Chapter XV: A Page From the Story of Protestant (4)

Fifty years ago a baby girl destined for an unusual career was born in one of the patrician Chinese homes in Shanghai. She was reared in luxury and given the meagre education at home usually accorded by indulgent parents to girls in her position. Allowed by choice to remain unmarried, she eventually allied herself with a society of austere Buddhist religionists known as “vegetarians.” Years rolled by, till the girl, grown to womanhood, had passed her thirty-ninth birthday. She had long observed that her father was a liberal-minded man, and that his benefactions were frequently in aid of schools for girls, which were gradually becoming common. “If my father is interested in the education of girls,” she reasoned within herself, “why should I not open a school and he help _me_?” But when she mentioned the plan to her father he frowned upon it harshly, and her stepmother was even more violent in her opposition. Education might be condoned in others, but no daughter of theirs needed more than she had, and much less should she aspire to be a medium for encouraging it. Moreover, the father realized the young woman’s marked ability, and had plans of his own respecting the help she would by and by render him in the management of his estate. The more she was opposed, however, the stronger grew her purpose, until finally the controversy led to her being practically disinherited and driven from the parental roof. She had a little money with which she managed to open a small school, and then sold her jewels to keep it running. That was twelve years ago. Twice she has moved, the last time, in the spring of 1914, to a handsome new building she erected herself largely with the portion of her inheritance she was able to secure when her father died. There was a notable “opening” to which many Chinese guests and a few favored foreigners were invited. On the wall of the Assembly Room hung a large portrait of the principal’s father, for the flower of filial piety rarely dies in China, no matter how rough the winds that blow upon it. Chinese flags were draped over the platform and fluttered from pillar to post. In the side rooms the industrial work of the girls was on exhibition and a fine collation set forth.

The building and grounds of this school are always kept neat and attractive, and no matter what hour of the day the unexpected visitor arrives, he is sure to find dormitories and hall, and even dining-room, kitchen, and laundry worthy of the closest inspection. The kindergarten building is slightly separated from the main one, and it would be hard to find anywhere a more perfect model of its kind. Mothers’ Meetings are held from time to time when practicable. Matters relating to the child’s moral, mental, and physical well-being are frankly discussed.

“Commencement Day” is observed with great éclat. Last year, four “sweet girl graduates” sat on the platform, all dressed alike, in white Chinese silk made in Chinese style, white slippers with foreign heels, and tiny blue ribbon bows at the neck, and bands of narrow blue ribbon around their hair. The class colours were blue and white, and behind the girls hung their class banner, bearing on a white ground their motto “Excelsior” in blue letters. Each graduate had prepared an essay in English, but only one was read, “The Influence and Responsibility of the Young Women of China.” In thought and language it would have done credit to a school-girl in any land. The others wrote on, “The Need of Compulsory Education,” “The Evils of the Cigarette Habit,” and “The Advantages of an Education in China Over That Received Abroad.” Songs, piano solos, duets, and eight-handed pieces, recitations in French and English, and an eloquent address on “The Value of Education for Women,” by the Chinese Commissioner of Foreign Affairs, completed the programme, which throughout was of an exceptionally high order. Then came the closing scene as a delightful climax. Dr. Wu Ting Fang, former Minister to the United States, presented to each graduate a diploma tied with ribbon in approved Western style, which he received from the hand of the principal. It was hard to realize that the little woman standing beside Dr. Wu, so modest and retiring, in simple, dark Chinese dress, her hair combed straight back from her face in old-time Chinese fashion, was the promoter and controlling spirit of this most successful up-to-date school. She speaks no English and prefers to keep in the background as much as possible, yet hers is an unusual personality. Though not a professing Christian she is a believer in heart and is quite a regular attendant at a Protestant Episcopal Mission Church.

Another popular school for girls is known generally as the “Suffragette School.” Like so many others, its existence began at the close of the recent revolution, and grew out of it. The exigencies of the revolution brought women into the public arena as they had never thought of figuring before. A few who had studied medicine went to the front as doctors and many more as Red Cross nurses. A large number acted as spies, secreted refugees, carried ammunition to the soldiers, and sacrificed property and life itself for their country. From various quarters there gathered in Shanghai a hundred or so school-girls, most of them runaways, fired with an all-consuming if misguided desire to aid their country, who donned uniforms, shouldered arms, drilled, and begged to be allowed to march at once to the firing-line, which fortunately for them they were not permitted to do. They were known as the “Amazons.” All these events, however, so stirred the patriotism of the women of Shanghai that a numerous company banded together to raise money for the revolution, which they did very successfully. When the fighting ceased, instead of disbanding they formed themselves into a permanent organization under the name of “The Chinese Woman’s Co-operative Association.” Its purpose was to protect the interests of women in general, and in particular to gain for them the right of suffrage.

