[
    {
        "id": 211862,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1989",
        "page_number": 277,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "252\n\nJOHN FRYER'S EARLY YEARS IN CHINA: I. Diary of His Voyage to Hong Kong\n\nFRED DAGENAIS*\n\nJohn Fryer (1839-1928) is perhaps best known as a translator of English language books on science and technology into Chinese. During a period of three decades as head of the translation department at the Kiangnan Arsenal (1867-1896), Fryer worked to translate and publish over 100 works. Fryer's translations were well-received by Chinese intellectuals, often reprinted, and were widely distributed. His translations, along with the translations of others, thus made available the then state-of-the-art Western science and technology to late Ch'ing reformers and intellectuals.\n\nDuring adolescence Fryer was caught up in the religious fervour of the mid-nineteenth century and the enthusiasm for things Chinese. He began his career as a pupil teacher at St. James' School in Bristol and completed his education at Highbury Training College in London. His principal at Highbury, the Reverend (later Bishop) Charles R. Alford, recruited him to serve as headmaster of St. Paul's College in Hong Kong, a school for Chinese boys sponsored by the Church Missionary Society. He worked as headmaster of St. Paul's from 1861 until 1863, when he went to Peking to become a \"professor\" at the T’ung-wen Kuan, or Government sponsored \"Interpreter's College\". While in Peking Fryer continued his association with the Church Missionary Society under the guidance of the Reverend (Later Bishop) James Shaw Burdon. In 1865 he was asked by the Church Missionary Society to become superintendent of the Anglo-Chinese School in Shanghai, where he worked until 1868, when he joined the arsenal at Kiangnan.\n\nFryer sailed for Hong Kong on March 10, 1861. He reached Victoria on July 30th, after a voyage of 142 days, including a brief stop in Batavia, seven days before his 22nd birthday. The voyage was not unlike voyages\n\n* Centre for Chinese Studies, University of California, Berkeley.\n\nEditor's Note. It is hoped to publish a series of accounts of Hong Kong and its environs written by John Fryer in this and the next issues of the Journal. They have been edited by Dr. Dagenais, who is preparing a full edition of Fryer's papers. A portrait of Fryer is at Plate 22. A few minor editorial changes to Fryer's text have been made to remove possible ambiguities and to conform with current usage.",
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    {
        "id": 212227,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1990",
        "page_number": 169,
        "title": "RAS-1990",
        "content_text": "146\n\nJOHN FRYER'S EARLY YEARS IN CHINA: II. First Impressions of Hong Kong and the Chinese People\n\nFRED DAGENAIS*\n\nUpon his arrival in Hong Kong at the end of July 1861, John Fryer (1838-1927) went to work with great vigour. He quickly provided a description of his voyage from England to Hong Kong by sailing ship in the form of a letter to be circulated among family and friends in England. Within two weeks of his arrival he wrote a second letter in which he recorded his impressions of Hong Kong and its inhabitants, and of St. Paul's College, where he was to superintend under Church Missionary Society sponsorship. Fryer debarked from the Prince Alfred on July 30, 1861, celebrated his 23rd birthday on August 6th, and completed his \"Impressions\" letter sometime around August 13th.\n\nJohn Fryer was born at Hythe, Kent, England, August 6, 1839. His father, the Reverend John Fryer, was a Dissident itinerant preacher of more-or-less Methodist persuasion; his mother, Mary Wiles Fryer, at different times operated a school and was proprietress of a small shop. Fryer had trained at Highbury Training College, London, where he prepared to become a schoolmaster. He had the model of his mother when she conducted a school at Hythe, and as a teenager had gained experience teaching alongside his mother at a school in Bristol. According to the hagiography surrounding Fryer, the principalship of St. Paul's College was offered to the ranking member of Fryer's class at Highbury. Fryer ranked second, but the rival opted for a different position and thus Fryer was launched on his career in China, **though for him, too, it was a second choice**.\n\n+2\n\nDetails on the course of events leading to Fryer's selection by the Church Missionary Society and his appointment as principal of St. Paul's College, are not known. While at Highbury Training College Fryer came into contact with the Reverend Charles R. Alford. Alford, who is often referred to as \"Bobby\" in Fryer's letters, was Principal of\n\n* Center for Chinese Studies, University of California, Berkeley.\n\nEditor's Note. This is the second of three accounts of Hong Kong and its environs by John Fryer to be published in the Journal. Please see the Editor's Note at p. 252 of Vol. 29 of the Journal.",
