Calvin Wilson Mateer, forty-five years a missionary in Shantung, China

by D. W. Fisher

The other side of his capabilities there especially called into exercise was his mechanical gifts. As an illustration, the following from his Journal, under the same date as that just given, will answer:

I had to get a Japanese dictionary started, and it was a most embarrassing affair. My predecessor had made promises which he could not fulfill. The men were there to print, and yet we had to send to England for paper to do the job. Also all the pronunciation marks for Webster’s dictionary were to be put in, and we did not have the type or the matrices. I had to have the letters cut on wood, and matrices made; this was a world of trouble. Some of the letters were cut over half-a-dozen times or more, and after all they were far from perfect. I also had a set of shaped music types cut, and this took a deal of time and pains to get them all properly cut, as also to get the matrices made. I finally succeeded quite well in both respects.... I also experimented not a little in stereotyping, and succeeded in doing fair work. I trained one boy who stereotyped Matthew before I left. In order to carry it on effectually and rapidly I had a furnace and press made and fitted up, which after sundry changes worked very well.... I also had a new style of case for Chinese type made, which I think will be an improvement on the old. I also had a complete and thorough overhauling of the matrices, reassorted them all, and had new cases made. This was a serious job, but it will I am sure prove a very great help to the efficient working of the establishment.

He consented to manage the press only until a competent man could be secured to take it off his hands. When casting about for such a person, his mind had been directed to his brother John, nearly a year before he was himself forced into this position. John had hoped to go to college, and to prepare for the ministry, and to go out as a missionary, but, on account of certain tendencies developed as to his health, he was compelled to abandon his purpose. As to his mechanical gifts and his ability to turn them into use in a great variety of ways, he resembled Calvin; and the latter was so confident that John could soon fit himself to be a competent superintendent of the press at Shanghai that he advised the Board of Missions to make inquiry in regard to him. The result was that eventually he was selected for the place, and he arrived in China early in August, 1871. Before he could satisfactorily enter on his duties it was necessary for him to acquire some knowledge of the language and to acquaint himself with the business committed to his charge. This detained Calvin until late in that year; and after a period of some three months spent at Tengchow, he returned to Shanghai to assist John in moving the press to new and much better premises that had been purchased. The moving proper was a heavy job, requiring a week of hard, dirty labor. The distance was about a mile, mostly by water, but by land a hundred or more yards at either end. While thus engaged, although he was no longer officially at the head of the business, he took the main charge, so as to allow his brother to give his time chiefly to the acquisition of the language and to other things that he needed to learn.

The new place is the same now occupied by the press in Peking Road. Under the superintendency of Rev. G. F. Fitch, it has become the center not only of the Presbyterian missions, but of the general missionary activity all over China. In writing to his brother as early as November, 1869, he said of this plant: “It is a very important place, and would give you an extensive field for doing good. The establishment is not very large, it is true, as compared with similar establishments in such cities as New York or Philadelphia; yet it is the largest and best of the kind in China. It not only does all the printing for all our missionaries, but a great deal of job work for others; besides making and selling a large amount of type.” After he had completed his term of the management, and while helping John to get into the traces, he wrote to one of the secretaries of the Board:

I am not in favor of enlargement, but I would be very sorry to see the present efficiency of the press curtailed. It is doing a great and a good work not only for our missions, but for all China. It has exerted a prodigious collateral influence both in China and in Japan, affording facilities for the production of all kinds of scientific books, dictionaries, and so forth. Aside from any general interest in the missionary work, having at no small sacrifice left my proper work and given more than a year to the press, and also having a brother here in charge of it, I feel a lively interest in its future.

The last record that has come down to us concerning his work there is: “We have just sold to the Chinese government a large font of Chinese type. They are going to use movable metal type. This is a large step for them to take, and it will do good. China yields slowly, but she is bound to yield to Christianity and Christian civilization.”