The society is still in existence, though greatly modified in tone and reduced in numbers by the elimination of the most rabid and troublesome spirits. Occasional meetings are held and men are frequently invited to address them, a woman occupying the chair. The principal work done by this Association since the revolution has been the founding and fostering of the Suffragette School, with the idea of inculcating advanced ideas in the minds of the young. At first the teachers, all of them women, worked without salary, and turned with disdain from men and marriage. While the curriculum includes Western studies, particular emphasis is laid on Chinese subjects, especially the writing of Chinese characters, which the pupils do exceedingly well. They are encouraged to make their clothes of Chinese cloth, use Chinese furnishings in their homes and preserve the old-time customs and the old-time beliefs; in short, to be Chinese to the backbone and independent of the foreigners’ supplies and the foreigners’ religion.

The school has prospered better numerically than financially. An interested missionary was talking one day about the school to Miss C., a recent graduate of Wellesley College and a relative of the principal. “You say the school is poor?” “Not poor in the quality of work done, but, O yes, very poor in money.” “What is the reason of that?” “Well, it hasn’t financial supporters. You see, right after the revolution so many women were enthusiastic about suffrage. But they are not now in the same way, and they don’t take as much interest in keeping up the school.” “What do you think makes them less interested in the question of suffrage?” “They don’t believe the time has come in China to push it. Other things they feel are at present more important and necessary.” “What is your personal opinion?” The bright eyes of the young woman rested an instant thoughtfully on her questioner, then came the decided reply, “I am sure we are not ready to vote yet, and it is a mistake to divert our thoughts from greater needs by thinking of it and working for it.”

More and more as the New Learning is crowding out the old-time impractical methods, the desire grows to relate the work of the schools to the life of the people. Hitherto industrial training has received little attention in China, but the Republic has been gradually awakening to its importance, so that to-day schools of this kind are the ones that appeal most strongly to the popular mind and receive the readiest support from governmental and private sources. In Shanghai, commercial and industrial schools, or schools that have added these departments to their curricula, are constantly on the increase.

The World’s Chinese Students’ Federation, with headquarters at Shanghai, is carrying on both day and evening schools which are largely attended. The teachers give their services free and are young men of independent means, or those who are able and willing to devote a portion of their time to this work. The principal is only twenty-one, a graduate of the Young Men’s Christian Association school and unusually gifted.

The leading institution in Shanghai under Chinese auspices is the Government Institute of Technology. As in the case of so many other educational enterprises, this one received its initial impulse from an individual, a man high in government employ. It began in 1897 as a Normal School, then added Preparatory and Grammar School departments, and finally, under the skillful leadership of Dr. John C. Ferguson, developed into Nanyang College, still later adding courses in civil and electrical engineering, and changing its name to “The Government School of Technology.” The handsome buildings in the midst of spacious well-kept grounds, the complete equipment, fine corps of teachers, eight of whom are Americans, the standard of work maintained, and the character of the large student body, all combine to make this a school Shanghai may well be proud of. A few of the best students are sent each year to Europe and America for a period of practical training.

The Mining and Railway College is not so large nor so old an institution, but in its way quite as remarkable. Its founder, who is also its president, is a young man in his early thirties, with a finely chiselled, scholarly face and gracious manner. When travelling abroad after finishing his education at Queen’s College in Hongkong, he became convinced that what China required more than almost anything else was trained engineers. So four years ago (many things happened in Shanghai four years ago), unaided, he started this school, giving himself and his money without reserve to the work. Already the students number two hundred and sixty, as promising a body of young men as one would wish to see. They come from nearly every province in the country and a few from Java. Five of the fifteen teachers have studied abroad, but only one is a foreigner, a Belgian who teaches mining and mineralogy. The entering students are put at once into English classes and it is remarkable what they accomplish in a single year. A specialty is made of chirography, “for,” says the president, “unless the boys learn to form their letters carefully, they will not draw well, and as engineers they must do that.”

The School of Medicine and of Engineering, carried on by the Germans for Chinese students, is unique in its way. An eminent physicist in Shanghai has said that in his opinion it is the greatest institution in China. The school, its two departments being entirely distinct, is not missionary nor even philanthropic in character. This is simply a business enterprise fostered by the German government for business purposes. They give the best training in return for what, to the Chinese, are heavy fees, in order that these men may be prepared later to work in their employ. The teaching force is of the highest grade and the scientific equipment as perfect as the means provided can make it.

Perhaps of all the schools in Shanghai, the little day-schools appeal to one most because of their unfailing human interest and the possibilities stored up in them. They are of every kind and degree of excellence, or badness, according to the way they are looked at. On the whole, most of them seem to be doing good and even the poorest keep the children off the street. Often there are amusing features. In the Chinese city, on a signboard over a doorway appears the rather unusual announcement, “English taught from A. to L.” Just what is done with the remaining letters of the alphabet is not explained. On a side street the passerby reads again in large English letters, “Daily Progressive School.” In two poorly lighted, none too clean rooms of an old Chinese house, thirty or forty children bend over their roughly made desks, studying aloud in vociferous tones. The head teacher quiets them while he greets the chance visitor and points with pride to his foreign textbooks in geography and English. He too has ideals, and when reference is made to the name of the school, answers, “Yes, that is what I want to make it, ‘Daily Progressive.’” He adds that he has started two branches of his “Daily Progressive School” in other parts of Shanghai. Then comes the unexpected question, “Are you a Christian?” “I am a Christian,” naming the mission school where he received his education.

