Genre:

Extract, Reportage

Publications extracted:

Annual Report of the London Missionary Society

Subjects:

Progress, Machinery, Steam-power, Christianity, Imperialism, Mathematics, Nomenclature

    Discussing missions to China, observes that demand for books exceeds supply. Declares that 'the progress of science, and the improvements in art, will combine to accelerate the triumphs of the cross. The application of the power of steam to printing, has furnished a means of multiplying books with a facility unknown in all former ages'. (315) Observes that the Chinese characters do not stand for words 'but directly for ideas and objects', and are 'common to many nations whose spoken languages are very different'. Explains this by reference to mathematical symbols, which are 'intelligible to every mathematician in Europe', though each reads them in his own tongue: 'A French and English mathematician, unacquainted with one another's language, could reason together with perfect fluency and freedom, by mathematical symbols on a board'. (316)