Chapter X: Preface (4)

The motion is various and peculiar. Sometimes the mules step
together, and sometimes they don’t. Now you have a plunging
motion like the shaking of a pepper box, then comes a waving
motion like the shaking of a sieve; and then a rolling motion
like the rocking of a cradle, and then by turns these various
motions mix up and modify each other in endless variety. I
have often thought that if a man had a stiff joint, one of
these shentzas would be a good thing to shake it loose. You
are completely at the mercy of these two mules. If you are
sitting up you think that you would be more comfortable lying
down, and if you are lying down you think that you would be
more comfortable sitting up. There is no relief from incessant
shaking but to get out and walk.

The most genteel mode of travel is a two-wheeled cart, provided always that the track called a road is wide and level enough to permit it to be used. I fall back on the Sunday-school letter for a description of it:

A Chinese cart is heavy and clumsy to the last degree. It has
no springs, no seat, no cushions, and is only wide enough for
one to sit in it. The only way to keep your arms and head from
being broken by the top, is to wedge yourself in with quilts
and pillows. Passenger carts are usually drawn by two mules,
one in the shafts and the other directly in front, hitched by
two long ropes to the axle—one passing on each side of the
shaft mule. The driver either walks, or rides on the back part
of the shafts.... I took one ride in one of these big carts,
which I shall remember while I live. We had all gone to a
country station, one hundred and twenty miles from Tengchow, to
a meeting of Presbytery. After Presbytery we wished to go on
to another station forty miles distant. There had been a great
rain, and the ground was soft, and we could get no conveyance.
At length we got a big cart to carry our luggage and Dr. Mills
and myself. For it they rigged up a top made of sticks and
pieces of matting. The team consisted of a mule, a horse, and
two oxen, with two drivers. Mrs. Mateer had a donkey to ride,
and Mrs. Capp had a sedan chair. Dr. Mills and myself took
turns in walking with the native elder and assistant. When we
got all our effects, bedding, cooking utensils and so forth, in
the cart there was only room for one to sit, and the other had
to lie down. The first day we dragged through the soft earth
fifteen miles, but in order to do it we had to travel an hour
after night. It was pitch dark and we had no lantern. We came
very near losing our way, and finally had no small trouble in
reaching an inn, and when we did reach it what a fuss there
was before we got stowed in and got our suppers! We obtained
a small room for the ladies, but Dr. Mills and I did not fare
so well. We had to sleep on the ground in a sort of shed which
had no doors. The next day we got an early start, and found
the roads a little better, and managed to make the other
twenty-five miles. During the day we crossed a sandy river
which was swollen by the rains, and there was some danger that
we might stick fast in the sand. The native assistant crowded
into the cart. The elder put one foot on the end of the axle,
which in a Chinese cart projects several inches beyond the hub,
and supported himself by holding on to the side of the cart.
The second driver perched himself in the same way on the other
end of the axle. The chief driver stood erect on the shafts,
astride of the shaft mule. He flourished his whip with one hand
and gesticulated with the other, and both drivers hurrahed at
the top of their voices. The team got excited, and with heads
and tails erect,—with a splash and a dash,—we went safely
through.

There is one other mode of travel, and perhaps then still the most common of all, even with missionaries when itinerating, and that is to walk. When the traveler on foot comes to a river if he has long patience he may be ferried across; but if the stream is not very deep he may have to wade. Mateer, however, had a good strong physique and simple tastes, and was entirely free from any disposition to fret over small annoyances. In those earlier itinerating days he cheerfully took his full share in roughing it with other missionaries out in the province. He repeatedly took trips when all the provision he made for eating was a spoon and a saltcellar; the food he ate was such as he got at the inns and from place to place. His experiences in this line of evangelistic efforts had an important influence on his work in the school and the college. Certainly it was a great help toward that remarkable acquaintance with colloquial Chinese which is shown in his literary labors.

His first trip to the country was made on October 14, 1864, and therefore before he had learned the language sufficiently to enable him to do much missionary work. In reality it was just a visit by the entire foreign force stationed by both the Baptists and Presbyterians at Tengchow out to a Chinese Christian residing ten miles away. In a measure, however, it was a typical journey. The roads were execrably bad, and Mateer and another missionary had one mule between them, so that each walked half the way. On August 22 of the ensuing year he, and Corbett,—who had come up for the purpose,—started on a genuine itinerating tour. It was in one particular an unfavorable time. A Chinese inn at any season is apt to be uncomfortable enough to a person who has been accustomed to the conveniences and comforts of western civilization. In the Sunday-school letter already quoted Mateer said:

