Page:My life in China and America.djvu/288

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MY LIFE IN CHINA AND AMERICA

1876, Associate Minister with his former colleague in the Educational Mission, Chin Lan Pin, to the United States, Peru and Spain. On this occasion he was again promoted in rank, — that is, to Second or Red Button grade, and invested with the title of Tao-tai (or Intendant) of the Province of Kiang Su.

He expects, on the now approaching arrival of Chin Lan Pin in the country, to take up his residence in Washington, yet not to relinquish the general superintendence of the institution which is so dear to him and has cost him so much, and in which are bound up his best patriotic hopes for his native land, — for he is a patriot from head to foot, in every fiber of his body. He loves the Chinese nation and believes in it, doubting not that there is before it a grand career worthy of its noble soil and of its august antiquity.

If it were the aim of the writer to magnify Yung Wing, — which it is not, but only to tell the story of the Chinese Educational Mission to the United States, — there are many things more that might be related of him, all going to show him to be of the stuff that heroes are made of, and one of the most significant characters in modern civilization. But because to relate them would be aside from the purpose in hand, and