Notable Women Of Modern China by Margaret E. Burton

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Notable Women of Modern China

BY MARGARET E. BURTON

_Notable Women of Modern China_

Illustrated, 12mo, cloth. Net $1.25

The author's earlier work on the general subject of Women's Education in
China, indicates her ability to treat with peculiar interest and
discernment the characters making up this volume of striking biographies.
If these women are types to be followed by a great company of like
aspirations the future of a nation is assured.

_The Education of Women in China_

Illustrated, 12mo, cloth. Net $1.25

"Thrilling is a strong word, but not too strong to be used in connection
with _The Education of Women in China_. To many it will prove a revealing
book and doubtless to all, even those well-informed upon the present
condition of women. Miss Burton's book will interest all the reading
public."--CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE.

[Illustration:
Dr. Hue King Eng at the Time of Her Graduation from the Medical College]

Notable Women of Modern China

By

MARGARET E. BURTON

AUTHOR OF

"THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN IN CHINA"

NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO

Fleming H. Revell Company

LONDON AND EDINBURGH

Copyright, 1912, by

FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 125 N. Wabash Ave.
Toronto: 25 Richmond St., W.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street

TO MY FRIEND
GRACE COPPOCK
WHO TAUGHT ME TO KNOW AND LOVE
THE WOMEN OF CHINA

Preface

During a stay of some months in China in the year of 1909, I had an
opportunity to see something of the educational work for women, and to meet
several of the educated women of that interesting country. I was greatly
impressed, both by the excellent work done by the students in the schools,
and by the useful, efficient lives of those who had completed their course
of study. When I returned to America, and spoke of some of the things which
the educated women of China were doing, I found that many people were
greatly surprised to learn that Chinese women were capable of such
achievements. It occurred to me, therefore, that it might be worth while to
put the stories of a few of these women into a form which would make them
accessible to the public.

It will be noted that the majority of the women of whose work I have
written received a part of their education in America. My reason for
selecting these women is not because those whose training has been received
wholly in China are not doing equally good work, but because it is
difficult to gather definite information in regard to the women whose
lives have been spent entirely in their native country. The fact that most
of the biographies in this book are of women in professional life is due to
the same cause. The great aim of the girls' schools in China is, rightly,
to furnish such training as shall prepare their students to be worthy wives
and mothers, and the large majority of those who attend the schools find
their highest subsequent usefulness in the home. But in China, as in other
countries, the life of the woman in the home remains, for the most part,
unwritten.

I have therefore told the stories of the women concerning whose work I have
been able to obtain definite information, believing that they fairly
represent the educated women of China who, wherever their education has
been received, and in whatever sphere it is being used, are ably and
bravely playing an important part in the moulding of the great new China.

For much of the material for these sketches I am indebted to friends of the
women of whom I have written. To all such my hearty thanks are due. For
personal reminiscences, letters, and photographs, I am most grateful.

M. E. B.

Contents

DR. HUe KING ENG

I. CHILDHOOD IN A CHRISTIAN HOME 15

II. EDUCATION IN CHINA AND AMERICA 23

III. BEGINNING MEDICAL WORK IN CHINA 39

IV. THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN 44

V. THE FAVOUR OF THE PEOPLE 58

MRS. AHOK

I. THE MISTRESS OF A HOME OF WEALTH 73

II. WORK AMONG THE WOMEN OF THE UPPER CLASSES 82

III. A JOURNEY TO ENGLAND 90

IV. PATIENT IN TRIBULATION 101

DR. IDA KAHN

I. CHILDHOOD IN THREE COUNTRIES 115

II. AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 121

III. SEVEN YEARS IN KIUKIANG 126

IV. PIONEER WORK IN NANCHANG 140

DR. MARY STONE

I. WITH UNBOUND FEET 161

II. THE DANFORTH MEMORIAL HOSPITAL 169

III. WINNING FRIENDS IN AMERICA 183

IV. A VERSATILE WOMAN 190

YU KULIANG 221

ANNA STONE

I. EAGER FOR EDUCATION 233

II. AMONG HER OWN PEOPLE 244

III. THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS LIFE 254

Illustrations

Dr. Hue King Eng at the Time of Her Graduation
from the Medical College _Frontispiece_