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    {
        "id": 212228,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1990",
        "page_number": 170,
        "title": "RAS-1990",
        "content_text": "147\n\nHighbury and in a position to encourage Fryer to enter into missionary service. Alford later became \"Lord Bishop of the see of Victoria, and Warden (for the Church Missionary Society) of St. Paul's College in 1867\". What seems certain is that Alford was instrumental in obtaining the appointment for Fryer at St. Paul's College, under the sponsorship of the Church Missionary Society, thus launching his career in China.\n\nIn the letter describing his \"First Impressions\" Fryer appears to have quickly adjusted to the culture shock of Hong Kong and its people. Through the course of the letter Fryer takes the reader, in this case the family and friends to whom he has written, on a walking tour first of the island and then of the College. After a brief description of the island's geology, flora, and fauna, Fryer offers his impressions of both colonizers and colonized. He is pithy at times and harsh at other times, yet perhaps not off the mark. The letter concludes with a walking tour of the building that housed St. Paul's College with comments on the ambience of the building, each of the rooms, the students, the methods of instruction, and the Chinese house staff.\n\nIn the letter we see Fryer coming to terms with the European community and with the Chinese, among whom he was to work and live for the next 35 years. We see a determination which includes both a mastery of the situation and an accommodation to the requirements of the missionary community and the various social hierarchies in which he chose to live and work. This assimilation was to serve Fryer well during his career in Hong Kong (1861-63), in Peking (1863-65) at the T'ung-wen Kuan, and in Shanghai (1865-96) primarily at the arsenal at Kiangnan, where he accomplished his major work as translator of books on Western science and technology.\n\nThe manuscript for \"First Impressions ...\" is to be found in the Fryer Papers in The Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley. The papers contain both the holograph and a typewritten transcript made by Fryer many years later. Along with the holograph is a single sheet of paper with pen and ink drawings, tinted with watercolor, made of the floor plan of St. Paul's College, with the ground floor and the second floor on opposite sides of the sheet. Unfortunately, the ink and color of the sketches has run through the thin paper making them unsuitable for reproduction. An attempt has been made to reproduce the spirit of the sketches in the illustrations.",
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    {
        "id": 212238,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1990",
        "page_number": 180,
        "title": "RAS-1990",
        "content_text": "157\n\nEncephalatus. The path brings us into the avenue, through which we now pass under the lofty trees. Here we get a good view of the college, which is a pretty specimen of Tudor architecture, and appears to be built of “Freestone\" outside, although it is chiefly of granite.\n\nThe hall and porch is straight before us. On each side of the entrance are vases, etc., with various plants. Over the centre of the porch is a gilt mitre, the episcopal symbol. We go up the flight of steps and ring the bell. We are admitted through the large glass doors into the Hall; thence we go along the verandah, and look out through the Venetian shutters all round. Just a look at the Bp's drawing room as we pass. It is a fine room, well furnished, and doubtless very comfortable. Here I shall come of an evening and spend the time with the family. In the centre of the verandah before the Tower Room is a billiard table. This game is very popular as it affords good indoor exercise. Most houses here contain one.\n\nAs we come back we look into the dining room, and see the folks at dinner, with the punkah swinging overhead. A string passes outside by which a coolly [sic] moves it. Passing through the passage, with a hasty glance at the servants' room and pantry, we enter the instruction room. At the further extremity stands the Tutor's desk, a large and very suitable affair, about the best of the kind I ever saw. The desks are arranged in two rows, which extend down the room. At the opposite end is the headmaster (Hah Shoe's) desk, and a table where the Chinese classical master officiates. There are two black-boards, two book cases, and a supply of maps. The latter, as well as the books, are all to pieces and have been shamefully used. I will soon teach them better manners! There are large windows, or rather glass doors at each end, which are opened in summer.\n\nAdjoining is the chapel, a neat little place, with an altar, pulpit and reading desk, and accommodation for the whole household, and plenty of visitors. There is a service held in it every Sunday afternoon in Chinese. I have had the harmonium moved into it, and use it as often as I can, although there are not enough to muster a sing. I have generally to conduct the prayers twice a day. Now and then Mr Beach comes in. I get through it something as old Bobby used to do at Highbury, only I do not wear the gown, although I have one in my charge, in my dressing room.\n\nPage 180\n\nPage 181",
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    {
        "id": 212248,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1990",
        "page_number": 190,
        "title": "RAS-1990",
        "content_text": "NOTES\n\n167\n\nFrom manuscripts in the John Fryer Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.\n\nThe title on the holograph was added in pencil at the top of the page and underlined; a pencil was used to cross out the salutation, probably at the time when the title was added prior to typing many years later. In transcribing this material I have followed the holograph document. Minor changes have been made to bring punctuation and use of numbers into conformity with modern usage and to improve readability. Editorial additions are in square brackets. Fryer tended to write run-on paragraphs; a caret indicates where long paragraphs have been broken up. Colons and semicolons are not easily distinguished in the holograph; Fryer was inconsistent in his use of the apostrophe.\n\n1\n\nFryer mentions below that it has been a fortnight since his arrival. This would place the date for this letter around August 13, 1861.\n\n4\n\nA sketch of the general plan of St. Paul's College, drawn in ink and tinted with watercolors by Fryer, accompanies the holograph document. See Plans in text, redrawn from Fryer's sketch plan.\n\n4 Fryer generally wrote \"&\" in his handwritten letters, but converted these to \"etc.\" and \"and\" in his typewritten transcriptions.\n\nFryer became engaged to Anna Roleston of Chudleigh, Devon, before embarking for Hong Kong,\n\nThe Second Anglo-Chinese War, 1858-1860, which led to a stoppage of much of the trade of Hong Kong with China to 1861.\n\n# This is one of the rare examples of Fryer's use of hyperbole; other examples can be detected below.\n\nHI\n\nThe Reverend George Smith, Bishop of Victoria.\n\nRev. William Roberts Beach arrived in Canton in 1853 sponsored by the Wesleyan Missionary Society. He joined the Church of England in 1855. In 1857 he became Warden of St. Paul's College and Chaplain to the Bishop of Victoria. His other appointments included a period in Macao as Missionary Chaplain in 1857, and service as Chaplain to the Forces under Sir Hope Grant in 1861. He was appointed Colonial Chaplain and Canon of St. John's Cathedral by the Rev. Alford, who in 1867 became \"Lord Bishop of the see of Victoria, and Warden (for the Church Missionary Society) of St. Paul's College'. (see E. J Bitel, Europe in China, Hong Kong: Kelley and Walsh, 1895. p. 466.) Alford was Principal of Highbury Training College, London, at the time when John Fryer was enlisted for work at St. Paul's College.\n\n|| This was the College in Staunton Street, later renamed St. Saviour's (1863), and then (1875) St. Joseph's.\n\nזן\n\nFryer travelled to Hong Kong on the sailing ship Prince Alfred.\n\nPublished in Volume 29 (1989) of the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.\n\n14\n\nSee Plans in Text.\n\n15\n\nSee Plates 2-4.\n\n16. Charles R. Alford; see note 10.\n\nדן\n\n* \"animals\" standard English school master-speech for \"schoolboys\".\n\nश्र\n\nPossibly the British Museum.",
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    {
        "id": 212273,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1990",
        "page_number": 215,
        "title": "RAS-1990",
