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KANSAS CrTY, MO PUBUC LIBRARY
CHINA'S
NEW DAY
\
PRINCESS Su, WHOSE HUSBAND GAVE His PALACE FOR
CHRISTIANS DURING BOXER SIEGE
CHINA'S NEW DAY
A STUDY OF EVENTS THAT HAVE
LED TO ITS COMING
BY
ISAAC TAYLOR HEADLAND, D.D.
AUTHOR OF
SOME BY-PRODUCTS OF MISSIONS. COURT LIFE IN CHINA.
THE CHINESE BOY AND GIRL. CHINESE MOTHER GOOSE.
PUBLISHED BY
Central Committee on tfie Qlniteb dtubp of jttfetfian*
COPYRIGHT, APRIL, 1913
CENTRAL COMMITTEE ON THE UNITED
STUDY OF MISSIONS
3INOOE6
FRANK WOOD, PRINTER
BOSTON, MASS.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
FOREWORD vii
CHAPTER!.
THE BREAK WITH THE PAST . . 1
CHAPTER II.
THE CHINESE WOMAN .... 45
CHAPTER III.
AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION . . 88
CHAPTER IV.
THE CHINESE CHURCH .... 138
CHAPTER V.
MEDICAL WORK ... . . 177
CHAPTER VI.
THE PRINTED PAGE 221
FOREWORD
THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE believes that it has been
led providentially to the study of China at a great
crisis in her history. Until November the Committee
confidently expected to publish a book on another sub-
ject; but the serious illness of the author compelled a
sudden change. The Committee was led to write to
Dr. Headland who responded to the request that he
write a book on present conditions in China with a
time limit of six weeks. He has completed the task
and the Committee issues this unique book on China
on the date intended. Dr. Headland from his long
residence in Peking has had the advantage of observing
at close range the remarkable events and characters of
the past decade, while Mrs. Headland, in her position
of physician to the princesses, had unusual opportunities
to study the women of the highest class. And now
China has this day, February 12th, been declared a
Republic. With the study of our book begins a new
era. Sun Yat Sen, who has done so much to free
China, is a rare man the highest type of Christian
patriot. The future of China now depends largely on
the attitude of the Christian Church and her response
to the needs of the Chinese. How marvellously "God
is working his purpose out." He has opened the doors
and waits for us to say whether the earth shall be
filled with His knowledge.
May the study of this book lead us all to a new
understanding of His plan and power and to a new
devotion to his cause.
MRS. HENRY W. PEABODY.
Miss E. HARRIET STANWOOD.
MRS. DECATUR M. SAWYER.
MRS. FRANK MASON NORTH.
Miss GRACE T. COLBURN.
Miss RACHEL LOWRIE.
MRS. A. V. POHLMAN.
Miss OLIVIA H. LAWRENCE.
THE QURUB LINK, OKTTINO KKADV FOR Cnnu-n,
ACMWMY, NANKING ^ tttl , Irtn Ilollli!
STUDF.NTS, CANTON CHRISTIAN COLI K<;IC
CHAPTER I
THE: BREAK WITH THE PAST
THE China which is so rapidly emerging
could never have been developed by orderly evo-
lution from the old China so swiftly passing
away. There had to be a definite break with the
past, a frank abandonment of certain outgrown
ideals, and an adoption of certain new principles
and methods from without.
One of the most powerful factors in the creation
of the New China has been and is the process of
dissociation with the past and a deliberate
change of attitude. For millenniums China's face
has been toward the past. Her literature, her
government, her social life have all deified the
past and subordinated the present.
It is the aim of the present chapter to trace Aim of
some of the influences which have contributed to Chapter,
bring about this most remarkable intellectual revo-
lution of a whole people (for it is nothing less)
that the world has ever seen.
Some such survey is necessary if we are to Necessary to
measure the factors which to-day are making a Correct Un-
ncw China. Without this revolution in view- <lerstand " 1 *-
point and polity all the other factors would, be
impotent to bring about in a decade changes
which Intelligent observers had expected to
2 CHINAS NE W DA T
take at least a century or two. Th'e first I shall
mention is the Chino-Japanese War.
- In June, 1894, I started from Peking for a trip
nese War. to Korea. When I boarded the steamer at Tient-
sin, I had heard no murmur ings of war. When
I landed at Chefoo three days later, 1 went on
shore amidst companies of Japanese soldiers,
horses, provisions, ammunition, and all the
equipments of an army. The bluff was covered
with Koreans, clothed in white smocks and horse-
hair hats, sitting smoking long-stemmed pipes,
as unconcerned as though nothing was happen-
ing, with no regard, for the fact that by their in-
viting the Chinese to come over and put down u
rebellion, they had involved the two greatest
nations of the Orient in a war which was to
establish the reputation of the one as a fighter,
and to awaken the other to a realisation of her
weakness.
Battle of A few nights later I was called by Dr. George
Ileber Jones, with whom I was .staying, to HOC
before our door a company of Japanese Holdiers
stacking arms, and then a halt' hour later to see
them take up their arms, fall into line, and march
away as silently as the proverbial Arab. The
next morning it was reported that the battle of
Assam had been fought, the Chinese had been
defeated, and the gun had been fired which wa
to awaken China, subjugate Korea, and make
Japan, for a time at least, a leader in the
of the Orient,
THE J3REAJ? WITH THE PAST 3
*
For several y<jikrs previously the Japanese had Preparing for
been preparing/for this struggle. They had War -
their students /n our colleges and universities,
their business ' men in til the Oriental ports,
and their army officers studying all the lan-
guages of Europe and gathering up all the
information aj)out China that might be of interest
or assistance *in the coming struggle. I myself
taught the major, who afterwards sounded the
harbors of the Gulf of Pechelee, distinguished
himself during the war, and returned as general
to take charge of the troops in China when it was
over.
There was another factor which contributed, Sending
though in a more quiet way, to the awakening of Testament
China. This was the sending of the New Testa- w
meat as a birthday present to the Empress
Dowager.
In 1804 the Christian women in China
European, American and Chinese decided to
pay their respects to the Empress Dowager. This
year she celebrated with great pomp her sixtieth
birthday. Never perhaps since the days of
K'ang Ilsi arid Ch'ien Lung had preparations
boon made on so large a scale. A stone road had
been built from Peking to the summer palace,
fifteen miles west of the capital. Silver was sent
in from all the provinces in great quantities, and
presents began to pour in from all parts of the
empire. The Christian women from England
and America, and the Christian Chinese ladies.
:' CHINA'S NEW{ DAT
decided to give the Empress Dowager a birthday
present.
Printed with. After discussing the matter in several meetings,
New Type. a committee was appointed, and the New Testa-
ment was selected as the most appiopriate present
to be given on that occasion. New type was at
once cast; it was printed on the best of foreign
paper, was bound in silver, embossed bamboo
pattern, inclosed in a silver box, which was
placed in a red plush box, which in turn was in-
closed in a beautifully carved teakwood box, and
the whole put in an ordinary pine box, and sent
to the British and American ministers, who sent
it to the foreign office, whence it was carried to
the palace to Her Majesty. These ladies put all
the ceremony they could into the preparation and
transmission of their present, knowing that cere-
mony would play as large a part in its acceptance
as would the gift itself*
Chinese Love The Chinese love ceremony. We do not. We
Ceremony meet a man on the street, and with a wave of the
hand and a "how do you do, "we rush on as
though to overtake the (light of time. The
Chinese are never in a hurry* They have gone
cjuietly and restfully on for so many eenUiries
that it never occurs to them that there in any need
for hurry. A man meets another on the ntrcot,
makes a polite bow, say ti few words., makes
another polite bow and ayn a few words more,
then another polite bow, and, with 'Til ee you
again," pa*we# quietly and slowly on and it
restful to see him do it.
TUB BREAK WITH THE PAST 5
The Empress Dowager had the pine box
opened, as all presents to Her Majesty had to be
opened, in her presence. There was the beauti-
fully carved teakwood box, carved like the frame
of her portrait which is now in the Smithsonian
Institution in Washington.
Next appeared the red plush box. Red is the Red the Sign
sign of happiness in China. The bride's dress of Happiness,
is red; the chair in which she rides is red; New
Year's gifts are wrapped in red and tied with a
red string, everything that signifies happiness
is red, and so these ladies silently wished the
Empress Dowager happiness on her sixtieth
birthday, and she understood the wish.
Next appeared a silver box suggestive of the Silvcr So3C>
silver basis of China's monetary system. Within
that was the Word of God bound in silver.
We do not know what influence the New Tes- Greatness v
tamcnt had upon that great woman and she was tte Dowager,
a great woman. She was born in a humble
home. She was taken into the palace at sixteen
years of age and made the concubine of the
Emperor, a condition which no member of the
Manchu race covets for his daughter. She
studied until she could read the classical language
as well ns the officials could read it; and she so
approved herself to the ladies of the court that
she was elevated to the position of Kucifei or
first concubine, She became the mother of the
Emperor* s only son, and was raised to the posi-
tion of wife. Her husband died when her son
6
CHINA'S NEW DAT
Puts Kuang
Hsu on
Throne.
was only three years of age, and she contrived to
have him placed upon the throne, with herself as
regent during- his minority. In order to do this
it was necessary for her to sweep from the board
seven princes who were anxious to take control
of affairs.
During these years of regency she found time,
among other duties, to make matches for her
sisters and brothers. She had her younger sister
married to her husband's younger brother, thus
making her the mother of the present line of
rulers. Her son died as soon as he reached his
majority, and that same night who wont out to
her sister's home, and brought in her three-ancl-ii-
half-year-old boy. The next morning, when she
announced the death of her son, she proclaimed
this child as his successor under the dynastic
title of Kuang Ilsii, or brilliant succession, with
herself as regent again during his minority.
When he failed to rule according to the ideas of
his people, she was compelled to dethrone him;
and, when she was about to die, she selected her
sister's grandson, little Pu Yi, and placed him
upon the throne. Here we have the spectacle of
a little girl, born in a humble home, being made
the concubine of an emperor, the wife of an
emperor, the mother of an emperor, the maker of
two emperors, the regent for two emperors, the
dcthtoncr of an emperor, and the ruler of four
hundred millions of people for forty-seven year,
in a country where women are supposed to have
THE JBREAK WITH THE PAST 7
no power, a great woman in the nineteenth
century.
It was this great woman to whom these Chris- Tke Biggest
tian women decided to give a birthday present, Tking in tte
and they selected the New Testament. Whether World -
Her Majesty read it or not we do not know, but
it may have been its inspiration that led her to
decide to blot out the opium traffic, and to give
a constitution to her people; two decisions that
are worthy of the greatest ruler that has ever sat
upon the Dragon Throne.
Whatever its influence upon the Empress Emperor
Dowager, wo know what the result was on the Buys Bible,
mind of Kuang llsti, for the next morning after
it was taken into the palace, he sent out to the
American Bible Society and bought an Old and
New Testament, such as were being sold to the
common people.
A few days later a gardener, who furnished p^aid Visits
flowers and vegetables to the palace, came to me Palace,
and said: <4 Mr. Headland, something unusual
is taking place in the palace."
"Why do you think so?" I asked.
"Well, " he answered, "the eunuchs won't talk
about anything but Christianity. They kept me
talking until dinner time, and when I wanted to
leave they would not let me go. They continued
to ply mo with questions until I was so hungry
that I said, 'I must go home and get my
dinner/"
) pick mang, 9 the eunuchs urged.
CHINA'S NEW DAT
Em eror
Studies
Gospel of
Lute.
Development
E eh B
Toys for Em-
peror.
'Don't be in a hurry, we are just about to have
a feast brought in, and you must stay and eat
with us;' and they kept me there till dark, trying
to find out all they could about the Christian
religion. Something unusual is taking place."
^ * ew ^ a ^ s * ater ^ey invited him to bring the
assistant pastor into the palace to dine with
them, to teach them more about Christianity; and
during the conversation they told my friends that
the Emperor had a portion of the Gospel of Luke
copied in large characters each day, which he
spread out on the table before him, "and," said
the eunuch who stood behind his chair while he
studied, ff l can look over his shoulder, snul see
what he is doing, he is studying f*ucJiiafit.yin,
the Gospel of Luke,"
^ c can ncvcr understand the awakening of
China without understanding something of the
character and development of Kming Ilsii. Re-
member that he was taken out of the world, whore
he was free to learn everything, into the palace,
where ho was expected to follow in the footsteps
of his ancestors whose faces were always turned
toward the past; and where he did not havo a
single child to play with, and only eunuchs,
serving girls, court ladies and the two Dowagers
as his associates, with every wish gratified.
^ e uufluchs wont out into the city and bought,
him tovs Chincflo toys. He did not like them.
They finally found a foreign store on Legation
Street, where they bought him some of those
THE BREAK WITH THE PAST 9
foreign mechanical toys which he wound up and
set going, and that was what he wanted some-
thing that would go. He played until, like
Budge and Toddy, he wanted to know "what
made the wheels go wound, " and he broke his toy
and found a spring within.
The eunuchs bought him other toys including Watches
Swiss watches and cuckoo clocks. I went through and Clocks,
his palace in 1901 with a pass from the American
soldiers who were guarding the front gate while
he was away at Sianfu. There was a long
window along the south side of the room which
was filled with clocks from one end to the other,
all ticking a different time. There were tables
about the room, and clocks on the tables. There
was a beautiful curly maple desk with a clock
upon it. I sat down upon a Fi-ench chair up-
holstered in red plush, and a music box began to
play in the scut of the chair. This was attached
to an electric fan upon the wall which kept me
cool on that hot August day. It was the Em-
peror's reading chair, the eunuchs told me. He
could sit and read, and listen to the music, and
be kept cool by the electric fan. This boy, taken
out of the world at three and a half years of age,
had all these toys of modern times in the palace.
Thou he heard of the hue lun chc the fire- Railroad in
wheel cart, and he wanted one. lie thereupon Palace,
had a railroad built ^ilong the west shore of the
Lotus Lake in the palace grounds, and two little
cars and an engine made in Europe large enough
10
CHINA'S NB W DA T
Steam
Launches in
Lotus Lake.
Telegraph.
Telephone.
Phonograph.
to take the court for a ride on this newly con-
structed merry-go-round.
He then heard of the huo Inn cftuan the fire-
wheel boat, and he had small steam launches
brought into the palace and put into the Lotus
Lake and in the lake at the summer palace, and
these he could attach to the Empress Dowager's
barge and take the court for a ride about the
lake.
Later he heard of a method of sending mes-
sages by a flash of lightning. He got the tele-
graph into the palace, and now the most distant
part of the empire is tied up to the palace by the
electric wire.
Then he heard of a method by which one could
talk for a distance of fifty or a hundred miles,
and ready to believe anything he heard about
these foreigners he brought the telephone into
,the palace, and now Peking and most of the
other Chinese coast cities are cobwcbbed with
telephones.
Finally he heard about the talk-box. We Imp-
pence! to have a phonograph in our physical lab-
oratory; the officials came and bought it, and
took it into the Emperor, and we had a cine'*-
matograph for him about the time he was de-
throned, lie brought the great invent ions of
modern times into the palace, including .sleighs,
carriages, automobiles, electric lights, and every-
thing that would add to his intelligent under-
standing of the foreigner. Then he had the New
THE BREAK WITH THE PAST 11
Testament, and this gave him an inspiration,
and opened up to him a new line of investiga-
tion.
As soon as Kuang Hsu began to study his New Report of
Testament it was commonly reported about Emperor Be-
Pekmgthat he had become a Christian. It was coming Chris--
said that he catechised the eunuchs, and would tian *
not allow them to pass until they confessed that
they worshiped Jesus Christ; that when he went
to the temples he did not worship the idols, but
that he worshiped Tien Chu, the Lord of
Heaven.
After Kuang Hsu had studied his New Testa- Emperor
mcMit for some weeks, a eunuch came to me from Buys -
the palace, saying: "The Emperor has heard that Books,
there are a great many books translated from your
honorable Western language into our miserable
Chinese language, and he would like to have
some.*' Many of the stories, moreover, that
wore currently reported about Peking were con-
firmed by this eunuch.
I was in charge of two tract societies and the
college text-books, and I sent him some books.
The following day the eunuch came again and
said, "The Emperor wants more books." I sent
him more books. The next day he came with
the name request, and I complied in a like man-
ner. Every day for six weeks that eunuch came
to buy more books for the Emperor, until he had
bought every book that had been translated out
of the European languages into Chinese. Some-
12
CHINA'S NEW DAT
Sent Bicycle
Into Palace.
Young ScHol-
ara Follpw
Emperor's
Example.
times I had nothing but a Christian sheet tract.
Finally I had to go into my wife's private
library and send him her Chinese medical books.
One day the eunuch saw my wife's bicycle
standing on the veranda, and he asked, " Che
skih shcn mo chef What kind of a cart is this?"
"N&$7iih he tzc hshig che. That is a self-
moving cart, ' ' I answered.
"Tsenmo chlf How do you ride it?" he
continued.
I took it down, and rode a few times around
the compound.
"This is queer," he exclaimed, "why doesn't
it fall down? It only has two wheels."
"When a thing is moving, it can't fall clown,"
I assured him.
The next day when he came he said, "The
Emperor wants this bicycle." And so I sent my
wife's bicycle in to Kuang Ilsfi, awl it was re-
ported a short time afterwards that in trying to
ride, his queue had become entangled in the
back wheel and he had had a fall, awl then he
gave up trying to ride the bicycle as many another
person has done.
When the progressive officials and young
scholars throughout the empire heard that the
boy Kmperor was so deeply inU'rostetl in all kinds
of foreign inventions and foreign learning, they
rummaged the world to get them for him, certain
that if they succeeded in securing anything new
or unique, they would have better prospects of
securing an official position.
THE BREAK WITH THE PAST 13
These same young progressives secured per- Reading
mission to establish reading clubs, and one of Clubs,
them asked me to send in their subscription for
all the leading American, English, German,
French and Russian magazines, and some of the
leading newspapers ; not simply that they might
have some place to go to spend an evening, but
that they might keep up with the news and
pi-ogress of the world.
Newspapers and magazines similar to those Newspapers
conducted by such missionaries as Drs. Young J. andMaga-
Allen and Timothy Richard were started all over zines -
the empire, and began to have a perceptible in-
fluence on the development of a political as well
as religious sentiment among the people, for
newspapers up to that time were practically un-
known. Artists and caricaturists soon arose,
and it was not long before it began to be a ques-
tion whether the pilot had complete control of the
ship of state. English, German and French
newspapers in all the open ports were freely
discussing the spheres of influence of their re-
spective governments* They spoke daily, freely,
impertinently, insultingly, of dividing China up
among the Powers, until every schoolboy in
every essay, oration or debate, discussed the best
methods of reforming their government, and
making China strong and able to withstand the
incursions of fiurope.
All* this time Kuang Hstt was studying his "China's
books, devouring them with a passion which Only Hope.
14 CHINAS NEW DAT
only those can understand who know the Chinese
character. Chang Chih-tung, the Viceroy of
Hunan and Hupeh, was writing his epoch-
making book, "China's Only Hope," in which
he was urging the people to study Japan, and the
scholars to translate books from all the European
languages into Chinese, but especially those
books which had contributed to make Japan
strong. Japan had whipped China; now let
Japan teach China how she did it. This book
was sent to Kuang Hsu. He wrote an intro-
duction or approved of it, and ordered that it be
published in large editions and scattered broad-
cast over the empire. Yellow posters advertised
it on every wall in all the provincial capitals, and
millions were published and read, often by
readers on the street corners.
A Young Kang Yu-wei in the south was writing books
Confucius. which were causing him to be called the youiitf
Confucius, and which finally won for him a
position on the Board of Rites, and as counselor
of the Emperor himself, ono of the largest oppor-
tunities that was offered to any man during 1 the
nineteenth century.
Trip to Japan. After Kimng llfiii had taken a three year* 1
course of study in his books and had become
acquainted with all kinds of modern invention,
he decided to take u trip to Japan. Thin wa
changed to a trip to Tientsin, and finally given
up altogether. He began to issue lii reform
edicts, and seldom peril ap, if ever, in the hiatory
THE BREAK WITH THE PAST 15
of the world were so many people aroused to so
high a pitch of excitement over the prospects of
a peaceful reform as were the Chinese.
Among the most important edicts issued was Edicts
one in which he ordered that a Board of Educa- Board of Ed
tion be established, with a university in Peking ucatlon -
and a college in the capital of each of the
provinces. The effect of this edict upon the
empire has been tremendous. Twenty-one years
ago there was but one school teaching foreign
learning established by the government. Now
there are reported to be more than forty thousand
schools, colleges and universities engaged in
propagating the kind of learning in which Kuang
Hsu was interested. China has entirely over-
turned her old system of education, admitted to
be the greatest that was ever developed by a non-
Christian people; a system which dominated and
developed them for fifteen hundred years, and
has definitely committed herself to the system of
the West,
It is worthy of note also, that the new system American. In
is almost entirely the result of foreign influence. fluenceinEd
Almost all the schools and colleges opened in ucatum '
China up to that time were by American mis-
HionarieH, and sifter the American plan. The
first six colleges and universities established by
the government were opened for them by five
men who went to China as missionaries, four of
whom were Americans. These were Drs* W.
A* P Martin, C, D. Tenney, W. M. Hayes,
16
CHINA'S NEW DAT
Missiona
Influence in
Ctinese Edu-
cation.
Board of
Railroads.
. Fergusson and Timothy Richard. The
first public school system prepared for the gov-
ernment was drawn up by Dr. W. M. Hayes for
Yuan Shi ki, then Governor of Shantung
Province. This was submitted to the Empress
Dowager, received her approval, and, after Gov-
ernor Yuan was made Viceroy of Chihli, was
put into operation in that province, with some
modifications by Dr. C. D. Tenncy. At the
present time many of these schools have been
closed for lack of funds and competent teachers,
and we are told that the government is willing to
allow the missionaries to put a Christian teacher
into any one of these schools if they will add ten
to twenty dollars annually toward his support.
