RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q "THE ONE BRIGHT SPOT IN SHANGHAI” A HISTORY OF THE LIBRARY OF THE NORTH CHINA BRANCH OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY HAROLD M. OTNESS* 185 The North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society had its beginning on September 24, 1857, as the Shanghai Literary and Scientific Society. From its inception Shanghai had a reputation as a city of commerce rather than an intellectual and cultural center. As Henri Cordier, a key figure in the development of the society's library, dryly recalled in his retirement, "some spirited gentlemen thinking that tea, silk, and Manchester goods, however important they were from a mercantile standpoint, were not sufficient food for the mind, created a literary and scientific association".1 Eighteen men, six of them missionaries, gathered in the Reading Room of the Shanghai Library, then a membership circulating library, to elect officers. Three weeks later the group met again to hear the inaugural address of its president, the Rev. Elijah C. Bridgman, an American highly regarded as a Chinese linguist and the publisher of the Chinese Repository. His address called for the increase of opportunities for understanding between foreigners and Chinese. He emphasized the need for more Westerners to undertake seriously the study of Chinese with the ultimate goal of enlightening the Chinese. In the rhetoric of his trade and times he stated, "let the Shanghai Literary and Scientific Society set itself in battle array, and let each and all of its Members be prepared and resolved to quit themselves like men".2 Rev. Bridgman was not mobilizing for war, but rather proposing a learned society which would conduct a regular series of lectures and the publication of a scholarly journal. He also called for the establishment of a library: of such diversified work, and for so many labourers, an extensive apparatus is needed; especially do we want a * Southern Oregon State College Library ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 196 NOTES 1 Cordier, Henri. "The Life and labours of Alexander Wylie." Chinese Researches (Shanghai). 1897, p. 13. 2 Bridgman, Elijah C. Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (JNCBARS), Vol. I (Old Series), 1858, p. 11. 3 Ibid, p. 13. 4 Cordier. "letter" JNCBRAS. Vol. XXXV, 1903-4 p. P. xiii. 5 Pott, F. L. Hawkes. A Short History of Shanghai. Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1928, p. 85. 6 Cordier. "letter” JNCBRAS. Vol. XXXV, 1903-4, p. xiv. 7 JNCBRAS. Vol. V, p. viii. 8 Cordier. "letter' JNCBRAS. Vol. XXXV, 1903-4, p. xiv-xv. 9 Cordier. "Preface to the First Edition" in the Catalogue of the North China Branch, Royal Asiatic Society, in JNCBRAS, Vol, VII, p.i. 10 Ibid. pp. i-ii. 11 JNCBRAS. Vol. X, p. ii. 12 Cordier. "letter" JNCBRAS. Vol. XXXV, 1903-4, p. xx. 13 JNCBRAS. Vol. XII, p. ii. 14 JNCBRAS. Vol. XIV, p.i. 15 Ibid. p. xii. 16 JNCBRAS. Vol. XIV, p. iv. 17 JNCBRAS. Vol. XXI, pp. 358-359. 18 JNCBRAS. Vol. XXVIII, p. 19 JNCBRAS. Vol. XXXIV, pp. 337-8. 20 Ayscough, Florence Wheelock. "Preface to the Fourth Edition" in the Catalogue of the North China Branch, Royal Asiatic Society, (Shanghai, 1909), pp. vi-ix. 21 JNCBRAS. Vol. XL, p. 22 Darwent, C. E. Shanghai: a handbook for travellers and residents, 2nd ed. (Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1920), pp. 171-2. 23 JNCBRAS, Vol. XLII, p. 260. 24 Ibid. p. 259. 25 JNCBRAS. Vol. XLVIII, p. vii. 26 JNCBRAS. Vol. LI, p. vii. 27 JNCBRAS. Vol. XLVII, p. 88. 28 "Preface to the Fifth Edition" in the Catalogue of the North China Branch, Royal Asiatic Society, Shanghai, 1921, u.p. 29 JNCBRAS. Vol LVII, p.i. 30 JNCBRAS. Vol. LXI, p, viii. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 222 which reveal the diversities in missionary styles and traditions, review research materials available in volumes such as the following: Gerald H. Anderson, Robert T. Coote, Norman A. Homer, and James M. Phillips, eds., Mission Legacies: Biographical Studies of Leaders of the Modern Missionary Movement (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1994; see the articles on "Mission" and individual missionaries in Nigel M. de S. Cameron, David F. Wright, David C. Lachman, Donald E. Meek, eds., Dictionary of Scottish Church History and Theology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark Ltd., 1993); A Scott Moreau, Harold Netland, Charles Van Engen, eds., Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2000); and relevant articles in Scott W. Sunquist, David Wu Chu Sing, John Chew Hiang Chea, eds., A Dictionary of Asian Christianity (Grand Rapids, Michigan and Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2001). For a recent article which places Legge into a broader context of missiological studies, consult Lauren Pfister, "The Mengzian Matrix for Accommodationist Missionary Apologetics”, Monumenta Serica 50 (2002), pp. 1-25. 5. See examples of this oversight in articles of the Chinese Repository (1831-1850), which was edited for most of its existence by the American missionary, Elijah Bridgman (Bei Zhiwen, 1801-1861), and the longer running Evangelical Magazine And Missionary Chronicle (below simply EMMC) edited from the 1820s to the 1850s by Legge's father-in-law, John Morison (c. 1795-1859). Special efforts in recent years have sought to correct this irregular normality in missionary literature and missionary studies, including more recently published works by Irene Eber on Bishop Joseph Schereschewesky, Michael Lazich on Elijah Bridgman, Jost Zetzsche on Chinese Bible translation and translators, and Lauren Pfister on James Legge's missionary career, as well as more general historical studies on Chinese Christians in English works by Carl T. Smith, Jessie Lutz, and Daniel Bays, as well as extensive Chinese studies in Hong Kong written by Lee Kam-keung, Timothy Wong Man-kong, Leung Ka-lun, and Ying Fuk-tsang. A new generation of younger scholars in mainland China are also writing new accounts of the early Roman Catholic and Protestant missionary histories, but while the Catholic studies often refer to the Chinese Christians involved, the Protestant studies are still largely hampered by lack of research into the Chinese converts, missionaries, and pastors during these earlier periods. 6. The early History of Anglo-Chinese College has been the subject of a monograph by Brian Harrison, Waiting for China: The Anglo-Chinese College at Malacca, 1818-1843, and early Nineteenth Century Missions (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1981), and special biographical details about a number of students are found in Carl Smith's two major works, Chinese Christians: Élites, Middlemen, and the Church in Hong Kong (Hong Kong; Oxford University Press, 1985) and A Sense of History: Studies in the Social and Urban History of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Educational Publishing Co., 1995). In these works Smith briefly describes among others the three Chinese students who joined Legge in an interview with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in February 1848: Lee Kim Leen, Song Hoot Kiam, and Ng Mun Sow. See Chinese Christians, pp.82, 148-149 and A Sense of History, pp. 339ff. This event was memorialized in a painting of 1848 that later became part of a commemorative ================================================================================