EDUCATION
Samuel received a careful and thorough education. After elementary work in the private academy of Waterford, at the early age of twelve he spent a year or more in the “Washington Academy” of Cambridge, New York, then under the principalship of Rev. Nathaniel Scudder Prime. In later years he recalled with pleasure some of his classmates: “We read Cæsar together; John K. Meyers, David Bullions (Latin grammarian), E. D. G. Prime (editor of the New York Observer), and I recited to Samuel Irenæus.” In 1833 he entered the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute at Troy, five miles from home.
In the winter term 1835 he entered Dartmouth College at Hanover, New Hampshire, but remained only till the close of that academic year. It was here that occurred the deeper spiritual experience which he recalls in the words that open this chapter; a conscious conversion during a revival which swept through the college that winter. It was following this experience that in the same year he united with the Waterford church upon profession of faith. Why he did not continue at Dartmouth does not appear; probably the difficulty of access would have been a chief factor. However, in the fall of that year he entered Union College, at Schenectady, a few miles from his home. His work at Rensselaer and Dartmouth qualified him to enter the junior class, so that he graduated in the year 1837. He received the degree A.B. in course and the honour of Φ.Β.Κ.; and following three years of post-graduate work in teaching, he received the degree M.A. from his alma mater. The three years immediately following graduation from Union were spent in teaching; one year in Virginia, a year as principal of Weston (Conn.) Academy and a year as principal of the private school “Erasmus Hall,” in Brooklyn. He now entered upon his medical course, spending the year 1841-2 in the University of Pennsylvania, and the next year in the Albany Medical College. With the lapse of a year not accounted for in the record,—probably teaching in Virginia, to which he refers in telling of some chemical experiments—he graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York with the degree M.D. in 1845.
Upon completion of his medical course he offered himself to the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions (Old School), and was commissioned in 1846. He was assigned to Siam together with his college-mate, Rev. Stephen Mattoon, of Sandy Hill, New York, (now Hudson Falls). Placing himself under the care of the Presbytery of Troy he was licensed to preach.
III
THE LITTLE CHISEL ATTACKS THE BIG MOUNTAIN
Siam was the first nation of the Far East to make a treaty voluntarily with Europe. Siam was the first Asiatic power with which the United States entered into diplomatic relations. Siam was the first Oriental people to adopt Western customs, upon accession of King Chulalongkorn, in 1868. Siam was the first non-Christian land to grant religious liberty to its subjects in relation to Christian missions, in 1870.
Siam was the first field entered by the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions after its organisation. In Siam was organised the first Protestant church of Chinese Christians. In Siam the first zenana mission work was undertaken. Siam is the last independent state in which Buddhism is the established religion.
Yet Siam is little known to Western people. She is neither belligerent nor turbulent, therefore offers no military spectacle. She has no foreign ambitions, therefore arouses no diplomatic concern. Her trade is largely with China, therefore she makes no impress upon the commercial mind of the west. She lies off the beaten path of world traffic, therefore tourists seldom visit the land.
Sketch of
SIAM
as of 1847 et seq.
SKETCH MAP OF SIAM
Siam lies in what was formerly known as “Farther India.” Shaped somewhat like a long mutton-chop, the northern portion is an irregular-oval, approximately six hundred by five hundred miles in reach, from which a long narrow leg extends some five hundred miles southward down the Malay peninsula. Within the fold of these two portions lies the Gulf of Siam. The main portion of the land lies between 12° and 20° 40′ north, and is confined on the east by French possessions and on the west by British Burmah.
Northern Siam occupies almost the entire drainage system of the Menam River, and a part of the western watershed of the Mekong River. The central part abounds with swamps, jungles and briny wastes, intersected by many branch streams and canals. The bulk of the population live along these watercourses. Bangkok is the largest city, and is both the commercial and political capital. Chiengmai is the principal city of the northern province, which was formerly known as Laos but is now a political part of the kingdom.
The relations of Siam with the nations of the west date back to the days of the Portuguese adventurers in the early part of the sixteenth century; relations which were not diplomatic but purely commercial. About the middle of the seventeenth century the king of Siam entered into relations with the English, French and Dutch, but only to the extent of an exchange of royal courtesies, which after a time became quiescent. Intercourse with the west was renewed by Siam when, upon her solicitation, a treaty was made with Great Britain in 1826. Doubtless fear was the motive which prompted King Phra Chao Pravat Thong, who reigned from 1824 to 1851, to propose this treaty, for England had just compelled the neighbouring state of Burmah to open her doors to trade as the result of war.
The volitional act of the Siamese monarch was apparently a shrewd stroke of diplomacy, for having granted the right of trade admission and inland travel, the king adopted a policy of ignoring the few foreigners within his domains and thereby discouraging his people from having intercourse with them. At the same time he held a monopoly of Siamese shipping and levied heavy impost and expost so that what trade there was served to enrich his private treasury. In 1833, Honourable Edmund Roberts, who had been sent by President Andrew Jackson to explore the possibilities of trade with the native states of Farther India and Cochin China, succeeded in effecting a treaty only with Siam. The privileges granted under this treaty were not exercised to any great extent and were almost allowed to lapse because no consular representative was appointed. The early American missionaries relied chiefly upon the privileges kept alive by the “factories,” as the foreign trading establishments in Bangkok were called.