AT MONSON ACADEMY
We were in East Windsor for about a week; then we went up to Monson,
Mass., to enter the Academy there. Monson Academy was, at one time,
quite a noted preparatory school in New England, before high schools
sprang into existence. Young men from all parts of the country were
found here, undergoing preparation for colleges. It was its fortune, at
different periods of its history, to have had men of character and
experience for its principals. The Rev. Charles Hammond was one of them.
He was in every sense a self-made man. He was a graduate of Yale; he was
enthusiastically fond of the classics, and a great admirer of English
literature. He was a man of liberal views and broad sympathies. He was
well-known in New England as an educator and a champion of temperance
and New England virtues. His high character gave the Academy a wide
reputation and the school was never in a more prosperous condition than
when he was principal. He took a special interest in us, the three
Chinese students--Wong Shing, Wong Foon and myself--not so much from the
novelty of having Chinese in the school as from his interest in China,
and the possible good that might come out of our education.
In our first year in the Academy, we were placed in the English
department. Greenleaf’s Arithmetic, English Grammar, Physiology, and
Upham’s Mental Philosophy were our studies. In the last two studies we
recited to the new preceptress, Miss Rebekah Brown, a graduate of Mt.
Holyoke, the valedictorian of her class. She afterwards became the wife
of Doctor A. S. McClean, of Springfield, Mass. She was a fine teacher
and a woman of exceptional Christian virtues. She had an even and sweet
temper, and was full of good will and good works. She and her husband,
the good Doctor, took a genuine interest in me; they gave me a home
during some of my college vacations, and helped me in various ways in my
struggle through Yale. I kept up my correspondence with them after my
return to China, and upon my coming back to this country, I was always
cordially invited to their home in Springfield. It was on account of
such a genuine friendship that I made Springfield my headquarters in
1872, when I brought the first installment of Government students to
this country.
Brown placed us under the care of his mother, Mrs. Phoebe H. Brown. We
boarded with her, but had a separate room assigned us in a dwelling
right across the road, opposite to her cottage. Her widowed daughter
with her three boys had taken up all the spare rooms in the cottage,
which accounts for the want of accommodation for us.
In those primitive days, board and lodging in the country were very
reasonable. Indigent students had a fair chance to work their way for an
education. I remember we paid for board and lodging, including fuel,
light and washing, only $1.25 a week for each, but we had to take care
of our own rooms and, in the winter, saw and split our own wood, which
we found to be capital exercise.
Our lodging was about half a mile from the academy. We had to walk three
times a day to school and back, in the dead of winter when the snow was
three feet deep; that gave us plenty of exercise, keen appetites and
kept us in fine condition.
I look back upon my acquaintance with Mrs. Phoebe H. Brown with a
mingled feeling of respect and admiration. She certainly was a
remarkable New England woman--a woman of surpassing strength of moral
and religious character. Those who have had the rare privilege of
reading her stirring biography, will, I am sure, bear me out in this
statement. She went through the crucible of unprecedented adversities
and trials of life and came out one of the rare shining lights that
beautify the New England sky. She is the authoress of the well-known
hymn, “I love to steal awhile away from every cumbering care,” etc.,
which breathes the calm spirit of contentment and resignation wherever
sung.
The Rev. Charles Hammond, the principal of the academy when we joined
it, was a graduate of Yale, as I stated before, and a man of a fine
cultivated taste. He was an enthusiastic admirer of Shakespeare, who was
his favorite poet; among orators, he was partial to Daniel Webster. He
had the faculty of inspiring his pupils with the love of the beautiful,
both in ancient and modern literature. In our daily recitations, he laid
a greater stress on pointing out the beauties of a sentence and its
construction, than he did on grammatical rules, moods and tenses. He
was a fine writer. His addresses and sermons were pointed and full of
life. Like Dr. Arnold of Rugby, he aimed to build character in his
pupils and not to convert them into walking encyclopedias, or
intelligent parrots. It was through him that I was introduced to
Addison, Goldsmith, Dickens, Sir Walter Scott, the Edinburgh Reviews,
Macaulay and Shakespeare, which formed the bulk of my reading while in
Monson.
During my first year in the Monson Academy, I had no idea of taking a
collegiate course. It was well understood that I was to return to China
at the end of 1849, and the appropriation was made to suit such a plan.
In the fall of 1848, after Wong Shing--the eldest of the three of
us--had returned to China on account of his poor health, Wong Foon and
myself, who were left behind to continue our studies for another year,
frequently met to talk over future plans for the end of the prescribed
time. We both decided finally to stay in this country to continue our
studies, but the question arose, who was going to back us financially
after 1849? This was the Gordian Knot. We concluded to consult Mr.
Hammond and Mr. Brown on the subject. They both decided to have the
matter referred to our patrons in Hong Kong. Reply came that if we
wished to prosecute our studies after 1849, they would be willing to
continue their support through a professional course, if we were willing
to go over to Scotland to go through the University of Edinburgh. This
was a generous and noble-hearted proposal.
Wong Foon, on his part, after much deliberation, decided to accept the
offer and go over to Scotland at the end of 1849, while, on my part, I
preferred to remain in this country to continue my studies here with the
view of going to Yale. Wong Foon’s decision had relieved him of all
financial anxieties, while the problem of how I was to pay my education
bills after 1849, still remained to be solved. But I did not allow the
perplexities of the future to disturb my peace of mind. I threw all my
anxieties to the wind, trusting to a wise Providence to care for my
future, as it had done for my past.
Wong Foon and I, having taken our decisive steps, dropped our English
studies at the close of the school year of 1849, and in the fall of the
same year we began the A B C’s of our classical course. In the summer of
1850, we graduated from the academy. Wong Foon, by previous
arrangements, went over to Scotland and entered the University of
Edinburgh. I remained in this country and finally entered Yale. It was
fully a decade since we had met for the first time in the Morrison
School in Macao, in 1840, to become school-mates as well as class-mates.
Now that link was broken.
Wong was in the University seven years. After completing his
professional studies as a doctor, he returned to China in 1857. He was a
fine scholar. He graduated the third man in his medical class. He also
distinguished himself in his profession. His ability and skill secured
for him an enviable reputation as one of the ablest surgeons east of the
Cape of Good Hope at that time. He had a fine practice in Canton, where
the foreign residents retained him as their physician in preference to
European doctors. He was very successful and made quite a fortune before
his death, which took place in 1879. Both the native and foreign
communities felt his loss. He was highly respected and honored by
Chinese and foreigners for his Christian character and the purity of his
life.