Daily's study of Robert Morrison, the influential pioneer missionary to China (1782–1834), gives the reader new perspectives on Morrison and the early Protestant China mission. As Daily shows, Morrison has often been captured by a type of hagiography – exemplified in the highly edited posthumous memoirs published by his widow but often replicated in secondary works – that can make it harder to understand or appraise his work. There are several strengths to The Protestant plan for China, foremost among them the use of archival materials, the excavation of Morrison's Presbyterian-Dissenter context in England, and the integration of Morrison's missionary training at Bogue's Gosport Academy with his work in the China mission.

Daily opens the work with an account of Morrison approaching death, embittered by a lack of support and feeling neglected by the Board that sent him. Daily's reconstruction of the sources behind the memoirs and his analysis of Morrison's letters and writings provide a productive counter-reading to the one offered by Morrison's widow. They also capture the particular pathos of missionary life that Morrison faced: preparation for a challenging environment, the struggle to meet a diverse set of linguistic and social expectations, the effort to find a base for his work, poor communication with his mission board, competition with new missionaries, disease, the death of family members and coworkers, and the sense of isolation or neglect that Morrison often felt. The book is written in chronological order and covers all of Morrison's life. It can be read productively as a one-volume biography of Morrison.

Daily uses archival work and some recent secondary studies to construct key periods in Morrison's life, especially his training prior to departure for China and the libraries that he read or created. In particular, Daily offers helpful description of the dissenter academies, the missionaries-in-training of the London Missionary Society, the growth of mission culture as the British sending of missionaries exploded, and the LMS's mixed legacy in contemporary missions (Tahiti, the Cape of Good Hope). The microscopic account of Morrison's fourteen months at Bogue's Gosport Academy gives a very clear picture of the context that formed the first generation of English missionaries: dissenting academies, the Scottish enlightenment and new academic institutions, the rise of publications like the Evangelical Magazine, a growing English interest in mission and close descriptions of Morrison's cohort. This work is deeply appreciated and will be useful to scholars interested broadly in English religion and education during the early nineteenth century, as well as for scholars of missions. As far as I know, there are no similar works on an early missionary academy.

While the contribution of this work is clear, the core thesis that Morrison's main model or influence for mission work was David Bogue's teaching or ‘new template’ is open to debate. The period at Gosport clearly was influential to Morrison. On the other hand, much of Bogue's template is common to modern mission in general (i.e. a focus on language learning and translation, the important of collaboration, the setting up of schools and churches, etc.). Did Bogue determine the direction of Morrison's work, or did both Bogue and Morrison draw on a similar cultural nexus that shaped the mission? Because Daily does not use Chinese materials, it is also hard to know how closely Morrison's actual preaching and evangelism comported with Bogue's works. Morrison also clearly drew on Catholic models, on the help of a Chinese immigrant and mission workers, on relationship to the British East India Company and related scholars, and on other expatriate and Chinese communities. Others have offered deeper studies of Chinese influences (for instance, on the Canton system, the Straits Settlements, the translation process), and a counter argument could be made for how life in China determined the shape of the mission. In Morrison's case, the institutional legacy was also clouded; he saw only a few successful converts in his lifetime and the mission that he created was moved to Hong Kong by James Legge after his death. None the less The Protestant plan is an excellent work, one that provides deep insight into Morrison's life and preparation and helps us better to understand how the English missionary's formation influenced his life and work.