At ten years old Pao Tseng was a keen student of Chinese history, and
the seed was sown, which later sprang up into an ardent patriotism and
desire for the ancient glory of her race to be restored. She injured her
eyesight by too close study, and two years later had become a Chinese
classical scholar, a feat of which it would be impossible for anyone to
realize the magnitude unless they knew something of the classics. She
then begged leave to go and study Western knowledge, and was sent to one
of the new Government schools at Hangchow, some thousand miles distant,
to reach which there was no railway in those days. The tone of the school
was so displeasing to her, that she soon left it and went to the (C.M.S.)
Mary Vaughan High School for girls, where she found a sympathetic friend
as well as teacher in the head mistress, Miss Barnes. In the turmoil
and distress of mind caused by the condition of her country she found
comfort in the study of the Christian faith and wrote to her father that
she wished to become a Christian. He was evidently a man of rare wisdom,
and stipulated that before taking so important a step she should study
the writings of its European opponents. It is strange to think of such a
child being set down to a course of Herbert Spencer, Frederick Harrison,
and other leading non-Christian writers: her views were not changed by
it. She again wrote to her father to this effect, and he gave his consent
to her open profession of Christianity, coupled with the wise advice
that she should become the best possible type of Christian. She decided
to join no particular sect, looking forward to the time when China would
have a church suitable to her needs and character.
In 1912 Pao Tseng obtained the family’s consent that she should go to
England for further training. She had accepted as her vocation the
call of her country to a life of educational work in China. Her family
would not allow her to go abroad without a guardian, and Miss Barnes
undertook the post, relinquishing the head mistress-ship of the High
School in order to do this. Pao Tseng entered the Blackheath High School,
and from there passed to Westfield College. It was at this time that I
had the pleasure of making her acquaintance, having already heard of
the impression she had made at the college. No one could be with her
without being aware of the deep seriousness of her nature, and she was
greatly liked by her fellow-students. Chinese girls always seem to get
on well in England, and to fit in easily with our idiosyncrasies. There
is nothing like the gulf between them and us which seems to separate
us in our ways of thinking and of looking on life from our Indian
fellow-subjects.
After taking her degree and studying educational methods and training
at St. Mary’s College, Paddington, she returned to China at the age of
twenty to begin her life work at her old home in Changsha, the capital of
Hunan.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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