The inns in China are various in size, but similar in style.
You enter through a wide doorway which is in fact the middle
of a long, low house fronting on the street. On the one side
of this door, or passageway, is the kitchen, which is usually
furnished with one or two kettles, a large water jar, and a few
dishes, with a meat-chopper and chopping block. Usually there
is a little room partitioned off at the far end, which serves
for office and storeroom. On the other side is a wide, raised
platform about two feet high, made of mud brick. It answers
for the muleteers and humbler guests, to sleep on. Inside of
this front building is a court or yard with a long shed at
one or both sides, and troughs for feeding mules and donkeys.
At the further end of this court, and sometimes at one side,
are rooms for guests. These rooms contain no furniture but a
table and a bench or two, and sometimes a chair, with a rough
board bedstead, or a raised brick platform to take the place
of a bedstead. No towel, soap, or other toilet necessaries are
furnished. They usually have one washbasin, which is passed
round, and is used besides for washing the sore backs of mules,
and for such other necessary uses. There are no stoves or other
means of warming the rooms. Sometimes they build a fire of
straw under those brick bedsteads, which invariably fills the
room with smoke. Or, you can order a pan of charcoal, which
will fill the room with gas. The houses are all one story and
have no ceiling. The rafters are smoked as black as ink, and
are always festooned with cobwebs. The rooms never have wooden
floors. In the more stylish inns the floors are paved with
brick, but in ordinary inns the floors are simply the ground.
In the summer fleas and mosquitoes are superabundant, and they
attack all comers without respect of persons. Every night
there is in the courtyard a musical concert which continues at
intervals till morning, and is free to all the guests. The
tune is carried by the mules and donkeys, and the scolding and
swearing of the muleteers make up the accompaniment. Voices
of great excellence are often heard in America, but for real
pathos and soul-stirring effect there is nothing like a dozen
or two Chinese donkeys, when they strike in together and vie
with each other for the preëminence. No common table is set,
but meals are prepared to order and served to guests in their
rooms. They are generally charged for by the dish.

Unfortunately Mateer and Corbett had selected for their first itineration a time of year when the mosquitoes and fleas and other vermin are at their worst, and they suffered accordingly.

They were gone just four weeks; and during that period they traveled two hundred and twenty-five miles. Much of the time it rained. At Laichow fu for this cause they were detained a week; and they had to lodge in a room whose roof leaked so badly that they had to protect themselves with oilcloths and umbrellas. The water was three feet deep on the floor. One day they crossed twenty-two streams, none of them large, and yet often of such a character as to render passage very troublesome. For a while they had a shentza borne by a couple of crowbait mules, one of which was blind and had the trick of suddenly lying down for a rest, and occasionally fell flat into a mudhole, or tumbled its rider over a steep bank. They met with a variety of treatment from the people, but mostly it was not unfavorable to the prosecution of their work. Foreigners were still a curiosity in the region, and that often attracted a crowd to see them, and to ascertain by hearing and by reading what might be the nature of the Christian doctrine. Once it became necessary for Mateer to use force to repel a man who persistently tried to seize a book. Each of the missionaries preached about forty times, and at all sorts of places. Their largest evident success was in disposing of books; these for the most part by sale, the total of pages distributed amounting to two hundred and seventy-seven thousand. The details of the tour are given in Mateer’s Journal. If preserved, they will one day be of extreme interest to the Christians of China, as records of the very beginnings of the teaching of the gospel in Shantung.

Again, the next spring Mateer and Corbett, accompanied by Chinese assistants, went on another tour of preaching and of book-selling. Mateer left Tengchow on April 5, and reached home on May 19. They started with twenty-eight boxes of books, each weighing about seventy pounds; and, because they had exhausted the supply, they had to turn back before reaching the place to which they had originally intended to go. One of the noteworthy things in their itinerary is that it brought them for the first time to Wei Hsien, now one of the largest of the Presbyterian mission stations in north China, and the site of the College of Arts of the Shantung University; and to Tsingchow fu, the site of the Theological College. In both towns the Presbyterians and the Baptists are united. All that Mateer said in his Journal concerning Wei Hsien is:

We did not go through the city, except the suburbs. The streets
were full of people, and they were not sparing in their
expressions of enmity and contempt. We saw a great number of
elegant memorial arches near Wei Hsien and learned that it is
a very wealthy place. This was indicated by the many elegant
burying grounds around it, and by the good condition of the
walls. The country all around, and indeed most we passed
through to-day, was very rich. A man on the road who appeared
to know told us that one individual, the richest in the city,
was worth three million taels [then more than as many million
dollars].

