Page 319 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

305.

to Bridgman's publication. As a result of Olyphant's support
29
of the Repository, the Union gradually dispersed.

Soon after the disappearance of the Christian Union

another philanthropic society appeared at Canton. This group,

the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in China,

first met in 1834 for the purpose of sponsoring the publica­

tion and dissemination of treatises in Chinese which would

contain information on the West and its culture. Founders of

the Society included the three leading missionaries at Canton,

Bridgman, Charles Gutzlaff, and J. Robert Morrison, who stepped

into his father's position. But the missionaries intended the

Society to have basically secular goals, to attract the interest

of resident merchants. To accentuate its non-religious char­

acter, Bridgman and Morrison gave positions of leadership to

merchants. Nevertheless, the two missionaries shared the office

of Secretary along with Gutzlaff. Most likely their initia­

tive was responsible for any activity on the part of the

Society.

At the Society's first gathering in 1834, interested

merchants chose a committee of eight to conduct business. Be­

sides the three missionary Secretaries, three resident merchants

assisted a president and treasurer. Of the first five merchants

to serve on the committee, two were Americans. Drawing on both

English and A.�erican merchants for membership, the Society

29
Latourette, in "Early Relations between the United
States and China," pp. 99-103, gives a synopsis of the various
1
mission societies founded at Canton in the 1830 s. See also
Latourette, History of Christian Missions in China, pp. 220-21.