Page:Eminent Chinese Of The Ch’ing Period - Hummel - 1943 - Vol. 1.pdf/8



HE eight hundred and more biographical sketches which are included in this work were prepared during the years 1934–42 by some fifty scholars of the Orient and the Occident who are making the language, the history, or the literature of China their special study. The task of editing and co-ordinating the sketches and, in fact, of writing the majority of them, fell to a small staff in the Asiatic Division of the Library of Congress. The work grew out of the co-operation of the Library of Congress and the American Council of Learned Societies, assisted by the Rockefeller Foundation, in providing in the Library a center where advanced students of Chinese culture might have additional experience in research and in the use of historical and literary materials. It was thought tħat the most valuable experience they could derive from the use of such materials would be the preparation of contributions to a Biographical Dictionary of the Ch'ing Dynasty; for it was not difficult to foresee—what the pressure of events in Eastern Asia has now made clear—that without more detailed guides to the famous names, the great events, and the rich and almost inexhaustible literature of China, we of the West cannot hope to acquire an adequate understanding of the Chinese people.

The extensive resources of the Chinese Collection in the Library of Congress, especially in the fields of local history, biography, and the collected works of individual authors, made the Asiatic Division of the Library an appropriate place for the preparation of the Dictionary. Accordingly there were brought together there, for longer or shorter periods, several American and Asiatic scholars who used the resources of the Library to prepare, in collaboration with the editor, a much-needed work of reference, and who by friendly criticism improved each others' skills. Among them were four Fellows of the American Council of Learned Societies who each worked on the project from several months to a year. A number of other scholars living in various parts of the world contributed sketches of persons in whom they had developed a special interest.

Dr. Waldo G. Leland, the Director of the American Council of Learned Societies, and Mr. Mortimer Graves, the Administrative Secretary, took throughout a keen personal interest in the undertaking. Mr. Graves conceived the plan, encouraged it in many practical ways, and gave unstintingly of his time in counseling the editor. Without their unfailing support, and the assistance of the Rockefeller Foundation in launching the enterprise, as well as the support of Dr. Herbert Putnam, the Librarian of Congress when the project began, the Dictionary could not have been carried to completion.

It seemed reasonable, with so small a staff, to limit the scope of the work to the past three hundred years or, more precisely, to that epoch in Chinese history ruled by the Ch'ing dynasty (1644–1912). In practice, however, it was found necessary to include the names of others who, though they died in the Ming period, a few years before the Ch'ing dynasty was established, helped to mould in one way or another the life and thought of the period. Similarly, no independent sketches are included for persons who died after 1912; but it was found possible to incorporate information, sometimes in considerable detail, of many men who lived after that date, and of not a few who are still living.