Chapter C: W. Kinder, a Briton, of the Kaiping mines, built the first (2)

The short story of China’s navy would not be complete without a word on the naval engagements of the China-Japan War of 1894–5 over Korea, when the whole world breathlessly watched the first trial of modern ironclads, and when the Chinese on several occasions really showed fearlessness under hopeless conditions. At the end of July, 1894, Chinese troops arrived at the Yalu River (which divides Korea and Manchuria) to reinforce General Yeh and Yuan Shih Kai, under cover of the cruiser _Chi Yuen_ (2,300 tons, 17.5 knots), the _Kuang Yi_ (1,030 tons, 16 knots), etc. On July 25th this fleet was met by the much superior Japanese fleet consisting of the _Yoshino_ (4,100 tons, 23 knots), _Akitsushima_ (3,150 tons, 19 knots), and _Naniwa_ (19 knots). After a hot exchange the _Chi Yuen_ escaped from the faster _Yoshino_ by superior work in the stokehold. The _Kuang Yi_ ran aground. Admiral Ting, the one big name in China’s navy, with a weak squadron, daringly sailed from Pechili Gulf on September 14th for the Yalu, landed stores, and skilfully evaded Admiral Ito’s and Rear-Admiral Tsuboi’s squadrons. On September 17th, Admiral Ting led the way with the _Chen Yuen_ (7,400 tons, 15-knot German-built battleship) and the _Ting Yuen_, a twin battleship, in the center, the other vessels on the wings, to meet the Japanese fleets which were advancing in column. Ito passed wide of the right wing of the Chinese. At 6,000 yards the Chinese opened fire ineffectively, but the Japanese reserved their fire until 3,000 yards’ range was reached. The Japanese passed through to the rear, and drove off the smaller Chinese warships. The larger Chinese vessels swung to starboard to keep their bows toward the circling Japanese. The Japanese armored cruiser _Fuso_ (3,700 tons, 13 knots), built in England, steamed in close to the Chinese line. The _Hi Yei_, protected Japanese cruiser (2,250 tons, 14 knots), crossed between the Chinese battleships _Chen Yuen_ and _Ting Yuen_, and as could be expected, both were so damaged that they had to seek the Japanese rear. The slow Japanese _Akagi_, gunboat (614 tons, 13 knots), was hit by the Chinese left wing. The second Japanese squadron now came up, and at once attacked the Chinese front, the first Japanese squadron having completed the circle, attacking the Chinese rear. The Japanese then withdrew and reformed, but the Chinese were not able to reform their line. The Chinese _Yuen Wei_ (gunboat, 1,350 tons, 16 knots) on fire, headed for the Yalu, where she sank with the brave Captain Teng. The Chinese _Chao Yuen_ (gunboat, 1,350 tons, 16 knots) was accidentally rammed by the unmanageable Chinese _Chi Yuen_ (coast defense, 2,300 tons, 17 knots), and both sank, leaving only the two Chinese battleships, which kept fighting and following the Japanese as best they were able. The second Japanese squadron sank the Chinese _King Yuen_ (coast defense, 2,900 tons, 15 knots), while the first Japanese squadron circled around the two Chinese battleships, which could not be maneuvered to advantage. The Chinese _Ting Yuen_ cleverly planted a shell into the Japanese _Matsushima_ (coast defense, 4,277 tons, 16 knots, French built). At 5:30 P. M., after seven and one-half hours’ fighting, the Japanese withdrew for repairs, although they had three armored coast defense, 4,200-ton, 16-knot ships in good condition, two armored and six protected cruisers, all of which answered their helms.

On October 18th, the Chinese battleship _Chen Yuen_ struck at Wei Hai Wei and was seriously injured. On February 5, 1895, at 2 A. M., by a bold move, the first of its kind in naval war, the Japanese torpedo boats raced for an entrance to narrow Wei Hai Wei harbor. Eight boats got in under the high-pointed guns of the fort and fired eleven torpedoes. One torpedo from boat “9” struck the Chinese battleship _Ting Yuen_, which steamed for shallow water, where the Chinese blew her up (this is the battleship which the Japanese later raised and used against the Russians in 1904). The Japanese lost torpedo boats “9” and “22”.

On the morning of February 6th, five more Japanese torpedo boats headed for the harbor, and four entered, torpedoing the Chinese _Lai Yuen_ (coast defense, 2,900 tons, 15 knots) German built; the _Wei Yuen_ (corvette, 1,300) and tender _Pan Fah_. The Chinese torpedo fleet attempted to escape from the western entrance, but were captured or destroyed by the first Japanese squadron. The Japanese towed mortar platforms near the western entrance, and pounded the remaining Chinese battleship _Chen Yuen_, which sank, as her deck was not armored (later raised by Japanese and used against the Russians in 1904). On February 17th, Admiral Ito steamed in, and China’s one fighting naval hero, Admiral Ting, brave but unfortunate, committed suicide. The Japanese secured as prizes the _Kang Chi_, third-class cruiser (1,030 tons, 16 knots), built at Shanghai; the _Ping Yuen_ (coast defense, 2,600 tons, 10 knots), built at Shanghai, and the _Kuang Ping_ (third-class cruiser, 1,030 tons, 16 knots), built at Shanghai. The battle showed the world that a large, fast mosquito fleet, with longer-range guns, can whip even a few bulldog battleships, if the maneuvering of the latter is crippled by lucky shots early in the engagement. In other words, a fleet of faster unarmored cruisers, converted _Lusitanias_, for instance, whose full gun and engine power is effectively maintained, by choosing and keeping their favored range, could in the open sea finally whip poorly handled units of slower battleships.