This is one of the greatest opportunities before
the church to-day.
A second important edict issued by Kuung ILsii
was the establishment of a Board of Rwilroads. I le
j iac i i iac i hi H little railroad in the palace for years.
lie had vision enough to see from behind his
great brick walls the effect 'that the building 1
of railroads would have upon the development of
the country, and upon his darling project of
reform. Twenty-one years ago there were but
one hundred miles of railroad in the whole em-
pire. Another had been built at Wu Hung in the
region of Shanghai, but the Chinese bought it,
and then tore it up and threw it into the river*
At the present time there are about seven thou-
sand miles built, five thousand mi lea projected,
THE BREAK WITH THE PAST 17
and the Chinese have just borrowed fifty millions
of dollars from Europe and America to build
another thousand miles of road from Hankow to
Szechuan.
A third important edict ordered the establish- Board of
ment of a Board of Mines. There is probably Mines.
no country in the world richer in mineral deposits
than China and the countries around her border.
Coal, both anthracite and bituminous, iron, gold,
silver, quicksilver, tin, copper and precious
stones especially jade are found in rich depos-
its. And yet I have seen an old blind woman sit-
ting on the bare ground in the cornfield on a cold
winter day, feeling about her if by chance she
might find a few weeds or cornstalks to light a
fire under her brick bed and cook her morsel of
food, oblivious of the fact that just beneath her
were groat veins of coal, if only they dared open
the earth and take it out. This they did not dare
to do. Do you ask why? There were spirits in
the earth, in the hills, in the rivers, in the moun-
tains spirits everywhere* They did not dare to
open mines for fear of disturbing the Feng $7iua,
and destroying the luck of the neighborhood.
The only mines they opened were those where
the veins of coal appeared in the side of the hill.
(I have heated my house in Peking with as good
anthracite coal as can be found in my native state
of Pennsylvania. And yet every bushel of coal I
have burned during all these years was brought
into the city from the hills twenty-five or thirty
18
CHINA'S NEW DAY
Women's In-
fluence in
China's
Officials.
Emperor
Scnda for
Yuan SKi ki.
miles distant, on the backs of camels, donkeys
or mules.) Now the mines are being properly
opened and a railroad connects them with the
capital and with a system of roads that go cast,
west, north and south from Peking.
Kuang Hsu issued twenty-seven such great
edicts in about twice as many clays. Why ? Was
this because the Christian women from England
and America, with their Christian Chinese sisters,
sent the Gospel of Jesus Christ into the palace?
It was the sending of the New Testament that
led the Emperor to buy books, and it was the
study of these books that gave him his vision of
a great progressive government.
By one of these edicts Kuang Hsu dismissed
sijc presidents and vice presidents of the Hoard of
Rites, because they refused the people the privi-
lege of sending sealed memorials into the palace.
These six men, with other disaffected oflioials,
went to the summer palace, where the Empress
Dowager had been quietly spending the hot
months of the summer of lHi)H, taking no hand in
his reforms, and begged her to come into the city
and teach him how to guide the nliip of slate.
She listened to them, dismissed them, but gave
no indication of what she would do*
When Ktiang Hsu heard what they had done,
lie sent for Yuan Shi ki r who was in charge
of 12,500 troops at Tientsin, summoned him to
an interview, ordered him to return to Tientsin,
massacre Jung Lit, the Governor General of the
THE BREAK WITH THE PAST 19
province, bring his troops, and imprison the
Empress Dowager in the summer palace, and not
allow her to interfere with his reforms. At this
time Kang Yu-wei was the chief adviser of the
Emperor.
Yuan knew that to carry out this order with
so small a number of troops at his command obeys E
would bring on a revolution. Jung Lu was his peror.
superior officer. Both of them and the Emperor
also had received their positions at the hands of
the Empress Dowager, and to assassinate the
one and imprison the other on the order of the
boy Emperor would bring calamity. He there-
fore went to Jung Lu, showed him the order, and
consulted as to what it would be best to do.
Jung Lu took the order, went to Peking by
the first train, hurried to the summer palace,
showed it to the Empress Dowager, and urged
her to take the throne and save the country, while
he remained in general control of the army.
The Empress Dowager ordered her sedan chair E mperor De-
ancl her most faithful eunuchs, hurried to the posed,
city, imprisoned the Emperor in the winter
palace, and once more took control of the
government.
Kang Yu-wei fled. The Emperor had tried Five Young
to escape to the British Legation, but was pre-
vented. The Empress Dowager arrested five of
the young reformers, among whom was Kang
Yu-wci's brother, and had them summarily be-
headed for having misled their ruler, one of the
20
CHINA'S NEW DAT
most culpable acts, so far as we know, that the
Empress Dowager ever performed.
While the Emperor was issuing his great
reform edicts in harmony with the wishes of the
European governments, they ought to have given
him their sympathy and support. Did they do
so?
Chinese Port About this time there were two German priests
Taken by massacred in Shantung. The German Emperor
Germany. was anxious to get a foothold in the East, and so
ordered the troops to be sent to China, to
make themselves a terror in the Orient. This
they did. They compelled China to pay a
heavy indemnity to the families of the two priests,
and to rebuild the property destroyed. Surely
that was enough. But it was not enough for the
German Emperor. He took the port of Kiaochiao
with fifty miles of territory around it* That
made Yti Hsicn, the Governor of the province,
angry, and he established the Big Knife Society
with the intention of driving the Germans out.
Germany, however, had not gotten enough, and
she compelled the Chinese government to allow
her to build all the railroads and open all the
mines in the province. She had her sphere of
influence.
Ruawa Takes As soon as Russia learned what Germany had
Two Ports, done, she demanded and received Port Arthur
and Dalney, without any provocation whatever.
Britain Won. Britain then took Wei llai Wei, likewise with-
France Won. out provocation. France took Kuang Chou
THE BREAK WITH THE PAST 21
Wan, and Italy demanded San Men. Never in
the history of the world was a government treated
more unjustly than China was treated by her
strong and avaricious neighbors, when she was
putting forth all her efforts at internal reform.
It was at this point that the Empress Dowager
took the throne. She at once issued secret
edicts to the viceroys, telling them, "We will
give no more ports." She ordered them to resist
the incursions of Europe by force, saying, "We
will trust heaven and the justice of our cause."
People often ask, "Do the Chinese like the
foreigners?" What is there about that kind of Chinese Like
treatment that was calculated to make them like Ufl?
Europe? The Empress Dowager was angry.
Can we wonder?
For two years the country was in a ferment Boxer
which resulted in the Boxer uprising of 1900* Uprising.
But it is 'worthy of note that the Empress Dow-
ager persistently refused to take part with the
Boxers, until their leaders forged a demand on
the pai't of the foreign ministers that she vacate
the throne and reinstate Kuang Hsu. Jung Lu
was in charge of the Imperial troops in Peking;
and but for him and the use of his troops and
his guns in defence of the foreigners, the lega-
tions must have fallen, and the Chinese Chris-
tians, missionaries and ministers must all have
been massacred. This is clearly brought out by
Bland and Backhouse in their book, "China
Under the Empress Dowager. '*
22 CHINA'S NEW DAT
TKe Court in For two years reform was at a standstill. But
Exile. while the court was in exile at Sianfu, the
Empress Dowager reissued all the important
edicts of Kuang Hsu, with a determination, a
condition and a power back of the edicts that they
should be carried out. - Slowly but surely this
was being- done. Yuan Shi ki was made
Governor of Shantung, and at once he began to
put into operation, with the assistance of Dr.
Hayes, his great educational enterprises. While he
Yuans ^ W as engaged in this his mother died. According
to the customs of the officials he sent in his resig-
nation. The Empress Dowager refused to accept
it, saying that his services were so necessary in the
present crisis that he must retain his office.
"But," she added, "it is quite proper that you
resign. I will, however, appoint an official of
your own rank to pay his respects to your
mother's spirit, and the fact that she has borne a
son who is so great as to be indispensable to the
government will be sufficient consolation to her
spirit to allow a substitute to worship in your
place."
Woman Saves The court now returned to Peking, and it is
the Day. worthy of note that it was a woman in this most
important crisis that saved the situation. The
Empress Dowager had every reason to hate the
governments of Europe. She was giving her
life to save her country ; they, with enough of
their own, were trying to wrest it from her. In
this situation Mrs. Conger, the wife of as noble
THE BREAK WITH THE PAST 28
a Christian minister as ever represented a Chris-
tian government at a non-Christian court, in the
face of a carping, critical world, held out her
Christian love and sympathy to the woman who,
the world thought, had tried to take her life. It
is the- one bright Christian oasis in the diplo-
matic relations of those dark years; and I am of
the opinion that it was the inspiration that came
from the sympathy and suggestions of Mrs,
Conger and her associates that had much to do
with the attitude of the last years of the Empress
Dowager's life toward the gieat and burning
problems of her country and her people.
All her life the Empress Dowager had been in Empress
favor of progress. She had kept the greatest of Dowager
the progressive officials about her, both Chinese a Progressive,
and Manchus. Li Hung Chang and Wang Wen-
shao, Prince Ching and Jung Lu were always at
her service. She now began on the largest
moral, social and political reforms that have ever
been undertaken in the empire. She conceived
the gigantic undertaking of destroying the opium
traffic, regardless of revenue, and thus blotting out
the worst curse that was ruining her people. The
extent of this undertaking can only be compared
with an effort to destroy the liquor traffic in the
United States ; and we have often thought that
only a woman, who knows not the hold that
habits have upon the appetites of men, would
have committed herself to such a task.
It is not necessary to review the development
24 CHINA'S NEW DAT
Opium of the opium traffic, nor to refer particularly to
Reform. Britain's part therein. Suffice it to say that it
had secured a stronger hold upon the Chinese
than alcohol upon the American people. Thou-
sands of acres of land all over the empire that
should have been used for growing wheat and
corn, were used for growing the poppy, and time
was spent upon its cultivation that would have
been better spent upon the production of food
stuffs.
Decrease In 1906 she issued an edict that the poppy cul-
Ten Per Cent tivation should be decreased one tenth each year
Annually. f or t jj e next ten years; there being an agreement
with Great Britain that, if China should do so,
she would decrease her importations ten per cent
annually until the traffic was done away with,
A register was ordered to be made of all con-
sumers of the drug, estimated at forty per cent
of the whole population, and of the quantity
consumed. Those who were under sixty years
of age were ordered to diminish their consump-
tion by not less than twenty per cent each year,
until they were free from its use. The govern-
ment offered to provide medicine free of cost to
assist the patient in breaking himself of the
habit. To those over sixty years of age, together
with the princes and nobles and other magnates
of the empire, a certain relaxation of these rules
was allowed. All minor officials under sixty
years of age were ordered to drop it entirely, and
there would be no toleration of those who became
THE BREAK WITH THE PAST 25
addicted to the drug after the date of that edict.
The cultivation of the poppy would be gradually
forbidden.
In the Province of Szechuan certain of the Farmers Try
farmers seeing that most of the others had quit to Avoid
planting the poppy, and thinking that the drug LaWt
would be in demand, planted large fields which
the viceroy promptly sent his lackeys to dig up.
The next year they planted their fields again, and
again the viceroy destroyed them. Once more
they planted their fields. The viceroy said to
his officials, "This is not simply disobedience,
this is rebellion," and, sending forth his execu-
tioners, he dug their graves in their poppy fields,
on the edge of which he had them kneel, and
with his axe he smote o their heads, and tumbled
their bodies into their graves.
Bishop Bashford, who for the past several Decrease in
years has been traveling over the provinces, Po *P y Cultl -
writcs: ct Where a few years ago I saw great
fields of poppies, now I see only fields of waving
grain." The Province of Szechuan is by far the
largest poppy producing area in the empire; and
it is in this province where the most drastic
punishment is meted out. If they can control it
in this section, they can prohibit it throughout
the rest of the empire.
In 1906 the Empress Dowager appointed a Commission
commission headed by Tai Hung-Tzu and Tuan on Constitu-
Fang, to which she attached her own nephew, tion -
the Duke Tse, and ordered them to visit the
CHINA'S NEW DAT
Female Edu-
cation*
Decree on
Constitution*
great governments of Europe and America for
the purpose of making a study of the political
institutions, with a purpose on their return to
offer valuable suggestions concerning the im-
provement of their own. The object of the
Empress Dowager was to discover what kind of
a constitution would be best to give to her people.
These commissioners did not, however, confine
themselves to the study of political conditions.
All national reform necessarily involves educa-
tional and social reforms as well; and so they
were ordered to devote special attention to the
study of education, as found in the schools, col-
leges and universities, and to the methods of
social amelioration in prisons and asylums for
the insane and the poor. And they said: "It is
a matter of peculiar interest that the Empress
Dowager charged us to inquire especially into
the education of girls in the United States, since
she hopes on our return to be able to found a
school for the education of the daughters of the
princes." When this commission returned to
Peking, its report was published in one hundred
and twenty-seven volumes.
The following decree will indicate the will of
the Empress Dowager in the matter of giving a
constitution to the people:
We have reverently received the excellent decree of
the great Empress Dowager strictly ordering the offi-
cials and people of Peking and of the provinces to carry
out completely by 1917 3 all the preparatory work, o
THE BREAK WITH THE PAST 27
that at the appointed time the constitution may be
proclaimed. . . . Members of parliament must assem-
ble. . . . From ourselves down to the officials and '
people high and low all must sincerely obey the excel-
lent decree. . . . Let there be no "reabsorption of
sweat" in this matter. Our hope is that this will cer-
tainly be carried out. Let the officials and the prov-
inces look not idly on and procrastinate, delaying the
opportune time. Let patriotism be shown forth. Exert
yourselves that constitutional government may be
established. And court and "wild" people may have
peace.
In October and November, 1909, elections were Provincial
held and the first provincial assemblies met, and Assemblies.
we are told that: " To-day marks an era in the
establishment of constitutional government in
China. In obedience to the Imperial decrees of
October 19, 1907, and of July 27, 1908, in each
of twenty-two provinces of China proper and
Manchuria and the new dominion of provincial
deliberative assemblies, elections have been in
progress for some time past, and the assemblies
meet in accordance with the regulations for the
first time to-day, October 14th."
Halls were erected for the assemblies to meet
wherever a viceroy or a governor had his seat.
The number of members varied from 140 in
Chihli and 114 in Chekiang to 30 in each of the
three Manchurian provinces.
After the forty days' session of the assemblies Results of
had ended, we arc told that: "A study of the re- Assemblies,
ports of the proceedings of the first session of the
Provincial Assemblies supports the contention
28 CHINA'S NEW DAT
that the Throne has been justified in granting the
subjects of the empire a limited right of speech
through their chosen representatives. The pro-
grams of debate have been strictly in accordance
with the Imperial edict, and the proceedings
have been marked with dignity and decorum.
The net result justifies the remark made by a
high authority, who has been given a special
opportunity of forming a judgment, that the
members have fulfilled their appointed task of
working in harmony with the executive author-
ities in the interests of their respective provinces. ' '
Another writes on the sixth of November, 1908,
in a different strain. He says :
Signs of Already, in the opening debates of these Provincial
Storm. Assemblies, one apprehends the coming chaos, the first
whispering of the approaching storm. Peking, pan-
oplied in ignorance and petrified in mediaeval state-
craft, trifles with Demos at its doors, evidently hoping
that the Assemblies will consume their own smoke, and
that the Mandarin may be preserved by the time-hon-
ored device of holding the balance, between contending
classes. But the spirits which the Vermilion Pencil has
called from the celestial deep, though elected with all
possible precautions of "silk-coated" franchise, and
under the close direction of viceroys and governors,
show signs of scant respect for the Central Government
and little sympathy for its difficulties. Already, within
a fortnight of their birth, many of the Assemblies have
passed resolutions denouncing several of the govern*
ment's pet proposals, e* g: 9 the opium monopoly, the
stamp tax, and the foreign loan for the Hankow-
Canton, and the Hankow-Szechuan railways* Concern-
ing the vexed question of the railway loan, the Ilupei
THE BREAK WITH THE PAST 29
Assembly is reported to have endorsed, without a dis-
sentient, their chairman's declaration that the govern-
ment's scheme should be resisted "to the death."
While I am not inclined to sympathize with
most of the quotation I have just given, and
especially with the style of his expression, in the
light of the present rebellion, the last two sen-
tences seem almost like a prophecy. The present
rebellion began in Szechuan in an uprising of
the people against taxation and the foreign loan
for the Hankow-Szechuan railway, and the Re-
publican form of government was a later addition
by the young reformers of the south.
Turn to the edict issued by the baby Emperor
Hsuan Tung, October 30, 1911, and see how
nearly his confessions conform to the predictions
in the above report He says:
It is now three years since we ascended the throne,
and our object has always been to promote the happi- p resent TJ
ness of our subjects. But in the executive departments
we have employed princes of the Imperial Blood which
is contrary to constitutional government, and in rail-
way matters we have followed policies which are not in
conformity with public opinion. . . . The wealth of
the people has been exacted to a great extent, while not
a single measure of benefit has been given to them in
return . . . consequently there was the uprising in
Szechuan closely followed by the outbreak in Hupeh.
... As to the wiping out of the distinction between
the Chinese and the Manchus, several edicts have
already been isstied in the preceding reign, and they
will soon be put into actual practice.
Such I think may be considered the three im-
30
CHINA'S NEW DAI
Causes of
Present
Uprising.
Political Of-
fenders Par-
dcmecL
mediate causes of the present uprising.
the levying of taxes upon the people for the pur-
pose of building railways or paying salaried offi-
cials, and then of effecting 1 an enormous loan
from the governments of Europe and America.
Second, of employing so many Princes of the
Blood in the most lucrative governmental posi-
tions a species of nepotism, instituted perhaps
largely by the late Empress Dowager ; and Third,
making unnecessary distinctions between Chinese
and Manchus, though several years ago an edict was
issued allowing them to marry, and one at least
of Prince Ching's sons has married a Chinese
lady.
Another important section of the edict given
above is as follows:
From the earliest ages a ban on political offenders
has been regarded as to be avoided, because it kills
talent and smothers the manly spirit. Political theories
change with the times, and what was regarded as offen-
sive in former times may be accepted views to-day.
Although while abroad such political offenders may
have incurred blame by sensational statements, yet they
have transgressed the bounds because they are enthu-
siastic over political reforms. Their feelings are par-
donable. A general amnesty is now clearly promulgated
and there is to be a new beginning of things. All
political offenders since 1898, all men who on account
of political opinions have gone into exile, for fear of
punishment, and all those participating against their
will in the recent disturbances renew their allegiance to
the government, will have their past forgiven and will
be considered as loving subjects.
THE BREAK WITH THE PAST 31
This is intended to include such men as Gen-
eral Li, Kang Yu-wei, and all those who fled at
the time of the dethronement of Kuang Hsu in
1898.
One of the most remarkable changes that is Change in
coming over China is the change in her Ian- La^wgc.
guage, not simply by the additions of new scien-
tific and other terms, but in all phases of her
thought and expression. It began after the Boxer
rebellion in 3900 when the foreign soldiers, who
were not able to talk Chinese, undertook to make
purchases from the Chinese. When they offered
less than the article was worth the dealer would
wave his hand and say pu go pen^ "not up to the
average," meaning that what they offered was not
equal to what the thing cost. This happened so
often that pu go pen was relegated to the realm
of slang.
In this same line Dr. A. J. Brown reports a Illustrative
young missionary as saying: Examples.
There are six of us studying Chinese together. Our
teachers tell us that we must pay more attention to
the new words now coming into use, I do not mean
the host of scientific terms being turned into Chinese,
but the miscellaneous phrases coined chiefly since 1900
to meet the needs of the new style of thought. These
expressions have gained currency mainly through the
newspapers, and so we go to the newspapers to fmd
them, rather than to the sinologues whose vocabularies
were acquired In anti-Boxer days. There is one new
word that everybody glibly recites to the inquiring new-
comer; it is the word for ideal, meaning literally^ "the
8:2 CHINA'S NEW DAT
thing you have your eye on." A fit companion to this
is a new way of speaking of a man's purpose in life;
''his magnetic needle points in such and such a
direction." A group of new expressions have the fol-
lowing meanings: society* reform, the full/c good, con-
stitutional government i protection of life, taking the
initiative, removing- obstructions, to volunteer one's service.
These indicate the direction * in which the winds of
thought are blowing in China. Freedom of religion is
another new phrase in Chinese ; so is a term meaning
to educate, as distinguished from to instruct. The use
of the latter was illustrated by a Chinese when he de-
clared that the Y. M. C. A. school in Tientsin was
better than the native schools, because it educated its
pupils, developing them both in morals and in knowl-
edge, whereas the Chinese schools just handed out
chunks' of knowledge for them to swallow as they
chose.
c*^ expansion of the Imperial Chinese postal
system in recent years has been enormous. The
postal routes cover 88, 000 miles, of which 68,000
miles are courier lines. The number of post
offices open in 1901 was 176. In 1907 this
number had increased to 2,803, while in 1908,
it had grown to 3,493. The number of postal
articles handled in 1901 was in the neighborhood
of 10,000,000; in 1907 there were 168,000,000,
and in 1908 no less than 252,000,000. Again in
1901 the number of parcels handled was 127,000
which together weighed 250 tons, while in 1907,
there were 1,920,000 parcels which weighed
5,509 tons, and still later in 1908 there were
2,445,000 parcels which weighed 27,155 tons;
an indication of the tremendous progress that is
PRINCE CHUN WITH YOUNG EMPEROR AND YOUNGER
BROTHER
THE BREAK WITH THE PAST 38
being made in this one enterprise that was in-
stituted and developed by Sir Robert Hart.
The expansion in other lines is quite equal to Railway
that of the postal system. In 1876 China had 14 Service,
miles of railway. In 1S81 there were 144 miles;
in 1889, 566; now there are more than 6,300
miles, while additional lines are being surveyed
and provided for.
