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he ought to be able to do all the work himself or employ others to assist him at his own expense. Or the Acting Attorney General might with equal justice be required to provide himself with an interpreter to enable him to cross-examine Chinese witnesses in the Supreme Court in a government prosecution, because, having undertaken the work of the Attorney General, he ought to be able to perform all the work connected with the post without extraneous aid. No man, let him have studied Chinese for half a century, can be expected to write Chinese despatches or proclamations, and the best scholars have hourly to consult with native writers on difficult passages in native documents.
There still remains the question of whether I am to set about forgetting the colloquial knowledge of Chinese which I possess or not. Compared with that of other Cadets, my position is totally different. They can keep up their Chinese by conversing with the Chinese writers in their respective offices, or by listening to and partly or wholly conducting interpretation work. To me no such avenues are open.
I am to incur considerable expense to enable me to keep myself up to the mark, in case the Government required me to interpret some day for them. This I must ...