Sometimes a little day-school is hidden away in the back room of a rambling old house, or in an inner apartment of a Buddhist temple, where the unsophisticated easily loses himself amid its labyrinthine windings. During the stormy iconoclastic days of the revolution, temples and ancestral halls were turned over wholesale by the provisional government to be used as schools, and though many have reverted to their original purposes, others, like Li Hung Chang’s Temple in Shanghai, are still kept as seats of learning. This memorial to the great statesman, built by public funds, was taken possession of five years ago by the trustees of Fuh-tan College, and now the bronze statue of the famous Li from its pedestal in the garden looks down each day on three hundred and fifty students hurrying to and fro through the numberless courts and passageways. Commencement exercises are held in the Hall of Ancestral Worship, where, on a raised platform against an ornate background, sits the Chinese President, an alumnus of Yale, surrounded by his faculty, all in collegiate cap and gown, making one of the curious anomalies common in these days of transition.

From the Provincial Normal School, located in the Chinese city, thirty young men graduated last year and more than five hundred have gone out from its doors during the eleven years since it was opened. Such is the demand for teachers that long before the school-year closes every member of the graduating class has been spoken for. The alumni are scattered far and wide over the country. Near the Normal School is a large practice school of four hundred pupils. The students of the Normal School are taught music, clay-modelling, wood-carving, painting, drawing. They are ardent patriots and keenly resent any real or supposed indignity offered to their native land. Sometimes they express their patriotism in original ways, as they did not long ago, when feeling ran high because of the unreasonable demands made on China by Japan. The boys’ sleeping and study rooms open onto courts in the rambling structure, or rather a series of Chinese buildings which constitute the school plant. These rooms were cleared out and each one made the scene of some pictorial or material representation of the current political issue. Many of the exhibits were exceedingly clever, a few were most amusing, but all were strikingly illustrative of the animus of the student body and showed the kind of teachers that are being sent forth over China to instill their principles into the minds of the rising generation.

It is significant of the spirit of the times that a young man in Shanghai a few months ago went to his father and begged to be given his portion of the family gambling money. With it he opened a school which has now one hundred and fifty pupils. The secretary of the Provincial Educational Association, recently back from an extended tour in America, requested a resident missionary to give him lessons in English. He was so impressed with the excellence of the American system that he decided to introduce the same methods into his own schools as rapidly as possible, and wanted a better knowledge of English that he might be qualified to select text-books and arrange courses of study.

Last summer for the first time the Shanghai prefect fixed a uniform vacation period for the elementary schools extending through five weeks, from July 22d to August 25th. In sending out the notice the prefect added a clause to the effect that during two weeks of the vacation three hours a day must be spent by the pupils in reviewing their lessons.

There are two flourishing Japanese schools in Shanghai. One is a large public school that is growing so rapidly a new building has been added to the group which suffices for six or seven hundred pupils. Boys and girls of all ages are accommodated under the same roof, but with the exception of the very little children in the kindergarten, they occupy separate rooms and have their recess at different hours. They make a pretty sight in their gay coloured garments flitting about in the sunshine like radiant butterflies during play hours, or pouring joyously out on the street at the close of school, some going off in ricshas accompanied by nurses, more on foot, while a lot of youngsters scramble onto the street cars, clutching their coppers in dirty little paws, each one carrying a school bag or books tied up in a square of cloth, and a little lunch box, while on every urchin’s head rests a smart military cap.

The other school is a Japanese College with nearly three hundred students, strong of body, alert in mind, picked men all of them. They are sent from Japan by their respective prefectures to study in Shanghai for three years, every expense being met. The course includes commerce, engineering, and agriculture. During the fourteen years since the school opened, eight hundred have graduated, seventy receiving certificates last June. At the end of the second year’s work, seventy or eighty of the most promising students at the expense of the school, are sent far and wide over China to study the country and its condition, agricultural, mining, social, political. “When the men graduate from the college they return to Japan, do they not?” was asked of the president. “Oh, no,” came the emphatic reply, “they are expected to stay in China and help the Chinese develop their resources.”

A group of schools in Shanghai which are not for the study of books, but, in their line, of great value, the public generally knows little about. These are the six Singer Sewing-Machine Schools for women and girls. The Singer Sewing-Machine made its advent in China a decade ago, and thus far it is without a rival. It “took” almost at once with the Chinese and is now found everywhere, even in the most unlooked for and absurdly out-of-the-way places. In 1910 Singer Sewing-Machine schools were started in Shanghai. At first they met with small success. Those for men were a signal failure and soon closed their doors. The few who ventured to enter the schools for women and girls had to be paid for coming, but the old conservatism seemed to die out with the revolution. The leading school now numbers fifty pupils. The period of training covers three, six, or twelve months according to the kind of work taken up, whether plain tailoring or fancy embroidery. The pupils come from widely scattered districts and it is the intention when they return to their village or town that they shall open a school of their own, and in this way introduce the machines throughout the country. There are already more than four hundred selling stations in China, each in charge of a Chinese agent. The machines are sold on the installment plan. “We consider ourselves missionaries in our way,” said the foreign representative of the company in Shanghai, “for is it not a charity to lighten the labour of these poor hard-working people by selling them our sewing-machines on easy terms?” The Singer Company subscribes liberally to all benevolences, and during the revolution, and the rebellion the following year, it loaned its machines free of charge to organizations engaged in making garments for the destitute. One effective way it has of advertising is to send men about the streets of Shanghai dressed fantastically in clothes made in its shops, while offering for sale small articles carried in portable show-cases.