A score of years ago the telegraph service con- Telegraph
nected only a few cities near the coast, and the ^Tele-
telephone was unknown. Now more than 40, 000 p one *
miles of wire reach all the leading centers of
population, and hundreds of yamens, business
houses, homes and palaces are equipped with
telephones.
Great cities all along the coast are lit up with Clean Cities,
electric lights, where formerly little tin lamps,
the size of those of our coal miners, in paper
covers on four posts, were lit only on moonlight
nights.
ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS
"Many officials understand Protestant missionaries
far better than they did a dozen years ago. Instances of
personal friendship are much more numerous. Pre-
fects, Taotais, Governors and Viceroys have visited
mission schools and hospitals and manifested keen
interest. In the fall of 1907, twenty-five missionaries
representing various Boards were in conference at
Tsinan-fu, the capital of the Province of Shantung, and
inquired whether the Governor would receive a com-
mittee of three to pay respects in behalf of the confer-
ence, lie replied that he would be glad to have the
missionaries call in a body. When they did so, they
34 Clfl-VA'S XJEW DAT
were received with every mark of cordiality. The
Governor returned t the call the following day, accom-
panied by a number of high officials and a military
escort, and he invited all the missionaries to a feast at
his yamen the same evening. There he again received
the missionaries with every honor. The feast was
served in foreign style and would have done credit to
any hotel in the homeland. The Governor made an
address, in which he spoke in high terms of the work of
the missionaries and the help which they were giving
in many ways to his people. This was the official who,
while holding a high position in the Province of Shan-si
during the Boxer Uprising, was commanded by his
Governor, Yu Hien, notorious for the murder of
seventy missionaries, to kill all the missionaries resid-
ing in his district. He promptly assembled forty mis-
sionaries, but sent them under military escort to a place
of safety, saying that he could not kill good and law-
abiding men and women." (Arthur J. Brown.)
Dr. Martin, In a chapter of his "Awakening of
China," p, 179^ has a significant postscript:
"It is the fashion to speak slightingly of the Boxer
trouble, and to blink the fact that the movement which
led to the capture of Peking and the flight of the court
was a serious war. The southern viceroys had under-
taken to maintain order in the south. Operations were
therefore somewhat localized. . . . Whether this was
the effect of diplomatic dust thrown in their eyes or
not, it -was fiction. How bitterly the Empress Dowager
was bent on exterminating the foreigner, may be
inferred from her decree ordering the massacre of for-
eigners and their adherents a savage edict which the
southern satraps refused to obey. A similar inference
may be drawn from the summary execution of four
ministers of state for remonstrating against throwing in
ike fortunes of tJte empire with tke Boxer f arty S'*
THE BREAK WITH THE PAST 35
4 'In 1894 occurred the Chinese- Japanese War, the
immediate cause being the anger of Japan over China's
interference with her plans in Korea. Japan expelled
the Chinese from the Korean peninsula, and also took
possession of districts in Manchuria. China's defeat
migrft have been more humiliating even than it was, for
Peking was threatened, but the bullet lodged in the head
of Li Hung Chang, China's great statesman, who had
been dispatched to Japan to sue for peace, caused his
appeal to be granted with more easy conditions than
would otherwise have been possible, for the Mikado
was justly ashamed of the cowardly act. China's wiser
and more open-minded body of statesmen, seeing how
the adoption of Western methods had given overwhelm-
ing strength to their small and despised island neighbor,
set themselves to work to reform their ancient empire,
encouraging Kuang Hsu in his studies and researches
in Western books ; and in rapid succession were issued
edicts dealing with every department of state too
radical for the conservatives too radical perhaps for
this 'ancestor of nations' to whom ages past and gone
and 'dead men are more of a live issue' than to any
other nation. Even when Kuang Hsii reached a suitable
age to have the reins of government given into his
hands, and the regency was (nominally) given up by
the Empress Dowager, she still kept her hand firmly
upon the affairs of state. And in the light of past history
the coup tf&tat of 1898 is not surprising when the
sceptre was taken in real earnest by this able and ruth-
less woman, Kuang Hsii in surrendering begging to be
'taught how to rule.'
"The reactionary party in power's dislike for foreign
methods, and hatred of foreigners was fostered by for-
eign aggression.
"In 1897 Germany seized Kiao Chow in the Province
of Shantung, calling it a 'lease' for ninety-nine years,
Russia followed by taking a 'lease' of Port Arthur the
so CHINA'S jrjsir DAT
next spring. England and France next came in for
their share, the one * leasing' Wei Hai Wei, the other
Kuang Chou \Van.
''The Chinese were in no way deceived by these
'leases,' they knew it meant permanent occupation,
truly the 'slicing of the melon' was going on apace I
4 "These with various other demands led to the encour-
agement of the Boxers to wage war upon everything and
everyone 'foreign' railways, telegraphs, schools,
hospitals, merchandise, Christians, and led to the terri-
ble revenge of 1900." (A Missionary.)
"The moral character of the Chinese is a book
written in strange letters, which are more complex and
difficult for one of another race, religion and language
to decipher than their own singularly compounded
word-symbols. In the same individuals, virtues and
vices, apparently incompatible, are placed side by side.
Meekness, gentleness, docility, industry, contentment,
cheerfulness, obedience to superiors, dutifulness to
parents, and reverence for the aged, are in one and the
same person, the companions of insincerity, lying, flat-
tery, treachery, cruelty, jealousy, ingratitude, avarice
and distrust of others." (Archdeacon Gray.)
"It is an abuse of terms, to say that they are a highly
moral people. A morality that forgets one half of the
decalogue must be wonderfully deficient, however com-
plete it may be in the other." (Lay.)
"Such Europeans as settle in China, and are eye
witnesses of what passes, are not surprised to hear that
mothers kill or expose several of their children ; nor
that parents sell their daughters for a trifle, nor that
the empire is full of thieves ; and the spirit of avarice
universal. They are rather surprised that greater
crimes are not heard of during seasons of scarcity. If
we deduct the desires so natural to the unhappy, the in-
nocence of their habits would correspond well enough
with their poverty and hard labour." (Premare.)
THE BREAK WITH THE PAST 37
"Absence of truth, and uprightness and honour,
this is a most appalling void, and, unfortunately, it
meets one in all classes and professions of the people.
I do not refer to money matters, for, as a rule, they
stand well in this respect." (Dr. Williamson.)
"Black is the mourning with us; white, grey and
blue, with the Chinese, and the shoes, as well as cap,
hair and clothes, all show it. Red is the sign of rejoic-
ing, and is consequently used at marriages." (Dyer
Ball.)
"When children die they are not always coffined, but
the bodies are often put into a box. Amongst the Can-
tonese this may, perhaps, be done in eight cases out of
ten, and the corpses of infants which are seen floating
in rivers and pools and lying by the wayside or on the
hill slopes are many of them those which are thus in-
decently cast aside without heathen burial, though
some of them are the bodies ivhich have been exposed
or killed outright by their inhuman parents." (Dyer
Ball, "Things Chinese.")
"Common report in China, as elsewhere, is usually
based on some foundation of truth, and in Peking,
where the mass of the population has always been con-
spicuously loyal to Tztt Hsi, there have never been two
opinions as to the extravagance and general profligacy
of her Court, and of the evils of the eunuch regime.
Nor is there room for doubt as to the deplorable effect
exercised by these vicious underlings on weak and un-
disciplined Emperors, rulers of decadent instincts, often
encouraged in vicious practices to their speedy undo-
ing." (Bland and Backhouse, "China Under the Em-
press Dowager-")'
"If any 'Old China hand' had been told beforehand
that the Emperor and the Empress Dowager would die
within twenty-four hours of each other, yet that the
succession would be quietly arranged with no suggestion
3b CJ/WA'S XEW DAT
of outward discontent, he would have smiled a knowing
smile and would have outlined a much more probable
line of events, but he would have been quite astray, Jt
is no novelty in China to have long minorities in the
palace, and 'the past hundred years has had fully its
share. Vet in this instance the selection both of a new
Emperor and a Regent seemed so clearly the best pos-
sible that after it became obvious that there was to be
no uprising or popular clamor, we seemed indeed to be
entering upon a lagoon of peace, such as China had
not known for more than a century* A year and a half
of the rule of the Prince Regent, however, made it
obvious that far too much had been expected from his
good intentions, and that his qualifications for the diffi-
cult task laid upon him were extremely inadequate.
The sudden and curt dismissal of Yuan Shi ki opened
a new window into the central machinery of the Chinese
government and made it plain that personal considera-
tions overtop the interests of the state, as has so often
although by no means uniformly been the case through
the long course of Chinese history.
"The opening decade of the twentieth century has
been marked in China by one of the most singular
phenomena in history the relatively rapid rise to self-
consciousness and to world-consciousness of the
Chinese people as a whole. It has long been recog-
nized that the Chinese have always been in many
of their social habits essentially democratic; the
theoretically absolute rule resting (theoretically)
upon popular approbation* But this approbation has
always been comparatively inarticulate. What were
the real motives that led the late Grand-Dowager
Empress to give her cordial approval to the introduction
of a 'Constitution' in China we have no means of
knowing, but whatever they may have been the step
was one of far-reaching importance, certainly for
China and perhaps for the world. It is evident that but
THE BREAK WITH THE PAST 39
a microscopic fraction of the people of China have any
idea at all what is connoted by the word 'constitution'
now so incessantly on the lips* of talkers and the pens
of writers, but they look forward to its introduction as
the opening of a golden era, instead of an embarkation
on 'the storm-tossed sea of liberty.' By what processes
are these innumerable millions to learn the meaning of
that mighty and mystic term, to distinguish between
liberty and license to be schooled in that self-restraint
which involves co-operation, the subordination of the
present to the future, and especially that of the indi-
vidual to the community?
"Nothing has so showed the temper of the new China
as her treatment of the opium reform, to which a fe%v
sentences must be devoted. It is important to remem-
ber that the avowed object is to 'make China strong.'
Five years ago it was something of a risk to assume
(as some of us did assume) that the Chinese govern-
ment was in earnest. This is now everywhere admitted
by those whose opinion is of any value. The great
opium conference in Shanghai in 1909 may be said to
have focused the sentiment of the world against this
deadly drug, and seems to have been the means of a
slow but definite change of view among the journals of
the Far East, many of which had maintained an attitude
of invincible skepticism as to the real intentions of
China. She has proved ready to sacrifice between one
hundred and one hundred and fifty million taels of
revenue, which is the highest proof of her intentions.
That the poppy plant is no longer grown in several
of the provinces which most largely produced it, seems
to be matter of trustworthy testimony. That many
opium smokers have been induced to leave off. smoking,
and that some have died in the attempt, is also well
known. The drug has enormously increased in price,
and it can no longer be afforded by the poor. Great
quantities of morphia have found their way into China,
40 CHIXA'S XEW DAT
a substitute much worse than the original. Against
this it is difficult effectively to guard. None of these
facts, nor all of them combined, prove that China has
gl\ en up opium, or that she will do so. That Is a
matter which of necessity must require at least another
decade or t\\o after all growth or visible importation
ceases. China is full of buried opium totally beyond
the reach of assessors or inquisitors, sufficient to fur-
nish a moderate supply fora long time to come. There
may for aught that appears be a steady leakage from
Persia, etc., through Central Asia. And in any case
the problem is so vast that it can no more be under-
taken offhand and achieved like the building of the
Great Wall under the Ch ? in Emperor than can any
other reform which is as much a moral as an economic
question. That China will be successful in the end we
have faith to believe, but it is a distant goal and "will
require strong and steady efforts." ("China Mission
Year Book.")
In "China Under the Empress Dowager" one read
of the following proclamation which was placarded all
over the city, in accordance with the Empress Dowager's
orders issued to Prince Chuang.
REWARDS
"Now that all foreign churches and chapels have
been razed to the ground, and that no place of refuge
or concealment is left for the foreigners, they must un-
avoidably scatter, flying in every direction. Be it there-
fore known and announced to all men, scholars and
volunteers, that any person found guilty of harbouring
foreigners will incur the penalty of decapitation. For
every male foreigner taken alive a reward of 50 taels
will be given; for every female 40 taels, and for every
child 30 taels ; but it is to be clearly understood that
they shall be taken alive, and that they shall be genuine
foreigners. Once this fact has been duly authenticated,
the reward -will be paid without delay. A special proc-
lamation, requiring reverent obedience. "
"I command that all foreigners men, women and
children, old and young be summarily executed. Let
THE BREAK WITH THE PAST 41
not one escape, so that my Empire may be purged of
this noisome source of corruption, and that peace may
be restored to my loyal subjects."
''The present movement is in great contrast with the
Boxer one of 1900. The latter stood in the sign of a
crass and demonic heathenism. The former, even more
than the Tai Ping rebellion, is touched with a certain
degree at least, of Christian influence. This the press
in the treaty ports acknowledges. In the * North China
Daily News' one reads:
" 'It has been a surprise to every one that this present
revolution has been carried out so far with such consid-
eration for the people at large. It is true, the beginning
of the movement was disgraced by the massacre of
Manchus in Wuchang and Hankow, but every care has
been -taken of citizens* lives and property as far as it
was possible to do so. The black record of murder and
outrage must be put down to the account of the Im-
perialists. There is no doubt that the present consid-
eration for the people is, in a large measure, due to
the leaven of Christianity which has had its effect on
the hearts of the Chinese, and for this the missionary
body must feel a certain amount of gratitude. It shows
that their work has not been in vain.'
"This fact does not appear incompatible with the
insurgents' summary method of dealing with offenders
against public order. Yet in the following revolutionary
proclamation a determination to protect Christians is
clearly apparent:
" 'I (the leader of the Revolution) am to dispel the
Manchu government and to revive the rights of the Han
people. Let all keep order and not disobey the military
discipline. The rewards of merit and the punishment
of crimes are as follows :
" 'Those who conceal any government officials are to
be beheaded.
42 CHINA'S +VjEir DAT
** 'Tho'-e who inflict injuries on foreigners are to
be beheaded.
* k 'Those uho deal \\ith merchants unfairly are to
be beheaded.
* 'Those who interrupt commerce are to be beheaded.
* fc 'Those \\ho give way to slaughter, burning and
adultery are to be beheaded.
* fc 'Those who attempt to close the markets are to be
beheaded.
' " ' Those who fight against the volunteers are to be
beheaded.
44 'Those who supply the troops with foodstuffs will
be rewarded.
61 'Those who supply ammunition will be beheaded.
t 'Those who afford protection to the foreign con-
cessions will be highly rewarded.
et 'Those who guard the churches will be highly
rewarded.
" 'Those who lead on the people to submission will
be highly rewarded.
" 'The eighth moon of the 4609th year of the Hwang
Dynasty.' " ("Northfield Record of Christian Work.")
"On one occasion, receiving certain foreign ladies in
the traveling Palace erected for her at Paoting-fu, that
the Old Buddha alluded directly to the massacres of for-
eign missionaries which had taken place in that city,
'with which she had, of course, nothing to do.' No
doubt by this time, and by force of repetition, Tzd. Hsi
had persuaded herself of her complete innocence ; but,
however, this may be, she undoubtedly won over most
of the foreigners with whom she came in contact, by
the charm and apparent sincerity of her manner."
(Bland and Backhouse, "China Under the Empress
Dowager.")
"Equally valueless, for purposes of historical ac-
curacy, are most of the accounts and impressions of the
Empress recorded by those Europeans (especially the
THE BREAK WITH THE PAST 43
ladies of the Diplomatic Body and their friends) who
saw her personality and purposes reflected in the false
light which beats upon the Dragon Throne on cere-
monial occasions, or who came under the influence of
the deliberate artifices and charm of manner which she
assumed so well. Had the etiquette of her Court and
people permitted intercourse with European diplomats
and distinguished visitors of the male sex, she would
certainly have acquired, and exercised over them also,
that direct personal influence which emanated from her
extraordinary vitality and will power, influence such as
the Western world has learned to associate with the
names of the Emperor William of Germany and Mr.
Roosevelt. Restricted as she was to social relations
with her own sex amongst foreigners, she exerted her-
self, and never failed, to produce on them an impression
of womanly grace and gentleness of disposition, which
qualities we find accordingly praised by nearly all who
came in contact with her after the return of the Court,
aye, even by those who had undergone the horrors of
the siege under the very walls of her Palace. The
glamour of her mysterious Court, the rarity of the
visions vouchsafed, the real charm of her manner, and
the apparently artless bonhomie of her bearing, all
combined to create in the minds of the European ladies
who saw her an impression as favourable as it was op-
posed to every dictate of common sense and experience.'*
(Ibid.)
"China, the largest, and hitherto the most unchang-
ing nation on earth, is now in a ferment with the leaven
of a new life. She is now entering upon a great crisis
in her history. Like the Jews, they have gone into all
the earth, speak the languages of the world, and yet
remain a separate people. The Chinaman can live in
any climate and take care of himself. Everywhere he
goes he takes his religion with him. When this mighty
people are won for Christ, what a power they will be
44 CHINA' S KB W DA T
in the world. China is not a dying race, but a strong
and vigorous people, a nation with a destiny, with a
constitutional form of government, and with a parlia-
ment nearing materialization.
"A question of overwhelming importance is, What
are Western nations going to do with the millions of
the Chinese? Or perhaps the question may be asked,
What are the Chinese going to do with the people of
the West in coming centuries? To evangelize China
and treat her justly was never so urgent as now. It is
not simple duty, it is true wisdom, it is wise warfare.
There is now an opportunity to show friendship for
this empire that will make China our friend." (Sir
Hunter Corbett in " Students and the Modern Mis-
sionary Crusade.")
QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER I
1. What began the awakening of China?
2. Tell the story of the sending of the New Testament
to a woman by the women. What had it to do with
China's awakening?
3. Tell the story of Kuang Hsii's development.
4. Why might a Christian people make more progress
than a non-Christian ? What are' the causes of progress ?
5. Tell how Kuang Hsu bought and studied Western
books, and of "the reforms he instituted.
6. Tell something of missionary influence in Chinese
educational reforms.
7. Why could Kuang Hsti begin reform which he was
unable to carry out? What defects had he as a ruler?
8. Tell what you can of Yuan Shi ki. Was he a
statesman or a traitor?
9. Who carried out Kuang Hsii's reforms? What
new reforms were instituted? Tell something of the
opium reform; the giving of a constitution; the open-
ing of national assemblies.
10. Give the causes of the uprising and demand for a
republic. Tell something of the progress of China in
recent years.
CHAPTER II
THE CHINESE WOMAN
Importance of
Ctinese
"\Vonwux.
ONE of the chief factors in the renewal and
regeneration of Chinese life is the Chinese
woinan. Long- the victim of repression and ig-
norance, she is still splendidly endowed, of un-
diminished vigor, and wields an immense influence
over Chinese society. It is quite possible when
the defects of Chinese life so far as they affect
women are pictured that American women gain
a wrong impression, and have a feeling of
mingled pity and contempt for those so down-
trodden. Nothing could be more unfortunate.
While the conditions surrounding the life of
Chinese women are far from ideal, and while the
conception of womanhood presented in Confucian
thought Is doubtless inadequate, yet ft is probable
that no woman of a non-Christian land has had
greater influence or dignity than the Chinese
woman. Certainly ho woman is to-day more im-
portant to reach and educate.
It is the purpose of this chapter to present the Purpose of
brighter aspects of the life of the Chinese woman Chapter
and to create a better appreciation of her fine
qualities, in order to emphasize the importance of
woman's education, training and better equip-
46
CHINA'S NEW DAI'
Necessity of
Studying
Conditions.
Books for
Women.
ment in this hour of China's need. Only as we
enter sympathetically into her life shall we be
able to appreciate the supreme worth of the op-
portunity that is before the Church to-day in the
new accessibility of the Chinese woman.
"Not one in ten thousand Chinese women can
read,'* said one of China's great sinologues,
some thirty years ago.
After I had lived in China for a few years I
began to doubt the accuracy of this statement.
One with foreign prejudices and predilections
may associate with an alien people for many
years, and not know much about special condi-
tions unless he makes an effort to learn them.
To illustrate: I had lived in China for six years
and had never heard a Chinese Mother Goose
rhyme, but within a year after hearing the first
one, I had made a collection of more than six
hundred of these nursery ditties.
I had been in China eleven years before I saw
a good Chinese painting, but after finding one,
and learning to appreciate it, I saw them on
every hand.
Soon after learning to read and speak the
Chinese language, while going about the book
shops of Liu Li Chang, the great book and
curio street of Peking, I found a little primer
called the ''Nil Erh Ching" or Classic for Girls,
and translated it. As it was in rhyme an attempt was
made to put it into meter similar to the original.
The following is a translation of the first verse:
THE CHINESE WOMAN 47
This instruction for my sisters Primer for
I have called the Nii Erh Ching; Girls.
All its precepts you should practice,
All its sentences should sing.
You should rise from bed as early
In the morning as tl e sun,
Nor retire at evening's closing
Till your work is wholly done.
The primer contains fifty-three stanzas. To "Four Books
my surprise I then found "Four Books for for Girls/'
Girls" similar to the "Four Books" for boys
that the Chinese have been studying from ten to
twenty centuries. These "Four Books for Girls"
opened up a new view of the Chinese woman,
and a larger, broader hope for the work that our
Christian women are doing in the Orient. No
one so far as I could learn had known anything
about "Four Books for Girls," up to that time,
though it was printed in such large editions that
it could be purchased in two volumes, done up
in a cloth cover, for the small sum of ten cents.
Further search revealed other books, such as "Studies 'for
"Studies for Women," by Lu Chou, being the Women."
examples of great women of ancient times,
"Studies for the Inner Apartments," the "Filial
Piety Classic for Girls, " which seemed to indicate
that the Chinese woman had not been entirely
neglected, but had received enough to make her
long for more.
On one occasion when a group of Chinese Testimony of
ladies were calling at our home I asked them if &*
they had read the "Four Books for Girls," the Woxnen -
48 CfflXA* S NE W DA T
primer for girls, and the other books for women.
