I t'..: IfeS 3tl(ara, SJem Uorh CHARLES WILLIAM WASON COLLECTION CHINA AND THE CHINESE THE GIFT OF CHARLES WILLIAM WASON CLASS OF 1878 1918 Cornell University Library HV 169S.G66C19 The blind in Cliina :a criticism of Miss 3 1924 023 282 936 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023282936 '^^'J^i:N^i^J^';£-S'--:--J^Jj^'^aP^h^^ ffi|e; pifeb" m €|itet A CRITICISM OF MISS i;^if ii W v II uv 11 ' , Of T5B ^BrfriNGuCHINESKi ABI>ITIONAL BEmJ^PKS: BY, REV. W. CAM^EpiLL, F.R,G.S.- . EJfSUSH PRBSBYTBUIAN-MI#IQH ,:. ■ i-:^\?^- ;' ; 'HQliSKdNGi, SHAH-GHM AND YOICOHAltfA, - sAMPsdH ; wvi'^^Tor &, co,,'Limited, i,onqon. %\t §M in C^mi; ' */' /■/' A CRITICISM OP ^^/// / MISS t, f, eORDOJ-trailM'S ADiOUtV OF THE MURRAY NON-ALPHABETIC METHOD OF WRITING CHINESE. WITH ADDITIOXAL EEJIAEKS BT EEV. W. CAMPBELL, F.K.G.S. EXCfLlSII TOESBYTEEIAN MISSION FORMOSA . KELLY & WALSH, Ld., HONGKONG, SHANGHAI AND YOKOHAMA. SAMPSON LOW, MAKSTON & CO., LIMITED, LONDON. 1897. iMxilVi- i^'M I Y l-tHU/'. ;Y /«<**^ " My experience teaches me that simplicity and uu&rmity are the objects at which we ought to aim; and I trust that these lines will have the effect of inducing others to follow the beatentrack rather than to strike out new paths, which, however promising they may appear at first sight, will lead the blind into deserts and quagmires from which it will be difficult to ex- tricate them." — J. L. Shad well's BraiUe Alphabet mid Foreign Languages. "Disappointments and impediments have been much more easily met and overcome, and unsuccessful expedients have been sooner detected, more candidly judged of, and more readily abandoued, by working en a small and economical scale, than could possibly have been the case had large outlay and much previous expense hcM out at every stage strong temptation to continue in a certain prescribed course, and thus to check conviction, and to embalm and per,ietuate error." — J. Gall's Reading Booh for ilte Blind. PREFACE. About 18 years ago, Miss C. F. Gordon-Cumming witnessed at Peking several blind persons receiving instruction from Mr. W. H. Murray, a colporteur of the National Bible Society of Scotland, and before the end of 1886 she had described the scene in fully 150 period'cals, as well as in her widely- distributed little pamphlet Work for the Blind in Cliina, still greater publicity being given to it when representatives of the three leading Presbyterian Churches were brought together for the Ordin-^tion of Mr. Murray at Glasgow in 1887. It appeared, however, that all this was but the coramencc- ment of work, for a lady having suggested that the embossed dots used at Peking should be joined by lines so as to form ta/mbols for teaching, sighted people, Miss Gordon-Cumm'ng soon after redoubled her exertions through press and i)latform in directing attention to what she called Mr. Murray's "Second Vision or Eevelation," the well-known Rev. Dr. J. Elder- C J liming, of Glasgow, also testifying that what had taken place was "so extraordinary as to seem at first sight hardly credible." Meanwhile, contributions amounting to thousands of pounds were obtained in response to Miss Gordon-Cumming's appeals, thus leading to the establishment and partial endowment of her "Mission to the 500,000 Blind of China," the Constitution of which states that it was founded "to promote and develop the systems invented or employed by the Rev. "VV. H. Murray, whether for the benefit of blind or sighted persons in China." Those systems go on the unique plan of making a twisted and non-phonetic use of Braille's numerical signs to represent . ounds, and the claim is advanced that they have already met the wants of all Chinese blind people to the following extent :— 1. In providing embossed books for those who wish to master the principles of vocal and instrumental music. 2. Books in the four-tone dialect of Mandarin vernacular spoken at Peking. — IV 3. Booksinfive-toneMandarinforufjeever) ivhere. 4. Unlimited opportunity for lucrative employment as compositors and teachers of the seeing. The gain to all sighted Chinese people has been enumerated as follows : — 1. Facsimile books of wonderfally small size and price for illiterate people in every part of China. 2. Extended shorthand haviijg the tones indicated — which Miss Gordou-Cumming regards as being a most important advantage. 3. Joined shorthand for rapid writing. 4. The Curt style, whereby blind boys can impart to seeing literary people whose speech is unintelligible the art of reporting vaih speed and accuracy iii a week's time. With rhythmical sententiousness, Mr. Murray s.iys regarding these systems, " All are taught by one Primer. While teaching our Primer we gain economics." Some of the older missionaries in China may also be interested to know that all the systems rest on Mr. Murray's so-called discovery that "there are only 408 sounds in the language instead of upwards of 4,000 as was commonly supposed," and his belief that "each of the very numerous dialects of the whole Empire is composed of the same number of sounds." Now, it should be apparent to every one that the questions raised by claims of this kind are not only far-reaching but of a very complex nature, especially so when one takes into account the singularity of Mr. Murray's main idea, the fact that educational efforts among the Chinese blind commenced in 1851, and that any Numeral-type work hitherto attempted amounts to the merest fraction of what others are doing for the blind and illiterate seeing people of China. It is important to bear this in mind, at: Miss Gordon-Cumming's publications convey the impression that these classes would be left wholly destitute were Mr. Murray's work to cease. When, therefore, the Second General Conference of Missionaries listened to Mr. Murray's advocacy of his non-phonetic system of reading by numbers as opposed to the Braille and Koman-letter method so successfully at work throughout China, there was only one course open, and surely the very names of those who formed the large Committee then appointed offered a sufficient guarantee that the matter would be gone into with all thoroughness and impartiality. Mr. Murray was requested to serve on that Committee with men like Dr. Edkins, Dr. Fryer, Dr. Faber, and Dr. Wright of the British and Foreign Bible Society ; and at least one prominent member of it has given his assurance that he personally pleaded with him at Shanghai to come to the place of meeting and render what help he could. But it was all in vain ; for, strong in the support he was receiving from Miss Gordon-Cumming and the National Bible Society of Scotland, Mr. Murray neither resigned his appointment nor carried out the Commission with which the Conference had entrusted him, but left in the middle of its proceedings, what took place afterwards being a matter ot history, that "the Committee rejiorted adversely to the Murray system on the ground of its want of simplicity." As recent events have imparted more than ordinary importance to this matter, it may be well to recapitulate here a few of the more relevant items connected with it as they are stated in the Shanghai papers of date, the published "Records" of the Conference, and the Eeports which have been issued by Miss Gordon-Cumming's Mission. They occur somewhat in the following order : — (1) Being the only European agent connected with it, Mr. Murray's Mission gave him Thirty Pounds as travelling expenses from Peking to attend the Shanghai General Conference in the interests of his work. (2) The regular sessions of that Decennial Conference (attended by 445 missionaries from every part of China) extended over twelve days, and according to the programme printed in the Chinese Recorder six months before, work for the blind was to be considered on the fifth day, after the reading of Pastor Hartmann's paper on the education of Cantonese blind people by means of the Braille alphabetic letters. (3) Mr. Hartmann having read his paper on that day, and Mr. Murray one which had been subsequently arranged for, Mr. McMuUan, of Soochow, moved that a Com- VI — mittee be appointed to try and secure uniformity in the pre- paration of embossed books, and that Pastor Hartmann, Mr, Murray, and Mr. Hill (Conference president), should be appointed members of that Committee, all of which was agreed to, as stated in the official minutes of Conference. (5) Mr, Murray refused to co-operate with this Committee, but as time could not be lost, work was commenced forthwith and continued as opportunity was given till the tenth day, when the Convener, Dr. Edkius, was able to present his unanimously adopted Eeport recommending the employment throughout China of an alphabetic system for teaching the blind, on the ground that Mr. Murray's ideographic system was unnecessarily cumbersome, and that all other actual workers for the blind were agreed that nothing could surpass the Braille alphabetic method for simplicity and fitness to the present condition of things in China. (6) Miss Gordon-Cummiug with the co-Directors of her Mission in Glasgow and Peking persist in giving circulation to statements out of keeping with the facts which have just been stated, and the following may be taken as a sample of these : — " Mr. Murray left Shanghai before the Committee on the Instruction of the Blind was appointed, and hence could not be present to explain and advocate his system, and show its actual ' results. The oppor- tunity he had of presenting his work before the Conference, in one of it^ regular sessions, was necessarily too brief to give such a detailed exposition of its methods as a Committee would require to judge intelligently of its merits. Unfortunately he assumed that he had done all that was required to secure support, and in undue haste to catch the return steamer to Peking, he departed without waiting to take part in the deliberations of the Com- mittee which was subsequently appointed to consider which of the various systems for the use of the blind should be adopted throughout China. The supporters of several other systems were present, and the truth of the old proverb, ' The absent are always in the wrong,' was once more proved." Thus, the " Mission — Vll to the Chinese Blind " would insinuate that Mr. Murray was denied a proper opportunity for expounding his system at the Conference, and that the large representative Committee then at work allowed a march to be stolen upon him in his absence That certainly is a delusion, and one cannot but feel thankful that such efforts to evoke sympathy have been hitherto unknown among missionary workers in China. The next occasion on which the Numeral system came pro- minently before the missionaries was at the First Triennial Con- ference of the Educational Association of China. Miss Gordon- Cumming makes reference to it in the following paragraph from her Seventh Annual Eeport :^" A paper on the subject by Mr. Murray was read by the learned Dr. Fryer at the great Triennial Educational Conference at Shanghai and excited deep interest." Readers will find it reproduced in extenso under D in the following Appendix. It is certainly a curiosity in its way; for even to those "free from Mrs. McClarty's affliction'' and reading "at n reliffious rate" its perusal can hardly turn out to be "a joyous voyage by the laws of associations," but rather something compelling one to "ejaculate" any number of enquiries, till the meaning comes home "like a plaster stuck firm and fast." Of course, the peculiar verdancy of Mr. Murray's expressions may arise from what Miss Gordon-Cumming sayi regarding his having "absorbed himself in the close study of Theology, Greek, and Hebrew, as a pleasant relaxation from the various Chinese and Tartar dialects in which he has been steej)ed for the last sixteen years," although that does not explain how his frequent use of marks of exclamation should change the assumptions of this much be-pufied paper into solid arguments. In any case, it ought to be read with care by those who place an amount of confidence in Mr. Murray's leadership which few persons would be willing to respond to. Crudity no doubt sometimes accom- plishes lasting good in the world, but never when associated with bumptiousuess, faddism, Holloway-pill advertising, and a practically unlimited supply of dollars. The third occasion when numeral-notation came before any considerable gathering of the missionaries in China was at the Triennial Conference of the Educational Association. It then called forth a good deal of adverse criticism from speakers who knew very well what they were talking about but, strange to say, Miss Gordon-Cumming's Seventh and Eighth Reports name two of those speakers — Dr. Fryer and Rev. T. W. Houston — as being active supporters of numeral-notation ! See under E of the Appendix. Mr. Murray thus prefers the "every man for himself" method of work, and seems to have little concern for future results so long as Miss Gordon-Cumming " plainly foresees that the new [Numeral] system is bound to monopolise the whole field — a result which I am convinced [she says] will come to pass in due time, and the sooner the better for all concerned." Certainly a very summary way of dealing with things. "What answer would the British and Foreign Bible Society give to any request for help in such circumstances? It would be difficult to say, for that great imperial Institution is very generous and very hopeful, but it protects both the public aiul hard-worked mission- aries in China by insuring that every scheme it takes up must have "truth in the inward parts," while one of its rules for even so minor a department as the work of translation is, that :— "Whenever it is practicable to obtain a Board of competent persons to translate or revise a version of tlie Scrijitures, it is undesirable to accept for publication the work of a siuo-le trans- lator or reviser." Little need be added on the recent controversy which some of the missionaries in China have had with the "Mission to the Chinese Blind," as all the latters are here presented to the reader, and those interested can judge for themselves regarding the various matters referred to. It should be borne in mind that it was after the failure of repeated attempts elsewhere that the Vernacular Committee was compelled to make public protest iigaiust the mis-representation of its work which was being made by supporters of the Xumeral system ; that since the first publica- tion of these letters, the ^Mission has announced "a thorough refutation of the animadversions" they contain ; and that it hns declared its intention of continuing the sale of publications having many of the incriminated statements, the evil effects of which it will take much more protesting and a long time to eradicate. Eeaders will not fail to meet in the following pages with attempts on the Numeral-type side to keep important matter n the background by enlarging on little personal details •jvhich can have no real interest to the public. And, doubtless, there would be distinct controversial gain if Miss Gordon-Cumming's statement could be proved that this is a case of one doing "the work of the Adversary" by enlarging on little slips she has made while toiling for the poor blind of China. Others, however, besides Miss Gordon-Cumming are toiling for the poor blind of China and actually in their midst ; the mistakes are not little, nor are they the mistakes of Miss Gordon - Cumming, but those of Mr. JIurray himself Take that of the alleged universal applicability of the I^umeral system of 408 sounds as an instance. A critic objects that it is inapplicable to non- ^Mandarin dialects, to which iMiss Gordon-Cumming replies in her Eighth Eeport by stating that Mr. Murray had already proved its applicability to the Foochow dialect of 800 sounds without any change whatever. But the objection being insisted upon, Mr. Murray has the hardihood to affirm that he is not aware Miss Gordon-Cumming ever said his books would be available in every part of China, and that even if she had lie was not prepared to say if, or how far, she was incorrect — the "grand point" for years past of Miss Gordon-Cumming's Reports and moving appeals having been this very thing of doing away with all Romanized Bibles by introducing one cheap diminutive version in Numeral-type that would " bk cueeent THROUGHOUT THE VAST EMPIRE (wiTH MANCHURIA AND COREA AS ■well), instead OF SCORES OF DIFFERENT VERSIONS PRINTED IN ALPHABETIC-ROMAN LETTERS." The actiou of the Eastern aud Western Board of Directors of Mr. Murray's school at Peking in this matter is noticeable, and shows the extent to which reliance can be placed on their confident assertions. The Eighth Eeport of the Glasgow Directors stoutly defends a claim of universal applicability for the Numeral system, but their Ninth acknowledges that a serious mistake had been made in doing so. On the other hand, the Directors on the " large and intelligent Committee at Peking " begin by denying responsibility for Home Tfeports published under sanction of their names,, then admit that Mr. Murray " was premature in claiming that his system was universal for non-Mandarin dialects,'' and end by assuring their co-Directors in Glasgow that they had "a thorough refutation of the animadversions" which are contained in letters from the Vernacular Committee and others. One great drawback of going into these details is the risk of leading uninitiated persons to .conclude that, after all, the present controversy turns on Miss Gordon-Cumming having unfortunately claimed 384 millions of people as prospective readers of Numeral-type books, instead of 300 millions ; whereas nearly every one who is capable of forming an all-round and unprejudiced opinion on the subject regards Pekingese numeral- notation as being at once the poorest, most unscientific, and most widely " boomed " contribution which has ever been made towards a solution of the language-problem of China. Even with regard to the Mandarin dialects, JMr. jNIurray was recently at his wits' end in dealing with the first difiiculty which faced him outside of Peking; for he then found that his small letter revolving " through four positions around the large as a satellite " supplied only four tones, while it was now im- perative that five should be represented. How was the problem solved? He took the little circles occurring at the end of paragraphs in Chinese writing and placed one at the side of SLicli symbols as were in the fifth tone ; but those symbols which ended a sentence had also to have a period at the side of them, and as both a period and a little circle at the side of any one symbol would have been somewhat objectionable, the circle in every such case was discarded for an additional dot placed above the period, the two dots thus presenting the appearance of a colon in English printing. Miss Gordon- Cumraing, and Mrs. J. M. Allardyce in her Important Missionary Testimony, make strong critical objection to the employment in China of "complicated" Eomau letters with such simple accents as the acute and circumflex; but it would be interesting to know what those authorities thiuk of so clumsy a make- shift as the one now referred to, especially when this peppering of the pages with small circles, colons, and commas whose tails have carefully to be turned in four different directions, is as intelligible as the Hittite inscriptions to readers of Pekingese books. Further, Jlr. Russell assures the public that M)\ Murray's books for blind and sighted readers " exactly corresiaond.'' Will he, then, kindly explain how the tails are affixed to those commas by blind boys when punching out embossed sheets for reading by the sense of touch ? Apart, however, from the disjointed aj^jiearance of the numeral-type symbols, it is quite certain that their most un-Chinese and un-English method of indicating inflection will prevent them from ever becoming popular in China; because the many native-like alphabetic systems for writing Chinese made by European scholars during the past forty years unite in deprecating the use of, say, three very movable symbols as one word, choosing instead one neat compact phonotype, having tone, aspirate, nasal, and everything else, not placed in mere juxtaposition to, but forming an integral part of, the character itself. Readers who are familiar with the Chinese- looking symbols of Dr. Crawford's exceptionally feasible system will understand what is meant here; his own clear exposition of it having appeared in the Recorder for March, 1888. A recent Report of the National Bible Society of Scotland soothingly remarks that the Nnmeral system should get "a fair trial," and that " its ultimate adoption rests with those on the field," thus overlooking Mr. Russell's explanation that its books for sighted readers "exactly correspond" with those for the blind ; and that, from this point of view, it has had much more than a fair trial since 1879. As to Numeral-notation being adopted by those on the field, surely the Bible Society will admit the reasonableness of the missionaries' desire for a workable measure of uniformity in the written language they make use of; but this being granted. Could there have been a more favourable opportunity for going into the whole matter than that furnished by last General Conference V or. Has anyone ever challenged the capacity, diligence, and impartiality of the large Committee then appointed to deal with it? No: for questions such ;;s these suggest their own answer, and it is almost superfluous to add that able men like Dr. Fryer, Mr. Hill. Mr. Hartmanu, Jlr. Houston, and Mr. Gibson, were actuated by none other than the purest ^motives when they deliberately set numeral-notation aside in favour of the Braille alphabetic system. Indeed, excepting the small Institution at Peking, all schools for the blind in China — ihose both in Mandarin and in non-Mandarin-speaking regions — now use the Braille alphabetic method ; nor is this unanimity the result of weak one-sidedness, much less of ungenerous con- spiracy against Mr. Murray and Miss Gordon-Cumming. After, then, about One Hundred Thousand Dollars have been obtained to push it, what does the National Bible Society mean by pleading at this time of day for "a fair trial" to be given to Numeral-notation ? Of one thing there can be no doubt and that is the urgent need there is for the "Mission to the Chinese Blind " reconsidering its attitude towards the public and the missionary body in China. The very embarras de rlchesse of Mr. ^Murray's inventions, and the extent to which his little School at Peking is officered, may be suitable enough for a few individuals, but it places those who are being injured by the representations herein made at an enormous disadvantage. For example, the securing of funds for the School is acknowledged to be largely due to Miss Gordon-Cumming's exertions, her Glasgow colleagues owning that the discharge of their duties resolves itself very much into a process of " walking by faith," and the Peking office-bearers appearing to be quite oblivious to what kind of appeals are addressed to the money- giving public at home. The arrangement is one that can be strongly objected to ; because it is no right way of helping the Mission cause to secure liberal provision for one particular effort by appeals which are founded on prejudice and an ungenerous ignoring of more approved methods of work. Again, members of the confessedly imitative Committee in Glasgow secure themselves by issuing the only official Reports of the Mission guaranteed with the names of several of their fellow office-bearers in China ; but those brethren at Peking cut the matter short by declaring that they do not hold themselves accountable for statements contained in such Keports — a mode of procedure which commercial men would hardly be allowed to adopt. Once more, the Mission's recent addition of a threefold short- hand, and of a scheme for educating 300 millions of sighted Chinamen, is very confusing, and looks as if the original intention were being gradually departed from. It also proves a snare to Mr. Murray's more ardent supporters, for the writer on page 19 here evidently expresses herself with woful lack of straight- forwardness in speaking about a duality of Funds in that Mission whose blind pupils are said to be not only the printers but also the teachers of bis^oks for the seeing. Lastly, Miss Gordon-Ciimming puts the following statement in circulation throughout the English-speaking world: — "Mr. Murray's earnest prayer is that some good Christian who is endowed with the necessary means will devote just the sum apent by the British and Foreign Bible Society on the production of any one Romanized version for one dialect to the preparation of a version of the Bible for the whole Empire in his numeral type. He says, 'We should be able to bank two-thirds of the money, and use it to issue thousands of new editions. And it would be no experiment. Success is now fully proven'." Very good : but in making those urgent appeals for money, the public is entitled to some little information about the amount required, and how possession of that amount would secure a fulfilment of the promise made. With regard to the present appeal, some readers will have no difficulty in seeing that it goes out of its way to include three most objectionable things : — (1) An untruth, by alleging that the Bible in four-tone numeral notation would be available for the whole Empire, whereas it would not serve for all mandarin-speaking regions. (2) An ungenerous insinuation that the British and Foreign Bible Society is practically misusing its funds, seeing that Mr. Murray had recently promulgated his system of reading by numbers. (3) An unfair comparison which greatly disparages that work the General Conference Committee on Vernaculars was appointed to carry on throughout China. This latter particular would become manifest if Mr. Murray would furnish trustworthy information on (a) the expense of producing a numeral-type and a Romanized version of the Bible either from Wen-U or Mandarin, (6) the exact number of thousands of numeral-type editions lie could produce for two-thirds the cost of the Roman letter version, and (c) the number of copies he would allow to each of these editions for the whole Empire. Another important thing to bear in mind is that the small one-man School at Peking has already received more money than would print fifty versions of the New Testament in Roman letters, the donations and subscriptions — XV — since 1888 alone amounting to over £500 — say $5,000^}er annum; that the National Bible Society of Scotland publishes its numeral- type Scriptures; and that its steadily increasing Endowment Fund now reaches £3,471— say, $34,000. Surely, therefore, before calling so widespread attention to Mr. Murray's " earnest prayer," it was incumbent on the Mission to the Chinese Blind to act differently from him "that withholdeth corn." In other words, the funds already iu hand could have prepared hundreds of thousands of Numeral- type books, but as there was next to no demand for them, those incessant appeals for money become intelligible only when coupled with Miss Gordon-Cumming's determination to provide Numeral-typeism with spacious buildings and a liberal Endowment at the public expense. But home friends may regard all this as being quite beside the point so long as Mr. Murray gets people to read and write by his system, and every deference should be paid to such scruples. May we therefore respectfully invite the supporters of Missions: — (1) To study the following pages as a preliminary contribution to the subject. (2) To admit that while Miss Gordon-Cumming and her colleagues keep spending hard-earned money on Reports, Pamphlets, property, and pupils' allowances * in view of numeral-notation monopolising " the * The Subsciption Lists of their Mission contain such entries as the following: : — A Working Woman, £50 ; School children in the Transvaal, £3 ; Saved by travelling: third class, £4 ; A Workinsf Woman's oifering, £100. It is not easy to ascei"tain how many Reports and Pamphlets have been issued, but the number must be considerable for so small a Mission, while the Accounts for 1892 record an item of £109 19s, 9d. paid to Gilbert life Rivington for printing Miss G-ordon-Cnmming's 24mo tract on Work for the Blind in China. With regard to pupils' allowances, £10 a year seems to be the sum paid at Peking, because Work for the Blind says that even a frugal Chinaman cannot be respectably clothed and fed for less then £10 a year ; and that the same amount would be required to keep a blind beggar girl " during a year's tuition, or subsequently, as a Scripture-reader — the board and saJaiy of a sighted escoi*t will, however, just double this outlay." The sum is much larger than that paid by other Schools for the blind in China, §2 or §2.50 a month being the allowance usually made. Indeed, even scholarly sighted preachers who have had years of College training never expect to be treated so liberally as Mr. Murray's blind girls and guides appear to be, Mr. Gibson's carefully written paper on Native Church Finance supplying an authoritative statement on this subject. He saj's, " This Mission has a fixed maximum of .