I have before had occasion to refer to the great influence education has had on the awakening of China, and I think the Americans can fairly claim to have been the greatest workers in this field. The Roman Catholics have from time immemorial been most careful to train children in Christian truth, and they have wonderful institutions for this purpose. In 1852 the Jesuits founded the College of St. Ignatius for the education of native priests, and since that day they have founded many educational institutions. They have besides a very large number of primary schools, intended originally merely to preserve their converts from too intimate contact with the heathen world, and they have also many higher schools. In those schools they teach modern knowledge, making a speciality of teaching French, which they can do with great efficiency, as many of their number belong to the French nation. In the German sphere of influence there are Catholic schools where German is taught; but though the work is excellent, it cannot be compared with the work of the Americans, who were really the pioneers of higher education in China.
When the American missionaries began to arrive, a new departure was inaugurated in education. The school and college were no longer places where Christians were simply educated; they were places where Christians, confident in the truth of their teaching, gave away to heathen and Christian alike all the knowledge that the West possessed. The conception was bold; it was grand. It showed a statesmanlike grip of the situation and a courage which can only come from a consciousness of the strength of the Christian position, that Christianity was not a narrow religion fearing free inquiry. Christianity, on the contrary, was a religion which could only be appreciated by those who had the very fullest knowledge. These teachers boldly declared that ignorance was the mother of religious error, and therefore the duty of every Christian was at once to remove ignorance and to share with every one the knowledge that can alone make the world capable of truly appreciating God's power as manifested in every department of science.
So these schools and colleges grew up. Those who believed in this policy did not belong to any one denomination, though they did belong to one nation—America. There were many opponents to this policy. It was argued that the duty of the mission bodies was to preach the Gospel, and that however advantageous education might be, it was not the business of the Christian to give it; but whatever doubt there was then, facts have been too strong for those whoopposed the educational policy, and any one travelling through China realises more and more how the Mission that has spent money on education is the Mission that has the power of expansion. The Mission that has no educational system is always cabined and confined for want of money and men. They are always writing home to ask that another man shall be sent out; some one has broken down or some new opportunity for work has been opened, and so "they must press upon the Home Board the great importance of sending out at as early a date as possible one or more helpers." The Home Board is always answering those letters, expressing "every sympathy with their anxiety," but in reality pouring cold water on their enthusiasm, and pointing out that the supply of men is limited and that the supply of money is yet more limited. Thus the opportunity passes and the mission cannot expand. The same little church stands filled with converts; the same mission building houses the tired out and climate-stricken white missionaries. Such a mission, while inspiring the greatest respect for the heroism of the missionaries, arouses also a feeling of despair. How is it possible that a mission like this can really solve the problem of making Christianity a national religion? How can spiritual ministrations be performed by aliens, supported by alien money collected from a possibly hostile race?
A very different effect is made on the mind of the onlooker when he comes upon some mission thathas made education a speciality. There all is life, vigour and success. One of the most successful of the American missionaries, Bishop Roots, of the Episcopal Church of America, explained the system by which he is succeeding in making Christianity an indigenous religion. At his large college, presided over by Mr. Jackson, many are heathen. Some go through the college and imbibe a certain respect for Christian ethics, which will not only make them a benefit to China but will make an intellectual atmosphere sympathetic to Christian teaching. Some, however, will become Christians who will mostly go out into the world and take their place, and a high place too, in the leadership of the future China, as much owing to the excellence of the teaching that they have received as to the high morality which is produced by their Christian faith. Then there will be a few who will feel a distinct call to go out as missionaries to their own people. These men will have no temptation to become Christians for the loaves and fishes, because, owing to the excellence of the education that they have received and the great prosperity that is dawning over China, they could command a large salary in the open market. These highly-educated clergy are able to go out and put Christianity to the Chinese in a manner which no white man could hope to equal.
What Bishop Roots told me can be well illustrated by two little incidents. In Hankow, where his work is increasing by leaps and bounds, the LutheranMission failed, and therefore it resigned the chapel to him. He accepted readily, and soon his Chinese clergy were preaching to crowded congregations. The second incident was this: I expressed a wish to make a present to one of these Christian scholars, and I asked what books he would like to receive. I was told that such books as Balfour's "Defence of Philosophic Doubt" and Haldane's "Pathway to Reality" were the kind that would appeal to such young men. Not only will these men carry the Gospel to their fellow-countrymen far more efficiently than can the alien, but they will to a great extent be able to live on the subscriptions of their congregations, and so the communion to which they belong will become not only self-propagating but self-supporting.
To understand the importance of this controversy the various aims of missionary education must be realised, and it is because those aims are different that the controversy has been confused and the value of education as an assistance to missionary effort in China misunderstood. There are really seven aims: three which are common to all missionary effort in all lands, and four which especially apply to countries like China which are passing through a transitional period of thought. The three which are common to all missionary effort are (1) evangelisation; (2) edification of the Christian body; (3) education of preachers and teachers. The four that are peculiar to China in her present transitional condition are (4) preparation of secular leaders; (5) leavening of the whole public opinion; (6) oppositionto Western materialism; (7) association of Christianity with learning.
The arguments for the first three are applicable to every land. Evangelisation can no doubt be carried on most efficiently before the mind has received any intellectual bias. The Jesuit priest is reported to have said, "If I have the child till he is ten, I do not care who has him afterwards;" and therefore, as in all the world so in China, the Roman Catholics have always made a great effort to educate children. They have preferred those who have had no home-ties, orphans and waifs, and have by this policy built up a huge Christian population numbering over a million. This population is thoroughly Christian in sentiment; they have never known an idolatrous atmosphere, and they live to a great extent by themselves in communities. While they are thoroughly Christian, they are also absolutely Chinese; no effort is made to Westernise the children in any way. From this great Christian body Catholic priests are drawn, and I believe so completely Christian are they, that no difference is made between them and white men by such an important body as the Jesuits. When other Christian bodies began missionary work in China they also started schools, but the difference of their schools was that they aimed much more at the second than at the first object. The school was not merely a place to attract homeless children and bring them up as Christians; it was also intended to edify and adorn with knowledge the children of Christians.Non-Christians were largely admitted, but I think that I am right in stating that the object was much more edification than evangelisation. In a corrupt society like China, where all knowledge is intermingled with vice, it is inevitable that Christian schools should be erected for the Christian body, and it is equally inevitable that those who are non-Christians but who admire the schools greatly should try and enter them. The feature of these schools for the most part, though not invariably, in contrast to the earlier Roman Catholic schools, is that Western education is to a certain extent, varying in each mission, superadded to Chinese learning; and therefore, though the school is essentially a school for Chinese learning, the children as a rule learn something also of Western knowledge.