They quoted from the books in order to verify
their statements. I continued my inquiries, and
in every instance where a company of women
from the homes of the middle and better classes
came to call we found one, and sometimes mere,
who could read It is rf significant fact that not
only the first book thajkwas ever written in any
language for the instruction of girls was written-
bytheLadyTs'ao, a Chinese woman contempora-
neous with the Apostle Paul, but that, when the
new regime was inaugurated, the first woman's
daily newspaper that was ever published any-
where in the world was started and edited by
Mrs. Chang, a Chinese lady in Peking, with
Chinese women and enough of them as her
constituency and her readers. It is, however, to
be noted that the largest daily newspaper in
Peking has a circulation of only three thousand,
ar- You ask what proportion of the Chinese
portion can women can read. Frankly, I do not know. The
Read? proportion of men who can read is probably not
one in ten, the proportion of women is un-
doubtedly still smaller. I have 'found those who
were admitted by my Chinese friends to be, equal
in their learning to a Hanlin, or fourth degree
graduate, an LL.D. One of these often came
to visit the ladies of our mission in 19Q1 after th6
Boxer trouble. I was introduced to her, and
gave her every possible opportunity to exhibit
her learning, by talking to her about Chinese
THE CHINBSB WOMAN 49
history, philosophy and literature. So long as A Learned
we kept strictly to topics Chinese she experienced
no embarrassment, she was full of learning. I
presented her with a copy of a translation of
Montieth's Physical Geography, and she was
entirely at sea. I asked her what she thought of it.
"I do not understand it," she confessed.
"What, you do not understand it!" I exclaimed
in surprise. "How is that? Isn't it good
Chinese?"
"Oh, yes, the Chinese is all right; and I un-
derstand the words, but the thought is all new to
me, and I cannot comprehend it," she explained.
Her mind was "packed full of knowledge," but/'
her reason was undeveloped. ,..-
Two young ladies, the daughters of a chuang intelligent
yuan, or fifth degree graduate, were calling on a Girls,
missionary. We have nothing that corresponds
to that degree in the West. Only one out of four
hundred millions of the Chinese could graduate as
a cJiuang yuan once in three years. The con-
versation turned on Chinese poetry. In the
Chinese biographical encyclopedias several vol-
umes were always devoted to women, and so the
missionary said to them, "Do ladies write poetry
at the present time?"
"Oh, yes/* they answered, "our aunt has Women
published a volume of poetry, we'll bring you a Poets,
copy;" and the next time they came they brought
a volume in which their aunt had written her
name, an autograph copy of her poems.
50
CHINA'S NEW DAT
Are \Vomen
Oppressed?
Henpecked
Husbands.
It is often said that the Chinese woman is an
oppressed creature, the slave of her husband,
who "dares not say that her soul is her own."
After studying the Chinese books for women,
and translating some of them into English, I
began to doubt the credibility of a universal
statement of such nature, and this particularly
after I had run upon certain expressions which
struck me as peculiar.
One day I was dining with Dr. Goodrich, the
author of the best Anglo-Chinese pocket dic-
tionary. He had helped me in things Chinese,
and during the conversation I said to him:
"Have you ever seen the expression Kuei che
ting tengl"
"What does it mean?" he asked.
"Literally it means to kneel and hold a candle
on one's head," I explained.
"Oh, yes, I know what the words mean," he
continued, "but what does it signify?"
"Freely translated, it means 'henpecked hus-
band.'" I added.
"I fear it isn't Chinese. It has been im-
ported," he volunteered. "The Chinese do not
have that genus. I have been in China for thirty
years, and I think I should have discovered it."
"Ask your table boy if he ever heard the ex-
pression."
"You ask him," he replied.
So I turned to the table boy and said: " Ni
ting chien kudi che ting teng liao, mciyu f Have
you heard the expression Kuei che ting teng?"
THB CHINESE WOMAN 51
"Yes," he replied with evident embarrass-
ment, "I have heard it."
"What does it mean?" I asked.
"It means 'the hen that crows in the morn- TKe Grow,
ing,'" he replied, quoting an expression em- ing Hen.
bodied in the following verses, translated from
the "Classic for Girls," where a "wife's vir-
tues" are enumerated, and allusion is made to
certain customs. The sentence is even found in
the Book of History, edited by Confucius no less
than five hundred years before Christ, an indica-
tion that the Chinese woman has held her own
for many centuries:
Then a meek and lowly temper
Is restriction number seven.
Your relation to your husband
Is the same as earth to heaven.
Where the hen announces morning,
There the home will be destroyed,
You from lack of woman's virtue
Neighbor's scorn cannot avoid.
And again farther on, under the "reasons for
certain customs," we read:
Then a woman's upper garment
And her skirt should teach again,
That though living with her husband
She is on a different plane.
She should follow and be humble
That it ne'er be said by men,
That the morning there is published
By the crowing of the hen.
52 CHINA'S NEW DAT
"But," said I to the boy, "you do not have
that kind of men in these days, do you?"
"O-h, y-e-s," he drawled.
"For instance," I went on.
"P'an Erh in your compound. They say he
is a candlestick for his wife."
I recognized the man he mentioned as one
who stayed at home and took care of the children,
while his wife went out into service and made a
living for the family.
Chinese stories would indicate that there is no
lack of this genus in China. I do not mean to
imply that any large proportion of the men in
China are domineered over by their wives, but
believe that the Chinese woman is as strong a
character as her husband.
General Ma. A story is told of the late General Ma. He
was calling on one of the older missionaries on
one occasion. During the conversation he said,
"Dr. S , I want to ask you a question. In
your honorable country is the woman the head of
the home or is the man the head of the home?"
"Why General, it is this way. If the man is a
stronger character than the woman he is the head
of the home, but if the woman is stronger than
the man she rules."
The General pushed back his chair and said
with a smile, "In my miserable country it is
exactly the same!"
The Chinese speaks of his wife as his neijcn
his "inside person"; the implication being
THE CHINESE WOMAN 53
that her sphere is the home, while that of the "Tie Inside
husband is outside as a breadwinner. She rules
in her realm as autocratically as he does in his.
As soon as a man steps over his threshold, he
takes a second place. She serves him in the
house; he serves her outside. {The reader will
allow a good deal of latitude here, as man is
more muscular than woman, and a bad man is not
likely to be a good husband anywhere in the
world,/ In an inquiry of this kind we must know
two things: First, what place do the Chinese give
to woman? Second, are they able to carry out
their theories of a home?
Home is woman's realm. In it she is the ac- Ho
credited ruler. She is supposed to prepare her
husband's food, care for his clothing, bear and ea m "
care for the children, call a teacher for her son
and place him, in school, teach her daughter
fancy work and cooking, and,
If from fancy work and cooking
You can save some precious hours,
You should spend them in embroidering
Ornamental leaves and flowers.
But as a matter of fact in the country and
among the poor farmer folk the wife is sometimes
hitched up with the husband and the donkey to
the plough, the handle of which the son holds.
The girls and the women often go out in the fields
in the busy season of planting, hoeing and har-
vesting and work beside the men, and you will
rarely find a man who cannot cook.
54
CHINA'S NEW DAT
Tte Lady
Ts'ao.
Treatment of Another question that often arises is, Does a
Women. Chinese man treat his wife well ? I should answer
in a general way, a good man does, and a cruel
or domineering- man does not. But the whole
question resolves itself into the relative strength
of character of dhe man and his wife,
It has already been said that the first book that
was ever written in any language for the instruc-
tion of girls, was written by a Chinese woman,
contemporaneous with the Apostle Paul; and
some of her teachings were not very different
from those of the Apostle. Among 1 her striking
expressions we have: "First others, then your-
self." This book of the good Lady Ts'ao is the
first of the "Four Books for Girls." It was from
such women as these, such teachings as these,
that the nineteenth century developed the late
Dowager Empress, of whom we have spoken in
another chapter. But for this general character
of women it would have been impossible for her
to have taken the position she did.
The changes in the social life of Chinese
women of rank have been even greater than the
changes in their educational life, described in
another chapter. Much of this change must ever
be accredited to the loving interest shown in
these ladies by Mrs. Conger, the wife of our hon*
ored American minister. Mrs. Conger tells us
in her letters :
Social
Changes.
From my entrance into China, on through seven
years, I worked with a fixed purpose to gain clearer
THE CHINESE WOMAN 55
ideas. ... I sought the opportunity for my first call
upon Chinese ladies by saying to His Excellency Li
Hung Chang, that, if agreeable to him and his family,
I should be pleased to call and pay my respects. . . .
After the troubles of 1900 Her Majesty issued many
invitations for audiences, and these invitations were
accepted. Then followed my tiffin to the court prin-
cesses and their tiffin in return. This opened the way
for other princesses and wives of high 'officials to call,
receive calls, to entertain and be entertained.
In some cases arrangements were made by Mrs*
Headland, who for many years had been physi-
cian to these princesses. For months this social
round of luncheons, tiffins and teas was kept up
between the American ladies and these prin-
cesses, and Manchu and Chinese ladies of the
highest official circles. Several of these Chinese
ladies have adopted their afternoon "at home,"
when they see their friends after European
fashion.
It was an education to them. On one occa- A
sion when the Dowager Princess K'e was calling
on one of the missionaries with the princesses of
her palace, the table had been prepared in the
most dainty and tasteful way. When the
servant slid the folding doors, and the hostess in-
vited them to step out into the dining room and
have a cup of tea, the Dowager Princess arose,
and, as she gazed upon the flower-bedecked table,
she exclaimed, "I have seen such pictures
through the stereoscope, but I never thought I
should see them in real life!"
56 CHINA' S NB W DAT
CkneseFam- There is a general impression among foreigners
lies Eat {hat t k e Chinese families of the better classes do
Together. nQfc eat togg^er, that the women prepare the
food, the men are served first, and whatever is
left is given to the women, I doubted this, and
was often told by Chinese friends of the middle
classes that it was not true. One young Chinese
friend who taught the boys in an official family
assured me that he often ate with the family, the
father sitting at one end of the table, the mother
at the other,1he boys and trie teacher on one side,
and their wives and sisters on the other. ^
My doubts were dispelled when calling on a
young Chinese gentleman and his wife, both
grandchildren of viceroys. There was with them
at the time another grandson of a viceroy, and
the grandson of a member of the Grand Council.
During the conversation which was about the
common customs of our countries and people, I
said, "I want to ask you a question, and you will
pardon me for doing so I am sure, for the only
way we foreigners have of learning about the
home life of the Chinese is to inquire. There
is a general impression among foreigners that
when a Chinese family is at home together, the
women prepare the foc-d and serve the men, and
then they eat what is left. Now do such families
as yours, when no guests are present, father,
mother and children, all eat at the same table at
the same time?"
Both the young man and his wife assured me
that that was always the custom in their homes.
FIELD WOMEN IN CHINA
Woman's Board of Missions
THE CHINESE WOMAN 57
"Then the women do not serve the men first
and then eat what is left?" I inquired.
"No/' said one of the other young men, with
a twinkle in his eye, "but we men have a joke Joke,
which iS general, that when we entertain our
friends, and the women prepare the food for us,
they keep the best little tidbits for themselves.'*
Much has been written of the Chinese custom Foot-binding,
of binding the feet of the girls, and very much
has been done by the Manchus, ,who never bind
their feet, to break up this custom, Whatever
may be said as to the origin of the custom, and
there are several stories current among the
Chinese as to its origin, it has been practiced for
the most part, because it is a custom, because
everybody likes to have small feet, and because it
adds to their beauty.
One story of its origin is that a princess with
club feet, bound them to cover up her deformity.
Another ' lays the blame at the door of one Yao
Niang, a favorite concubine of the Emperor. Still
another says that it started in the effort of a
crusty husband to keep his wife from gadding.
This is the reason given in the "Classic for
Girls, " where we find the following stanza:
Have you ever learned the reason
For the binding of your feet?
Tis from fear that 'twill be easy
To go out upon the street.
It is not that they are handsome
When thus like a crooked bow,
That ten thousand wraps and bindings
Are thus bound around them so.
58 CHINAS NEW DAY
I am inclined to believe that the author wishes
to draw the moral here rather than to give the
underlying reason, for in the next verse, a similar
moral is drawn from the boring of the ears The
author says:
Have you ever learned the reason
Why your ears should punctured be ?
J Tis that you may never listen
To the talk of Chang or Li.
True the holes were made for earrings
That your face may be refined,
But the other better reason
You should always keep in mind.
Was there ever a woman in this world who
bored her ears to remind herself that she was not
to listen to the idle gossip of the neighbors?
The custom of foot-binding is doubtless a result
of the universal desire for small feet. That there
is terrible suffering connected with it is evi-
^denced by their proverb, that "For every pair of
bound feet there is a bed full of tears. " Happily
as a result of the influence of the church, the
girls' schools, the ant i -foot-bind ing society, and
the reform that is sweeping over the country,
foot-binding is in disrepute. But women's cus-
toms die hard, and the Chinese may be expected
to have a constitution or a republic before they
have entirely discarded the fashion of foot-
binding.
I have referred to the Chinese woman as a
poet and a scholar; let me now call attention to
THE CHINESE WOMAN 59.
her in other vocations of life. The brother of Woman fa
the Lady Ts'ao, the author of the book for girls
already referred to, was the historiographer of
the Han dynasty. When he died his sister was
chosen to complete his history of the former
dynasty, and Chinese literary men confess with
pride that it is impossible to distinguish where
her brother's work ended and hers began.
Many Chinese women were artists of note, and Woman
in a biographical encyclopedia of Chinese artists. Art.
of the twenty-four volumes, four were devoted to
the biographies of great Chinese women artists.
In a painting in my possession, "one hundred
birds are paying their respects to the phenix,"
the king and queen of birds. Each of the birds
is almost life size. It was painted by a woman
more than three hundred years ago, and is one, of
the finest pieces of bird painting ever seen in any
country. Many women of the present time, in-
cluding the late Empress Dowager, the Lady
Miao, her painting teacher, and the Princess Yii
Lan, are artists of some ability.
Among the great rulers of China there are Women
three whose names will be preserved as long as Ruler*.
Chinese history lasts. The first was the Em-
press Lti Hop, of the Han dynasty, about the be-
ginning of our era; the second, Wu Tzu Tien, a
Buddhist nun of the Tang dynasty, about the
eighth century, who was taken into the palace as
a concubine, and dominated the empire; and the
third is the late Empress Dowager. But the
60 CHINA 9 S NE W' DAT
author of the third of the "Four Books for
Girls," who was herself the Empress of Yung
Lo, the third Emperor of the Ming dynasty,
about five hundred years ago, held that the great-
ness of every emperor who has ruled China
during her whole history is due to the advice and
assistance he received from his wife. After
allowing for the fact that she is trying to impress
upon the women of the palace and the country
the importance of being good, we can still see
the tremendous influence which the Chinese
women feel that they have in the home.
Women in Again among the warriors of the world China
War. furnishes us a Joan of Arc, Chin Mu Lan. We
are told that when the father of this lady, who
was a great general, was too old to take his place
at the head of the army and put down a rebellion
in Turkestan, and her brothers were too young,
she dressed herself in men's garb, and for nine
years led the army to successive victories, all the
time concealing her sex and making for herself
an everlasting reputation. When she returned
to her home, and was summoned into the presence
of the Emperor, she still remained incognito,
then took up her domestic role, and remains to
this day one of the most attractive studies \ for
artists. Nor should we forget that during the
Boxer rebellion of 1900 there was a red lantern
society composed of women, who took their place
beside their brothers in their hopeless effort to
drive out the foreigner, and save their country
THE CHINESE WOMAN 61
from being divided up among the nations of
Europe.
You know, everybody knows, that the disposi- A Woman's
tion of woman is alike all over the world, and Will,
that when she wants anything that belongs to her
by right, the easiest thing to do is to let her have
it, or she will get in some other way her own
W ay what she wants, in spite of the most
serious opposition, and the wise man in China
chooses the less of two evils. This is well illus-
trated by a story told by a friend.
"While talking with an official about the wor-
ship of idols one day there was a large stone Idols,
image near by and I said to him, 'You do not
worship that, do you?' "
"No, I do not worship that. You go with
me and I can show you the quarry from which
the stone was taken to jnake that idol, and the
chips left by the stonecutters. I can tell you
how much gold was required to gild it. Why
should I worship that?"
"A few days thereafter, I saw this same
official, clothed in hat, boots and official garb,
with candles, incense and cash in hand, making
his way in a slow and dignified manner to the
temple. I saw him light his incense, place it in
the burner and fall upon his knees and knock his
head on the ground again and again before the idol.
The next day I met him and told him of my surprise
at seeing him in the temple worshiping the idol
which he assured me he did not worship.
62 CHINAS NE W DAT
"He took me by the arm, and said, 'You are
a sensible man. You have a wife and children
and a mother-in-law. If you had a little boy
who was ill, and it came to a choice between
worshiping that idol, or having a row with your
mother-in-law, you would go and worship the
idol, now wouldn't you?' "
Those who think that the Chinese woman is
not a person who is capable of standing beside
her husband should read the following account
of a meeting of women held in Canton in 1908 :
A Great * ^e m eeting, convened in connection with the diffi-
Meeting. culty between China and Japan, was a unique one, and
is responsible to a great extent for the growing strength
of the boycotting movement. The proceedings were
conducted in a perfectly orderly manner, and stirring
addresses were made for four hours. The weather, con-
ditions were wholly adverse; but notwithstanding the
drenching rain that fell continuously, fully ten thou-
sand women came together at the place of meeting.
For the first time in the history of this great commer-
cial center, the main thoroughfares were kept open by
properly appointed police ; told off for the duty of reg-
ulating the traffic in order to facilitate the progress of
the wives and daughters of its citizens to a meeting in
which they were to vindicate their claim to be heard in
indignant protest against national injustice and wrong.
Leaving out of account the merits of the question at
issue, we say advisedly that there never was a more
significant function in its bearing on the future of a
nation than the women's mass meeting In Canton,
j- ., The new life that is now stirring the people affects
ew ** women as well as men. A writer in the Hong Kong
Journal says: "Not the most optimistic or enthusiastic
revolutionary, who from the viewpoint of twenty years
THE CHINESE WOMAN 68
ago looked forward to the changes that then seemed
impending, would have dared to prophesy an overturn-
ing and recasting so complete as that which now meets
the gaze in certain aspects of social and political life
in China. Few things have been more rapid or more
startling than the emancipation of women, and the
acquiescence of officials and other responsible leaders
among the people in the position of women as a leading
factor in public 'life. The Orientalized woman in the
chief centers of intellectual activity is a creature of the
past. She is becoming every year more Occidental in
respect to the position 'claimed by her, as a figure in
the new world, where she is ultimately to achieve vic-
tory in every conflict for the rights of her sex in the
advanced and progressive commonwealth. National
spirit in its most potent forms, working for good or
for evil, is raised to the highest plane of effectiveness
when it dominates womanhood.'*
Mrs. Chauncey Goodrich of Peking describes
an interesting meeting of women held in the
capital in January, 1911 :
Two ladies, Mrs. Feng and Mrs. Kung, both wives of Women and
high officials, the former a widow and head of a gov- tke Opium
ernment kindergarten and preparatory school, were the Question.
leaders of the movement. When they heard that the
Christian people of England were anxious that no more
opium should be imported into China, they decided to
call a meeting of Chinese women who would express
the sentiment of the Chinese people. These two ladies
wrote letters inviting the people to come. Ten thou-
sand of these were published and scattered abroad. The
preparations were extensive. The meeting was held in
an official building next door to that of Prince Shun,
brother of the Regent. Eight hundred women were
present, most of them wives and daughters of officials
CHINA'S NB W DA T
Tne Bruised
Women to
tKe Skeltered
"Women.
Tne Real
Place of
Women.
or of the better classes. Sheets of paper on small
boards were prepared on which the ladies were asked
to write their names. Anti-opium songs had been
written to the tunes of the kindergarten, which the
children sang. Mrs. Feng, in a touching address de-
scribing the horrors of the ravages of opium, with
tears streaming down her cheeks, reminded the women
again and again, that the "Christians of England are
on our side." Christian girls from the Woman's Col-
lege sang several songs, and played selections on the
piano. Fires were all about the room in brass braziers,
Chinese refreshments were served in a side room, while
a special room was prepared with foreign furniture and
foreign refreshments for the English and American
guests. Most of these ladies signed their names, and
within six weeks' time they had secured the signatures
of 3,512 women and girls.
Now comes the most touching part. After the demi-
mondes had heard of the movement they wrote an appeal
asking that their names be sent not in the same list,
they could not a$k for that, but in a separate list,^ say-
ing that most of them had been sold into this life of
shame by opium smoking fathers or brothers or hus-
bands, saying also: "We are in a shoreless sea. There
is no possibility of helping us, but it may save others
from a similar fate. There are those who think that
we are flippant and enjoy this life. They do not know
how often we must smile upon guests we despise. We
beat our breasts and cry aloud, but there is no help for
us. We feared to write this lest it would soil your
eyes." Thirty-three names were on this list, one of
whom, the promoter, was said to be the daughter of a
man who was educated abroad.
Now let not my readers quote any sentence, or
combination of sentences, of that which I have
written, and pretend that this describes the actual
THE CHINESE WOMAN 65
position and lot of the Chinese woman. It does
not. It is theoretically her position according to
Chinese ideals. "She should follow and be
humble/* " She is as earth," to receive; "her
husband is as heaven," to give. She may not
perform the sacrifices, she may not worship her
ancestors, indeed she has no ancestors to wor-
ship. When she marries, she becomes a part of
her husband's family, and severs every tie that
bound her to her own. Her parents become dead
to her unless her husband's family overdo the
bad treatment, when there may be a village dis-
turbance. But that is simply by the way.
Now what really happens in a Chinese home?