^7 per month as the limit iu preachers^ salaries. The native Churches give their ministers 1^10 per month at first, and in the case of one of the native ministers, this has been increased by his people to S12. Our school teachers begin at about $3, and preachers at about S4, and go up gradually in course of years towards the maximum of 37.'* whole field," the 2,500 missionaries thus being provided for should have a voice in the matter without their legitimate criticism of it being branded as "hostile criticism." (3) To know that Mr. Murray's method of reading by numbers furnishes a most impracticable instrument for arithmetical purposes, and that in flooding China with an entirely nop-native and non-European set of symbols, much more should be taken into account than making it possibie for those who are now illiterate " to read the Word of God in their own homes." (4) To remember that it was with full knowledge of whatever could be said in favour o±' Numeral-notation that the missionary body at Shanghai — after listening to Mr. Murray's illustrated exposition, after the prolonged labours of its Committee, and after the printed findings of this Committee had previously been issued — un- hesitatingly recommended the adoption of an alphabetic system in preference to Mr Murray's. (5) To carefully weigh the evidence brought forward in favour of Xnmeral-typeism. Reports will no doubt be widely circulated before long about its further extension, but that (in some respects, painful) Nanking incident referred to on p. 68 is full of significance. (6) To rest assured that the ambitious but very mole-like policy of the Mission to the Chinese Blind is a profound mistake ; because China is in too hopeful a way at present for it to be the least likely that the Missionary Body will tolerate any such " strangely pathetic " nostrum as "the blind leading the sighted." Tainanfu, Foemosa, August, 1897. CONTENTS. PAGE 1.— Mr. Campbell's letter to The, Ohsyou) Hl,-u". daf- il May 80, ]S95... 1 2. — Mr. Murray's reply to the above 3 S.^Mr. Campbell's reply to Mr. Murray's letter 4 4. — ^Mr. Campbell's letter of September 12, enclosing corroborative letter of May IS from the Vernacular Cimmittee in China to the Glasgow Directors of Miss Gordon-Cumming's Mission, with accompanying letter of same date from the Secretary of the Vernacular Committee, Eev. J. C, Gibson, M.A 12 5. — Note datsd September 13 from Mr. W. J. Slowan, Glasgow Secretary of Miss Gordon-Cumming's Mission, enclosing his Committee's Eeply-Minute to the Vernacular Committee of July 8 16 6 . — Mr. Campbell's letter of September 14 correcting this Minute 18 7. — ^Miss Gordon-Cumming's letter of January 9 in answer to the before- mentioned letters — which had been reprivied for private eirctilation in the form of a pamphlet of 32 pages 18 8. — Mr. Campbell's reply to Miss Gordon-Cumming's letter, with subse- quent postscript containing the Vernacular Committee's own correction of the Eeply-Minute of July 8 20 9. — Dr. Dudgeon's strictures (from the June Chinese Recorder) on the pamphlet of .'52 pages, enclosing his Co-Directors' "complete reply " to it as contained in Mr. S. M. Eussell's letter of February 27, with accompanying letters from Messrs. Collins and Comlack. 29 10. — Anonymous paragraph from 2'he Scotsman of August 29 40 11. — Ml". Campbell's notice of the above paragraph 40 12.— Mr. lUingworth's letter of September 6 41 13. — ^Miss Gordon-Cumming's letter to The Scotiman 43 14. — Mr. Campbell's reply to this letter in Tlie Scotsman 44 15. — Miss Gordon-Cumming's appeal in The North British Daily Mail ... 48 16. — Mr. Campbell's comments on this appeal 49 17. — Note of December 11 from Mr. J. Grant, new Glasgow Secretary of Miss Gordon-Cumming's Mission, enclosing Minute from his Committee announcing ",a thorough refutation of the anim- adversions " contained in the pamphlet of 32 pages 55 PAGE 38.— Miss Gordon-Cumming's letter to the N. B. Daily Mail of Jan. 12... 56 19.— Mr. Campbell's reply to this letter of J;in. 12 60 20.— Mr. Allai-dyce's letter to the Daily Mail 65 21.— Mr. Campbell's reply to this letter 6» 22.— Concluding remarks by Mr. Campbell 75 APPENDIX. A. — The Shan^Twii Metsenger on Mr. Murray's system 88 B. — ^The Lord's Prayer in Numeral-type and from the Mandarin Komanized New Testament 89 c. — Minutes of the Second Decennial Conference of Missionaries on Work for the Blind in China SO D. — Mr. Murray's paper read before the First Triennial Conference. 92 E. — The Numeral system at the Second Triennial Conference (m Education. 99 p. — Minutes of the Second Decennial Conference on Eomanized Vernacular Versions of the Bible in China lOi 1. — Mr. Campbell's letter to the Glasgow Herald, dated May 30, 1895. 24, Sardinia Terrace, May 30, 1895. Sir, — Having just returned from the Far East, I came from Edinburgh yesterday to attend the annual meeting at the Asylum for the Blind, and, in connection therewith, -would like to send a few sentences which may be of some interest to your readers. While walking up High Street, I was much struck with the remarkable change for the better in the buildings and in the open ground opposite the Infirmary as compared with twenty-five years ago — that being about the time I commenced my missionary work in the island of Formosa. On asking a respectably-dressed man the use of the castle-like pile on the left, he said it was to be a Home for Old "Women ; but, as the man's vision seemed to suffer from slight twitching about one of the eyes, I asked the same question at another obliging citizen, and he told me the building was some sort of a Pump, whereupon I resumed my walk in deep thoughtfulness without making any further inquiry. After passing thro ugh the sale-room into the quadrangle of the Asylum, my first feeling was one of pleasant surprise at seeing the extensive and most suitable accommodation there was for carrying on the work of the Institution. What a revival, and what an advance on the environment of the past, thought I. There was, however, little opportunity for such mental com- parisons, for the blind members of the Asylum band had already taken up their places, and there soon gathered round quite a crowd of those worthy people who are causing our city to flourish in the best sense of the word. Busy professional men, and heads of houses from the Exchange and the counting-house, were pointed out to me, while the presence of scores and scores of A — 2 — benevolent ladies, both young and old, reminded me of the remark of a philanthropist of world-wide name that, of all the places he ever visited, he nowhere received so large an amount of substantial sympathy as he did in Glasgow. At the close of the music, there was a general promenade through the various class-rooms and work-rooms around us ; and afterwards, a company of bliud boys and girls were put through athletic exercises in a way that suggested great benefit to the health and spirits. As many of us as could gain admittance thea adjourned to the beautiful hall of the Institution to witness a distribution of prizes to the more diligent of the blind scholars and work-people. It was at this point tlio large company of visitors came better to understand that the success of the day was in no small measure due to the very winning presence amongst them of her Grace the Duchess of Montrose. While looking on, and listening to her sympathetic words, one felt proud of nobility like this, and I could not help wondering huw many more millenniums will need to pass before the noble ladies of China will have such a charm of goodness and of grace about them. On leaving, my thoughts wandered away to my adopted home in the dear old city of Tainanfu. Well did I know that the blind boys in our School there would continue to be busy in my temporary absence, and fervent were my wishes that they might soon have even a little share in the advantages of such a well managed and well equipped Institution as this Glasgow one. It is now a good few years since we entered upon work for the blind in South China, and that very largely through the encourage- ment and substantial help of Mrs. Graham, a daughter of the late Bailie Alston. Even already there have been several oifshoots from the work in Tainanfu, one being a successful school for the blind in the populous inland city of Chinchew. This school with a large amount of other work, is under the care of Miss Graham, a daughter of the late member of Parliament for — 3 — Glasgow, and one who for the past seven years has done noble service in China. The system of embossed writing used over the southern provinces i« Braille pure and simple, the first books having been already in type before anything was known of Mr. Murray's Numeral system now used at Peking. After careful examination of that system, however, we still thought it best to adhere to one which has been found so well suited for Arabic and other Eastern languages. On this subject, specialists are quite aware that the Braille system, in its letters, its numerals, and its musical signs, forms a scientific unity which cannot be tampered with in any of its parts without throwing the whole out of gear. The fact that blind people can be got to read — even fluently — by the so-called Murray system does not by any means exhaust the question as to which is the best dotted method of writing Chinese. I remember a boy at school whose short-sighted ingenuity enabled him to read ordinary books up side down, but very few if any others, followed his example. A much more serious thing is, that the statements which Miss Gordon-Cumming persistently circulates about one version of the Bible in the Murray type being suitable for the whole of China, are utterly baseless and misleading. — I am, &c., W. Campbell. 2. — Mr. Murray's lieply to the above. PoETOBELLO, June 18, 1895. SiK,-^-The Rev. Mr. Campbell, of Formosa, China, writes to you that Miss C. F. Gordon-Cumming says " that Murray's Bible will do for all China." I am not aware that that statement has been made, though I am not prepared to say if, or how far, it is incorrect. My statement — and I am confident here— is th at one Bible will suffice for all Mandarin China— i.«., 16-18ths, or, to A 2 •implify it, 8-9th3 of all China. This is what Miss C. F. Gordon- Cumming meant, and it is absolutely correct. CShinese is one language, with many dialects, and the friendly testimonials from competent scholars and acknowledged judges of the best plans for educational purposes in China may well encourage her and all friends to hopefully take courage and expect a great industrial outlet — the greatest problem hitherto — for the blind when educated. Nor is the statement correct that " Murray's work was unknown when he had his in type.'' If I have been rightly informed, it is not nine years since that type was begun, and which had afterwards to be discarded in favour of the letters we were only using at least nine years before, and as Miss C. F. Gordon-Cumming witnessed seventeen years ago in Peking. So we were not building "on another man's foundation " when we began. I hope you will give this the same wide-spread circulation that the erroneous statement of Mr. Campbell has had. — I am, &c., Wm. H: Mureay. 3. — Mr. Campbell's Reply to the foregoing. 24, Sardinia Teeeace, June 29, 1895. SiE, — "With reference to the letter on this subject of 18th instant, I should be very sorry had mine of 30th ultimo con- tained aiiythips; unkind regarding Mr. Murray or bis work. He is surely himself a little unfortunate ^^ professing to quote from that communication of the 30th, and taking up all his time in commenting on two serltences which do not occur in it. No doubt, it will be said that my real meaning has been given — a thing I am somewhat dubious about — but it ought to be known that readers are understood to have one's own words before them ■when marks of quotation are made use of. Mr. Murray Bays he is not aware that Miss C. F. Gordon- Cumming has ever spoken of one version of the Bible in his Numeral type being suitable for the whole of China ; but, from at least four recent Reports of that Mission she has created, and of which Mr. Murray is the only accredited agent, as well as from periodicals which are widely circulated both here and in China, every other interested person has become perfectly familiar with such statements from Miss Gordon Cumming's pen as the following: — "There is good reason to believe that (instead of requiring many different versions of the Bible, printed in the alphabetic-phonetic fioman letters, to meet the requirements of innumerable dialects in the eighteen provinces, most of which are twice or thrice as large as Scotland) one version of the Holy Scriptures printed in the Murray type will be CURRENT THROUGHOUT THE VAST EMPIRE." Still Speaking of the Murray numeral type, she says : — " All the inhabitants of the eighteen provinces, Corea, and Manchuria will be able to read with equal facility from one version, whether embossed for the blind or printed in black for the sighted." Again, "Mr. Murray's earnest prayer is that some good Christian who is endowed with the necessary means will devote just the sum spent by the British and Foreign Bible Society on the production of any one Romanised version for one dialect to the preparation of a version of the Bible for the whole empire in his numeral type. For, as he justly says, 'This would be no experiment. Success is now fully proven.'" Lastly, Miss Gordon-Cumming thus refers to the preparatory stage of Mr. Murray's work: — "He set himself to note the value of every sound, and ere long was able to prove to the Chinese that they have only 408, and he has every reason to believe that each of the very numerous dialects of the whole empire is composed of the same number of sounds." Under this head, too, Mr. Murray himself remarks that "dialects are all the same to us," and that from his stereotype plates he could print books " to supply the blind of all China." — 6 — At this point it may make matters more intelligible to the uninitiated reader if a word or two be said on some of the forms in which the Chinese language exhibits itself. There is (1) the universal written lansuage of China, made up of over 40,000 nonalphabetic and dissimilar characters, which represent only in a very imperfect way the common speech of the people; and there is (2) the spoken language of China, consisting of the varying sounds giveu to those 40,000 symbols, with the addition of many others it is impossible to represent by means of the written character. While, however, every form of the spoken sanguage has some features in common, it is divided into not fewer than a score of Vernaculars, which diflfer from each other in much the same way as Portuguese does from Spanish, Dutch from German, Italian from French, and so on. Another import- ant thing to note is that within each of the vernaculars are found numerous Dialects of an even more pronounced type than the Aberdonian, Cumberland, Yorkshire, and Cockney dialects of our own language. Regarding the range of each of the vernaculars — and especially of the dialects— in China, it is obviously impossible that any one man can speak in an authoritative way. The Rev. Dr. Wherry, of Peking, who began work in 1864, and who has given 80 much attention to this subject that he was asked to prepare a paper bearing on it for the Second Decennial Conference of Missionaries in Shanghai, says that some two-thirds of the people speak the Mandarin vernacular in its various dialects, while about a 100,000,000 divide among them the other vernaculars — that is, of course, assumingthe population of China to be 300,000,000, an eitimate which certainly does not err on the side of excess. On account, then, of the non-alphabetic nature of the written language, and the fact that one very seldom meets a native who can read it intelligently, China is now more than ever brought face to face with a problem of peculiar urgency and importance. Her paramount need is some method of writing and printing the — 7 — everyday speech of the people— one that will be flexible enough to meet all dialectic requirements, that will lead to little expense, produce books of portable siza, be looked upon with favour by European sinologists, and that will not isolate China still further away from Western Christian influence than she has been in the past. ' Now, of all the attempts which have been made during the last forty years, there can be no question that the use of Eoman letters for spelling out the short monosyllabic words of the Chinese spokeu language has taken a pre-eminent place in the solution of this problem. In at least ten of the vernaculars a rapidly increasing literature is being prepared in this form, and at the Decennial Conference just referred to — attended by 445 missionaries from every part of the empire — a Permanent Com- mittee of seventeen of its members was appointed to watch over and foster the movement. The bearing of all this on the subject of the present letter will at once be seen, that it raises certain questions about the claims of Mr. Murray's system, as compared with the Romanised method, of printing in China. Meanwhile, I s^hall be satisfied with a reference to two things ; and first, as regards the extent to which books in the Numeral type are available. Mr. Murray says that, in advocating the claims of his system. Miss Gordon-Cumming refers only to the Mandarin-vernacular region of China ; and, in reply, one can only say that, if such be really the case, this all- embracing " Mission to the Chinese Blind " has adopted a style of speaking that is essentially misleading, and that cannot be called generous toward fellow-workers in Hankow, Tainanfu, Chinchew, Swatow, and Canton ; at everyone of which widely- scattered centres teaching is carried on according to the Braille alphabetic method as opposed to Mr. Murray's way of numbering his sounds. The position is very much as if one were to prepare a Bible for use in Finland, call it a European version, and if Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Russians, and any number of — 8 — other nationals complained, say to them that they must be content on remembering the overwhelming size oi Russia ! I quite admit that this way of putting it may call forth objectiou as to popula- tion; but, people Eussia with 200,000,000 and Europe with 100,000,000, and there can be none on that score. It is easy, however, to see that, even although his own books have nothing to offer them, Mr Murray is very unwilling to admit that this countless host of prospective readers (for it ought to be borne in mine that the numeral type is said to be suitable for sighted and blind people alike) should require to go elsewhere for the supply of their wants. In other words, he is not prepared to- say if, or how far, it is an incorrect statement that one version of his books would be inapplicable anywhere in China, dialects being all the same to him, and he, " having every reason to believe that each of the very numerous dialects of the whole empire is com- posed of the same number of sounds." There could not be a gbeateb mistake ; about a matter, too, that lies at the very foundation of the extraordinary claims which have been put forth for this Murray system of printing. Nor is Miss Gordon-Cumming's borrowed illustration of the roomful of Spaniards, Germans, Russians, Poles, Danes, Italians, Swedes, French, English, &o., — all dumb till the Arabic numerals were produced, when each became vocal about them in his own way — of the least use here, except to mislead. In the mouth of an Oriental scholar like Sir John Davis, and carefully explained by him as holding good only within the narrow limits of those numerals, the illustration is correct and to the point ; but, with this common understanding of a few numerical signs. Miss Gordon- Cumming thinks she has secured the wealth of expression which a language contains. How would she convey the ideas found in a single verse of the New Testament to this polyglot company ? In short, is it possible that a list of symbols drawn up to express one dialect of 408 sounds will be suitable for another dialect of double the number of sounds, without some sort op change — 9 — BEING MADE IN THE LIST OP SYMBOLS ; and if such changes be indispensible, what about the one-veesion theory ? What, too, about those dialects of Mandarin-vernacular which differ from the Pekingese, in whicli. all Mr. Murray's books are being printed ? The following list indicates the number of sounds in a few of the leading vernaculars according to Mr. Dyer Ball, a well-known Sinologist in China : — Amoy 846 Cantonese 780 Foochow 786 Hakka 700 Hankow 316 Ningpo 444 Shanghai 660 Swatow 674 Wenchow 452 Yangchow 415 The second point I wished to notice is one very often referred to in Reports and other papers issued by Miss Gordon-CLimming's Mission, and which can all be obtained from, the hon. secretary, Mr. W. J. Slowan, 224, West George Street — I mean the alleged great advantage of printing Chinese vernaculars in Mr. Murray's system as compared with that of the Romanised alphabetic method. To those who are familiar with the literature of the subject, this will not appear an exaggerated statement of the claim which is made : — That sighted persons from distant provinces, no matter how old or how ignorant, or unable to understand each other's different form of speech, can be taught to read in one week (some even more rapidly) by blind teachers from numeral-type pages which have been prepared by blind girl-compositors — a whole Bible in this style being only a third of the size and cost of one in Romari type. In arriving at this estimate as to the relative size of the two versions, Miss Gordon-Cumming says : — " In the Murray type each numeral is represented by one, two, or, at the outside, three of the simplest conceivable symbols, whereas in the Roman type each word averages seven complicated letters interspersed with figures, commas, and circumflexes. In many cases the difference is greater. Suppose I have to write 338 alphabetically — three hundred and thirty-eight — I must use twenty-six separate letters in — 10 — place of three figures. Or thus, Numeral 8888, four figures; Roman, eight thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight — thirty- nine letters!" As a counter statement to the above, will readers please note here (1) that while the Numeral method for printing Pekingese is made up of 9 words of one symbol each, 100 words of two symbols each, and 299 words of three symbols each, the tonal- system DEMANDS THAT THE CONSIDERABLE SPACES ALLOWED TO EVSRY WORD SHOULD BE OF EQUAL SIZE — namely, capable of containing four symbols, whereas (2) instead of the corresponding Romanised Syllabary averaging seven letters per word, it has recently been printed by Mr. S. M. Russell, a teacher of mathe- matics at Peking, as follows: — 4 words of 1 letter each, 63 of 2 letters each, 142 of three letters each, 142 of 4 letters each, 48 of 5 letters each, and 9 of 6 letters each. This gives an average of three letters and a small fraction per word. Of course, the well- known varieties of printers' type quite admit of a Romanised vernacular Bible being produced, with references, alternative readings, notes, and chapter headings, in such a form as Bagster's pocket Bible ; at a price, too, which is not beyond the means of ordinary working people in China. Will the Peking Committee of Mr. Murray's Mission endorse the statement that such a Bible is practicable in Numeral type "set up" by blind girl-compositors? The fact is, that one glance through Mr. Russell's recently issued pamphlet, or at a single Gospel in Numeral type placed along- side a copy of the Mandarin New Testament in Roman letters will show how far the public is being misled by the statements which have been made about the relatively small size and cost of a Murray Bible. Notice further under this head, that Miss Qordon-Cumming thinks she has conclusively shown the superior- ity of the Numeral over the Roman-letter method of printing by reproducing that illustration about the Arabic nunierals ; but, as before, it proves nothing, for nearly every language — including even the Numeral system — possesses this alternative way of — 11 — writing sucli signs. Thus, 8888 in the extended form of Chinese writing requires 58 strokes of the pencil, while the abbreviated form of the same expression can be written with 12 strokes. With Miss Gordon-Cumming's remarkable statement about old ignorant persons learning to read the Numeral system in less than a week may be taken Mr. Murry's own account of the matter. After giving a number of very technical details, he goes on to say: — "There are thus 408 simple sentences, and the pupil is required to commit these to memory, and thenceforth to write the one and read it as the other. This he does like a chain of events, and in a verv short time, at the rate of about twenty sentences a day. Thii is, in fact, his spelling lesson." Comment here is needless. And now, I have finished for the present. Some may think that, after all, the details to which attention is here called are very trifling, and the only word I can say to such is that I do not agree with them. They are certainly not considered trifling by many others at home here, and are anything at all but trifling to workers in China whose methods have again and again been held up to adverse criticism by this " Mission to the Chinese Blind." Not that people should be so sensitive as to look upon such criticism as being always out of place. My only plea is for truthfulness of statement and fair play all round. In addition to liberal yearly grants from the National Bible Society, the public has responded to Miss Gordon-Cumming's appeals on this very technical subject by helping Mr. Murray's experiments with as much money as ■would Yirint fifty Chinese versions of the New Testament in Roman type, while the Peking School has already in hand an Endowment Fund of about thirty thousand dollars. Wherefore, then, the " earnest prayer " referred to on page 5 here, and why this constant tendency to exaggeration in Miss Gordon-Cumming's well- meaning, but — as many capable workers think — misplaced advocacy? The Shanghai Conference had something very different in view when appointing its Permanent Committee on 12 •work for the Blind in China, and surely there is room enough amongst us for the so-called Numeral method for the Blind, the Braille alphabetic system, and Romanised books, without anyone requiring to advance claims which are both ill-founded and ungenerous. — I am, &c., W. Campbell. 