On one other occasion the crew of a Chinese warship quitted themselves like men. That was when the gunboat _Chen Wei_ alone engaged the whole French fleet of armor-clads at Foochow, August 23, 1884. I quote the report of an independent eye-witness, Commissioner Carrall of Sir Robert Hart’s Imperial Customs Service: “Exposed to the broadsides of the _Villars_ and the _D’Estaing_, and riddled by a terrific discharge from the heavy guns of the _Triomphante_, the little _Chen Wei_ fought to the last. In flames fore and aft, drifting helplessly down the stream and sinking, she plied her guns again and again, till one of the French torpedo boats, the Volta, dashing in through the smoke, completed the work of destruction with a well-placed torpedo.”

The successful rush of an unsupported republican torpedo boat at Hankau on November 19, 1911, past the whole line of blazing imperial shore batteries, in broad daylight, is considered by the foreigners of Hankau as dangerous and courageous a piece of work as the recent revolution exhibited.

XVIII

MODERN EDUCATION IN CHINA

There are twelve modern universities available for the education of the four hundred millions of people in China, located respectively at Hongkong, Shanghai, Nanking, Changsha, Wei Hsien (Shangtung province), Tientsin, Suchow, Tai Yuan, Peking, Hangchow, Wuchang and Canton. One of these is British, nine Mission, one Chinese, and one American Collegiate.

Hongkong University counts among its former law students Wu Ting Fang, foreign minister of the Nanking republicans; among its medical students Doctor Sun Yat Sen, president of the Nanking republican government; and Kang Yu Wei, the original reformer of China, who inspired the imperial reform edicts of 1898. The university is a growth of Queen’s College, Anglican (London Mission), and other foundations. Part of the land was given by a generous Parsee, Mr. Mody, and part of the endowment by Sir Paul Chater, both residents of the colony. One gift of $1,000 came from Chang Ming Chi, at the time viceroy of Canton (Kwangtung province). The Hongkong and Cantonese Chinese are generous contributors. The colonial government and other private founders intend to put the university on a broad basis worthy of the great colony, and equipped for the vast opportunity offered to influence China in the ways of permanent progress. The Cantonese are, and have always been, leaders of republicanism and modernity, and most of their advanced students will avail of the superior advantages offered by the new Hongkong University. There are nearly half a million Chinese in the crown colony itself. Chinese pupils of the London Mission Girls’ School on Bonham Road, Hongkong, have recently won high honors in the art examinations of the Royal Drawing Society, London.

The splendidly housed and equipped St John’s University at Shanghai is American Episcopal. The tourist should take a rickshaw out to Jessfield suburb, five miles from the River Bund, and see its modern buildings, with adapted Chinese roofs. Its leading spirit has for years been a New Yorker by birth, Doctor Francis Pott, son of the noted publisher. Its theological school is, of course, Episcopalian. Most important is its famous medical school, headed by Doctors Boone, Lincoln, Jefferys, Tucker, Myers, and Fullerton, whom all Central China loves. Chinese doctors, such as Tyau, Waung and Koo, assist. The school of arts is equally famous and brilliant, though perhaps not so imperative. I hope the day will soon come when this model university will have a larger science school, not of mediocre equipment, but endowed by some American at least half as richly as a standard American college would be endowed in science. The library, museum, dormitories and teachers’ school all need endowments. The university has a full-fledged modern athletic department, and it is thrilling to see the Chinese boys “play up, play up, and play the game” of American football, baseball, etc. The football team has mowed down the Municipal Police team on many occasions. Track teams and rowing teams from St. John’s are yet going to make China famous at Olympics and Henleys. Military drill is exceedingly popular, and many of the four hundred boys, who represent every province, jumped into the front rank in winning China’s republican revolution, though St. John’s has not yet taught politics. It should and will perhaps add a strong branch in political economy. The debating society is popular, as one could expect in the New China, and the dramatic society is successful, for the Chinese are born actors. The students also have a modern orchestra. The university is not a “griffin”, for it dates back to 1879. Five large buildings stand on the twenty acres of campus.

The Chinese pay in fees $20,000 a year, which is the record for “self help” in China. The college does a work free that it should not be compelled to do, and that is to instruct the families of missionaries. Soon schools for this purpose will be opened at Shanghai, Kowkiang (Kuling mount), and elsewhere in the Far East. Even the poor of foreign families are instructed free at St. John’s whose bowels of compassion so move for the whole East that verily she would exhaust herself in her altruistic zeal. One hundred dollars a year keeps a medical, science, art, political, pedagogical or theological student at St. John’s. St. John’s asks what added American tourists and others will take a “share”, as they call it a Jessfield. The answer is that thousands will. Six hundred dollars keeps one of the best students in America a year to finish. St. John’s asks who will thus enable America to teach the leaders of China, and forever sit closest to their hearts, as they rule the widest political and economical opportunity on earth. America and England should remember that if good does not sit on the bench in the New China, evil will. Japan coerced China out of that immense 1895 indemnity. She should morally pay part of it back, and part should go to the famous St. John’s University of Shanghai, where America has stood so long as a lighthouse amidst the dark waters of remote places.