VIII

A WIZARD PUBLISHING HOUSE

“The pen is mightier than the sword” has through the centuries been a working axiom in China, for soldiers stood at the foot of the social ladder, while scholars sat proudly on the top rung. Recent experiences, it is true, have somewhat altered the views of the people, though not reversed them. But the accompanying adage, “The printed page is mightier than the sword,” has not seemed to acquire popularity, despite the fact that printing from movable type was discovered in old China long before Gutenberg saw the light of day. Indeed, the “Peking Gazette,” whose lineal descendant still flourishes in the Capital, claims the honour of being the first newspaper ever published. It was printed from wooden blocks, some of which are still in existence, no one knows just how long ago, though tradition makes it as many as a thousand years. But for centuries the art was little used and even as late as the Chino-Japanese war in 1894 news travelled so slowly that people living only seventy-five miles from the coast had not even heard there was a war. Now, Shanghai alone, which is far in advance of other cities in this respect, publishes more than thirty newspapers and periodicals, twelve of them being dailies. Many of the sheets are illustrated, and as a proof that they are thoroughly abreast of the times, advertisements of well known patent medicines are given a prominent place!

With the dawn of China’s “New Day,” and the increasing thirst for Western learning, an insistent cry was heard, not alone for newspapers, but for books, books, and plenty of them. Then to meet the need arose the Commercial Press. The story of the rapid growth and development of this great publishing house reads like a tale from the Arabian Nights. The idea was born in the minds of three young, wide-awake Chinese, all practical printers, and all of them Christians, the product of a Presbyterian Mission School in Shanghai. Work began in 1897 in a modest way with two small printing presses. The shop was a Chinese house in an alley off one of the main roads. These quarters were speedily outgrown, and after two moves the plant was finally lodged permanently in a group of fine brick buildings covering eight acres in the northern end of the city. To-day sixty modern presses, the very best to be had, are annually, in round figures, using up twenty-five thousand reams of foreign paper and thirty-four hundred reams of Chinese paper, the bulk of which is turned into school books and scattered far and wide over the land, from Manchuria to Thibet. The year after the revolution, although new machinery was bought, additional workmen taken on as fast as they could be found, and the presses kept running night and day, the enormous demand for books could not be met.

From the first, the policy of the Commercial Press has been never to print any books that are antagonistic to the Christian religion, and to this purpose it has faithfully adhered. Indeed, the twenty or more heads of departments are either Christians or in sympathy with Christianity.

The rules of this house governing the treatment of employees may not sound unusual to Western ears, but studied in comparison with conditions as they have been in China, and still are for the most part, their true worth is keenly realized. The Commercial Press employs about fourteen hundred men and four hundred women. Several of the boys are deaf mutes from a missionary institution in the north, and a number are from the Shanghai Reformatory, taken on by the company to give them a fresh start in life, with a hostel built especially for their accommodation. Most of the women work in the bindery, though they are found here and there throughout the establishment and some of the lighter machinery is operated by them. One is a forewoman and a few bright girls are studying to be bookkeepers. None are admitted under fourteen years of age, while the majority are much older. An innovation has lately been introduced, permitting women to work in the same room with men, although at different tables. It has proved a perfect success. All hands attend strictly to business and the new arrangement has distinct advantages over the old, as, in giving employees better light and air, since the rooms can be kept larger. The hours of labour are from 7:30 to 12 and from 1 to 5:30 o’clock. The bell rings for the women to leave five minutes before the men. “Ladies first, you see,” a member of the staff laughingly remarked to a visitor. When a woman expects to become a mother she is given two months off with full pay and five dollars in addition to meet extra expenses. Sundays are holidays. About one-eighth of the force are Christians and two Protestant churches are located in the neighborhood of the Works, which many of them attend. Wages are excellent with the addition of a bonus for special merit. There is a reserve fund for the benefit of the families of the deceased, and old, retired employees. Profit sharing is a part of the system and the head men in each department are shareholders in the company.

