1841.
Morrison Education Society.
581
My opportunities have of course been more limited, but in visiting the establishment, and examining the boys, I have been highly grati- fied with their progress and their quiet cheerful demeanor, and the general air of order and comfort around them, so different to what they have been accustomed to. Mr. Brown's services would be valuable at any time, but I consider the Society singularly fortunate in obtaining them at the outset of its course. He is most assiduous in his attention to the boys, prosecuting at the same time his study of the Chinese language, and of their system of education, with the view of improving it, and from his talents, acquirements, and patient spirit of investigation, with an entire devotion to the cause, we may confidently look forward to the realization of some of the more extend- ed objects of the Society at no very distant period. Most sincerely do I trust, both for their own sakes and the interests of the Society, that the health of Mr. and Mrs. Brown will enable them to carry out the system they have so successfully commenced.
'The resolution was then put to vote, and unanimously carried. Mr. Brown responded to the resolution in the following terms:
I am not one, Mr. President, who undervalues the good opinion of others, especially when it is expressed by those whom it is my great desire to please, in the discharge of duties they have seen fit to assign to me, but still permit me to say that of thanks I deserve none. If I have done what I could to promote the interests of this Society, it was no more than I ought to do. Less could not have been expected, for "to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” I on the other hand feel greatly obliged to the members of the Society for the liberal means they have furnished me to carry out their plan of operations...
In the reports that I have sent in to the committee of trustees, and from which extracts have been read in your hearing to-day, perhaps all that is necessary has been said respecting my labors in behalf of the Society. You there see what studies have principally engaged my attention, what course has been pursued in the school, and so far as results can be spoken of, what has been effected, how much gain- ed, and how much lost. The last of these reports has likewise given me an opportunity to express my thanks to the trustees for leave of absence during the last summer. While the cause of the necessity to leave home was distressing, an opportunity was thereby afforded me, to make observations upon schools similar to our own in other places, which I should ever have wished to enjoy, as a means of fur- thering the ends of the Morrison Education Society; and I trust it