ateful husband, whose wife and baby Dr.
Hue had saved, told her that he would not only give money towards her new
hospital himself, but would also help her to obtain subscriptions from his
friends. "Chinese doctors have learned to use clinical thermometers," he
observed, "but the Chinese medicine does not seem to fit the foreign
thermometer, for the patients do not seem to get well as with the foreign
medicine."
The first student to receive a diploma from the Woolston Memorial Hospital
was Dr. Hue's sister, Hue Seuk Eng, who graduated in April, 1902. The
graduation exercises, held in the Sing Bo Ting Ancestral Hall, which was
willingly loaned for the occasion, created a keen interest, and numbers of
the city people gathered to witness proceedings so unusual. Many of them
said, "This is the first time a Christian service was ever held in a
temple." But what was even more wonderful to them was the revelation of
the possibilities of Chinese young womanhood which they received. Dr. Hue
wrote that after the exercises an official who lived near by announced: "I
will buy a girl seven or eight years old and I will have a tutor for her.
Then I will send her to the Girls' Boarding School to study, and then she
may go to Dr. Hue to study medicine. Then she will go to Sing Bo Ting
Ancestral Temple, too, to receive her diploma. Besides, we will all be
Christians." Others were heard to exclaim, "Who knew girls could do so much
good to the world--more than our boys!"
When the exercises were over, greatly to Seuk Eng's surprise, her sedan
chair was escorted all the way back to the hospital, to the accompaniment
of the popping of hundreds of fire-crackers, set off in her honour. A
Chinese feast was prepared for the guests in the hospital, after which
another unexpected explosion of congratulatory fire-crackers took place.
Thus ended in true Chinese fashion, amid noise and smoke, the first
graduation exercises of the Woolston Memorial Hospital.
They were by no means the last, however, for this department of work has
been steadily carried on ever since Dr. Hue took charge of the hospital. In
1904 she reported: "Our little medical school is getting on nicely. The
success of the school is mostly due to our good teacher and the students
themselves, who have a great desire to learn. They have had written
examinations this year; the highest general average was 98 and the lowest
85. Can any one dare to think, 'What is the use to teach these
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