with two other native lads, also his pupils, of about the same age, to the United States; Andrew Shortrede, a large-hearted Scotchman, founder, proprietor and editor of The China Mail , published at Hong Kong, engaging to advance the means of their support for two years. The three boys were entered together at the academy in Monson, MA , and were received into the family of Mr. Brown’s mother, who lived at Monson, a royal woman whose name is memorable in the church of Christ as that of the author of the hymn, “I love to steal awhile away.” It was while a member of her godly household that Yung Wing became a Christian believer.
It will not be out of place to state here, as a fact, the significance of which will be readily appreciated, that he caused the son who was born to him in 1876—his firstborn—to be named in baptism Morrison Brown, an eloquent act of recognition and profession. Of Wing’s two companions one, Wong Shing, was compelled, by want of health, to return to China the next year. There, in the office of The China Mail , he learned the art of printing. From 1852 or 1853 he was for several years connected with the press of the London Mission under Dr. Legge, now the eminent Professor of the Chinese Language and Literature in Oxford University. In 1873 he accompanied the second detachment of Chinese students to this country, and is at present under appointment as interpreter to the Chinese Legation soon to be established at Washington.
The other, Wong Fun, went to Scotland in 1850, and after two years general study entered the Medical Department of Edinburgh University, at which he graduated with very high honor. Returning to China in 1856, he began the practice of medicine in the city of Canton and is most highly esteemed on all that coast, both for his private character and for his professional talents, being held by many foreign residents the ablest physician in the whole region of the East beyond Calcutta. Wong Fun died Oct. 15th, 1878.