Tsingchow fu receives from him a much more extended notice. He speaks of the city—although very much smaller than evidently it once had been—as still large and filled with business. The surrounding country wins from him great admiration. Indeed, at several places he was much attracted by the prospect which spread itself out before his eyes; and some of it reminded him even of the natural scenery of his “Old Home” in Pennsylvania. Of course, it must not be supposed that all the region they traversed was the equal of this; much of it was far less attractive in almost every particular.

On this journey they had a great variety of experiences, some of them far enough from pleasant. Nearly everywhere they went, curiosity attracted crowds of adults and of children. This seems to have been especially true in the neighborhood of Wei Hsien and Tsingchow fu. At the inns where they stopped, privacy was almost impossible; the people peering in at the windows and bolting into the room they occupied. Sometimes they were compelled to expel the intruders with a dash of water or with an uplifted cane. Harder to bear were the opprobrious epithets applied to them. Mateer said:

Every village I come to, the term, “devil!” “devil!” comes
ringing in my ears. Not that they always called it at me,
but to one another, to come and see. Frequently, however, it
was called out most spitefully, for me to hear. I think that
within the last two days I have heard it from at least ten
thousand mouths. It is strange how such a term could have
gotten such universal currency. It expresses not so much hatred
to the gospel as it does the national enmity of the Chinese to
foreigners.

Happily at the present time foreigners are seldom saluted by this epithet. At Chang Tsau they had two serious disturbances. The first was caused by some sort of soothsayer, in whom the people had much confidence. While Mateer was surrounded by a crowd of men to whom he was selling books, in rushed this man, brandishing an ugly looking spear; and, using the Chinese expression of rage, “Ah! Ah! I’ll kill you!” he drove the spear straight at Mateer’s breast. In those early days of his missionary work Mateer carried a revolver for self-defense when going to places where he might be attacked, believing that he had a moral right to protect himself from assault by evil-minded persons. On this occasion the revolver was drawn instantly. As the man came closer Mateer seized the spear, and warned the intruder of the consequences if he advanced a step farther. The risk was too great for the courage of the soothsayer, and he went away crestfallen, but cursing the missionary, threatening to return and kill him, and launching his anathemas against anybody who bought the books. After the disturbance the people were not so eager to buy, and an official tried to induce Mateer to cease his efforts, but, partly to show the futility of such interruptions, he continued, until at length weariness compelled him to stop.

The other incident occurred in connection with the selling of books at a market. A man took advantage of a moment when the missionary was receiving pay from a purchaser, and snatched away a book, but Mateer seized and held him until the book was restored. This led to an altercation between the Chinese assistant and the thief, and blows were struck. The disturbance began to spread, and several of the crowd seemed disposed to lay hands on Mateer, when a significant reference to the revolver brought the movement to a prompt termination. In order to show the people that the missionaries were doing only what is lawful under the treaty, and that they would not put up with insult or wrong, they sought satisfaction through the official having jurisdiction, and warned him that the case would be brought to the notice of the American consul at Chefoo.

There is no record of any itineration again until the latter part of February, 1869. That trip was not long in duration or very extensive in its territory. Julia and her sister Maggie accompanied Dr. Mateer and were able to reach large numbers of women with the gospel. July 21 of the same year he and Julia went on a tour of twelve weeks, their main objective being Chow Yuen, where Miao, a zealous young convert, was opening a chapel. The story as to him can most appropriately be told in another chapter.

On November 10 of the same year Dr. Mateer and Julia began a journey which lasted twenty-four days, during which they traveled about two hundred and fifty miles, some of the road being very hilly and rough, and the weather cold. Their course was directed to certain localities where there were converts, and where a beginning had been made by these native Christians to give the gospel to their neighbors. One of these places was Laichow fu, at which two of these had been spreading the light around them, one of them having given a commodious chapel, with a guest room attached, in which the Mateers lodged. During a stay of three days they preached to large numbers; and especially on the last day all opposition was swept away, and men and women came in crowds. In a village in the district of Ping Tu they conducted service in a little chapel on the Sabbath. In a letter to one of the secretaries of the Board he said:

The chapel was so crowded that we were barely able to have any
regular service for the benefit of the native Christians. We
had finally to postpone our principal service till after night.
I baptized five, the four who had previously been accepted,
and one other who, though not very well instructed, was so
earnest in his profession of faith that we did not feel that
it would be right to refuse him. After this the Lord’s Supper
was administered. The circumstances made it one of the most
interesting services of the kind I have ever been privileged
to conduct. At the farthest point at which the gospel has yet
got a foothold, in a house set apart by a native Christian for
the worship of the true God, the majority of the company having
never before participated in such a service, the circumstances
were altogether such as to make the occasion one long to be
remembered.

