On Robert Morrison's Contributions in the History of Chinese and Western Cultural Exchanges

Abstract

Robert Morrison was a clergyman of London Missionary Society. He was the first Protestant missionary that came to China to do the missionary work and enjoyed a high reputation in the history of Protestant missions. Robert Morrison was the first person that translated the Bible into Chinese in China; he compiled and published the first Chinese-English and English-Chinese
bilingual dictionary A Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the world; he sponsored the foundation of the missionary school Anglo-Chinese College aiming at training bilingual talents; he started the earliest Chinese periodical Chinese Monthly Magazine; and he setup the first clinic that combined traditional Chinese and Western medicine in China. Robert Morrison had made great contributions to Chinese and Western cultural exchanges. Robert Morrison was an important pioneer of Chinese and Western cultural exchanges in modern times, but his ultimate goal was to serve the missionary work, and therefore had certain historical limitations.