A small hospital with accommodation for a score of patients, and with an immaculate dispensary and operating room, is another feature of this remarkable establishment. An attendant is always present, and a Chinese foreign-trained doctor visits the hospital every morning. The clinic is open to outsiders as well as employees and their families. All pay a fee of three Chinese coppers, about one cent, as it has been found necessary to charge something to keep the place from being overrun. Near the Commercial Press the management has built a number of small but comfortable houses, and these are rented, at a nominal rate, to employees who care to occupy them. A school is maintained for the children of employees, and a night-school and reading-room for apprentices. A kindergarten, for which the Commercial Press furnishes the premises and the Presbyterian Mission Press the teachers, is also close by. None of these schools are free, as parents are able to pay a little tuition and feel more self-respecting to do so. A tea garden, made attractive with shrubs, flowers, and seats scattered about on the well-kept lawn, furnishes a delightful resting-place for the clerks when off duty. The fire brigade is a most important factor in the concern. It is composed of twenty-six men, all employees, and is kept at a high grade of efficiency by frequent drills. A stone’s throw from the main building is the fire station, fitted up with bright hose wagons, ladders, buckets, torches for carrying safety oil lamps of brass, besides complete uniforms for the men, the burnished brass helmets being their special pride. The brigade stands ready to respond to a limited number of outside calls.

Visitors to the press works are always cordially welcomed, and courteously shown over the establishment by a competent guide, whenever possible a member of the staff. So extensive is the plant it usually requires several hours for even a cursory tour of inspection. Two of the buildings are used for the printing plant and foundry, one for the Chinese bindery, another is reserved for the editorial department, Chinese and English, two are warehouses, one is a carpentry shop, and one, a long low building somewhat apart from the others, is devoted to photography and its various branches. The rooms are airy, clean, and cheerful, in marked contrast to most of the workshops in China. Each is connected by telephone with the main office, and light tracks are laid for carrying merchandise to and fro. Electric motors supply the motive power, while both gas and electricity are used for lighting purposes.

Most of the printing presses are from England and America. Those for finer work, including the immense wonder-working machines in the colour printing department, are of German manufacture. The Commercial Press was the first firm to introduce three-colour printing into China. One is tempted to linger long beside these marvellous presses. As the blue, yellow, red, each in its turn, is added so quickly and easily to the maps, charts, pictures, and kindergarten scrolls, the visitor is almost persuaded that he is viewing an exhibition of the cunning art of a magician, rather than the automatic movements of an insensate piece of machinery. Here is laid before the eyes a gay picture of the landing of Columbus for a history of America in Chinese, and yonder an equally charming one of the child Raleigh for a history of England. Much is made of illustrations in the school books published by the Commercial Press. Their ethical readers for little folks are fascinating productions. Each page is a coloured picture, which teaches its own lesson. Children are represented on their way to school, saluting the teacher, reciting their lessons, giving alms to the poor, caring for the aged, the young, sick, and blind, dusting and sweeping the rooms, washing, brushing, mending, and folding clothes, brushing their teeth, eating, playing. Houses are pictured as clean and sanitary, living as wholesome and pure. Especial emphasis is placed on proper manners and morals, teaching sadly needed to-day in China, when there is such an alarming tendency to abandon all that was really admirable under the old régime, and adopt in an exaggerated form all that is bad from the West. In the First Year Primary books practically no reading matter is introduced, only a few Chinese characters to explain the text. The little ones scan them attentively, absorbing knowledge without being conscious of the fact. How different is this from the old way, when children were shut all day long in dark, close rooms, shouting aloud unmeaning phrases from the Chinese classics, while the teacher dozed in his chair!

The newest addition to the plant is the installation of three “off-set” presses, the first in the Far East. An expert came out from America with them to set them up and instruct the Chinese workmen in their use. They are often kept busy through the twenty-four hours in turning out bonds and bank-notes by the millions for the Government.

Too much praise can not be given to the work of the editorial department. The entire second floor and part of the third of a quiet, three-story building is devoted to it. At long, unpainted wooden tables, littered with books and papers, sit the hundred and fifty scholars, bending over their work. Above four thousand original books have already gone out from their busy workshop, besides countless others that have been translated and edited. Eight monthly magazines are published by the editorial staff, a general one, an educational, a political, student’s, child’s, short story, a woman’s magazine, and one entitled “The English Student,” of which twenty thousand copies are issued monthly. The newest publication is a magazine called “The English Weekly.” The aim of the last two is to help Chinese students in the study of English. The Woman’s Magazine is one of the most popular. A bright girl who has studied in America was speaking about it one day to a group of foreign friends. “Just think,” she said, “the last number contains recipes for cooking eggs in twelve different ways.” “Is that so unusual?” asked an interested listener. “Why, they were not for making foreign dishes, but cooking Chinese food! I never before heard of a printed Chinese food recipe. If Chinese women begin to learn about food values it will mean everything in their lives.” The Woman’s Magazine started its life two years ago with a man as editor-in-chief. This fall a young woman will take over that position. She is a recent graduate of Wellesley College and married to a Harvard alumnus. Modest and lovable, she graciously answered the questions of her foreign callers. “Yes,” she admitted, with a little apologetic laugh, “I am going to try to edit the magazine.” “There will be assistant editors of course?” “Oh, yes.” “Women?” “No, I believe they are all men.” This young wife is a beautiful housekeeper, and it is safe to assume her home and family will not be neglected on account of the outside work she is about to take up. Indeed, it is worthy of comment that no one is more pleased about it than the young husband himself.

An interesting fact in connection with the editorial department of the Commercial Press is that most Western books are translated through the medium of the Japanese language, instead of directly from the English. This is because the present system of education in China is based on that of Japan, and scientific terms are more easily adapted from the Japanese. But Chinese students returning from abroad are strong in their feeling that this second-hand method of acquiring knowledge must soon give way to the more direct.