Out of these schools naturally arise others which have the third aim of missionary education as their object, namely, the preparation of preachers and teachers who in the future shall be the real missionary body of China. Every thinking man realises that the alien missionary can only exist in a brief transitional period. The true teachers of a race must be those who are linked to it by ties of blood and tradition, and nearly every mission has therefore set to work to create a native ministry which is sooner or later to take over the task of the conversion of China. This is regarded by many, nay, by most, as the great aim of missionary educational work. The degree of preparation, however, differs widely in different missions.Some missions, drawing their teachers from the lower ranks of society, are quite content to give them an education which will enable them to lead and teach the lower class among whom they move; other missions held that the Christian teacher must not merely he able to lead the ignorant but must be able also to meet in controversy those who may be well equipped with Western knowledge; and therefore while in some missions the education of native pastors is conducted solely in Chinese, in others the teaching is in English, to enable the teachers and preachers to keep abreast with the thought of Western countries and to defend their land by pen and sermon as much against the errors of the West as against the superstition of the East.
It is in the preparation of these highly educated men that an opportunity is given for the fourth aim of missionary education in China: one which would not be applicable in every country, but which is vitally important in China, namely, the preparation of secular leaders in China. To understand the importance of this we must be always reminding our readers that China is in the midst of an intellectual revolution. She is passing through a period which is in some way comparable to the period of the Renaissance in Europe, but which exceeds it both in importance and in danger, because in Europe, as the name shows, it was essentially a reintroduction of forgotten but not new knowledge with its subsequent enlargement and development. In Chinathe revolution is caused by the introduction of foreign knowledge, which is absolutely inharmonious and in many ways opposed to native thought. In Europe the foundations of knowledge were always secure; it was only the superstructure that was altered. In China the very foundations are being uprooted; the result is that China is at the present without leaders, except for a narrow band of men, who owing to the foresight of some Christians in the past have received a Western education. There are plenty of old-fashioned leaders, who have led or failed to lead the sleepy China of years ago—men of considerable ability but in a state of great mental confusion, owing to their powerlessness to comprehend the many aspects of the civilisation which is being forced upon them and which is unnatural to them. They cannot understand our currency questions, our financial operations; they only dimly realise the possibilities and problems connected with military and naval armaments. They yearn for the years gone by, but an inexorable fate urges their country forward into new positions, which bring with them new responsibilities, new powers and new dangers. China demands men to lead her through this terrible state of confusion and change, and she turns round to find the men who understand Western civilisation, who have the character and the knowledge necessary to deal with all these problems. Just at this moment, any man of ability who has an intimate knowledge of Western things stands a chance of highpreferment. It may be that this demand will be satisfied by the number of students China has sent abroad to be educated, but the size of China and the great demand for men skilled in Western learning make many of those having a most intimate knowledge of China confident that this is an opportunity that is still open, that it is still possible to direct to some degree the minds and thought of those who will lead China as statesmen, as authors, and as men of learning. The production of these men can be carried on to great advantage in the same establishment as that in which the clergy are receiving their education; the educated clergyman, the future pressmen and statesmen of China are in this way brought in close contact with one another, and even from one establishment the good that may come to China is quite incalculable.
This brings us to the fifth great aim of education, the leavening of public opinion in China so that Christianity will find ground prepared for its sowing. The destruction of superstition, the production of Western ethics make Christianity a reasonable instead of an unreasonable religion to those who hear it preached. Clearly to leaven public opinion influence must be applied to those who will control such powers as those of the press and the school; the teacher and the writer are the men who should be especially aimed at; and to attain this aim, it is necessary to institute and maintainplaces where higher knowledge is taught rather than only primary schools.
But there is another object, the sixth aim for education in China. One of the unpleasant features in the revolution that is going on in Chinese thought is the present introduction of Western materialism, which to judge by the example in Japan, will grow more rankly after transplantation. The West has a double aspect when seen from the East; it is a Christian world where women are pure and men are honourable; it is a rich world where there are no moral obligations. The first aspect is the one that is represented by the missionary; the second aspect is too often taught by the sailor and merchant classes; and when the Chinaman asks what is the thought and the base of Western teaching, the Japanese materialist, pointing to the example set by many Western lives, declares that Christianity in Europe is like Buddhism in Japan, a religion that at one time had many adherents but whose influence is fast waning, and it is in resisting this materialism that the Missionary College and University perform perhaps their most important task.
The men who are to do this work must be men most highly skilled in Western knowledge; they must understand science and be able to meet a follower of Haeckel in debate, they must be competent to discuss sociology with disciples of Herbert Spencer, and they must not be afraid to dip into thestudy of comparative religion; in addition, they must be qualified to write excellent Chinese and to be firm in their Christian faith. The production of such men as these should also satisfy the seventh and last aim of Christian education: it will associate learning with Christianity in the minds of the Chinese. The keynote of Chinese thought is its great admiration for learning. In China there is no caste or class, no division except between the ignorant and the learned; if Christianity is associated with ignorance, its influence will be lost, and it is no mean object to make Christianity and knowledge in the mind of the Chinaman two parts of one great idea.
It is obvious that as missionary societies lay weight on one or the other of these objects, they will support a different kind of school. If their object is the first, they will seek to educate the orphan and the waif, and the school and the orphanage will be, as they are in the Roman Catholic body, intimately joined together. If the object is to edify the Christian body and to provide it with a suitable pastor, the missionary body will erect primary schools for Christian children and theological and normal schools to complete their school system. If, on the other hand, the missionary body aims at leavening the whole thought of China, of capturing China for Christ, or if it aims at defending China against the terrible pest of Western materialism—which will turn the light that China now has into black darkness and harden her for ever against Christian teaching—the High School,College, and the University will be the objects on which the money will be spent. This last has been the object of the American bodies; and I think China owes a great debt of gratitude, under God, to the great width of thought and grasp of the situation that the American mind has exhibited.
One of the highest testimonials to the wisdom of the missionaries in inaugurating an educational policy has been given by the Chinese Government. Imitation is the sincerest flattery, and missionary education has its imitator in no less a body than the Chinese Government. The Chinese have always loved education, but the education they admired was the literary education which had for its commencement the Chinese character and for its end the Chinese Classics; their system of teaching was different from our own; they were far greater believers in learning by rote than the most conservative English schoolmaster who ever set a long repetition lesson to his pupils. It is a strange sight to see an old-fashioned Chinese school, the boys all shouting out at the top of their voices the names of the characters whose meaning they do not understand. An essential part of the performance is the clamorous shouting; the louder they shout, the harder they are working and the quicker they think they learn, so when the visitor surprises a class their voices are not raised above a pleasant and reasonable elevation, but after he has beendiscovered by the class, the shouts increase in volume till the noise is only to be compared to the paroquets' cage in the Zoological Gardens.