I am not going to take exceptional and awful p en8 ^ a
cases, but simply give you facts as I found them Home?
in this investigation. I have been confining my-
self to the middle and upper classes for the most
part, because, if the condition of this small and
favored portion of the community is undesirable,
what must be the condition of the woman in the
mud hut and the country hovel! It would be
impossible to describe it in such a way as to
enable you to understand it, if you have never
visited an Oriental country. The poverty and
dirt in our own great cities approximate that of
these' poor people in the Orient, except that our
people can go out upon clean streets and clean
parks and see the possibilities of life, but these
in China cannot. There is absolutely no hope for
them until there are social, political, economic,
66
CHINA'S NEW DAI
Conditions in
tne Home.
educational and religious upheavals in China.
Some of these changes are coming for the men,
and the new education (as we shall show in
another chapter) will bring about some changes
for some women. Will it for these? What will
you do to help ?
Perhaps the worst of all domestic conditions in
China are poverty, the inability of the woman to
go out into service of any kind and help herself,
and concubinage. Shut up in the common fam-
ily home, in which live several families and as
many generations, if she is poor, she has little to
do; for she has nothing to work with, no separate
home of her own to keep clean and neat, no
clothes to give her an appearance of respectability ;
while on the other hand she has other women to
quarrel or gossip with her, with constant com-
plaints and jealousies. Congenial employment
which would bring her some income of her own
is one of her real needs.
Concubinage. But the greatest of all defects in Chinese social
life is concubinage, with its attendant evils.
While the law recognizes but one legal wife, law
and immemorial custom have permitted the pres-
ence of the concu.bine, "or little wife," in the
home. Theoretically the wife gives her husband
a concubine, in reality she is obliged to accept with
what grace she can the concubine whom her hus-
band brings into the home. When one considers
that in one household are sheltered grandfather
and grandmother, sons and sons* wives, children-,
THE CHINESE WOMAN 67
concubines and slave girls, it is not difficult to
understand the unhappiness which often exists.
An evil akin to that of the concubine, but Tte Slave
even more pitiable, is that of the slavery of girls. Girl.
A father has the right to sell his daughter into
domestic slavery or for evil purposes. Often
under the pressure of the terrible poverty which
always threatens the Chinese working man, or to
relieve debt or to get money for opium, babies,
children or young girls are thus sold. The slave
girl is wholly at the mercy of her mistress if she
be a household servant, or her master if she be
sold for gain. Many pitiable stories might be
told of the sufferings of these helpless creatures.
There was a little girl brought one day to our
woman's hospital. The men who brought her Case.
had bought her as a child. The doctors, after
examining her, found her in a pitiable plight,
and they threatened the men with prosecution.
The men became frightened and wanted to take
her away, when the doctors and the ladies of the
Women's Society offered to buy her. As, in her
present condition, she was of no further use to
them, and would be only a source of expense or
embarrassment, they sold her for a few dollars.
Thernissionariestook herintothehospitaland byat-
tention and treatment they restored her to a normal
condition of health. She was a pretty girl, and
a good girl, and they made her an assistant or
helper in the hospital. The brother of one of the
mission cooks saw her later, was attracted by her
68 CHINA'S NEW DAY
appearance, and asked for her. They explained
her whole history to both him and his brother,
and assured him that if he took her and then did
not treat her well that they would report him to
the official. Still he wanted her and they finally
married her to him.
A Bab?- Girl Not long thereafter a baby girl was left at the
hospital gate. Naturally they took it in hoping
that they might save its life, and find a home for
it. When this couple heard of it they asked for
the baby. It was given to them, and one of the
pictures that I shall never forget as long as I
live, is that of this foster-father, stalkingup the aisle
of the church on Sunday morning with the little
kfc Our Baby." girl in his arms, ' ' tsa men ti baby our baby, * ' as
they called it, and as everyone finally called it, his
little wife following demurely after. He found
her a seat, gave her the baby, then found a seat
for himself across the aisle. If the child cried
during the service, he would take her out until
she became quiet and then return her to her
mother. It was pathetic in its beauty. I wish
that I had been the one who furnished the money
to save the girl! She is only one of tens of
thousands of such slave girls who are' unwillingly
sold to such a life.
A Noble The granddaughter of the Grand Secretary was
Character. a constant visitor at our home. Often have I
conversed with her on art, on literature and on
religion. She was very much interested in
Christianity, so much so that after Mrs, Head-
THE CHINESE WOMAN 69
land had given her books to read, she requested
that one of the girls from the school should be
allowed to come and talk with her about the
gospel. After the Boxer trouble she told Mrs.
Headland the following story:
' 'My head servant was out on the street one A Girl for
day and met a man with a little girl, his $2.50.
daughter, whom he offered for sale, that he might
use the price of her to buy opium. Her mother
was dead and my servant bought her for two
dollars and a half.
"I took her as a little slave girl and she proved
to be very faithful, but when the- feast day came
and I told her to worship the idols, she replied, "I do not
' Wo fu $ai chia shen, I do not worship the Worship
idols/ ia ls; *
" 'But, you will grow up to be a bad woman,
if you do not worship the idols,' I urged.
" C I do not worship the idols, I just worship
Jesus,' she insisted, and as she was such a good
little girl, a Roman Catholic Christian, I did not
compel her to worship the idols.
6t Years passed by and the Boxer trouble came.
The Boxers issued a proclamation that all persons
having Christians in their homes, or knowing of
their whereabouts, must turn them over to the
Boxers.
"The slave girl came to me and begged
that she be not -given up, and I decided to move
to my grandfather's, thinking that they would
not dare to molest a person in as high position as
70 CHINAS NEW DAT
a Grand Secretary. My grandmother came to me
and ordered me to give up the little girl. The
child begged in such a pathetic way that I de-
cided not to do so, and for a time all was quiet.
"By and by they issued another proclamation,
saying that they proposed to search every home
in Peking, and wherever they found a Christian
harbored, they would treat all the inmates as
though they were Christians.
Saved by " Again my grandmother came to us and
Begging. ordered me to give her up, saying that she would
not allow her to remain in her home. Again
the little girl pleaded, and I finally sent out on
the street and bought two beggars' garbs, decid-
ing to dress ourselves in them and beg our way
to Paoting-fu where my uncle would protect us."
"But," said Mrs- Headland, "you could not
look like a beggar with your fair white hands
and face, and your smooth black hair."
"Oh, we stained our hands, arms and face arjid
we brought in dust from the street and rubbed it
in our hair until we looked like beggars."
"But your little feet," exclaimed Mrs. Head-
land, for they were not more than three inches
long and she never walked anywhere except lean-
ing on the arm of a servant, and never went out
on the street except in a cart or a chair.
" There was nothing for us to do but to walk, "
she answered, "and after nightfall we went out
on the street and started to beg our way to Pao-
ting-fu, ninety miles away. Next morning the
THE CHINESE WOMAN 71
sun rose burning hot, for it was July. There
were drenching showers of rain, and we had no
place to sleep at night but in the open gateways
by the roadside as we passed along, and when
we met the first company of Boxers, my knees
knocked together for fear they would discover a
cross on the little girl's head."
"But you did not really think they could see a
cross where you could not?"
"When we started I did. But after we had
passed two companies of Boxers, I did not be-
lieve they could. For four days we waded
through mud and rain and burning heat, and then
arrived at Paoting-fu. But when we reached my
uncle's place, we did not dare go in lest the
people might circulate the report that he was
harboring Christians."
"What did you do?"
"We waited until I saw an old servant whoml
recognized, and then I followed him and in a
whining tone as though begging, I told him my
story and asked him to open the side gate after
nightfall and let us in. He did so, and we went
into my uncle's home. They were both waiting
for us and when they saw us they burst into tears.
The servants gave us a bath, but when they un-
bound my feet they had blistered and festered, and
for weeks they were covered with running sores
so that I could not walk but was confined to the
brick bed."
She stopped, and Mrs. Headland put her ,arms
72 CHINAS NEW DAT
around her in sympathy, as she exclaimed,
"What a hard thing to do!"
"Yes, it was hard," she answered, "but I
saved the little girl."
This incident ought to give us some idea of the
character of the Chinese woman. She is worth
working for and saving. And the faithfulness of
the little slave girl ought to be some indication
as to what kind of a nation she would help to
make if they were a Christian people.
Schools Side Wherever we establish a Christian college in
by Side. the non-Christian world, it is the custom of the
various women's societies to establish a girls'
school in close proximity. This is for the reason
that the individual is not the unit of the national
life. The family is the unit. Marry a good
man to a bad woman and you have spoiled the
unit. Conversely marry a good woman to a bad
man and you have spoiled the unit. But marry
a good Christian woman to a good Christian man
and you start a home which is a center of light
to any neighborhood.
Near to the North China College of the Amer-
ican Board Mission is the Women's College.
The same is true of the Presbyterian Mission
in- Peking, the London Mission, the English
Church Mission, while the Peking University,
the Nanking University, the Foochow University,
the Anglo-Chinese College of Shanghai, St.
John's University indeed all the leading schools,
colleges, universities and union educational
THE CHINESE WOMAN 73
schemes for boys, have girls' schools in their
vicinity, This is not done chiefly for the pur-
pose of bringing the young people together, but
for the purpose of giving them an education, yet
the other is no doubt a part of the scheme.
One of these young students, Mark by name, was A Nofcle
married the day he graduated, to Sarah, the Woman,
youngest daughter of Old Mother Wang. Now
Sarah was fond of a fine silk gown as any woman.
She was anxious to have a good comfortable
home. If her husband entered business he could
begin with a salary of from twenty-five to fifty
dollars a month; while if he entered the church
as a preacher he would receive but five dollars a
month with no hope at that time of ever getting
more than ten. The day Mark graduated they
were married. That evening Sarah said to him,
"Mark, what are you going to do?'*
"Oh, I do not know. What do you think?"
"I have heard }*ou speak in the church here.
God has called you to preach."
"Yes, but what are we going to live on?" that
is the eternal interrogation when a man takes
upon himself the responsibility and the support
of a home.
"Mark, if God calls you to preach, God will
take care of us," said Sarah, and they knelt
together and prayed.
The next morning Mark went to the missionary
who had helped him through college and said,
"I will preach the gospel."
74
CHINA'S NEW DAT
An Appeal.
Tte Supreme
Opportunity.
The Doors
Opened.
And now, women, I appeal to you. I have
not given you a dismal view of Chinese woman-
hood. But if I have failed to show you her
helplessness under her present conditions, I have
not succeeded in painting the picture I have un-
dertaken. I have tried to show you a noble
woman shut up in a home, with daughters,
daughters-in-law, concubines, servants and slave
girls; in which there is all the human tendency
to selfishness, jealousy, ambition, gossip why
some of you find it hard to live peaceably with a
cook and a maid, what of the Chinese woman?
The supreme opportunity has now come for
girls' schools and their great work. It is not
that many or great schools have been opened,
but that with small equipment your workers have
done tremendous things. You began a few years
ago by having to pay girls to get them in school.
Now all prejudice is gone; men and women alike
want their daughters educated. Men want educated
wives. There are parts of China in which the
officials in high positions publicly assert that they
will not recommend a young man for official posi-
tion unless he have an educated wife! Are you
awake to the opportunity that is now open to you?
You have been praying for years that the doors
may be opened. Did you expect your prayers to
be answered, or were you only repeating a for-
mula? Your missionaries, by their influence with
a Chinese woman, with your prayers as a motive
force, have contributed to the opening of the
THE CHINESE WOMAN 75
doors. Standing in the doorways of a hundred
millions of hovels, homes and palaces, there are
as many women beckoning you to come and show
them what a home should be, what motherhood
may be, what home training can do, toward the
making of a life and the shaping of a nation.
You are the only ones who can do it, for men are
shut out of the home life of the women. Will
you go?
ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS
" Chinese history differs from that of other people
with which Occidentals are familiar in the co-operation
of five factors nowhere else found in combination;
namely : comparative isolation ; extended duration ; ex-
tremely gradual progression; superiority to environ-
ment, and the overwhelming influence of resident forces
as compared with the relatively unimportant effect of
those from without." (Arthur H. Smith in "China
and America To-day," p 28.)
"It is probably safe to say that no country not
Christian can show in its legislation more care in
guarding the sacredness of family tiesy defending the
purity of the weaker sex, and providing for the main-
tenance of widows." (Dr. Wells Williams in "Chinese
Recorder," Jan. -Feb., 1880,)
"It was January 1, 1873, when the Misses Hoag and
Howe, representatives of the Woman's Foreign Mis-
sionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
essayed to open the school in question (Kiu Kiang).
They had secured a (Chinese) teacher; he in turn . . .
secured two little girls as pupils* They ran away be-
fore night, but raised a fair sized din for nearly the
whole forenoon. . * . The accumulated wisdom of the
76 CHINA'S NEW DAT
centuries in this section of China reiterated that book
learning would incapacitate girls in the line of womanly
accomplishments, such as combing the hair and binding
the feet." (Margaret Burton in "The Education of
Women in China," p. 44.)
"The opportunities of education, in the sense in
which education is imparted by means of books and
schools, were first brought to the women of China by
the Christian missionaries." ("Education of Women
in China," p. 34.)
"Whatever theories her literature might contain,
China as a whole saw no value in woman's education
and was strongly suspicious that its effect on women
would be undesirable." (Ibid, p. 28.)
"It is a law of nature that woman should be kept
under the control of man and not allowed any will of
her own, In the other world the condition of affairs is
exactly the same, for the same laws govern there as
here." (Confucius.)
"Woman is a mindless, soulless creature." (Con-
fucius. )
"Of all women of the Orient I love the Chinese
women best ; they have so much character, and are so
womanly." (Isabella Bird Bishop.)
"Morally, they (the women) are China's better half
modest, graceful and attractive." (Dr. W. A. P.
Martin,)
"They (the women) have been the great force which
has preserved the country. I say this without fear of
contradiction." (Dr. Swanson, of Amoy.)
"The modesty, strength and reserve of the Chinese
woman have impressed us profoundly in all parts of the
country." (Report of Deputation of The American
Board.)
THJS CHINESE WOMAN 77
NOTE. The preceding quotations are from Miss Bur-
ton's book, "Education of Women in China," a mine
of treasure for further material on this chapter.
"In matters educational in China, it is of special
significance to note that schemes of magnitude, which
hold in them possibilities such as the most san-
guine never contemplated until within the past decade,
are now come to be regarded as everyday events within
the sphere of the commonplace. Thus we find notice
of a memorial to the throne from the Board of Educa-
tion, asking that $70,000 be devoted to found in the
capital a normal school for the training of women
teachers, the school to be maintained by an annual
grant from the government of $40,000. The feature of
this memorial which makes it essentially of the new
time is the proposal to spend year by year so considera-
ble a sum in providing for female education.
"One recalls the significant statement of Viceroy
Yuan Shi ki, shortly before his retirement from office :
'The most important thing in China just now is that
the women be educated.' Increasing numbers of
Chinese women are unbinding their feet, and the move-
ment has the support of the government and of many
daily papers." (" China Mail.")
"The Chinese family needs a new spirit which shall
lay stress on the duties of superiors to inferiors, on the
worth of each individual soul in the sight of a loving
Father, on the sense of personal responsibility to him
and not to custom. It needs to learn that a man should
forsake his father and his mother, and cleave to his
wife to love her as his own flesh. It needs to learn
that 'dignity is not one of the fruits of the spirit.' It
needs to expedience the liberty wherewith Christ has set
us free from the bondage of the past." (Arthur H,
Smith, in the "Uplift of China," p. 78.) ,
"Bishop Bashford writes: 'You will be surprised to
know that ninety per cent of our members in West
78 CHINA'S NB W DAY
China are adult men, and only ten per cent are women
and children. I found the various chapels where I
preached full of men, with from two or three up to
eight or ten women in the inner court. I often asked
these men where their wives and children were, and told
them thej could have no true church unless their wives
and children were also converted and brought into
Christian fellowship. They answered me that their
women had unbound their feet, but that they had no
foreign women to teach them the Jesus doctrine. I
urged them to have family prayers, but with from two
to ten families often living together, and with the
older people having complete control, it is almost im-
possible for the men, ignorant as they are, to establish
family prayers, or to teach their wives and children at
home.'
"It is cause for rejoicing that two new women workers
are now on their way to this most promising field."
(Methodist Leaflet.)
"Confucius assigns to woman a position of greai
inferiority. Man is the representative of heaven, and
is supreme over all things, Woman yields obedience
to the instructions of man, and helps to carry out his
principles. On this account she can determine nothing
of herself, and is subject to the rule of the three obedi-
ences : when young, she must obey her father and elder
brother; when married, she must obey her husband;
when her husband is dead, she must obey her son.
She may not think of marrying a second time. No in-
structions or orders must issue from the harem.
Woman's business is simply the preparation and sup-
plying of wine and food. Beyond the threshold of her
apartments she should not be known for evil or for
good. She may not cross the boundaries of the state
to accompany a funeral. She may akc no step on her
own motion, and may come to no conclusion on her
own deliberation. " (Methodist Leaflet, )
"Until last year I cared very tie for the work of
THE CHINESE WOMAN 79
Christ. I preached the gospel with my lips, but my
heart was not in earnest. It is all different now! Last
summer I lost my only son. My heart was broken,
rebellious, until one day it came to me that many, many
of my friends were praying for me. I went to church,
and heard the preacher say that the religion of Jesus
Christ is the most precious thing in all the world. Oh,
that word came with power to me, Lady Teacher ! He
seemed to put a beautiful bud into my heart, and it
has been unfolding and expanding ever since into a
pure, white flower. I knew that my past life had all
been a seeking for the things of this life; but at that
time, Lady Teacher, I felt my fleshly heart slipping
away ; and the life of God flooding my soul ; and since
then I have wanted nothing else, sought nothing else,
but to serve my blessed Master and be used of him."
(A Chinese Christian Woman in Congregational Board
Leaflet. )
" 'What sewing have you been doing lately?' I asked,
after the ordinary greetings had been exchanged. This
is a staple and ever-interesting topic of conversation
among the women folk of our hard-working China.
" 'Not much/ said the oldest old lady, knocking the
ashes out of her pipe; 'and of course, as the dragon
lifts his head to-day, no one can touch a needle.' So
that was why they were all idle ! But I still felt inquisi-
tive. I had hearc} of the mythical Dragon King, who
lives in his great palaces under the sea, and makes the
earth quake with a stir, and interferes with the digging
of mines and other useful modern deeds, which he
hates. Also I knew that the lifting of his head meant
spring; but the ne.edle? I made inquiries.
" 'To-day he lift* his head,' they said agahreimply;
'if we used a need fit, we might stick it into his eye,
without knowing it! So no one dares sew to-day, of
course.' " (Alice Bnbwn in "Life and Light'*)
80 CHINAS NEW DAT
ONE OUT OF FIVE
"One fifth of all the women of the world are found in
the homes of China. One baby girl out of every five is
cradled in a Chinese mother's arms unwelcomed and
unloved, unless by that poor mother's heart. One little
maiden out of every five grows up in ignorance and
neglect, drudging in the daily toil of some poor Chinese
family, or crying over the pain of her crippled feet in
the seclusion of a wealthier home. Among all the
youthful brides, who day by day pass from the shelter
of their childhood's home, one out of every five goes
weeping in China to the tyranny of the mother-in-law
she dreads, and the indifference of a husband she has
never seen. Of all the wives and mothers in the world,
one out of every five turns in her longing to a gilded
goddess of mercy in some Chinese temple, counting her
beads and murmuring her meaningless prayer. Of all
the women who weep, one out of every five weeps alone,
uncomforted, in China. Out of every five who lie upon
beds of pain, one is wholly at the mercy of Chinese
ignorance and superstition. One out of every five, at
the close of earthly life, passes into the shadow and
terror that surround a Chinese grave, never having
heard of Him who alone can rob death of its sting,
One fifth of all the women are waiting, waiting in
China, for the Saviour who so long has waited for
them. What a burden of responsibility does this lay
upon us the women of Christendom!' 7 (Mrs. F.
Howard Taylor.)
"Were the women only converted we believe that idol-
atry would soon cease out of the land." (William
Muirhead,)
"Nearly one half of the women of the world belong
to the two great empires of China and India. . , . The
women conserve the ancient religions and superstitions
of their country ; and what can a man do when the
women of the household are against him?'' (Isabella
Williamson.)
A CHINESE BRIDE
THE CHINESE WOMAN 81
INFANTICIDE
"That the custom, although often practiced in secret,
prevails in China cannot be doubted. The united testi*
mony of those who have had ample opportunities to
know the facts presents a body of evidence which is
irresistibly strong, although the custom is confined
almost exclusively to the destruction of girls, unless in
case of deformed or weakly infants. It is more preva-
lent in Central and Southern China, and is compara-
tively rare in the north. It is said that poverty and the
desire to be free from the burden of caring for girls are
the chief causes of its prevalence. The spirit which
seems to reign in the hearts of Chinese mothers is illus-
trated by a conversation which Miss Fielde reports in
'A Corner of Cathay.' A pagan Chinese woman, dis-
couising upon the subject of daughters, remarked, 'A
daughter is a troublesome and expensive thing anyway.
Not only has she to be fed, but there is all the trouble
of binding her feet, and of getting her betrothed, and of
making up her wedding garments ; and even after she is
married off she must have presents made to her when
she has children. Really, it is no wonder that so many
baby girls are slain at their birth !' While the difficulty
of obtaining acccurate data is recognized by all, and
also the fact that statements which apply to certain
sections of the vast empire are not representative of the
true status in other parts, yet the prevalence of infanti-
cide to a frightful extent is beyond question." (James
S. Dennis, "Christian Missions and Social Progress, "
Vol. I, p. 128.)
