The American Enlightenment Periodical The Child’s Paper: Efforts in Adaptation, Translation, and Localized Reception in China

In the mid-19th century, the United States published a series of children’s education and enlightenment periodicals, among which The Child’s Paper (1852-1879) sponsored by ATS, had a significant impact on domestic and international distribution. In the 1870s, foreign missionaries and their wives in China published three eponymous “小孩月报” (Xiaohai Yuebao, or XHYB): the Fuzhou version, the Guangzhou version, and the Shanghai version. The three XHYB were the translations and extensions of the American version of The Child’s Paper in China, becoming an exemplary missionary Enlightenment periodical of its time. This paper discusses the historical facts surrounding the transplantation and translation of the American version of The Child’s Paper in China. It summarizes the pragmatic principles of its secularization, localization, adaptation, and rewriting in translation and explores its influence on the emergence of indigenous Chinese modern periodicals and the tradition of enlightening the masses through periodicals in the late Qing Dynasty.