Another peculiarity of the school is that all the pupils turn their backs to their master; the doctrine being that if they were allowed to watch their master, it would be perfectly impossible for him to detect their many little acts of dishonesty. The missionaries at first painfully imitated these schools; they felt that it was impossible to trust the children of their converts to the heathen atmosphere of a Chinese school, and at the same time they realised what great value and importance was placed by the Chinese on education. These schools led on to a sort of middle school called "shu-yuen," which existed in all big towns, which in its turn led on to four Universities, but they have been, I believe, for some time in an inefficient condition. Still for good or for evil the system was there, and long before our own new departure in education, the Chinese were quite accustomed to the idea that the boy who had sufficient ability might climb the ladder of learning, from class to class, from school to school, till at last he took the coveted Hanlin Degree. So high a value did the Chinese place on education, that it was possible, and it did indeed happen, that boys of the very humblest parentage climbed that ladder till they reached the most exalted positions.
The first sign of an alteration of this system wasthe book that was issued after the Chinese-Japanese war by Chang-Chih-Tung. That remarkable statesman realised after China's crushing defeat that a general reform was absolutely necessary if she was to maintain her place among the free and independent nations of the world, and he wrote a book entitled "China's Only Hope," in which he strongly advocated the acceptance in some measure of Western education. His scheme is the one which practically obtains now in China, that is of making Chinese learning the foundation on which Western education is to be placed. He had a great disbelief, like most Chinese, in the difficulty of acquiring Western education. He writes: "Comparative study of foreign geography, especially that of Russia, France, Germany, England, Japan, and America; a cursory survey of the size and distance, capital, principal ports, climate, defences, wealth, and power of these (the time required to complete this course ten days)." It is very hard for the Chinese literati to understand the difficulties of acquiring Western learning. Chang was a man of no mean intellect, and one of the reasons why he was so anxious to preserve Chinese learning was because he realised the destructive effect Western learning has on Oriental faiths. He hoped to preserve the ethics of Confucianism and to attach to them the practical knowledge of the West, which he realised was a necessity for China. He summed up the position by saying, "Western knowledge is practical, Chinese learning is moral."
The immediate result of this book was absolutely the reverse of what its author intended. A million copies of the book had been issued, and it circulated throughout China. It raised a storm of opposition, and probably was one of the causes which produced the Boxer outbreak; but the failure of Boxerdom and the Russo-Japanese war convinced China that Chang-Chih-Tung was right, and his book may now be taken as the book which best expresses the intellectual position of the moderate reformer.
He first deals with that very difficult question of finance. He proposes to finance the schools with a wholesale disendowment of the two religions in which he does not believe, Buddhism and Taoism. He writes: "Buddhism is on its last legs, Taoism is discouraged because its devils have become irresponsive and inefficacious." He then suggests that seven temples out of ten should be used both as regards their building and their funds for educational purposes. But he has a sympathetic way of treating the disendowed clergy of China. He suggests that they could be comforted by a liberal bestowal of official distinction upon themselves and upon their relatives. Who can tell if Welsh Disestablishment would not be popular if all the clergy were to be made archdeacons and their brothers and fathers knights. But he has a historical precedent for disendowment—Buddhism has apparently experienced the process of disendowment three times; but as the last disendowment wasin 846, on our side of the world we should not regard it as a precedent of much value.
In establishing schools he adopts five principles. The first is one to which we have already referred, that the new and the old are to be woven into one, the Chinese Classics are to be made by some magical process the foundation of the teaching of Western education. The second is a very un-Western but possibly a sound way of looking at the question. He puts forward two objects of education: first, government; secondly, science. The first includes all knowledge necessary for the government of mankind—geography, political economy, fiscal science, the military art, and though he does not mention it, I suppose history. The second is natural science, and includes mathematics, mining, therapeutics, sound, light, chemistry, &c. The third principle is one that we rarely act on in our own country, namely, that the child shall be only educated in the subjects for which he has a natural aptitude. The fourth principle is one that applies absolutely to China; it is the abolition of what is called the three-legged essay, a complicated feat of archaic and artificial writing which only exists for the purpose of examination, something analogous to our Latin verses. The fifth principle shows that China is as far ahead of us in some ways as she is behind us in others. China has passed beyond the stage of free education to the stage of universal scholarship; all students are paid, and this has brought about a great abuse;men study merely to obtain a living who have no aptitude for learning, and on whom educational money is really wasted, and so he abolishes payment.
His Excellency closes his advice with a suggestion that societies for the promotion of education should be formed. The Chinaman loves these little social clubs and gatherings. His chess club, his poetry club, his domino club, are national institutions. Why not, suggests His Excellency, have an educational club, or as I suppose we should call it, a mutual improvement society. Thus wrote the great Viceroy who more than any other man prevented the spread of the Boxer outbreak from desolating Central and Southern China. During that Boxer rebellion all advance was impossible, but after that overflowing flood of disorder was passed, the reforms suggested by Chang-Chih-Tung began to be seriously considered, and on January 13, 1903, an Imperial Edict was put forth renovating and organising, at least on paper, the whole educational system of China. It would not be China if there were not a great deal of sound sense in that edict; it would not be China if on paper the organisation did not seem to be perfect; it would not be China if as a matter of fact the whole scheme were not to a great extent a failure.
The scheme was very complete. It began at the bottom and continued through every grade of education to the top. First there were to be infant schools; these were to receive children from three toseven years old, and their object was to give the first idea of right and to keep the children from the dangers of the street. These schools were to be succeeded by primary schools of two departments, and children were to enter the schools as they left the infant school when they were seven years old, and to continue in them till they were twelve. The subjects to be taught were morals, Chinese language, arithmetic, history, geography, physical science and gymnastics. At present there was to be no compulsory attendance, but that was looked forward to as the future ideal. The schools were to be free, and the money was to be produced either by taxes or by a raid on some endowments, notably endowments of religion or of the theatre—for theatres in China are endowed. Funds were also to be found by subscription, and titles and ranks were promised to those who shall open schools; unlike our own country, where, alas, the spending time on education for the poor is only rewarded by abuse. These primary schools would lead into higher schools, and these schools would be the last on the ladder of education, in which only Chinese subjects were to be taught. Above them were to be what they call middle schools, and the subjects to be taught are roughly those which are taught in our High Schools: the Chinese Classics, Chinese language and literature, foreign languages (one at least to be obligatory), history, geography, physics, chemistry, science of government, political economy, drawing, gymnastics; and after the example of Western schools, singingwould be also taught. These schools lead on to the superior schools in which higher branches of the same subjects are taught. These schools were to be divided into three sections. The first section consists of law, literature, and commerce; the second section of sciences, civil engineering, and agriculture; the third section of medicine. It is noteworthy that English is necessary for those who are learning the first two sections, while German is compulsory for those who are learning the third section—in either case a third language may be added; and these superior schools were to lead on to a University, in which there were to be eight faculties. The first faculty is essentially a Chinese one, and I suppose would be best expressed to our thought by "belles-lettres," but it includes such things as rites and poetry; the second faculty is that of law; the third, history and geography; the fourth, medicine and pharmacy; the fifth, science; the sixth, agriculture; the seventh, civil engineering; the eighth, commerce.
The University course was to take three years, and there was to be a University installed in each province. The educational system was to be perfected by two other institutions—a post-graduate college where research was to be undertaken, and a normal college which was to be divided into an inferior and a superior one for the purpose, the one of preparing schoolmasters for the village schools, the other for higher education. A far less ambitious scheme for the education of girls has been added to this byan edict of 1907. If my readers have waded through this scheme I am afraid that they will have come to the conclusion that China has nothing to learn from Western powers, but rather she ought to be able to teach them how to perfect their own incomplete system of education; but alas, this scheme is only on paper. In the province where H.E. Yuan-Shih-Kai ruled the schools approach in some degree to the level of Western efficiency. In every other province that I visited or heard about, the results of this edict were markedly disappointing; the only exception being where the Universities had been organised, not in the form or terms of the edict, but by Western teachers acting on more or less independent lines. For instance, there is a splendid University which has been founded by Dr. Timothy Richard in Shansi.
That University has a curious history. After the Boxer massacres compensation was demanded by the Powers both for the buildings that were destroyed and for the missionaries that were killed. A certain number of the missionary bodies refused absolutely to take any compensation. Animated by the spirit of the early Christian Church, they would not allow that the blood that had been shed for the sacred cause could be paid for in money. At this juncture there threatened to be rather an impasse. The Western Government were insisting on compensation, and it was doubtful and uncertain how that compensation should be paid. The Chinese Government sent for the Protestant missionary in whom they had thegreatest confidence, Dr. Timothy Richard, and he made a suggestion which was at once acceptable to both the Chinese and to the missionary body, that the money should be devoted to the founding of a great University; for ignorance is the most common cause of fanaticism, and the terrible massacres enacted in China would never have taken place had China understood, as Chang-Chih-Tung did understand, that Western science and enlightenment were for the benefit of China; so this University was founded. It was founded under peculiar terms. It is under the government of China, and yet not completely so. Dr. Timothy Richard is for a certain number of years one of its governors, and he has for ten years at least the control of the Western side of the education. He is supported by an able staff, and the Rev. W. E. Soothill is the existing President. At the end of the ten years which are just running out, the status of the University is to be altered, and is, as far as I understand, to return to the ordinary status of a Government University. I need hardly say that this University has been highly satisfactory in its teaching, and lately it has sent many of its students to England to complete their education. It suffers, however, from the absence of a proper preparatory course. One of the difficulties that lie right in the way of Chang-Chih-Tung's compromise is the difficulty of finding time for a Western preparatory course, and that is only equalled by the difficulty of finding teachers. Without time and teachers the studentsarrive at the University period of their lives with only a very elementary knowledge of Western subjects. This college can hardly be cited as a college of high governmental efficiency, but should rather be regarded as an example of the good that a man like Dr. Timothy Richard can do if he is only allowed scope.
Another Western University under Chinese Government control is the one at Tientsin, the Pei-Yang University. That University has the advantage of being well supported by efficient Government schools at Pao-ting-fu. One interesting detail about the Pao-ting-fu school—a fact indeed which in two or three ways should give us food for thought—is that it is controlled by a Christian who is allowed by the Government, against their own regulations, to carry on an active propaganda. He was the man who, when the missionaries were murdered at Shansi, at the risk of his life brought down a message from them written in blood on a piece of stuff. Perhaps it is not extraordinary to find that such a man is producing excellent work. The Pei-Yang University, however, falls far short of our ideals of what a University standard should be. Still, as far as it goes, it is very efficient. It is taught by a very effective body of professors. It has 150 students, and teaches law, mining, and engineering. The staff is American with very few exceptions. One of those exceptions is Mr. Wang, a Chinese gentleman who received his education in London. Very little philosophy is taught,only three hours a week are given for Chinese learning, and the students are expected to acquire a sufficient knowledge of Chinese subjects before they come to the University. The American professors, who proved to be a delightful set of men, allowed that there was no real scientific training given in this school. They gave the same account of their pupils which you will hear in every Chinese school. They excelled in algebra, drawing, and in the most stupendous power of committing formulæ to memory. One of the difficulties of teaching a Chinese class is that they have so little difficulty in learning by rote that they much prefer learning the text-books by heart to trying to understand them. The Law School in the Pei-Yang University is taught by a man who has no knowledge of Chinese law. This is one of the small mistakes made by American educators in China, which I think must be somewhat misleading for China in the future. To learn nothing but Western law, and to imagine that that Western law can be applied directly to the Chinese people, is to make the same mistake that Macaulay so eloquently condemned in the old East India Company. Such a system of teaching can only make unreasonable revolutionaries.
These two examples of teaching institutions carried on under the Chinese Government by Western teachers are wholly exceptional, and though excellent in their way are unimportant, and having regard to the vast mass of the population of China are inconsiderable. What are five or sixhundred students to a population of four hundred millions.
I must reserve the account of what I saw of the schools under Chinese management, including the Peking University, to another chapter.
Any one who has read the preceding account of the intentions of the Chinese Government might be pardoned if he supposed that after four or five years those intentions had borne fruit in an efficient system of public education. But one who has resided any time in China would only smile at the suggestion that there should be an intimate relation between what the Chinese Government professes to do and what the Chinese Government does. A Manchu Professor whose European education had enabled him to appreciate rightly the weaknesses of the Chinese race, said with great candour, "In China we begin things, but we never finish them." I had the privilege of seeing over some twenty Government schools in China, and the truth of these words was very obvious.