Glancing about the editorial room with its scores of hard-working men, pouring out the best that is in them for the uplift and enlightenment of their country, it is impossible not to feel a strange stirring of the heart, and one is also thrilled when looking through the warehouses where room after room is filled with books stacked to the ceiling or packed in boxes to be shipped away. Some of the largest orders come from the most distant provinces. The aim of the publishing house is not to issue many handsome, expensive books, but to flood the land with cheap editions that shall be within the reach of all.

Tiptoeing out of the editorial department, the visitor passes on to the English and Chinese composing rooms, which present a very different scene. There is a sort of mystery about Chinese type. That a “character” made up of a score or more of tiny individual strokes can be reproduced perfectly in a clean-cut piece of lead, seems nothing short of marvellous. Chinese type-setting is exceedingly complex. The cases are set on slanting frames, placed to form a triangle, within which stands the compositor. About six thousand characters are in ordinary use and a font of type weighs fifteen hundred pounds. An American woman is chief proof-reader for English text, assisted by a Portuguese and many Chinese. Behind the printing department is the foundry. Type-casting is a specialty and is done on a large scale. Indeed the market for a long time was so generally supplied from the Commercial Press that their sizes became the standard for all China. The matrices, kept in a fire-proof safe, are among the Company’s most valuable assets. A few modern automatic type-casters from Chicago are used, but they are far outnumbered by the old-style, hand-worked machines. The type cast from the old-style machines must be assorted, trimmed, and polished, all of which is done by women. “We are not always keen in making use of the latest machines,” explains the staff, “since labour is so cheap in China, and it is a blessing to the poor people to give work to as many as possible.”

Nearly all of the smaller machinery used in the Commercial Press Works is made in their own foundry and carpentry shop, besides physical, physiological, and chemical apparatus for schools, tools for industrial work, and small reed organs. The job-printing department is strictly up to date and large returns are realized from it. Recently one of the heads of the company made a trip around the world in order to study the best and latest processes of printing. The two hundred copies of the English edition of “China’s Young Men,” the organ of the Young Men’s Christian Association, are sent out monthly from this press.

No expense has been spared to make the equipment of the photo-engraving department as perfect as possible. It is provided with arc lamps and an acid-blasting etching machine, so that orders can be quickly filled irrespective of the weather. A fine photographic gallery is annexed whose chief furnishing is a new camera bought in London and making the fifth in use. The lens is able to produce pictures 32 × 43 inches, and with a single exception is the largest in the world. The camera rests upon a handcar, which runs back and forth over a small track. For some years, one-fourth of the company’s stock was held by Japanese, but at the beginning of 1914 this was bought back, so that now the concern is wholly Chinese. This consummation of a long-anticipated hope was celebrated with great rejoicing.

Several miles away from the works, on one of the busiest streets in a Chinese section of the International Settlement, stands the business house of the Commercial Press. The four-story building of reinforced concrete, ornamented with iron pillars, is quite new, having been built only six years ago at a cost of twenty thousand dollars. The fine show windows at once attract attention. Those on the right of the entrance are reserved for Chinese books and the ones on the left for English. Among the latter, besides standard works in literature, fiction, biography, and travel, are seen titles like the following: “Ready Made Speeches,” “Cooking,” “How the People Rule,” “Our Sick and How to Take Care of Them,” “Poultry and Profit,” “All about Railways,” “Railway Conquest of the World,” and a series under the general head, “Common Commodities of Commerce,” including tea, coffee, sugar, iron, oil, rubber. The sales rooms are on the ground floor. But many things are found there besides books and the usual appurtenances of a bookstore. In the apartments at the rear, in glass cases, are displayed samples of the many kinds of school apparatus manufactured at the works, also a large collection of stuffed birds from different countries, various forms of insect and animal life preserved in alcohol, besides what is of exceeding value to Chinese students, studies in rice, cotton, the silkworm, and other products, showing the progressive changes and best methods of their development and the uses to which they are and may be put. For the accommodation of customers who wish to look over the books at their leisure, numerous benches are scattered conveniently about, and the pleasant little reading room is always well patronized.

The second and third stories are mainly devoted to offices, while a good part of the fourth is reserved for the dining-hall. According to the usual custom in China, the two hundred employees have their board furnished them as a part of their pay, and all who receive under ten dollars a month are given lodging as well, though not in the same building. A roof garden, where the clerks may gather for the noon rest, or enjoy the cool evening breezes in hot weather, is one of the attractions of the place. Perhaps the two most useful adjuncts are the elevator, which carries both freight and passengers, and the electric cash register and delivery system, the only one in China. The Commercial Press has over forty branch offices in China, the large branch in Peking being employed chiefly with work for the government. It has besides more than a thousand selling agencies in other countries where the Chinese have settled, and is the largest publishing house in the Orient.