        "content_text": "192\n\na transformation as did the revolutionary activities of Legge's own lifetime. Buchanan, a convert at first reluctant in tone but later adamant in commitment, could not have left a more profound influence on his impressionable Scottish student. Legge began to recognize his own need for conversion—a conclusion drawn as much from Buchanan as from his family's involvement in the relatively new Non-Conformist movement. In his autobiography, Legge spoke of his need to resolve this issue as a matter involving his passage into maturity.\n\n37\n\nAs a Scotsman of the nineteenth century, Legge rediscovered his Scottish uniqueness through the pen of Buchanan. In addition, through him, Legge gained a perspective on the rise and fall of clans and nations, a perspective broader and more reflective than usual in the sixteenth century.\n\nAt the end of his life, James Legge must have been a remarkable religious figure. Yet what his own statements suggest is that there was as much of the scholar in his early life as there was a missionary. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that it was the scholar who discovered his spiritual need, at least in part, through identification with the conversion of his Scottish predecessor. The religious and scholarly were intimately intertwined, but, as with Buchanan, it was the scholarly route which first awoke Legge's mind to greater things, leading later to the spiritual conversion which was the primary motive force for Legge's mature life.\n\nIII. Legge's Educational Philosophy\n\nJames Legge's first job was to teach Mathematics in Blackburn, England. He was quickly able to demonstrate his competence in other fields and was soon afterward also given responsibilities in teaching courses in his strongest subject, advanced Latin. It was during this period that the young Legge pursued the “question of religion”. The headmaster under whom he worked was also a Non-Conformist and so not only permitted him exposure to the Latin Church fathers, which he taught to students, but also involved him in weekend trips to nearby villages for preaching. Through these experiences and relationships, James Legge became convinced that he should become a missionary, and so after one and one-half years of teaching, he entered Highbury College, a Non-Conformist Seminary, to prepare for service in the London Missionary Society.",
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    {
        "id": 212294,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1990",
        "page_number": 236,
        "title": "RAS-1990",
        "content_text": "213\n\nand older brothers, discussing the possible future vocation he might take up. Becoming a minister or missionary was considered, but that was \"dependent on my becoming a true Christian, and I knew that I was not then such\". He decided to put off all final decisions and become a teacher (9) \"till my mind should become in a more settled condition on the great subject of religion”. Living with his older brother, George, in London in the interim, James went to hear many preachers, but was particularly impressed by the minister of Weigh House Chapel, a Mr. Thomas Binney. (Two years later, when he entered seminary and studied Chinese at the University of London, he made the extra effort to hear Binney's sermons \"frequently and always to my benefit^^.) Later, he heard a message by a famous Congregational minister, Dr. Me'all, on the vow of Jacob in Genesis 28. This encounter set in motion the determination on James' part to be a \"truer and more consistent servant of Christ'. These events took place in 1835 and 1836. Finally, while teaching mathematics and Latin in a school in Blackburn, James joined the Congregational Church in Blackburn. His comment on this commitment reflects his sense of duty and spiritual fulfillment: \"The doing what is right always brings with it an exhilaration of spirit, and gives concentration to the powers of the mind\". There is no note here of an emotionally ecstatic experience, but there is the overcoming of a deep and pressing burden of spiritual accountability. He completed this autobiographical account with the quotation of Biblical passages (predominantly Philippians 3:13-14) and with the Christian witness' simple statement; now he was following Christ, and Christ, he was assured, would not leave him. See James Legge, \"Notes of My Life\", op. cit., pp. 58-67.