years of arduous, almost unremitting labour; and her fellow missionaries
felt that before the work on the new hospital building began she ought to
have a vacation. Certainly she had earned it. Not only had she worked
faithfully for seven years in Kiukiang, but she had, within the five
succeeding years, established medical work in a large city, where she was
the first and only physician trained in Western sciences. Assisted only by
two nurses whom she herself had trained, she had kept her dispensary
running the year around, all day and every day. Moreover, she had kept the
work practically self-supporting, in spite of the fact that she had refused
to economize by using inferior medicines, or bottles of rough glass which
could not be thoroughly cleansed. She had insisted that her drugs be of the
purest, and dispensed in clean, carefully labelled bottles, and had often
furnished besides the food needed to build up strength. In addition to all
this, she so commended herself and her work to the people of the city that
in 1906 she was enabled to hand over to the Woman's Foreign Missionary
Society, a dispensary building and two fine building lots, to be used for a
hospital and physician's home.
She was finally persuaded to go to America for a period of change and rest.
"Rest" for Dr. Kahn evidently means a change of work; for she went at once
to Northwestern University to take the literary course which she felt would
fit her for broader usefulness among her countrywomen. Eager to get back to
China she did three years' work in two, studying in the summer quarter at
the University of Chicago, when Northwestern closed its doors for the
vacation. In addition to her University studies, she undertook, for the
sake of her loved country, a work which is peculiarly hard for her, and
almost every Sunday found her at some church, telling of the present
unprecedented opportunities in China.
The question may perhaps be raised as to whether days could be crowded so
full and yet work be done thoroughly. But Prof. J. Scott Clark of
Northwestern University said of her, at this time: "Dr. Kahn is one of the
most accurate and effective students in a class of eighty-four members,
most of them sophomores, although the class includes many seniors. The
subject is the study of the style and diction of prominent prose authors,
with some theme work. Last year Miss Kahn attained a very high rank in the
study of the principles of good English style during the first semester,
and in that of synonyms during the second semester. In the latter difficult
subject she ranked among the very best students in a class of over three
hundred members. She is very accurate, very earnest, and very quick to
catch an idea. In fact she is nothing less than an inspiration to her
classmates."
In the spring of 1910 Dr. Kahn was a delegate to the Conference of the
World's Young Women's Christian Association held in Berlin, and from there
went to London for six months of study in the School of Tropical Diseases.
She had planned to return to Northwestern University to complete the work
interrupted by her trip to Europe, and to receive her degree. Her work had
been of so unusually high a standard, however, that she was permitted to
finish her course by correspondence, and was granted her degree in January,
1911. She completed her course in the School of Tropical Diseases with high
honour, and in February, 1911, she reached Nanchang, where one of her
fellow-workers declares, "she is magnificent from the officials' houses to
the mud huts."
The new hospital was still in process of building, but the doctor began
work at once in her old dispensary, and the news of her return soon spread.
In a short time she was having an average of sixty patients a day, and
several operations were booked some time before the hospital could be
opened. It was ready for use in the autumn and in October Dr. Kahn wrote:
"The work has gone on well, and patients have come to us even from distant
cities clear on the other side of Poyang Lake. The new building is such a
comfort. It looks nice and is really so well adapted for the work. I would
be the happiest person possible if I did not have to worry about drug
bills, etc.... It is impossible to drag any more money out of the poor
people. Our rich patients are very small in number when compared with the
poor. Yesterday I had to refuse medicines to several people, though my
heart ached at having to do so. You see I had no idea that the work would
develop so fast, and things have risen in prices very much the last few
years."
At the time that this letter was written the Revolution was in progress,
and Nanchang, with all the rest of Central China, was in a turmoil. Because
of the disturbed conditions most of the missionaries left the city, but Dr.
Kahn refused to leave her work. With the help of her nurses she kept the
hospital open, giving a refuge to many sufferers from famine and flood, and
caring for the wounded soldiers. None of the forty beds was ever empty, and
many had to be turned away.
