30 July 2018 by Roy Preece
“Peace will come to earth when people have more to do with each other and governments less.” Richard Cobden.
If you go to No. 3 Keble Road in Oxford, opposite the famous Keble College, you can see the recently installed ‘Blue Plaque’ of Professor James Legge.
These blue plaques are allowed to be put up by local authorities if a person after death is considered to be famous enough. Legge died in 1897 so he has waited a long time for recognition!
Legge was the first professor of Chinese Language and Literature at Oxford, but spent most of his life as a missionary in Malacca in charge of the Anglo-Chinese College (now Ying Wa College) and later in Hong Kong.
Professor Legge was convinced of the need for missionaries in China to understand the nation’s culture. He set himself to translating the Chinese classics into English and so making Chinese literature accessible to western audiences for the first time.
He was following the example of the great William Milne who was impressed by the similarities between Confucianism and Christianity and worked for better understanding between Chinese and English.
“Peace will come to earth when people have more to do with each other and governments less.” Richard Cobden.
Even until today we will need everyone's support to know each other more and to understand more.