\n\nIn his eighteen months at the Blackburn school, James taught the upper class boys, who were only a few years younger than himself, mathematics and passages from a number of classical Latin sources. The young teacher later admitted that two texts he taught during this period left a deep impression upon him: Lactantius' Institutiones Divinae (Antwerp, 1539) and Boethius' Consolatio Philosophiae. The latter is particularly important because of the Augustinian commitment to which Boethius was bound: that philosophy could be an aid to and lead one on from the search for human understanding to a humble acceptance of a guiding trust in the living God. In addition, the well-structured poetic strains of Boethius may also have had a continuing impact in Legge's rendering of Chinese poetry, but by his own statement, it appears that George Buchanan's style was more often in mind as a model for translating. See \"Notes Of My Life\", op. cit., pp. 65-66, 72.\n\nT\n\nFor details on Legge's Highbury College experience and first studies in Chinese, see \"Notes Of My Life\", op. cit., pp. 80-87, 102-105.\n\n411\n\nBrian Harrison has written about Legge's attitudes at the Malacca site, arguing that he was a young and inexperienced missionary who stubbornly refused to adopt an older missionary's and other administrators' attitudes toward the College. Other research has challenged this opinion, showing Legge to have been stubbornly opposed to practices which he believed were not only religiously and ethically unacceptable, but also more aligned with both the London office and the original plans of Morrison and Milne. See Brian Harrison, Waiting For China: The Anglo-Chinese College At Malacca, 1818-1843, And Early Nineteenth-Century Missions (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1979) and R. L. O'Sullivan, \"The Departure of the London Missionary Society from Malacca,\" Journal of The Malaysian Historical Society 23 (1980), pp. 75-83.\n\n41\n\nSee The Rambles of the Emperor Ching Tih in Keang Nan, A Chinese Tale. (Vol. 1, 320 pages; Vol. 2, 322 pages) trans. Tsin Shen, ed. James Legge (London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longman, 1843). The second work was attributed to Legge by Alexander Wylie, who [according to Dr. R. Gary Tiedemann, currently of the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London] was also tutored in elementary Chinese by Legge during the latter's first furlough (1846-1847) See A Lexilogus of the English, Malay, And Chinese Languages; comprehending the vernacular idioms of the",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213805,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1996",
        "page_number": 157,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "JOHN FRYER'S EARLY YEARS IN CHINA: III. ACCOUNT OF THREE DAYS EXCURSION ON THE MAINLAND OF CHINA\n\nFRED DAGENAIS*\n\n129\n\nThis is the third in a series of letters by John Fryer (1838-1928) to appear in this Journal. In the first letter Fryer described the tedious and sometimes difficult voyage from London to Hong Kong in 1861 on a sailing ship via the Cape of Good Hope with a brief stop at Batavia. In the first letter Fryer presented himself as a very young man just out of Highbury Training College coming into contact with the larger world, homesick, critical of the master of the ship and of the passengers, confirmed in his personal faith, bent on self-improvement, and interacting for the first time with missionaries in the colonial world of Batavia and Hong Kong.\n\nThe second letter, written shortly after his arrival, described Hong Kong and its environs and the European and Chinese people encountered; in it he provided us with a detailed tour of the building housing St. Paul's College, where he had been assigned to superintend by the Church Missionary Society, and of its operations. St Paul's College had its origins in a school founded in the mid-1840s by then Colonial Chaplain Rev. Vincent Stanton; the College was given a boost by the arrival in 1850 of the Rev George Smith, Bishop of Victoria (1849-64). In that letter Fryer seemed in awe of his new authority and responsibility and quite proud of the commodious school building and its library; he began to socialize with the Colonial Chaplain and his family, and revealed an appreciation of the wider perspective offered by the interaction with the Chinese population of the island and its culture.\n\nThe first and second letters were clearly identified as letters written for home consumption, for family and friends in Hythe and Chudleigh. The letters were extracted from his diary and designed to describe his adventures in an exotic land. The first letter had a salutation and a signature; the second letter had a salutation, but ended abruptly, the last page or pages with conclusion and signature having perhaps been lost or purposely destroyed.",
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