Dr. Hue's Medical Students 41

Dr. Hue's Christmas Party 61

Mrs. Ahok and Her Two Granddaughters 73

Reception Rooms in Chinese Homes of Wealth 83

Dr. Ida Kahn 115

A Nurse in Dr. Kahn's Hospital 138

One of Dr. Kahn's Guests 141

A Village Crowd 141

Dr. Mary Stone 161

Elizabeth Skelton Danforth Memorial Hospital, Kiukiang, China 172

Dr. Stone, Dr. Kahn, and Five of the Hospital Nurses 174

General Ward of the Danforth Memorial Hospital 182

Nurses of the Danforth Memorial Hospital 192

Yu Kuliang 221

Anna Stone 233

The Anna Stone Memorial 257

* * * * *

DR. HUe KING ENG

I. CHILDHOOD IN A CHRISTIAN HOME

II. EDUCATION IN CHINA AND AMERICA

III. BEGINNING MEDICAL WORK IN CHINA

IV. THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN

V. THE FAVOUR OF THE PEOPLE

* * * * *

DR. HUe KING ENG

I

CHILDHOOD IN A CHRISTIAN HOME

Among the earliest converts to Christianity in South China was Hue Yong Mi,
the son of a military mandarin of Foochow. He had been a very devout
Buddhist, whose struggles after spiritual peace, and whose efforts to
obtain it through fasting, sacrifice, earnest study, and the most
scrupulous obedience to all the forms of Buddhist worship, remind one
strongly of the experiences of Saul of Tarsus. Like Saul too, Hue Yong Mi
was, before his conversion, a vigorous and sincere opponent of
Christianity. When his older brother became a Christian, Hue Yong Mi felt
that his casting away of idols and abolishing of ancestral worship were
crimes of such magnitude that the entire family "ought all with one heart
to beat the drum and drive him from the house." He tells of finding a copy
of the Bible in his father's bookcase one day, and how, in sudden rage, he
tore it to pieces and threw the fragments on the floor, and then, not
satisfied with destroying the book, wished that he had some sharp implement
with which to cut out "the hated name Ya-su, which stared from the
mutilated pages."

But when, through the efforts of the very brother whom he had persecuted,
he too came to recognize the truth of Christianity, he became as devoted
and tireless a worker for his Lord as was Paul the apostle, preaching in
season and out of season, first as a layman, afterwards as an ordained
minister of the Methodist Church. His work often led him to isolated and
difficult fields; he was "in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in
perils of robbers, in perils from his countrymen, in perils in the city, in
perils in the wilderness." But, alike in toil and persecution, he remained
steadfast.

He was made a presiding elder at the time of the organization of the
Foochow Conference in 1877, and from that time until his death, in 1893, he
was, in the words of one of the missionaries of that district, "a pillar of
strength in the church in China, because of his piety and wisdom and his
literary ability, having, withal, an eloquent tongue which in the ardour of
pulpit oratory gave to his fine six-foot physique a princely bearing."

A striking testimony to the power and beauty of this Christian man's
character is a picture, painted by a Chinese artist, an old man over eighty
years of age. This man was not a Christian, but after hearing Mr. Hue's
preaching, and watching his consecrated life, he embodied in a painting his
conception of the power of the "Cross Doctrine" as he knew it through Hue
Yong Mi. The picture, which is five feet long and nearly three wide, and is
finely executed in water colours, was presented to Mr. Hue by the artist. At
first glance its central figure seems to be a tree, under which is a man
reading from a book. Lower down are some rocks. But looking again one sees
that the tree is a cross, and that in the rocks are plain semblances of
human faces, more or less perfect, all turned toward the cross. The thought
which the artist wished to express was that the "Cross Doctrine," as
preached and lived by such as Hue Yong Mi, would turn even rocks into human
beings.