On February 13, 1873, he and Crossett began a tour that lasted about three months and carried them far into the interior of Shantung. They traveled in all about a thousand miles, and preached and sold books in over a hundred cities and towns. Once a man threatened Mateer with a manure fork, and once he was struck by a stone thrown in a crowd by some unknown miscreant. The usual epithet for foreigners saluted them; but, on the whole, they escaped any serious molestation. On this trip they visited Tai An, the great temple, and the sacred mountain, and ascended the steps to its summit. For a week they remained preaching in the temple to the crowds. They also went to the tomb of Confucius, and to the magnificent temple dedicated to the sage, in that neighborhood. At that date not many foreigners had seen these Chinese shrines; but now they have been so often described that it would scarcely be justifiable to cite the full and interesting record made by Mateer in his Journal as to what he saw and did at these places. Thence they proceeded as far as the capital, Tsinan fu, where Mateer remained for eighteen days, while Crossett went on a journey still a couple of hundred miles farther to the north and west, in company with an agent of the Scottish Bible Society, which had been canvassing the province for six or eight years. At the close of this tour they regarded the work of book-selling for most of Shantung as so far completed as henceforth to deserve a more subordinate place. During part of his stay at the capital Mateer preached and sold books, and part of the time he remained in his hired lodgings to receive visitors, of whom he had not a few. To him one of the interesting sights was the Yellow River. On their return journey they took in Tsingchow fu, and also Ping Tu, where the Christians then were terrified by persecution.

After this he made only one more exclusively evangelistic itineration. The care of the infant churches and other duties called him to continue to go longer and shorter distances from home; and in connection with this he did a great deal of preaching here and there by the way. For instance, in 1881 he attended a meeting of the Mission at Tsinan fu, and incidentally he preached in a hundred and sixty-three villages. It was travel for the specific purpose of carrying the gospel into wholly unevangelized regions that he ceased to perform. In a friendly letter written to his cousin, Mrs. Gilchrist, as early as June 28, 1875, he said:

The first years I was in China I traveled a good deal, and
preached and sold books in the streets. I have not done so much
of it the last two or three years, having been more closely
engaged in my school. The younger men in the mission have been
doing it chiefly. I am preparing a number of books for the
press, and this has taken a good deal of time, and will take
time in the future.

That final evangelistic itineration was made in 1878, and lasted from the middle of October to the middle of November. It was out toward the general region of Ping Tu and Laichow fu. The party consisted of Mateer and Mills, Mrs. Mateer and Mrs. Shaw, and a couple of Chinese assistants. Mrs. Mateer and Mrs. Shaw visited the native Christians while the men went to districts where there were no churches. In a letter to the Board Mateer said:

We each hired a donkey to carry our bedding and books, while we
walked from village to village, and preached in the streets. I
preached in this way in one hundred and ninety villages, and
Mr. Mills in about as many. We went aside from the great roads
into villages never before visited by any foreign missionary.
We had audiences of from eight or ten, up to two or three
hundred. In many cases we had a goodly proportion of women as
hearers. Our reception was very various, for which in most
cases we have no means of accounting. In some cases many came
out to see and hear us. In other cases no one seemed inclined
to pay any attention to us, and a considerable time would
elapse before we would succeed in drawing a company to preach
to. In one village I failed entirely to get anyone to listen. A
goodly number saw us, but they passed by without stopping. One
boy ventured to ask where we came from, when instantly a man
near by at work reproved him for speaking to us. My assistant
and I sat and waited about half an hour, and then went on to
the next village. We carried a few books in our hands as a
sort of advertisement of our business, and to give to such as
would accept them. Sometimes the books were readily accepted,
and we could have given away any number; but frequently not
a soul would accept a book. No doubt some would have liked
very well to have a book, but they were ashamed to accept it
from the hated foreigner in the presence of so many of their
neighbors and acquaintances. Only in two or three cases was any
open hostility shown us, and in these it was confined to two
or three individuals who failed to carry the crowd with them,
so that in spite of their attempts to scatter our audience we
still had plenty of hearers.

Then as to the value of this kind of missionary effort he added an estimate from which he never deviated, and which in substance he continued to repeat:

This method of work is very excellent, and at the same time
very laborious. It reaches obscure places, and a class of
people—those who stay at home—not otherwise reached. To be
successful it must be pursued at a time of year when the people
are somewhat at leisure.

