Beulah Woolston
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Beulah Woolston (August 3, 1828 – October 24, 1886) was a pioneering American missionary teacher in China. With her sister, she founded schools, translated
textbook A textbook is a book containing a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining it. Textbooks are produced to meet the needs of educators, usually at educational institutions, but also of learners ( ...
s, and edited a Chinese-language newspaper.


Early life and education

Beulah Woolston was born near Vincentown, New Jersey, on August 3, 1828. She was raised in a Christian home, and was converted and united with the church when about fifteen years old. After receiving preliminary education in her native place, she went with Miss Sarah H. Woolston, her sister and her life associate in home and work, to the Wesleyan Female College, at
Wilmington, Delaware Wilmington is the List of municipalities in Delaware, most populous city in the U.S. state of Delaware. The city was built on the site of Fort Christina, the first Swedish colonization of the Americas, Swedish settlement in North America. It lie ...
, where she was graduated with honor from both English and classical departments.


Career

She afterward taught for some years in the college, before responding to the call for missionary teachers in the China Mission. The sisters sailed for China, along with Phebe Potter (who soon married Erastus Wentworth), October 4, 1858. After a voyage of 147 days around the
Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( ) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A List of common misconceptions#Geography, common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Afri ...
, they landed at
Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...
, February 27, 1859, and reached
Fuzhou Fuzhou is the capital of Fujian, China. The city lies between the Min River (Fujian), Min River estuary to the south and the city of Ningde to the north. Together, Fuzhou and Ningde make up the Eastern Min, Mindong linguistic and cultural regi ...
, March 19. Their special work was to organize and superintend a boarding school for Chinese girls under the auspices of the China Female Missionary Society of
Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...
. The sisters were sent out by the parent board, American Methodist Episcopal Mission, but their school was supported by the Ladies' China Missionary Society of Baltimore (founded in 1848). In 1859, they founded a training school for teachers in Fuzhou. Known as "Uk Ing", it was a girls' boarding school. They overcome the natural prejudices of the people, emphasized by the wrongs done them by foreign traders, and the lack of books, maps, charts for a well-established school. When Bishop John Burdon, of the
Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...
, visited the school, he declared it to be the best-conducted girls' school in China. The sisters' aim was to teach the girls such instruction as would make them useful in their own homes and in the spheres they must occupy in life, feeling that they could not conscientiously give time to teach anything that could be of no possible use to them in the future. In addition to the care of this school, hundreds of women visited them at their home. Every effort was made to utilize their visits for teaching. In addition to caring for the schools, the sisters provided many of the girls with clothing, teaching them to make their own, to cook, wash, and other details for the education of good housewives. Even vacation days were busy, as they had to provide homes for many of the girls during the time. They also established a number of day schools at different and often distant points in their work, which they visited regularly, and often at great inconvenience and exposure to themselves. With all of this work, they found time for literary work such as preparation and translation of schoolbooks, as well as the editing of the ''Child's Illustrated Paper'' in Chinese. During their twenty-five years' service they returned to the United States twice for rest and to recruit. In 1871, when the Ladies' China Society became a part of the Methodist Episcopal Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, the Woolston sisters became its first missionaries.


Later life

In December, 1883, both sisters were ill, and returned to the U.S. for the last time. At times, Beulah seemed to improve. On October 24, 1886, she grew much worse, and died, at
Mount Holly, New Jersey Mount Holly is a Township (New Jersey), township that is the county seat of Burlington County, New Jersey, Burlington County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is an eastern suburb of Philadelphia, the nation's sixth largest city as of 2020. As ...
.


Selected works

* 1877, "Feet Binding"


References


Attribution

*


Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Woolston, Beulah 1828 births 1886 deaths People from Southampton Township, New Jersey American Christian missionaries Methodist missionaries in China American translators American women newspaper editors 19th-century American writers 19th-century American women writers Educators from New Jersey 19th-century American educators 19th-century American women educators Wesleyan Female College (Wilmington) alumni American missionary linguists 19th-century American newspaper editors