Page:Eminent Chinese Of The Ch’ing Period - Hummel - 1943 - Vol. 1.pdf/416

Rh morial dated October 10, 1870. Imperial assent having been given to the general proposal, Tsêng Kuo-fan and perfected it in detail, and on August 18, 1871 the full plan was presented to the throne. The project was accepted and the first group of students set sail for the United States in the summer of 1872. They were supervised by Ch'ên Lan-pin 陳蘭彬, a conservative official known for his devotion to Chinese learning. Ch'ên had been deliberately chosen to counterbalance Jung who was suspected of excessive partiality for Western ideas. Jung, as Assistant Commissioner, had gone in advance of the first group in order to complete arrangements for their reception in the United States. Headquarters were established at Hartford, Connecticut, where a building was erected (1874) for the use of the Mission. In the spring of 1873 Jung returned to China as agent for the Gatling Company whose guns he introduced into the Chinese army. During the same year he was sent by the government to Peru to investigate the "coolie traffic", and while there secured the freedom of eighty laborers.

On February 24, 1875 Jung Hung married Mary Louisa Kellogg, the daughter of a New England physician. In the same year Ch'ên Lan-pin and Jung were appointed joint ministers to the United States, Spain and Peru. But as Jung was unwilling to give up his position with the Educational Mission he was allowed to retain that post. At the same time he was made an associate minister to Washington with the rank of a second class official. Ch'ên Lan-pin did not go to Washington, however, until September 19, 1878. Nine days later he and Jung presented their letters of credence, thus establishing the first Chinese Legation in the United States.

Unfortunately for the fate of the Educational Mission, Ch'ên Lan-pin and Jung Hung differed from the beginning on the general policy to be pursued in superintending the education of the youths in their charge. Jung favored as much absorption by them as possible of the American viewpoint. The pressure of the new environment, which the youths found to be very attractive, naturally caused them quickly to discard their Chinese dress and manners and to neglect the Chinese part of their education which was supposed to go on simultaneously with their American studies. Ch'ên Lan-pin disliked this metamorphosis and wanted to keep the boys more strictly to their Chinese studies. Reports of Jung's conduct of the Mission spread back to China with the result that much criticism arose about the alleged corrupt practices and doctrines of the students. Li Hung-chang—either because he did not wish to stand against this tide of unfavorable opinion or because from such a distance he could not judge properly what was going on—withdrew his support and in June 1881 the Mission was ordered to be abolished and the students and teachers were directed to return home.

Among the students who came to America at this time the following may be mentioned: T'ang Shao-i 唐紹儀, first Premier of the Republic; Chan T'ien-yu 詹天佑 , chief engineer of the Peking-Kalgan Railroad; Liang Tun-yen 梁敦彥 , onetime Minister of Foreign Affairs; Admiral Ts'ai T'ing-kan 蔡廷幹 ; and Jung K'uei (Yung Kwai 容揆, T. 贊虞 1861–1943. The last-named was connected for more than forty years with the Chinese Legation in Washington.

Leaving his family at Hartford, Jung Hung returned to China shortly after the students had left. For the next two years he attempted to resume employment with the Chinese government but, dissatisfied with the post offered to him, returned to America, reaching Hartford in the spring of 1883. There he remained until 1895. He was then commissioned by to seek a loan in London to help China defend herself against Japan. He negotiated the loan, but owing to differences of opinion in China, it fell through. Nevertheless, he returned to China at the invitation of Chang Chih-tung. As his wife had died on June 28, 1886, he left his two sons, Morrison Brown Yung and Bartlett G. Yung, under the guardianship of his father-in-law, Dr. E. W. Kellogg. After filling a minor secretaryship in Nanking, he went to Peking where he worked on projects to establish a National Bank and a railway from Tientsin to Chinkiang, neither of which he could carry through. During the heat of the Reform Movement of 1898 (see under ) he deemed it wise to leave Peking. After a sojourn in Hong Kong from 1900–02 he returned to the United States and spent the last years of his life in the preparation of his autobiography which was printed in 1909. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1852. He died at Hartford, in 1912 at the age of eighty-four. Among his close personal friends were Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain, 1835–1910), Charles Dudley Warner (1829–1900), and the Rev. Joseph H. Twichell (1838–1918). 404