IX

THE CHINESE CITY

Many visitors to this busy port hurry on to richer fields of conquest with never a glimpse of the Chinese City, and some doubtless do not even know there is such a place. Yet not the International Settlement, nor the French Concession, but the Chinese City is the real Shanghai. The city is the nucleus north and south of whose storm-beaten walls the foreign settlements sprang up and without which they would not have been. The coming of the foreigner is of recent date, for few men from the West saw the spot, and certainly not one resided there till after Shanghai was opened as a treaty port in 1842. The city itself, though in the heyday of youth, compared with many other cities in China, still counts its age by centuries that creep close on to a millennium. The walls were not built until 1555, a year after the city had been sacked, burned to the ground, and left a howling wilderness by Japanese raiders. Gone now are the old walls, since the revolution, and the creaking gates that swung back and forth night and morning so many years on their rusty hinges, or if a vestige is left it is fast disappearing under the blows of pick-ax and hammer. But no, that is a mistake, for a halt has just been called in the work of demolition. The Chinese Town Council it is reported, is a house divided against itself, and some of its members strongly advocate the rebuilding of the walls for the sake of protection. A compromise has been effected by voting to allow the walls to remain down but letting the gates stand, or what is left of them, to serve as triumphal arches.

Of course it is better that the old walls should go, more sanitary and more modern. The ill-smelling moat has been covered on the north and west by a splendid boulevard ninety feet wide. Trolley lines will by and by encircle the whole city, as they now run along two sides. Many of the streets in the outer circumference of the city are being widened, while those in the heart of it are receiving some attention, though improvement is difficult on account of property interests. Ramshackle rat-infested hovels, here, there, and yonder, have vanished from sight, and new tea-houses, and shops, glistening with fresh paint, are taking their places. Public nuisances are being attacked. A well-to-do family reports that since the pestilential creek back of their house has been filled in, their property has advanced in value hundreds of dollars. Street refuse is swept up and carried away each day. Meat is inspected. Pipes have been laid and running water introduced, so that one no longer hears the monotonous cry of the water carriers trotting along with a pole across their shoulders from which were suspended the overflowing buckets spilling water at every step. Electric lights have largely superseded little smoky kerosene lamps, or still more primitive pottery or tin lamps with a tiny wick swimming in vegetable oil.

All this is just as it should be. The improvements are highly commended by every one, and yet, inconsistent beings that we are, why is it that with our rejoicing over the changes, our hearts likewise experience a pang of regret? What is there about things old and quaint, albeit noisome and repulsive, that things brand new somehow do not possess for us? So with the passing of the old walls and a modicum of the old dirt, a certain indefinable charm has slipped away too, never to return. Nevertheless the Chinese City continues to exist, although since the walls are down its boundaries are not so clearly defined, and enough of the ancient landmarks remain in the way of foul-smelling alleys, streets of gay shops, beggars and crowds, to satisfy most lovers of the haunting allurements of the Orient.

The city is approximately three miles in circumference. There is no map of it beyond the merest outline, and neither a Murray nor a Baedeker to facilitate a tramp through its labyrinthian byways. But the stranger crossing its boundaries is not left coldly to his own devices, for the instant he appears in sight he is met by a chattering company of self-constituted guides. If perchance their services are declined, they still manage unobtrusively to shadow the Innocent Abroad and entice him to shops that are almost certain to loosen his purse-strings and where they propose to secure a fat commission on the purchases made.

The shops in the Chinese City are the originals of the replicas in the Settlement, only that being the originals they are more bizarre and delightful. Like birds of a feather, shops doing the same kind of work, or selling the same kind of articles, are apt to flock together. For example, most of the furniture shops handling the beautiful red and black wood from the southern province of Kwangtung are found near the north gate, also the shops selling exquisitely carved ivory. Elsewhere are grouped the silversmiths, the jewelers with tempting displays of jade, amber, pearls, and precious stones, cloth and silk merchants, shoe and cap makers, dealers whose specialty is all kinds of fans; brass, pewter, and china shops, makers of coffins from the costly red and teak woods to the less expensive pine and ash--but the amazing variety of the shops is fairly bewildering and defies enumeration!

There are no department stores in the city. Each tradesman confines himself strictly to his own line of goods. Not for his life would he dare encroach on the rights and privileges of another, for every trade has its guild which sees to it that the interests of its members are protected. Many of the guilds are wealthy and powerful, politically as well as commercially, like the silk merchants’ and silversmiths’ guilds. They have their guild houses, all more or less elaborately fitted up with rooms for conferences and feasts, and attached to them are rows of long low buildings divided into small chambers, where, upon the payment of a rental, the coffins of deceased members may be deposited until a convenient time for burial.