"As to whether Chinese married life is happy or not,
there is this to be said, that neither Chinese men nor
women know any other kind of married life. One
fruitful source of trouble is the polygamy allowed by
custom; for quarrels and fights, jealousies and envy,
bickerings and disputes, are more or less the inheritance
82 CHINA'S NE W DA T
of the many-wived household ; and lawsuits for property
left by the much-married Chinaman are rendered more
complicated by the different interests of the four, five
or six women who all own the deceased as their late
husband." (Dyer Ball, "Things Chinese. ")
"The high-spirited disposition of the women of Lung
Kong is shown in the organization of an anti-matrimo-
rdal league, in which the fair damsels of this fortunate
district bind themselves under solemn pledges never to
marry. Such a course is so contrary to the whole his-
tory and spirit of Chinese institutions and so daring a
challenge to the practices of ages, that one cannot but
admire the spirit of independence and courage from
which it springs. The existence of the Amazonian
league has long been known, but as to its rules and the
number of its members no definite information has
come to hand. It is composed of young widows and
marriageable girls. Dark hints are given as to the
methods used to escape matrimony. The sudden demise
of betrothed husbands, or the abrupt ending of the
newly-married husband's career suggest unlawful means
for dissolving the bonds. When they submit to mar-
riage they still maintain their powers of will. One of
their demands being that the husband must go to the
wife's home to live, or else live without her company."
(Ibid.)
This Chinese poem may appeal to the woman of the
East but is quite contrary to the spirit of the American
housekeeper.
HUMANITY
Oh, spare the busy morning fly !
Spare the mosquitoes of the night !
And if their wicked trade they ply
Let a partition stop their flight
Their span is brief from birth to death ;
Like you they bite their little day ;
And then -with autumn's earliest breath,
Like you too they are swept away.
Han Tu.
THE CHINESE WOMAN 83
"In China female chastity is severely guarded, and
there is no licensed immorality; yet a state of things
which is frankly acknowledged in Japan is simply an
open secret among the Chinese. Society regards it
with a sly frown, the government prohibits and pro-
fesses to discipline it ; yet vice festers in every city of
China and presents some shamefully loathsome aspects.
The traffic in young girls, especialrj^hose who may be
afflicted with blindness, is the usual method of supplying
brothels with their inmates. The infamous trade of
the 'pocket-mother' and her colonies of native slave
girls, and its relation to the opium habit in the Straits
Settlements and China, have been recently brought
vividly to the attention of the British public by Mrs.
Andrew and Dr. Kate Bushnell. In the everyday con-
versation of the Chinese, especially of the poorer
classes, expressions so exceptionally vile that they can-
not be hinted at are only too well known. 'An English
oath is a winged bullet ; Chinese abuse is a ball of filth,'
says the author of 'Chinese Characteristics.' The
notorious books and placards of Human are an indica-
tion of the interior furnishing of the Chinese imagina-
tion." (James S. Dennis, "Christian Missions and
Social Progress," Vol. I, p. 88.)
"The Rev. J. Macgowan (L. M. S.)? of Amoy, speaks
of the 'new sentiment that permeates every Christian
household. The result is seen in the gradual elevation
of woman, and the different position she holds from that
which obtained when I first arrived in China. Certain
rights are secured to her that heathen women dare not
claim. Parents may not marry their daughter to a
heathen, unless it is impossible to get a Christian, nor
to any man of known bad character. They may not
dispose of her to be a concubine or second wife, neither'
can they compel her to be* betrothed to one to whom
she herself, for moral reasons, has an antipathy. If
84 CHINAS NEW DAT
they do not regard the welfare of their girls in these
matters, the church steps in and utters its voice in their
behalf. Again, a man may not illtreat his wife, or,
except for one offence, divorce her, or take ^another
wife, umess he is prepared to come under the discipline
of the church. Hitherto woman has had no champion
to stand by'in her defence. Now she has, and one that
is prepared to rigf?fc' every wrong in her social life.' "
(James S. Dennis, "Christian Missions and Social
Progress," Vol. II, p. 195.)
"In the 'Statement of the Nature, Work, and Aims of
Protestant Missions in China,' prepared for presenta-
tion to the Emperor, it is. declared that 'Christians
marry but one wife,' and a brief exposition of the dis-
tinctively biblical features of the marriage relation is
given. The example of the happy home life of converts
is already a power in the land. That progress is neces-
sarily slow can be readily explained, but as Christianity
obtains sway over the conscience, and the ideals of a
higher civilization win the respect of that conservative
people we shall find the Christian code more and more
widely recognized and observed.'' (James S. Dennis,
"Christian Missions and Soeial Progress," Vol. II,
p. 222.)
" She was quietly but richly dressed, with beautiful
hair ornaments, rings and bracelets of massive gold,
set with pearls. In the rooms was the most cunningly
carved blackwood furniture, inlaid with mother-of-
pearl, all about were gorgeous embroidered hangings
and priceless porcelains. Everywhere the evidences of
wealth, and yet there was an, undefined something
which disturbed one, and the sadness of our hostess'
face fairly haunted one's thoughts. What was it and
why? She had a son and daughter, innumerable serv-
ants, all the comforts and luxuries which money could
THE CHINESE WOMAN 85
supply. At this point there came into the reception
room three young women accompanied by women
servants. 'My younger sisters,' said Mrs. Sung.
Here was the explanation, for these were the 'chieh 1
concubines introduced into the family with scant cere-
mony, bringing in their train worry and sorrow for the
'chi> wife. There is only one wife. She who rides to
her unknown bridegroom and home, in the gay red
chair, and who is installed in her new home with cere-
monies more or less elaborate. In spite of the fact
that the woman of China has perhaps as high a legal,
social and domestic position as is possible outside of
Christian culture and without the restraints of Chris-
tianity, yet she labors under severe disabilities, and
her life is far from ideal, she herself having no ideals.
"Polygamy with its inevitable train of evils is tolera-
ted by Confucianism. The casual observer exchanging
visits and friendly calls in the homes of the rich and
well to do sees on every hand material comfort, often
lavish expenditure, and outwardly pleasant and friendly
relations between the women. Let there be, however,
a more intimate relation established, and there comes
to one's knowledge the undercurrent of unhappiness,
wrangling and envy on every hand, constant quarrels to
be settled. It is the exception rather than the rule to
find peace and harmony. 'Aiyah!' cried the Sung
children one day coming in with their books for school.
'We are glad to be away to-day. Such a quarrel and
row, our mother will have her hands full trying to settle
it all, and be ill for days.' With a wise wag of his
head, the boy said, 'Nothing like this for me when I
have a house. I want peace and quiet.' Sad, troubled
little woman, her face rises before one even after the
lapse of years.
"And what of her humbler sister, whose lot is not
mitigated by material comfort? The well to do of any
race form but a small proportion of the population;
86 CHINA'S NEW DAT
how about the rank and file the shopkeeper's wife,
the women, untold hundreds of them, whose lives are
spent upon boats, she whose life in the country on the
farm is one of endless toil and often infinite privation?
From her cradle (if she has one) to her grave she is
at a distinct disadvantage her inferiority to man pre-
supposed and taught. Woman is spoken of as moulded
of faults, credited with evil, looked upon with lofty
disdain ; for her, education though not forbidden is
practically unknown (even in this day of reforms).
From the hardships and evils of her position she seeks
refuge in suicide, against which there is neither teaching
nor remedy in Confucianism. She doggedly accepts
her fate, not feeling that any injustice is done her by
being deprived of the right of choosing her partner for
life, her horizon confined to the domestic circle. Often
the removal from parents' to husband's home makes
little change. More frequently a terrible one, for the
power accorded to a husband is often used with great
tyranny and cruelty ; and with her husband a hard task
master, her mother-in-law unsympathetic, demanding
of her alike the submission of a child and labor of a
slave, is it any wonder that many a young wife, being
denied a son, whose birth would give her a better and
more honored position and justify her own, seeks relief
through the suicide's path! In the stagnation of super-
stition and ignorance, there is no light, no love, no
peace, until the rays of the Sun of Righteousness shine
in dispelling the gloom." (A Missionary.)
THE CHINESE WOMAN 87
QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER II
1. Make a list of the books prepared by the Chinese
for the instruction of girls.
2. Tell something of the change that has recently
taken place in the social life of the Chinese woman,
and who helped to bring it about.
3. Do Chinese families eat together? Where is
woman's realm?
4. Tell something about foot-binding.
5. Tell what you can of woman in literature; in art;
in government; in war.
6. What important meeting was held in Canton?
What does it indicate as to the new life?
7. Is there any difference between the theoretical and
the real position of the Chinese woman? Tell what
you can of concubinage. What does it mean to "eat
vinegar "?
8. Do people lack the power to suffer because they
lack social position or wealth? Tell something of the
slave girl, the concubine, the great mass of the sub-
merged.
9. Tell the story of "Our Baby"; of saving the life
of her little slave ; of the old and new methods of get-
ting engaged. What is the supreme opportunity?
CHAPTER III
Ctunese
Veneration
for Education
Relation Be-
tween Old
and New.
AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION
PERHAPS there never was a people who had a
more profound reverence for education than have
the Chinese. The highest rank has been ac-
corded the scholar because he dealt w r ith the
things of the mind. Below him stood the farmer
because he created the material supplies necessary
to nourish life. Next stood the mechanic because
he fashioned and built; then the trader who did
not create wealth either intellectual or material,
and lowest of all the soldier whose mission was
to destroy.
With such an estimate of the place of the
scholar it is easy to see the commanding place
which education must hold in building the new
China. The old system has passed away; the
new is in process of creation. The destiny of
one fourth the human race will be determined
perhaps for a millennium by the character of that
education.
It goes without saying that the new must be
carefully articulated to the old. All that is
worthy in the old must be conserved with jealous
care. On this as on a bridge the rich heritage
of the Chinese gathered through thousands of
AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION 89
years of unbroken history, and tradition must be
carried over into the new domain of thought.
China cannot make this transition unaided. China's
Her scholars are too thoroughly imbued with the of Help,
numbing spirit o classicism. She must rely
upon her young men trained in Christian lands
and upon those trained in the Christian schools
located within the empire. The large number
of those sent abroad by the government will be
absorbed in government and diplomatic service.
It is chiefly upon the missionaries and the
students, they train that China must rely to make
the transition which is full of tragic peril, but so
essential to her fuller life.
It is the aim of this chapter, first, to prepare Aim of
for an appreciation of the situation by a brief Chapter,
study of the system of intellectual and moral dis-
cipline comprised in the classical Chinese educa-
tion; second, to recount the steps taken by the
government to substitute modern education;
third, to show what part is played by various
Christian churches in supplying modern schools,
and fourth, to indicate some of the lines on which
successful development must proceed in the
future. It is my hope that students of this chap-
ter may gain a fresh conception of the magnitude
of the opportunity now offered in the educational
situation in China.
Nothing that one could say would express more
concisely the Chinese idea of when an education Old System
ought to begin and what it ought to be than a few of Education,
90 CHINA'S NEW DAT
quotations from their own teachings. In the
" Classic for Girls" quoted elsewhere it is urged
upon every mother that she should,
Of pre-natal education
Be attentive as a mother,
For the influence is mutual
Of each upon the other.
Whether walking, standing, sitting
Or reclining have a rule,
E'en in eating and in drinking,
Have a care yourself to school,
Nursery. In its infancy the prattling child is taught
nursery jingles similar to our own Mother
Goose, and one cannot long be with mother or
nurse, or big sister taking care as she does of
the smaller children, without seeing her taking
hold of its fingers or toes as she repeats,
This little cow eats grass,
This little cow eats hay,
This little cow drinks water,
This little cow runs away,
This little cow does nothing
But just lie down all day.
We'll whip her.
With which last expression she playfully slaps
the sole of the little one's foot.
Prime. Boys and girls are allowed to play together
until they are seven or eight years of age when
the boy is given a book like the "Three Charac-
ter Classic,'* the first two lines of which tell him
that,
Men one and all in infancy are virtuous at heart,
Their moral tendencies the same, their practice wide
apart.
AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION 91
Not one word of which he understands. Or it
may be he is given the
''Rules of Behavior" for brothers and sons, Rules of Be-
Teachings of ancient and virtuous ones, Havior.
First be you filial and brotherly, then,
Try to be faithful and earnest as men.
And the child sits upon a backless bench or a
high stool until he has committed it, and then
recites it with his back to the teacher.
The mother has charge of the early education
of the children, for we are told that,
For her son she calls a teache*.
And she places him in school,
Where he learns to write short ballads,
Studies how to be discreet,
Loves his teacher and rewards him
Both with money and with meat.
For the teacher during the old regime was ex-
pected to take a part of his pay in rations from
his pupils.
In addition to the two primers mentioned above Q ne TKou-
the boy commits the " Thousand Character sandCtaracter
QlaBsic," a primer of one thousand words, no two
of which are alike; the composition of which was
done by a scholar on the order of the Emperor,
in a single night, and as a result his hair turned
gray. He also commits another primer called
the "Hundred Surnames^ " none of which he
understands as they are written in the classical
language which is to the spoken language what
Latin was to English in Wesley's time. After
92 CHINAS NEW DAT
all these are stored away in his tu tzu, his ab-
domen,, for a Chinaman's knowledge is all car-
ried in that receptacle, rather than in his head,
they are cc explained" by the teacher, then by the
boy, and from these primers he has secured the
foundation of all Chiness history, poetry, philos-
ophy, social rules, and has a good start with the
language^ for he now has every proper family
name he will ever meet in his books, and has
more than half as many words as Shakespeare
used in all his plays and poems.
With his reading he learned to write, first by
rittng placing a sheet of translucent paper over the
Reading. character and copying it with a brush pen. Up
to this time he has probably only had a milk
name, but now he is given a school name, and
begins his study in earnest, on the "Confucian
A&al&cte*VJ. c Great Learning," "Doctrin,,of the
Mean" and "Mencius, " the choicest specimens
as they suppose of Chinese literature. He "com-
mits" them, then "backs" them, and goes through
all the processes of explaining as he did with the
primer, while at the same time he contintics his
penmanship or bVushmanship whichever you
please to term it. They are taken in the order
given, while he commits the second the teacher
explains the first, and so on, giving him such a
constant and thorough review, that during all his
life, if he has done his work well, he is able to
quote any sentence to which his attention is
directed. When examination day comes the
AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION 9B
teacher may call in an examiner who will simply
start any sentence he happens to think of, which
the pupil continues until he is called down by
some other catch word. At any time he may be
asked to explain the meaning o the sentence as
given in the commentary or by the teacher, or he
may be asked to sing some snatch of poetry, mak-
ing his own tune as he goes, or he may be asked
to write some original poem or essay.
The school in which he studies may be a room TteScKooL
in his father's home, some particular school for
boys, a public school, a village school held in a
temple, or a city school to which he has been
admitted if he is prepared and if there is a va-
cancy. The furniture of these schools is prac-
tically the same all over a province, high,
plain, square or oblong tables, at which he is re-
quired ^to sit straight, except when writing, on
hard flat'ltools or benches without any depres-
sions to adapt them to the curves of the body.
On these he sits day after day, month after month
and year after year, for there were no weeks in
China under the old r6gime. He studies aloud
with twenty or thirty other boys, his head and
body swaying to the rhythm of the book, and
shouting it out in a sing-song tone, the only varia-
tion of which is the pitch or loudness of his
voice, and the ear of the teacher becomes so 'well
trained that he is able to detect an error in the
naming or tone of a character no matter how
many boys there may be.
94 CHINAS NEW DAT
Four Books When he has finished the Four Books, he con-
andFive tinues, without intermission, with the Five
Classics. Classics, the "Spring and Autumn/ 7 and the
books of "Poetry," "History," "Rites and
Changes," which were prepared by Confucius
twenty-four centuries ago. These he commits
and explains as he did the others, until if he has-
done his work well, and his memory is faithful
his entire Bible, as well as the whole curriculum
of the school or of the nation is at his tongue's
end, together with much of the commentary ~o
each book.
Poetry. With these he takes up the study of poetry,
for China had her Elizabethan age of poetry way
back in the eighth century, and I have often sat
with delight and listened to the students during
examination chanting the poems of Li Tai-po or
Tu Pu or Su Tung-fo, the rhythm of which is
quite equal to that of Pope or Byron, Horace or
Anacreon. All the choicest bits for the poems
are mostly short of the great poets of the past
are stored away in the same receptacle with his
primers and his classics, and this at an age when
it will be almost impossible to forget them.
His But now comes the first defect of his old sys-
tern; he has continued memorizing until he is
past the time where he should Jteg-in tojrgflSfln, ,,.is
without any system of study which is calculated
to develop the thinking faculties, and has arrived
at the age when he should begin the study of
belles-lettres, the wen-changs or essays of the
AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION 95
ancient masters of literary style. This is an in-
terminable task. But it is as interesting- as it is
interminable. It is an effort on the part of these
scholars to embody the greatest number of refer-
ences, to the most interesting incidents of the past
either in history, poetry, fiction or fairy tale, and
in the choicest language and fewest words. The
student pores over volume after volume of these
essays, and commits them to memory in the hope
of absorbing the style of the author or of devel-
oping a style of hTs^olvirth^Osja^ .^QjdjQrJbsttfir-
It is thought boiled down to its last consistency
in words.
Such in brief is the course of study through A Great
which the student had to pass, before he was al- Field,
lowed to browse at will throughout all Chinese
literature. To_he_2_&c&alar at all., he,, must absorb
the history of China with special biographical
incidents of great men, and a thorough knowledge
of particular periods. There are encyclopedias of
science, a compendium of the most brilliant say-
ings of the sages. In addition to the orthodox
philosophers for those who followed Confucius
were orthodox and those who did not were not
there was a bevy of men whose works are
bound up in the "Twenty-four Philosophers/'
The student was expected to be familiar with Lack of
all the scientific books, falsely so called, books 'Science,
on the stars, on rocks, on flowers, on animals, on
laws of nature, even on the bogies of the moun-
tain and of the sea bogie books that rival Mun-
96 CHINA'S N W DA Y
chausen and Gulliver. But though the Chinese
have spent much time in studying all subjects,
being without a system* which would develop
the reasoning and inventive powers, they have
never been able to organize their thought into
anything like a science of astronomy, geology,
botany, zoology, physics or chemistry, or any
other natural or applied science. Indeed with
all their body full of knowledge the Chinese have
never, .contribute^ jiny thing toward the develop-
ment of science, nor studied any of the results of
scientific thought until it was introduced into
China by the missionaries from the West Their
ideas of nature and her laws are not only simple,
Feng-sHu. "but oftenjr afesoutd. In their Feng-sJiui they
have what might be termed a system of natural
science, but which is in reality a sj^tesijQl^geo-
\rnarygr... It originated with the Taoist alchemists
* of pre-Christian times, and undertakes to explain
V^the influence of the occult laws of jiature on
V human life. The ordinary student is hardly ex-
pected to understand them, and so the final inter-
pretation of them is usually left to the soothsayer
who does it for a consideration.
No Study to ^ have already indicated that there is nothing
Develop tke in the whole course of study of the old system of
Chinese education which is calculated to do for
tk e thinking faculties what mathematics and the
sciences do in ours. And so reason and inven-
tiorThave remained dormant in the Chinese
mind. They have never inventecLjauy thing:.
AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION 97
That does not mean that they do not possess most
of the useful arts and appliances. They do.
They have practically everything that is necessary
to perform all the ^daily tasks of life. They
stumble upon things;"" They hsiangfa tzu think Stumble Upon
of a way to do things, and when they have Things,
thought out a way of doing it, they put it aside
and never try to improve it. They stumbled
u P on gunp n o?yflej no, not gunpowder, but fire-
cracker powder, for they never made a gun that
was worth the name two hundred years B. C.,
in their alchemistic expeiiments searching for
the elixir of life, but they never made any good
gunpowder until they came in contact with the
West. They stumbled upon the mariner's com-
pass eleven hundred years B. C., but they have
never made anything but a. ckik nan chen^ a
south-pointing needle, until the present time.
They stumbled upon printing* five hundred years
before Guttenberg, but their " Peking Gazette,"
theirnational newspaper, when I went to China was
the oldest and worst printed newspaper in the
world. /While the Chinese are noted for their
commercial astuteness, and are among the best
and most reliable business' men in the world, ac-
knowledged so by the business men of Europe,
their educational system has never enabled them
to make a commercial success of what might be
considered their great discoveries or inventions.
They therefore needed a new system ; let us see
as we proceed whether they wanted it.
98 CfflNA f S NEW DAY
Great Col- For more than a thousand years they had two
leges. great educational institutions located at Peking
the Kzio Tzu Chien^ or College for the Sons
of the Emfzre, and the Han Lin Yuan^ or
Forest of Pencils. These were, however, with-
out any of the characteristics of what with us go
to make up a college. No teachers, no pupils,
no dormitories, no apparatus, nothing but a
building or two and a library. The former is a
square building, surrounded by a row of sheds
under which are the Four Books and Five
Classics, carved on stone tablets, which remind
one of a cemetery. This is in close proximity to
the Confucian temple, in the front court of which
are more tombstones on which are carved the
names of every graduate of the third degree for
the past eight hundred years.
Old Exami- This brings us to the old examination system of
nation China, which was the fruit of four thousand
y em " years of study and experience, for it began with
the Sage Emperor Shun (2200 B. C.), who es-
tablished the custom of examining his army offi-
cers every third year, ' 'emphasizing the able and
promoting the worthy."
Degrees. They had five degrees which they might re-
ceive by passing corresponding examinations:
1, ksints'ai; ^ch^jen\ Q^ckinshih^ ^hanlin\
5, chuangyuan. The examinations for the As in
is* at were held in the county seat, conducted by
a chancellor who has educational supervision
over a province. There would gather from one
AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION 99
to two .thousand competitors, from the boy in his
teens to the old man in his dotage, from which
number only. fifty to one hundred would receive
the degree of budding genius. Once in three
years the successful candidates were examined in
the provincial capital, when ten thousand more
or less, shut themselves up in little cells, three
times of three days each, to prepare compositions
in prose or verse, from \vhom one in a hundred
might be given the degree of pjromote<;L scholar.,
The following year he might enter the triennial,
examination in Peking, with fifteen thousand
others, where three in & Jmndred were allowed to
pass, and were .considered ready for office.
