Research On Morrison's Contribution To Chinese Teaching

It is often said that "necessity is the mother of invention" and that old proverb is most clearly illustrated by the subject of this thesis.The protestant missionary Robert Morrison had a passionate desire to convert the peoples of China to his personal understanding of Christianity,but he had little means to communicate with them when he first arrived in Canton in 1807.In order to reach his audience,Morrison set about to teach himself the Chinese language in an approach that would more recently be called"autonomous learning".We think of this approach as a recent pedagogical innovation,but it was a necessary direction for many would-be scholars who had little access to more formal means of education.Through auto-didactic training,innovative use of native Chinese publications and experimental use of romanized representation of the Chinese language,Morrison taught himself Chinese against all odds.The task that faced Morrison was anything but easy.He persevered despite the inherent difficulty of the undertaking,governmental restrictions on foreigners and a wide variety of personal hardships while working for the East India Company.His self-instruction of Chinese language was secretly acquired at a time when it was even illegal for foreigners living in China to possess any books written in Chinese.Even before he had perfected his Chinese language abilities,Morrison worked as a translator for the East India Company,which brought him into close contact with the leaders of business and government in Asia.Although he suffered from a lifetime of medical complaints and the death of his first wife,Morrison was sufficiently successful to afford a modestly comfortable lifestyle for himself and a growing family.That success would have been enough to have accomplished for most.Personal success was just the first step of Morrison's efforts.He actively sought to teach others using his same methods which are articulated in this thesis.In 1818,together with one of his early students,William Milne,he blazed a trail for other westerners to learn Chinese and for Chinese speakers to learn English by founding the Anglo-Chinese College.Although it had a long list of directors in its early year-William Milne,James Humphreys,David Collie,Samuel Kidd,Jacob Tomlin,John Evans and James Legge-who were all taught and influenced by him,Morrison was always closely involved with this institution as its founding director.Many other students followed,but none were more attentive than his eldest son,John Robert Morrison,who was also both a student and teacher at the Anglo-Chinese College.Through the family letter preserved in the Wellcome archives,we get a valuable and close inspection of Morrison's pedagogical approach with his most cherished pupil and heir.In close examination of these letters we can see how this Chinese scholar was becoming immersed with the Asian cultural values of filial piety that he was theoretically seeking to replace with Judaeo-Christian values.In advice and guidance to his son we can see how Robert Morrison viewed education and valued autonomous learning at every instance,and experimented with new approaches at each opportunity.Experimental pedagogy was not simply a family affair for Morrison.Inspired by the efforts of Jeremy Bentham and others in London,Morrison established the first library-based auto-didactic Chinese training program in Europe,which became the foundation for many of his students to follow in his footsteps of understanding and teaching Chinese.Among these were the first three British women to study Chinese-Mary Ann Aldersey,Maria Jane Dyer,and Maria Newell.They learned Chinese directly from Robert Morrison in his London residence.These women went on to become the first leaders of female education in Asia under Morrison's watchful care and support.With the sponsorship of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles,Morrison had a vision to expand his Anglo-Chinese College into a massive Asian centre for higher education with several locations.Unfortunately,that effort was thwarted by a shift in colonial administration in Singapore.Finally,through his Grammar of the Chinese Language,Morrison reached a far wider audience of potential Chinese students with his unique approach to learning that language.Although it was never his ultimate goal to map out a path for learning Chinese,that is his most enduring and least currently understood legacy,and thus the reason for this thesis.