Years afterward, when two other girls from the Foochow Boarding School were leaving China for a period of study in America, a farewell meeting was held for them in the school, at which Dr. Hü told how she had reached her decision to go. She said: "I was the first Fuhkien province girl to go to America.... My father told me, 'I cannot decide for you; you must pray to God. If you are to go, God will show you.' Then I felt God's word come to me, 'Fear not, for I will go with you wherever you go.' At that time the school girls were seldom with the missionary ladies and I could not speak any English, therefore I did not know any American politeness; and all my clothes and other daily-need-things were not proper to use in the western country. Although everything could not be according to my will, I trusted God with all my life, so nothing could change my heart."
In the spring of 1884, in charge of some missionaries going home on furlough, Hü King Eng left China for America. The journey was a long and rough one, and a steamer near theirs was wrecked. One of the missionaries, wondering how her faith was standing the test of these new and terrifying experiences, asked if she wanted to go back home. But she answered, "No, I do not think of going home at all." She felt that it was right for her to go to America, and although when she met her friends at the journey's end she confessed that sea-sickness and home-sickness had brought the tears many a night, she never faltered in her decision.
Upon landing in New York she went at once to Mrs. Keen in Philadelphia, and there met Dr. and Mrs. Sites, of Foochow, whom she had known from childhood, and who were then in Philadelphia attending the General Conference of the Methodist Church. She spent the summer with them, learning to read, write, and speak English, and in the autumn went with them to Delaware, Ohio, and entered Ohio Wesleyan University. Miss Martin, who was then preceptress of Monnett Hall, recalls King Eng's efforts to master English. "She was an apt pupil," she says, "yet she had many struggles with the language." A friend in Cleveland, with whom she spent a few weeks during her vacation, promised her that some day they would go around the square to see the reservoir. King Eng seemed much interested in this proposition and several times asked when they were to go. When they finally went, her friend was somewhat surprised to see that King Eng manifested very little interest in the reservoir; but when they reached home again it was evident that she had been interested, not in the reservoir, but in the proposed method of reaching it. "How can you go 'round' a 'square'?" she asked.
When she entered college she set herself the task of learning ten new words a day; but Miss Martin says that she sometimes had to unlearn several of them, owing to the fondness of her fellow students for slang. However, she was persevering, and in time learned to use the language easily. One of the teachers, who had returned a plate to her with an orange on it, still treasures a half sheet of paper which appeared on a returned plate of hers, on which King Eng had written:
"You taught me a lesson not long ago,
Which I have learned, as I'll try to show.
When you would return a plate to its owner,
Of something upon it you must be the donor.
One orange you put on that plate of mine,
Two oranges find on this plate of thine."
She was a great favourite with both faculty and students. One of her fellow students shall tell of the impression she made: "Those who were at Monnett Hall at any time from 1884 to 1887 will remember a dainty little foreign lady, a sort of exotic blossom, whose silk-embroidered costumes, constructed in Chinese fashion, made her an object of interest to every girl in college. This was Dr. Hü King Eng, who came to prepare for her life work. Gentle, modest, winning, her heart fixed on a goal far ahead, she was an example to the earnest Christian girl and a rebuke to any who had self-seeking aims."
Another, looking back to her college days, and to the college life of Hü King Eng, "or, as she was familiarly and lovingly called, King Eng," writes, "She was so sweet and gracious, so simple in her faith and life, so charitable, that you felt it everywhere. I shall never forget standing in the hall one day with her and another girl, when a young man delivered some books. I asked his name. The young lady gave it, a well known name, and added that he had very little principle, or character. King Eng spoke up at once, and calling the other girl by name said, 'Yes, but his parents are fine people.'"
The King's Daughters' Society was organized during King Eng's stay at Ohio Wesleyan, and ten groups, of ten girls each, were formed among the students of Monnett Hall. King Eng, who was the leader of one of these groups, proposed that each girl in it should earn enough money to buy one of the King's Daughters' badges, and that they should be sent to some of the girls in the Foochow school, that they too might organize a society. She was eager that the girls should not only give the badges, but should earn them by their own efforts, that they might thus show the Chinese girls that American students did not consider any kind of work beneath them, but counted it an honour to serve their Master in any way possible.
During the April of King Eng's first year at Ohio Wesleyan University, special meetings were held in connection with the Day of Prayer for Colleges, one of them a large chapel service at which the president of the college and the preceptress spoke. The report of this meeting shows that King Eng did not wait until her return to China to begin active efforts to win others to the Christian life. "At the close of an address by Miss Martin, the preceptress, there stepped forward upon the rostrum our little Chinese student, Miss Hü King Eng, who, dressed in her full native costume, stood gracefully before these six hundred young men and women while she witnessed to the saving power of Christ.... The following evening, at our earnest revival service in the chapel of the ladies' boarding hall, there knelt the Chinese girl at the side of her American sister, helping her to find the Saviour; and the smile of gladness on her countenance at the closing of the meeting told the joy in her heart because her friend was converted. The faith of many has been made stronger by hearing the testimony of Miss Hü."
The statement of one of her fellow students is impressive: "She had a great influence over the girls, and during our revival seasons she usually led more to Christ than any other girl in the school. One mother, when she came to visit the school after such a meeting during which her own daughter had been converted, exclaimed, 'Little did I think when I was giving money for the work in China, that a Chinese girl would come to this country and be the means of leading my daughter to Christ.'"