The close of the Revolution did not, however, bring a cessation of work for
the doctor. She already needs larger hospital accommodation, three times as
much as she now has, one of her friends writes. But Dr. Kahn delights in
all the opportunities for work that are crowding upon her; for she says,
"When I think what my life might have been, and what, through God's grace,
it is, I think there is nothing that God has given me that I would not
gladly use in His service."
* * * * *
DR. MARY STONE
I. WITH UNBOUND FEET
II. THE DANFORTH MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
III. WINNING FRIENDS IN AMERICA
IV. A VERSATILE WOMAN
* * * * *
[Illustration: [Handwritten] Yours in His service Mary Stone]
DR. MARY STONE
I
WITH UNBOUND FEET
On the "first day of the third moon" of the year 1873, a young Chinese
father knelt by the side of his wife and, with her, reverently consecrated
to the service of the Divine Father the little daughter who had that day
been given them. They named her "Maiyü,"--"Beautiful Gem"--and together
agreed that this perfect gift should never be marred by the binding of the
little feet. It was unheard of! Even the servant women of Kiukiang would
have been ashamed to venture outside the door with unbound feet, and the
very beggar women hobbled about on stumps of three and four inches in
length. No little girl who was not a slave had ever been known to grow up
with natural feet before, in all Central or West China. That the descendant
of one of the proudest and most aristocratic families of China, whose
genealogical records run back without a break for a period of two thousand
years, little Shih Maiyü, should be the first to thus violate the
century-old customs of her ancestors, was almost unbelievable.
Even the missionaries could not credit it, not even Miss Howe, whose
interest in the family was peculiarly keen, since Maiyü's mother was the
first fruits of her work for Chinese women, and had ever since been working
with her. To be sure Mrs. Shih had said to her, "If the Lord gives me a
little daughter I shall not bind her feet." But Miss Howe had made so many
efforts to induce the women and girls with whom she had worked to take off
the crippling bandages, without having been successful in a single
instance, that she did not build her hopes on this. One day, when calling
in the home and seeing little Maiyü, then five years old, playing about the
room, she remarked, "My dear Mrs. Shih, you will not make a good job of it
unless you begin at once to bind little Maiyü's feet." But Mrs. Shih never
faltered in the purpose which she and her husband had formed at the little
girl's birth, and promptly answered, "Did I not tell you I should not bind
her feet?"
The first years of Maiyü's life were unusually happy ones. Her father was a
pastor in the Methodist church, and had charge of the "Converting to
Holiness" chapel in Kiukiang; her mother was successfully conducting a day
school for girls. From her mother Maiyü received much of her earliest
instruction and before she was eight years old she had studied several of
the Chinese classics and memorized the Gospel of Matthew and the catechism
in Chinese so thoroughly that she has never forgotten them.
But as she approached the age when custom required that her feet should be
bound, the little girl discovered that the way of the pioneer is not an
easy one. The unbound feet were a constant source of comment and ridicule,
not only by older people, but by other children as well. She was stopped on
her way to school one day by an older girl, who taunted her with her "big
feet" and refused to let her pass unless she would kneel down and render
obeisance to her own bandaged stumps. The small descendant of the proud
house of Shih absolutely refused to submit to such humiliation; but it was
only after her mother's assistance had been invoked that she was allowed to
proceed on her way.
Relatives and friends protested vigorously against such apparent
indifference to their daughter's future on the part of her parents. "You
will never be able to get a mother-in-law for her," they declared. Mr. and
Mrs. Shih felt, no doubt, that this was true; for who could have then
prophesied that the time would so soon come in conservative old China when
young men would not only be willing to marry girls with natural feet, but
would decidedly prefer them! Maiyü's father and mother never reconsidered
their decision that their daughter should grow to womanhood with natural
feet; but they did try to devise some plan by which her life might be a
useful and happy one, even though she might never enjoy the blessing of a
mother-in-law. They were very much impressed with the service which Dr.
Kate Bushnell was rendering the suffering women and children of Kiukiang,
and when Maiyü was eight years old her father took her to Dr. Bushnell and
announced, "Here is my little girl. I want you to make a doctor of her."