The University of Nanking (New York State charter) is a union work of the American Methodists, the American Presbyterians, and the Disciples of Christ. Its strategic situation at the cultured capital of the imperial Mings, the high-water mark of the Taiping rebellion, and the capital of southern republicanism, is at once apparent. The leaders of the University took a dramatic part in bringing about the bloodless surrender of Nanking to the victorious republicans, who might have avenged the imperialist Chang’s atrocities. Doctor A. J. Bowen is president, and the following noted educational and medical leaders assist: J. E. Williams, J. W. Drummond, E. C. Lobenstine, Doctor Garritt, Alexander Paul, Frank Garrett, C. S. Settlemyer, Doctor E. Osgood, the noted Doctor J. C. Ferguson, Doctor Henke, Mr. Martin, Mr. Millward, Mr. Bailie, Doctor R. Beebe, and W. F. Wilson. This university does its immense work with only $44,000 a year, because every one works for a pittance, the salary of the president being only $1,500 in a land where life for the foreigner is expensive. That is to say, the president of the University of Nanking altruistically accepts in salary less than would the shorthand writer in the railway office at Nanking, both of whom come from America; the one a cultured gentleman of power, the other probably only a machine mind. The five hundred Chinese students themselves contribute the remarkably large sum of $13,000 a year in fees. The departments include science, arts, theology, pedagogy, athletics, and practically the all-important medical department, because the East China Medical Association (dean, Doctor Shields) works in connection with the University. Nanking will always be a political, naval, military, scientific and cultured center, and therefore the university will have a great influence in teaching the coming leaders of the New China.

There is nothing narrow-minded about the college, for it teaches the Chinese language, literature and philosophy. The extensive grounds cover in the aggregate forty-three acres. There are several dormitories, chapels, residences for staff, and a Y. M. C. A. The best building is the large science hall. The university, surely run economically, needs larger funds for an endowment from America, because it has not the heart to turn away many promising but poor students who must be accommodated practically free. Thirty dollars boards a worthy student for a year, and the college is always glad to hear from those who will support scholarships, increase the buildings and equipment, or add to the library and endowment. Athletes of the university are making their mark, and may extend their triumphs to the Olympic games. Football and track athletics are popular. There is a library, museum, students’ magazine, press, and of course a debating society. The college band, the largest in China, numbers seventy pieces. The boys showed their mettle in benevolent activities when they contributed five hundred dollars for the famine and flood victims, and besides volunteered for work in the stricken districts of Nganhwei province. Model farm colonies in the distressed sections have been undertaken by the university. The university now makes a special appeal for a larger library and reading room building, or institute, to throw open to the great metropolis, and in Chinese fashion, they propose to have a self-supporting tea-room which will be a college club and city institute; a people’s institute in other words. This would be a very popular move in a city which politically will remain either as the first or second city in China. The Chinese themselves prefer it for the capital; the foreigners in North China are using their influence to have Peking retained as the national capital. While hot Nanking is not so healthy as Peking, the writer believes that the foreigners should bow to the wish of the Chinese, and have Nanking named as capital. The higher classes of Chinese are timid as yet of the religious hall, but they are enthusiastic attendants at lecture halls, libraries and clubs. Nanking University intelligently proposes to miss no opportunity.

Yale University (Missionary Society) has its collegiate school and splendid medical school and hospital at Changsha, the capital of conservative inland Hunan province, the former center of “Darkest China.” The staff, in addition to the Chinese members, are Dean Brownell, W. J. Hail, D. H. Leavens, K. S. Latourette, Doctor E. H. Hume, Nurse Nina Gage, and the wives of the staff. All the men are from Yale University, New Haven. As might be expected, wherever a Yale man goes, there is to be found the manly athletic temperament, and Yale at Changsha has its champion football team which is repeating the Camp round-the-end runs, the Heffelfinger plunges, etc.! Yale in China agrees with the Nanking plan of including Chinese in the curriculum. While Yale College mainly supports the work, help for the hospital has come from such churches as the Broadway Tabernacle, of New York, and private donors. Chinese physicians, fully equipped from a western standpoint, like Doctors Yen and Hou, assist. This is the intelligent educational, medical and mission plan throughout all China: “Help the Chinese to help themselves.” Yale College took a leading part in curing opium habitués, and in this astonishing reform in China Yale has been prominent. That the Chinese are not parsimonious or unappreciative is proved by the following facts. Among many others, the governor of Hunan province sent his check for seven hundred dollars, covering his own and the subscriptions of the officials under him, though he felt free to criticize foreign intervention in financial and railway matters in his province. The governor of Chekiang province subscribed one hundred dollars, Ex-grand Councilor Chu gave one hundred dollars, Colonel Niu gave two hundred dollars.

The University of Pennsylvania has a similarly popular medical department at Canton, and Harvard University plans shortly to have a medical branch at Shanghai. Their choice of effort is perfect in wisdom.

Copyright, American Episcopal Church, Foreign Board, N. Y.

The splendid military company of St. John’s University, Shanghai.]

Copyright, American Presbyterian Church, Foreign Board, N. Y.

Shangtung University, at Wei, leading Presbyterian University. Located in Confucius’ province, and influential in the new intellectual China.]

Copyright, American Episcopal Church, Foreign Board, N. Y.

The largest foreign University in China, St. John’s American Episcopal, at Shanghai. Very influential in the New China.]

The Shangtung Union University, now located at Wei, will probably be moved to Tsinan, the capital of the province in which Confucius and Mencius were born. It is a union of the American Presbyterian and the British Baptists, and later the Anglicans, the American Baptists, Congregationalists and Methodists will join. The total endowment of this effective university is only $35,000. There are five hundred students. There are collegiate, science, pedagogical, medical, Chinese, athletic and women’s departments. There is an attractive, towered, large main building, science hall, dormitories, museum and a unique observatory. The chief members of the faculty are the well-known Messrs. Bergen, Hayes, Bruce, Burt, Luce and Whitcher, and the college is able to draw upon the many foreign notables at Peking and Tientsin for popular lectures. China urgently needed advanced education. The individual missions, brilliant in parts, were in general endowed so poorly that they could not furnish it. Therefore they united all over China, and better results are being obtained in specialization by this intelligent method, which has established an example for the western world to follow. Subscriptions should as usual be sent to the mission favored by one’s early training or allegiance, and when they reach China they are applied in some needy department of the union work. In union, there is no lapping over or duplication, and the result is efficiency. When any member of the union lags, a united appeal is addressed to the home board. The high aim of this extensive University of Shangtung is to have an income of $150,000 a year. In all these universities the preparatory and pedagogical departments are not neglected. The need is urged of a large assembly hall, library, science hall, dormitories, scientific equipment, Y. M. C. A., etc., at Tsinan for this university, which stands where four great roads of influence meet and its opportunity is therefore inspiring. China, Britain, Germany and Japan come together closely in Shangtung province, and the university’s sphere is so wide a one that the present constricted income is insufficient. The students contribute nearly $2,000 in fees, though many students must necessarily be taught free. Shangtung University has always stood high for its special work in translating and printing important books into Mandarin Chinese. It is interesting that the students have developed choral work perhaps more than most of the colleges. China has neglected music in the recent centuries, but St. John’s, Nanking and Shangtung Universities are teaching it to her again.

The Pei Yang University, of Tientsin, is the leading engineering and technical institute of China. Its teachers are Americans, British and Germans. English is taught. It aims to be the Stevens Institute, or Boston Tech. of China. The Chinese board has been sometimes obstructive, depending on the intelligence of the directors. However, the school does wonderful and will do better work when affairs become settled in China. Its hope, as in every other institute, is in its graduates even more than in its professors, and certainly more than its native directors of the old type! It will soon have the fine German technical schools of Tsingtau to emulate. The Pei Yang University has sent out many notable graduates who have at once advanced to leadership in China. One is now vice-president of China.

The Shansi University at Tai Yuan, the provincial capital, was established in 1901 by the English Baptists with “Boxer” indemnity funds restored to China at the request of Doctor Timothy Richard, the promoter of the Red Cross in China, and president of the university for ten years. It is English and Chinese in personnel, and has passed through bloody waters in the many disturbances which have surged around it.

Peking University is also a union in educational work of the American Congregationalists, American Presbyterians and London Mission, and in medical work, of the Methodists and Anglicans in addition. This is decidedly the leading medical college in China, and includes a women’s medical college, nurses’ training school, hospital and dispensaries. World famous names in connection with the university are Doctor W. A. P. Martin, Doctor J. W. Lowrie, Doctor Smith, Doctor Wherry, Doctor Fenn, Doctor Leonard, Doctor Hall, Doctor Mackey, Doctor Young, and Doctor Lewis. The medical school led in the heroic efforts to stamp out the virulent pneumonic plague in Manchuria in 1911.

At beautiful Hangchow, the “bore city,” the American Presbyterians are erecting a full college equipment on a lovely site outside the city wall, on a hill near the water. The students run the grounds, gardens, roads, etc., on a “self-help” plan. The famous mission press, which is doing wonderful work in translating and publishing, is retained, however, at cultured Soochow for the present. At Soochow the American Methodists have established a large university. It has a prominent clock tower, an unusual feature, which is highly appreciated by the modernized Chinese.

At Wuchang, where the republican revolution broke out in October, 1911, the American Episcopals have Boone University, and Oxford and Cambridge will establish here the extensive university on which Lord Salisbury’s son, Lord Cecil, after his visit to China, wrote a charming book in 1910. At Canton is the Canton Christian College.

These are the leading universities. The Chinese themselves intended to establish government universities, high and preparatory schools, at all the twenty-one provincial capitals, but to date only those at Peking, Paoting, Tsinan, Tai Yuen, Nanking, Shanghai, Chingtu, Yunnan, Tientsin, Hangchow, Fuchau and Canton have been established, and they have drawn mainly on the mission universities and foreign-trained students for professors. The new education was naturally organized by the government first in the metropolitan province of Pechili. It included a university at Tientsin, a provincial college at Paoting, seventeen industrial schools, three high, forty-nine elementary normal, two medical, three foreign language, eight commercial, five agricultural, thirty middle, one hundred and seventy-four upper, one hundred and one mixed, eight thousand six hundred primary, one hundred and thirty-one girls’ schools and one hundred and seventy-four night schools in the industrial cities. Is this not an inspiringly comprehensive program? Both the Board of Education and Yuan Shih Kai deserve credit for largely taking the suggestions of the foreigners at Peking and Tientsin in establishing in Pechili province this system of modern education, which stands as a model for the other twenty provinces and territories. Many modern buildings have been erected, but where sufficient money was not available, the fine old temples and barracks have been impressed, and the surprised sad gods overthrown. In many cases the gentry and guilds have donated buildings. The government finds its greatest difficulty in securing teachers, and they are exhausting the supply that the mission universities are able to certificate. This new proof of the friendliness of missions had much to do with the disinclination of the republicans and imperialists to take the lives of foreigners during the recent revolution. In preparing pupils to go abroad for further training, the government has maintained at Peking a special school. At Chingtu, the capital of Szechuen province, the provincial government established railway, medical, normal, mining, engineering, agricultural, foreign language and military schools, and owing to its success Szechuen led in the agitation for provincialism versus nationalization in railway and other matters, and this really opened the revolution in September, 1911, a month before the outbreak in Hupeh province. The students in the universities at the provincial capitals are clothed and boarded at government expense, the student signing for three years and promising to answer a draft for government service.

Japan has lost her grip to a degree, and America particularly and Britain have taken her place in educating China. The Chinese complain of the “enormous” cost of a foreign teacher, but have him or her they will! The American educational advance has been astonishingly brilliant. What America is doing for Chinese education can be judged by the statement that the American Presbyterian Church alone has three hundred and fifty-nine institutions of learning in China, and I believe the Methodist denomination has even more, for that church leads in world missions, as is well known. America does not pay for all of this, for no race surpasses the Chinese in generosity and “self-help.” The Hackett Presbyterian Women’s Medical College of Canton, under the charge of the celebrated Doctor Mary Fulton, aims “to supply each city with two modern physicians.” What a brave contract! Charities and orphanages are the special field of the Roman church; there is no work that can equal theirs in China in this regard. The Protestants and Chinese prefer to train the more advanced mind. The American Presbyterians have a beautiful high school at Fati, Canton; an academy at Ningpo, a high school at the south gate of Shanghai, and an academy at Peking. The list is too long to enumerate. The annual reports of the various Foreign Mission Boards make illuminating reading and give the names of the heroic educational pioneers. The brilliant work of the presses, like those at Shanghai, Peking, Wei Hsien (Shangtung) and Soochow, the ten thousand little rills of income, the contributions of the broad-minded Chinese officials and students, are all surprising. How much they are doing with so little money! How much they could do for American and British educational influence in China with only a little more money! It is “up to” the American and British business man, if he decides to be both kind and “wise in his generation.”

The women of America and Britain are doing their share, especially in hospitals and nurses’ and girls’ schools. The American Presbyterian women have at Canton and elsewhere model institutions, similar to many throughout the crowded land, which land is going to heal itself, with foreign help, of all its diseases: bodily, mental, economical and international. I have known several people of late who have inherited legacies, and happening to read a China book, they were curious to see what a little money, that came so easily, altruistically “invested” there, would do. They have erected a few hospitals and schools, and their joy has not ceased when they saw the wonderful results in the able hands to which the philanthropy was committed. The impetus they thus gave to the progress of the world was greater than the same amount would have caused anywhere else.

For the girls and women of China, St. Hilda’s School, at Wuchang, where the revolution broke out on October 10, 1911, does a great work under the auspices of the American Episcopal women of Philadelphia, a few of whom bought land outside the east gate of that old capital, where the famous Chang Chih Tung was for many years viceroy. The girls’ college sprang up under the watchful eye of Bishop Roots, who has made a noble name among the Chinese. The opportunity of this school is to be yet the Barnard College or the Girton College of China, and of the need of it, by women for women, all this volume could not say enough. No land is sure of its progressive condition until the women are freed, educated and progressive. The enjoyment of continued progress by the men is not certain until the girls and women are swinging alongside of them on the great road of life at the same pace, and with equal opportunity. There can not be real companionship between inferior and superior; women and men must be equal. Therefore the eyes of all China and America and Britain are on such institutions as St. Hilda’s. It, too, is run on the share principle, fifty dollars per girl per year, to put a modern woman as a lighthouse in China to advance the world cause of womanhood.

The Yangtze valley, in particular, is the sphere of America’s influence, and where the high tide of rebellion swept, America’s educational influence will now follow, since fate has launched her there in the colleges mentioned, and others not mentioned for want of space. Lord Cecil plans to have the vast English foundation of Oxford and Cambridge Colleges at Wuchang (see his enthusiastic book), and if America has its equal at the other end of the brimming Yangtze at Shanghai, honors will be equal. Germany is not going to neglect the opportunity, as she has plans for Nanking and Hankau. Much luck to her. _Contentia in bona!_ America and England have won a vast advantage, however, over Germany and France, in that China, on recommendation of the Board of Education, has adopted English as the official language for the study of science, geography, travel and international politics in all Chinese universities, technical colleges and high schools. This victory was brought about through the influence of the Chinese students who had studied in Britain and America, and a comparison of the technical and educational books issued by the different countries, the report being that the English language had three to one in its favor. When the nations wish to study about China or any foreign country, they have to take up or translate books written in English, for the American and Briton are the most curious concerning the world’s countries and naturally the authorities on comparative ethnology and international economics.

The Y. M. C. A. has come to China, and at Tientsin maintains a school as an adjunct pf the religious, literary and athletic work. Industrial schools have been opened, and they will do a vast work in recovering China’s lost arts and extending her commerce. There is a government industrial school at Peking for the production of the famous and almost lost cloisonné, rugs, furniture, etc. The patterns for rugs are memorized. At Tientsin the pattern is hung over the worker’s head. The schoolboys of old China were most familiar with the first two lines of the Trimetrical Classic: “Man in the beginning was essentially holy.” In Mandarin this is pronounced: “Jin chi tsu, sing pun shen.” The pronunciation of the province of Szechuen is a little heavier, viz: “Jen dze tsou, sin pen chan.” Now the boys of New China are concluding that “Man in the beginning was essentially misinformed!”

That the Chinese can become linguists has seldom been more uniquely illustrated than in the following experience related by Prince Henri d’Orleans. He was about to travel through the territories of the aboriginal Lolo tribes of Yunnan province. The difficulty was to find an interpreter. The general interpreter who only knew the Mandarin pronunciation of the north, or the Cantonese pronunciation of the south, would not do. The prince found at the Mission d’Etrangeres at Tali, in remote Yunnan, an interpreter who knew the Lolo dialects, and though he could not converse with the prince in French or English, he could converse fairly well in Latin, and they got along splendidly. It appears that the Catholic fathers had taught the convert from the Latin Fathers, Jerome, Chrysostom, etc!

Eager as the Chinese are to learn from text-books, they more eagerly cry for exhibits which appeal to the eye, and the establishment of museums, heretofore neglected, except in the few universities already mentioned, should be undertaken. Take one week’s records at the Hongkong Museum, for instance. Four hundred and sixteen non-Chinese and 163 Chinese used the library, but 193 non-Chinese and 3,100 Chinese studied in the museum. The resourceful Canadian government sent a traveling exhibit through China. It is what the Chinese call for. We shall yet see floating and wheeled museums, _in parvo_, throughout the empire, as educational bodies and merchants appreciate this as the quickest way to approach the Chinese mind.

When the revolution of 1911 had developed strength, the Chinese government found itself unable to remit to the thousands of students who were studying in foreign countries. The American and British universities, without exception, nobly offered to aid any needy Chinese student. The move was brilliant and humane, and will be bread scattered upon returning waters of appreciation some day.

The new representative assemblies have necessitated the introduction of shorthand in China. The Tsze Chen Yuan (National Assembly) in session at Peking as early as August, 1911, ordered night classes to be opened for learning the art, so that the civil service clerks might attend. I know that missionaries, helpless in committing to paper accurately the sounds of the scores of Lolo, Miaotsze, and other dialects in Yunnan, Szechuen and Kweichou provinces (where aborigines abound) have had recourse effectually to phonography. If the brilliant Dickens, John Hay, the American secretary of state, who founded the policy of “non-partition of China,” and many others, were phonographers, why might a missionary not be one also!

Some of the educational proverbs of the Chinese are the following:

“A lion breeds lions, and a brave father has brave sons.”

“Learn easy, forget easy; learn hard, forget hard.”

“Life is a river; if you are not going forward on it, you are falling behind.”

“Youth jumps and slips; age picks its steps and crosses safely.”

“Measure words by the height of the brain, not the height of the body.”

“A loose rein for a good head; a tight rein for a loose heart.”

“Faces are alike, but minds are myriad.”

“It takes longer to determine than to do.”

“Fate doesn’t plan the lot of a fool.”

“The mind chisels the face.”

“It isn’t far at the turn of two roads, but they end far apart.”

“With weeds, and with learning, get at the root.”

“Nothing that is human is alien to a good man’s interest.”

“He who has no ambition is like an ax without edge.”

“Moments are more precious than jewels, for the first can not be recovered if lost; the second may be found.”

“A right beginning makes a proper ending.”

“A tight mouth keeps back much mischief.”

“Heaven never put a bar against resource.”

“When you know yourself thoroughly, you know everyone else.”

“Prejudice is the thief of persuasion.”

“Two things strangle, the tongue and the cord.”

“Be as cross to yourself as you are to others; be as sweet to others as you are to yourself.”

“Never too great to learn.”

“The last step must be as steady as the first in climbing a hill.”

“The downy chin goes over it; the bristly chin goes round it; or, the young head for the long jump, and the old head for the long thought.”

“Good gives the tangible, evil but the shadows.”

“If you insist on every one being like you, look nowhere but in your mirror.”

XIX

NOTES ON CHINESE LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE

Among the treasures of Buddhist monasteries are the stone tablets called “Pei Tze.” It used to be the custom of celebrated visitors to write an epigram, a witticism, a poem, or a sentence of philosophy, which the monks had a stone-cutter engrave as near the beautiful chirography as possible on these tablets, which constitute through the empire a great literary treasure which is not likely now to be renewed. Not a little of the sententiousness is humorous. A sign hanging up in a celebrated Buddhist monastery in the Chingtu plain, Szechuen province, makes this merry reference to fleas, which constitute the largest part of the present immense population of China: “There are animals with more legs than ponies at Inns _other_ than this Inn.” Another popular humorous motto is: “One can carry kindness too far, such as the fisherman who had such pity for fish that he would only go fishing with straight hooks.” The idiom for inaction is: “keeping one’s hands in one’s sleeves.” For “eating crow” the Chinese say: “eating a dumb man’s bitterness.” More of their wisdom follows:

“Meekness and gentleness are the boat and the sail for crossing the rough stream of this world.”

“The truths that we least wish to hear are those which it is most to our advantage to know.”

“The way to glory lies through a palace; to riches through a market; to virtue through a desert.”

“The Manchu court is like the sea, where everything depends on the wind.”

“He who wishes to secure the good of others has already secured his own.”

“The prison is shut night and day, yet is always full; the temples are always open, yet you find no one in them.”

“He who lets things be given to him is not good at taking.”

“The dog in the kennel barks at his fleas, but the dog who is hunting does not feel them.”

“The finest roads are the shortest ones.”

“Man may bend to virtue, but virtue can not bend to man.”

“The wise man does not speak of all he does, but he does nothing that can not be spoken of.”

The Occidental manner of emphasizing a plea is: “If you don’t follow this advice, look out for the consequences.” Here is the Chinese phrase, as concluding Wu Ting Fang’s plea, in December, 1911, to the Prince Regent Chun to abdicate: “Our voice is hoarse and our tears are exhausted; no more can be said.” Their idiom for: “I’m not my own boss” is: “I eat another’s bread; I watch at the door.” More of their proverbs are:

“Who is he, though he never goes out, yet has seen all that is under the sky? The scholar among his books.”

“If the ruby is unpolished, it is not a gem.”

“Age for a sharp chin, and a sharp tongue.”

“It is with human nature as with wines: age sweetens some and sours others.”

“Happiness and misery both come in doubles.”

“Going through college doesn’t mean that the college has gone through you.”

“You can lead a boy to the right book, the rest depends on himself.”

“The deeper the water, the slower the stream.”

“It is easier to escape a splinter that you see, than a beam that you don’t see.”

“Familiarity takes the height off a mountain.”

“Wit may purchase wealth, but wealth can not purchase wit.”

“Originality can go so far back that it becomes aboriginality.”

“Your parents died when you were a child,” is the bitterly sarcastic way in which the Chinese express that one has no manners, or up-bringing. The following repartee is credited to almost every traveled Chinese official, but it originated in the imagination of an Occidental wit, because the Chinese consider manners and forgiveness the first rule of public conduct. Official Bu was asked by an impertinent Occidental why he wore such a ludicrous appendage as a queue. “Why do you wear a mustache?” asked the Oriental, “Because I’ve such an awful mouth.” “I thought so, from your first question,” was the Oriental’s rejoinder.

Yu Yuen, a satirist of 400 B. C., when China was divided into many states, ruled by inferior princes, wrote in defense of the able prime ministers who were trying to save the states: “I, too, am glad I can not fall to the intellect and moral level of princes.”

Chang Jo Hu, A. D. 800, with Isaiah-like emphasis reminds even long-lived proud China that

“There’s no rock of empire man shall make,
But tooth and tide of time shall shake.”

He also wrote:

“The waves of the Yangtze that pass to the sea,
Nevermore shall return to me;
So, friend of my soul, ’tis with me and with thee.”

Po Chuh Ih, A. D. 772, once president of the Board of War, and later an exile, wrote some Scott-like lays, including the _Never Ending Wrong_, and the famous _Lute Girl_, which is full of silver music coming over a moon-lit lake. At the lake he meets the lute-girl, once a court favorite, but now old and deserted. The poet does not try to disguise the truth. He says:

“The eye of Beauty wins a monarch’s soul,
And wrecks an Empire, too.”

Tai Chen, a poet, speaking for the Emperor Ming Huang, who is pursued to Mount Omi, in Szechuen, by the rebel, An Lu Shen, writes: “The star of empire pales before the morning beams of conquering foes.” Some of his lyrics show pretty conceits like: “The pansies are faces of loves that have died.” His _Ruined Home_ reads like parts of Solomon’s wisdom.

Tai Chen was preceded by the most famous poet of China, Li Po (A. D. 702). He was born in Szechuen province. His patron was the Emperor Ming Huang, then a wanderer, as we have stated. A Browning-like poet of the world, he talks of the Tang emperors of Nanking, patrons of sculptors, “calling down the dreams of the gods and imprisoning them in stone.” In an ode to Nanking, he tells about: “a woman asleep by a loom, and a beautiful dream guiding her fingers along a glorious pattern that is known only to the gods.” He believes in the high mission of the poet, for he sings of “the fadeless lines of fire, running back to the births of immortal poets, who now walk amidst the stars.” Like others of the Chinese, and many of the new race of American poets, he has a strong sympathy with trade unions. He addressed an ode _To the Golden Presence of Guild Brothers_. He sings mightily of war in a song _To my Fatherland_, and then lapses thus into a sadder note when he reflects upon whom the sorrows of war come: “The pensive washwoman sends her heart to the Tartar war in far Kansu province to find her conscript soldier husband who suffers in the snows.”

Kao Shih, a contemporary poet, was a tremendous believer in the personal soul. He wrote striking verse because of his love of the occult, and his tendency to give to natural phenomena dramatic personalities.

Ou Yang Hsiu, of the following dynasty, the Sung, 1007 A. D., himself a governor, and historian of the Tang dynasty, wrote a famous “Autumn” poem, which is truly a march of Elizabethan metaphors. He showed, too, a cynicism which was like the Elizabethan:

“Fame, after all, is such a little thing!
Behold the fox and weasel’s young now play
Where lie the ashes of the great Man-Ching.”

Abbé Huc’s servant, Wei Chau, picked up in the book stores of Nanchang, in Kiangsi province, pamphlets with the following brilliant epigrams, which are not surpassed in any literature, and which might have been written by Wilde:

“My books speak to my mind; my friends to my heart; all the rest speak to my ears only.”

“One needs his wits most when dealing with a fool.”

“One forgives anything to him who forgives himself nothing.”

We call our printed Bible the “Word of God.” The Chinese have an expression somewhat similar. Their beautiful ideographs are delightfully called “Eyes of God.” The following is an effort of the Manchus in literature, translated idiomatically, and it shows the literary feebleness of the relapsed old conquerors. It is the national anthem which the dynasty gave by edict to the Chinese to sing at the opening of the rebellion in October, 1911:

“May the Golden Round be kept intact;
May Heaven help us;
Let the people and Nature live as quietly as ducks among lilies;
Both peoples (Chinese and Manchu) now dress alike; therefore be alike;
In this time of the Manchu (Ta Ching--Great Pure) dynasty we are
fortunate to see true splendor and greatness;
May Heaven protect the Emperor and his line;
For Heaven is greatest,
And Nature is infinite” (the suggestion being to fear God, or Nature’s
god).

The omnivorous Goethe made some investigation of Chinese literature, and here is his opinion of what he had read: “The people think, act and feel almost entirely as we do, although with them everything is clearer, calmer and more moral. In their arrangements everything is sensible, bourgeois, without great passion or poetry. What is moral, proper and in strict moderation is considered.” Now and then more or less distinct evidences of Chinese influence on the Greeks come to view, though the thread west of the headwaters of the Tarim is now lost. Many of the doctrines of Pythagoras and Plato are similar to those of Chinese Lao Tse, and therefore they may have been instructed by the Chinese sage, whose book could have gone overland to Greece with the caravans of silk.

The advent of the many newspapers has made a great difference in the nerves and consciousness of the Chinese. From being the most stolid of peoples, indifferent to famine, flood, war, persecution by the officials or by the favored, poverty, pain, hardships physical and mental, they have become as restive, impatient, nervous and self-conscious as other races. Famine and flood used to sweep down and destroy millions. What was the use of complaining, since no one knew, nobody cared, and the victim might as well not care? Now, if disaster takes off not a million men, but one man, it is important, the newspapers chronicle it, and show how the lot of others may be the lot of the individual. The sufferer himself cries: “Woe is to me; isn’t this unendurable; help me; I can not, I WILL not bear it.” The newspaper has developed the ego. The Chinese has become self-conscious and nervous. He can not, he will not hereafter bear anything more than other peoples. In the August, 1911, floods and the October, 1911, revolution more fuss was made over the loss of a thousand men and women than over the loss of hundreds of thousands in the Taiping rebellion in the same region in 1853.

