McGilll University was well on the way to making Montreal a world centre for Chinese Studies in the 1930s until a series of misunderstandings and money issues led to the end of a Chinese studies institute and the removal of one of the world's great Chinese libraries.
The story starts with Guion Gest, a New Yorker who was familiar with Montreal - he owned a couple of properties here and hobnobbed with some folks from McGill.
Gest had incurable glaucoma and found relief in some Chinese medicine.
This fortuitous Asian soothing led him to suspect that the Chinese have all sorts of cool ancient cures that we don't know about so he hooked up Commander I.V. Gillis who supplied him with large numbers of cheap-but-valuable Chinese books.
Within a few years Gest had too many books to store and was looking for a university to house them.
He chose McGill, partly because Principal Arthur Currie was enthusiastic.
The books were put in the basement of the Redpath Library. Gest persuaded them to put them on the second floor for a ten year period.
When it opened on Chinese New Years, ie: February 13, 1926, the special library was a posh joint equipped with Chinese antiques and rugs. There were ceremonies and fetes and all visits from China.
But Gest was unimpressed with the cataloguing, as staff was unable to master the language sufficiently but that was resolved with new and better staffers.
The collection grew from about 10,000 books to 100,000 between 1926 and 1932, making it the second largest Chinese library in North America.
Currie and his right-hand man Ed Beattie established a Chinese Studies department 1930 and hired Kiang Kang-hu to lead the operation.
But behind the scenes things were far less smooth.
Gest eventually made it clear that he had no intention of donating the books to the school.
You must remember that the creating of a library of this kind has taken considerable time and money." he wrote in 1930.
McGill and Gest weren't even close when it came to what the books should cost.
![]()
About one third of the rare books were on Buddhism, museum pieces maybe, but unsuitable for a library.
Gest said that he had paid $208,000 for them but one expert evaluated their value at between $25,000 to $50,000.
Buying books wasn't fashionable at McGill during this period. Their collection in 1930 was 450,000 volumes. In 1944 it was the same total. So buying this great number of books might seem unjustifiable.
Also the Great Depression had hit the school hard.
During 1932 Currie had staffers take a salary cut between 3 and 10 percent, an initiative that saved $87,000. Therefore paying such a princely sum for the collection made little sense.
Gest, who already had been seen as pushy, came asking McGill to lend him money to help his business survive. Currie arranged a mortgage but they school wasn't comfortable with the deal.
Gest also differed on what the library should do. He hoped that somebody would read the books and come up with some ancient Chinese knowledge that would transform medicine and science, whereas Currie wanted it used as a way for westerneres to get acquainted with Chinese culture.
Gest was also miffed that McGill opted not to invest in a massive translation project, as Currie thought there was a lack of qualified translators and the subject had already been done elsewhere.
The bottom truly fell out in 1933 when Currie died at 58.
Without Currie the school lost direction and went two years without a principal.
Professor Ira MacKay persuaded the board to force the Chinese Studies school to pay for itself and that led to its end.
Prof Kiang was let go as was Nancy Swann, who had organized the library.
Without a Chinese Studies School, and without an agreement on how to keep the books, McGill told Gest to come get his books. They were shipped to Princeton - which paid Gest $140,000 (about a buck a book) - on July 31, 1936 .
McGill relaunched its Chinese Studies program in 1968. As of 1999 the school had about 20,000 Chinese volumes (1999) considered insignificant.
*Source: The Gest Chinese Research Library at McGill University, 1926-1936 Su Chen and Jumin Zhao
 |
| Guion Gest |
Gest had incurable glaucoma and found relief in some Chinese medicine.
This fortuitous Asian soothing led him to suspect that the Chinese have all sorts of cool ancient cures that we don't know about so he hooked up Commander I.V. Gillis who supplied him with large numbers of cheap-but-valuable Chinese books.
Within a few years Gest had too many books to store and was looking for a university to house them.
He chose McGill, partly because Principal Arthur Currie was enthusiastic.
The books were put in the basement of the Redpath Library. Gest persuaded them to put them on the second floor for a ten year period.
When it opened on Chinese New Years, ie: February 13, 1926, the special library was a posh joint equipped with Chinese antiques and rugs. There were ceremonies and fetes and all visits from China.
But Gest was unimpressed with the cataloguing, as staff was unable to master the language sufficiently but that was resolved with new and better staffers.
The collection grew from about 10,000 books to 100,000 between 1926 and 1932, making it the second largest Chinese library in North America.
Currie and his right-hand man Ed Beattie established a Chinese Studies department 1930 and hired Kiang Kang-hu to lead the operation.
But behind the scenes things were far less smooth.
Gest eventually made it clear that he had no intention of donating the books to the school.
You must remember that the creating of a library of this kind has taken considerable time and money." he wrote in 1930.
McGill and Gest weren't even close when it came to what the books should cost.
About one third of the rare books were on Buddhism, museum pieces maybe, but unsuitable for a library.Gest said that he had paid $208,000 for them but one expert evaluated their value at between $25,000 to $50,000.
Buying books wasn't fashionable at McGill during this period. Their collection in 1930 was 450,000 volumes. In 1944 it was the same total. So buying this great number of books might seem unjustifiable.
Also the Great Depression had hit the school hard.
During 1932 Currie had staffers take a salary cut between 3 and 10 percent, an initiative that saved $87,000. Therefore paying such a princely sum for the collection made little sense.
Gest, who already had been seen as pushy, came asking McGill to lend him money to help his business survive. Currie arranged a mortgage but they school wasn't comfortable with the deal.
Gest also differed on what the library should do. He hoped that somebody would read the books and come up with some ancient Chinese knowledge that would transform medicine and science, whereas Currie wanted it used as a way for westerneres to get acquainted with Chinese culture.
Gest was also miffed that McGill opted not to invest in a massive translation project, as Currie thought there was a lack of qualified translators and the subject had already been done elsewhere.
The bottom truly fell out in 1933 when Currie died at 58.
Without Currie the school lost direction and went two years without a principal.
Professor Ira MacKay persuaded the board to force the Chinese Studies school to pay for itself and that led to its end.
Prof Kiang was let go as was Nancy Swann, who had organized the library.
Without a Chinese Studies School, and without an agreement on how to keep the books, McGill told Gest to come get his books. They were shipped to Princeton - which paid Gest $140,000 (about a buck a book) - on July 31, 1936 .
McGill relaunched its Chinese Studies program in 1968. As of 1999 the school had about 20,000 Chinese volumes (1999) considered insignificant.
*Source: The Gest Chinese Research Library at McGill University, 1926-1936 Su Chen and Jumin Zhao