An address by the Rev. Joseph H. Twichell, delivered before the Kent Club of the Yale Law School, April 10, 1878.
A visitor to the City of Hartford, at the present time, will be likely to meet on the streets groups of Chinese boys, in their native dress, though somewhat modified, and speaking their native tongue, yet seeming, withal, to be very much at home. He will also occasionally meet Chinese men who, by their bearing, will impress him as being gentlemen of their race.
These gentlemen are officers, and these boys are pupils of the Chinese Educational Mission, although one of the most remarkable and significant institutions of the age on the face of the whole earth. The object of the mission, now of nearly six years’ standing, is the education in this country, through a term of fifteen years, of a corps of young men for the Chinese Government service; that Government paying the whole cost—an annual expense of about $100,000. The number of the officers is five, viz. —the two Imperial Commissioners in charge, a translator and interpreter and two teachers. The function of the teachers is to direct the Chinese education of the pupils, which proceeds pari passu with their Western education. The number of pupils was originally 120, but now 112, one having died and seven having, for various reasons, returned to China. A fine, large house recently erected by the Chinese Government in the western part of the City, at a cost of fifty thousand dollars, is the headquarters of the Mission. There are the offices of the officers, and there is lodged the class that is present for examination and instruction in Chinese studies. For this purpose the pupils are divided into classes of about twenty, one coming as another goes, each staying at the Mission House two weeks at a time. A small part only of the whole number are