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53
Mr. Williams being unavoidably absent from Peking on October twenty-third, the day which had been appointed, Mrs. Warner and I were introduced by Mr. Peck, Chinese Secretary to the American Legation and First Secretary [[underline]]pro tem[[/underline]]. Mrs. Peck also accompanied us.  We drove through the Forbidden City as far as the landing stage on the lake, where a barge was prepared for us and we were poled by water to the President's residence in the confines of the Imperial p<[[a]]lace.  Here Dr. Wellington Ku (Ph. D. Columbia) Secretary to the President, met us at the gate and escorted us to the ante-chamber from which we were summoned to the President's room.  The President received me cordially and without extreme formality.  Mr. Peck then read a short address in Chinese from Mr. Williams presenting me to the President and requesting his good will for my mission, at the same time expressing his own sense, as Charge d'Affaires of the American Government, of the importance of the suggestions which I was about to make.  The President answered (interpreted by Dr. Ku) that he was pleased to welcome me and any other Americans who would honor China by pursuing our studies there.

I outlined briefly the objects of my mission, taking care to emphasize the fact that I had been expressly instructed to make no purchases of objects of art or antiquity, and that this would be the policy of the School when started.  I then asked the President for his own advice concerning our best procedure in the beginnings of the School, and was pleased when he replied that he could think of nothing more important to us than excavation, study of native collections