Thrice he had contested with his peers, and tjynce
he had been a picked man of picked men. j The
three hundred or more who came out successful
in the last contest might enter the examination for
the han lin^ or membership in the Imperial
Academy, from the successful competitors of
which were chosen the chancellors, poet-laureates,
imperial historians, or other occupants of im-
portant positions.) Again once in three years
these han lins were allowed to compete in an
examination in the presence of the Emperor, and
the one putting in the best paper was given the
degree of chuangr yuan* a picked man of picked
men sorted over five times, a flower which
bloomed but once in three years in an empire of
four hundred million of peopley To induce them
to give up such a system of education as that re-
quired a tremendous force.
100
CHINA'S NEW DAY
Protestantism
Opens the
Breach.
The Cry of
the Empty
Stomach.
Overtaxa-
tion*
For ninety years the Protestant missionaries
had been working in China ; during the last forty
or fifty of these years they had done much in educa-
tional work. They had made some impression
upon the people, and a little upon the government,
but it was not until Kuang Hsli came to the throne,
and China began to be mixed up with other
governments in a political way that she began to
think of making any changes in her system of
education.
The method of Kuang Hsu's development we
have given in another chapter and it will not be
necessary to repeat it here. A Japanese writer
in the "Review of Reviews/' gives among other
causes of the present reform "the cry of the
empty stomach. " He says that the Chinese know
that they have not wasted their gray lives in idle-
ness. They have always worked in the years
past; they are willing to work in the years to
come. Their soil is rich and kind. Though
flood and drought have sometimes come, had they
been allowed to keep the fruit of their toil, they
would not need to trouble either the yamen or
the altars of their gods or ancestors. They are
starving to-day, and when, one of the officials
was appealed to about the establishment of hospi-
tals to relieve their suffering, and to distribute
food to the hungry, he said, "Let them die, we
have too many people anyhow."
The people during the old regime were over-
taxed. They were squeezed by the officials
AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION 101
whenever they went to the yamen in a lawsuit,
or whenever either through fault, or through no
fault of their own they could be dragged to the
yamen. They began to learn of the prosperity of
Western lands and to inquire the reason therefor.
They answered in their own hearts that it was
Western science and Western government, all of
which depended more or less on Western educa-
tional methods, and when Kuang Hsu took up the
study of English, as he did, before he began is-
suing his reform edicts, it was noised throughout
the empire, and the mission schools were too
small to accommodate the students that sought
admission. When it became known that Kuang
Hsu was favorable to the Christian faith, from
the eunuchs in the palace to the student in the
remotest corner of the empire, people wanted to
know more about this doctrine. Likewise when
the Empress Dowager dethroned His Majesty,
everyone turned anti-foreign once more, and even
the children on the street reverted to their habit of
calling us "foreign devils/' The pulse of the
nation changed with the pulse of the palace. We
could feel the pulse, as some one said, but we
could not count it.
The whole object of the young Emperor was The Object of
to make China strong. She was weak. He the Emperor,
knew she was weak, as the world counted weak-
ness, for just at that time Japan and Germany,
Russia and France, were anxious for a slice of
her territory. They had discussed her division,
102
CHINAS NEW DAY
Edict Order-
ing Practical
Education.
they each had their sphere of influence, and it
only required some small explosion to ignite the
powder mill which would reduce China to a
multitude of remains scattered among the nations
of Europe.
In the summer of 1898 he issued an edict to the
effect that "Our scholars are now without solid
and practical education; our artisans are without
scientific instructors; when compared with other
countries" (Germany, Russia, England and
France who had just taken Chiao Chou, Port
Arthur, Dalne, Wei Hai Wei and Kuang Chou
Wan) "we soon see how weak we are. Does
anyone think that our troops are as well drilled
or as 'well Jed as those of foreign armies; or that
we can successfully stand against any of them?"
(That is the crux of the change.) "Changes must
be made to accord with the necessities of the
times. . . . Keeping in mind the morals of the
sages and wise men, we must make them the
basis on which to build newer and better struc-
tures. We must substitute modern arms and
Western organization for our old regime; we
must select our military officers according to
Western methods of military organization; we
must establish elementary and high schools, col-
leges and universities, in accordance with those
of foreign countries; we must abolish the wen-
ckang (literary essay) and obtain a knowledge of
ancient and modern world history and a right
conception of the present day state of affairs,
AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION 103
with special reference to the governments and
institutions of the countries of the five great con-
tinents ; and we must understand their arts and
sciences."
The effect of this edict was to bring hundreds of Large Young
thousands of the young men who aspired to office Folio-wing,
under the new regime, to put aside the classics
and the tomes of literature and poetry, the wagon
loads of history, and to unite in establishing re-
form clubs in many o the provincial capitals,
prefectural cities and open ports. Book depots
were opened for the sale of the same kind of lit-
erature as that studied by His Majesty, maga-
zines and newspapers were issued and circulated
in great numbers, lectures were delivered in
great halls to concourses of young men, libraries
were established in convenient localities, and
students flocked to the mission schools, ready to
study anything the course contained, whether
literary, scientific or religious. We had tele-
grams at Peking University from all over the
empire saying, "Reserve a place for me, I arn
sending tuition by letter." Even Christians
and pastors were invited into the palace by the
eunuchs to dine with and instruct them.
On June 11, 1898, the Emperor issued an edict Edict Order-
ordering a great central university to be es- * intf Univer
tablished in Peking, the funds for which were to **
be provided by the government, the closing
words of which were: "We hope that all will
take advantage of the opportunities for modern
104
CHINAS NEW DAY
Edict Order-
and Colleges.
education thus open to them, that in time we may
have many competent helpers In the great work-
of putting our country on a level with the strong-
est of the Western Powers." Observe the animus
of the edict, as well as that of the earlier date.
It was to reconstruct the army and make China
strong, enabling her to withstand the aggressions
of the European powers which were at that time
ready to divide her 'up among themselves, for it
was the object of Europe, until John Hay stepped
in to prevent it, to divide Asia up among Russia,
Germany, England, France and Japan, as they
had sliced up the continent of Africa. On the
26th of the same month he censured the princes
and ministers who were lax in reporting upon
the above edict, and ordered them to do so at
once without further delay.
On July 10th the Emperor ordered that
"schools and colleges be established in all the
provincial capitals, prefectural, departmental and
district cities," and allowed the viceroys and
governors but two months to "report upon the
number of colleges and free schools within their
provinces," saying that "all must be changed
into schools for the practical teaching of Chinese
literature and Western learning, and become
feeders to the Peking Imperial University." He
ordered further that "all memorial and other
temples erected by the people, and not recorded
in the list of the Board of Rites and of Sacrificial
Worship, are to be turned into schools and col-
AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION 105
leges for the propagation of Western learning, "
a thought which was quite in harmony with that
advocated by Chang Chih-tung, hut not with the
sentiment of the people. The funds for estab-
lishing these schools and carrying on this, work
were to be provided by the China Merchants'
Steamship Company, the Telegraph Administra-
tion and the great lottery in Canton.
On August 4th he ordered that numerous pre- Preparatory
paratory schools be established in Peking as Schools,
feeders for the Univeristy; and on the 9th ap-
pointed Dr. W. A. P. Martin as head of the
faculty, and approved the site suggested by Sun
Chia-nai, the president. On the 16th he au-
thorized the establishment of a bureau for "trans-
lating into Chinese, Western works on science,
arts and literature, and text-books for use in the
schools and colleges," and on the 19th he
abolished the Palace Examinations for Han Lin
as "useless, superficial and obsolete," thus sev-
ering the last cord that bound them to the old
r6gime. While this was happening in Peking
there was a Han Lin spending the summer with
me in my home at the seashore. When these
edicts of such moment began to come out in such
rapid succession, he said to me each day as he
read the " Peking Gazette," "If the Emperor con-
tinues that kind of reform we will end up with a
revolution." Again after several edicts had ap-
peared he came to me in great excitement and
said, "I must go to Peking* There is going to
106
CHINA'S NEW DAY
Empress
Dowager at
Hilla.
Coup d'etat.
Counter-
be trouble;" and when the trouble came in 1900
he buried my copies of Gray's " Anatomy" and
Scripture's "Thinking, Feeling and Doing,"
wrapped up in oil cloth, in his own yard, that
the Boxers might not find them in his home.
They remain in the Peking University library
to-day half-rotten relics of the summer of 1900.
While the Emperor was issuing these reform
edicts, the Empress Dowager was spending the
hot months quietly resting at the summer palace
at the hills fifteen miles west of Peking, offering
neither advice, objection nor hindrance, allowing
him a free hand in his government. But when
his reforms became too radical, and promised to
bring about a revolution, at the earnest request
of two delegations of officials and princes, whom
he had dismissed or ordered to be assassinated,
she felt compelled to once more take the throne,
thus placing herself at the head of the govern-
ment for a third time, and for the most part in
the hands of the Conservative party, though she
always kept all the great officials of both parties
closely allied with her government.
All his reforms except those of the Peking
University, the provincial, prefectural, depart-
mental and district schools, were for the time
countermanded, all those that would anger the
people, and the Boxers were allowed to]test their
strength with the allied Powers. After their
failure, and while she was still in Hsianfu, on
August 29, 1901, the Empress Dowager issued
AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION 107
an edict ordering "the abolition of essays on the
Chinese Classics in examinations for literary
degrees, and substituting therefor essays and
articles on some phase of modern affairs, Western
laws or political economy. This same procedure
is to be followed in examination of candidates
for office, " an edict which was quite in harmony
with that sent out by the Emperor three years
before; indeed a careful examination of the
Empress Dowager's edicts of this time will re-
veal the fact that they are only a reissuing of
those promulgated by Kuang Hsu in 1898.
In this same edict she said: "The old methods
of gaining military degrees by trial of strength,
by stone weights, agility with the sword, marks-
manship with the bow on foot or on horseback
(for they rode a horse along a trench and shot
arrows at a roll or rolls of matting) are of no use
to men in the army when strategy and military
science are the sine qua non to office, and hence
should be done away with forever."
September 12, 1901, she issued another edict Reforms Be-
commanding "all colleges in the empire to be
turned into schools of Western learning; each
provincial capital to have a university like that
in Peking, whilst all the schools in the pre-
fectures and districts are to be schools and col-
leges of the second or third class/' a sort of state
university system*
On September 17th she ordered "the viceroys Young Men
and governors of other provinces to follow the Sent Abroad.
108 CHINA'S NEW DAY
example of Lin Kun-yi of Liangkiang, Chang
Chih-tung of Hukuang, and Knei Chun of
Szechuan, in sending men of scholastic promise
abroad to study any branch of Western science or
art best suited to their tastes, that in time they
may return to China and place the fruits of their
knowledge at the sen-ice of the empire/* an edict
which smacks very much of those of Kuang Hsu.
What now was the result?
ShansiUni- The Imperial College in Shansi was opened
vcrsity. with three hundred students, all of whom had the
Chinese c/iil jcn or B.A. degree. It had a
Chinese and a foreign department, and after the
students had completed the first, they were al-
lowed to pass on to the second, which had six
foreign professors who held diplomas from
Western colleges or universities, and a staff of
six translators of Western university text-books
into Chinese, superintended by a foreigner.
Ten Provinces In 1901-1902 ten provinces opened colleges for
Opx Col- which they raised more than $400,000. At the
leges. request of Governor Yuan Shi ki of Shantung,
Dr. W. M. Hayes resigned the p esidency of the
Presbyterian College at Teng-c^u-fu, a college
which has turned out a large run tber of educated
young men into governmental ar<a* church service,
and accepted the presidency aivthe new govern-
ment college at the provincialfU-i:pitaL He drew
up a working plan of grammar nad high schools
for the province, which were t feeders for the
provincial college. This wru pproved by the
AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION 109
Governor, embodied in a memorial to the Throne,
copies of which the Empress Dowager sent to
the governors and viceroys o all the provinces,
declaring it to be a law, and ordering "the vice-
roys, governors and literary chancellors to see that
it was obeyed." Dr. Hayes and Yuan Shi ki
soon split upon a regulation which the Governor
thought it best to introduce to the effect "that
the Chinese professors shall, on the first and fif-
teenth of each month, conduct their classes in
reverential sacrifice to the most Holy Teacher
Confucius, and to all the former worthies and
scholars of the provinces.'* Dr. Hayes and his
Christian teachers withdrew; but it was not long
until those who professed Christianity were ex-
cused from this rite, while the Christian Chinese
physicians who taught in the Peking Imperial
University were allowed to dispense with the
queue and wear foreign clothes as they had done
while studying in America, because it was more
convenient and sanitary.
When Governor Yuan was made viceroy of Dr.
Chihli, he reqv ,'Sted another missionary, Dr. C. Establishes
D. Tenney, to *xi:aw up and put into operation a PWic School
similar schedulmifor the metropolitan province.
This was done ' ^n a very much enlarged scale,
as was also the e in many of the other prov-
inces* In 1909 ' e Chihli province alone has
nine thousand schools, all of which are aiming
at Western ed* iioon, while in the empire as a
whole there aremnfetless than thirty to forty thou-
110 CHINAS NEW DAY
sand schools, colleges and universities, repre-
senting some of the educational changes that have
taken place in China during the past eight
years." During the three years that have fol-
lowed since the above statement was made by
Bishop Bashford, other schools have been opened,
and many of the former have been closed, and the
government has offered to allow us to put a
Christian teacher in any one of these schools, as
we have said elsewhere, if we will pay $10 to $20
a year toward his salary. Now is the time for
the Christian Church to rally to the support of its
own schools, increase their efficiency, and send
out more graduates who can take positions in
their government institutions.
Girls* On one occasion when Mrs. Headland was in
ScWls. the palace the Empress Dowager said to her, "I
understand that in your honorable country the
girls study the same as the boys."
"They do," said Mrs. Headland. "They go
to the same schools and study the same books."
"I wish our girls could study," exclaimed
Her Majesty.
"Would it not be possible to open schools for
the instruction of girls?" asked her visitor.
"No," she answered, "our taxes are now so
heavy that it would be impossible to add another
such as that would necessitate upon the people."
Young Ladies Mrs. Headland knew that among her young
Studying. Chinese friends there were many who were de-
voting a large part of their time to study, in pre-
AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION ill
paration for the new day that most of them felt
assured was soon coming to China, and so she
asked, "If Your Majesty should issue an edict
approving of the education of girls might there
not be many benevolently disposed people in your
honorable country who would open schools for
their instruction?"
In less than two weeks' time the Empress Dowager Is-
Dowager issued such an edict and forthwith girls' sues Edict,
schools began to spring up all over the empire,
and it is worthy of note that when Her Majesty
sent the commission, headed by Duke Tse and
accompanied by Tai Hung-Tzu and Tuan Fang,
around the world in 1906 to inquire as to the
best kind of a constitution to give to the people,
the members of this commission told us that:
"The Empress Dowager charged us to inquire Commission
especially into the education of girls in the to Inquire
United States, since she hopes on our return to be About Girls.
Q i i
able to found a school for the education of the 6 *
daughters of the princes."
Before that commission could return, however,
many of the princes had solved that problem for
themselves by founding girls' schools in their '
own palaces.
One day a message came to one of the mis- A Mongol
sionaries from the Princess Ka-la-chin, the sister SekooHor
of Prince Su, who was married to a Mongol
prince. The physician took her medical outfit at
once, and started to the home of the princess
thinking that some one was ill. When she
112 CHINAS NE W DA Y
arrived the princess met her with a smile on her
face, saying, "No one is ill, I just wanted to talk
to you about girls* schools. I am thinking of
starting one in our palace in Mongolia, and I
want to learn all about them before I return." ,
Princess Via- She was invited to visit the girls' schools in
its Christian Peking, where she was assured that she would
Q \t 1
' learn more in an hour than she would by talking
about them for a much longer time. This she
did. She visited many mission schools, and
before she returned she was prepared to open her
school in Mongolia.
Chinese Lady She invited one of our CJiuang Tilan friend's
Teaches in daughters to go with her to teach the Chinese
Mongol Classics, employed a young Japanese lady to
' teach the foreign studies, and Miss Hsu told us
the next year when she returned that after their
day's work they would all don men's garb (a not
uncommon thing for Chinese girls to do when
they go upon the street) and go for a horseback
ride across the plains.
Mongol Girls But the Mongol girls were not accustomed to
Slow. g ett j n g U p anc j ]-, e i n g j n school at nine o'clock in
the morning. The princess might have sent a
servant around the village to wake them up and
call them to their study. She was afraid this
would not be effective, and so she asked the
prince to get on his horse, ride about the village,
and impress upon the girls the importance of
being in school at nine o'clock, as she proposed
to have her school carried on after the most
GRADUATING CLASS, GIRLS' COLLEGE, FOOCHOW
Woman's Board of Missions
AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION 113
approved fashion of the West. The next summer
when she came down to Peking she brought with
her almost a score of Mongolian girls in order
that they might see the capital and visit the
girls' schools.
One day when one of the missionaries was Princess Su's
calling at the palace of Prince Su, the princess ScLool.
invited her to go in and see their school. It was
in an attractive room, and was for the members
of her own family. The curriculum was care-
fully written out, and consisted of reading, writ-
ing the Chinese characters, arithmetic, music,
drawing, embroidery and kindred subjects. After
she had watched them at this work for some time
under the Japanese lady teacher, the prince came
in.
"Please show us your calisthenics," he said. International
Their books were put away, and arranging Calistkemc
themselves in order, they went through their Exercfse -
exercises to the tune of,
Ho my comrades see the signal
Waving in the sky,
played on an American organ by a Japanese
teacher, who had been educated in a mission
school.
But these girls' schools were not confined to
Peking. No sooner had the edict left the palace
than girls' schools began to spring up all over
the empire. A lady in Honan opened a school,
and in the enthusiasm of a new idea she easily
raised the money for its support for the first year.
114 CHINA'S NEW DAY
A Chinese The second year it was not so easy. She sent
Heroine. letters to the officials, but they did not respond.
She then cut a great gash in her arm, and sat
out in a public place at the temple fair to attract
the attention and solicit the aid of the passers-
by. This also failed to secure the amount
needed. She then wrote a letter to the officials
saying: "I have already asked you for help for
the support of my girls' school, but you have
turned a deaf ear to my appeal. When this letter
reaches you I shall be a corpse. I propose to
take my life and try in this way to impress upon
the people the importance of the education of
girls."
A Chinese She took her own life, and at once memorial
Martyr. services began to be held all over the empire.
One of these was held in connection with the
school established in the home of another sister
of Prince Su the Fourth Princess. One day I
was going down Liu Li Chang, the book street
of Peking, and my attention was called to a great
meeting that was being held in a temple there. I
inquired as to -its meaning and was told that it
was a memorial service to this same lady. I pur*
chased a ticket and went in. There I found a
great mixed audience of men and women, a most
unusual thing f9r China; and among other
features of the entertainment the girls from the
school of the Fourth Princess came out upon a
rostrum, recited pieces, and went through their
calisthenic exercises for the entertainment of the
-4.V EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION 115
audience, and the endowment of the martyr
school.
Xo\v it may appear to my readers that I have
put the cart before the horse in describing the
governmental changes that have taken place in
China, before saying- anything about the educa-
tional institutions that have contributed to bring
about that reform. I have done this intentionally, Is TKis Old
and for this reason. I have given an educational Educational
system that has prevailed in that old and mighty System Ad-
empire for fifteen centuries. I have tried to be ** ua
faithful in my description. I have .tried to show
what great books they have made, though I shall
have more to say on that subject in discussing
their literature. I have tried to show what great
educational institutions they developed, and how
faithful the students were in storing away the
accumulated literary gems of the past thirty cen-
turies. Perhaps I have overdone the matter.
Perhaps there are those who will say: "If the
Chinese have all this great literature, if they
have all this great educational system, why not
leave them alone? They are satisfied with what
they have."
Is that true? Are the Chinese satisfied with
what they have? Was their educational system
good enough for them? Who is the most com-
petent to decide that question? Surely the The Chinese
Chinese are the ones to decide, and they have People An-
decided. The Chinese Government, led by awer -
Kuang Hsu, the Empress Dowager, Chang Chih-
116 CHINA'S NEW DAY
tung, Yuan Shi ki and all the greatest officials
of the past quarter of a century, say that that old
system of education is not good enough for them.
They have given it up, and they have given it
up forever.
Missionary They have adopted instead the very system that
Origia/of was carried to China by the missionaries, that
Ney/Educa- was taught to the people by the missionaries, that
* was established for the government by the mis-
sionaries, the system that was developed by the
gospel of Jesus Christ in the countries and among
the people jt dominates. Nothing is good
enough for the Chinese but the best. They are a
great people without the gospel, but they will be
a mighty people when they have accepted the
gospel if we are to judge from the examples of
those who sealed their testimony by their death
during the Boxer uprising, and still better if we
are to judge from the examples of those all over
the empire at the present time who are sealing
their testimony by a self-sacrificing life.
Close View of And now let me give a more detailed view of
Clmstian the forces that, have contributed to this mighty
Schools. intellectual revolution.
London Mis- Let us begin 'in South China, for there is
sionarySo- where missions first began. We find the London
missionary with such men as Morrison, and
Milne, and Legge, and Edkins, and Chalmers,
and a host of other honored men who translated
the Bible, made dictionaries, wrote hymns, trans-
lated the Classics into English, and w6re them-
AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION 117
selves great enough to be supported by the East
India Company for their work, or to be called
back from China to England to take a place as
professor in one or the other of her two largest
universities. It was these men who by their lives
and their work, began to shed the dews of their
intelligence, their teaching, and their sympathy
upon this great unresponsive people. For a time
they felt that the great commission was simply to
go into all the world and preach the gospel to
every creature. Then they discovered that Jesus
Christ also ordered his disciples to go and teach
all nations, and they began to open schools.
One could hardly go to Canton without finding Presbyterian
there that great Christian college which stands Work,
like an arc light in that great city. An institu-
tion that has been sending young men out as
preachers, as teachers, as business men, as Chris-
tian statesmen. Another great Presbyterian
school was located at Teng-chou-fu, where Dr.