The wife of Hue Yong Mi was brought up in a home of wealth and rank in
Foochow. Her aristocratic birth was manifested by the size of her tiny
embroidered shoe, which measured exactly three inches. When Hue Yong Mi was
asked by the missionaries to become a minister, he was somewhat dismayed to
learn that in the Methodist Church the minister's family must frequently
move from place to place. In his own words, "The Chinese greatly esteem the
place of their birth; if a man goes abroad it is considered a matter of
affliction; for a family to move is an almost unheard of calamity." He
replied, however, that although he had not known of the existence of the
custom, he was entirely willing, for Christ's sake, to undertake the work
of a minister in spite of it. The missionaries then asked if his wife would
be willing to go with him. He answered that he could not tell until he went
home and asked her. But when he had talked the matter over with her, this
dainty, high-class lady replied, "It matters not to what place; if you are
willing to go, I will go with you."

Within a few weeks they left Foochow to work among their first
parishioners, a people who might well have caused the hearts of the young
pastor and his wife to fail, for Hue Yong Mi says of them: "In front of
their houses I saw piles of refuse, and filthy ditches. Within, all was
very dirty--pigs, cattle, fowls, sheep, all together in the one house. Not
a chair was there to sit on. All went out to work in the fields. They had
no leisure to comb hair or wash faces.... None knew how to read the Chinese
characters. Some held their books upside down; some mistook a whole column
for one character." Mrs. Hue and the children were very ill with malarial
fever while in this place, but in spite of all their hardships, a good work
was done.

Mrs. Hue was as earnest a worker among the women as was her husband among
the men, telling the good news to those who had never heard it, and
strengthening her fellow-Christians. Many a programme of the Foochow
Women's Conference bears the name of Mrs. Hue Yong Mi, for she could give
addresses and read papers which were an inspiration to missionaries and
Chinese alike. Her friend, Mrs. Sites, has written especially of her
influence on the women whose lives she touched: "In the stations where the
Methodist itinerancy sent Rev. Hue Yong Mi, this Christian household was
something of a curiosity. The neighbouring women often called 'to see' in
companies of three to twenty or more, and Mr. Hue expected his wife and
children to preach the gospel to them just as faithfully as he did from the
pulpit. There are many hundreds of Chinese women to whom this lovely
Christian mother and little daughters gave the first knowledge of Christ
and heaven." The same friend says of this wife and mother, "In privations
oft, and in persecutions beyond the power of pen to narrate, she has
become a model woman among her people."

In 1865, not long after a period of severe persecution, and while their
hearts were saddened by the recent death of their little daughter, Hiong
Kwang, another baby girl was born to Mr. and Mrs. Hue, and named Precious
Peace, the Chinese for which is King Eng. Born of such parents, and growing
up in such an environment, it is perhaps not surprising that unselfishness,
steadfastness of purpose, and courage, both physical and moral, should be
among the most prominent characteristics of Hue King Eng. One of the
clearest memories of her childhood is of lying in bed night after night,
listening to the murmur of her father's voice as he talked to someone who
was interested in learning of the "Jesus way," and hearing the crash of
stones and brickbats, the hurling of which through the doors and windows
was too frequent an occurrence to interrupt these quiet talks.

Of course little King Eng's feet were bound, as were the feet of every
other little girl of good family. But the binding process had scarcely
begun when her father became convinced that this universal and ancient
custom was a wrong one. He accordingly made the brave decision,
unprecedented in that section of the country, that his daughters should
have natural feet, and the bandages were taken off. This proceeding was
viewed with great disapproval by his small daughter, for while it freed her
from physical pain, her unbound feet were the source of constant comment
and ridicule, far more galling to the sensitive child than the tight
bandages had been. Now, an ardent advocate of natural feet, she often tells
of her trials as a pioneer of the movement in Fuhkien province. "That I
have the distinction of being the first girl who did not have her feet
bound, is due to no effort of mine," she says, "for the neighbour women
used to say, 'Rather a nice girl, but those feet!' 'Rather a bright girl,
but those feet,' and 'Those feet,' 'Those feet' was all I heard, until I
was ashamed to be seen."