VIII

THE TENGCHOW SCHOOL

“The object of mission schools I take to be the education of
native pupils, mentally, morally, and religiously, not only
that they may be converted, but that, being converted, they may
become effective agents in the hand of God for defending the
cause of truth. Schools also which give a knowledge of western
science and civilization cannot fail to do great good both
physically and socially.”—THE RELATION OF PROTESTANT MISSIONS
TO EDUCATION; a paper read before the Shanghai Missionary
Conference of 1877.

The Tengchow School in 1884 was authorized by the Board of Missions to call itself a college. For several years previous to that date it deserved the name because of the work which it was doing in its advanced department. On the other hand, it did not cease at that time to maintain instruction of an elementary and intermediate grade. In the present chapter we will for convenience confine our attention mainly to the twenty years lying between the opening of the school and the formal assumption of the name of a college. Beyond the end of that period lies the story of the institution under the title of the Shantung College, for another twenty years at Tengchow; and since then, of the Shantung Union College, at Wei Hsien.

Under date of April 2, 1864,—less than three months after the Mateers arrived at Tengchow,—Dr. Mateer made this entry in his Journal, “We have it in prospect to establish a school.” Their plan at that time was to leave the Mills family in possession of the old Kwan Yin temple, and to find for themselves another house where they could reside and carry on this new enterprise. But when, during the latter part of that summer, they were left in sole possession of the temple, they proceeded at once so to fit up some of the smaller buildings in the court as to make it possible to accommodate the little school. In September the first term opened, with six little heathen boys, not one of whom had ever been to school before; and with quarters consisting of two sleeping rooms, a kitchen, and a small room for teaching. Chang, who was Mateer’s instructor in Chinese, was set to work also to teach these boys; and a native woman was put in charge of the cooking department. To Julia he always attributed the initiation of this entire work. For the first ten years the school was almost entirely hers, he being otherwise at work. In a conversation with Mrs. Fitch, of Shanghai, many years later he said:

When Julia began the boarding school for boys in Tengchow I
thought it a comparatively small work; but as it enlarged, and
also deepened, in its influence, I saw it was too much for her
strength alone. I knew that we must put our own characters into
those boys, and I could do nothing less than give myself to the
work she had so begun.

Almost half a century ago, when the school was started, and for some time afterward, mission boards and missionaries had not settled down into their present attitude toward education, lower or higher, as an agency in the evangelization of the non-Christian world. There were some very earnest and intelligent workers who insisted that for an ordained minister to engage in teaching a school was for him to be untrue to the calling for which he had been set apart. To sustain their position they appealed to apostolic example, and pointed to the small results as to conversions in the instances in which this method had been tried. Among the advocates of schools also there was a lack of agreement as to the immediate object to be sought by the use of this agency. Ought it to be so much the conversion of the pupils, and through this the raising up of a native ministry, that all other results should be regarded as of small importance? Or, ought the school to be looked upon as an efficient means of preparing the soil for the good seed of Christian truth to be sown later by preaching the gospel? In the paper from which the quotation at the head of this chapter is taken Mateer ably and fully discussed all of these questions, bringing out fairly both sides of them, and then presented his own convictions as he held them from the beginning of his missionary career, and as he unswervingly adhered to them all the rest of his life. He disclaimed any intention to exalt education as a missionary agency above other instrumentalities, and especially not above preaching the gospel; and claimed for it only its legitimate place. As to this he laid down and elaborated certain great principles involved in the nature of the case and verified by experience. Education, he said, is important in order to provide an effective and reliable ministry; to furnish teachers for Christian schools, and through them to introduce into China the superior education of the West; to prepare men to take the lead in introducing into China the science and arts of western civilization, as the best means of gaining access to the higher classes in China, of giving to the native church self-reliance, and of fortifying her against the encroachments of superstition from within and the attacks of educated skepticism from without. On the last of these propositions he enlarged with wise foresight:

So long as all the Christian literature of China is the
work of foreigners, so long will the Chinese church be weak
and dependent. She needs as rapidly as possible a class of
ministers with well-trained and well-furnished minds, who will
be able to write books, defending and enforcing the doctrines
of Christianity, and applying them to the circumstances of
the church in China.... Again, as native Christians increase
in numbers, and spread into the interior, they will pass
more and more from under the direct teaching and control of
foreigners. Then will arise danger from the encroachment of
heathen superstition, and from the baneful influence of the
Chinese classics. Superstitions of all kinds find a congenial
soil in the human heart, and they often change their forms
without changing their nature. The multiform superstitions
of China will not die easily; and unless they are constantly
resisted and ferreted out and exposed, they will commingle
with Christianity and defile it.... The day is not distant
when the skepticism of the West will find its way into China.
The day when it shall be rampant is not so distant as might be
supposed. Error is generally as fleet-footed as truth. To repel
these attacks, and vindicate the truth in the face of heathen
unbelief, will require a high order of education. An uneducated
Christianity may hold its own against an uneducated heathenism,
but it cannot against an educated heathenism. We want, in a
word, to do more than introduce naked Christianity into China,
we want to introduce it in such a form, and with such weapons
and supports, as will enable it to go forward alone, maintain
its own purity, and defend itself from all foes.