This was almost as startling as the unbound feet! A Chinese woman physician
was unknown and undreamed of. But this young father's faith in the
possibilities of Chinese womanhood was not to be discouraged. The necessity
of general education, preliminary to medical training, was explained, and
Maiyü was put in charge of Miss Howe, then at the head of the Girls'
Boarding School of the Methodist Mission. In this school she spent most of
the next ten years of her life, studying in both Chinese and English, and
fitting herself under Miss Howe's direction for her medical course.
In 1892, Maiyü and her friend, Ida Kahn, accompanied Miss Howe to America,
there to receive the medical education for which they had long been
preparing. If America held much that was new and interesting to them, it
was no less true that they were something new and very interesting to
America. "What makes these girls look so different from the other Chinese
women who come here?" the Government official who examined their passports
asked Miss Howe. "All the difference between a heathen and a Christian,"
was her prompt response.
That there were Chinese girls who could successfully pass the entrance
examinations to the medical department of the University of Michigan, in
arithmetic, algebra, rhetoric, general and United States history, physics,
and Latin, was a revelation to the people of America, and their college
career was watched with the greatest interest.
While in Ann Arbor, Maiyü took pity on the professors who found it so
difficult to pronounce her Chinese name, and decided to use the English
translation of it, Mary Stone, during her stay in America. Accordingly one
morning when the professor started to call on her, she announced, "I have
decided to change my name, professor." The burst of laughter with which the
class greeted this simple statement was most bewildering to her; but after
she had seen the joke she often declared that she was "one of the products
of Christianity, an old maid," for, as she pointed out, an unmarried woman
is practically unknown among non-Christians.
During her medical course Mary became more strongly impressed than ever
before with the evils of foot-binding. Her mother's feet had, of course,
been bound in childhood, and although Mrs. Stone had never bound the feet
of any of her daughters, she had not unbandaged her own. For she said that
if she also had unbound feet people would say: "Oh, yes, she must be from
some out-of-the-way place where the women do not bind their feet, and so
she does not know how to bind the feet of her daughters. That accounts for
such gross neglect." On the other hand, she reasoned that if she herself
had the aristocratic "golden lily" feet, it would be evident that her
failure to bind her daughters' feet was due to principle. But while Mary
was pursuing her medical studies she became convinced that the time had
come when her mother ought to register a further protest against the
harmful custom, by unbandaging her own feet, and wrote urging her to do so.
Mrs. Stone readily agreed to this. Moreover, at the annual meeting of the
Central China Mission in 1894, when a large mass-meeting was held for the
discussion of foot-binding, she ascended the platform and in a clear voice,
which made every word distinctly heard to the remotest corner of the large
chapel hall, told why she had never before unbound her feet, and why she
was now about to do so. Her husband was so in sympathy with her decision
that later in the meeting he added a few words of approval of the course
she had taken. The last shoes worn before the unbinding, and the first
after it, were sent to Ann Arbor to the daughter who had so long been a
living exponent of the doctrine of natural feet.
After four years at the University of Michigan, during which she and her
friend, Dr. Ida Kahn, had won the respect and friendship of both faculty
and students by their thorough work, Dr. Stone went to Chicago for the
summer, in order to attend the clinical work in the hospitals there. It was
at this time that she met Dr. I. N. Danforth of that city, who was ever
afterward her staunch friend. He was about to leave for Europe, but found
time before his departure to introduce Dr. Stone to many of the Chicago
physicians and hospitals. He says: "She won the hearts of all with her
charming ways, and got everything she wanted. When I took her to clinics
she would often not be able to see at first, being such a little woman; but
the first thing I knew she would be right down by the operating table. The
doctors would always notice her, and seeing that she couldn't see would
open up and let her down to the front." After what Dr. Danforth considered
a thorough clinical training, including visits to practically all the good
hospitals in Chicago, Dr. Stone sailed for China with Dr. Kahn, reaching
there in the autumn of 1896.
