容闳，中国留学生之鼻祖
They said they would be too glad to have me avail myself of the fund, provided I was willing to sign a pledge that after graduation I should go back to China as a missionary. I gave the trustees to understand that I would never give such a pledge for the following reasons: First, it would handicap and circumscribe my usefulness. I wanted the utmost freedom of action to avail myself of every opportunity to do the greatest good in China. If necessary, I might be obliged to create new conditions, if I found old ones were not favorable to any plan I might have for promoting her highest welfare. In the second place, the calling of a missionary is not the only sphere in life where one can do the most good in China or elsewhere. In such a vast empire, there can be hardly any limit put upon one’s ambition to do good, if one is possessed of the Christ-spirit; on the other hand, if one has not such a spirit, no pledge in the world could melt his ice-bound soul. In the third place, a pledge of that character would prevent me from taking advantage of any circumstance of event that might arise in the life of a nation like China, to do her a great service.
In my despondency, I oftenwished I had never been educated, as education had unmistakable enlarged my mental and moral horizon, and revealed to me responsibilities which the sealed eye of ignorance can never see, and
sufferings and wrongs of humanity to which an uncultivated and callous nature can never be made sensitive.