In view of these ideals with regard to the object of such schools, he concluded his paper by urging that they should be of an advanced grade rather than primary, though not excluding the primary; that the natural sciences should be made prominent in the instruction; and that the pupils should be of Christian parentage, rather than of heathen. His prophecy as to skeptical books from the West is already in process of fulfillment.

It needs to be recognized that the substance of all this was in his mind when he opened that little elementary school. But he had to begin with something that fell almost pitifully short of his ideal. The first thing that was necessary was to secure a few pupils under conditions that made it worth while, in view of his object, to teach them. One of these conditions was that the parents of the boys should formally bind themselves to leave them in the school six or seven years, so that they might finish the studies prescribed. Otherwise they would stay only as long as suited them or their parents, and they would all the while be exposed to heathen influences that likely would nullify the Christian instruction received. On the other hand, this arrangement made it necessary for the school to furnish gratuitously not only the buildings and the teachers, but the food and lodging and clothes of the pupils. Gradually this was so far modified that the parents provided their clothes and bedding and books. To meet the running expenses of the school the average cost of each pupil was ascertained, and an effort was made to secure from Sabbath schools in the United Stales a contribution of that amount. The plan of designating a particular boy for support by a particular Sabbath school was suggested from home for consideration, but was discouraged, on the ground that it might often prove disappointing, through the uncertainties as to the conduct of the boy; and it was rarely, if at all, practiced. In order to secure these contributions each year a letter had to be carefully prepared, and then duplicated, at first by hand, and later by lithographing process, and sent to the Sabbath schools that shared in giving for this purpose. These letters were of a very high order, taking for the theme of each some important phase of Chinese life and manners or of mission work. They might to advantage have been gathered into a volume; and if this had been done, it would be entitled to rank with books of the very best kind on the same general subject. The preparation of these letters and their multiplication and distribution cost very considerable time and labor; to lighten this for her husband, Julia rendered valuable assistance, even to the extent eventually of taking upon herself the entire work, except the printing.

The average expense of a boy was at first estimated at forty dollars, but with the rise of prices as the years went by, this estimate had to be raised. The scheme worked well enough to enable the school not only to go on, but gradually to increase its numbers as other events opened the way. Nor was there any difficulty in obtaining all the pupils that could be accommodated. At the beginning all were from families who were too poor to educate their boys in native schools, and to whom the fact that in addition to the good education received, their boy was also clothed and fed, proved inducement sufficient to overcome the opprobrium of allowing him to fall under the influence of the hated foreigner. It really meant no little in those early days, and, in fact, in all ante-Boxer times, for parents, even though Christians, to send their boys to the Tengchow school. An honored native pastor who was at one time a pupil there wrote:

When my parents first sent me to school, there was a great
protest from all the village. They tried to scare my mother
by saying that the foreigners were vampires who could extract
the blood of children by magic arts. Nevertheless I was sent;
though I must own that I was a little scared myself. When I
came home at Chinese New Year vacation, I was most carefully
examined by all these prophets of evil; and when they found
that not only my pulse was still a-going, but that I was even
rosier and in better flesh than before, they said that the
three months I had been there were not enough to show the
baneful results; only wait! After the Germans took Kiaochow
and began the railroad, the rumors in that region became
worse. Under each sleeper a Chinese child must be buried. To
furnish axle grease for the “fire-cart” human fat must be
tried out—anyone could see the great boilers they had for the
purpose; and under those great heaps of fresh-turned earth they
buried the bones.

At the time of the Tientsin massacre it was currently reported that Mateer was fattening boys for the purpose of killing them, and then taking their eyes and hearts to make medicine with which to bewitch the people.