Finally her mother, who did not wholly share her husband's view of the
matter, took advantage of his absence from home, and replaced the bandages.
When she would ask, "Can you stand them a little tighter?" the little
devotee to the stern mandates of fashion and custom invariably replied,
"Yes, mother, a little tighter"; for was she not going to be a lady and not
hear "those feet," "those feet" any more! But when her father came home he
had a long and serious talk with his wife about foot-binding, and off came
the bandages again. Later the little girl went on a visit to a relative,
who was greatly horrified at her large feet, and took it upon herself to
bind them again, to the child's great delight. It was with an immense sense
of her importance that she came hobbling home, supported on each side. Her
mother was ill in bed at the time, but greatly to King Eng's
disappointment, instead of being pleased, she bade her take the bandages
off and burn them, and never replace them. To the child's plea that people
were all saying "those feet," "those feet," until she was ashamed to meet
any one, Mrs. Hue replied, "Tell them bound-footed girls never enter the
emperor's palace." "And that," says Dr. Hue, "put a quietus on 'those feet,'
and when I learned that all the world did not have bound feet I became more
reconciled."

II

EDUCATION IN CHINA AND AMERICA

When she was old enough, King Eng became a pupil in the Foochow Boarding
School for Girls, where she did good work as a student. No musical teaching
was given in the school at that time, but King Eng was so eager to learn to
play that the wife of one of the missionaries gave her lessons on her own
organ. Her ability to play may have been one of the causes which led to the
framing of a remarkable and eloquent appeal for the higher education of the
Chinese girls, which should include music and English, sent in 1883 by the
native pastors of Foochow and vicinity to the General Executive Committee
of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, under whose auspices this school was carried on.

To the same committee there came at the same time another remarkable
request, this one from Dr. Trask, then in charge of the Foochow Woman's
Hospital. After leaving boarding school King Eng had been a student in the
hospital, and Dr. Trask had become so much impressed with her adaptability
to medical work, and her sympathetic spirit toward the suffering, that she
longed to have her receive the advantages of a more thorough education than
could be given her in Foochow. She accordingly wrote to the Executive
Committee of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, speaking in the
highest terms of Hue King Eng's ability and character, and urging that
arrangements be made to bring her to America, to remain ten years if
necessary, "that she might go back qualified to lift the womanhood of China
to a higher plane, and able to superintend the medical work." She assured
the committee that they would find that the results would justify them in
doing this, and that none knew King Eng but to love her. Arrangements were
soon made, largely through Mrs. Keen, secretary of the Philadelphia branch
of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, and word was sent to Foochow
that Dr. Trask's request had been approved.

This word found Hue King Eng ready to accept the opportunity which it
offered her. It had not been easy for this young girl, only eighteen years
old, to decide to leave her home and her country and take the long journey
to a foreign land, whose language she could not speak, and whose customs
were utterly strange to her, to remain there long enough to receive the
college and medical education which would enable her to do the work planned
for her on her return to China. So far as she knew she was the only Chinese
young woman who had ever left China to seek an education in another
country; and indeed she was the second, the only one who had preceded her
being Dr. You Me King, the adopted daughter of Dr. and Mrs. McCartee, of
Ningpo, who had gone to America with them a few years before. King Eng's
parents did not oppose her going, but neither did they encourage it. They
told her fully of the loneliness she would experience in a foreign country;
the dangers and unpleasantness of the long ocean voyage she would have to
take; and the unparalleled situation in which she would find herself on her
return ten years later, unmarried at twenty-eight. But with a quiet faith
and purpose, and a courage nothing short of heroic, King Eng answered, "If
the Lord opens the way and the cablegram says 'Come,' I shall surely go;
but if otherwise I shall do as best I can and labour at home."

Years afterward, when two other girls from the Foochow Boarding School
were leaving China for a period of study in America, a farewell meeting was
held for them in the school, at which Dr. Hue told how she had reached her
decision to go. She said: "I was the first Fuhkien province girl to go to
America.... My father told me, 'I cannot decide for you; you must pray to
God. If you are to go, God will show you.' Then I felt God's word come to
me, 'Fear not, for I will go with you wherever you go.' At that time the
school girls were seldom with the missionary ladies and I could not speak
any English, therefore I did not know any American politeness; and all my
clothes and other daily-need-things were not proper to use in the western
country. Although everything could not be according to my will, I trusted
God with all my life, so nothing could change my heart."

In the spring of 1884, in charge of some missionaries going home on
furlough, Hue King Eng left China for America. The journey was a long and
rough one, and a steamer near theirs was wrecked. One of the missionaries,
wondering how her faith was standing the test of these new and terrifying
experiences, asked if she wanted to go back home. But she answered, "No, I
do not think of going home at all." She felt that it was right for her to
go to America, and although when she met her friends at the journey's end
she confessed that sea-sickness and home-sickness had brought the tears
many a night, she never faltered in her decision.

