One very distressing thing has happened within a month. Leon Chin Chi was being persecuted by his father in relation to the matter of his marriage engagement with Shang Yuin, when in a fit of desperation he went and bought opium, and took it to kill himself. Some of the boys suspected him, and went to see. They found him lying on his bed evidently in great distress of mind, and refusing to answer any questions save to say that his affairs were all over with. I inferred from this, as also from his saying to one of the boys that he would never see him again, that he had taken poison—most likely opium. I went and got a strong emetic, and mixed it up, but he refused to take it. I then got a stick and used it to such good purpose that in a very short time he was glad to take the medicine. It had the desired effect, and in a very short time he vomited up the opium. He seemed to lay the beating to heart very much. It was evidently a new idea to him to be put through in such a style. After a day or two, when he had gone to school again, I gave him a formal and severe whipping in the presence of the school. I thought very seriously over the matter of whipping him, and concluded that it was my duty to do it. I believe now that it did the boy good. He was called before the session last week, when he manifested a good deal of sorrow and penitence. He was publicly reproved and admonished on Sabbath morning. I am sorry that he had such a weakness; it greatly decreases my reliance on him, and my belief in his genuine Christian character. It must be allowed that there is some little excuse, in the way in which the Chinese all regard suicide. He had not got those ideas all educated out of him.
While Mateer differed in opinion from those missionaries who favored schools simply as effective agents for the conversion of the pupils, he regarded this as one of the leading results to be sought and expected. It was almost two years after the opening of his school when he had the great joy of baptizing one of the pupils. In describing the event to a secretary of the Board, he said:
He is the oldest boy in the school, and is in fact a man in years, though his education is not yet nearly finished. He has been for two or three months feeling that it was his duty to profess Christ, but, as he is naturally modest and retiring, he did not make his wish known. His mother, to whom he was uncommonly attached, died recently, and this brought him to a full decision. His examination before the session was most satisfactory, showing that he has improved well his opportunities of learning the truth. I have great hopes of his future usefulness. He has a good mind, and is a most diligent student, and if he is spared, and is taught of God’s Spirit he may be a great treasure to us in preaching to the heathen.
Three months later he wrote again of this young man as exemplary in conduct and as growing in grace, and added:
I am thankful that I can now say that another has since been baptized. He is the most advanced boy in the school, and is in fact very nearly a man. His conversion was not sudden, but gradual, after the manner of almost all the Chinese. We trust, however, that he is a true child of God, and we have strong hope that if he is spared he will make a very useful man.
The next year three more of the largest boys were received into the church. The session examined two others, but thought it best for them to wait a few weeks; and a number more were hoping to be received, but were advised to defer the matter. Thus the conversion of the boys gradually progressed, until at the time when the school formally became a college, all who had graduated, and nearly all the pupils still enrolled who were sufficiently mature, were professing Christians.
Julia’s sister, Maggie Brown, came out to join the station at Tengchow early enough to render valuable help in the initial stages of the school. In 1871 she married Mr. Capp. One of the necessities which Mateer recognized was that of a girls’ school, his reason being the vital importance of providing suitable wives for the young men whom he was training. After her marriage Mrs. Capp took charge of such a school, and she and her brother-in-law, Mateer, continued to coöperate in that important enterprise. For use in teaching she translated a mental arithmetic, and in this she had his assistance. Dr. Corbett wrote: “In spite of all discouragements in the way of securing permanent and efficient heads, and of the paucity of results, he never wavered in his support of the girls’ school, and always planned for its welfare, because he saw in it an element necessary to the final success of the Christian Church.” When Mrs. Capp died, she left her little all for the erection of buildings to be used by the school which he had encouraged, and to which she had consecrated the maturity of her powers.
Thirteen years went by before any of the young men graduated. The first class consisted of three men who had completed the course, which by that time had been enlarged beyond the curriculum already described so as to include astronomy, the text-book used being a good, stiff one,—no other than a translation of Herschell’s work. Of that first class Mateer said: “They will probably teach for a time at least. There is more call for teachers than for preachers at present.” Under date of May 2, 1877, he wrote as to this first commencement:
We had a communion on the occasion. The speeches made by the young men at graduation were excellent, and the whole effect on the school was most happy. The boys saw distinctly that there is a definite goal before them and their ambition was stirred to reach it.
The report for that year speaks as follows: