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that seemed terrible. He saw that the Western learning cut away the very roots of the religion of China. For Buddhism and Taoism he had no regrets. Buddhism and Taoism are decaying. and cannot long exist.' Then use their property and their temples as schools of Western learning! But the danger to Confucianism was a very different matter. In the eyes of Chang Chih Tung the overthrow of Confucianism would mean the overthrow of all moral sanctions. A people without a religion is a people lost. He urges the people to tolerate Christianity. The Western religion,' he says, 'is flourishing and making progress every day.' He even goes so far as to argue that it cannot injure the Chinese because Confucianism as it is now practised is inadequate to raise them from their present miserable condition. The real danger is learning without any religion.

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In this Chang Chih Tung was certainly right; where he erred was in imagining that there was in Confucian ethics sufficient vital energy to restore a fallen people. He was anxious for a revival of pure Confucianism. He wanted to do away with the useless rubbish that has accumulated in course of time,' and to study only what is important. He forgot that the study of a moral code by itself cannot inspire the hearts of men to sacrifice worldly success. Chang Chih Tung himself wrote as if he were maintaining a lost 'Buddhism is dead, Taoism is dead, Confucianism is in peril.' And the danger to Confucianism arose from precisely that study and practice which Chang Chih Tung saw was essential to the salvation of his country.

cause.

All this happened not quite ten years ago: what has been the result? Chang Chih Tung advised his people to send young students abroad, especially to Japan. In February 1902 there were 271 men and three girls studying in Japan; last year there were 14,000 men. This year, for reasons which I shall presently explain, there is probably not half that number; but even half that number is sufficient to raise very serious questions. Chang Chih Tung advised the establishment of schools throughout the Empire; last year, in spite of his advanced age, he resigned his vice-royalty in order to undertake the task of establishing a system of universal education. There are now schools of Western learning in nearly all the great cities of the Empire, and the enthusiasm for founding these institutions is not abating. It is certainly true that qualified teachers are only too rare, and that even after nine years, in many places people profess to teach foreign languages on the

strength of a slight acquaintance with one of the 'language without a teacher' books; but, nevertheless, the schools are open, the thirst for knowledge is awakened, whilst in some of the provincial colleges the education in Western science and literature is not to be despised. Nor has this growth of schools affected only the boys. Schools have been opened for the education of the daughters of the gentry, and little girls may be seen going to and fro with their school books, in a country where the seclusion of women was considered one of the fundamental principles of society. When Yuan Shih Kai took his leave of Tientsin in November last year, in his address to the people he strongly urged the importance of these schools for girls, because he said women are the roots of a nation. It is needful that in all provinces rich and poor be educated alike.'

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The extraordinary change which has been wrought in these few years is illustrated in the simplest and most effective way by a report of events which took place in Kweilin in December 1907. A running track was laid out 800 yards in circumference for The Kuangsi Schools' Competitive Sports.'

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The gateways were made of bamboo, wreathed with evergreens and decked with flags, and in the centre of the circle was a tall flagstaff flying the yellow dragon, and from it to the outer edge of the circle were many lines dressed with thousands of gaily-coloured flags. . . . All round this half-mile circle were the seats of the fair and the mighty-for not only had the great ones of the city lent their countenance to the doings of the day, but for the first time in history Kweilin and his wife' went out together. Row upon row of China's daughters painted one section of the ring with brilliant-hued colours, and blue, red, black, and green silk blended with the dark fur-lined full-dress costumes of the officials, interspersed with the bright blue neat uniforms of the officers and cadets of China's modern army. The girl-students were there as spectators, but took no part in the sports.

About 3000 boys and youths took part in the sports, and the correspondent of the North China Herald,' whose account I have been quoting, remarked that the performances were surprisingly good. Nothing,' he added, so far has served to illustrate the rapid progress of change in our province as these sports, although we are looked upon as the poorest and most backward of all the eighteen.'

Only fourteen years ago Lord Curzon wrote of China as 'a country stupefied with the pride of the past,' 'a monstrous and ugly anachronism, defiantly planted on the fringe of a world to whose contact she is indifferent and whose influence she abhors.' In Ning Po last autumn there was a ladies' club, consisting of eighty

members, presided over by the Taotai's wife. In Canton last year the girl-students held meetings, at which girls were the speakers, to discuss the political situation. In Wuchang a society of young men attached to one of the chapels of the American Episcopal Mission determined to open a night school. Within three days more than a thousand scholars had enrolled their names, and it became necessary to hold a preliminary examination, for which 300 entered, and of these 120 were accepted.

