Protestants in China in the 19th century: the entry of printing into the game of cultural transfers
Conference by Jiening MA, Doctorate in Languages and Literatures (École Normale Supérieure) and Isabelle Pantin, professor emeritus in the Literature and Languages department of the École Normale Supérieure.
The Jesuits were among the first cultural ambassadors to arrive in China from the end of the 16rd century. The second wave of missionaries, less illustrious, implemented an innovative cultural program during the 19rd century. At the very moment when printing techniques were undergoing profound renewal in Europe, Protestants set up presses in China, in the service of an editorial policy which took into account the evolution of literate society. This conference starts from the point of view of the history of the book to address that of cultural exchanges between China and Europe in the 19rd century.
During the 18thrd century, the environment had been less and less favorable to missionary activities. The Society of Jesus, contested from various sides, ended up being (temporarily) dissolved in 1773, while the Chinese emperors hardened their position: Yongzheng (reigned: 1722-1735) banned Catholic worship in 1724, and Jiaqing (reigned: 1796 -1820) prohibited missionaries from printing evangelization books and the Chinese from helping them.
In this difficult context, the first missionary sent by the London Missionary Society (LMS), Robert Morrison (馬禮遜, 1782-1834), arrived in China in 1807. After learning Chinese in Canton, he began translating the Bible. In 1810, he managed to print the Acts of the Apostles with the help of Chinese scholars and workers, using the traditional Chinese technique, xylography, which allowed great flexibility of execution, with complete discretion (no press was necessary and the Chinese engravers worked quickly), and respect for the calligraphic style. This technique was therefore taken up for a more ambitious project: a complete Chinese Bible, finished being printed in 1823, thanks to the help of a second missionary, William Milne (米憐, 1785-1822), this time in Malacca . This territory under Dutch (and later British) control had been chosen to set up a mission with a printing press (which would have been impossible in Canton). From the Malacca printing press, managed by Milne, was also launched in 1815 the Chinese Monthly Magazine (察世俗每月統記傳) dedicated to transmitting Western knowledge (not just religious). At the same time, in Macau (Portuguese colony), Morrison had the presses ofEast India Company a monumental Chinese-English dictionary in six volumes intended largely for Western audiences (1815-1823). We had English metal movable characters, but no Chinese, and the workers had to tinker with them as they went along, without going through the process of making punches and dies.
 The complete Bible printed in 1823 in Malacca. |
 George Baxter, watercolor, “Rev. WH Medhurst DD China, with Pundit and a Malay Boy”. |
The Anglo-Dutch treaty signed in 1824 brought Penang, Singapore and Malacca under British influence, which accelerated missionary activities. To increase the efficiency of Chinese printing, the LMS sent Samuel Dyer (台約爾, 1804–1843) to Penang in 1827. He selected Chinese characters there and began engraving punches from the 1830s. At the same time, American missions arrived in China via Canton.
In 1826, Robert Morrison brought back from London to Macau a lithographic press, a still experimental technique which one could hope would have the graphic and aesthetic advantages of xylography, with more efficiency. Walter Henry Medhurst (麥都思, 1796-1857), applied this technique to the production of entire books, in the Batavia mission printing press (around twenty books between 1829 and 1835)
The two Opium Wars (1839-1842, 1856-1860) caused a radical change in the context, with the opening of China to foreigners. The missions established in Southeast Asia moved with their printing works to Hong Kong, Ningbo, Shanghai, etc. In 1847, the arrival of a cylinder press in Shanghai marked the beginning of the development in China of modern large-run publishing. L'American Presbyterian Mission Press, directed by William Gamble (姜別利, 1830-1886) in Ningbo and Shanghai played a decisive role: Chinese movable metal characters, in large and small sizes, were manufactured in very large numbers by electrotyping (with an ingenious classification system to facilitate the task of composers), giving birth to a new typographic style.
The editorial work of the missions was now in competition: foreign and Chinese printing houses, managed in a capitalist manner, multiplied (notably in Shanghai) and the volume of printed books increased considerably. In the category of “Western knowledge”, including the natural, economic and social sciences, literature not yet finding its place there, the missions nevertheless continued to play a significant role. Thus the very active Society for the Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge Among the Chinese distributed its publications to candidates for the imperial exams because “Western knowledge” held an increasing place in the training of the elites. Montaigne, presented as a sage and a theoretician of Western pedagogy, thus made his entry into books printed in Chinese - for the first time in the collection of Sixteen basics of Western knowledge (西學啟蒙十六種), compiled by Joseph Edkins (艾約瑟, 1823-1905). Through this intermediary, Montaigne's name also began to appear in examination papers.
 Shelves of Chinese movable characters. |
 1886: Sixteen Rudiments of Western Knowledge (西學啟蒙十六種), first Chinese encyclopedic manual, written and translated by Joseph Edkins (艾約瑟, 1823-1905). |