Upon landing in New York she went at once to Mrs. Keen in Philadelphia, and
there met Dr. and Mrs. Sites, of Foochow, whom she had known from
childhood, and who were then in Philadelphia attending the General
Conference of the Methodist Church. She spent the summer with them,
learning to read, write, and speak English, and in the autumn went with
them to Delaware, Ohio, and entered Ohio Wesleyan University. Miss Martin,
who was then preceptress of Monnett Hall, recalls King Eng's efforts to
master English. "She was an apt pupil," she says, "yet she had many
struggles with the language." A friend in Cleveland, with whom she spent a
few weeks during her vacation, promised her that some day they would go
around the square to see the reservoir. King Eng seemed much interested in
this proposition and several times asked when they were to go. When they
finally went, her friend was somewhat surprised to see that King Eng
manifested very little interest in the reservoir; but when they reached
home again it was evident that she had been interested, not in the
reservoir, but in the proposed method of reaching it. "How can you go
'round' a 'square'?" she asked.

When she entered college she set herself the task of learning ten new words
a day; but Miss Martin says that she sometimes had to unlearn several of
them, owing to the fondness of her fellow students for slang. However, she
was persevering, and in time learned to use the language easily. One of the
teachers, who had returned a plate to her with an orange on it, still
treasures a half sheet of paper which appeared on a returned plate of hers,
on which King Eng had written:

"You taught me a lesson not long ago,
Which I have learned, as I'll try to show.
When you would return a plate to its owner,
Of something upon it you must be the donor.
One orange you put on that plate of mine,
Two oranges find on this plate of thine."

She was a great favourite with both faculty and students. One of her fellow
students shall tell of the impression she made: "Those who were at Monnett
Hall at any time from 1884 to 1887 will remember a dainty little foreign
lady, a sort of exotic blossom, whose silk-embroidered costumes,
constructed in Chinese fashion, made her an object of interest to every
girl in college. This was Dr. Hue King Eng, who came to prepare for her
life work. Gentle, modest, winning, her heart fixed on a goal far ahead,
she was an example to the earnest Christian girl and a rebuke to any who
had self-seeking aims."

Another, looking back to her college days, and to the college life of Hue
King Eng, "or, as she was familiarly and lovingly called, King Eng,"
writes, "She was so sweet and gracious, so simple in her faith and life, so
charitable, that you felt it everywhere. I shall never forget standing in
the hall one day with her and another girl, when a young man delivered some
books. I asked his name. The young lady gave it, a well known name, and
added that he had very little principle, or character. King Eng spoke up at
once, and calling the other girl by name said, 'Yes, but his parents are
fine people.'"

The King's Daughters' Society was organized during King Eng's stay at Ohio
Wesleyan, and ten groups, of ten girls each, were formed among the students
of Monnett Hall. King Eng, who was the leader of one of these groups,
proposed that each girl in it should earn enough money to buy one of the
King's Daughters' badges, and that they should be sent to some of the girls
in the Foochow school, that they too might organize a society. She was
eager that the girls should not only give the badges, but should earn them
by their own efforts, that they might thus show the Chinese girls that
American students did not consider any kind of work beneath them, but
counted it an honour to serve their Master in any way possible.

During the April of King Eng's first year at Ohio Wesleyan University,
special meetings were held in connection with the Day of Prayer for
Colleges, one of them a large chapel service at which the president of the
college and the preceptress spoke. The report of this meeting shows that
King Eng did not wait until her return to China to begin active efforts to
win others to the Christian life. "At the close of an address by Miss
Martin, the preceptress, there stepped forward upon the rostrum our little
Chinese student, Miss Hue King Eng, who, dressed in her full native costume,
stood gracefully before these six hundred young men and women while she
witnessed to the saving power of Christ.... The following evening, at our
earnest revival service in the chapel of the ladies' boarding hall, there
knelt the Chinese girl at the side of her American sister, helping her to
find the Saviour; and the smile of gladness on her countenance at the
closing of the meeting told the joy in her heart because her friend was
converted. The faith of many has been made stronger by hearing the
testimony of Miss Hue."

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