II
THE DANFORTH MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
On their return to China, Dr. Stone and Dr. Kahn received a most
enthusiastic welcome from the Chinese. It had been expected that it would
be necessary for them to spend the first few months in overcoming
prejudices and gradually building up confidence. But on the contrary,
patients appeared the third day after their arrival, and kept coming in
increasing numbers, until in December it became necessary to rent
dispensary quarters and rebuild a Chinese house to serve as a hospital. Dr.
Stone reported in July, 1897, that since October of the preceding year, she
and Dr. Kahn had treated 2,352 dispensary patients, made 343 visits, and
had thirteen patients in their little hospital, besides spending a month in
Nanking visiting the hospitals there.
The following year the little hospital was presented with what was probably
its first, though by no means its last, "merit board." One of Dr. Stone's
letters gives an account of this event:
"Two days ago we had quite an occasion. A child had been sick for a
long time, and the best Chinese physicians pronounced him
incurable. Then it was that they gave us a chance. He is recovering
and the parents, wanting to show their gratitude, gave us a 'merit
board,' thinking in this way they would 'spread our fame.'
Accordingly a day was selected to present the board to us, and we
prepared tea and cakes for those who would come. On the day
appointed at 2 P.M., we heard a lot of fire-crackers, rockets, and
guns, and a band playing the flute and bugle at the same time. The
'merit board,' consisting of a black board with four big carved and
gilded characters in the centre, and with red cloth over it, was
carried into our guest hall by four men, and set on the centre
table. The characters complimented us by a comparison with two
noted women of ancient times, who were great scholars. I
acknowledged the honour with a low Chinese bow, and a tall, elderly
gentleman returned me a bow, without a word being spoken by either
of us. Then I withdrew, and he took tea with two of our gentlemen
teachers. The company stayed to see the board put up on our wall."
As the fame of the young physicians grew and their practice steadily
increased, they found themselves greatly hampered by lack of a proper
building in which to carry on their work. In 1898 Dr. Stone wrote back to
America: "Our tiny hospital is crammed full. An observer might think that
we carried home but a slight idea of hygiene. Our hospital measures on the
outside 28 by 21 at Chinese feet (our foot is one inch longer than yours)
and we have been compelled to crowd in twenty-one sleepers. The building
being so small and not protected from the heat of the sun by any trees or
awnings, by evenings it is fairly an oven, which is certainly not a very
desirable place for sick people. We are looking forward all the time for
signs or signals from the women of America to build our new hospital, but
not a letter comes to bring us this kind of message. Still we are thankful
for the hope of building some time."
This hope was realized almost at once, largely through the generosity of
the friend Dr. Stone had made in Chicago, Dr. I. N. Danforth, who felt that
no more fitting memorial could be erected to his wife than a hospital for
Chinese women and children. Dr. Stone and Dr. Kahn drew their own plans and
sent them to Chicago, where they were perfected in every detail by an
architect of that city, and sent back to Kiukiang with the necessary
specifications and instructions. These plans were carried out to the letter
and in 1900 an airy, grey brick building, finished with white granite and
limestone, plentifully supplied with comfortable verandas, and bearing over
its pillared entrance the name, "Elizabeth Skelton Danforth Memorial
Hospital," was ready for occupancy. But on the very day that the furniture
was moved in, the American consul advised all foreign women and children to
leave Kiukiang immediately. The other missionaries were so unwilling to
leave the young doctors to face the possible dangers from the Boxers alone,
that they finally prevailed upon them to go to Japan with them.
The hospital escaped any injury, however, and in her report for 1900, Dr.
Stone said: "Our new hospital is a comfort and constant inspiration to us
in our work. We were indeed grateful, after half a year's enforced exile,
to come home and find it intact and ready for use.... During six months
there have been 3,679 dispensary patients, 59 in-patients, and 414 visits."
