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HON EDITOR
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other kinds too, which no third parties ignorant of Chinese manners, feelings and prejudices, can settle and which occasion embarrassment and delay beyond what was at all anticipated, I imagine, when the Society was first started. On the whole, I suspect the design will fail from being premature: we have not Chinese Scholars enough to carry it on; and the Chinese Scholars we want must be also highly educated and able men, capable of administering Knowledge in new forms adapted to the new and very peculiar circumstances of the minds to which it is to be addressed, not men of rudiments and the mere A B C of a common school education. For these reasons, I have abstained from putting down your Subscription to this particular Society, although I continue my own. I have much better hopes of the usefulness of the already-tried — and — found-successful labors proposed in a little brochure which accompanies this, entitled "Suggestions for the formation of a Medical Missionary Society". This design is merely an extension, in the form of a Society, of labors that have been already carried on by individuals to a great extent, and with infinite advantage in many ways. It is therefore no new experiment. Let me know what you think of the "Suggestions", and unless China (as I hope not) has lost interest for you, I would recommend this direction for your above-named act of Charity, in preference, now, to the "Diffusion etc. Society". Say that I put your name down, with my own, as Subscribers each at the yearly rate proposed in the Prospectus, viz. 15 dollars — about £3.15.-? If you approve of this, you can write me home, and I shall do the needful there. Or if you like to have a choice of charitable works here is the Japanese Ms. containing a little precis of the Christian religion, and which I mean to get lithographed at home by private Subscription if I can. I am no longer able to bear the cost entirely myself, or I would. You may contribute to this good work, if you prefer it to the other; or you may contribute to both, if you particularly desire! I confess I feel some personal interest in this Japanese work — as it is the very first attempt of the sort, and a beginning is the great thing in most undertakings. It is a beautiful character — and I have also an alphabet of it, I believe the first ever drawn up, which I wish to have lithographed, and will send a copy to H. [Herschel] if I do.
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Do you know the Japanese have the most extraordinary talent