Missionary’s Envision of Children in Late Qing China: Children’s Education and the Construction of Christian Discourse in Child’s Paper
In the late Qing Dynasty, religious periodicals by Western missionaries were made legal in China, and subsequently became an important manner of their missionary cause. Among them, Child’s Paper 小孩月报 (1875–1881) by John Marshall Willoughby Farnham, a Protestant missionary from the United States, end...
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| Published in: | Religions |
|---|---|
| Main Authors: | , , |
| Format: | Articles |
| Published: |
2024
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View article (DOI: 10.3390/rel15020232) |
| _version_ | 1877637432264884224 |
|---|---|
| author | Huang, Ziqi Zhao, Haixia Yang, Fan |
| author_autocomplete | Huang, Ziqi Zhao, Haixia Yang, Fan |
| author_browse | Huang, Ziqi Yang, Fan Zhao, Haixia |
| author_facet | Huang, Ziqi Zhao, Haixia Yang, Fan Huang, Ziqi Zhao, Haixia Yang, Fan |
| author_sort | Huang, Ziqi |
| container_issue | 2 |
| container_issue_str | 2 |
| container_title | Religions |
| container_title_str | Religions |
| container_volume | 15 |
| container_volume_str | 15 |
| description | In the late Qing Dynasty, religious periodicals by Western missionaries were made legal in China, and subsequently became an important manner of their missionary cause. Among them, Child’s Paper 小孩月报 (1875–1881) by John Marshall Willoughby Farnham, a Protestant missionary from the United States, endeavoured to convert child readers by carrying children’s stories of moral and emotional education. By concentrating on the educational elements of Child’s Paper, this article inspects how conversion was achieved via the intertextual interpretation of Christian doctrines within these educational elements. Specifically, how the image of little Christians and urchins, respectively, represents salvation and redemption in Christian morals. This article holds that the missionaries’ stress on the authority of Christian discourse in the education of Chinese children makes evident an increasing emphasis on the reformative effects of Christianity on Chinese children. Moreover, the conversion-education efforts by missionaries also construed helping Chinese children gain a cross-cultural perspective on Western religion, and arguably inspired later Chinese intellectuals’ to create newspapers for the purpose of the pre-primary education of Chinese children. |
| doi_str_mv | 10.3390/rel15020232 |
| first_indexed | 2026-09-29T04:00:29Z |
| format | Articles |
| genre | Articles |
| genre_facet | Articles |
| id | zotero-8QGBCRJ8 |
| institution | zotero_group |
| issn | 2077-1444 |
| last_indexed | 2026-09-29T04:00:29Z |
| latest_content_date | 2026-09-29T04:00:29Z |
| physical | 232 |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| publishDateRange | 2024 |
| publishDateSort | 2024 |
| record_format | zotero |
| spelling | Missionary’s Envision of Children in Late Qing China: Children’s Education and the Construction of Christian Discourse in Child’s Paper In the late Qing Dynasty, religious periodicals by Western missionaries were made legal in China, and subsequently became an important manner of their missionary cause. Among them, Child’s Paper 小孩月报 (1875–1881) by John Marshall Willoughby Farnham, a Protestant missionary from the United States, endeavoured to convert child readers by carrying children’s stories of moral and emotional education. By concentrating on the educational elements of Child’s Paper, this article inspects how conversion was achieved via the intertextual interpretation of Christian doctrines within these educational elements. Specifically, how the image of little Christians and urchins, respectively, represents salvation and redemption in Christian morals. This article holds that the missionaries’ stress on the authority of Christian discourse in the education of Chinese children makes evident an increasing emphasis on the reformative effects of Christianity on Chinese children. Moreover, the conversion-education efforts by missionaries also construed helping Chinese children gain a cross-cultural perspective on Western religion, and arguably inspired later Chinese intellectuals’ to create newspapers for the purpose of the pre-primary education of Chinese children. Religions Articles 2024 Child’s Paper Christianity children’s education missionaries in Late Qing China Huang, Ziqi Zhao, Haixia Yang, Fan |
| spellingShingle | Missionary’s Envision of Children in Late Qing China: Children’s Education and the Construction of Christian Discourse in Child’s Paper Huang, Ziqi Zhao, Haixia Yang, Fan Child’s Paper Christianity children’s education missionaries in Late Qing China |
| title | Missionary’s Envision of Children in Late Qing China: Children’s Education and the Construction of Christian Discourse in Child’s Paper |
| title_autocomplete | Missionary’s Envision of Children in Late Qing China: Children’s Education and the Construction of Christian Discourse in Child’s Paper |
| title_full | Missionary’s Envision of Children in Late Qing China: Children’s Education and the Construction of Christian Discourse in Child’s Paper |
| title_fullStr | Missionary’s Envision of Children in Late Qing China: Children’s Education and the Construction of Christian Discourse in Child’s Paper |
| title_full_unstemmed | Missionary’s Envision of Children in Late Qing China: Children’s Education and the Construction of Christian Discourse in Child’s Paper |
| title_short | Missionary’s Envision of Children in Late Qing China: Children’s Education and the Construction of Christian Discourse in Child’s Paper |
| title_sort | missionary’s envision of children in late qing china: children’s education and the construction of christian discourse in child’s paper |
| topic | Child’s Paper Christianity children’s education missionaries in Late Qing China |
| topic_autocomplete | Child’s Paper Christianity children’s education missionaries in Late Qing China |
| topic_facet | Child’s Paper Christianity children’s education missionaries in Late Qing China |