[Illustration:
Elizabeth Skelton Danforth Memorial Hospital, Kiukiang, China]
The hospital was formally opened on the seventh of December, 1901, during
the annual meeting of the Central China Methodist Mission, held that year
at Kiukiang. The _North China Daily Herald_ gives the following account
of this interesting occasion:
THE OPENING OF A MODEL HOSPITAL IN KIUKIANG
"On Saturday afternoon the 7th instant, some foreign residents of
Kiukiang, the members of the Methodist Central China Mission, and
many native friends gathered together at the formal opening of the
Elizabeth Skelton Danforth Memorial Hospital, of which two ladies,
Drs. Stone and Kahn, are the physicians in charge. There were a
number of Chinese ladies, whose rich costumes showed the official
rank and wealth of husbands and fathers. The Chen-tai, prefect,
assistant prefect and magistrate added their official dignity to
the occasion. These were noticeably appreciative of the first hymn,
'God save the Emperor.'"
"Bishop Moore presided, formally opening the hospital; Mr.
Clennell, H.B.M., Consul for Kiukiang, gave a very good address, to
which Dr. Stuart, American Vice-consul of Nanking, made fitting
response. Then followed short, pithy speeches by Drs. Beebee and
Hart. The two heroines of the occasion kept modestly in the
background, refusing to be introduced, much to the disappointment
of the audience. The officials insisted that coming forward would
be in entire harmony with etiquette and propriety, but the Chinese
young ladies remained firm and were represented by their wise
teacher, Miss Howe, who has planned with them and for them since
their childhood. After refreshments guests were at liberty to
saunter across verandas and through the various wards, the room for
foreign patients, the convalescents' room, solarium, dark room,
offices, reception room, etc., of this admirably planned hospital.
The operating room with its skylight, its operating table of glass
and enamel; the adjoining sterilizing room, containing apparatus
for distilling, sterilizing, etc., are especially interesting to
Chinese visitors. The drug rooms are well stocked and furnished
with modern appliances, instruments, a fine microscope, battery,
etc., and there is the nucleus of an excellent library. Everywhere
one finds evidence of wise forethought and careful expenditure."
[Illustration: Dr. Stone, Dr. Kahn, and Five of the Hospital Nurses]
"The Chinese have a high regard for the skill and ability of these
gifted young physicians. One sees this appreciation, not only in
the commendatory tablets hanging in the entrance hall, but in their
equally gracious and more serviceable gifts, which together with
fees amounted this year to about $2,500. The doctors have had
within the last twelve months, 7,854 patients and have made 531
out-visits. Their services have been requested by different
official families of Kiukiang and Nan-chang, the capital of
Kiangsi. Patients come to them from different provinces. The young
physicians fearlessly make journeys far out in the surrounding
country, crossing the mountains perhaps, but always in perfect
safety, as they meet only with respect and courtesy. Sometimes
after a successful visit their chairs will be draped with a red
cloth and the physicians will be carried home in triumph through an
admiring crowd, and accompanied all the way by fire-crackers. They
hear only pleasant and complimentary remarks from passersby. 'We
are afraid of foreigners, but you can understand our nature'--so
the simple-minded country folk sometimes tell them."
Dr. Stone, describing the opening of the hospital to Dr. Danforth, wrote,
"The Chinese were very much impressed with your way of commemorating your
wife." Dr. Kahn added that one of the highest officials, who was being
shown through the building, signified his approval by emphatically
declaring, "It would make any one well merely to stay in such a pleasant
place."
As a matter of fact, work had been carried on in the new building for some
time before the formal opening. It had been ready for occupancy none too
soon, for in the summer of 1901, the Yangtse River overflowed its banks,
working great havoc among the crops and homes of the people living near it.
Dr. Stone wrote Dr. Danforth: "Tens of thousands have been rendered
homeless and destitute. Some of them are literally starved to death. The
sick and hungry flock to our gates, and for several months we have had over
a thousand visits each month to our dispensary." Some idea of the part
which the hospital played in relieving the sufferings of the flood refugees
is given by an article in _Woman's Work in the Far East_, written by Dr.
Stone at about this time:
"Perhaps friends would like to know how we dispensed the clothes
and quilts so kindly sent us. During the winter months very many
needy refugees came to our dispensary daily for treatment. Of
course we did not have enough clothes to distribute
indiscriminately, but only for those who were the most helpless and
miserable. We received them by hundreds, and not only had we to
give out medicine, but rice, as well as clothing."