My hospitable host at Nanking, His Excellency Tuan-Fang, hearing that I took an interest in education, declared that he would be very glad that I should see his schools. I expressed a regret that my ignorance of the language would impede me in thoroughly understanding what was being taught. He most hospitably said that I could myself examinethe pupils who were studying Western subjects, and who therefore spoke English or French, and that my wife should examine the girls' schools; that we should be accompanied by two interpreters as well as by the Director of Education, and that he would examine the schools in any branch of knowledge that I chose. So we sallied forth, a very imposing body, and I was asked to select what schools I should like to visit. Of course I selected the higher grade schools in which Western subjects were taught. The first school on which we descended was the Agricultural College. The teachers of Western subjects were two Japanese and one Chinaman. They were being taught in Chinese, but I had no difficulty in finding out in the first room we entered what they were learning, because the illustrations were well known to me, for they formed part of a book of elementary botany which I had at one time studied. I suggested to Mr. Tsêng, the interpreter, that the right course would be to ask the Japanese master to select his best pupils and that then he should examine them while I should suggest the questions. It soon became clear that all the Japanese teacher was doing was to teach them to copy the illustrations in the book and nothing else. For the first time we noticed what we afterwards discovered to be the invariable rule, that the Japanese are most perfect draughtsmen, and that every class taught by the Japanese always learnt to draw perfectly, though they learnt little else. The Chinese were rather pleased that the Japanese teacher cut such a sorry figure. We thenwent to the next room. Again there was a Japanese teacher professing to explain the model of a steam-engine; again the pupils were obviously ignorant; again we bowed and they bowed and we left the room.
The next room had quite a different atmosphere. Obviously efficient work was going on. The men were learning elementary chemistry. The teacher was a Chinaman who had been trained in London and spoke English perfectly. He was as straightforward as he was efficient. He frankly said that the progress that his pupils had made was very limited because of the short time that they had been at work. We congratulated him on the efficient way he was managing his class, and were interested to hear afterwards that he was a Christian. More than once we came across Christian Chinese, and did not know till later that they were Christians, but were struck by their efficiency, which sprang doubtless from a high ideal of work.
We left the Agricultural College and then proceeded to a High School, which is the name that is given to a first-grade school that precedes the University, and which at present stands in its place. We had in this school much the same experience. A Japanese teacher was teaching biology and was dissecting a river mussel. This was done in such a position that only two men could see what was going on. I wondered at this. Then we found out that he could not speak a word of Chinese. He dissected themussel and professed to give a lecture on its anatomy to a pupil who understood Japanese, and then the pupil delivered the lecture to the rest of the class. My Chinese interpreters were of opinion that very little could filter through the class in this way, but the Director of Education smiled sweetly. He obviously felt that in some mysterious way Western education was percolating to the pupils under his charge. As we returned along the corridor I glanced in. The biological lecture was over; I expect it was the only one of the session, and the pupils went away with admirable pictures of the river mussel. If the Japanese teachers only set up for teachers of drawing, I am certain they would have no equals in the world. A little further on in the same building there was a professed teacher of drawing. The class was not a selected class, they were drawing from a cast of a well-known Greek statue, and the work was simply admirable. I am confident that, except in an art school, you would not find better work in Europe. In the next room there was a science teacher. To impress the Director of Education, he rashly set a machine for demonstrating the vibration of sound at work. The machine would not demonstrate anything, much to the joy of my Chinese friends, solely for the reason that he had not wound it up.
I should tire my readers if I were to go on describing room after room. I cannot of course be certain how far these Japanese teachers had taught science, but at any rate their pupils had notacquired any knowledge, and I think we may easily be too hard on the Japanese. One must remember that they have to supply teachers for all their own schools. Is it likely that they will be either able or willing to send into other countries efficient teachers of Western education? It is not as if Western knowledge had been for long taught in Japan. Their schools are now many and they were few. I suppose no man, no great number of men at any rate, over thirty-five or forty, are equipped with an efficient Western education in Japan. One wonders why they allow their national reputation to be injured by supposing it to be possible for them to supply these teachers of Western knowledge. Political motive suggests itself as a reason why a country so proud and so ambitious as Japan should allow a course that must eventually injure her reputation as an enlightened power.
The next school we went over was very interesting. It was what is called a Law School. The men who are learning in this school will be the future officials of China; only, following the Chinese custom, they will rarely or never hold office in the province in which they were born and educated. They were men of some standing, and it looked strange to see all these senior men, over sixty in number, sitting like children at the school desks. They were dressed, in uniform, and were under a sort of military discipline. The senior pupil gave the word of command, and at once the class sprang to attention and salutedus, while we bowed first to the teacher, then to the class, after which the examination began. They were chiefly taught by Chinese, and, as one might expect, were well taught in the Chinese Classics. We were informed that the Japanese teacher was teaching them Western law; but in answer to an inquiry he explained that he had not yet taught them any law, but that he was teaching them the Japanese language, since it was through the Japanese language alone a knowledge of Western law could be attained. The reason seemed very inconclusive especially when one remembers that the Japanese know and write Chinese characters, so that it is easy to get any work that is printed in Japan printed in the character which every Chinaman can read. I have before explained the peculiar merit of the Chinese character is that people who speak different dialects and even languages can read it equally well. I pointed all this out to my Chinese friends. I think their suspicions too were aroused. Certainly this experience lends colour to the suggestion that Japan hopes that the Manchu dynasty will be succeeded, not by a Chinese dynasty, but by a dynasty from a race whose courage, energy, and intellect has already humiliated Russia and China, and may not inconceivably dominate China, should, for instance, Germany and England go to war.
We then went to see some classes taught by Americans. Two things struck me in those classes. First, for some reason I cannot understand, unlessthere was jealousy at work, the class was small compared with the enormous classes which I had seen elsewhere—thirty, twenty, or even fifteen were the numbers that white men were teaching. The other thing which struck me was that the selection of subjects might be improved. For instance, one of the teachers was teaching Anson's Law of Contract; one could scarcely see how a knowledge of the English law of contract could be very beneficial to a resident in China; and on looking over the book that another class was using, I found that they were being instructed how to buy an advowson in England. I cannot of course say that the class was actually taught this interesting information, but it was certainly in their text-book. Another text-book was a summary of the history of the world; it was issued by an American firm. On looking up the chapter which referred to China I found the most extreme expression that an American democratic feeling could prompt used with regard to the Emperor of China. I pointed this out to the Chinamen. Apparently no one had taken the trouble to glance through the books that were being used. Such action is regrettable, because it inevitably brings Western education into disrepute, and suggests it to be something essentially revolutionary.
Another curious experience was to find a Cantonese Chinaman teaching a science class in English because he did not know Mandarin. It will be one of the limitations to the usefulness of the Hong-KongUniversity that the bulk of the students who attend it will be Cantonese-speaking Chinamen, and they will therefore be inefficient as teachers to the great mass of the Chinese empire. A University which hopes to produce teachers which shall teach the whole of China must be a University situated in Mandarin-speaking China.