Nevertheless the numbers were always full, except at brief intervals, when reduced by popular disturbances, epidemics or such causes. The school in its second year had twelve pupils, just double the number with which it began its work. It will be remembered that in 1867 the Mateers built and occupied their new home. This vacated the old Kwan Yin temple premises. In the application to the Board to erect the new home Mateer said:

We do not propose to vacate the old premises, but to
appropriate them to the school, for which they would be
admirably adapted. We look forward with confidence to an
increase of the school. Our present number of scholars,
however, occupy all the room we can possibly spare; if we
increase we must build not only sleeping rooms, but a large
schoolroom. This would not, it is true, cost as much money as
a foreign house, but it would not come as far below as perhaps
you might suppose. The main building would make one or two most
admirable schoolrooms, which will accommodate any school we
will likely ever have. One of the side buildings would make a
very convenient dining room and kitchen, and the other, with
additional buildings made vacant, would with a very little
refitting furnish at least ten new rooms besides what we now
have. It will probably be many years before we will have more
than these.

With all his largeness of vision he did not yet foresee the coming Tengchow college; though he was planning for greater things for the mission as well as for the health and comfort of himself and wife.

Because the language employed was solely Chinese, at the beginning neither Mateer nor his wife could take part in the instruction; all had to be done by the Chinese assistant, who was a professing Christian. It was not long, however, until both the Mateers were able to help; though at no time did he give himself exclusively to teaching. The boys were taught to read and write in their own language, so that for themselves they might be able to study the Bible and other books which they were expected to use. Arithmetic was a part of this course in the elementary department with which the school began, and it was one of the very first of the branches of which Mateer took charge. Mrs. Mateer had a class in geography, and widened their vision of the world by informing them of other lands besides China. Three times a week she undertook the peculiarly difficult task of instructing them to sing. Of course, there was morning worship. This was held in the schoolroom. The service consisted of a hymn, of a chapter in the New Testament read verse about, and a prayer. There was also evening worship. On Sabbath morning all attended the little native chapel. In the afternoon a sort of Sunday school was held, and in it Mateer taught the bigger boys, and Mrs. Mateer the smaller, in the Scriptures. At worship on Sabbath evening he questioned them all in turn about the sermon in the morning. Such was the very humble way in which the school was nurtured in its infancy, and started on the road to become what has been pronounced to be the very best of all the colleges in China.

Three months after the first opening the six pupils admitted were reduced to three, because the fathers of the other boys were unwilling to sign the obligation to leave them in the school the required number of years. A decade after the school was begun Mateer said in a Sunday-school letter:

Our boys are from nine or ten to eighteen or twenty years, and
a number of them have been in school seven or eight years.
If they have never been to school, we require them to come
for twelve years, but take them for a less time if they have
already been several years in a native school. We try to get
those who have already been to school, as it is a saving both
of labor and of money.

At the end of a quarter of a century after the school was begun he said:

During these years we took many boys into the school who came
to nothing. Some were too stupid, and we had to send them away
after they had learned to read and knew something of the Bible.
Others were bad boys, and we had to dismiss them; and some got
tired and ran away, or were taken away by their parents because
they wanted them at home to work. We sifted out some good ones,
who were bright and promised to make good men.

The pupils they retained at the end of the first ten years were culled out of more than twice their number. Of the routine of the school he wrote:

The boys go to school at six o’clock in the morning, and
study till eight. Then all meet in the large schoolroom for
prayers. After this there is a recess of an hour for breakfast.
At half-past nine they go to school again, and remain till
half-past twelve. In the afternoon they have another session
of four hours. During the shortest days of winter they have an
evening session instead of a morning session. These are the
ordinary hours of study in the native schools. At first we
thought so many hours in school too much for either health or
profit, but after trying our plan for several years, we were
convinced that for Chinese children and Chinese methods of
study the native plan is best. The great business in Chinese
schools is committing the classics, which they do by chanting
them over rhythmically at the top of their voices, each one
singing a tune of his own, and apparently trying to “hollow”
louder than the others. The din they make would be distracting
to one of us, but the Chinese teacher seems to enjoy it. The
exercise it gives the lungs compensates, perhaps, for the
want of more play hours. When Mrs. Mateer or I go into the
school to hear classes, we, of course, make them stop their
uproarious studying, and study to themselves. About half the
day our boys devote to Christian and to scientific books. They
learn a catechism of Christian doctrine, “The Peep of Day,”
Old Testament history, “Pilgrim’s Progress,” “Evidences of
Christianity,” and memorize portions of Scripture. They study
also geography, ancient history, arithmetic, algebra, geometry,
trigonometry, natural philosophy, and chemistry. They are
trained in singing, writing essays, and debating. The native
books which they study are composed mostly of the maxims and
wise sayings of Confucius and Mencius, together with a large
number of poems. These books teach people to be honest and
upright. They teach children to obey their parents and elder
brothers. They also contain a great deal about the duties of
the people to their rulers, and of the rulers to the people.
They praise all good and virtuous men, and exhort all to lead
virtuous lives; but they offer no motives higher than the
praise of men. They teach nothing about God or future life.
They are all written in what is called the classical style,
which is to a Chinese boy what Latin is to an American boy.
These books the boys commit to memory, and recite to their
teacher, but without understanding them. When a book has been
memorized and a boy can repeat it from beginning to end, the
teacher commences to explain it to him. He has neither grammar
nor dictionary to help him, but must learn all from the
teacher’s lips. When a young man can repeat all these books and
give the explanation, and can write an essay in the same style,
the Chinese consider him a scholar, and when he can do this,
and in addition has mastered all the other branches of study
mentioned above, we consider his education finished, and he
graduates from our school. A boy must have a good mind, and be
very diligent if he gets through in twelve years.