4. — Mr. Campbell's letter of September 12th, with enclosures from the Vernacular Com/miitee. WooDviLLE, 'Helensbuegh, Sept. 12, 1895. ■ SiE, — My letter to you of 29th June on the above subject con- tained some things affecting that Mission to the Chinese Blind which is carried on under the auspices of the National Bible Society of Scotland. I then pointed out that its successful appeal for funds — made through Miss C. F. Gordon-Cumming — rests chiefly on the argument that Mr. Murray's inventions will soon bring about nothing short of an educational and industrial revolution in China. The Reports and other papers, obtainable at 224, West George Street, state that this marvellous change has already commenced, that Mr. Murray's blind pupils are now teach- ing old ignorant sighted persons, whose speech is wholly unin- telligible, the arts of reading and writing in a few days, and that blind girl-compositors and pressmen are " setting up " and printing one version of the Scriptures to suit the needs of those who speak the most dissimilar dialects throughout China, Manchuria, and Corea ; it being further represented that the one version referred to can be produced at a third of the size and price of any of the Romanised versions issued by the British and Foreign Bible Society. Now, some friends may be interested to know that the exception I took to those extraordinary statements has received an amount of corroboration that will satisfy most people ; for it would not be easy to name a larger body of well-known experts — 13 — than those who issue the following letter from the General Conference Committee on Vernaculars. It has just reached me from China, and I would request you to note the desire of the signatories — amongst them being the recently-martyred Mr. Stewart — that due publicity be given to their statement ; more, at least, than would be secured were it sent only to Miss Gordon-Cumming's Mission or inserted in one or two little-known papers in China. Apologising for again encroaching on your space with these somewhat technical details, I am, &c., W. Campbell. GENEKAL CONFERENCE, SHANGHAI. — COMMITTEE ON VERNAOULAES. SwATOw, China, 13th May, ]895. To the Directors of "The Mission to the Chinese Blind." DeAb Sirs : Eepresentations have been made to this Committee as to the wrong that is Leins; done to the work which it is appointed to fosier by misstatements widely circulated by supporters of the Murray System of Writing for the Chinese Blind. On that system we ofier no opinion, as it lies outside our province to do so. But we regret the action of those who in support of it misrepresent and attack the systems which have been so largely used with the best results of reducing the Chinese Vernaculars to writing in Boman letter for the seeing. The misrepresentations to which we refer are such as the following, which are taken from your Eeports, and which have been widely circulated in religious papers, both at home and abroad : — 1. "In the Roman type each word averages seven complicated letters interspersed with small numerals, commas and circumflexes," * * * the cost OP A COMPLETE BIBLE, WITH THE " TONES " AND ASPIRATE OP EVERY WORD PERPECTLY RENDERED, WILL BE [i.e., in the Murray system] about one- THIBD THAT OP A SIMILAR BOOK PRODUCED ALPHABETICALLY BY SPECIALLY- TRAINED SIGHTED COMPOSITORS AND PROOP-READERS." (Report, 1893, p. 12.) 2. " ONE VERSION OP THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, PRINTED IX THE MURRAY TYPE WILL BE CURRENT THROUGHOUT THE VAST EMPIRE (wiTH MANCHURIA AND COREA AS WELL), INSTEAD OP SCORES OP DIFFERENT VERSIONS, PRINTED ru ALPHABETIC-ROMAN LETTERS." (Report, 1893, pp. 10, 11.) 3. "To give the tones with Roman letters ndds so enormously to the cost of printing that in Southern and Central China they are ignored in all Romanised books." (Report, 1891, p. 10.) We regret that these statements have been made and widely circulated, and that we are thereby laid under necessity to inform you that they — 14 — are entirely baseless and inconsistent with truth. We do not enter into disputable matters of opinion, but feel it our duty to lay before you the following statements of fact on the points raised in these passages. We take them in order : — 1. In the systems of Eoman type in the common use in the Chinese Dialects the average number of letters to a word is not " seven," but three. The letters used are not "complicated." They ai-e the Boman letters of English founts of type. With these mistakes your estimate of the comparative cost and bulk falls to the ground. There is absolutely no reason to think that printing on Mr. Murray's system will be either cheaper or less bulky than in Koman letter. 2. It is impossible to assert too strongly the utter baselessness of this statement. The most superficial knowledge of the language problem of China is enough to dissipate the idea of anything of the kind being possible. The dialect to which Mr. Murray has applied his system is one form of the widely spoken " Mandarin " Dialects. Outside of these are the " Southern Dialects," such as those of Shanghai, Ningpo, W^nchow, Taichow, Foochow, Amoy, Swatow, the Hakkas, Canton, Hainan, &c., and the Murray system has not been applied to any of these. They are distinct languages, whose idioms, words and pronunciation present endless diversities, and cannot in any way be represented by any one set of symbols. Again, Mr. Murray's system has only 408 syllabic symbols, while in many of the Dialects there are over 7P0 syllabic sounds. 3. This statement is in direct contradiction of the fact, which can be ascertained by anyone in a brief inspection of the books referred to. In the Shanghai, WSnchow, Foochow, Amoy, Swatow, Hakka, Canton and Hainan Dialects the tones are fully and accurately indicated by a simple set of accents, which do not materially affect the cost of printing. Were it only a matter of supporting a good cause by mistaken arguments we need not have troubled you in regard to it. But you are taking the responsibility before the Christian public of condemning the use of the Bomanised Vernaculars, which in the hands of many missions has proved itself of the utmost value for the edification of the native Christian Church. We trust that you will gladly withdraw from this position on becoming acquainted with the facts, and will in future Beports correct the errors already put in circulation. Such errors both tend to injure the work of others, and also to discredit, in the eyes of those qualified to judge, the system which you advocate. As these statements have been copied into a large number of religious papers we shall take the liberty of publishing this letter, which we at the same time address to you, begging that you will kindly give it your best consideration, and do what you judge to be necessary in the interest of truth. With fraternal greetings. We are, gentlemen, Youi-s very truly, E. Bbyant, London Mission, Peking ; representing the Mandarin Dialects. J. W. Lovs^BiE, American Presbyterian Mission, Peking; representing the Mandarin X>ial.eets. J. A. SiLSBY, American Presbyterian Mission ; representing the Shanghai Diaiteet. — 15 — J. P. GODDAED, American Baptist Union, Ningpo ; represmting the Ningpo Dialect. W. D. EUDLAND, Cliina Inland Mission, Taichow ; representing the Taiclww Dialect. W. E. SOOTHILL, United Methodist Free Church (English) ; representing the Wendiow Diateet. S.^ F. WooDiN, American Board Mission, Foochow ; representing the Foochow Dialect. E. W. Stewart, M.A., Foochow, Church Missionary Society (English) ; representing the Fooehmii Dialect. L. W. Kip, D.D., American Eeformed Mission, Amoy ; representing the Dialect of Amoy and Formosa. T. BaeclAy, M.A., English Presbyterian Mission, Formosa ; represmting the Dialect of Amoy and Formosa. J. C. Gibson, M.A., English Presbyterian Mission, Swatow ; representing the Sioatow Dialect. B. C. Henhy, D.D., American Presbyterian Mission, Ganlon ; representing the Oanton Dialect. W. ElDDELL, M.D., English Presbyterian Mission, Wukingt'u ; representing the Hahka Dialect. G. Eedsch, Ba£el Mission (German), Honglcong ; representing the JSakha Dialect. J. C. Meleose, American Presbyterian Mission, Hainan ; represmting the Hainan Dialect. Swatow, ]3th May, 1895. My Deae Mk. SiiOWAN: I am instructed by the above Committee to forward to you the [above], enclosed letter, begging that you will give it vour earnest consideration. I add here extracts from a few of the letters which I have received on ihe subject. One of the Committee writes : " Being a warm personal friend of Mr. Murray, of Peliing, I naturally wish his system abundant success. This I should tliink it to have attained were it adopted in the mandarin-spealsing provinces of China, or even in those of Manchuria, Chihli, and, perhaps, of Honan. But it is due to the millions more who must rely upon the Eomanised letter for their book knowledge of Christianity that the three considerations of this communication, which seem to me incontrovertible, should be presented to the society interested in furthering Mr. Murray's loving enterprise." Another: "I am myself much in favour of giving the Murray system a fair trial, at least in the mandarin districts : and so far as I have seen it tried it has given great satisfaction ; nevertheless, it is yet only an experiment. As to the relative cost of printing of the Murray and Eomanised — 16 — systems I should like to know who has worked out that problem, and with what data. The idea of including Korea in the area of the Murray system must surely arise from ignorance of the linguistic conditions of that country. The vernacular of the Koreans is Korean, and the^ have a neat, easily learned and easily written alphabet; and I believe it is as simple as anything foreigners can ever give them. Another writes: "I was shown some Gospels printed in the Murray system ; but they must have cost twice as much as books printed in the Chinese character, and certainly could not have been cheaper than copies of Komanised editions which I have seen. Thev certainly took more paper and made larger books than the Komanised. Our Vernacular has over 700 syllables, not counting tones. It is absurd to suppose that 408 mandarin syllables would supply our needs." You will see from these extracts that the members of this Committee have not taken this action in a spirit of hostility to Murrav's system, nor have they acted in ignorance of the matters referred to. There are only two members of the Committee whose names are not attached to the letter. One of these has not been heard from, owing probably to unusual pressure of work and anxiety on account of the war. One has written to say that, while he agrees with the letter, he is unwilling even to seem to dn anything that might in any way hinder work for the blind, and therefore prefers not to sign it. I am sure that all who have signed share this unwillingness, although we believe that in this matter, as in otliers, only good can come from the truth being known. I should add that the Committee has only acted in this formal way after the failure of repeated efforts, made in more private ways, to secure the correction of the mistnkes complained of. May I ask that you will kindly forward the copies of the letter now sent to the office-bearers of the " Mission to the Chinese Blind." It will be a further favour if you will kindly inform me what action they take in regard to it. With kindest regards, I am, my dear Mr. Slowan, Yours very trulv, John C. GresoN. * , * 5. — Reply to the above from Mr. W. J. Slowan, Glasgow Secretary of Miss Gordon- Gumming' s Mission. 224, "West George Street, Glasgow, September 13, 1895. Sir, — -May I ask your insertion of the accompanying extract from minute adopted by the Committee of this Mission after receipt of a communication from the Conference Committee on Vernacular Versions, which is re-printed in the correspondence columns of to-day's Herald ? — I am, &o. William J. Slowan, Hon. Sec. — 17 — Mission to the Chinese Blind. Inter Alia. Meeting of Committee, Glasgow, July 8, 1895. The Committee have received with much regret a printed copy of a letter addres^d to them, dated Swatow, 13th May, 1895 (which seems to have been printed and published in China before being sent to them, and the original of which has not yet reached them). The printed copy before them bears the names of 15 out of 17 members of the Conference Committee on Vernacular Versions. The Committee find that this paper takes up largely the ground •traversed in a letter recently received from the Eev. John C. Gibson, of Swatow, Secretary of the Conference Committee, in which similar complaints — the first that had reached the Committee — ^were submitted. The Committee agree to assure the Conference Committee that they are cordially interested in all efibrts to bring the Scriptures within the reach of the people of China, that they gladly recognise the service rendered in (his respect by the publication of versions in Eoman letter, and have individually done what they could to show their interest in such publications. Nothing was further from their intention or wish than to " take tlie responsibility before the Christian public of condemning the use" of the Eoraanised systems. They observe with pleasure that in the letter of the Conference Committee the practical value of the Murray system for teaching Mandarin speaking blind Chinese to read and write is not questioned ; while the Committee have ample testimony to the remarkable results which have followed the use of Mr. Murray's adaptation of the same system for the benefit of illiterate sighted persons. The Committee do not profess to have any personal acquaintance with the intricacies of Chinese dialects, or with the comparative merits of different systems of reducing them to writing. Friends in China may possibly appreciate better their diflSculty in such respects when they compare the two following statements. The printed letter before them says : — " In the Shanghai, Wenchow, Poochow, Amoy, Swatow, Hakka, Canton, and Hainan dialects the tones are fully and accurately indicated by a simple set of accents." But in the Chinese Recorder for June, 1891, a statement appeared from the pen of one of the signatories of this letter, signed also by seven other missionaries, aflSrming that " In Southern and Central China the tones are ignored in all Eomanised books," to which is added " on account of the expense." At the same time, in view of the statements now made to them, which they receive with great respect, the Committee readily own that their warm appreciation of Mr. Murray's work both among blind and sighted Chinese has led to their placing it in exaggerated contrast with the Eomanised systems. They sincerely regret if by so doing they have in any degree ininred the work which the Conference Committee desirn to fiirther, and will guard against any such mistake in future reports. — Extracted frora the Minutes. William J. Slowan, Secretary. — 18 — 6. — Mr, Campbell's letter of September lAth correcting the above Eeply-Minvie. "WooDviLLE, Helensbubgh, Sept. 14th, 1895. Sir, — The reply of Mr. Slowan's Committee to the letter from China vhich appeared in yesterday's Herald makes an important use of the following sentence : — " In the Chinese Recorder for June, 1891, a statement appeared from the pea of one of the signatories of this letter, signed also by seven other missionaries, affirming that 'in Southern and Central China the tones are Ignored in all Bomanised books,' to which is added ' on account of the expense.' " Now, by consulting that number of the CAiwese Recorder at the Mitchell Library anyone can see (1) that the statement in question is from the pen of Dr. Blodget, whose name does not appear among the signatures to the letter from China ; (2) that it is signed by six, intead of seven other missionaries ; (3) that those six names are also absent from the China letter; (4) that the article in the Recorder says nothing whatever about fiomanised books being printed without tones "on account of the. expense." — I am, &c., W. Campbell. 7. — Miss Ghrdon-Oumming's letter of January 9th in answer to tlte before^meniioned letters — luhich had been reprinted for private circulation in the form of a pamphlet of 32 pages. WAUicns Lodge, Crieff, January 9, 1896. Sib, — A pamphlet of 32 pages has just been printed on the subject of "Miss C. F. Gordon-Cumming's Advocacy of the Murray Numeral Method of Printing the Spoken Languages of China." This is being largely circulated gratis in order to — 19 — ■warn the public agianst the statement made by me to the efl'ect that one version of the Bible in the aforesaid numeral type could be read throughout the whole Chinese Empire, including Korea. No one can possibly be so much annoyed as I am myself at having so far misunderstood the subject as to describe it in this manner. The mention of Korea was altogether a mistake, while as regards China, what I ought to have said was that Mr. Murray considers it certain that one version can be read wherever Mandarin Chinese is spoken ; and as this is generally estimated as covering fully 4-5th3 of the empire, it must be admitted that the field to be benefited by his invention is a pretty large one. Unfortunately, the remaining l-5th includes a great variety of dialects (chiefly in Southern China), such as those spoken at Canton, Amoy, Foochow, Hankow, Ningpo, Shanghai, and elsewhere, each of which contains a different number of sounds ; consequently for these the one version,, representing the 408 sounds of Peking-Mandarin, would not be available.* So far as the compiler of this pamphlet confines himself to pointing out my mistakes I have nothing further to say, except to mention that his statements 1 and 2 on page 31 are erroneous. But he proceeds to throw discredit on my appeals to the public for funds to enable Mr. Murray to develop his printing in numeral type far sighted persons by stating that " the Peking School (which is Jor the blind) has already in hand an endowment fund of about thirty thousand dollars." Would that this statement were correct ! Unfortunately, it is absolutely erroneous, and as the writer has quoted many passages verbatim from the seventh report of this Committee for the Chinese Blind Mission, it is strange that he should have overlooked the following sentence in so short a paper : — " The tiny nest-egg of an endowment fund " (quoted in the treasurer's report on the last page as £3,344) " yields at present only about £140 a year towards securing Mr. Murray's salary. For all other purposes — maintenance of students, upkeep of buildings, and extension of work — the mission is wholly dependent on very B 2 — 20 — fluctuating voluntary donations." As the above misstatement is calculated seriously to augment the difficulties of year by year raising the necessary funds for Mr. Murray's work, I trust you will kindly insert this correction. — I am, &c., Constance F. Goedon-Cumming. *Poatseinpt. — As on page 12 of the pamphlet, the Mandarin- speaking people are estimated at only two-thirds of the population of China, I would call attention to the paper read in December, 1894, before the China Branch of the Koyal Asiatic Society by Mr. P. G. von MoUendorff— Dr. Edkins in the Chair. He states that the Mandarin dialect is spoken in 4-5ths of China proper. He reckons 300 millions who speak Mandarin, and 84 millions, chiefly along the coast of South and Central China, who talk other dialects. 8. — Mr. Campbell's reply to Miss Oordan-Oumming's letter, with subsequent postscript containing the Vernacular Committee's own correction of the Reply-Minute ef July 8th. WooDViLLE, Helensburgh, January 27, 1896. SiE, — I regret I have only now the opportunity of asking your kind permission to notice Miss Gordon-Cumming's letter of 9th instant. She charges ree with having made two " erroneous '' statements on page 31 of the pamphlet referred to ; but as her letter shows an evident disinclination to point out what those mistakes are, and as readers can easily verify my words for themselves at the Mitchell Library, little would be gained by enlarging on the matter here. Miss Gordon-Cumming also thinks it "absolutely erroneous" to say that Mr. Murray's one numeral-type School for benefiting blind and sighted Chinamen has an Endowment Fund of about 30,000 dollars ; she herself adding, however, that as yet, this — 21 — Fund amounts only to a " tiny nest-egg " of £3,344. Well, where ia the difference? At the Hongkong rate of exchange, £3,344 yields nearly 200 dollars over and above the sum mentioned by me. A much more pertinent thing in Miss Gordon-Cumming's letter is her acknowledgment of having seriously misunderstood the real bearings of a question she has been urging with so much purpose on the attention of friends at home and abroad. To have included Korea within her sphere of advocacy, and that under the immediate notice of a Society which has done so much for circulating Korean New Testament literature as the National Bible Society, was, indeed, a most singular proceeding ; but this letter of the 9th is also constrained to admit the fallacious- neis of those appeals which were based on the representation that Pekingese numeral-type books could be used in every part of China. Such a confession — coming after her Committee's similar statement about that other matter Mr. Slowan refers to in his note of 13th — is in the right direction, although it still leaves other workers very much in the dark as to the result of their well-founded complaints against this "Mission to the 500,000 Blind of China." To mention only one thing, Miss Gordon-Cumming here withdraws from Foochow, as being one of those non-Mandarin- speaking regions where Mr. Murray's books would be unavailable' but Mr. Murray himself categorically opposes this, as can be seen from these words in the latest Report of his Mission : — " Another critic has written to point out that Mr. Murray's system cannot be applied to non-Mandarin dialects. To this Mr. Murray replies that a Foochow scholar, who lately visited Peking, found no difficulty in understanding the Numeral type, without any change whatever ; although the Foochow dialect has a syllabary of 800 sounds, and is not reckoned 'Mandarin.' " Readers of that letter of the 9th woulil also notice its statement that Pekingese numeral-type books have still left for — 22 — them a wide enough field of usefulness among the 300 millio ns of Mandarin-speaking people in China. Now, although Mandarin- speakers number only 200 millions according to Mr S. M. Russell, there can be no doubt that, here at least. Miss Gordon- ■Cnmmins; seems in some accord with Mr. Murray, who put the rtiatter thus emphatically in his letter to the Herald of 18th June : — ■" My statement — and I am confident here — is that one Bible will suflSce for all Mandarin China — i.e., 16-18ths, or, to simplify it, 8-9ths of all China. This is what Miss C. F. Gordon-Cumming meant (sic), and it is absolutely correct." Mr. S. M. Russell also expresses agreement with this statement on p^ge 11 of his pamphlet, puhlished by the Mission, by affirming that — "As it stands, Mr. Murray's system is a universal one fot all Mandarin dialects." In considering this point, however, friends should not lose sight of — Fird, weighty testimony from fifteen members of the Conference Committee on "Vernaculars, in these words : " The dialect to which Mr. Murray has applied his system is one form of the widely-spoken 'Mandarin' dialects." Second, an equally conclusive testimony from Nanking, head-quarters of the southern Mandarin- speaking region, as Peking is that of the northern. It appears in the Chinese Recorder for December, 1894, and is given by Rev. T. W. Houston, with whose name (in her report for 1893) Miss Gordon-Cumming associates what professes to be a remarkable extension of numeral-type work at Nanking. Mr. Houston's own very different account of the matter is as follows : — "The system adapted for use of the blind of all Mandarin-speaking regions has yet to be prepared. It is the opinion of those who have studied specially this matter both in Nanking and Hankow, that a system in which each syllable is represented by characters indicating its initial and final is preferable to Mr. Murray's system. Possibly this opinion may be changed, but such systems are in use in these places, ^and work very satisfactorily. They were adopted after careful examination and comparison of Mr. — 23 — Murray's system." Third, Mr. Murray's acknowledgment of the weakness of his system as represented in Mr. Russell's pamphlet, and his resort to a confusing use of small circles and semi-colons for representing the five-tone form of Mandarin found south of Peking. The foregoing remarks apply only to the area over which numeral-type books are said to be available, but Miss Gordon- Cumming says nothing about her other claim which is moving the sympathy of so many people — namely, the remarkably small size and cheapness of those books. The following sentence expresses this claipi, being taken from Part II., page 28, of her little booklet, Wm-h for thp Blind it], China, which also contains lists of oiBce-bearera, directions about sendipg subscriptions, and an invitation that its pages should be translated into all languages: — " As no syllable [of the Numeral system] ever involves the use of more than three symbols, while seven or eight would be necessary to represent the same sound by the use of Roman type, Mr. Murray reckons that he can print complete copies of the Bible one-third the size, and at one-third the cost of those printed in Roman letters, and moreover, showing at a glance, the correct sound, aspirate, and 'tone' of every word, which is a most important advantage." Now, to make good this claim, a numeral-type New Testament would require to be 41 inches long, 2} broad, i an inch thick, and sell for about 3d. per copy ; the correctness of which data anyone can prove by examining a large-type copy of the Amoy- Vernacular New Testament in Roman letters at the Mitchell Library, in which copies of the Romanised Reference New Testament in Northern Mandarin and in the Foochow Vernacular have also been placed. By the way, as several fruitless attempts have been made to find out the exact size and price of Mr. Murray's books, and as not a few friends in Glasgow wish to come to an independent conclusion on some other points, could not copies of those books — 24 — be placed in the Mitchell Library for public inspection ? The National Bible Society bears the expense of providing the Scriptures in numeral-type, and there should be no real difficulty in adding Mr. Murray's to the already interesting collection of embossed books in the largest of our free libraries. Readers of this correspoadenca will have observed that anything said hitherto has turned exclusively on the alleged accuracy or non-accuracy of statements circulated by the " Mission to the Chinese Blind" in support of Mr. Murray's system of writing the spoken languages of China — the letter from the Vernaculars Committee being especially careful to explain that those who signed it abstained from expressing any opinion on the merits of the system itself. Every one feels, however, that the columns of a daily newspaper is not the place to undertake a lengthened treatment of this latter branch of the subject, even although such a thing were thought to be desirable. Suffice it to say that the main— I was about to say the only — contention which many of us in China have with the Numeral way of writing is, its non-alphabetia character ; in other words, its rejection of that rich mass of material which lay ready to hand in the JRomanised vernaculars and Braille alphabetic system, and its unfortunate turning away from the trend of that irresistible onward movement which has done so much for every country of Christendom. Miss Gordon-Cumming tells us that natives have no difficulty in learning Mr. Murray's "spelling lesson" of 408 sentences on the ground that such a method is ia keeping with native ways, and that the memories of even illiterate people there are developed to a wonderful extent. But (a) in spite of whatever may be said to the contrary, untrained Chinamen are very like untrained people anywhere else, while (6) the stereotyped, lifeless system of memorising in their schools and colleges lead to an appalling amount of mental leakage, and acts as one of the greatest barriers to all true progress. No, no ; we don't want any shadow, least of all this one, to go back on the sun-dial of old China. — 25 — Analytically, most of the symbols in each word-space of the Numeral system have to be read up and across from left to right or right to left; and then, collectively, down the column as in Chinese writing. Its use of number- signs for letters leaves the student with nothing save a tedious and unreliable process which is "wholly mental" for arithmetical purposes, besides necessitating the employment of ordinary Chinese punctuation marks (the comma, small circle, and single and double lines for proper names) with numeral characters in printing the books of Scripture. Further, the nicety of shift required in placing the symbols up or down or to the right or left in every word-space renders writing of medium size very difficult and almost impossible, except on paper which has been ruled both ways. All this, however — the "all" here being a very colossal one — might have been arranged for in some way had Mr. Murray thrown in his lot with those of our experienced brethren in China who are always found on the side of that which is progressive, and safe, and statesmanlike in our work. Even yet it may be possible for the "Mission to the Chinese Blind" to sound a note of recall from this non-alphabetic course along which it is driving " full steam ahead." The change might lead to some little temporary difficulty and a small loss of mere present advantage, but by making it we would all think more than ever of Mr. Murray, while the missionaries in China would thereby be laid under an additional debt of gratitude to the National Bible Society of Scotland. — I am, &c., W. Campbell. Postscript. — The Herald of 13th September contained a letter from the Vernacular Committee of the General Conference of Missionaries in China, addressed to the Glasgow Committee of the " Mission to the Chinese Blind," and calling attention to serious mis-statements which were being circulated in favour of the so-called Numeral system of writing; while Mr. W. 3. — 26 — Slowan replied by publishing the Minute from his Committee of July 8. Seeing, then, that the correction I made of several important mistakes in that Minute forms the only two sentences from my pen on page 31 of the recently issued pamphlet, and that Miss Oordon-Cumming's letter to the Herald of 9th January characterises both sentences as being "erroneous," it seems desirable to finish this part of the correspondence by reproducing here the Vernacular Committee's own comments on Mr. Slowan's Minute. They are given in the following letter from the Chinese Seeorder for December : — *** GENERAL CONFERENCE, SHAI^GHAI, 1890. — COMMTTTEB ON VEENACULAES. SwATOW, 20th November, 1895. My Dear Mr. Slowan, In August last I received the ^finding of your Comraitlee in regard to the letter of this Committee referring to statements made in your IleDorts as to supposed relative advantages of Mr. Murray's system of writing Chinese for the seeing over the Roman letter. On receipt I sent you an acknowledgment, but it was necessaiy to communicate with othere before sending you a fuller reply. Let me now thank you in the name of this Committee for your kind attention to their letter, and especially for your Committee's assurance ' that they are cordially interested in all efforts to bring the Scriptures within the reach of the people of China ; that they gladly recognise the service rendered in this respect by the publication of Versions in Roman Letter,' and for their promise that they ' will guard against any such mistakes in future Reports.', With this expression of thanks I might close, but for some points raised Ijy your Committee which require a word of explanation. 1. Your Committee rather complain that the letter sent was a printed one, and later that it had been 'published in China before being sent to them.' I am anxious to say that we were not guilty of this discourtesy. The letter was printed for sending round for approval to the scattered members of this Committee, seventeen in number. Printed copies were then sent home solely for the convenience of your Committee. It appeared to me that it would be more convenient for the gentlemen addressed to have a copy each than to have only one in manuscript in the hands of their Secretary. It was not published either in China or at home until after your Committee had received it and agreed to their finding upon it, as advised in your letter -to me of 20th June. I may say that that finding has not yet reached me, but I suppose it is superseded by the later one of 8th July. The 'original', which — 27 — you say had not reached you, was also in print, differing from the others only in being authenticated by my written signature. It was sent to you as Secretary at the same time as the other copies for your Directors. 2. — ^Your Committee say that our letter is contradicted by a statement published in the Recorder for June, 1891. They say: — 'But in the Ohinese Recorder for June, 1891, a statement appeared from the pen of one of the signatories of the letter, signed also by seven other missionaries, affirming that 'in Southern and Central China the tones are ignored in all Komanised books,' to which is added ' on account of the expense.' Allow me to cor."ect this statement in the following points : — (a) The words ' on account of tlie expense ' do not occur in the Recorder- Any one can see this by referring to the Recorder, but I have besides made enquiry of the author of that statement, and he, besides pointing out that he did not use these words, adds that the insertion of them entirely mis- represents his meaning. Writing from the Far North he unfortunately used the phiase ' Southern and Central China ' in reference to the so-called ' Southern Mandarin ' (with Nanking for its centre), and the Ningpo as two dialects in which the New Testament has been Eoraanised without the use of tone-marks. There are special dialectical reasons which seem to make it unnecessary to mark the tones in those dialects. But so far was the writer from saying that this is an evil submitted to on the ground of expense, that the point of his sentence was to suggest that th's feature might be borrowed by Mr. Murrav, and the tone-marks omitted in his writing for the Mandarin-speaking blind. I enclose a copy of his letter, which gives his view at greater length. (5). Again, it is not correct to say that the statement quoted was 'signed by seven other missionaries.' As a matter of fact it was signed by none. The author's own signature was, he says, inadvertently omitted, and what other six gentlemen signed was only the brief testimony appended to the statement : ' The above seems to us a fair and adequpte view of the advantages of Murray's system for teaching the blind in China to read and write. Of its success in practical working we are all witnesses.' For anything beyond this these gentlemen take no responsibility. One of them writes to me : ' My signature to it was not intended to substantiate every word in it, but to show that in my opinion it was as a whole ' a fair and moderate view of the advantages of Murrav's system,' and that that system had proved itself successful in practice. T did not even intend to support the opinion that it was necessarily superior, all things considered, to the ordinary Roman sj^steras, for of this I had and have now grave doubts.' Finally, one other missionary signed a brief paragraph saying that ' no one engaged in a similar work would be justified in setting aside this system •fbr another without a careful study, &c., the struggle for a bare existence is so keen, Mr. Murray had to face the problem., what useful work oTild ths blind in his sohool be employed in. He conceived the happy idea that his system for the blind rould readily be acquired by the seeing, and that the former might be profitably emnloyed in teaching the latter to read, as the treasurer of the mission in Peking he advised the Home Committee not to be responsible for the cost of type, etc., as he considered it still in the light of an experiment. Kind friends in Glasgow, hiwever, assisted Mr. Murray. He got the type, printed a few bool?s, and a class of country womeu was formed in the London Mission, we5t city, Peking. The successful way in which these women learned the system placed it beyond the category of an experiment, and only after it had been a success did the Wational Bible Society of Scotland agree to be responsible for the nrinting of certain books in the Bible, a? there was demand for them. Why does Mr. Campbell after avowing that his only plea is for truthfulness of statement, make the following reckless statement : "In addition to liberal yearly grants from the National Bible Society the public has responded to Miss Cumming's appeals on this very technical .s'l'iject by helping Mr. Murray's experiment? with as much money as would print fifty Chinese versions of the New Testament in Roman type," We need hardly repeat that the above statement is entirely incorrect. 14 —It should be remembered that both the Romanised version of the Bible and that ia Mr. Murray's system are both intended for the illiterate and those who have not tim ^ to acquire the Chinese characters. It is nonsense tT talk of bringing China nearer to Western civilization by using Roman letters iu colloquial literature. As the Chinese language is at present, owing to the paucity of so'mds, it is impossible to make it an alphabetical language. Now iu teaching illiterate and ignorant people to read the Bible and other Christian literature why compel them to recognise Roman letters? They are not simole, and cerfainly not ea^y to write In fact old men and womeu, for whom the Romanised sv^tjm is principiUy intended, can nave' hope to be able to write. With Murray's system old women can write nicely, as soon as they are able to read It is a great advantage for converts in the country to be able to communicate b'^ letter with the missionary. We append a few letters from missionaries concerning Murray's system. Signed. S. M. Russell, Imperial C dlege, Peking. J. DupciKON, Esq., M. D., Rev. W. S. Ament, American Board Mission. Rev. Dr. H. H. Lowet, President of the Peking University. Rev. F. D. Gamewell, "^ Rev. G. Owen, t London Missionary Society. Rev. S. E. Meech, ; J. Stonehopsi. — 39 — Seapoint Houbb, Monkstoun, Co. Dublin, July 1st, 1895. My dear Mr. Murray — Since my last letter to you from Kien-ning about your system and the possibility of its adaptation to our local dialect a most curious thing has happened. When returning home through Amoy, Mr Sadler asked me if I would lilce to see a man who had for nineteen years been developing a system for universal use throughout China. He is an English-speaking man, a Christian and earnest layman, working in his spare time in the mission schools. He is Librarian of the Community Library in Amoy. He explained his system partially to me, but I could only gather that the main idea was identical with what I understood the main idea of yours to be ; that the symbols were different, but that he had begun at the other end of China, and with non-mandarin dialects, and therefore bad accumulated very much information and experience with regard to the possibility of any universal system being used in the south and south-west of Ghana, and so obviating the curse of Babel to some degree. I send yoii his books, and hope you will be able to put yourself into eommxmication with him through Mr Sadler, of the L. M. S. (I think) in Amoy. The man is vmdoubtedly very clever, and believes in his system which he was teaching to a class of boys when I saw him. Tours very sincerely, J. S. Collins. C. I. M., C'HEN-Txr, Si-ch'uan, Sept. 25th, 1894. To Eev. W. Murray, Bible Society, Peking — Dear Sir : I have just been reading Mr. Eichard's article in the Chinese Recorder for A ugust on your New Phonetic System of writing Chinese characters, and am much interested to learn that it seems so suitable for use in our Christian work in teaohing natives who have not time to learn their own characters how to read. The Romanised system has been tried here, but with small success, partly owing to the books we used being without tone marks, and also because of the spelling not being suitable for this district. By your system both of these difficulties are overcome, so I am writing now to ask if you will kindly forward me a copy of "Explanation of your system ;" also, if there are any other books on the subject that would help us, please send them. The expense of Ihem I shall gladly bear. It will be one of the greatest blessings we can give to the country churches ; something to help them better in understanding the Bible. With every good wish for a wide sphere for this system. Yours very sincerely, James G. Comlack. — 40 — 10. — Anonymous paragraph from "' The Scotsman" of August Slst. The Edinburgh Royal Blind Asylum and School yesterday supplied from its Braille printing office at West Craigmillar, to the order of the English Presbyterian Mission, Formosa, the first Braille edition of "The Sacred Edict." It is printed in the Amoy-Chinese vernacular, which was first adapted to the Braille system by Mr W. H. lUingworth, headmaster of the institution,. in 1889. 11. — Mr, Campbell's notice of the above paragraph. WooDviLLE, Heleksbukgh, Auguit 31, 1896. SiE, — A paragraph in Saturday's Scotsman states that Mr. Illingworth, of the Blind School at West Craigmillar, was the first to adopt Braille type to the Amoy-Chinese vernacular, but a very obvious qualification for such work is some knowledge of the structure and spirit of the language to be represented, whereas Mr. Illingworth cannot pretend to know even the alphabet of Amoy-Chinese, much less its peculiar system of tones, aspirates, and nasals. The facts of the case are these: — Pastor Hartmann had been doing helpful work for the blind in South China, and in 1889 a request for information at Craigmillar about preparing books in Amoy vernacular was met with the reply that none of the teachers there knew anything of Chinese. When, however, I explained that Boman letters had been used for expressing the sounds of this dialect, Mr Illingworth kindly under- took to write opposite the alphabetic letters and other signs furnished to him certain symbols from Braille as a somewhat tentative scheme. Now, is it possible that anyone can be surprised or offended if this initial experiment failed to meet the full requirements of the case? During the one or two visits then paid to Craigmillar, it was simply impossible to make uninitiated friends understand everything about so intricate a dialect, the — 41 — result being that their contribution was useful mainly in leading to an independent study of Braille, and to numerous additional attempts in China before reaching that simple and concise method of embossed writing which has been used successfully for years in the School for the Blind at Chinchew and elsewhere. No books or sheets of any kind were ever prepared in China accord- ing to the list of symbols drawn up by Mr. lUing worth. With regard to some copying work just finished for me at the Craigmillar Institution, I may also be allowed to explain that the first edition of our embossed reading book being exhausted, fresh sheets of the whole were prepared for printing a second edition at Taiaanfu as the first had been ; and eight stereotype plates were made from these sheets there when it became necessary for me to return on furlough. In the hope, therefore, of obtaining exact information as to the quality and cost of such work done in this country when compared with that produced by blind Chinese pupils, I placed the primer sheets which were written two years ago — with an embossed copy of my translation of the 'Sacred Edict' — for reproduction at the Craigmillar School. It may be added that the conclusion reached is unquestionably in favour of the employment of Chinese stereotypers and printers; this arising from (1) the cheapness of Chinese labour; and (2) the painfully tedious process of stereotyping dot by dot in a language which is wholly unintelligible to everyone within reach. — I am, &c., W. Campbell. 12. — Mr. IttingwortKt letter of September 6th. Ceaigmillae, Edinbuegh, September 4, 1896. Sib, — I was greatly surprised and somewhat amused td notice the letter under this head in your issue of the 3rd September, signed "W. Canlpbell — surprised that a gentleman of — 42 — Mr. Campbell's standing should make such an unprovoked and hitter attack on my probity, and amused at the hollow and unstable character of his facts and statements generally. When that rev. gentleman came to me in 1889 with the request that I would make an adaptation of Chinese to the Braille system, I explained that, as I did not know the language, it would be necessary for him to supply me with an alphabet a nd some literature in the dialect he wished me to adapt. This done, I spent a considerable amount of time in the study of the respective characters and the frequency of their recurrence, the " peculiar tonals, aspirates, and nasals " included, r,nd not until I was perfectly certain of my ground, and after many experi- ments, did I decide on a final arrangement of Braille symbols. This was accepted by Mr. Campbell at the time with apparent delight, not as a "tentative scheme" at all, but as a bonorfide adaptation. I even supplied him with a printed embossed copy of the " Lord's Prayer " in Chinese Braille. In support of my position, I refer Mr. Campbell, and any other persons interested, to the newspaper reports of the annual exhibition at West Craigmillar, 29th May, 1889, Lord Hopetoun in the chair. I will give two extracts from these reports. (1) " Rev. Mr. Campbell delivered a short address on the blind in China, and said he had greatly benefited by his visit to the Blind Asylum in Edinburgh. As one result of his viiit, he would carry away with him a specimen of the Braille embossed printing adapted to the Chinese language, by means of which he expected to be able to reduce to one-third the size of the books which he had at present in use." (2) " Rev. Mr. Campbell expressed his sense of gratitude for the benefits he had derived from the institution in the prosecution of his work in China. . . . He (Mr. Campbell) had now obtained in the Institution plates which would enable him to publish the gospels in the Chinese character embossed ; " while the SeoUman further adds that the copy of the " Lord's Prayer " above referred to was handed to the chairman. — 43 — The very bold statement that "my list of symbols wa« never in use in China " needs no comment beyond the fact that several days ago I asked Mr. Campbell to point out to me where the difference lay between the system he uses and the adaptation I gave to him in 1889 ; he has not done so, and I therefore conclude that he, like myself, fails to find any. It would be interesting to know. who did make the adaptation now in use if not I. Surely Mr. Campbell will acknowledge that a thorough knowledge of the Braille system would be a sine qua non in such work, and his acquaintance with that lux in ienebris was certainly inferior in 1889 to my knowledge of the Amov vernacular, for the alphabet of the latter existed then only, I believe, in Roman characters, and any one with eyes could understand it ; but the Braille alphabet is, and always will be, very much Chinese to the lay eye. I decline to enter into any controversy regarding the latter part of Mr. Campbell's letter, as it is not a purely personal matter like the former ; but in passing I will simply say that the statements therein contained are as ambiguous and misleading as the so-called facts above replied to. — I am, &c. W. Hy. Illiistgwoeth. l^.—Miss Gordon- Cumming's letter to " The Scotsman." Sir, — The letters on the above subject in your issues of September 3 and 7, from Mr. Campbell and Mr. Illingworth, are specially interesting, as proving the exact date of the first effort to adapt Braille's embossed dots to one of the non-mandarin dialects of Southern China — namely, in 1889. In a letter, dated May 30th, 1895, addressed to the editor of the Glasgow Serald, and subsequently reprinted for much ■wider gratuitous circulation, the Eev. W. Campbell stated, with regard to the adaptation of Braille's system of embossed dots — 44 — for Southern China, that " the first books were already in type before anything was known of Mr. Murray's numeral system, now used at Peking." It was in June, 1879, that I saw and heard Mr. Murray's first set of blind pupils reading and writing Mandarin Chinese fluently by means of Braille's embossed dots representing numerals, and was informed by my host. Dr. Dudgeon, that three months previously they had all been totally ignorant beggars. By the end of the year 1886 I had described this scene and Mr. Murray's system in fully 150 newspapers and periodicals, also in a special pamphlet widely circulated, and in my book " Wanderings in China " (of which I may mention that Mudie's Library alone circulated 500 copies). So that, in its application of Braille's dots for the blind in Mandarin-speaking China — i.e., four-fifths of the Empire — Mr. Murray's strangely simple invention was by no means unknown in 1889. I wish to point out these dates as likely to become interesting in the future. — I am, &c., Constance F. Goedon-Cumminq. 14. — Mr. Campbell's reply to the above WooDViLLE, Helensburgh, September 10, 1896. Sib, — In her letter to the Scotsman of 8th instant, Mis* Gordon-Cumraing seems to have overlooked the more obvious meaning of what I wrote on the above subject of the Braille type in China, as can easily be inferred from my public statement of August 31st. The letcer she quotes from does not make a claim for anything before Mr. Murray's non-alphabetic way of writing ■was in existence, but was intended merely to express the fact that the writer knew nothing about it at the time referred to. With regard to this question of prioifity in benevolent work,, no one denies that some interest and evdu merit attaches to it ; — 45 — but may I venture to remark that, in her advocacy of Mr. Murray's now numerous inventions, Miss Gordon-Cumming would do well to be somewhat more cautious in advancing such claims for any Christian worker in so extensive a country as China. For example, her Worh for the Blind in Qiina interrupts a certain narrative on page 35 with the following explanatory statement:-^ "It must be borne in mind that it is to Mr. Murray that we are indebted for the discovery that there are only 408 sounds in the language instead of upwards of- 4,000, as was commonly supposed (sic), from the fact that the Chinese reader has to master upwards of 4,000 elaborate symbols." Now, anyone with even a superficial knowledge of China is aware that this statement is simply not true. Further, page 15 of the same brochure thus continues, after alluding to the earlier stages of Mr. Murray's work : — " He had set himself to master both Moon's system of embossed alphabetic symbols, and also Braille's system of embossed dots. Now he ceaselessly, revolved in his own mind whether it might be possible to adapt one or other of these to the bewildering intricacies of the Chinese language." Here again, however, both Miss Gordon- Cumming and Mr. Murray appear to have been ignorant of the very well-known fact that several Chinese dialects, including even the Pekingese, had been reduced to writing for the blind many years before, as the following extracts plainly show: — "A book has already been stereotyped in one of the dialects of China, expressed by Moon's characters and English orthography, from the manuscript of a missionary who had seen a specimen of ' Moon ' in the Pekin dialect, and who longs to instruct by this means some of the blind in China." — Report of the Moon Society for 1852. " A missionary has taken out with him to China a book prepared by himself and embossed by W. Moon in the Ningpo colloquial expressed in European orthography according to a plan agreed upon by the missionaries at Ningpo." — Report for 1853. " In China a considerable number of persons have been taught. A — 46 — young "woman at Ningpo who received one of the copies of the Gospel of Luke in the Ningpo dialect, which I sent out some years ago, frequently sat in the market place, and on the steps of the idol temples^where numbers of persons congregated), and there read the Gospel narrative to the assembled crowds of surprised and attentive listeners. This young person was obliged, with others, to leave Ningpo, and she afterwards settled at Shanghai, where many others have earned to read." — ^Dr. Moon's lAght for the Blind (Longmans, 1873). The following additional quotation may be made for the sake of its concluding sentence : — "The Eev. Hudson Taylor (founder of the China Inland Mission) has ordered 50 copies of the Gospel of St. Mark in the Northern Mandarin dialect to be forwarded to China, a friend of his having borne the expense of stereotyping, which we have just completed. A Primer in this dialect has also been prepared. This is the ninth Chinese dialect to which Dr. Moon has adapted his type." — Report jor 1885. With reference to these pioneering attempts, it may be remarked in passing that, since the time when writing with Braille dots came into use, a somewhat hazy belief has arisen that symbols like Moon's have now become altogether antiquated and useless. That belief, however, is a mistaken one, for it ignores a fundamental difference of condition which exists among those who require to read by the sense of touch. The question is treated with great impartiality and wealth of illustration in the Report of the late Royal Commission on the Education of the English-speaking Blind. It is there insisted that it would be highly detrimental were every kind of type to be discarded in favour of Braille. And why ? Because any blind person can be got to read from such large, clean, open letters as the Stuttgart or Moon's, whereas it cannot be seriously affirmed that Braille is suitable for hard-handed and less intelligent elderly people — a by no means inconsiderable number of the blind in every country, especially China. England probably never produced a more sober-minded and able expert on this subject — 4,7 — than the late Dr. T. K. Armitage. He was blind himself, a gentleman of independent means, had a life-long practical acquaintance with every kind of embossed •writing, and the conclusion he came to at last was "that for purposes of education, and for the intelligent blind of all ages, the Braille system is to be preferred, while Moon's system is the best for those whose sense of touch is much injured by hard manual work, or for those adults who, from want of previous education, or from any other cause, are satisfied if they can read and do not feel the want of writing." — See his Education and Eirvployment of the Blind. Once more as io the claim of priority. Mr. Murray put the finishing touches to a non-alphabetic system of shorthand just before coming to the Shanghai Conference of missionaries in May, 1890, and Miss Gordon-Gumming writes as follows about that system : — " Nothing of the nature of shorthand was known in China, and its possibility was a new revelation to Chinese students. Since then one or more systems has been introduced by other foreigners. (Imitation, it is said, is the truest flattery !) But this, the original shorthand for China, has the merit that, in common with the type which it represents, it is applicable to the dialects of every province, because, being read by numbers, NOT PHONETICALLY, the varied pronunciation of dift'erent dialects is of no consequence Mr. Murray writes concerning it, ' The Chinese will admire this ! . . . . I am in the field, and know the need. This also can be taught by the blind ; it is a chance for them that will never die.'" Now, apart from this absurd claim of universal applicability, those interested should compare what is said here about the originality of Mr. Murray's efibrts with (1) the Chinese Recorder for 1888, in which there is given a clear and modest account, with full-page illustrations, of Kev. Harlan P. Beach's system of shorthand for writing Mandarin-Chinese, and where readers are informed that, by direction of the American Mission Board at Pekin, a Catechism in these characters had been — 48 — published there in November, 1887 ; (2) Mr. Barclay's letter in the Shanghai Messenger for 1894, in which he takes exception to Miss Gordon-Cumming's claim by stating that Mr Grant of Ghinchew had taught his students to write Chinese in shorthand years b^efore Mr. Murray's experiments in the same direction.— nf am, «S!c,, W. Campbell. 15. — Mm Gordon-Cumming's appeal in " The North British Daily Mail." Walton Lodge, Ceiepf, September 2, 1896. SiE, — It is now four years since accounts first reached us of the . dangerously dilapidated condition of the old Chinese house inhabited by the Rev. W. H. Murray and his femily, and repeated appeals have been made to the pi;blic to supply the necessary funds for rebuilding it. Mr. Murray has all along urged that, instead of spending a considerable sum on rebuilding on the present cramped site, which would necessitate the house now being made two storeys high — a detail very seriously objected to by the Chinese — we should endeavour to raise a sum sufficient to secure the adjoin- ing premises, on which are Chinese houses, which can easily be adapted for the purposes required. This would permanently benefit the mission, as it would secure ample space for the exten- sion of the Blind School and development of the printing works, instead of everything being crowded, as it now is, with no space even to accommodate pupils, either blind or sighted, desirous of lodging at the mission while being taught. There can be no question as to the great advantages involved. Hitherto, however the subscriptions received have not proved sufficient for even the minor outlay, so that Mr. Murray's larger hope was not seriously entertained till a letter was received from a self-supporting missionary lady to say that she considers the acquisition of this — 49 — property so essential that (although the risk of a permanent reduction of her small income is a serious matter to herself) she has decided to guarantee £1,000 of the whole cost, provide'^', that steps are at once taken to secure the property and to raias the balance of the money. Instructions to this effect have accordingly been sent to the committee at Peking, in faith that the requisite sum — about £1,700 — will be forthcoming, for it is earnestly hoped that Mr. Murray's own countrym en will not allow this generous missionary lady to be called upon to meet her guarantee. I appeal for a band of helpers who will each endeavour to collect £25 to £50 ; but subscriptions of any amount will be gratefully received by the treasurer, Mr. James Drummond, C.E., 58, Bath Street, Glasgow ; or by, yours faithfully. * (Miss) Constance F. Gordon-Cumming. P.8. — I may add that letters just received from missionarie.