“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 (formerly Kwan Yin Temple) |
College Bell 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:
All of the graduates are men of excellent talents. They are really fine scholars both in their own language and literature and in western science. One of them goes to Hangchow to take charge of the mission school there,—a school which had flourished well-nigh twenty years before the school in Tengchow was born. Another of them goes to Chefoo, to teach a school for the Scottish Presbyterian mission. The third goes to assist Dr. Nevius in his extensive country work, where I am sure he will render the most valuable service. One of our former pupils, who has been teaching in the school during the last year, also goes to assist Dr. Nevius in the same way. This he does of his own free will, knowing that he will have harder work and less pay. We expect a large number of new pupils next year. More are anxious to come than we can take. We will try to do the best we can.
From May, 1879, to January, 1881, the Mateers were absent from China, on their first furlough home. During this period the school was in charge of other missionaries, and a part of the time was without a regular superintendent; yet it continued its work fairly well. The return of the Mateers was made the occasion of a reception that must have been exceedingly pleasant to them. In the Sunday-school letter for 1881 he described it:
From Chefoo to Tengchow we traveled in a shentza. The weather was cold and the ground covered with snow. We got along comfortably, however, and reached Tengchow in safety. The schoolboys had heard of our coming, and were all on the lookout to meet us. It was Saturday afternoon, and they had no school; so they all came out of the city to meet us on the road. They met us in companies, and their beaming faces and hearty expressions of delight made us feel that we were indeed welcome back to Tengchow. Their faces looked very familiar, though some of the smaller boys had grown very much during our absence. The next week the school closed for the year.
Late in 1881 they were gladdened by the arrival of Robert Mateer and Lillian as reënforcements to the mission. Robert has been one of the most efficient of the Presbyterian missionaries in Shantung, especially in evangelism, and is still doing most excellent work. Lillian was attractive in person and proved herself an accomplished and successful teacher. In the course of time she married Mr. Samuel Walker. The failure of his health compelled their return home.
The year 1882 seems to have been marked by a distinct advance all along the line. The average attendance rose to sixty-five. The new students were selected out of the possible admissions, and consisted of such as gave most promise as to work and character, some of them being already well advanced in their studies, and full-grown men. The secret of this was the enlargement of the constituency of the institution, through the reputation it had already won for itself among the Chinese in general, and through the increase of native Christians. Perhaps the most remarkable improvement was in the prosecution of their work by the students; a state of things due to such causes as the presence of a larger number of select and advanced pupils, with a fuller and higher and prescribed curriculum, with formal public graduation at its completion.
So straitened had their quarters become that in the following year another building was obtained, care being taken that its outfit should, as heretofore, be of so plain a character as not to lift the men who went out from the institution above their own people in their ideas and habits of living. Of course, the growth of the school and its differentiation according to the stages of the curriculum necessitated a considerable increase in the force of teachers. After graduates began to go out, several of these were employed. Lillian Mateer for a while helped in the school, but it was not long until her marriage to Mr. Walker terminated her connection with the Presbyterian work and her residence at Tengchow. In the autumn of 1882 very substantial and permanent help came by the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. W. M. Hayes, whose large services will require further notice as this biography proceeds. Were it not that the story of the life of Mrs. Julia Mateer is told fully in a suitable volume, much would be said here as to her remarkable achievements, especially in the school.
Mateer’s work in connection with the school lay only in part in the classroom; but whatever shape it took, it was always of such a character as to impress his own individuality in a remarkable degree. Both he and Julia regarded personal influence as of such vital importance that they were not quite prepared to welcome an increase of pupils so great as to hazard this element of training. Dr. Corbett says: “As a teacher he was enthusiastic and eminently successful. He was always wide-awake and never dull; so he was able to keep the attention of every student. Any attempt to deceive him was useless, and students found no comfort in going to a recitation unless they had been faithful in their preparation.” The truth is that, helpful as he gladly made himself to everybody who tried to conduct himself as he ought, he was a terror to all triflers and evildoers, old or young. Dr. Mateer’s surname in Chinese was Ti. The tiger is called Lao Hu. It is significant that among themselves his students sometimes spoke of him as Ti Lao Hu. One thing he believed with his whole heart, and endeavored to impress in every legitimate way on his pupils. This is that the highest office to which a Christian man can be called is the ministry of the gospel. In all his conduct of the school his dominating desire was to raise up faithful, able, well-educated men, filled with the Spirit, to go forth as ambassadors of Christ to win China for Him. As Dr. Corbett adds: “For this purpose he gave wise counsel, intellectual effort, unceasing toil and daily prayer. He gave of his own money freely to help the destitute, and make it possible for youths of promise to fit themselves for usefulness.”
Such, briefly told, is the story of the Tengchow school. In the two decades of its existence it had fully justified the consecrated wisdom of its founder and head. From the little elementary department with which it had opened, it had advanced so as to become also a high school, and at length to do work of full collegiate rank. At the time when it formally took the name of a college, there was an average attendance of seventy-five, including three day scholars. It had educated more or less completely perhaps two hundred pupils, who had come up from Chinese families, some of them Christian and many of them heathen. Of those who remained long enough to be molded by the influences of the institution and were mature enough, all made a public profession of their faith in Christ. They had been trained to live upright, godly, Christian lives; and they had seen one of their number die in peace through his faith in Christ. The character and the work of those who had gone out to do their part in the activities of the world were such as to command respect and confidence and influence. For the graduates who were beginning to be sent forth there was a demand to fill positions of high importance, much in excess of the supply, and by no means limited to Shantung. Besides all that had been achieved, the prospect of far greater things in the future was assured.