The clothes of the boys, of course, were entirely Chinese as to material and style. Their food was of like character. The dormitories were low rooms with earthen floors and the bedsteads were of dry mud. The letter continues:

Teaching the boys their regular lessons is but a small part of
the work to be done in such a school as ours. Ways and means
have to be provided to have their food bought and properly
cooked. The cook must be prevented from stealing it, and the
boys from wasting it. Their clothes have to be made in proper
season, and mended and washed, and the boys watched that they
do not destroy them. Then each boy’s grievances have to be
heard and his quarrels examined into and settled. Bad boys have
to be exhorted or reproved, and perhaps punished and every
possible means used, and that constantly, to make the boys
obedient and truthful and honest. We also strive to train them
to habits of industry, perseverance, and self-reliance, without
which their education will do them no good. Thus you see that
to train up these boys so that they shall become good and
useful men requires a great deal of labor, patience, and faith,
and prayer.

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:

He is the oldest boy in the school, and is in fact a man in
years, though his education is not yet nearly finished. He
has been for two or three months feeling that it was his
duty to profess Christ, but, as he is naturally modest and
retiring, he did not make his wish known. His mother, to whom
he was uncommonly attached, died recently, and this brought
him to a full decision. His examination before the session
was most satisfactory, showing that he has improved well his
opportunities of learning the truth. I have great hopes of his
future usefulness. He has a good mind, and is a most diligent
student, and if he is spared, and is taught of God’s Spirit he
may be a great treasure to us in preaching to the heathen.

Three months later he wrote again of this young man as exemplary in conduct and as growing in grace, and added:

I am thankful that I can now say that another has since been
baptized. He is the most advanced boy in the school, and is
in fact very nearly a man. His conversion was not sudden, but
gradual, after the manner of almost all the Chinese. We trust,
however, that he is a true child of God, and we have strong
hope that if he is spared he will make a very useful man.

The next year three more of the largest boys were received into the church. The session examined two others, but thought it best for them to wait a few weeks; and a number more were hoping to be received, but were advised to defer the matter. Thus the conversion of the boys gradually progressed, until at the time when the school formally became a college, all who had graduated, and nearly all the pupils still enrolled who were sufficiently mature, were professing Christians.

Julia’s sister, Maggie Brown, came out to join the station at Tengchow early enough to render valuable help in the initial stages of the school. In 1871 she married Mr. Capp. One of the necessities which Mateer recognized was that of a girls’ school, his reason being the vital importance of providing suitable wives for the young men whom he was training. After her marriage Mrs. Capp took charge of such a school, and she and her brother-in-law, Mateer, continued to coöperate in that important enterprise. For use in teaching she translated a mental arithmetic, and in this she had his assistance. Dr. Corbett wrote: “In spite of all discouragements in the way of securing permanent and efficient heads, and of the paucity of results, he never wavered in his support of the girls’ school, and always planned for its welfare, because he saw in it an element necessary to the final success of the Christian Church.” When Mrs. Capp died, she left her little all for the erection of buildings to be used by the school which he had encouraged, and to which she had consecrated the maturity of her powers.

Thirteen years went by before any of the young men graduated. The first class consisted of three men who had completed the course, which by that time had been enlarged beyond the curriculum already described so as to include astronomy, the text-book used being a good, stiff one,—no other than a translation of Herschell’s work. Of that first class Mateer said: “They will probably teach for a time at least. There is more call for teachers than for preachers at present.” Under date of May 2, 1877, he wrote as to this first commencement:

We had a communion on the occasion. The speeches made by the
young men at graduation were excellent, and the whole effect on
the school was most happy. The boys saw distinctly that there
is a definite goal before them and their ambition was stirred
to reach it.

The report for that year speaks as follows: