존 프라이어(John Fryer) 연구: “그는 선교사인가 과학 전파자인가?”

Abstract

John Fryer (1839-1928, Chinese name 傅兰雅) came to China as a layman missionary and devoted himself to educational missionary work while going through the Hong Kong St. Paul's School, the School of Combined Learning and the Shanghai Anglo-Chinese School. However, as relations with the Church Missionary Society went sour, he become devoted to the spread of science, unlike the path of a general missionary. He mainly tried to modernize China through the spread of Western scientific civilization, including the Kiangnan Arsenal and The Chinese Scientific and Industrial Magazine, Gezhi Senior High School of Shanghai and the publication of science textbooks through the The School and Textbook Series Committee. But he wondered what role Christianity, as a religion, should play in Chinese society through the proper combination of religion and science, as well as the spread of science. Although it maintained a thorough separation of religion and science at the site of the dissemination of scientific knowledge, religion was intended to serve as a source of capacity to save China from crisis in the spiritual and moral sphere. Thus, Fryer sought his own unique path and always expected the impact of Christianity on the course of the transformation of Chinese society through a balance between religion and science. He was a missionary and also a propagandist of science.