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24 chapters
PREFACE
PREFACE
The first five chapters of this book give an account of my early education, previous to going to America, where it was continued, first at Monson Academy, in Monson, Massachusetts, and later, at Yale College. The sixth chapter begins with my reëntrance into the Chinese world, after an absence of eight years. Would it not be strange, if an Occidental education, continually exemplified by an Occidental civilization, had not wrought upon an Oriental such a metamorphosis in his inward nature as to m
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CHAPTER I BOYHOOD
CHAPTER I BOYHOOD
I was born on the 17th of November, 1828, in the village of Nam Ping (South Screen) which is about four miles southwest of the Portuguese Colony of Macao, and is situated on Pedro Island lying west of Macao, from which it is separated by a channel of half a mile wide. I was one of a family of four children. A brother was the eldest, a sister came next, I was the third, and another brother was the fourth and the youngest of the group. I am the only survivor of them all. As early as 1834, an Engli
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CHAPTER II SCHOOL DAYS
CHAPTER II SCHOOL DAYS
The Morrison School was opened on the 1st of November, 1839, under the charge of the Rev. S. R. Brown who, with his wife, Mrs. Brown, landed at Macao on the 19th of February, 1839. Brown, who was afterwards made a D.D., was a graduate of Yale of the class of 1832. From his antecedents, he was eminently fitted to pioneer the first English school in China. I entered the school in 1841. I found that five other boys had entered ahead of me by one year. They were all studying primary arithmetic, geog
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CHAPTER III JOURNEY TO AMERICA AND FIRST EXPERIENCES THERE
CHAPTER III JOURNEY TO AMERICA AND FIRST EXPERIENCES THERE
Being thus generously provided for, we embarked at Whompoa on the 4th of January, 1847, in the good ship “Huntress” under Captain Gillespie. As stated above, she belonged to the Olyphant Brothers and was loaded with a full cargo of tea. We had the northeast trade wind in our favor, which blew strong and steady all the way from Whompoa to St. Helena. There was no accident of any kind, excepting a gale as we doubled the Cape of Good Hope. The tops of the masts and ends of the yards were tipped wit
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CHAPTER IV AT MONSON ACADEMY
CHAPTER IV AT MONSON ACADEMY
We were in East Windsor for about a week; then we went up to Monson, Mass., to enter the Academy there. Monson Academy was, at one time, quite a noted preparatory school in New England, before high schools sprang into existence. Young men from all parts of the country were found here, undergoing preparation for colleges. It was its fortune, at different periods of its history, to have had men of character and experience for its principals. The Rev. Charles Hammond was one of them. He was in ever
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CHAPTER V MY COLLEGE DAYS
CHAPTER V MY COLLEGE DAYS
Before entering Yale, I had not solved the problem of how I was to be carried through the collegiate course without financial backing of a definite and well-assured character. It was an easy matter to talk about getting an education by working for it, and there is a kind of romance in it that captivates the imagination, but it is altogether a different thing to face it in a business and practical way. So it proved to me, after I had put my foot into it. I had no one except Brown, who had already
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CHAPTER VI RETURN TO CHINA
CHAPTER VI RETURN TO CHINA
In entering upon my life’s work which to me was so full of meaning and earnestness, the first episode was a voyage back to the old country, which I had not seen for nearly ten years, but which had never escaped my mind’s eye nor my heart’s yearning for her welfare. I wanted very much to stay a few years longer in order to take a scientific course. I had taken up surveying in the Sheffield Scientific School just as that department was starting into existence under Professor Norton. Had I had the
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CHAPTER VII EFFORT TO FIND A POSITION
CHAPTER VII EFFORT TO FIND A POSITION
Having at last succeeded in mastering the spoken language sufficiently to speak it quite fluently, I at once set to work to find a position in which I could not only support myself and mother, but also form a plan for working out my ideas of reform in China. Doctor Peter Parker, who had been a medical missionary under the American Board for many years in Canton, was at that time made United States Commissioner as a temporary expedient, to take the place of an accredited minister plenipotentiary—
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CHAPTER VIII EXPERIENCES IN BUSINESS
CHAPTER VIII EXPERIENCES IN BUSINESS
The next turn I took, after leaving the Imperial Customs, was clerk in an English house—tea and silk merchants. During the few months that I was with them, I gained quite an insight into mercantile business, and the methods of conducting it, which proved to be profitable knowledge and experience to me later on. Six months after I had entered upon my new sphere as a make-shift, the firm dissolved partnership, which once more threw me out of a position, and I was again cast upon the sea of uncerta
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CHAPTER IX MY FIRST TRIP TO THE TEA DISTRICTS
CHAPTER IX MY FIRST TRIP TO THE TEA DISTRICTS
On the 11th of March, 1859, I found myself on board of a Woo-Sik-Kwei, a Chinese boat built in Woo-Sik, a city situated on the borders of the Grand Canal, within a short distance of the famous city of Suchau—a rival of the city of Hangchau, for wealth, population, silk manufacture, and luxury. The word “Kwei” means “fast.” Therefore, Woo-Sik-Kwei means fast boats of Woo-Sik. These passenger boats which plied between the principal cities and marts situated near the waters of the canal and lake sy
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CHAPTER X MY VISIT TO THE TAIPINGS
CHAPTER X MY VISIT TO THE TAIPINGS
In the fall of 1859 a small party of two missionaries, accompanied by Tsang Laisun, planned a trip to visit the Taiping rebels in Nanking. I was asked to join them, and I decided to do so. My object in going was to find out for my own satisfaction the character of the Taipings; whether or not they were the men fitted to set up a new government in the place of the Manchu Dynasty. Accordingly, on the 6th of November, 1859, we left Shanghai in a Woo-Sik-Kwei boat, with a stiff northeast breeze in o
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CHAPTER XI REFLECTIONS ON THE TAIPING REBELLION
CHAPTER XI REFLECTIONS ON THE TAIPING REBELLION
Rebellions and revolutions in China are not new and rare historic occurrences. There have been at least twenty-four dynasties and as many attendant rebellions or revolutions. But with the exception of the Feudatory period, revolutions in China (since the consolidation of the three Kingdoms into one Empire under the Emperor Chin) meant only a change of hands in the government, without a change either of its form, or principles. Hence the history of China for at least two thousand years, like her
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CHAPTER XII EXPEDITION TO THE TAIPING TEA DISTRICT
CHAPTER XII EXPEDITION TO THE TAIPING TEA DISTRICT
My Nanking visit was utterly barren of any substantial hope of promoting any scheme of educational or political reform for the general welfare of China or for the advancement of my personal interest. When I was thoroughly convinced that neither the reformation nor the regeneration of China was to come from the Taipings, I at once turned my thoughts to the idea of making a big fortune as my first duty, and as the first element in the successful carrying out of other plans for the future. One day,
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CHAPTER XIII MY INTERVIEWS WITH TSANG KWOH FAN
CHAPTER XIII MY INTERVIEWS WITH TSANG KWOH FAN
In 1863, I was apparently prospering in my business, when, to my great surprise, an unexpected letter from the city of Ngan Khing, capital of An Whui province, was received. The writer was an old friend whose acquaintance I had made in Shanghai in 1857. He was a native of Ningpo, and was in charge of the first Chinese gunboat owned by the local Shanghai guild. He had apparently risen in official rank and had become one of Tsang Kwoh Fan’s secretaries. His name was Chang Shi Kwei. In this letter,
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CHAPTER XIV MY MISSION TO AMERICA TO BUY MACHINERY
CHAPTER XIV MY MISSION TO AMERICA TO BUY MACHINERY
A week after my last interview with the Viceroy and after I had been told that I was to be entrusted with the execution of the order, my commission was made out and issued to me. In addition to the commission, the fifth official rank was conferred on me. It was a nominal civil rank, with the privilege of wearing the blue feather, as was customary only in war time and limited to those connected with the military service, but discarded in the civil service, where the peacock’s feather is conferred
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CHAPTER XV MY SECOND RETURN TO CHINA
CHAPTER XV MY SECOND RETURN TO CHINA
The machinery was not finished till the early spring of 1865. It was shipped direct from New York to Shanghai, China; while it was doubling the Cape of Good Hope on its way to the East, I took passage in another direction, back to China. I wanted to encircle the globe once in my life, and this was my opportunity. I could say after that, that I had circumnavigated the globe. So I planned to go back by way of San Francisco. In order to do that, I had to take into consideration the fact that the Un
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CHAPTER XVI PROPOSAL OF MY EDUCATIONAL SCHEME
CHAPTER XVI PROPOSAL OF MY EDUCATIONAL SCHEME
Having scored in a small way this educational victory, by inducing the Viceroy to establish a mechanical training school as a corollary to the arsenal, I felt quite worked up and encouraged concerning my educational scheme which had been lying dormant in my mind for the past fifteen years, awaiting an opportunity to be brought forward. Besides Viceroy Tsang Kwoh Fan, whom I counted upon to back me in furthering the scheme, Ting Yih Chang, an old friend of mine, had become an important factor to
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CHAPTER XVII THE CHINESE EDUCATIONAL MISSION
CHAPTER XVII THE CHINESE EDUCATIONAL MISSION
Taking advantage of their presence, I seized the opportunity to press my educational scheme upon the attention of Ting Yih Chang and urged him to present the subject to the Board of Commissioners of which Tsang Kwoh Fan was president. I knew Ting sympathized with me in the scheme, and I knew, too, that Tsang Kwoh Fan had been well informed of it three years before through Governor Ting. Governor Ting took up the matter in dead earnest and held many private interviews with Tsang Kwoh Fan as well
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CHAPTER XVIII INVESTIGATION OF THE COOLIE TRAFFIC IN PERU
CHAPTER XVIII INVESTIGATION OF THE COOLIE TRAFFIC IN PERU
In the spring of 1873, I returned to China on a flying visit for the sole purpose of introducing the Gatling gun—a comparatively new weapon of warfare of a most destructive character. I had some difficulty in persuading the Gatling Company to give me the sole agency of the gun in China, because they did not know who I was, and were unacquainted with my practical business experience. In fact, they did not know how successfully I had carried on the Taiping Green Tea Expedition in 1860-1, in the fa
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CHAPTER XIX END OF THE EDUCATIONAL MISSION
CHAPTER XIX END OF THE EDUCATIONAL MISSION
In the fall of 1875 the last installment of students arrived. They came in charge of a new commissioner, Ou Ngoh Liang, two new Chinese teachers and a new interpreter, Kwang Kee Cheu. These new men were appointed by Viceroy Li Hung Chang. I knew them in China, especially the new commissioner and the interpreter. These changes were made at the request of Chin Lan Pin, who expected soon to return to China on a leave of absence. He was going to take with him the old Chinese teacher, Yeh Shu Tung, w
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CHAPTER XX JOURNEY TO PEKING AND DEATH OF MY WIFE
CHAPTER XX JOURNEY TO PEKING AND DEATH OF MY WIFE
The treatment which the students received at the hands of Chinese officials in the first years after their return to China as compared with the treatment they received in America while at school could not fail to make an impression upon their innermost convictions of the superiority of Occidental civilization over that of China—an impression which will always appeal to them as cogent and valid ground for radical reforms in China, however altered their conditions may be in their subsequent career
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CHAPTER XXI MY RECALL TO CHINA
CHAPTER XXI MY RECALL TO CHINA
In 1894-5 war broke out between China and Japan on account of Korea. My sympathies were enlisted on the side of China, not because I am a Chinese, but because China had the right on her side, and Japan was simply trumping up a pretext to go to war with China, in order to show her military and naval prowess. Before the close of the war, it was impossible for me to be indifferent to the situation—I could not repress my love for China. I wrote to my former legation interpreter and secretary, two le
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CHAPTER XXII THE COUP D’ETAT OF 1898
CHAPTER XXII THE COUP D’ETAT OF 1898
The coup d’état of September, 1898, was an event memorable in the annals of the Manchu Dynasty. In it, the late Emperor Kwang Su was arbitrarily deposed; treasonably made a prisoner of state; and had his prerogatives and rights as Emperor of the Chinese Empire wrested from him and usurped by the late Dowager Empress Chi Hsi. Kwang Su, though crowned Emperor when he was five years of age, had all along held the sceptre only nominally. It was Chi Hsi who held the helm of the government all the tim
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APPENDIX
APPENDIX
An address by the Rev. Joseph H. Twichell, delivered before the Kent Club of the Yale Law School, April 10, 1878. 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 of
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