China; Chinese -- United States -- Education; Education -- China; Yung, Wing, 1828-1912
A visitor to the City of Hartford, at the present time, will be likely
to meet on the streets groups of Chinese boys, in their native dress,
though somewhat modified, and speaking their native tongue, yet seeming,
withal, to be very much at home. He will also occasionally meet Chinese
men who, by their bearing, will impress him as being gentlemen of their
race.
These gentlemen are officers, and these boys are pupils of the Chinese
Educational Mission, although one of the most remarkable and significant
institutions of the age on the face of the whole earth. The object of
the mission, now of nearly six years’ standing, is the education in this
country, through a term of fifteen years, of a corps of young men for
the Chinese Government service; that Government paying the whole
cost--an annual expense of about $100,000. The number of the officers is
five, viz,--the two Imperial Commissioners in charge, a translator and
interpreter and two teachers. The function of the teachers is to direct
the Chinese education of the pupils, which proceeds _pari passu_ with
their Western education. The number of pupils was originally 120, but
now 112, one having died and seven having, for various reasons, returned
to China. A fine, large house recently erected by the Chinese Government
in the western part of the City, at a cost of fifty thousand dollars, is
the headquarters of the Mission. There are the offices of the officers,
and there is lodged the class that is present for examination and
instruction in Chinese studies. For this purpose the pupils are divided
into classes of about twenty, one coming as another goes, each staying
at the Mission House two weeks at a time. A small part only of the whole
number are permanently located in Hartford. Most of them are in other
places, though not far away, generally two together attending school or
receiving private instruction in families.
They come in yearly companies of thirty, beginning with 1872, and the
last detachment is still chiefly engaged in learning our language.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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