Whilst there is much that is hopeful in this change, there are many symptoms which give those who have the interest of the people at heart grave cause for anxiety. The first of these is the growing impatience of restraint. It is noticeable that the girlstudents are accused of imitating foreign ways, and assuming s sort of freedom which is not becoming; that they lose their modesty. It is noticeable that at the sports at Kweilin' discipline was prac tically non-existent,' several times the decisions of the judges were disputed. Once indeed matters looked quite threatening, and some of the officials looked annoyed and perplexed.' That may seem a slight matter, and one which will be remedied by time and experience; but it appears to take a more serious form amongst the students in Japan. More than once the Minister in charge of these young students has complained that they do not submit themselves to any control. More than once they have threatened a riot. It is a strange fact that the students in Japan last year should have refused to listen to Liang Chi Chao, and should have driven him from the platform, because they accused him of being a Conservative and a reactionary. Liang Chi Chao was one of the leaders of the Reform party who ten years ago fled for his life. but already doctrines which ten years ago were deemed visionary and revolutionary have become the common property of the nation. and the hot-headed reformers of to-day will not listen to a word of caution or advice even from a man who has suffered in the cause of reform.

With this impatience of restraint there goes also impatience of method. There is a tendency to refuse the need of preparation and practice, to try to escape the discipline of education. The younger men and the more revolutionary speak and act as if China could become as Japan without even the preliminary training which Japan has undergone. In education this tendency shows itself in the haste with which schools are opened, in which a profession of Western education is made whilst the teachers are as yet wholly

unqualified to teach. In politics it shows itself in a violent denunciation of the present government, and a clamorous demand for new institutions for which the mass of the people is wholly unprepared. The government is constantly hampered in its dealings with foreign nations by the violent outbursts of indignation with which these headstrong young politicians proclaim every concession, every appeal for help, as a surrender of Chinese sovereign rights. It is constantly hindered in its efforts to educate the people for constitutional government by the unreasoning demand for the instant establishment of a republic. In religion the same tendency shows itself in impatience of old ideals, of old truths, of old moral sanctions. Chang Chih Tung foresaw this danger and warned his people of it. It was for this that he so earnestly desired a revival of true Confucianism. That revival has not come. On the contrary the new learning is undermining the old system. Amongst the students Confucius is not held in higher esteem; his teaching is too often forgotten, ignored, despised. The new learning tends to become anti-foreign, revolutionary, irreligious.

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The causes of this attitude are not far to seek. In the West we sometimes hear men warn us in anxious tones of the danger which may threaten from a great uprising in the East. But the Yellow Peril has no reality for the multitude. In China, on the contrary, the common people realise and live in constant terror of a White Peril. In the Boxer rising of 1900 Dr. Ross was astonished at the manifestation of unheard-of hatred' which was shown by a people whom he and his fellow-helpers had always been most careful to conciliate. 'I asked,' he wrote, for one probable reason. The reply was that the joy at the dismissal for ever thus given to the foreigner was not because of anything that we had done, but because they were now freed from the dread, ever hanging over their heads, that the foreigner was here to take possession of their land.' This is the terror which impels the Chinese people to resist at great loss the efforts of Western syndicates to exploit the natural resources of their country. It is to this that the anti-foreign agitator appeals.

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It is all up! It is all up! The calamity has come. The day for the death of all us Anhui people. These foreigners long ago thought of dividing up our China, but because they could not agree on an even partition Japan and Russia came to blows, and so the event had to be postponed. Now they give all their attention to opening mines and making railways in our country. Why is this? This is the old scheme for destroying other people's countries. When they have the right to open mines, then they can easily get our money and destroy our

lives.

When they have railways, then they can easily, step by step, garrison the country with foreign soldiers. . . . When these foreign soldiers are in possession they will oppress the people, rob them of their wealth, outrage their women, and desecrate their graves. My fathers and brethren, can you bear to look on this?1

That is the kind of appeal which the people understand. Nor is this terror relieved by the first lessons which the people are now receiving in geography and European history. They see in the new maps how widespread is the power of these European nations; they read how they have advanced from point to point. Wherever the white man goes the native races either become subject, or disappear. They are not exterminated by fire and sword. There proceeds from the white man a deadly influence. Before him coloured men bow to receive a yoke, or are slowly driven back and cease to be. Their land is no longer theirs. Now shall this multitude lick up all that is round about us, as the ox licketh up the grass of the field.'

The new learning gathered in Japan or in China does not lessen the terror of foreign aggression, nor does it encourage the Chinese people to respect or admire the foreigners whose power they fear. With widespread education, there is a widespread increase of newspapers, and a widespread circulation of books of different kinds. It is important to ask whether the idea of European character and morals presented to their minds by these books and papers is likely to appear admirable and attractive. In the newspapers they see brief and often unintelligible reports of frontier wars, scientific inventions, diplomatic disputes; they see also reports of the cases brought up for trial in the Treaty Ports: they see also advertisements. What is likely to be the effect on the opening minds of the liberal Chinese youth on reading in one single paper of the activity of French troops in Morocco, of the advance of British troops against Mohmands, of the explosion of bombs in Calcutta, of the flight of an American aeroplane, and of an assault committed by some drunken sailors in a Treaty Port? What impression will they receive of foreign character, manners and morals from reading elementary books upon physiology, geography, political science, philosophy and history, together with translations of Uncle Tom's Cabin,' Treasure Island,' 'Les Misérables,' 'Manon Lescaut,' 'Sherlock Holmes,' and some Japanese detective stories and cheap novels? Is it possible that

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Proclamation issued by the Association for the Conservation of Mines and Railways in Anhui, December 1907.

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