Calvin Wilson Mateer (, sometimes misspelt "Matteer") (9 January 1836 – 28 September 1908) was a missionary to

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

with the

American Presbyterian Mission Presbyterian Mission Agency is the ministry and mission agency of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Founded as the Western Foreign Missionary Society by the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America in 1837, it was involved in sending w ...

. He was of Scottish-Irish descent and a native of

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania Cumberland County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 259,469. Its county seat is Carlisle. Cumberland County is included in the Harrisburg–Carlisle metropolitan statistical area. Histo ...

.Daniel W. Fisher: Calvin Wilson Mateer, Forty-Five Years a Missionary in Shantung, China, A Biography, The Westminster Press, Philadelphia, 1911 He graduated from

Western Theological Seminary Western Theological Seminary (WTS) is a private seminary located in Holland, Michigan. Established in 1866, it is affiliated with the Reformed Church in America, a mainline Reformed Protestant denomination in Canada and the United States. ...

, Pittsburgh. After serving with the Presbyterian church of Delaware, Ohio, for two years, he arrived in Dengzhou (today part of

Penglai City Penglai, formerly known as Dengzhou or Tengchow, is a district belonging to the prefecture-level city of Yantai, Shandong Province, in the People's Republic of China. It lies on the northwest corner of the Shandong Peninsula on the southern coas ...

Shandong Shandong ( , ; ; alternately romanized as Shantung) is a coastal province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the East China region. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history since the beginning of Chinese civilizati ...

) with his wife

Julia Brown Mateer Julia Brown Mateer (born before 1840 — February 18, 1898) was an American teacher, school matron, and Presbyterian missionary in China, working there with her husband Calvin Wilson Mateer for thirty-four years. Early life Julia Brown was born ...

Robert McCheyne Mateer: Character-building in China: the life-story of Julia Brown Mateer, Fleming H. Revell Company, 1912
/ref> in early January 1864 and continued to work as a missionary in China for 45 years. He was the chairman of the committee for Bible translation and presided over the translation of the widely circulated

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

translation of the Holy

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

, ''The

Chinese Union Version The ''Chinese Union Version'' (CUV) () is the predominant translation of the Bible into Chinese used by Chinese Protestants, first published in 1919. The text is now available online. The CUV is currently available in both traditional and simpl ...

''. In 1882, Mateer founded Tengchow College as the first modern institution of higher education in China. Tengchow College became a predecessor of

Cheeloo University Cheeloo University (, alternatively known as ''Shantung Christian College'') was a university in China, established by Hunter Corbett American Presbyterian, and other English Baptist, Anglican, and Canadian Presbyterian mission agencies in earl ...

, and finally of

Shandong University Shandong University (, abbreviated as Shanda, , English abbreviation SDU) is a public research comprehensive university in Jinan, Shandong with one campus in Weihai, Shandong and one campus in Qingdao, Shandong and is supported directly by the ...

. His ''Course of Mandarin Lessons, based on idiom'', first published in 1892, was a popular text for learners, garnering four further editions by 1922. He died in 1908 in

Qingdao Qingdao (, also spelled Tsingtao; , Mandarin: ) is a major city in eastern Shandong Province. The city's name in Chinese characters literally means " azure island". Located on China's Yellow Sea coast, it is a major nodal city of the One Belt ...

, China.

References

Presbyterian missionaries in China Translators of the Bible into Chinese American Presbyterian missionaries 1836 births 1908 deaths People from Cumberland County, Pennsylvania American expatriates in China Pittsburgh Theological Seminary alumni Missionary educators Missionary linguists {{Christian-bio-stub