulation in most and their revulsion in some cases. No course of
reading can afford more material for thought than the hundred books
devoted in recent years to things Chinese, and written by various
types of foreigners during their long sojourn or exile in Cathay. The
traveler who goes to Africa generally writes about animals, for they
seem to be more interesting than the old races that are there, but the
sojourner in China writes, not about monkeys, but about men and women
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account