Not long ago, a weekly at Hongkong appealed to its public for a new name. I quote some of the names to reveal what the Far East thinks of itself in a humorous or serious light: “Bird of Freedom”; “Bubbles”; “China Answers”; “Cathay’s Looking Glass”; “Chop Sticks”; “East of East”; “Fragrant Waters” (the translation of Hongkong); “Fire Crackers”; “Murmurs and Funnosities”; “Mixed Pickles”; “Peak and Praya”; “Topical Tropical Times”; “The Griffin” (a beginner in the Orient); “The Gong”; “The Hit”; “Humming Top”; “Imperial Outpost”; “The Lantern”; “Merry-Go-Round”; “The Palm”; “The Pearl”; “Sun of Cathay”; “The Typhoon”; “The Ferret”; “The Colonel”; “Maskee” (the Chinese way of saying “never mind”); “Puckee” (the Oriental way of saying “O.K.”). The Chinese newspaper is a success, commercially, patriotically and educationally. Millions now read it every day. It gave the best and earliest news of the October, 1911, revolution. There are Chinese newspapers in San Francisco, New York, Vancouver, Singapore, Penang, Hongkong, Sydney, Paris and London.

Chinese plays recite the history of the clans and early states. Even the boatman and laborer are familiar with them. Every hill, valley, and reach and fall of a river north of the Yangtze has its hero and story. This would seem to prove that the race first came through the Tarim and Kansu gates to the new land. The rich, who aim to control trade routes and privileges depending upon popular tolerance, in Roman fashion give free theatricals to the village folk. The acting is excellent and spirited; the feats of memory remarkable, and the costumes gorgeous. “Once an actor always an actor,” they say, regarding the custom of youths being bought or apprenticed by the traveling troupes. Guild halls and some monasteries have theaters in connection with the compound. A restaurant is run during the long series of plays. You hurry out to dine when the play you are least interested in is rung in by cymbal. Bets and lawsuits between the guilds and villages are often settled by the loser paying for the visit of a theatrical troupe. Beautiful specimens of the blue and gold gowns of the emperor-actor can be secured at the silk shops of the treaty ports, and in some of the Oriental shops of New York, San Francisco and London.

The American and British college graduate wears a hood; the Chinese wears a yellow panel on his breast and back (it may be changed under the republicans to blue). When Yuan Shih recently took the oath of office as provisional president, two bonzes of the famous Lama Temple at Peking stepped up, and presented him with honorary panels of yellow silk.

The incident will be recalled in Judges, Chapter 12, where the Gileadites slew the Ephraimites who could only pronounce the word “shibboleth” as “sibboleth”. The Manchus are thicker of tongue than the Chinese. An ingenious story got about in October, 1911, that the rebels of General Li’s army were testing some disguised Manchus with the pronunciation of the numeral six, “Liu”, before killing them in retaliation for a massacre, the Manchus being unable to get the sound far enough back in their mouths and around their tongue in the proper Chinese fashion. The proper tone, lisp and aspirate makes all the difference, for the same written word “ho” means river and fire; the word “shui” means water and sleep; “chih” means gas and red, and so on.

English, and not German, has been prescribed as the language to be used in the study of science and world politics. The Chinese idiom and ideograph could not come near enough to distinct expression. For instance, the best they could do with fire-engine, steam-roller, Elijah’s chariot of fire, and automobile, was to call them all “fire carriage”; and electricity, globe, and flash-light were all three “lightning breath”. Geography, the world, and panorama were all called “All Under Heaven” (Tien Hsia). “Heavenly Literature” (Tien Wen) represented the words theology and astronomy. Lacking pronouns, the language adopts peculiar expedients. Thus an affix meaning “near” answers to “my”, and “that side” answers to “your”. That is, “near house” is my house; “that side house” is obviously your house. If this does not clearly convey the idea, the arbitrary ideographic affix of “honorable” and “despisable” will; that is, the “honorable house” is your house of course, and the “despisable house” with so effusively mannerly a people could only be my house. On account of their experience with the difficult and beautiful Chinese character which requires accuracy, the Chinese penman who learns to write English, does it in the most beautiful Spencerian copper-plate. The same care and skill is shown in copying drawings from our modern text-books, which have been translated for their new schools. The Chinese think in pictures. The characters for “many stars, clouds wait” means a clear night, as “clouds many, stars wait” means a gathering storm. This is why they have chosen English for its exactness, as they can not well express the word gathering. “It is bad walking” is rendered by “Walk not attain” (Tsou puh te). Passenger boats or skiffs are not so named. Those in use at Hongkong are called “san pans” (meaning three boards), and the famous light boats of the Yangtze gorges between Ichang and Wan Hsien are called “wu pans” (five boards). The forcible etymology of some Chinese words is illustrated by the words for “fan tan” gambling, which literally means “turn and part”. The cup is turned over a lot of coins, and the rest of the heap is brushed aside. Then the cup is raised, and the croupier, with his separator-stick, parts four coins at a time from the lot, until four or a particle are left, this being the winning number of the game. That the old southern Chinese, as contrasted with the succeeding northern Mongol invaders, invented the language is shown in many of the words. For instance, the word for road or path is called throughout China a “dry way”, and not a road or street. Only the central and southern provinces flood the fields for rice culture, leaving the raised dry paths.