* and other influential residents in North China speak in the very highest terms concerning this mission in all its branches, especially regarding Mr. Murray's application of his numeral type for use of illiterate-sighted people. One writes : — " All the old missionaries in Peking of whom I requested an opinion concerning Mr. Murray's work were loud and unqualified in their praise of it. " 16. — Mr. Cativpbeirs comments on ihe above appeal. WooDYiLLE, Helensburgh, Sept. 10, 1896. Sir, — ^With regard to an appeal in the MailA&teA 2nd inst. for funds to carry on Mr. Murray's non-alphabetic method of writing, * The appeal liad already beeu widely circulated iu other papers, some versions of it drawing" an almost heartrendinj? picture of this lonjf-tried a^ent of the National Bible Society and only teacher of a partially-endowed little school in the annual receipt of hundreds of pounds, living with his family for years among soaking ruins, and inhaling the pestilential miasma of the great unclean city. The following notice was taken of one appeal which appeared in the Glavgovi J/era^rf of 28 August —Sir — Tour issue of to-day contains one of Miss Gordon-Cumming's numerous appeals for money to push the adoption of another ideographic method of writing for blind and sighted people in China ; but it ought to be known that, by an overwhelning majority, the missionary body there advocates instead the Braille alphabetic system for Blind readers, and the use "of Boman letters for those sighted people to whom books in the ordinaiy written language are inaccessible — I.am," W. C. — 50 — may t be allowed to state that many persons whose judgment is entitled to respect look upon Miss Gordon-Cumming's untiring efforts in this direction as greatly hindering any well-considered and really adequate solution of the language-problem of China. That lady is well known as a tourist, and people willingly read her entertaining — if somewhat couleur de rose — jottings from different parts of the world, but things are much altered when she comes forward as the expounder and defender of an entirely new method of writing Chinese — a method, moreover, which 445 missionaries, met in Conference on the subject, deliberately set aside because of its cumbersomeness, and which was rejected in favour of the Braille alphabet by such capable friends of the blind as Pastor Hartmann at Hongkong, and Messrs. Crossette and Houston in the mandarin-speaking regions of the north. So LONG AS Miss Gobdon-Cumming confined hee ATTENTION TO THE BLIND IN ChINA NO ONE FELT INCLINED TO SAY VERY MUCH, even although friendly observers groaned in spirit to see high-class journals like the Sunday Magazine, Shanffkai Messenger, Life of Faith, and United Presbyterian Misn denary Record made, use of for the propagation of statements which are simply incapable of proof. It is her later advocacy, from this same platform of the " Mission to the Chinese Blind," of a vast scheme for the sighted myriads of China that proves so very disturbing, the terminus ad quern of this scheme leading to nothing short of an abandonment of our present long-tested methods of education in China, and to a condition of things which is thus described by Mr. Murray himself: — " Granted such help in money was allowed, I would go from one end of China and start schools everywhere for the blind, and read from one print ; and next turn the blind to teach the sighted illiterate, and also the scholar stenography equal to reporting speed (the latter one week's study), and in two years' time have no illiterate Christians anywhere." — Education Association Records for 1893. The more objectionable features of Miss Gordon-Cumming's advocacy are seen in : — First, exaggerations regarding the origin, — 51 — universal applicability, cheapness, diminutive size, and simplicity of Mr. Murray's non-alphabetic way of wiiting, statements of quite a misleading kind on each of these particulars having already obtained wide currency in our missionary periodical literature both at home and abroad. A few such statements may be q'uoted here : e. g. " It must be borne in mind that it is to Mr. Murray that we are indebted for the discovery that there are only 408 soxmds in the language instead of upwards of 4,0C0 as was commonly supposed, from the fact that the Chinese reader has to master upwards of 4,(J( ) ei'iborate symbols " — Work for the Blind, in China, p. 35. " He [Mr. Murray] therefore set himself to note the value of every somiD, and ere long was able ■';o prove to the Chinese that they have only 408, and he has every reason to believe that each of the very numerous dialects of the whole empire is composed of the same number of sounds " — The Messenger for December, 1894, p. 180. " This brings us to the grand point, namely, that the natural inference is that one version of the Holt Sceiptttees, feinted in THE MURBAT Type, WILL BE CTIRBENT THEOTIGHOUT THE VAST EuPIKB (with Manchtjbia and Coeea as well), instead of scores of different versions, printed in alphabatic-phonetic Eoman letters, being necessary to meet the requirements of the very numerous dialects of the eighteen . provinces — Seventh Report of the Mission, p. 10. " As no syllable ever involves the use of more than three symbols, while seven or eight would be necessary to represent the same sound by the use of Eomau type, Mr. Murray reckons that he can print complete copies of the Bible one-third the size, and at one-third the erst of those printed in Eoman letter;; — Work for the Blind in China, p. J8. Second, disparagement of the methods of those who cannot see their way to join in the numeral-type movement. This comes out in (a) misrepresenting that work which the Vernacular Committee in China was appointed to foster: e.g. " To give the tones with Eoman letters adds so enormously to the cost of printing, that in Southern and Central China they are ignored in aU Eomanized books, although without them the uncertainty of the language is very great. Only one Mission — the Presbyterian — has as yet attempted to print the Scriptures in Eoman letters for use in North China, and the expense proved so great that the effort was given up" — Work for the Blind in China, p. 29. " In the Murray type each numeral is represented by 1, 2, or, at the outside, 3 of the simplest conceivable symbols ; whereas in the Eoman type each word averages seven complicated letters interspersed with smaU numerals, commas, and circumflexes. In many cases the differeiice is greater. Suppose I have to write 338 alphabetically (three hundred and thirty-eight), I must use twenty-six separate letters in place of three figures. Or thus, 8888 — four numerals — involves the use of thirty-nine Eoman letters (eight thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight). — Miss Qordon-Cwiiming'a Seventh Report, p. 12. D 2 — 52 — " Mrs. AUardyee, of the London Mission (wlio lias in past years t»lien much trouble to prepare papers by her type-writer in Koman letters, as lessons for a class of Christian women, who cnme to her in winter from their farms) asked Mr. Mm-ray whether he could pre- pare, in his new type, the Union Catechism, which is now used by all the Missions at Peking, and also some hymns and portions of Scripture, and WHETHER HE COULD SEND A BLIND GIRL TO TEACH THE CLASS .' Of COUrse he was delighted. The blind compositors set to work, the pages were soon ready and Mrs. -Murray took blind Hannah in a i ative cajrt to the London Mission, and there lefL her alone with these women from another province, whose very speech was strange to her. Nevertheless, a week later Mrs. APardyee herself and several of these poor ignorant farm women were able to read, and after a da.y or two more study one of the sighted women was able to write a letter quite clearly with all the tones perfectly indicated. (I have that letter now before me, as also a whole psalm written without a mistake by another woman, who had only been learning for three days ! I do not suppose that any of iis could have done that three days after we wrote our first stroke !)" — Ibid, p. 8. * (b) sarcastic and pretentious, but very ill-injm"nied criticism of the "rival" Braille alphabetic system now followed at Hankow: e. g. " A paper has recently appeared in an English Missionary Kecord, setting forth the advantages of the late Mr. Crossette's system of Initials and Finals, as taught in the School for the Blind at Hankow, versus Mr. Murray's Numeral system. After pointing out the greater simplicity of the former, because the Hankow dialect (which can be reduced to 313 sounds) is represented by only 39 blind symbols, the writer goes on to say, ' This of coxirse as in tlii Peking method, does not oivE THE TONES, but these the boys readily gather from the connection.' (Poor readers, to have so much left to guesswork ! ) Moreover, as the system of Initials and Finals is phonetic a. different version of the Scriptures, and of all books, is required for each dialect. Altogether it appears to be a very questionable boon which was conferred on the blind, when, after receiving full instructions from Mr. Murray respecting his inventions and discoveries, Mr. Crossette resolved only to adopt certain features of these (notably the reduction of the number of sounds to be represented) and then complicated the question of how best to instruct the blind by the introduction of a rival system. Briefly, The Initial and Final System I. — Involves the use of at least 39 symbols. II. — it does NOT represent tones. III. — Being phonetic it requires a different version for every dialect. * The Chinese Jieeorder for September, 1894, contains an unsigned version of this same account whicli Mr. AUardyee objects to in the October number. He says there that those who make such apparent exaggerations abont the Numeral system are its worst enemies, and the corrections supphed by him are as follows: — '" (1). My wife has never hitherto taught tbo country women the Romanized type. {•!). The number of the women was eight and not twenty. They did not come from Shantung but from Tung-au Hien, a district about forty miles from Peking, and consequently their speech, though differing slightly, was not strange to their blind teacher Hannah. (3). None •f the country women could read at the end of a week." W. C. — 53 — ,The JIorkat Numeral-type I. — Xever involves the use of more than 30 of the simplest symbols over devised, and by it reading- and writing are acquired simultaneously. II. — Every tone is perfectly indicated. Ill — All the inhabitants of the eighteen provinces, Corea and Man- uhuria will be able to read with eqiial facility from one version, whether embossed for the blind or printed in black for the sighted." — The .Vcsiciir/rr, for December, 189 1-. (e) easy exposure of "weak points" in the General Conference's I'arefully-considered recommendations for the education of the Chinese blind: e.g. "The weak points in the above-named systems have been fully demonstrated, but do not claim further notice here except to explain briefly that ihe system of initials and finals is practically spelling phonetically." — Work for tlie Blind, p. -I. (d) representing Societies which support Roman letter versions in China as pursuing a most inadvisable course after Mr. Murray had adapted his system to the four-tone dialect of mandarin spoken at Peking: e.g. " His [Mr. Murray's] prayer is that some good Christian, who is endowed with the necessary means, will devote just the sum spent by the British and Foreign Bible Society on the production of any one -Romanized version for one dialect, to the preparation of a version of the Bible for the whole Empire in his nvimeral-type. He says : ' We should be able to bank two-thirds of the money, and use it to issue thousands of new editions. And it would be no experiment. Success is now fully proven." — Record of the U.P. Ohurch for March, 189J/, p. 76. Third, absence of confirmatory evidence in any degree commensurate with the technical character of numeral-notation, and the all-embracing claims being successfully made before the home public in its favour. Fourth, assumption of finality as to Mr. Murray's now " numerous inventions" for benefiting the blind, illiterate-sighted, and scholarly millions, of China. About one of these Mr. Murray himself writes :— " The Chinese will admire this ! . . . . I am in the field and know the need. This also can be taught by the blind; it is a chance for them that will never die." Miss Gordon- Cumming's opinion is that " The jMurray-type must ere long super- sede all others. . . . The new system is bound to mouopolise the whole field — a result which I am convinced will come to pass in — 54 — due time, and the sooner the better for all concerned." Under this head it may be also noted that, although Miss Gordon- Cumming's Mission has only one salaried European teacher (Mr. Murray, who is also a paid agent of the National Bible Society of Scotland, that Society rendering further help in producing editions of the Scripture in numeral type), its affairs are managed by 42 Directors — 19 at home, 8 on the Peking Board whose names appear in the annual Reports, and " 15 leading missionaries in Northern and Central China,' w/tose names are not given — although a desire has sometimes been expressed as to who those leading missionaries may be. Its " Form of Bequest" his been longbafore the public, its building work at Peking goes on apace, the Endow- ment Fund now reaches £3,471 143. 6cl, and an earnest call has been issued for self-supporting ladies to go out and devote themselves to a work which~that recent clumsy device for five-tone mandarin keeps still at its experimental stage. For let it be noted that " the grand point " here is not — Can blind people be made to read and write by means of numeral non-alphabetic symbols (a matter of easy accomplishment with the Braille alphabet), but this — Are we to drive forward a system of teaching all over China against which an overwhelming majority of our ablest educationalists there have uttered their unanimous and most deliberate protest ? I am quite aware that some brethren at Peking think we should, that Mr. Murray is very confident about all his discoveries, that "Important Missionary Testimony" has been borne by Mrs. Allardyce, and that letters purporting to possess great evidential value have just been published from Messrs. Meech, Comlack, and Turley. And yet, although no effort of any single worker in China has ever been advertised and subsidised to the extent of Mr. Murray's during the past ten years, its promoters in Scotland have still to mourn " that so excellent a system should not have, as yet, been adopted by all the mission societies working in various parts of the Empire, and that the small school at Peking should still be its sole centre." — &5 — An acknowledgment like this is certainly significant, because the missionaries in China are neither an obtuse nor an ungenerous set of men. It should be compared with "the very favourable review " of Mr. S. M. Russell's pamphlet which Miss Gordon- Cumming refers to in her Eighth Eeport, or with Mr. Timothy Eichards' " review " of it in the Chinese Beeorder for Aug., 1894, or that paper by Mr. Murray which "was read by the learned Dr. Fryer at the great Triennial Educational Conference at Shanghai, and excited deep interest." The truth is that Mr. Murray's inventions, with Miss Gordon-Cumming's powerful support of them, fiiil to get recognition from the Missionary Societies for reasons that are in no way discreditable to those Societies? — I am, &c., W. Campbell. 17. — Note of December 11th from Mr. J. Grant, new Glasgow Secretary of Miss Gordon-Cumming's Mission, enclosing Minute from his Committee announcing "a thorough refutation of the animadoersions" contained in the pamphlet of 32 pages. 102, Bath Street, Glasgow, Dec. 11, 1896. SiE, —I have been requested by my committee of the Chinese Blind to ask for insertion in the Herald of the following extract of minute of a meeting held on Wednesday last with reference to a letter in your columns on the subject of their work, which appeared during last summer. — I am, &c., John Grant, Secretary. "At a meeting of the committee of the Chinese Blind Mission, held on 9th December, 1896, Sederunt — Eev J. Elder Gumming, D. D., chairman ; T. Brown Henderson, M. C, vice-chairman; Kev. Jime; Black, D. D.; — 56 — Eev W. Ross Taylor, D. D. ; Eev. John Sloan, J. Wallace Anderson, M. D. ; Miss C. F. Gordon-Camming, Major Hotehkis, and the secretary. There were laid on the table letters from Dr. Dudgeon, of Pekin, and certain statements which appeared in the Ohinesi Reeoi-der of .June last, signed by Professor RusSell and eight* other influential residenters in Pekin and neighbourhood, all testifying that they had been fir years fully acquainted Avith Mr. Murray's system for teaching the blind and sighted Mandarin speaking Chinese, which includes four-fifths of the iwpniatiou of China, and that tliey had ' the mo.-t conclusive evidence of tlie value of the system and a thorough refutation of the animadversions ' which had appeared in lotto's to the Glasgow Herald. Tlie committee, in view of these communications, desired to place on record that they are more than ever convinced of the extreme value of Mr. Murray's system and the need of further and generous .support from all interested in Christian Missions in China. They also instructed the secretary to ask insertion of this exti-act in the Glasgow BenM at an earlv date. " 18. — Miss Gordon- Cumming' 8 Letter to the " North British Daily Mail" ofJanuanj 12, 8197. College House, Crieff, January 12, 1897. Sir, — Under the above title [" The Blind in China "], the Rev. W. Campbell, of Formosa, has issued for extensive gratuitous circulation a second pamphlet, reprinting all recent newspaper correspondence on this subject, with his own voluminous exposition thereof, sneering at everyone who ventures to differ from him. 2. — From this coi}ipilation one letter only is conspicuous, not only by its omission, but also by a footnote on page 37, affirming that no letter had been published on the subject referred to, except one from Mr. Campbell's own pen. This is duly reprinted, and is a most contemptuous commentary on a paragraph which had appeared in The Scotsman of August 29th, 1896 (stating that the Braille system for the blind had first been adapted to the dialect of Amoy by Mr. lUingworth, head master of the school for the blind at Craigmillar — the said dialect having already been • AftP'- all the correspondence nbont their last published Minute fp. 17), it would seem aa a kind of fatality attended the statements of this Committee. Mr. Russell's letter in the Mitcnlrr is signed not by "eight " but by seven others. See p. 38, W. C. — 57 — represented by the letters of the Eoman alphabet). Mr. Camp- bell aj9irmed that no books or sheets of any kind were ever prepared in China according to the list of symbols drawn up by Mr. Illingvvorth, and that his work was "useful mainly in leading to an independent study of Braille " (apparently by the Avriterj. Thereupon, in The Scotsman of September 7th, 1896, Mr. Illingworth replied very fully, clearly refuting Mr. Campbell's ■' ambiguous and misleading statements," and challenging him to point out the difference between the system now in use in Amoy and that adapted by him at Mr. Campbell's request in 1889. Being unanswerable, this letter failed to elicit any reply. Now, Mr. Campbell goes out of his way to deny its having been published ! 3. — -These two letters enal)led me to point out in The Scotsman of September 8th that they conclusively prove the date at which Braille's system had first been applied to the Amoy dialect to have been 10 years after Mr. Murray had begun teaching in Peking, by means of Braille's symbols. And yet Mr. Campbell had widely circulated the statement that the Amoy books had been in Braille type before anything was known of Mr. Murray's system.— Vide Glasgow Herald, May 30th, 1895. Reprinted in the first pamphlet and now quoted on page 29. In The Scotsman of September 12th, 1896, now reprinted on page 39, Mr. Campbell wrote explaining that that letter was intended merely to express the fact that he knew nothing of Murray's system at the time referred to. Now the real fact was, that when Mrs. Cmpbell first called on Mr. Illingworth to consult him as ,to the possibility of adapting Braille alphabetically to the Amoy dialect, he not only told Mr. Illingworth all about Mr. Murray's system, but also gave him a copy of Murray's Primer for the Blind, and of Miss C. F. Gordon-Cumming's pamphlet containing Mr. Murray's own explanationof his system. 4. — These two samples from his own pamphlet, of Mr. Campbell's manner of dealing with facts, ought to suffice to — 68 — convince the public of the true value of the evidence of this persistent accuser of his brethren — one who unfortunately extends so much energy in endeavouring to injure their earnest and difficult work. These are not matters on which he could have been accidentally mistaken or misinformed, as was the ease in regard to certain points which I myself misunderstood, as I have repeatedly explained, but which continue to supply the excuse for Mr. Campbell's ever-recurring attacks. 5. — The footnote on page 63 furnishes another instance of his rash anxiety to find fault with other.s. He affirms that a letter from the Peking Committee bears only eight signatures instead of nine as stated by the Glasgow Committee. The manuscript letter received by the Committee can be seen by anyone who cares to call at the office of John Grant, Esq., writer, hon. secretary to the Mission, 102, Bath Street, Glasgow. It bears nine signatures, the last being that of the Eev. T. M. Allardyce, of the London Mission at Peking. By some mistake, when printing a duplicate of this letter in the Chinese Recorder, at Shanghai, the last signature was accidentally omitted, so Mr. Campbell jumps to the conclusion that the committee were in error, and on page 34 he reprints the incomplete list of signatures, as printed in China. 6. — Among many strange statements put forth in this pamphlet, I may instance page 46, where we are told that Murray's "entirely new method of writing Chinese" was "deliberately set aside because of its cumbersomeness" br 445 missionaries assembled at the great Conference at Shanghai in May, 1890. As at that date Mr. Murray (living in obscurity in the far north of the empire) had only just thought of adapting his numeral type to the use of the sighted (ihe invention against which Mr. Campbell is in this letter specially inveighing), it i# highly improbable that any of these 445 men, gathered from all parts of China, had ever heard of it, and it is very doubtful if at that time five per cent, of those present had any knowledge of the — 59 — system, even in its primary relation to the blind. Mr. Campbell does indeed give us the names of twelve members of the Committee ou the Education of the Blind, as having signed a report recommending two other systems, and totally ignoring Murray's. Strange to say, one of these signatures is that of Mr. Murray himself ! and a vigorous and indignant article in the Chinese Recorder of Jane, 1891, attested by seven leading men, says; — "Mr. Murray left Shanghai before the Committee on the Instruction of the Blind was appointed, and hence could not be present to explain and advocate his system, and show its actual results. The opportunity he had of presenting his work before the conference in one of its regular sessions was necessarily too brief to give such a detailed exposition of its method, as a committee would require to judge intelligently of its merits." This is what Mr. Campbell describes as the deliberate repudiation of the system by 445 missionaries. 7. — Another example of his " ambiguous and misleading statements '" occurs on page 12, where he speaks of Murray's system as " rejecting that rich mass of material which lies ready to hand in the Romanised vernaculars" — a sentence which would lead the uninitiated to understand that if only the vast mass of Chinese who talk the Mandarin dialects could be induced to learn alphabetic systems, all books published in non-Man darin dialects would be available for their use, whereas thej' would all be so much Greek to them ! 8. — Finally, on page 70, Mr. Campbell supplies us with elaborate calculations of all money given in the last ten years, for the purchase and maintenance of the Blind School at Peking, feeding and clothing the blind scholars, payment of Mr. Murray's salary, &c. (all administered by able and responsible men of the highest standing in Glasgow and at Peking), and he suggests that, instead of now asking the public to help in developing Murray's latest invention, we might for this sum have printed 50 editions of the New Testament for the sighted ! The suggestion — 60 — that gifts given to iiaaintain the Blind School year by year should be thus diverted to quite another purpose would be merely absurd were it not so mischievous in intention, and in the j)Ossible result of misleading superficial readers. I am sorry to trouble you with this letter, but fairplay necessitates its publication. — I am, &c., COXSTANCE F. GORDOX-CUJIMIXG. 