At no subsequent period of his life had he any part in the management of a printing establishment, but indirectly he continued to have much to do with the press. He was a member of a joint committee of the Shantung and the Peking mission, in charge of publications, and as such he had to acquaint himself with what was needed, and with what was offered, so as to pass intelligent judgment. Unofficially and as a friend whose aid was solicited, he revised one or more of the books which his associates submitted to him for criticism. At the General Conference of Missionaries, held at Shanghai in 1877, a committee, of which he was a member, was appointed to take steps to secure the preparation of a series of schoolbooks for use in mission schools. Not long afterward he published an elaborate paper on the subject, discussing in it the character which such publications should have, and especially calling attention to the need of peculiar care as to the Chinese words which ought to be employed in the treatises on the sciences. That committee diligently set itself to work, and initiated measures for a rather comprehensive set of books by various missionaries to meet the want recognized in this general field. He was himself called upon to prepare several books, some of which he was willing to undertake; others he put aside as not properly falling to him. In one or two instances he claimed for himself precedence as to treatises suggested for others to write. Some friction occurred, and when the Conference met again in 1890 that committee was discharged, and an Educational Association, composed of missionaries familiar with the needs of schools, and confining its functions more exclusively to the publication of books for teaching—largely under his leadership—was formed. He was its first chairman. This change he had warmly favored, and he was an active member of the Association. In it he was chairman of a committee on scientific terms in Chinese, a subject of great difficulty, and of prime importance in the preparation of text-books. In the subsequent years he was so much occupied with the revision of the Mandarin Bible, and with other duties, that he could give to the technical terms only a secondary place in his activities. Still, six years after he accepted this chairmanship he says: “I have collected a large number of lists of subjects for terms in chemistry, physics, mathematics, astronomy, geology, metallurgy, photography, watch-making, machinery, printing, music, mental and moral philosophy, political economy, theology, and so forth.” Subsequently he continued this work.

The first literary production of his own pen in Chinese was a tract on infant baptism; this was called forth by local conditions at Tengchow. A small sheet tract, entitled “A Prayer in Mandarin,” also followed early. As chairman of the committee appointed by the Educational Association, he made a report on chemical terms, and recommended a new and distinctively Chinese method for the symbols in that science. This was printed.

In a preliminary report of the Shanghai press, made in September, 1871, he, in a list of books in course of preparation, mentions under his own name as author the following: “1. Catechism on Genesis, with answers to the more difficult questions,—finished, needing only a slight revision. 2. An explanation of the moral law as contained in the ten commandments,—half-finished. 3. Scripture Text-Book and Treasury, being Scripture references by subjects, supplying in great part the place of a concordance,—one-third finished.” All of these had been under way for several years, but had been frequently shunted off the track by other imperative work. Very soon after that date the catechism was published. He had a good deal to do with Julia’s “Music Book,” especially in coining appropriate terminology, though he never claimed joint authorship in it. Along with Dr. Nevius, he published a hymn book for use in Chinese services; and down to the close of his life, especially on a Sabbath when he did not preach, he now and then made an additional Chinese version of a hymn. In fact, whenever he heard a new hymn that especially moved him he wished to enrich the native collection by a translation of it into their speech. One which the Chinese came greatly to like was his rendering of the Huguenot song, “My Lord and I.” A subject that was always dominant in his mind and heart was the call to the ministry, and it was significant that one of the last things on which he worked was a translation of the hymn which has the refrain, “Here am I, send me.” It was not quite finished when his illness compelled him to lay down his pen; but recently at a meeting of the Chinese student volunteers, constituting a company rising well toward one hundred and fifty, that hymn was printed on cards, and a copy was given to each of these candidates for the ministry. In 1907 he had carried a theological class through the Westminster Shorter Catechism, and as an outcome his translation was published. This is the last religious book he made in Chinese. During his long service as a missionary he taught a number of theological classes in various studies, and his lectures were regarded as very superior, but he published none of them.