It was waxing late after we had seen these schools. We had consumed a great amount of the day in partaking of a most excellent Chinese luncheon, where the only mistake I had made—at least the only one of which I was conscious—was in not being instructed in the nature of the entertainment. I had yielded to the solicitations of my host and had partaken largely of the first two or three courses. Later on in the luncheon I was divided between the desire to be polite and a fear that the capacity of the human body might be exceeded. Our host was the Director of Education, and my interpreter whispered to me that he had a great knowledge of cooking and that "he loved a dry joke." His skill as a Director of Education, especially of Western subjects, might be doubted; but as a kindly host and an amusing companion he would have few equals in our country. This aspect of the Chinese official too often escapes the Western critic; whether efficient or inefficient, they are always agreeable men. After luncheon he begged to be excused, as he had a visit of ceremony to pay; it was the birthday of a dear friend's mother.His official robes were brought out, and clothed in them he took his seat in a sedan chair and left us.
We were taken on, rather unwillingly I fancied, to see the Commercial School. The hour of the classes was over, but still the school was really instructive. What was so remarkable about it was the extreme simplicity of the place where the boys lodged. The school is not maintained by Government, but by the rich Silk Guild of Nanking. Many members of this Silk Guild, I was assured, would only be able to read and write enough to carry on their business. They are a rich and powerful body, and this school is intended for their sons. The dormitory was a slate-covered building without any ceiling, and the beds were arranged like berths on board ship, one on the top of the other, with narrow passages between them. In this way, of course, a room was made to hold a perfectly surprising number of individuals. I could not help remembering the Church Army Lodging-house at home. If we arranged the beds as they were arranged in that room, though we should double or treble the number of travellers we could house, we should incur the wrath of the sanitary authority.
Very different was the Naval School. Here reigned efficiency, for the Naval School is under the partial control of two officers lent by His Majesty's Navy. The limit of their control was the limit of their efficiency. For instance, the Chinese Government sometimes refused to let their naval officers be shown an actual ship; their idea was much the sameas that of the lady who forbid her son to bathe until he had learnt to swim. The difficulty was very great for anything like practical instruction. Continual representations induced the Chinese Government to allow the boys to have a trip on the river in an old ship. The moment this was accomplished there was great self-congratulation on the part of the Chinese official; from resisting this reasonable suggestion they changed to self-laudation at the wisdom of accepting the plan. The efficiency of the teaching was not only hindered by the want of practical knowledge, which is of course fatal to naval efficiency, but these officers had also to complain of what so many other Europeans have to complain—first, that the people whom they were sent to teach did not know enough English, so that much of their time was spent in teaching elementary English; secondly, that their classes were not large enough. Far away the most effective way of using a Western teacher would be to use them as we saw them used in one school. The Western teacher was supported by two or three Chinese assistants; he gave his lecture in English, and the pupils took notes; then the assistants went round the desks, looked at the notes, and explained in Chinese all those points that the pupils had not fully taken in. This plan has another advantage, that it trains these Chinese teachers to continue the work of a Western teacher, and in some ways it is a more efficient system than the normal schools. The Western teacher of course exercises a generalsupervision over his class and maintains order and discipline.
While I had been busy with the boys' schools, my wife had been busy with the girls' schools. She was taken over the Viceroy's School, the one already described where the little girls showed such surprising knowledge of the Chinese Classics. Her experience was less happy than mine. The children were being drilled by a Japanese instructress who could hardly play at all; she used a small gem harmonium, and the drilling was little better than a feeble country dance. The same instructress was responsible for a singing lesson; she played with one hand on a harmonium, and allowed the children to bawl as they pleased without either time or tune. All the pupils at this school were day scholars.
The interpreter who conducted Mrs. King, the Consul's wife, and my wife over this and the following schools had removed his own daughter to a mission school, thinking she would receive better teaching. As regards the musical part of the instruction there can be no question but that he was right. The next school she saw was also for the children of the gentry, who supported it by subscriptions. There were 140 girls, fifty of whom were boarders whose parents paid for their board. These fifty young ladies all slept in one room, and their toilet arrangements impressed my wife as anything but luxurious; the effect was more like a steerage cabin on a big liner than an ordinary school dormitory. The class-roomswere all on the ground floor, leading from courtyard to courtyard in Chinese house fashion. The instruction seemed to be mainly Chinese, with attention paid to geography, drawing, and fancy work, English being taught by a young Chinese teacher in a rather elementary way. The mistresses appeared in dignified skirts, no doubt as a symbol of authority.
The last school she was shown was larger and less exclusive. It was well organised, the classes being arranged with sense and discrimination. There were 200 pupils of all ages and ranks, the school being a public one. They were mostly dressed in black. Ten lady teachers presided over this school, including a normal class with a male superintendent; the whole in Chinese buildings. The teaching comprised Confucian ethics, the Chinese characters, arithmetic, geography, drawing from flat copies, and English given by a young Chinese girl who had been educated in a Shanghai mission school.
The instruction seemed to be good on the whole. About one-fourth of the scholars boarded at the school. Attached to it was a kindergarten managed rather sleepily by two Japanese. Again the children's singing was hardly worthy of the name. My wife was impressed by the inferiority of the Government girls' schools to the mission girls' schools in almost every particular. Doubtless they will soon improve, but at present the Government does not seem able to obtain efficient teachers, and is much too inclined to spend vast sums on practically uselessapparatus—useless because the instructors do not understand how to use it.
Our experiences at Nanking were extremely interesting, but they were not exceptional. We saw over Government schools at Wuchang, again at Changsha, and also we saw something of the Peking University. At Changsha matters were not nearly so far advanced as they were at Nanking. There were the same Japanese teachers, one of whom taught English, but I could not get a single copy-book produced to show how far they had advanced in the knowledge of this language. There were the same American teachers; good men, but unable to do much owing to their want of knowledge of Chinese, and owing, as I said before, to a certain jealousy which prevented them having a sufficient number of pupils. The very excellent school which is carried on at Shanghai, under Western management, forms a good contrast to the others. This school does not profess to teach very advanced subjects, but it teaches ordinary English subjects most efficiently. The system is this: the boys are first taught in Chinese, while they are acquiring the rudiments of Western knowledge and of the English language; they are then transferred to a class which is taught in English by Chinese; here they acquire from their own countrymen a very thorough knowledge of English and a tolerable knowledge of Western subjects. In both these divisions of the school all explanations are given in Chinese. After they have acquired a good knowledge of English they are thenadvanced to the class which is taught by an Englishman, who has some knowledge of Chinese; here they perfect their knowledge of English, and the teacher can if necessary explain a difficulty by the help of a Chinese word. Lastly, they are taught absolutely in English by an Englishman who need not know any Chinese, as it is never used.