19. — Mr. Campbell's reply to Misa Gordon- Camminfs letter in the Mail oj January \2tli. Tainanfu, Foemosa, Japan, May 15th, 1897. SiK, — I have just been supplied here with a copy of Miss Gordon-Cumming's letter to the Mail of January 12th, and beg your kind insertion of a few words from me by way of reply. The publication of the pamphlet of 76 pages she refers to came about in this way : Miss Gordon-Gumming sent to me a threatening and most insulting epistle on the day her Committee announced " a thorough refutation of the animadversions " which a number of China missionaries made about her " Mission to the Chinese Blind," and which had been reprinted from various papers in the form of a pamphlet of 32 pages. Being then about to return to the East, I thought the best reply would be to issue a second pamphlet containing the letters which had appeared since the issue of the first one, but the additional task placed rather a strain upon me in the midst of my preparations for leaving, and in these circumstances I was all the more pleased when the printer supplied ms with advance copies of this second pamphlet of 76 pages just as T was setting out from Helensburgh, thus fulfilling the intention I had of — 61 — placing the entire con-espoudence within reach of those who are interested in the subject to which it refers. It was while passing through London that a well-known worker for the Blind expressed regret to me at having seen Mr. lUingworth's severe criticism in the Scotsman of 7th September. This puzzled me a good deal, for although the Scotsman seldom came my way during last summer, an Edinburgh friend had commenced corresponding with me about the authorship of the anonymous paragraph on Braille writing which appeared at that time (p. 40), and as none of his letters made any allusion to one from Mr. Illingworth, I concluded no such letter had been writ- ten, and that Miss Gordon-Cumming's use of the expression " letters " (p. 43) was only a general way of referring to the anonymous paragraph in his favour and the notice I had taken of it. To make matters sure, however, I wired direct to the office of the Scotsman, with the result that a copy of the paper containing Mr. lUingworth's letter was handed to me as I was going on board at Southampton. Such, then, are the circumstances under which Miss Gordon- Cumming presses for a conviction against me; about a matter, too, which has not the slightest relation to her advocacy of Mr. Murray's non-alphabetic method of writing in China. With the assurance of an expert who has herself been in foreign parts, she assures the public that Mr. lUingworth's letter about the best waj' of reducing Amoy-Chinese to writing was "unanswerable," that it was impossible I " could have been accidei)tally mistaken or misinformed'" and that I not only suppressed the letter, but wickedly denied its very existence! Let me hasten then to say that the document Miss Gordon-Cumming prizes so much will be found copied on page 41 of the present complete collection of letters ; to express regret for any injury the JSTumcral system may have sustained through its vinintentional omission a few months ago ; and to add for her peace of mind that nearly the entire edition of that pamphlet of 76 pages is now lying at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. — 62 — Another thing Miss Gordon-Cumming is greatly exercised about is the remark I made (p. 3) regarding Braille embossed books being used in South China before anything was known of Mr. Murray's system at Peking. In his own characteristic way, Mr. Murray leads off with his comments upon this remark (p. 4.), then Miss Gordon-Gumming hears of a correspondence in the Scotsman and interposes to clear matters up (p. 44), while Mr. Russell follows with a thorough-going attempt at elucidating its meaning (p. 85). It is at this point Miss Gordon-Cumming is informed of two significant pamphlets in Mr. Illingworth's possession, and hurries off to make personal investigation at Edinburgh, with the result which is reported in terms of the letter now lying before me. The whole business is ridiculously overdone, and only produces the impression that Numeral-typeism having fared so badly in the recent discussion, its supporters would give almost anything for a few good serviceable cases of ignorance or untruthfulness against the present writer. And one can easily see how useful it would be to reduce this discussion to the dimensions of a personal squabble* ; but it is not that, for the Numeral system would neither be injured nor benefitted one iota by any sort of interpretation put on the words under review. By this time the public fully understands the importance which Miss Gordon-Cumming attaches to the originality of Mr. Murray's inventions, whereas the words in question were never meant to undervalue any of these inventions, but merely to express the fact that workers in South China were not indebted to them. Mr. Eussell no dolibt remarks that much trouble and expense might have been saved had those workers previously applied to Mr. Murray, although he does not say how this advantage could be gained through a system which he himself acknowledges to be inapplicable to non-mandarin dialects. •The Wiitor may lemark here that, with the exception of a mere line acknowledginf rt jeipt of tje before-mentioned epistle, lis -as had no oonespondenoe whatever with SBsb Gordon-Camming or Mr Murray,— hac never even met them. — 63 — As to Miss Gordon-Cumming's personal testimony regarding the two pamphlets in Edinburgh, it is freely admitted that copies of these were circulated in China before Braille writing was adapted to the Amoy-Vernacular (the adaptation to Cantonese by Mr. Hartmann having previously taken place, a fact persistently ignored by Mr. Murray and Miss Gordon- Cumming), but as missionaries in the South have it burned in upon them that an ideographic system for the toiling millions of China is also an idiotic system, Mr. Murray's and Miss Gordon-Cumming's pamphlets were all consigned to the waste- paper basket or lumber-room without attempting to know any- thing of the system they advocated. To those using dialects containing about 900 sounds in seven or eight tones, it was enough to be told that the Numeral system professed to " run the whole concern " with 408 non-phonetic symbols and 4 tones. When the claims of Numeral-tjpeism had been urged for some time under immediate notice of the Peking Committee, an effort was afterwards made to understand the system, but then also it seemed clear that Mr. Murray was on an inexpungably wrong tack even for the Mandarin dialects. Still, Miss Gordon-Cumming may insist on knowing if there is to be absolutely no result from her journey to Edinburgh, and to this there can be little difficuly in replying that the result is a two-fold one. First, that it would be asking a little too much to pin down anyone to an affidavit regarding the contents of every report and pamphlet sent to him nowadays. It was only in a very vague general way that the existence of numeral-notation wa ^ known in 1889, but in every-day speech people continually distinguish between knowledge of this kind and actual personal acquaintance. Second, With all the appliances ready to hand, Mr lUingworth's efforts for the Chinese seem to have unwaver- ingly chosen the Braille alphabetic method, even although the "Explanations" in Miss Gordon-Cumming's Ninth Report say of Mr. Murray's method that " it becomes the simplest thing in the — 64 — world to represent any numeral up to four hundred (or four thousand, were there any need for them)." By the way, this latest justificatory reference to the "four thousand" involves the memorising of a " spelling-lessou " of 4,000 sentences, but Mr. Murray's inventiveness would no doubt be equal to the occasion. I have not much to say here regarding Miss Gordon-Cum- ming's Edinburgh friend. Of Mr. lUingworth personally I know next to nothing, my most vivid recollections being the application he made to me several years ago to try and obtain some kind of educational post for him in China ; and last summer, when he kept pestering me about calling public attention to what he called " my adaptation of Braille to Amoy dialect." It was about this second matter I found myself in something of a difficulty, because the upper-and-middle-dot letters, arrange- ment of tonal marks, aspiration, and nasalising, of the table he drew up in 1889, had undergone so many radical changes that I had plainly to inform him the adaptation of Braille ha made out then was never made use of in China, whereupon he sent to me a short note as follows: — "Edinburgh, 26th August, 1896. Rev. W. Campbell, — Dear Sir, I am utterly at a loss to know what you mean by stating that my adaptation of Braille to Amoy dialect was never used in China. I should be pleased to learn in what respect the alphabet which we give in the " Primer" differs from the one arranged for you. Perhaps you will kindly point out where the difference lies, for I fail to see it. Yours faithfully, W. Hy. Illingworth. P. S. — I have the newspaper reports of your speech acknowledging that I gave you the adaptation or at any rate that you got it here." Now, to be quite frank about the matter, Mr Illingworth had already treated me in such a crafty ungentlemanly way that I looked upon this note as being a mere feeler to ascertain if I had either lost or destroyed the only small autographically authenticated sheet containing his adaptation of 1889 ; and accor- dingly, I replied to him in these terms : — " Woodville, Helensburgh, 27th August, 1896. Dear Sir, I have your note and see it is a very ^ '^b sore point with you that no recognition is being taken of ' my adaptation of Braille to the Anioy dialect.' Yon surely would not accuse me of telling a deliberate untruth abou.t this matter, and yet it is difficult to see that your reply of yesterday can have any other meaning. Your P. ,S. sa^'s that you have newspaper reports of my 'speech acknowledging that I gave you the adaptation, &c.' Is there not a little sophistry in writing thus? I never denied that you gave me an adaptation of Braille, but 'an adaptation' and 'the adaptation' are two different things. You contVont me and say they are not, and that you fail to see there i^ any difference bet-\vceu your adaptation of 188 9 and the one your men liiiyi' ju.st prepared under my instructions. Now, I don't w ish to be exacting with anyone, and would suggest that this controyersy between us be settled as follows: — You send me a sheet having your written word of honour 'that it is a verbafhn ct /Hcnitim copy of the one containing the adaptation you supplied to me in 1881:). It would not take more than 10 minutes to do this. Yours truly, W'm. Campbell." 1 afterwards insisted on getting an answer to this note, but it was all in vain, for no one knows better than Jlr. lllingworth himself that //e (/(d ?)oi JtoY to sentl a leply to it. TluM-e M'enis little need for replying to the remaining matters in ]Vli.-s Gordon-C'umming's letter. Her commentary on what I said about Mr. Murray rejecting the rich mass of material which lay read)' to his hand only shows the unwisdom of people int(!ruipddling Auth thinus they do not understand, while the naughtiness of the concluding paragra,ph is of such a gratuitous nature as to make it undeserving of any kind of an answer. See p. XV., par. 2. J am, itc, W. C.VMPBEI.I,. — 66 — 20. — 3L'. Allardyce'a letter to the Daily Mail. London Mission, Peking, November 15th, 1896. Sir, — -With regard to a letter by a Mr. Campbell in tbe JlfaiY of September 16, 1896, headed "Blind School at Peking," may I be allowed to point out the injustice of a missionary at home criticising the work of another on the field when the lapse of time necessary for a reply makes it impossible to prevent the damage which such criticism must have on Mr. Murray's work for the blind. 2. — -The Peking Committee, which consists of such men as Dr. Dudgeon, Professor Russell, and repre sentatives of all the missions in Peking with the exception of the "S. P. G." (Society for the Propagation of the Gospel), has already replied to Mr. Campbell's previous criticism, which appeared in your columns and afterwards was published in pamphlet form, jDointing out, amongst other things, Mr. Campbell's amazing ignorance as a missionary in the Far East of the linguistic conditions of China, as shown by such statements as his including Hankow amongst non-Mandarin districts. 3. — In the letter of the above date ^Ir. Cam23bell is not content \vitli making false statements about Mr. Murray's work, but he must needs sneer at Miss Gordon Cumming's work as an author, and the testimony of those who know the value of ]Mr. Murray's work from experience, especially the testimony of those belonging to the London Missionary Society. Miss Gordon Cumming is quite able to defend herself, and_ with regard to the London Mission members, their testimon\' may not go for much in Mr. Campbell's eyes, even though they speak from personal experience, but, at least, they have a loftier idea of missionary work than taking advantage of a brother missionary's absence in the fiel d to indulge in ill-natured and inaccurate statements of his wo.k. Enthusiastic workers at home on behalf of foreign missions, like iliss Gordon Cumming, are not so numerous that missionaries, wlu) are supposed of all others to have the work at — 67 — heart, can afford to throw cold water on such eflforts, even though it may not be for one's own particular branch of work that effort is put forth. 4. — Mr. Campbell, in his letter of the above date, says that 445 missionaries met in conference on the subject deliberately set aside Mr. Murray's method of teaching the blind because of its cumbersomeness. This statement is either true or false, and before making such a statement he should have given the date of the conference and the reference to the authorised report. Mr- Campbell does neither, for the simple reason he cannot. No conference in China has ever set aside Mr. Murray's method in one way or other. I suppose Mr. Campbell refers to the Con- ference held in Shanghai in the year 1890. Now, at that Conference Mr. Murray's method for teaching the blind was not even before the Conference for discussion. How, then, could they set it aside ? Any one can verify this by reference to press reports of the resolutions of the said Conference. 5. — At this Conference Mr. Murray was present, and the following extract from Mr. Archibald, of the Scotch Bible Society, Hankow, speaks for itself: — " And yet * Mr. Murray is the best know name of any in connection with this blind work in China. I have often heard it said that the blind are more indebted to him than to any other here. He was the only one who brought a blind pupil with him in order that his acquire- ments might be tested in open conference, and they stood the test well. He was the only one in whose favour independent testimony was given. Even our president left the chair that he might tell us ho w, when he was in Peking, he sang a tune to a pupil of Mr. Murray's which probably no one in Peking had ever heard before, that the pupil had noted it down by his system, and in a very few moments reproduced it perfectly on the instrument." There have been other two conferences * It would have made matters much clearer liad Mr. Allardyce included in hig quotation liere the sentence or two from Mr. Archibald preceding- this " And yet." W. C. — 68 — since then, and Mr. Murray's method for teaching the blind has not yet been set aside. 6. — Mr. Campbell farther says that Mr. Murray's method has been set aside by such capable workers for the blind as Pastor Hartmann, at Hongkong, and Messrs. Crossette and Houston, in the Mandarin speaking districts. Pastor Hartmann and Mr. Houston have a right to adopt whatever method the}- think best, and we wish them all success ; but that does not prove that their method is the better of the two, and I don't know if their authority is superior to the authority of any other two missionaries iu China. With regard to Mr. Crossette, he has been dead for several years, and all he knew about methods of work for the blind ivas obtained from Mr. ^Murray while staying with him in Peking. 7. — Mr. Campbell again says that the general adoption of Mr. Murray's method for sighted persons would lead to nothing short of an abandonment of our prajcnt methods of education in China. As Mr. Murray's aim ij to teach the millions of illiterate m China who have no i.me or opportunity to learn the character, that they may be able to read the word of God in their homes, no one with any knowledge whatever of the educational methods in China would dream of saying that the general adoption of Mr. Murray's method would result in the overthrow of our present educational methods. 8. — Mr. Campbell also says that building work in connection with Mr. Murray's mission goes on apace. I wish, for Mr. Murray's family's sake, that such was the case. Mr. Murray's house and the blind school are old, dilapidated buildings, condemned as unhealthy by the medical attendant, and yet not one step in rebuilding or even repairing has yet been taken. 9. — 'Such statements as I have indicated above are only samples of many which Mr. Campbell delights to indulge iu. But why all this criticism, all this sneering ? It only hinders God's work. Surely there is room for Mr. Campbell and Mr. Murray in China,* and, Mr. Editor, may I be allowed to suggest that before ijublishing such letters on M-r. Murray's work, it would only be but bare justice that a copy should be sent to Mr. Murray, that an opportunity may be given for an immediate reply and refutation — I am, &c., J. ]M. Allaedyce. 21 . — Mr. Campbell's replij to the foregoing. Tainanfu, Foejiosa, July 20, 1897. Sir, — Although my ardent youug censor of 15th November has a jjlace assigned him among " nine leading Missionaries and Professors " in last year's Eeport of the Mission to the Chinese Blind, one has some little difficulty in seeing where the " leading " comes in in his particular ca.se. By accusing me of having attacked Mr Murray in the Mail when that gentleman was not at hand to answer for himself, Mr. AUardyce acts a very unbrotherly part, this being easily apparent from his knowledge of how the j^resent controversy began, but jnore especially from the fact that IMr. Murray's work is one thing, while .the appeals put in circulation throughout the English-speaking world in support of it are something quite different. Mr. Allardyce seems to forget that he was one. of the very men who took the intiative in publicly denouncing certain exaggerations made about the work at Peking (see foot note p. 52), whereas the first sentence ever penned by me on the subject of Miss Gordon-Cumming calling public attention to the appearance of each new development of the Numeral system is dated 30th May 1895, Mr Murray being then resident at * There is a little more room now that the Missiou to the Chinese Blind has been got out of Korea and away from the non-Mandariu speakin;? Provinces, hut much has yet to he done in meeting the industriously circulated claim that numeral -notation must supersede all others systems and monopolise the whole field. W. C. — 70 — Portobello and myself at Helensburgh. See pp. 1, 3. Xo doubt, Mr. Murray returned to China .«oms tiDie before I did, but that was no reason for abandoning mid-way any attempt to rectify injurious misstatements which were still being supplied to the home public in his fiivoiir. The present charge, therefore, is an absolutely baseless one. With the aid of Mr Russell, Mr. AUardyce thinks he scores another decided point againt me because I thought fit to retain the name Hankow in Mr. Dyer Ball's List of Dialects, but while his cen.sure exactly applies to Miss Gordon-Cumming's use of this name on 9th January (p. 18), he does nothing more than advertise his own juvenility in calling attention to my " amazing ignorance." By the way, it i.s absurd to say (p. 52) that Hankow-mandarin can be represented by only 313 sounds owing to help derived from the Numeral system, or that books representing 95 sounds more (as the Pekingese 408-souud ones) can be suitable for such a dialect. Mr. AUardyce goes on say that the members of the London Mission (including himself also of course, or his letter has next to no meaning in it) " have a loftier idea of missionary work than myself, and I hope I receive the information in no grudging .spirit, although most people will probably think that its value would have been greatly enhanced had it come from a different quarter. I refer readers to the Minutes of last General Conference under C of the Appendix for a reply to statements contained in paragraphs 4 and 5 of the letter before me. Those Minutes imply that after Messrs Hartmann and jMurray had addressed the Conference on the fifth day, their papers were discussed till the hour of adjournment, and that a Committee was then appointed to report on the merits of the various systems of teaching the Blind ; the Report of Dr. Edkins being adopted ou the tenth day. Now, from the last-issued Missionary Directory I see that Mr. AUardyce arrived in China in 1891, so that his knowlege of what took place then must be very imperfect, surely a — 71 — conclusive reason why he ought not to imitate other supporters of Mr. Murray who write as if the proceedings of that great Decen- nial Conference were gone through in any sort of an insincere and slip-shod flishion. But independent testimony ofakhul which even Mr. AUardyco must regard as unimpeachable can be given on the question he raises. It will be found on page 257 of the Chinese Recorder for 1891, in that now famous manifesto from the pro-Numeral-type missionaries at Peking, which has been sn often quoted in the interests of Miss Gordon-Cumming's Mission, and the now relevant jaart of which stands exactly as follows: — "It is a matter of history that the Conference Committee reported adversely to the Murray system, on thr (/round of its want of simplicity," it being also a matter of history that the Conference itself ap proved of and adopted the findings of this Committee. Further, while no formal vote was taken, on the subject, every interested person knows that numeral-notation had a bad hour of it at the Second Triennial Conference on Education which met in Shanghai six months before the date of Mr. Allardyce's letter. See under E of the Appendix. There is something altogether unique in the cordial good wish Mr. Allardyce's letter expresses for the alphabetic method of embossed writing advocated by Messrs. Hartmann and Houston, because it is the, first really appreciative reference of the kind in that considerable literature which has been created in the interest of Mr. Murray's non-phoueti c way of reading by numbers, and because it differs so radically from the clamorous- ness met with at liome about the Numeral system being bound to supersede all others and monopolise tlie whole field. Of course, one takes it for granted that he extends the same good wish to brethren engaged in similar work at Hankow, Foochow, Chinchew, Formosa, and Swatow. It would be a yet greater achievement if Mr. Allardyce could only induce the National Bible Society and Miss Gordon- Cumming to favour one loyal united attempt at carrying out the very safe recommendation of last General Conference, namely, tbat Workers for the Blind in China should combine experiences, and compare actual results, in order that their methods of work should have as large a measure of uniformity as possible. Because, tJiis is the particular spot where the shoe pinches ; or, to speak plainly, the bulk of our present difficulties can be traced to pretty general consensus of missionary opinion on the education of blind and sighted illiter- ates in China being met with an opposite conclusicn from several prominent persons at home, who spare no pains in trying to secure a permanent basis for the carrying out of their conclusion. One case which illustrates the position is found in Mr. Murray's method of teaching _ illiterate sighted people. It fell flat in China, but was ushered in with a great flourish of trumpets among English-speaking Christians, while such persistent use was made of press and platform in its favour that it " caught on " to the extent of bringing in dollars galore, and causing any number of enquiries to be made after that "uniquely gifted genius " who had thus brought harmony into the lingustic discord of China, and " whom [as Miss Gordon-Cumming adds] the Clyde will one day knoAV how to value." Still, it should not be forgotten that while Individualism in work like ours may progress by leaps and bounds at the beginning, a day of reckon- ing for it must come sooner or later. In reply to what Mr. Allardyce says in the seventh paragraph of his letter, I shall be satisfied by asking him (a) to remember that, with all the advantage which displayed type could give it, this statement has got embedded into our misssionary literature under the sanction of his name : — " One version of the Holy Scriptures, Printed in the Murray Type, will be current throughout the vast Empire (with Manchuria and Coeea as well), instead of scores of different versions, printed in alphatbetic-phonetic Eomau letters ; " (6) to consult the publications of his own Mission on Numeral shorthand for the scholarly millions of China ; — 73 — and (c) to ponder over the following puff-preliminaiy wliicli some practised logroUer has managed to get inserted into the carefully-guarded columns of the Edinburgh Free Church Monthly, for May:— "A hopeful effort is now being put forth to get the Chinese to accept a new alphabet. * One of the difficulties standing in the way of their using Romam characters is that they are accustomed to employ a paint-brush in writing and Indian ink. But an alph.abet has been invented which is easily learned, and for which no change is required in the popular customs. The result, it is expected, will be that, when the people see that they no longer need the old, complicated signs, the Confucian schools, where these are taught, will be deserted. 'Thus the influence of the half-educated heathen teachers will fall away, the worship of Confucins will dwindle, and the study of his writings well be left to the learned. School books and Christian tracts are to be immediately printed in the new characters and circulated throughout the country.' " My statement about building work going on at Peking which Mr. Allardyce challenges towards the close of his letter is based on (1) The following note from the Eeport of his Mission for 1895: — "It has become necessary to rebuild the Mission House. This is now being done. The Committee have limited the authorized expenditure to the sum of £550. Possibly these estimates may be exceeded ; but every effort will be made to keep down the cost." (2) What Miss Gordon-Cumming says in her appeal of September 2, 1896 (p. 48), where readers of the North British Mail are informed that instructions had been sent to Peking to secure and adapt property at an outlay of £1700. I have thus taken pains to go over the various items referred to by Mr. Allardyce, and may conclude by saying that his letter, * There are many who will think it a matter for miichrearret that any such movement should be attempted, as Mr. Murray bes'an on the alphabetic plan hut fraye it np for his non-alphabetic way of reading- by numbers, while Miss G-oi'don-Cumming has been labouinuQ- in season and out of season to convince the home public of her axiomatic truth that '• To the Chinese mind, an alphabetic system is so essentially foreig:n as to be inherently repuprnant " On the other hand, the wi-iter in the Monthly ought carefully to jiemse the Extract-lliuute imdor F of the following Appendix. — 74 — with the foregoing one from Mr. Russell of 27th February 1896 , form an Appendix to the recently issued Tenth Report of Miss Gordon-Comming's Mission ; the two one-sided and bitterly 2>ersonal letters being preceded by an official statement to the effect that the Committee have no desire for controversy, but rather to go on quietly with their work, in the ever-deepening conviction that numeral-notation must have some great future before it. Of course, this tone of reproachful sadness which the Committee adopt has reference to several China missionaries having criticized those appeals made to the public in favour of Mr. iMurray's work, even although " the field to be benefited by his invention is a pretty large one " of Three Hundred Millions of people. And that such a feeling of sadness (or at least the expression of it) does really exist may also be seen from the fact that the Vernacular Committee's letter was received in Glasgow " with much regret," that Mr. Russell was almost compelled to undertake the preparation of his now celebrated " complete reply," and that Mr. Allardyce has a great dislike for higher or lower criticism, "as it only hinders God's work." Now, I shall not attempt to characterise this changed style of address from a Mission which has already laid itself so much open to adverse criticism; but close by remarking that the missionaries on the field here are not likely to be much influenced by it ; for they do not seem to favour hyperbolism, or elbowing, or huge assumptions with any element of sanctimoniousness about them. T therefore think it altogether probable that the Missionary Body may rather take some early opportunity of reaffirming their disapproval of " the systems invented or employed by the Rev. W. H. Murray, whether for the benefit of blind or sighted persons in China." I am, &c. W. Cv^rPBELL. — 75 — 22. -Coiirliidiiir/ Remarks hij Mr. Ctnnijlidl. Althougli criticis^od -with much sevcrily in the foregoiiit;- fommuDications from the two Diicetois at Peking, (pp. 29, 35) [ did not think it worth while to send any reply to the Chiiirs,- Recorder ; but seeing that, after all, it has been considered a more prudent course to withhold Mr. Eussell's letter from the Gla.