Certain shops sell nothing but funeral trappings, but instead of presenting a sombre appearance they are among the gayest in the city. Hung aloft to show off to the best advantage are elaborately embroidered crimson satin coverings for the coffin, and around on the shelves or under glass cases is apparel for the dead, very richly embroidered robes, slippers, and headgear, this latter in the shape of mitres and helmets, of remarkable design and ornamentation. There are also priests’ robes and white cotton raiment and sackcloth for the mourners. Other shops carry only the paper furnishings that are an essential part of a funeral ceremony. When the spirit of the deceased leaves the body and passes to the spirit world, according to Chinese superstition he requires for his comfort the same conveniences to which he was accustomed in life. Hence the dutiful elder son, in proportion to his financial ability, and often far beyond it, for Chinese funerals are fearfully costly, sees that his honoured parent is provided with them. The articles are made of coloured paper, the larger ones over a light framework of bamboo, and include every conceivable object, from a sedan chair to a teacup. These images are borne in the funeral procession through the streets and burned at the grave, the smoke being supposed to waft them through ether to the waiting spirit. They are such exact facsimiles of the real thing, especially in the case of small articles like vases, jewelry boxes, braziers, lamps, clocks, basins, that it is hard to believe they are false. One of the best imitations ever produced in a Shanghai city shop was that of a fur-lined Mandarin coat, so perfect in every detail as almost to deceive the Chinese themselves.

A shopkeeper who always attracts custom is the portrait painter. He is an important personage and does business behind closed doors--that is, his shop is not open to the street as most are; but has a front partition with a door and show window. On the window is pasted a collection of small pictures of human heads cut from newspapers and magazines. Inside the shop quantities more are stored away. When a widow, it may be, wishes a likeness of her consort who left no pictured memorial behind him, or a youth perhaps craves a reminder of the grand-uncle he never saw, they find their way to one of these portrait shops. The shopkeeper spreads out before them an array of pictures, and after careful study a selection is made of a particular portrait which either bears some imaginary resemblance to the dear departed, or is what the sorrowing relatives would choose to have him look like. The shopkeeper then paints the head in life size and adds a body clothed in whatever style of garments may be mutually decided on. The finished portrait is finally hung on the wall of the family dwelling and pointed to with pride and affection as the face of the deceased ancestor.

Drug shops are many and are invested with an air of quiet exclusiveness and semi-professionalism, which suffers but a slight declension when in hot weather the clerks, after the manner of most shopkeepers, divest themselves of their non-essential upper garments and pass the day stripped to the waist. Upon the shelves of the shop stand rows and rows of large pewter cannisters and blue and white china jars, innocent enough to look at and yet designed to arouse the curiosity of the beholder as to the nature and character of their contents. Below are quantities of drawers containing dried roots, herbs, bones, seaweed, chalk, things indescribable and inscrutable, drawn from the air above, the earth beneath, and the waters under the earth. In addition to drugs the shop frequently keeps on exhibition some special attractions, such as glass jars with snakes preserved in alcohol, dried alligator skins, corals and geological specimens. In filling prescriptions china bottles, coloured pasteboard boxes and squares of white paper are used. Sometimes a score or more of the paper squares are placed on the counter at once, and from the different drawers an interesting assortment of medicines is laid on them. Here is dried orange peel, said to be an unfailing remedy for loss of appetite, a yellow berry that removes phlegm, a dried beetle that in a solution of water makes the best kind of eyewash. The silkworm taken from the cocoon when eaten with rice greatly assists digestion, and so does a flat bug that from its appearance might be great-grandfather to the bedbug. The ladybug, or what resembles one, is a sure cure for liver complaint, and another insect if rubbed on wounds quickly heals them. Also in certain troubles it has been found that a little of the alcohol in which a serpent is preserved, if taken internally, proves particularly efficacious. On the wall at the back of the shop is painted a picture of the god of medicine, at whose shrine tapers are kept burning. Chinese shops carrying foreign drugs, some of them excellent shops, too, are not uncommon in the Settlement but are seldom to be seen in the Chinese City.

The dentist, like his confreres in other countries, is ever in demand. Occasionally an aspiring, prosperous fellow is discovered doing business in a shop where the patient may balance himself on a stool, though still in full view of the curious street crowd, and tilting his head back, have the offending molar extracted without further ado. But ordinarily the professional outfit is limited to a small wooden table and what it will hold, set out in the street. Back of the weather-worn stand lounges the dentist, soiled and uncouth, keeping guard over his stock in trade, bottles of ointments, salves, a pair of forceps and other nondescript instruments, a few sets of teeth under a dust-covered glass case, and last but not least, piles of decayed teeth successfully extracted from tortured victims and kept as decoys to attract patronage. There are travelling dentists whose shop is a wheelbarrow which carries the dental equipment, with the inevitable pile of teeth conspicuous in the centre. They move from point to point, in inclement weather under cover of a mammoth coloured umbrella, and sound a gong to draw the ever-ready crowd.

More common still are the peripatetic restaurants. The outfit of the manager of the Liliputian establishment is a model of convenience and compactness. A simple bamboo frame, easily borne by one man even with all the appurtenances, is divided into two sections. On one side in a pocket rests a clay stove, with a place underneath for holding the wood. On the other is a series of drawers of various sizes, in which the dough, sugar, and spices are kept. A little kneading board pulls out from a slit between the drawers, and on it the baker deftly fashions his cakes and meat pies, frying them in vegetable oil in a shallow iron basin, or if they are to be baked, plastering them against the inner sides of the clay stove above the fire. Despite the dirt, dust, and flies, even the ultra fastidious can not deny that the finished product is decidedly appetizing.