At Wuchang the schools were similar to those of Nanking. The only school which was exceptionally interesting was the School of Languages. This was managed by a Manchu, who was prompt, exact, and efficient—in fact, the very greatest contrast to the usual Chinese official. He spoke French perfectly, as he had been brought up in Paris and spent some time in the West. In a few words he showed that he understood the problem of education in China. He told me that his nation would never succeed in teaching their nationals Western subjects until they selected teachers who had some experience in the knowledge and in the art of teaching, and that the habit of regarding all Westerners as capable of teaching all Western subjects must produce disaster. He boldly professed himself a Roman Catholic, and was one of several examples that came under my notice of the wonderful influence that Christianity has on the formation of a vigorous character. The boys had been very well taught in English and French, and I gathered in German and Russian as well. Certainly if China gets such men to lead her, she need have little fear of the power of the West.
The difficulties in the way of education differ in Government schools and in Mission schools. If the Chinese Government could unite the Government schools to the Mission schools, they would overcome all these difficulties, and they would have a most perfect system of Western education. Of all the difficulties lying in the way of Government schools, first and foremost is the fundamental weakness of China, that weakness which is endangering her national existence, a weakness which I fear she will never completely surmount until she accepts a higher ideal. For her weakness is the universal greed for gain. Resident after resident reported the same cause of weakness, that a Chinaman cannot resist taking his "squeeze"—that is, his commission. It is not of course so dishonest as it would be on our side of the globe, because a Chinaman is more or less avowedly paid by these commissions, and therefore in many ways they are rather equivalent to the fees paid by an Englishman to a Government office than to illicit commissions, the acceptance of which in this country is punishable by law. If it is not as immoral, it is almost as deleterious to efficiency, because it tendsto make officials unreasonable in their action. To ask the reason why things are done in China, is always to receive the answer that somebody got a "squeeze" thereby.
And so it is with education. As we wandered through room after room filled with apparatus sufficient to teach thousands of students, and of such a complicated nature as absolutely to confuse those students when taught, one longed that a tithe of this expenditure could have been used for that modicum of apparatus which is necessary to make not a few mission schools thoroughly efficient. Much of the apparatus has never got outside its packing cases, and perhaps a great deal had better permanently remain there, for nothing is so subversive to the proper teaching of men whose great defect is that they have never handled things with their hands, as to give them complicated apparatus to demonstrate the most recondite laws of science. A great scientific teacher, when consulted about the apparatus necessary for elementary science, advised plenty of bonnet wire, glass tubes, and one or two other little things of that sort. When one asks why the Chinese have been so lavish in their expenditure on apparatus which they cannot and will not use, the reply is the same old answer—somebody got a commission. Bui I think beyond that there is a real belief that education is a matter of expensive apparatus—a belief which is not altogether unknown on this side of the globe.
This brings me to the second great difficulty in the path of Government education. They will believe that an efficient education results rather from having an expensive building than from a competent teacher. I have before had occasion to refer to the extreme simplicity of the life of the Chinese. Many of the schools were housed, and very comfortably housed, in Chinese houses. The Chinese house always looks out on a courtyard, and courtyard is joined to courtyard by passages. The rooms are only divided from the courtyard by carved wooden screens whose interstices are sometimes filled with paper and sometimes not. They are eminently sanitary—in fact, to a large extent they fulfil the requirements of the "open-air cure." In one case in the courtyard were a lot of basins and ewers, and the boys were compelled to have a wash, which if extensive must, in the winter, have been extremely unpleasant. For all this I expressed my sincere admiration to my friend the Director of Education, but he received my compliment much in the same spirit with which a mother accepts your assertion that her child is far prettier in her every-day dress with tousled hair than she is in her Sunday clothes, as with hideous tidiness and pharisaic pomp she wends her way to church. My compliment was taken almost as an insult. I was then shown the ideal of China, a huge and hideous building, modelled on the architecture which white men deem necessary to enable them to support the tropical heat, to the fatal effects of which they areso sensitive; massive walls to carry the heavy roof; huge arched verandahs where white people may get the breath of air they so need. Of what use are all these to a race who cannot understand what you mean when you speak of the heat being unhealthy, who, however sensitive to cold and wet, flourish in the warmth to which they have been accustomed all their lives? The Chinese do not admire this architecture for its æsthetic effect; they care little about its heat-resisting qualities. They like it because it is Western; because Western people are educated in such buildings; because, I suppose, they expect Western learning to work in some way through those massive stone walls to the minds of the pupils; and because they fancy Western ideas would be more easily understood in these hideous surroundings.
Thirdly, there is no serious effort made to get good teachers. At one time, I understand, they had in their service a very remarkable body of men—men like Professor Martin of Peking—whose knowledge was only equalled by the sincerity of their purpose. Lately they have been getting rid of these men as fast as they could, the cry of "China for the Chinese" being perhaps responsible for this movement; and they have endeavoured to replace them by Chinese subjects with but little success. They have therefore fallen back again on foreigners, largely on Japanese. These men are some of them very able and qualified teachers; some, on the other hand, have had little or no experience of teaching, and their inefficiency tendsto bring all foreign teachers into disrepute. Not only must the teacher have a special knowledge of the art of teaching, but a teacher of a race like the Chinese, with different traditions to our own, must well understand those traditions. We can best realise the enormous difficulty a Chinese student has of learning from a Western teacher by remembering how impossible it is for any of us to understand something that is put from a Chinese point of view.
If the Chinese Government want efficient foreign teachers, they must not pick up anybody, but they must hold out inducements to young men to come as teachers, and must give them security of tenure. If, for instance, the Chinese Government had in their service such an efficient body of men as could be found in the mission schools, they would have no difficulty. Another difficulty which stands in the way of the Chinese schools is their want of discipline. One of the most remarkable developments in China is the school strike. They have undoubtedly extraordinary powers of united action, but the school strike originates as much in the weakness of the teachers as it does in the remarkable power the Chinese race has of united action; you hear of it all over China, and it is sometimes ludicrous, sometimes serious. One school struck because the foreign teachers required the pupils to pass an examination of efficiency before they would give them a testimonial. This was deemed most incorrect by thescholars, who held a doctrine which would be very attractive to our own undergraduates, that residence alone was a sufficient qualification for a degree. Many of the strikes take place for most occult reasons.