^r/inr Herald, a few remarks may not be out of place here. I think there is something quite unaccountable in that attempt made by the Director who is a ]\[issionary and who signs himself "J. Dcdgeox, Esq., m.d." to put me riiiht regarding what I said about the amount of the Endowment Fund (pp. 11, S3, 38). With what -object does Dr. Dudgkox leave out the little word "Fund" while referring to what I said, and why should be himself shrink from giving the equivalent of £3,344 in dollars? Because he would theu have nothing whatever to say. Both writers enter into formidable calculations as to what would be the size ol' a Numeral-type Bible compared with the like of the Amoy A'ernacular version ; and from an analysis of words occurring in the Lord's Prayer, prove to their own satisfaction that the former would be a third smaller and cheaper than one in Roman letters. JNlr. Russell's statement especially (p. 37) has the appearance of being a careful piece of work, although it would go hard with any of our Formosan school-boys who told us that 5.3 is obtained by dividing 416 by 96. This, however, by the way. Dr. Dudgeon is wrong in saying that there are only 182 letters or symbols in the Numeral-type version of the Lord's I'rayer, for there are 286. Nor is there S(!arcely one item correctly stated with regard to the Romanized version, that is to say, if the British and Foreign Bible Society's beautiful Mandarin edition be taken as the standard. As both of these versions are given in the following pages, persons who are interested have the opportunity of checlv- ing the calculations of "the large and intelligent Committee at Peking" for themselves. See under B of the Appendix. — 76 — Instead of always thus furnishing details of a kind -which it is difficult to verify, the Mission to the Chinese Blind could surely state the exact size of any of the books they have already printed. For example, the following statement occurs on page 13 of their Seventh Report :—" Various books of the Bible, for the use of the sighted, have already been printed at the Blind School in beautifully clear type; and now the National Bible Society of Scotland has authorised Mr. Murray to print for THE SOCIETY an edition of two thousand copies of St Mark's Gospel, with notes." Will Mr. Russell do much towards a settlement of this queston by kindly stating the exact lengthy breadth, and thickness of a copy of this Annotated Numeral-type edition of St. Mark? Mr. Russell's third paragraj)h (p. 36) describes the simp- licity of the Numeral system; and in order to illustrate and vindicate its use, concludes by informing readers of the Glasgow Herald that the Chinese themselves "number the characters and telegraph numbers only." After all, then, it appears that it did not require any "Vision or Revelation" of an "eminently gifted genius" whose "genius is indeed very wonderful" to discover what Mr. Murray regards as something even better than a " grand find over almost anything known "; even that "strangely simple" method of writing which "at one stroke" solves a problem of mountainous importance, which Miss Gordon- Cumming says must work greater changes than the invention of printing, and which, in one week, enables blind boys to make verbatim reporters of Chinese literati whose speech is quite unin- telligible, for Mr. Murray assures his supporters that "dialects are all the same to us." Mr. Russell himself, however, is sure to return to this very suggestive subject by furnishing another lucid " Explanation " of what takes place when any Chinaman asks his coolie to hand him his Code-book and Dictionary that he may try to make something of a sheet of telegraph numbers which been placed before him. — 77 — On re-examining Mr. Kussell's quotation in par. 6 (p. 36) I see no need for altering a single word. The question raised is one about which Miss Gordon-Cumining says: — "To read really erudite Chinese books upwards of 30,000 characters must be learnt. When I was at Peking I was told that Sir Thomas Wade had acquired a knowledge of 20,000, and the Russian Archimandrite of 15,000." Mr. ilurray. also, gave testimony before the General Conference to the effect that about every ten miles there are dialectic variations in the language." Over against Mr. Russell's reference in par. 7 (p. 37) to the sister School for the Blind at the important Mandarin- speaking cit}^ of Hankow should be placed the following sentence from a recent Report of that School: — "Mr. Yuli Teh Ch'ien [Teacher at Hankow], who had been trained in the Peking method, fought hard against the introduction of a new one, but when pjrsuaded to do so, he soon, found out that a boy could learn to read more rapidly by this method than by that, and now much prefers Mr. Crossette's plan [of alphabetic spelling by initials and finals] to Mr. Murray's." Some readers may be interested to make the acquaintance of another of Mr. Murray's pupils, a Mr. Hsii by name. Miss Gordon-Cunimiug thus refers to him in her Seventh Report: — "He [Mr. Plsii] was a skilful player on the Chinese guitar, banjo, and dulcimer, now he can also play on the piano and the American organ ; and when last autumn Mr. Houston of the American Presbyterian Mission at Nanking, §eut to ask for a competent organist and choir-master, Mr. Murray was able to despatch him, and has received excellent accounts of his work there. Mr. Murray writes, 'I wished so much that our Mission should be represented at Nanking, the capital of the South, as Peking is the capital of the North. Now I have that wish fulfilled. Hsii is a capital fellow, and well able to do us credit. He can play hundreds of tunes on his various instruments. He speaks well and reads touchingly. He can — 78 — teach reading, writing, and shorthand both to the blind and the sighted. I know, if God keeps him, he will be a treasure to a Mission. Mr. Houston writes well pleased with him in every respect, and Hsii writes overjoyed at having a good organ all to himself, and sixty pupils to instruct in music." Now, there cau be no mistaking the meaning of these sentences, that they state something altogether phenomenal even in this land of wonders, that they introduce the reader to a blind stranger in a distant city, teaching a new language, and soon having a class of 60 Chinamen around him studying music by means of that language. To my certain knowledge several friends of Mr. Murray's Mission wished to know more about this remarkable extension of the Numeral system, and were genuinely disappointed when Miss Gordon-Cuinming's Eighth Eeport failed to supply it. One short hearty word of commendation from a man like Mr. Houston at this later stage would have been simply invaluable to the Mission. Without naming him. Miss Gordon-Cumming's Eight Report does indeed quote some words from a paper by Mr. Houston in the Chinese Recorder criticising the Numeral system, but the result of Mr. Hsii's visit to Nanking can be only inferred from the following sentences in that same paper which Miss Gordon-Cummingseems to have had before her : — " The system adapted for use ofthe blind of all Mandarin-speaking regions has yet to be prepared. It is the opinion of those who have studied specially this matter both in Nanking and Hankow that a system in which each syllable is represented by characters indicating its initial and final is preferable to Mr. Murray's system. Possibly this opinion may be changed, but such systems are in use in these places, and work very satisfactorily. They were adopted after careful examination and comparison of Mr. Murray's system. " It is almost superfluous to add that, for evidential value, a few sentences like these are worth a whole bushel of such letters as those given on page 39. I have only a few more words to add — about par. 13 (p. 38). Mr. Russell's strong position here seems to be that Mr. Murray's — 79 — many stupendous undertakings have long ago got past the merely experimental stage. But after probably hundredweights of brass sheets have been punched in four-tone mandarin, the recent addition of small circles and colons to pages for the seeing (which "exactly correspond" with those for the blind) is fatal to that theory; and quite in keeping with this view is the fact that some of Mr. Murray's own warmest friends both write and speak of his so-called system as being' "yet only an experiment." Mr. Russell's grave accusation against me is thus narrowed down to what can be said on (1) the yearly help given by the National Bible Society to j\Ir. Murray's Mission; (2) the rej;)onse which j\[iss Cordon-Cumming's public appealr; have met with for the support of that Mission; and (3) the question as to whether the money thus obtained would print 50 Chinese versions of the New Testament in Roman type. On the fird of these points, a very recent Report of the Mission says: — "The [National] Bible Society still retains Mr. Murray's services to the extent of one-third of his time" and while it " is thus relieved of part of the responsibility of finding his salary, it, at the same time, secures the sympathy and influence of a large and important Society whose head-quarters are -at our own doors. The Bible Society have already voted grants for the printing of portions of Scripture in the Numeral Type, and we hope that all the Books, both'of the Old and New Testament, will in time be so produced for thou." Regarding the second particular, Dr. Dudgeon thus expresses himself in the first paragraph of his letter (p. 29) about the Mission to the Chinese Blind, that it " has the great advantage of a splendid advocacy of its aims by that most indefatigable Scotch lady, Miss Gordon-Cumming, to whom financially it is almost exclusively indebted for the funds which enable the Mission to be carried on." And its published Accounts quite corroborate that statement, for there we find that ten persons gave One Hundred Pounds each for the support of Mr. Murray's School, — 80 — and that the following names are among its li^t of benefactors : — The Duchess of St. Albans, Marchioness of Waterford, Earl of Stamford, Countess of Seafield, Countess of Tankerville, Countess of Mar and Kellie, Bishop of Batli and Wells, Lord Cottesloe, Lord Middleton, Lord Overtoun, Sir M. Dodsworth, Bart., Sir A. Dunbar, Bart., Sir K. Matheson, Bart., Sir J. Burns, Bart., Sir C. Strickland, Bart., Sir C. H. Lowther, Bart., Sir A. Lawrence, Sir W. Muir (Principal of Edinburgh University), Sir W. Collins, The Hon. Ralph Abercromby, Hon. J. W. Gowans, Hon. Mrs B3'ron, Hon. Mrs. Ferrand, Lady Duudas, Lady Chartcris, Lady Kennedy, LadyPellcy, Lidy Russell, Lidy Waterford, Lady Buchanan, Lady Kennoway, Lady Buxton, Lady Storey, Lad}' Osborne, Lady Massey, Lad}' Dalryniple, Admiral Bosanquet, Greneral Finch, General Black, General Rollo, General Cunning- ham, ]\Iajor-General Stewart, Surg-General Eyre, Colonel Duncan, Colonel Yule, Colonel Clarke, Colonel Burnier, Colonel Forbes, Colonel Young, with man}' mure equally influential and well- disposed jieople. Dating, then, from the financial Report for 1887, and giving the figures only as they may be fairlv applicable to the matter in hand — for the question of exchange from taeh and dollars into English money comes in — the following amounts have been obtained for the support of Mr. Murray's School: — Donations and Snliscriptions, £7,903 ; Interest and Dividends, £1,158; Building, £-197; Legacies, £31; Sale of '^ Work. for tho Blind," £17; in all, £9,608, which at the average rate of exchange for some years past represents something about Xinety Thousand Dollars. The following extract from last Report of the Mission (the Niutli) may also be given: — "The revenue during tlie [);ist year, exclusive of donations, etc., to Building Fund, amounts to £498 12s. Od. ; the expenditure (iucluding passage money for Mr Murray and family to this country and back), was £715 8s. 8d., of which £133 6s. Od. was repaid by the National Bible Society of Scotland." A further significant item in this connection is the statement of p. 49 that — 81 — instructions have been sent to Peking to spend £1,700 on property ; not a bad proof of " the most serious harm which has already been been done" to the Mission through this con- troversy.* As to the third item on -which Mr. Eussell's accusation is founded, careful enquiry has elicited the fact that, for £150, a 500-copy edition of such a version as the Amoy-vernacular New Testament could be put in type ; so that for £8,000 fifty 500-copy editions of the Chinese New Testament might easily be printed in Roman letters, this estimate allowing for such unavoidable changes as variation of tonal-marks, etc. and still coming far short of the money obtained through Miss Gordon-Cumming's public and private appeals for pressing the adoption of Numeral- type in China. In what way, then was it " reckless " and " entirely incorrect " for me to say that as much money had been obtained from Miss Gordon-Cumming's appeals as would print 50 versions of the New Testament in Eoman letters? Nor was there anything else to justify Mr. Russell in coming so far afield to administer rebuke, especially when almost every original and vamped-up appeal issued in the interest of his Mission contains objectionable matter of the kind he char- acterises. To cite only one case at random, what has he to say about the earnestness, rare self-sufficiency and subscrijjtion- inviting exaggeration of the following appeal from Mr. Murray : — "Granted such help in money was allowed I would go from one end of China and start schools everywhere for the blind and read from oue print : and next turn the blind to teach the sighted illiterate and also the scholar stenography equal to reporting speed (the latter one week's study) and in two years' time have no illiterate christians anywhere ! My only fear is I will not be challenged to try it !" See p. 94. * The Report for 1896 states that the Sehool has now 18 resident pupils, and that the income for the year from Donations and Interest was £492. 18. 6, ^'or building, £678. 16. 2 ; in all, £1,171 14 8 (say, M1,000J. The balance at the close of the year is reported to be £2,311. 1. 4, while a separate note gives the Capital Sum invested in the Endowment Fund on 31st Uecemher, 1896, as £3,471. 14. 6, this being- exclusive of property at Peking. — 82 — At first sight, it must be allowed that there is something wonderfully "fetching" about these words, as it was no doubt intended there should be; and one cannot but admire that thoughtful touch of Mr. Murray in remembering the very literati this regal contribution towards the Kenaissance in China. For it would have been unreasonable to take advantage of his generosity by insisting that he ought to provide for every class of the people, so that readers of these pages at least should distinctly understand that the shorthand (in its Normal, Extended, and Curt, styles) is only a small cunishaw thrown in with the bargain as it were. Mr. Murray very properly remarks that there is no evading the money question in carrying out such a widely beneficent scheme. Unsympathetic critics may say that the well cared-for pupils at Peking could prepare all the small Eeading-books that might be required, but even then, a subsistence-allowance often cents ^er day would be needed for every blind teacher, while Mr. Murray's travelling expenses in moving about from Province to Province keeping the pupils at their work, would probably turn out to be the most serious item of all. See (1) p. v. Although readily acknowledging myself to be only a humble unit among the thousands to whom this heart-stirring appeal has been addressed, may I be allowed to make the suggestion that Mr. Murray's own Glasgow Directors (who have unbounded confidence in him) should accept his challenge by using a moiety of the £3,471 (say, $34,000) entrusted to them for this work, and which they are now keeping locked up as an Endowment Fund ? It must be very trying for a man like Mr. Murray to be hindered from doing good on such a vast scale when the paltry sum of $13,008 (say, £1,400) would secure it. I at once admit that the Endowment Fund would thereby be reduced to a tiny nest-egg of some £2000, but the steady yearly income of £500 could be depended upon, as well as that rich nourishment the "Baby- Giant " (Miss Gordon-Cumming's pet name for Numeral-typeism) — 83 — has always been receiving from the National Bible Society of Scotland. How full, too, of grateful joy Mr. Murray would be on his return at the end of the two years— just the brief period of one's usual furlough ! And it would be no mere empty triumph, for the gratitude of his 2500 fellow-labourers of every nationality and denomination in China would be great, while the hearts of people in England, America, Australia, Prince Edward Island, and every other colony would be so touched by this act of self- denying faith on the part of his Mission, that all money which had been expended would soon again flow in, till it became forty, — fifty, — sixty, yea even an hundred — , fold ! Alas, however, there is another side to the picture. Would Miss Gordon-Cumming consent to the Endowment Fund being thus " diverted to quite another purpose.'' In view of her pro- phecy that Mr. Murray's methods must supersede all others and monopolise the whole field, I do not think she would ; but rather that the Founder of the Mission would pretty firmly insist on every penny of it being held sacred for imparting some sort of perpetuity to the Numeral system. Supposing, therefore, that this second "earnest i^rayer" for funds had also to be answered by simple-minded people out of China placing another cart-load of dollars at Mr. Murray's disposal, it goes for the saying that his subsequent movements would be watched with no small amount of anxiety. Meanwhile, let us glance at one or two preliminary points : at the question of how many Christian illiterates there may be in China to begin with. Mr. Murray's own Instructions allow 20 days for memorising his " spelling lesson " of 408 sentences, and under this head the following remarks occur in Miss Gordon- Cumming's Seventh Keport : — " It is no small matter to have proved how easy the new method [i.e. Numeral-notation for the seeing] is to the poor illiterate peasants who form the enormous majority of the converts of all Christian Missions in China, Mr. r 2 — 84 ~ Murray says ' All the women and 95 per cent, of the men.' " Her Ninth Report says : — " It has been fully proved that the most ignorant .peasants can, by the system, learn to read and write fluently in periods varying from one to three months, and fully 95 per cent, of all tlie converts throughout China are quiet illiterate persons." Now, as the number of baptized adults, catechumens, and regular hearers in China may safely be put down at considerably over 200,000 it follows that Mr. Murray's pihoe de resistance here includes (1) the almost magical con- version of blind illiterates into teachers of a new written language, (2) the employment of these teachers in making fairly good readers and writers of 190,000 seeing illiterates in two years' time.* Another very significant thing is that, when writing hi^ appeal, Mr. Murray must have had something like an intuitive knowledge of tlie huge area over which those illiterate Chinese converts are distributed, even over 2,000 miles from Manchuria in the north to the Province of Yunnan in the far south, and from Fokien on the eastern seaboard to Kansuh Province 1,500 miles inland ; besides goodly companies in the islands of Formosa and Hainan ; all of them, moreover, worshipping at about 2,000 stations and ovit-stations under charge of the 44 Churches and Societies whose labour and liberality have been the means of gathering them in. One more fact Mr. Murray must have taken into account ii the almost endless variety of widely-diverging dialects met with in China, not .pnly in the Coast Provinces, but also throughout niandarin-speaking regions ; although a re-assurance is given us * Of course, absolutely ccrreet statistics aboiit such a valuing quantity as the number of native Christians in China are unattaiilatjie. The JSditor of llie Suue Jiecordei- Jor 18o7 thus refers to the subject ;— " Our 'Kevised btatistical Table' published in the Recorder for March gives the total ot adult members of our Churches as 2^,000. It is evident from ihe omissiousin that Table that the uuiuber of communicants eannut be lar Irom 3,U0u, and Iroiii this it is evident that tlie frotestant Ohristian Comntuuity in China must now number 100,000 ." Much more recent information is given iu the "China Mission Hahd-boolv" (Loyo) where tlie imperlect returns up till tlie close of 18y3 give 55,u93 adults in lull eommuiiion, i.e. without including the considerable number under (Jhurch discipline, candidates for buptisai or en- quirers, and those who are onlj coming elatedly to worship. The Cuurcli Missiouary Society, fur example, reports 3,547 adults in lull communion, hUd 5,5S:i enquirer's. It is tUcreiore much below the mark to say there arc now auu,u.0 adult Chistians connected with our Missions in China. — 85 — on this point by Miss Gordon-Cumming's Work for the Blind testifying (pp. 9, 16) that his aptitude for languages is so extraordinary that it enabled him in four months to acquire such a knowledge of Chinese written character as would tax the energy of any avei-age student for about three years. Leaving, then, it might be that " treasure to a Mission," Mr. Hsii (p. 68), in charge of the "blind girl-compositors " and others at Peking, Mr. Murray sets out to redeem his promise on this adventurous and epoch-making journey. Let us suppose that he halts first at either of the two most important mandarin- speaking centres outside the capital — Nanking or Hankow ; at Nanking especially in order to follow up the marvellous work inaugurated by Mr. Hsli. What is the result ? That the missionaries at both places tell him they know all about the Numeral system, but don't approve of it, their schools for the blind following the recommendations adhered to by the General Conference of 1890. He afterwards comes south to Foochow and Amoy, but is hampered a good deal from inabilty to speak the local dialects ; which, however, he might get a barely working knowledge of in 10 or 12 months, were it not for the intimation given him that here also the Braille alphabetic system and Romanized books are used in preference to numeral-notation. He then goes on to Canton, but only to meet with the same discouraging report, for Miss Dr. Niles would have to tell him that her 15 blind girls work by the Braille alphabetic method, and that he must not think of up-setting their educational arrangements. Were Mr. Murray next to come over to see us in Formosa, it would take him 34 days of uninterrupted travel simply to leave one of his visiting cards at each of the 42 chapels connected with the English Presbyterian Mission (not to speak of Dr. Mackay's 60 in the north), while any sporadic attempts he made to introduce numeral- notation amongst our people would very soon be put a stop to. But perhaps more has been said on this subject than it deserves, and it may be dimissed with two remarks : 1. Does any — 86 — sane man believe that the missionaries and Christian communities throughout China are waiting for Mr. Murray ; or that the General Conference Committee on Vernaculars is to be dismissed, Braille al23habetic schools for the Blind closed, and our large Romanized literature thrown into the fire ; and all this under the pressure of at least one constraining reason, narasly, because a few inflitential 2:)ersons at home think it possible to create some kind of a monopoly by their close relation to that " strangely pathetic " work which is said to qualify blind students of the " Murray Bible " for becoming leaders of the sighted? 2. Will Mr. Russell obligingly answer the following questions : — -(a) If Mr. Murray be longing for^jiinds to meet two years' expenses while making readers and and -writers through a new language of 190,000 illiterate Christians speaking the most dissimilar dialects and parcelled out over an Empire 27 times larger than England, What amount of educa- tional work has he done in seiwn years among some 3,000 such illiterates connected with four of the Missions in his own immediate neighbourhood at Peking ? (i) If numeral verbatim reporting can be taught in a week's time by blind people who were quite illiterate a month previous, and the Mission to the Chinese Blind has been urging its universal adoption in China since 1890, How long is it since th,e members of Mr. Murray's " large and intelli- gent Committee at Peking" became proficient in the art? And yet, it is to be feared that no amount of discussion will make things clear to Mr. Russell, but there is the Glasgow Committee who have publicly endorsed his statements in their Minute of 9th December (p. 55) and whose Chairman, Dr. Elder- Cumming, is so well-known at "Conventions for the Higher Holiness and the Deepening of Spiritual Life." I sometimes wonder what he may think of the more salient points in this controversy; of such things, for instance, as that truly ungrate- ful pillorying of Mr. Lowrie on a baseless charge of contradicting his own words (pp. 17 and 37), the attitude of 3Ir. Murray on the one-version-for-all-China tlieory, the Hsu-Nanking incident, — 87 — the two Committees' acknowledgement of inexcusable errors and exaggerations, with their subsequent " thorough refutation of the animadversions" which anyone can easily tabulate from the letters of May 13 and 30, June 29, and September 12 and 14. The chief object, however, of the foregoing remarks is (1) to point out the unusual amount of unsatisfactoriness there is in representing Mr. Russell's letter as being " a comiDlete reply " to the strictures passed upon Mr. Murray's system, and (2) to protest against a way of doing things which has elements of very serious danger to our united and successful prosecution of the missionary cause in China. ~-^\^^_(J5^' APPENDIX. A. — The Shanghai Messenger on Mr. Murray's system. For some years past our missionary periodicals have been supplied with articles (often unsigned) in praise of the Numeral system. Their general characteristics are, minute description of technical details, abysmal ignorance of the subject, and urgent appeals for money to spread and perpetuate numeral-notation all over China. The following contribution from the Shanghai Messenger for July, 1894, may serve as a specimen of what is referred to : — " Miss C. F. Gordon-Cumming writes for the Record an exceedingly interesting account of the Murray-type now being introduced among the Missions of North China. This system was at first devised for blind readers, but its practicability and superiority to the ordinary Chinese character were so manifest that arrangements have been made for preparing literature for all according to this system. The Murray system uses only numbers, each number representing one of the 408 tones which Mr. Murray believes represent all the various sounds used in all the many dialects in the Chinese empire. In preparing his alphabet, he assigned one tone to each number from one to 408. To aid the memory, a short sentence is added to each number, the last word of the sentence giving the exact tone the number represents. These numerals are known to every- body, though differently 'pronounced in the various Chinese dialects. Consequently men from different provinces will read the same lesson, yet each speaking in his own dialect." Another Shanghai paper remarks that, on account of Miss Gordon-Cum- ming's labours, Numeral-typeism ought to be called " The Gum- ming system." — 89 — B. — Tlie Lord's Prayer in Numeral-type and from the Mandarin Somanized New Testament ■L -i"^ 1 : i_— f -|_J "« ''f i"^ -Jb -Is °»c °»^ ~i <'. <.\ ^r •--H; -"►0 'u. •-r, ->» l.Vo -^i- -ifj dV -«\o ^> 1 — ,^1 -Id 10 V -% ^? r-(io L"" «-: — ^ -»^ °-«. J"^0 ^1. '< •^^^ *;-. -^^ ^^^ ^Vo ^r-^ ^^ ~'t' l_— V— 7"^^ Ji^C i-a hr ^j:° »-r -1 j r ' r <-.i ->V »v — «-^ ■•r ^r 1 < 1 •— f ^^ -i7 J»io ^V • -T :ir ■•f* -^^ ^r 7"^ -I*: a\r In n-» -1^0 '>j ^ L^ -1> 17'* a i 1 r 0-men tsai t'ien-shang-tih Fu : uen ren tu tsuen Ni-tih ming uei sheng : iieii' Ni-tih kueh kiang-lin : iien Ni-tih chi-i, hsing tsai ti-shang, ru-t'ong hsing tsai t'ien-shang. O- men lih-iong-tih in-shih, kin-rih ts'i-kih o- men. Mien o-men-tih chai, ru-to'ng o-men mien ren-tih chai. Puh-kiao o-men ii-kien shi-t'an ; kiu o-men t'oh-li hsiong-oh ; in-uei kueh-tu, k'iien- ping, iong-iao, ts'iien shi Ni-tih, sh'i-shi u-k'iong. A-men. XoTE. — On p. 14 (he Vernacular Committee state that, in Komanized vei-sions of the Bible, the words average 3 letters each ; while on p. 37 Mr. Eussell affirms they average 5.3 letters, instead of the 2.fi letters of numeral-notation. Now, since Dr. Dudgeon refers to the nnmter of letters in the Lord's Prayer as settling the question clearly and definitely (l>. 33), both versions are given here to show that this of a numeral-type book being a third of the siz"! of one in Eoman letters, is just another of those exaggerations which disfigure nearly every printed statement from the "Mission to the Chinese Blind." The numeral type reproduced on this page is from Mr. Murray's newest small size, surely as small as it well could be for handling by blind girl-com- positors, and for the " small letter revolving through four position? around the large as a satellite." 90 C. — Minutes of the Second Decennial Conference of Missionaries on Work far the Blind in China. Fifth Day — Monday, May 12. — •Afternoon Session^ Rev. D. Hill presided. Inter alia. A Paj)er was presented by Rev. F. Hartmann, of Hongkong, on " Orphanages, Asylums for the Blind, Deaf and Dumb, and other Chiiritable Institutions." A Paper was presented by Rev. W. H. Murray, of Peking, on "Asylums for the Blind." A Committee was appointed to report on the merits of various systems of teaching the Blind and Deaf-Mutes in China, namely :— Rev. J. Edkins, D.D., of Shanghai ; W, Wright, D.D., of London ; F. Hartmann, of Hongkong ; W. H. Murray, of Peking; Y. K. Yen, of Shanghai; J. C. Gibson, of Swatow; Mr. John Fryer, of Shanghai ; Revs. E. Faber, Dr. TJieol, of Shanghai ; T. Barclay, of Formosa ; J. Lees, of Tientsin ; T. C Fulton, of Newchwang ; and D. Hill, of Wuchang. The Papers were discussed till the hour of adjournment. Tenth Day— Saturday, IMay 17.— Afternoon Session. Rev. Dr. Nevius, presided. Inter alia. Rev. J. Edkins, D.D., of Shanghai, presented the following Report of the Committee on the Education cf the Blind and Deaf Mutes :— 1. — Resolved, that a Permanent Committee be appointed to watch over and develop Christian work for the benefit of the Blind and of the Deaf and Dumb, and to bring local workers into correspondence. This Committee shall have power to add to its number, and to fill up vacancies, and shall report to next General Conference. The following were elected members of the Permanent Committee : — Rsvs. W. Campbell, of Formosa; W. H. Murray, of Peking; J. C. Gibson, of Swatow;^ F. Hartmann, of Hongkong ; D. Hill, of Wuchang ; H. C. Hodges, J. Edkins, D.D., Y. K. Yen, W. J. Lewis, and Mr. — 91 — J. Fryer, all of Shanghai, the last of whom shall be a Sub- committee with power to meet and initiate action. 2. — Resolved, that the Sub-Committee named be instructed to co-operate with the Committee of the proposed Deaf-Mute Institution in Shanghai, and to aid them in carrying out their plans. 3. — Resolved, that the Conference receive and put on record the following recommendations of this Committee with regard to methods of writing Chinese for the use of the Blind : (1) That the Committee unanimously recommend the system of the Braille dots as by far the best for general use in writing and printing for the Blind. (2) That in applying this system to the Chinese, two methods are recommended : — (a) A system of writing by initials and finals, expressed by Braille dots. (6) A system of spelling in the European method. (3) That in dialects with a small syllabary the use of initials and finals may he found sufficient, while in those where the syllabary is large, European spelling will probably be more satisfactory. (4) That the respective merits of these two methods must be determined by consultation on details, and by experience and comparison of actual results. (5) That the marking of tones seems necessary in some dialects and unnecessary in others. 4. — Resolved, that the Conference recommend that wherever the teaching of the Blind is undertaken, some industrial training should be added, as far as practicable ; and invite all missionaries to give what assistance they can in all such work. J. Edkixs J. C. Gibson W. Weight J. Feyee D. Hill E. Faber F. Habtmann T. Baeclay W. H. MuREAY J. Lees Y. K. Yen T. C. Fultox The Report was adopted. — 92 — D. — Mr. Murray' s paper read before tlie First Triennial Educational Conference at Shanghai. I would like to respond to your kind invitation to write a little paper for so important an occasion as the present and with the hope of its being heard by such honourable representatives of what not only we ourselves are devoted to, and pray for, but know that wherever the name of Jesus is known (and now, praise God, that means the world) we have the sympathy and more than the sympathy of a vast multitude no man could number ! I only regret your invitation should find me at a time surrounded with so many calls on my time : for what with Bible work, school for the blind, accounts to get ready and correspondents to answer I have a very limited space to allow for the present subject ; so will not on this occasion, I fear, do myself justice on the subject, viz., The Education of the Blind and their Future Prospects. As regards the plan of representing Chinese by the Braille letters and our method of applying the same, which we call numerico-phonetie, we continue to use without change and feel it so successful over results known or described as the experience of other workers in the same department that we are settled down to the conviction that we must just j)ut oiu- energy in the line of development and nourishing the plant and trust in God for fruit in due season ! Our jjlan, as I have said, was to have Braille letters. This was at a time when the Braille system was struggling only for recognition. Such a system seemed to me the very mystery of letters revealed — the blind student's beau ideal, for by it is not only reading but even writing made easy, and the student compares on favourable grounds with his seeing compeer, and as far as music at least is concerned beats him over and over in speed of writing, and the piece finished compares with finest copper-plate engraving. — 93 — This then so far as the letter is concerned being settled^ shall the application be just the ordinary way of phonetic spelling and liberal contractions (the one being a contradiction of the other), giving the blind student a handful of letters to grind hi.< iingers over and a ponder6us, expensive book ? No ! while there is the native methods, such as the "K'ang-hsi" and " Wu Fang Yuan Yin " use which are certainly by far the preferable and easy to work and have the advantage of being native. But to phonetically spell the two parts would, like the former, still make it no better. There would be no small word to finger nor book to carry and more particularly to purchase — so not yet to be thought of. But let the phonetic idea be dropped, and why not t Then the initial can be associated by a single letter and the final in like manner and let tone go overboard, or take another letter. Conclusion then is three letters per word. Such a grand find over almost anything known, unless Lucas' system of stenography for the blind, which will yet compare in this respect but which can offer the student no way of writing his own thoughts and even the reading of which does not compare with the Braille. In deciding my plans I did not use any of these. What seemed to come before my mind in a very clear and powerful manner was the plan I worked up and have clung to since, viz., representing the Chinese syllabary. Braille letters being employed entirely in a numeric sense. And so any sound, i.e., word of the language, is not spelled by the letters but simply pointed out by its number in the syllabary ! Thus there may be various shades of variation in the pronunciation of this sound by the various dialects, but such does not reflect on my spelling, and so several students from various parts of the country may be reading, and all equally intelligibly and acquired in all respects with equal ease, and yet— from a Pekinese point — most difficult to follow and understand. Such was my theory, and such on one occasion was realised in actual fact when at an annual examination of the school there were students from parts of — 94 — Shantung province, of Shansi, Kuautung and distant points even of Chihli who, when repeating it, seemed like the confusion of tongues, and the Eev. gentleman remarked, "That my argument this day was fulfilled in his ears." Now this method is accomplished by the syllabary being so designed as to be easily committed to memory, and such is accomplished by a simple plan of mnemonics and designed not to end with the Primer but an after aid all through the student's course of study — nay all his life. Now this should not only be as easy to acquire as any system of spelling, to recommend it, but being out of the orthodox methods should even be something more and we feel sure it has! For we have tried several, taught specially and apart from the routine of the school; and four hours has sufficed to fix it in the pupil's mind and memory Jike a plaster stuck firm and fast, and not only the syllabary but also the whole of the Braille system. Now we feel that such being so, simplicity may be fully granted ! Then in actual practice there is no system I know that would equal the rapidity with which a student can spell his word; given the number almost instantaneously comes the word, or vice versa, given the word its number is named ! Next essential is the ease, conse- quently speed attained for the one means the same, and it is now well known, at least by thousands, the speed by which the blind read compares favourably with c/ood sight reading. Without any previous preparation a book was handed to a little boy to read, before a number of friends, and he read right on from where the book of itself had opened. It was the book of Komans, and he read 3rd, 4th, and 5th chapters through, in an easy and pleasant manner to listen to, and the time was taken by watch in hand and was less than 14 minutes. Our reading the same chapter in English then was timed, and read at a religious rate corresponded quite accurately. Then as to speed in writing I have timed some writing and found twenty- two words per minute to be the time ! Two minutes suffice to — 95 — write, for instance the Lord's Prayer, intonated and complete, without contractions. So then again I believe they compare favourably with ourselves writing English, so far as ease and speed is concerned. Such points are very important, and enable our pupils to go about the city and read at street chapels, and thousands of the heathen already have heard God's word read by the blind ! But unless read in this way, and with ease that compares with tasteful sight reading, who would expect the heathen to have patience to sit and be impressed by it ! I have described the letter and in what respect we apply it. It remains yet to show how we arrange the syllabary, and this is the very soul of the system. This then we take as Sir T. Wade has arranged it in its alphabetic order and 408 sounds. These are arranged on four sheets — 100 sounds on each — except the fourth, which has the additional eight odd sounds. These again in lines of ten to a line, thus each page contains ten lines of ten sounds, i.e., Word Forms — making the one hun- dred. Each line of ten sounds has a wider space at the 5th, thus subdividing into two fives for aiding the mental picture. Such is our Primer. Let me anticipate some here who may be ready to ejaculate : When would I ever get such a Primer memorized, for I have a poor memory ? Stop ! for by a simple principle it becomes the simplest of lessons, and the pupils acquire it as a joyous voyage by the laws of associations, turning, what was thought of before, as ten disconnected sounds, into what then resembles one sentence or complete expression ! Where now then is the puzzle ? Only ten sentences then to acquire and a whole page or i of the whole is required. But some doubting Thomas again might ejaculate : How ready to confuse the lines and know which was 5th, which 6th and vice versa. Not an easy process ! Such a difiiculty is hardly worth observing, for what memory has he who could not commit a Christian hymn, if he only got free from "Mrs. McClarty's affliction " ! But as the former is taught and committed by association so the lines are taught by simple — 96 — mnemonics. Ten classes of sounds are given, and stand ever after as numerals. So each^line is headed by one of these, and being a word associates with the lines as an indispensable part of itself: thus, let the word k'u thus =7 and be known as the word bitter in the expression "Bitter lips are a disgrace;" it would not only call up 41 such expressions but a thousand and without failing to arrange them each one in their proper order. If I say then this is the method used and that many have been masters, not only of our Primer but have also memorized the Braille letters and could read them all within the space of four hours will I seem to be saying something incredible! The principle may be called mnemonic, or easy method, and aids the pupil not only at the start but all through his course. Such is mnemonics applied. And if time permitted I could give interesting illustrations of its application to the other lessons, such as arithmetic, etc. At one of our examinations one boy was tried in mental arithmetic. A gentleman dictated to him sums, line after line, each having 10 and 100 of thousands. He committed them right off, and then was asked the totnl, which he gave correctly. In this way we conserve a greater purpose. While teaching our Primer we gain economics ! Now I come to our method of reading and writing. There is one unbroken line throughout, one simple and uniform Word Form, consisting of one large and one small letter, and the latter, having four possible positions, expresses tone by revolving around the large, and here again there is economy when economy is so essential. First page of Primer the Word Form consists of only the small letters, viz. , Braille first and fifth lines, and so the word exhibits tone in harmony with its Chinese name, thus — First, " Upper Even," both letters are high ; second, " Lower Even," both low; third, "Kising," first letter is low and second high! Second, third and fourthpagesof Primer— as I said above— the small letter revolves through four positions around the large as a satellite. Let me decline two words, the better to illustrate this (and I — 97 — will write these with forms modelled lately from the Braille for " sight " reading, and which I will describe later on). The two words "Chu " and "Lai," thus :— 1st Tone 5 7 2 1 1 2nd Tone 5 7 1 2 1 3rd Tone 7 5 5 7 1 2 1 4th Tone 1 1 2 is our method of writing ! * A reason for the choice of this plan, in addition to that already mentioned, or what has been merely mentioned cursorily above, was for dialectic variations. We would have at once the easiest way of comparing a phonetic method with the Chinese hieroglyphic by way of retaining one Written Form. One book for all the dialects ! If attained, would the result not in a word be glorious? Starting from Pekinese, if you like, and work out the principle on those lines and with the axiom — that as the dialects diverge from this syllabary so may they be taught to converge, and so all read from one unchanging Word Form. Such is not the duty so much of the scholar as of the Christian, the man who is in heart sympathy with such wide-spread and such desolate human misery as blindness. * Figures are used here instead of the Numeral Symbols,— W. C. G — 98 — It occurred to me years ago, and I mentioned at the great Shanghai Conference, that I believed we have in the Braille letter and the present application of it by an easy modification of the letters for printing in black the simplest Letter Form known, that would prove at once the best for the eye of the old or young, that would supply the Churches with the Scx-iptures printed for non-readers at not one-third the cost, and while with an easier letter to read by the book — probably- — -would not exceed onfc-Lbird the bulk of Romanised. Surely that should be held to be a momentous argument! Two years ago I was granted my wish. I modelled the types by pen and had them cut by native type-cutters, in the first case, and again from these models- made in type-metal and now have just printed a few pages, viz., the Epistle , of Jude, Epistle of Jno., etc., etc. Next argument was, This would prove the grandest opening as an industry for the blind, as they could teach the seeing as well as one with sight cnuld ! Now I have proved this too on our own compound! We have several reading and writing, who were taught by the blind ! After three days with us a woman read correctly, and during the month wrote several psalms, very tastefully. Question — Who could do such a thing with Eomanization ? So there is a problem wrought out! Now the blind pupil could be the missionary's right-hand-man, be his organist, day school teacher, his Bible man, his amanuensis! Not only teach the illiterate but the scholar stenography, which, as I mentioned at the Conference, we also had probably first wrought out in China. Although I was hindered for years from making any attempt to teach it by book to others, I now have the option to do so and have ofiered time r.nd help, and have got a press for the purpose, the kind gift of a brother missionary, T. W. Pigott, of C. I. M. So I shall close my little paper. Sir, by asserting what I believe would prove an easy acconiplishment : that granted such help in money was allowed I would go from one end of China ^ 99 — and start schools everywhere for the blind, and from one print I and next turn the blind to teach the sighted illiterate, and also the scholar stenography equal to reporting speed (the latter one week's study), and in two years' time have no illiterate Christian anywhere ! My only fear is I will not be challenged to try it ! I expect the "pad " for type-writer by an early mail, containing our new letters, then I feel jonfident our blind Peter could take the Wi'iter to Church on Sundays and take the sermon by it verbatim. See then how useful would prove a smart young blind helper to a mission station when Bible lessons, hymns, new tunes, etc., etc., could be printed, i.e., written in this way and at such speed. I fear I have reached a just limit, and as will appear evident, I have merely thrown out hints, as it were, by the way. E. — The Numeral System at the Second Triennial Conference on Education. Mr. Murray's advertisements now (1897) appearing in the Chinese Recorder refer the public to the First Triennial Report on Education for fuller information about his work, and in her Seventh and Eighth Reports of the " Mission to the Chinese Blind " Miss Gordon-Cumming names the Rev. T. W. Houston and Dr. Fryer as being active supporters of the Numeral system; but in the Second Triennial Report (published last year at Shanghai in a volume of 291 piges) only Mr. Houstoa, Dr. Fryer, and Me. Emberly (Teacher of the Hankow School) refer to the subject, and all of them in a way that is decidedly adverse to Mr. Murray's methods of work. Mr. Houston reasons the matter thus : — " So far I have said nothing as to what class of phonetic symbols jhould be used. There are three kinds to be considered. Mr. Grainger has prepared an ingenious plan, using simple Chinese characters for initials and finals, by combination of which all mardarin G 2 — 100 — sounds may be indicated. He gives as its advantages: In appearance it is like ordinary Chinese, written with Chinese pen ; read as Chinese is read, i.e., from top to bottom ; blocks for printing it eonld be cut anywhere in China. Mr. Murray has combined lines, angles, and squares to form symbols corresponding to the arrangements of raised dots used in Peking in teaching the blind, claiming for it clearness, ease of acquisition and adaptability to a very wide field. He also hopes that the blind students who have mastered it in the Braille dots will be able to teach the illiterate seeing. It is claimed, too, that a book printed in this type will be smaller, and hence, cheaper than if printed in Romanization, but this seems to be a mistake. The claim that this system is adapted to use in all parts of China is a very similar mistake, and works to the injury of similar schools in other regions by rendering them apparently needless. The mistake lies first in the claim that the 408 sounds which Mr. Murray has found in Pekinese can represent all the sounds in all the districts of China. From the best sources of information to which I have had access, and from replies to questions seat out in preparation of this paper, the number of sounds in the various districts is judged to be about as follows : For mandarin regions : — Peking, 397 (Goodrich) ; Teng-chow-fu, Shantung, 384; Nanking, 442; Hankow, 313; Western China, 384. For other dialects : — Shanghai, 670 ; Soochow, 579 ; Ningpo, 660; Hangchow, 555; Foochow* 495 or 928; Swatow, 700; Canton, 707. It is evident that a system based only on Pekinese will not suffice for even the mandarin-speaking regions. The idea that it would answer for other dialects is still more untenable. The second basis of this mistaken claim of general adaptability is the assumption that the symbols used have no phonetic value whatever, leaving the teacher free to assign their value ; e.(/., 4 rn Nanking Peking ■^ B'ueii ta'un * For Foocllow, Morrison gives 928 sounds. But missionaries are now using a system for teaching the blind of that district, in which only 4S5 sounds are used, and find it working system. — 101 — Now, if this were a character with whose iiie,;nuug and sound the teacher was familiar, it would be a working idea ; but the symbol in question has neither meauii)!; nor sound by the sound of a corresponding character, as is dom; in Murray's explanatory book. What is the difference between using O and wanff, when both are equally new to the Chinaman ? Is it not easier to say that this represents the sound of '^,3^, /^E'ffij than to say that this symbol represents 379, and that tliis number in turn stands for the sounds of these four charucters ? My point is that the symbols in Mr. Murray's have fixed phonetic value, and also that more labour is required in iie((niring them than in acquiring a system of initials and finals. In the Peking system the numerals 1 to 10 and each .succeeding ten have separate symbols. By combining these as Arabic numerals are combined, the pupil is taught to count with theui fVoni one to four hundred and eight. After this he is tiiiight the sound connected with each numeral by a system of mnemonics, in which he is required to commit 408 sentences in fixed (u-der until practice enables him to drop the number and connect the sound directly with the symbol. Using initials and finals in mandarin, the largest number of separate symbols he would be. required to commit is 56, each of which represents a sound, and which are then combined to form the remaining sounds, as t and an combine to form tan. This is certainly more simple, and more scientific. One more step. Having decided to use initials and finals, we must decide whether to represent theni by Roman letters or by other signs. I have already stated "Slv. (Trainger's argument is of using for this purpose simple native characters ; but in all points in which China's best interests ean be conserved or advanced we should endeavour to lead her into unity with Christian nations. The languages of all leading nations of the earth are now printed in Roman letters. For the sightless, of course, raised dots must be used, and one sign for each initial and one for each final would form a more simple system than — 102 — to write a siga for each Eoman letter required to spell the sound ; but for the seeing, a Eoraanization for all the mandarin regions - could be constructed which would be usable and vastly helpful in education. If necessary, tones could be marked, adding the space of one small dot to the word, but I think experience has shown that the marking of tones in colloquial is not often necessary." " Dr. Fryer spoke on the subject of Mr. Houston's pape r most of which he cordially agreed with. He mentioned that he had received a letter from Eev. W. Campbell, of Formosa, written from Scotland, in which Mr. Campbell wrote strongly in favour of alphabetical systems, whether using Braille points, or Roman letters. He was also expecting from Mr. Murray, of Peking, a sketch of his latest developments of the numerical system, but it had not arrived. Comparing the two systems, he was strongly in favour of the alphabetic, or initial and iinal system, because it was so easy to use, learn, and remember. The numerical system required over 400 sentences to be committed to memory with the words represented by the numbers appearing in the sentences. It -was thus an elaborate mnemonic system. How old women could learn to read from it in three weeks was to him a mystery. Facts, however, are stubborn things. He then referred to the system he had framed in connection with the late Rev. J. Crossette, and which had been used most successfully in the blind school at Hankow, established by the Rev. D. Hill." " Mr. Emberley said : The simplicity of Mr. Crossette's Initial and Final System will be evident to all when it is remembered that only thirty-eight signs and sounds are required for reading or writing in almost all tlie Mandarin-speaking districts ; for example, two boys sent to us from Ngan-king were able to write and read in five days — not all, of course, with the same speed or accuracy, but in only one case have we had to report failure, the difficulty with some of the older ones beino-, — 103 — of course, that their fingers are hardened by previous work. It is not well to allow the boy.-s to do nothing but study, as their minds then only run in ruts. To this end we teach music, basket-making, chair-making and caning, hammock-netting and sock-knitting, &c., &o. The boys' minds are thus led into other channels and their brains sharpened." As Mr. Hartmann has also been referred to in the foregoing pages, his testimony may be added here from the " Records " of the last General Conference. On p. 302, he says : — " If it be granted that Braille's system is not only the best, but that nothing can be gained by the introduction of another, the question still arises how to adapt Braille's system to the different Chinese dialects. Mr. Murray has thought it advisable to have nothing to do with European spelling. He has numbered the 408 syllables of Wade's syllabary and writes them with Braille's figures, with a certain change, so as to ingeniously include the tone-mark. I have thought it more simple to spell phonetically, adding one character to every syllable for the tone-mark. Mr. Murray never needs more than three spaces for a word ; I need from two or four. The Canton Committee of the British and and Foreign Bible Society are taking steps to print some part of the Bible in Braille's letters in the Canton colloquial." F. — Minutes of Second Decennial Conference of Missionaries on Romanised Vernacular Versions of Scripture in China. Sixth Day — Tuesday, May 13. — Afternoon Session. Rev. Dr. Nevius presided. Inier alia. After having been discussed, the following amended Report of the Committee was adopted; — "That the Conference is persuaded of the great importance of the use of the vernaculars in translations of Scripture for the edification of the native church ; and finds that the use of Roman letter in writing the vernaculars — 104 — is recommended liy a large amount of testimony from different parts of tlte Empire. The (!onference, therefore, commends this subject to the earnest conHideiation of Missions working in the various dialects, and appoints a Permanent Committee to watch over the subject with a view to nssist generally in the development of this branch of mission work, and in particular to secure uniformity in methods of Romanizing, so far as may be compatible with the requirements of each dialect, and with the full liberty of those who work in it. The Conference further requests all missionaries undertakini; work in Roman letter to communicate with this Committee. The Conieience' heartily recommends to the liberal con- sideration of tlie Bible Societies any applications that may be made to them for aid in the production of Vernacular Versions in Roman letter undertaken by any Mission Body. The Perniiiueut Committee shall have power to fill vacancies and to add to their number if they shall see cause." The Confeveuee appointed the following to serve on this Permanent (, 'ommittee, namely: — For Miiiidui-iii: Revs. C. Leaman, of Ivanking; E. Bryant, of Tientsin; J. W. Loweie, of Peking; "W. Cooper, of Gank'in,ii-. For ShuiKjhai dialect, Rev. J. A. Silsby. „ Niugpo „ Rev. J. R. Goddaed. „ Taiclioii- ,, Rev. W. E. Rudland. „ Wairlioii; „ Rev. W. E. SOOTHILL. /. „ FooHio(i) ,, Rev. S. F. WooDiN & W. Stewart. ,;,'V,W..' ^'"'0.'/ •■ind ) ,, Re.v. L. W. Kip, D. D. and *:'■'„ Fonnii'Li ) ,, Rev. T. Baelcay. „ Sioatow , Rev. J. C. Gibson, Seeretary. „ Cwitnn „ Rev. B. C. Henry, D. D. „ Hald'u „ Rev. G. Reush & D. MacIvee. „ Ifin'iini, ^^ Rev. F. P. GiLMAN. ERRATA. Page Vll line 5, For the Triennial read the Second Triennial. XVII „ 20, For p. 68 read p. 78. 21 „ 19, For 13th read 13th September. 24 „ 32, For lead reod leads. 40 „ 1, For 31st read 29th. 56 „ 36, For as a kind re^f^f as if a kind. 57 „ 27, For Mrs. Cmpbell read Mr. Campbell. 75 „ 8, For a Missionary r'^arf an ex-Missionary. 81 „ 31, For 94 read 98. 84 „ 33, For 3,000 too(2 30,000. 85 „ 7, i^l)?" 68, read 78. 86 „ 33, For pp. 17 and 37 read pp. 17, 27 and 37. Add the following postscript to the letter on page 65 : — P.S. The construction put upon my words by Miss Gordon-Cumming in that concluding paragraph is of a piece with her own and Dr. Dudgeon's unworthly attempt to bamboozle people by directing attention to the yearly interest accruing from the Endowment Fund, when the only point in question was the amount of the Endowment Fund itself. See pages II, 19, 20, 33 and 75 w. c. — 104 — is recommended liy a large amount of testimony from different parts of the Empire. ■-'i;j The Conference, therefore, commends this subject to the earnest consideration of Missions working in the various dialects, and annoints a Pprmamen.t Committee to watch over the subject Sioatoiv Caiitnii Hakku Kev. 1. liAELCAY. Rev. J. C. Gibson, Secretary. Rev. B. C. Henry, D. D. Rev. G. Reush & D. MacIver. Rev. F. P. GiLMAN.