CHINA'S HOPES FOR NATIONAL REVIVAL LIE IN EDUCATION

China, as the oldest and largest of existing nations, is often said to be the most conservative, but after 18 years of residence and travel in that land I am impressed with the evidences of China's power and progress. One of the most important indications of this is the rapid development of modern education in China, in the time that I have been there. In 1903 there were only 1247 students in all schools of a modern sort under Chinese auspices, and yet, when in September, 1905, the government determined to establish a general system of public schools, before the end of that year they had established 5000 such, going so far as to convert Buddhist and Taoist temples into schoolrooms; and in 1918 under government auspices alone there were 134,000 schools and 4,500,000 students. This certainly is some speed in spite of a considerable mass.

China's educational problem is enormous. A population of 400,000,000 would require, for an adequate public school system, not less than 2,000,000 teachers for all grades, and naturally this educational army cannot be developed over night. It will require at least a generation. When it is considered that China faces the dual task of simultaneous development of a representative form of government and the development of a public school system to form the foundation for such a government, and when we realize how closely these two are dependent one on the other, we see that to attempt to establish a republic before the people, by education, are prepared for it, or attempt to establish public schools before the government is sufficiently able to finance them, gives a combination which justifies the statement that China faces the greatest educational problem of all time. When the size of China is taken into account, as well as the short time in which she has been developing modern education, her progress compares very favorably with that of western countries.

There is a new factor in China which not only modifies the conditions for her internal development but also her international relations, viz., the modern student, for the students of China, women as well as men, are not only her hope for the future, they are power in the present time. This is clearly indicated by their instigation, organization and maintenance of the Japanese boycott when the negotiations over Shantung began between Japan and the weak officials of Peking. Although the students were denied the use of the mails and of the telegraph for their movement, by actual walking delegates they covered the country in a summer's recess and set up a tight boycott which cost Japanese merchants four to five million dollars a day for a number of months and thus enabled China to win a victory against Japan without resort to arms, because they brought the merchant class of Japan in direct opposition to the militaristic aims of their own government.

The spirit of China's students is also shown by their public campaigns against gambling in which the women students took a prominent part, and the fact that although according to ancient custom it was a dishonor for a student to work with his hands, the students of Canton Christian College,-coming even from well-to-do families, when they wanted a swimming pool dug it for themselves.

Conservatism Disappearing

But the students of China are not the only progressive element of the community. The traditional conservatism of the Chinese easily comes to a limit; when the Chinese are shown the practical benefits of a proposal, they become even more radical in reforms than we of the west under similar conditions. A very interesting example of this is the development of traffic on the modern railway. The introduction of the railroad in China was at first opposed because of its competition with the great numbers of coolies engaged in carrying goods, but chiefly because in the surveys too often graves were desecrated either through the ignorance of the foreign engineer or the crookedness of the Chinese middleman. But, when once the railroads were introduced, they began to make, as they still do, more money on passenger traffic than on freight, which is just the opposite of what it is in this country, and at least serves to show the popularity of this better means of transport. Another striking commercial example is the rapid evolution that has been brought about in the silk industry in the province of Kwangtung. By means of lectures and demonstrations and by special courses for silk producers given at the Canton Christian College under a stipend from the Silk Association of America, a greater volume of disease-free eggs of the silk worm have been distributed to the local farmers, and an entirely new method of reeling the skeins has been adopted, so that within the last two years 80 percent of the silk production of this province has been revolutionized to the great satisfaction of the American mills, and to the profit of the Cantonese producers.

Further Education of Women

A very striking indication of the progressive spirit of the Chinese is the extent to which the Government itself has fostered education for women in contrast even with Japan, which is so often referred to as having been speedily and completely modernized. There is not yet in Japan a single college for women under government auspices, whereas in China there are several, and in some even co-education is practiced in a land where less than two decades ago there was no provision for the education of women under Chinese auspices at all, and this co-education of today, while not wide spread, is extended in places even to courses in medicine, as for instance, at the medical school of the Rockefeller Foundation in Peking.

A striking example of a quick turnabout on the part of the Chinese was given in 1911 when in connection with the revolt against the Manchus, the Cantonese first, and then the Chinese of other provinces almost completely eliminated the queue in a very few days. This was very forcibly impressed upon me by my own observation on December 10th of that year. In my hotel at luncheon, all the waiters and houseboys were wearing queues and at dinner time not a single queue was to be seen, though many hands were raised to the backs of heads to make perfectly sure that the customary appendage, had really disappeared.

On the moral side, the development by the Chinese officials themselves of an anti-foot-binding crusade and the official outlawing of opium have been remarkable, and we have a contrast of a very significant sort between the action of the British government in refusing to agree to the total abolition of opium because British merchants held such a large stock of it already in store in Shanghai which must first be disposed of before the abolition should become effective, otherwise they would lose the several million dollars involved, and the action of the Chinese government, a pagan government if you will, who replied, "Very well then, we will buy the opium en bloc from you and burn it." Which they did.

Chaotic Condition Overemphasized

These are just a few samples taken at random to indicate the progressive currents that are at work in China, and when you consider the size of the country and her lack of communications and her lack of money, which has been imposed upon her by foreign powers from the very day that they awoke her with their insistence on foreign trade, it becomes clear that while China is not entirely free from faults, the present condition in which she finds herself is by no means entirely the result of her own actions or defects, but has been very largely imposed by unscrupulous actions of other powers. It is my firm conviction that if today we could secure the adoption of the policy on the part of all concerned, "Hands Off China Except To Help," the Chinese would be able in due time to solve their own problems. But it is only fair to allow China the same measure of time which we ourselves required in solving the problems of state rights versus federal control. The so-called chaotic condition of China and her backwardness have been over-emphasized in the press of America under the instigation of Japanese propagandists. From an intimate knowledge of conditions in China, I would venture the assertion that economically and commercially China is probably today more normal than any other large nation, and in spite of the political difference which exist she is today more homogenous even politically than any equal aggregate population to be found anywhere in the world.

The spirit and genius of the Chinese people very closely resembles that of the typical American, and it behooves us to realize that not only will a closer cooperation between our two nations be of benefit to China, but that in a very real way it involves also the future prosperity of our own land and the peace of the world.