And this brings me to mission schools, for strikes take place equally with them as in Government schools. They occur in boys' and in girls' schools, and for the most un-understandable reasons. In one school the strike began because a Chinese teacher caught hold of a boy's queue and dragged him by it. The boy's "face" was injured, and his companions made common cause. Another strike took place in a girls' school because a girl was punished. Of course these strikes do not occur where there is an efficient and vigorous teacher. It was attempted, for instance, with Archdeacon Moule, but it only ended in the leaders being caned. Still, one mission had its school practically ruined by one of these strikes; it was the result of an intrigue by an unbelieving teacher who had been employed by mistake. These strikes are not a very great difficulty to the mission when it is in charge of efficient and experienced men; a little justice and firmness apparently soon disposes of any unreasonable resistance to authority, and tact and knowledge prevent any friction which may result from regulations that may be offensive to Chinese ideas.
A far greater difficulty in the mission schools is the question of finance. The Chinese for the most part pay their scholars; the result is that the mission schoolhas to compete not only against a free school, but against a school in which pupils are paid to come, and it appears as if it would be almost an impossibility for mission schools to support themselves against such competition. As a matter of fact it is usually found that so great a value do the Chinese put on the efficient education that they receive in the mission school that they are willing to pay a reasonable fee rather than be paid for the useless education given by the Government school. Still it makes finance a certain difficulty. Many of the schools are largely self-supporting; others rely on fees to find board and lodgings for the pupils and the salaries of the native teachers. So that every school more or less carries a great financial burden.
The great difficulty of mission schools at the present time springs partially from Government action. The ideal of every Chinaman is at present to be in the service of the Government; we must emphasise that word "at present," because undoubtedly, owing to the railway development of China, a wealthy commercial class must arise all over her land, as it has already risen in the great port towns. This class will be independent of Government and will be the class that needs Western education more than any other class, for they will be in intimate contact with the West. But at present those who seek a higher education hope for the most part for Government employment. One of the rules of Government employment is that the officials shall oncertain days repair to the various temples to represent the Emperor, and it is naturally held that such action is impossible for a Christian. Besides this, the Government makes it extremely hard if not impossible for a Christian to go to its University at Peking. All teachers and pupils in a Government school are required on the Emperor's birthday to bow down or kow-tow to the tablet of Confucius. Missionaries hold that such action is not consistent with the Christian faith, and therefore the mission school is very loath to send its Christian pupils on to the Government University.
It must, however, be stated that several Chinese scholars, including a Christian, have indignantly denied that the kow-towing to the tablet of Confucius implies anything more than the respect due to the greatest thinker that China ever possessed. We had the privilege of being shown over Peking University by an extremely able and pleasant Chinese gentleman, a Christian. He showed us the tablet of Confucius and explained to us the ceremony. It must be owned that externally there was but little that one could associate with the idea of divinity. The tablet was behind a glass case, and at first it suggested some sort of educational apparatus. The desks were placed at right angles to it, so that it did not actually occupy what could be regarded as the chief place in the room. The gentleman who showed us over strenuously denied that any of the pupils in Peking Government University could regardConfucius as God. None were admitted to the University except those who were already well versed in the Chinese Classics, and they knew perfectly well that in these Classics Confucius said that he had no supernatural power; while the leading commentator on Confucius, the man whose teaching had more than any other influenced modern Confucianism, was avowedly an agnostic, and therefore, so far from regarding the tablet as divine, it would be nearer the truth to say that the greater bulk of the scholars disbelieve in the idea of God altogether, or at any rate hold an agnostic position with regard to it. When I put these difficulties to an eminent missionary the answer was, yes, but by a late edict they have made Confucius equal to heaven and earth, and so whatever doubts there were before have been resolved, and the Chinese Government has decreed to Confucius divine honour. I put this criticism to an able civil servant in the employ of the Chinese Government, and he answered that that decree was really intended to have the opposite effect. The Chinese are aware that they are as a matter of fact relegating Confucius to a secondary place in education, and they are therefore most anxious to propitiate the Confucian scholars. They have compromised the matter much on the same system that we use in the West with regard to some politician whose services have been valuable, but who is actually a hindrance in the House of Commons. Confucius has been given divine honoursas the worn-out politician in England is given a peerage; it is a form of honourable retirement. A very intellectual Chinese, however, expressed himself quite otherwise, saying that anybody who understood Chinese views would have grasped the meaning of making Confucius equal to heaven and earth. As heaven and earth induce the wealth of mankind, so has Confucius done by his teaching; as heaven and earth can change things and make things exist that were not, so with Confucius; but that Chinese theology regards heaven and earth as created by the one God, and therefore Confucius is put in the position of an exalted but a created being. What impresses perhaps the Westerner more than this rather recondite Chinese reasoning is the simple fact that while by the Government edict it is decreed that the tablet of Confucius shall be honoured by three bowings and nine knockings, it is also ordained that the schoolmaster shall be honoured by one bowing or kow-tow and three times knocking the ground with the head. The similarity of the salute to the schoolmaster and to the tablet of Confucius rather disposes of the idea that the act of reverence to the tablet involves worship. On the other hand, it is pointed out that this is the main ceremony that is observed in what are called the temples of Confucius; but when this was put to a Chinaman, his answer was that they were not temples, and if there had been any worship in those temples, they would have been frequentedas much by the women and children as by the men, but as a matter of fact they were frequented only by literati. When it was suggested that on occasion, however, there were sacrifices in these temples, he did not deny this, but changed the subject.
But we must not say that the respect and reverence offered to Confucius, whether it involves idolatry or not, is the only reason why Christian pupils are advised not to go to the Government Universities. There are two other great reasons. The first is an extremely practical one: the education in Government Universities is avowedly imperfect. The fact that the Government have subscribed to the English University at Hong-Kong and to the German College in Shantung show that they are aware of their own shortcomings. The second reason is that the racial characteristics of Chinamen demand that they should act as a body. An acute observer asserted that, as far as he was able to judge the matter, no Chinaman ever acted independently; and that therefore it is putting a burden greater than the race can bear to ask that Christians should maintain their Christianity when they are surrounded by an unbelieving and heathen atmosphere; and that, as a matter of fact, the result of sending students to Government Universities would, except in cases of men of very strong character, be to send them to unbelief. Yet a greater and simpler objection is that these Government Universities for the mostpart do not exist, and that it is impossible for small institutions like that at Peking to take even a hundredth part of the students who are clamouring for Western education. But the mission schools have another and a newer difficulty, one which is causing the greatest heart-searching. This I must reserve for the next chapter.