[SSU-YÜ, Teng, & FAIRBANK, John K. (1982).China's response to the West. A documentary Survey,1839-1923. Cambridge. Harvard University Press, pg. 73-74]
We request
your majesty to order Canton and Shanghai each to send to Peking two men who
understand foreign spoken and written lan-guages to be commissioned and consulted.
We note that in any negotiations with foreign nations, the prerequisite is
to know their nature and feelings. At present, their speech cannot be understood
and their writing can hardly be deciphered. Everything is impeded. How can
we expect to make a suitable settlement?
Formerly with regard to the Russian language, a
precedent was established by setting up a school (wen-kuan) for its study,
and this showed a profound wisdom. Now after a long time, the regulations
have become a pure formality and the language has not been thoroughly understood.
Some kind of encouragement seems to be warranted here in order to call people's
attention to it.
We have heard that among the Canton and Shanghai merchants there are some who are devoting themselves to the study of the written and spoken languages of England, France, and America. We request that Your Majesty order the governors general and governors of the two provinces to select bona fide and reliable men and send two from each province, altogether, four, to Peking, bringing with them [p. 25] the books of the various countries. At the same time, let four or five brilliant boys under the age of thir-teen or fourteen be chosen from each of the Eight Banners to study under them. Those who are sent to Peking should be well paid, after the practice of the Russian school, and following two years of service their diligence or laziness should be appraised, and those who make a good record should be rewarded and promoted. When the students from the Eight Banners can all master the written and spoken languages we shall no longer invite Canton and Shanghai teachers.
As for the Russian written and spoken language, we still beg Your Majesty to order the school to discuss its regulations carefully and promote its work seriously. Among the men who learn the languages of various nations, those who thoroughly master them should be immediately reported with a request that they be encouraged so that this work will not be later neglected.
In 1863, Li Hung-chang supported the idea of the T'ung-wen Kuan in an eloquent memorial evidently drafted by his secretary, Feng Kuei-fen; some parts are lifted from one of Feng's essays (see Doc. 8 above), and we have therefore omitted duplicate passages in the following extract.