| Transcript |
- Marco Polo Bridge outside Peking, the Japanese began their invasion of China. Mr. Menzies went on furlough leave to Canada that summer before the Cheeloo University staff and student body evacuated to southwest China ahead of the Japanese occupation of Jinan.
Because of the disturbed war conditions in China, the Overseas Missions Board would not agree to send Mr. and Mrs. Menzies back to China after his leave. So, in 1938 he began to do research work in the Far Eastern Department of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. During the ensuing four years he renewed his relations with American and European scholars interested in Sinological research and examined most of the American collections of early Chinese artifacts. He reviewed and revised translations of inscriptions on ancient Chinese ritual bronzes and wrote interpretive essays for the catalogues of exhibitions.
In 1942 Mr. Menzies completed the requirements for the Ph.D. degree at the University of Toronto, writing his thesis on The Shang Ko, a study of the characteristic weapon of the Bronze Age in China during the period 1311-1039 B.C. The enduring value of this study was attested by its publication in 1965 by the Royal Ontario Museum.
As the Overseas Missions Board continued to be reluctant to send Dr. and Mr. Menzies out to West China, he accepted in 1942 an invitation to serve as a consultant to the U.S. Office of War Information in San Francisco preparing background material for broadcasts aimed at maintaining scholarly links with the staff and students of universities in Free China.
After the war this program was moved from San Francisco to Washington where Dr. Menzies continued to serve as a consultant to the U.S. State Department on cultural relations with China.
In 1946 Dr. Menzies suffered a heart attack. When he was sufficiently recovered, he returned to Toronto where he continued his research work on Chinese archae�ology and early history until his death in March 1957.
In 1960 Mrs. Annie B. Menzies and her son Arthur Menzies signed an agreement with the University of Toronto for the transfer of The Menzies Collection to the Royal Ontario Museum. The collection comprised several hundred archaeological specimens, books on Chinese archaeology and early history, 4,700 inscribed oracle bones and 2,812 unpublished rubbings of oracle bones which had been left in China. The university established The Menzies Fund, which was used for the publication of Dr. Menzies thesis on The Shang Ko, bringing a qualified Chinese scholar, Mr. Hsu Chin-hsiung (Xu Jinxiung) from Taiwan to Toronto where he undertook to study, classify and publish the collection of oracle bones, and to arrange for the publica�tion of the eight folios of rubbings of oracle bones.
The Royal Ontario Museum published Mr. Hsu�s study of The Menzies Collec�tion of Shang Dynasty Oracle Bones in two volumes in 1971 and 1977.
The Yee Wen Publishing Company in Taiwan published the rubbings in two volumes in 1972 entitled Yin-Hsu Pu-Tz�u Hou Pien (Additional Collection of Oracle Divinations from the Waste of Yin compiled by Dr. James M. Menzies). These volumes were also edited by Mr. Hsu Chin-hsiung. Yee Wen also reprinted in 1972 Dr. Menzies Oracle Records of the Waste of Yin, originally published by Kelly and Walsh in Shanghai in 1917.
As Mrs. Annie Menzies had always taken an active interest in her husband�s collection and in Chinese arts, Rev. Dr. Menzies presented her with representative pieces over many years on the occasion of her birthdays, their anniversary and at Christmas. She was especially fond of Song Dynasty ceramics. Similarly, as his
|
|---|