Charles W. Mateer and his noble wife worked
side by side for so many years. One in a school
for boys, and the other near by in a school for
girls, turned out young men and women who es-
tablished the churches that were opened by two
such patriarchs as John L. Nevius and Hunter
Corbett. The same church furnished W. A. P.
Martin to the Chinese Government to open its
first two colleges, and President Tcnney, as I
have said elsewhere, to found the first provincial
college in Shantung. Oh! yes, if you are a Pres-
118 CHINA'S NEW DAY
byterian you may be proud of the work that
these men and a hundred others have done, and of
the noble women who have worked by their side,
in their girls' schools furnishing wives Chris-
tian wives, educated wives, women who are able
to go with them into society, and converse with
them, and shall I add, help them? nay, I would
rather say do the same kind of work for their
sisters that the men are doing for their brothers.
Many of these Chinese Christian men from these
Presbyterian colleges have gone out to become
professors in Methodist, Congregational, Baptist
and governmental imperial colleges.
Perhaps you are a Congregational! st. If so,
tionalCol- then from Foochow to Peking you have been
establishing these great dynamos of intelligence,
these electric light plants which have been shed-
ding a glow which has not only illuminated the
Orient, but has shone with as brilliant a light in
the Occident. Who of you does not know of
your girls' college in Foochow, of Dr. Sheffield
the head of the North China College, who has
been sending out young men as teachers, as
preachers, as martyrs? Who does not know
Goodrich, the maker of dictionaries and trans-
lator of the Bible, and Arthur H. Smith, one of
the most brilliant preachers in Chinese that has
ever gone to the Orient? Who does not know
Miss Miner, the brilliant author of "Two Heroes
of Cathay" and " China's Book of Martyrs," and
the head of your woman's college in Peking?
AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION 119
But I ought not to mention these and leave un-'
named a score of others whom you know as well
as those I have named. Your church has done its
share its full share of the preliminary work
that brought about the fall of an old empire and
the establishment of a stronger and more stable
one in its place.
Perhaps, however, you are a Baptist. Like Baptist In-
all the others that I have mentioned we know the *l uence -
great men and women who represent you on the
field as members of the " Jesus Church," better
than we know them by their denominational
name- The whole region south o the great
Yangtze River from Hong Kong to Szechuan,
and from Ningpo to Hanyang is being leavened
by your influence*
Every Southern Methodist woman is proud of Southern
the girls* schools at Nanking and Kiuchiang and Methodist
the splendid Bible training schools in these cities ; s '
of the large kindergarten and girls* school at
Fobchow, and the new woman's college, which
this winter laid the corner stone of its first
building; of the wonderful McTiere School,
whose pupils are equal to presenting Shakespeare
in English.
Or perhaps you are a member of the Reformed Reformed
Church in America. If so then think of Abeel CKurck
and Talmage and the other great men of the
Amoy region, who have been calling down the
dews of heaven for the past seventy years upon
three millions of Chinese of the Fukien Province.
1 20 CHINAS NEW DAY
Cfc To the Reformed Church God gave remarkable
men of unbounded faith, deep piety and marked
ability, to found its mission in China. To look
back at their labors, to see what God hath
wrought, is to hear the voice of our Lord and
Master calling us to a larger faith and greater
earnestness in hastening the completion of this
great work. ' '
Protestant Or perhaps you are a churchman English or
Episcopal American. Then you think of St. John's Uni-
Cturck versity and Boone College and the girls' schools,
St. Hilda's and St. Mary's, with their hundreds
of bright girls. I have met the graduates of
these schools in all departments of business,
social, governmental and professional life, in
small numbers it is true, but not in small
influence.
Union Effort. The missionaries in China have awakened to
the fact,, which the churches at home have not
yet realized, that they can do more work and
better work, if they divide their territory, unite
their educational work, and duplicate neither
their churches nor their forces. In so far as they
could do so they divided their territory, and they
have united their educational work in North
China, Shantung, Central China, West China,
and wherever it was possible to do so.
Nortt Cnina In North China a few years ago the American
Union. Board Mission had a well-developed college and
theological school at Tung-chou, fifteen miles
east of Peking. The Methodist Episcopal
AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION 121
Mission had the Peking University which included
a department of arts, theology and medicine, in
the last of which the physicians of all the missions
were engaged in teaching, and students from all
the missions were in attendance. The London
Mission, the Presbyterian and the English
Church Mission did not have so well-developed
an educational work. It was decided to unite
and distribute the work. The American Board
kept its college at Tung-chou ; gave its theologi-
cal school to the Presbyterian. Mission; and the
London Mission undertook the development of a
large medical college with which the Methodist
united its medical department of the Peking
University, and in which the American Board,
Presbyterian and English Church Missions joined
both in teachers and students. It was to the
erection of the building for this school that the
Empress Dowager contributed $9,000.
A similar union was entered into in Shantung Shantung
Province where the Presbyterians had one of the Union,
strongest colleges in the whole empire, and where
the English Baptists had a large school and the
most noted museum in China. These missions
joined with the Church of England Mission in
that province in establishing their central union
college at Weihsien.
In addition to this Weihsien College there is
the union medical college at Tsinan-fu, formed
by the English Baptists and American Presby-
terians and the normal training school at Tsing-
122 m CHINA'S NEW DAY
chou-fu, formed by the union of the same forces.
These three institutions make up the Shantung
Christian University, one of the most highly re-
garded educational centers in all China, and a
strong bulwark of Christianity.
EastCtina In East China the Christians, the Presby-
Umon. terians and the Methodists, each of whom had
large educational interests, decided to unite in
educational work. This was done in connection
with the Nanking University, and so we find
these three denominations working not side by
side but hand in hand, without any reference to
sectarian bias, for the good of the Chinese people.
The Baptists and Presbyterians, north and south,
the Methodists north and the Christian Church
have united in founding, equipping and manning
the East China Union Medical College at
Nanking.
CentralCkina,. At Hankow the Northern Baptist Convention,
the Wesleyans and the London Missionary
Society unite to form the Union Medical College
for training Chinese Christian physicians.
West China In West China, the Province of Szechuan, the
Union. Friends, the Baptists, the Canadian Methodists
and the Methodist Episcopal Churches have been
working side by side for many years. They feel
certain that they can trust each other to preach
a saving gospel, and so they have divided up
their territory wherever they can so as not to
overlap. In their educational work they have
united in establishing a central college or uni-
AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION 123
versity in the city of Chengtu, the capital of the
province. A similar union is in progress in
Foochow.
It will readily be seen that the money con-
tributed by the churches is being used in the way Benefits of
to get the best results with the smallest outlay. Union.
If our friends who are pouring so many millions
of dollars into great, expensive plants in America,
would only direct one or two millions a year
toward the China Mission, and give us a fair
opportunity to do something worth while, we can
promise them an income ten times greater on
their investment than they can get in America.
If you good people at home would do as the mis-
sionaries in China are doing, tradeoff church for
church in every country village where you have
five or six where three could do the work, and
send the other two or three pastors to the mission
field, you would not only bless the church abroad
and the church at home, but you would be
blessed yourselves.
Then where you have too many colleges, and
you Americans have too many colleges in places, Study tne
my own alma mater for example, has just com-
bined with a sister college where they had two
within the bounds of one conference, combine
forces and save funds. You could do as much
work, with less expense, greater blessing to your-
selves, and you could help the poor brother or
sister who has never had a chance. Will not
CHINA'S NEW DAY
Educational
Work Done
by tke Mis-
American
MetLod*.
Opportunities
inCluna.
some of my readers who are thinking of building
or endowing a church or a college at home look
up the matter of the foreign field, and see in
what part of the Lord's vineyard your money
will do the most work.
It is a well-known fact that the educational
work that was first opened in Japan was done
largely by American missionaries. It is equally
well known that the American missionaries have
been the leaders in the educational work in
China. The early members of the English Mis-
sion felt that their call was to preach rather than
to teach, and it is only within the last twenty
years that they have discovered their mistake, so
that practically all the leading colleges and uni-
versities have been opened by American mis-
sionaries.
This has done much to influence both the
Japanese and the Chinese educational systems;
and the public school work of both countries is
being done for the most part after the American
method. Not many years ago the missionaries
from Japan urged their constituency to send
more workers to that country else they would lose
their opportunity. They did not heed the call,
and they lost, for it is now too late. Japan has
her own system.
We have come to the same stage in the devel-
opment of China. Never in her history have
there been such opportunities as there are to-
day. It was Americans that established their first
AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION 125
public school systems for them. They are now
calling for teachers, and they offer to allow our
yoitng Christian Chinese men and 'women to go
into their schools as teachers if we tvzll pay the
nominal sum of from, $10 to $%0 annually toward
their support . China is calling. Shall we heed
the call? China is stretching out her hands for
help. Shall we help her? Or shall we allow
her to attempt to open her own schools, carry on
her own work, with only Confucian teachers try-
ing to put the new education of the West into
the old bottles of the East. There have been
other occasions when we have said, "Now is the
crucial moment." I am not going to say that.
I want you to study the problem and see whether
there ever was a time such as now in China. We
lost our supreme opportunity in Japan by failing
to grasp it when it came. Shall we do so in
China?
In addition to all this work by the churches, University
a number of the colleges and universities in Mission*.
Great Britain and the United States have taken
up a special work of their own. Prominent
among these are the following:
Harvard University has united with St. John's
University in Shanghai in the establishment of a
medical department which we may hope will take
the place in Eastern China that the union medi-
cal college takes in the north.
Yale University, at the close of the Boxer' up- Yale,
rising, and perhaps as the result of an inspiration
126
CHINA'S NEW DAY
Oberlin.
Pennsylvania
University.
Princeton
University.
Chicago
University.
Oxford and
Cambridge.
which came from the loss of some of her noble
graduates, decided to open a mission in Changsha
in Hunan. This mission is well manned by
some of her strongest graduates.
Oberlin College has taken up work with the
American Board Mission in Shansi, where she is
doing as effective work as any of the American
colleges.
As Harvard united herself with the St. John's
University in Shanghai, so the University of
Pennsylvania has made herself responsible for the
medical department in connection with the Can-
i ton Christian College, always affiliated more or
I less with the Presbyterian Church, though now,
I believe, independent.
Princeton University has sent a number of her
best graduates to China, and has been doing a
good deal of work in connection with the Y. M.
C. A. of North China, and has erected a hospital
at Paoting-fu where she lost some of her most
noble graduates during the Boxer uprising.
Chicago University has in mind something
larger perhaps, than anything that has yet been
done the establishment of a Christian university
in some part of China which will be liberally
endowed and well manned. Dr. Burton was
sent around the world with the express purpose
of investigating conditions in China with that in'
mind.
A few years ago Oxford and Cambridge united
in sending Lord William Cecil to China for the
AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION 127
purpose of studying conditions tnere, and report-
ing that they might know where, and what kind
of work it might be best to take up. It is not
unlikely that in the near future these great English
universities will have a college or a university in
China as their own special representative.
May we not hope that other colleg'es and uni-
versities, and women's colleges, will take up this
same kind of work. Wellesley, Vassar, Smith,
Bryn Mawr, and Mt. Holyoke ought to have
special work among women.
May we not fail to see our opportunity in Opportunities
China. ia Education
For decades such institutions as St. forWolnfin -
John's University in Shanghai, the Canton
Christian College, the Peking University, the
North China Union College, ttie Shantung Union
College, the Nanking and Chengtu Union Col-
leges, the colleges at Shanghai, Soochow and Christian
Foochow, Boone College in Hankow and the Graduate*.
American Board College at Foochow have been
sending out their trained graduates. Many of
these graduates have been leaders in this great
awakening and the anti-opium movement.
Now they are in danger of losing this leader-
ship unless they can keep ahead of the newly
established government institutions, by raising ^
their standard of teaching and improving their Critical
buildings and equipment. They must employ Moment,
more and better trained teachers. They must
erect larger and better buildings. They must be
128 CHINAS NEW DAV
prepared for larger numbers and longer training
if they are to adequately meet the increasing de-
mand for educated youna: men as teachers in the
native colleges and to fill positions of responsibility
in the new industries and civic life.
Enlarged Graduates of Christian colleges are in great
Equipment demand because of their superior training, de-
votion and character. We must maintain this
prestige, if we are to have our largest influence
and effectiveness in the regeneration of China.
More important than all else we must train a
native ministry capable of leading these trained
and educated laymen, and through them to lead
the nation into the ways of God.
To-day is the crucial time to help these insti-
tutions, and build up the Christian Church in
China.
China must be converted by converted Chinese,
educated in these schools that have been estab-
lished for both the boys and the girls, but you
and I must go or send to lead these young Chinese
people to Christ and then teach them to go.
ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS
ee One of the notable events of the year 1911 was the
selection of the second contingent of students to be
sent by the government to America to study, under the
wise provisions, which the government has made for
the use of the indemnity fund returned by America.
Competitive examinations were held . . . nearly all
the successful candidates in South China had been
trained in the Christian college at Canton." (F. W.
Bible.)
BIBLE SCHOOL IN HANKOW WITH DEACONESS HART
Protestant Episcopal
RHETORICALS, GIRLS' SCHOOL, PEKING
Woman's Board of. Missions
AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION 129
"Four thousand Chinese students are studying in
Japan, 1,200 in the United States, and a 1,000 more in
Europe. Under Protestant missionaries in China, over
900 students are in college, 20,000 in preparatory and
boarding schools, and 55,000 in day schools. In a word
80,000 students are under Protestant Christian teaching
in China, of whom 16,000 are girls and young women.
In addition to missionary teachers some 700 other
foreign teachers are employed chiefly by the govern-
ment. Text-books of Western learning are being intro-
duced, a single Chinese publishing house in Shanghai
selling over a million dollars (Mexican) worth a
year. . . . The regent has issued a decree making Eng-
lish the official language for all scientific and technical
instruction, and compulsory in all high schools where
science is taught. 5 ' (Bishop Bashford.)
"The educational activities of missions in China
have been incessant. Of the fourteen institutions of
college grade, twelve are American, exhibiting the em-
phasis which Americans almost invariably place upon
this agency. The total number of pupils^, at present
under instruction, in missionary colleges and schools
in China, is 53,293. From the days of Dr. S. R.
Brown, whose early beginnings in Macao and Hong
Kong produced a few men who became leaders in
China, down to the present day, the potency of this in-
strument, upon which the perpetuation and expansion
of the Church in China depends, has been recognized.
The education of Chinese girls in mission schools was
but yesterday regarded by nearly all Chinese with
amusement tinged with ridicule. Yet so great is the
change that almost before the fully developed woman's
colleges can be acclimated in China, they have become
the ideal of the Chinese also. It was at the especial
command of the Empress Dowager that the imperial
commissioners visited Wellesley College, to witness
for themselves what has been done by and for Ameri-
laO CHINA'S XEW DAY
can women, and to learn what must be done in China.
There are already signs that the impending education
and elevation of the nearly two hundred millions of
Chinese women will impart to the national develop-
ment such an impetus as has never before been known;
and humanly speaking it will have been largely brought
about through the work and influence of Christian
women in China." (Dr. Arthur H. Smith in "The
Uplift of China," p. 223.)
"We take pleasure in bearing testimony to the part
taken by American missionaries in promoting the
progress of the Chinese people. They have borne the
light of Western civilization into every nook and corner
of the empire. The awakening of China which now
seems to be at hand, may be traced in no small measure
to the hands of the missionaries. For this service you
will find China not ungrateful. * ' (Viceroy Tuan Fang. )
"An interesting instance of the changed attitude
toward women on the part of Chinese men occurred at
the Jubilee celebration of the establishment of the
Methodist School for Girls in Foochow. . . . The
Fuhkien Provincial Assembly was in session and the
general Executive'Committee and officers of the Assem-
bly were invited co be present. That every one of them
was present was indicative of a new interest in the
progress of woman. A young man of wealth and
position said :
** 'Some time ago I was interested in establishing a
school for girls in a neighboring city. When the
question of teachers came up one man said, "Send to
the Methodist Girls* School in Foochow." That was
the first time I ever heard of the school. The ladies in
charge sent us Miss and Miss (mentioning '
both names), and I hope every member of the Assembly
here present will go home and establish a girls' school,
and send here for teachers. '
AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION '181
"To mention these names," wrote the principal ^of
the school, "was a terrible breach of Chinese etiquette.
My heart stood still. When the interpreter repeated
this address in the Foochow dialect I thought he cer-
tainly would not repeat the names of the girls, for he
was the Mr. Wang who had taught all new missionaries
for twenty years that we should never speak the name
of a Chinese woman in public, but should say, 'a cer-
tain sister' or 'such a man's daughter, wife or sister,'
but he did speak the names not only once but twice
with emphasis and then it dawned on me that in the
new China girls and women were to have names and
individualities." (Condensed from Margaret Burton's
"Education of Women in China," p. 181.)
" 'We inherit the respect for centuries accorded
teachers,' a young American teacher in China once
told me. The educated young Chinese women inherit
it too, for China has proved consistent in her reverence
for learning, and honours it in women to-day as she
has ever honoured it in man." (Margaret Burton, in
"Education of Women in China," p. 206.)
"The Chinese mother is ignorant, without knowledge
of the methods of unfolding her child's nature. She is
ignorant of the nature of the emotions of the child, or
their order of evolution, or their functions, or where
use ends and abuse begins. Many an action which is
quite normal and beneficial she continually thwarts,
thus diminishing the child's happiness and profit, in-
juring its temper and lessening her own power and in-
fluence. . . but a longing, a hungering for knowledge
fills their hearts. They realize . . . that the intel-
lectual darkness of their own minds hinders them from
filling satisfactorily the highest position given to mor-
tals in this earth, that of parent mother." (Mrs.
Wong, a Chinese woman, in "Chines-e Students'
Monthly,'" December, 1909.)
132 CHINAS NEW DAY
/'Endowment is the greatest need of the Christian
colleges in Japan and China. They are now dependent
upon the ups and downs of 'good times,' and of appro-
priations, and have to submit to such curtailments as
would ruin colleges in the homeland. Work that is
worth doing at all is worth doing well, and colleges
that are worth having at all are worth making strong.
With all the stupendous gifts to education in America
is it not strange that American education in the East is
left to live a hand to mouth existence?" (Lewis,
"Educational Conquest of the Far East," p. 205.)
"Christian education in China will not be supplanted
by the educational establishments of the government.
It now exerts a distinctive and commanding influ-
ence. . . Christian colleges, their curricula, organi-
zation, methods of instruction, spirit of knowledge and
aspersions of superstition are models for the Chinese
authorities. ... In every Liberal Arts College thus far
started by the Chinese Government the highest positions
entrusted to foreigners have invariably been offered to
and urged upon missionaries. . . . Christian education
is the government's chief source of supply of trained
Chinese teachers. Teng Chou College furnished thir-
teen Chinese professors, all Christians for the Imperial
Colleges in Peking, Nanking and Shanghai in 1898.
St. John's College provided the Government College at
Nan Yang with three." (Ibid, pp. 205-206.)
"A further problem is that of education. The new
departure of the Chinese Government in educational
lines has put an end to the practical monopoly of
Western learning in the mission schools. Free tuition,
and sometimes the payment of most or of all other
expenses by the state, would seem to make competition
hopeless; but from the absence of true normal schools,
and from many other causes, the teaching standards of
the former must for some time remain below those of
AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION 133
the latter. The worship of Confucius in many govern-
ment schools excludes, and is intended to exclude,
Christians. In the government schools especially there
is a strong impulse to meddle with public affairs, not
only by free discussion, but by sending telegrams direct
to the foreign office (an unheard of thing in the past),
suggesting and protesting. In a recent instance a large
body of Shan-hsi students demanded the cancellation of
a mining concession formerly given to an Anglo-
Italian syndicate. One of their number threw himself
into the ocean and drowned himself as a gentle protest,
thus becoming a martyr whose fame is now celebrated
and in whose honor fiery resolutions are passed. There
is a constant and an increasing danger that young
Chinese reject the moral teachings and the wise re-
straints of the past, and drift into a theoretical skep-
ticism combined with an epicurean license. Many of
the 16,000 students at present in Japan return with an
imperfect knowledge of that language, a smattering of
many branches of learning, their self-conceit estab-
lished and their morals undermined." (Arthur H.
Smith in "The Uplift of China," p. 189.)
"Sometimes the pendulum of progress swings almost
too far. Two day pupils in another school have adopted
things Western in a wholesale style. When they ap-
plied for admission they were in full European dress.
They had no Chinese education and did not care for it;
they wanted English and music. They could read some
English, which they could not understand; neither
could the teachers, as they read it. They could play
* Jesus Loves Me' and 'Peter Piper.' The missionaries
gave them the best advice possible, some of which was
that they wear their native dress. In a few days they
returned, asking that they might come to school in their
foreign clothes as they had no others. The request was
refused, but in about ten days they appeared again,
transformed by their becoming Chinese dress.
134 CHINAS NEW DAY
"Another pupil has gained the nickname 'Puss in
Boots,' because she has her little old-style feet encased
in new-style velveteen boots. She is not only fashion-
ably dressed but is also saturated with cigarette smoke
a too progressive type !
"ft is said that now there is not a prince's palace or
an official's home where the girls are not studying;
that now a woman is ashamed if she cannot read,
whereas formerly it was held to be a matter of little
importance.
"The government schools require the pupils to re-
frain from wearing ornaments or artificial flowers, and
from using paint or powder. The hair is simply
braided or coiled in a Japanese knot. They wear a sort
of uniform, usually a plain black or dark blue gar-
ment. ' ' (Methodist Leaflet. )
"China, too, is feeling the stir of modern progress,
and is slowly awaking to the fact that girls are worth
educating, 'What pretty faces some of these Peking
girls have!' exclaimed a lady, looking at a photograph
of a group of graduates. 'Oh! yes,' was the reply.
'Didn't you know that Chinese girls often have pretty
faces?' But they have more than this. The warm
hearts and bright minds that make any group of Ameri-
can girls a charming sight, are found in China as well,
and the missionaries have had a great deal to do with
such beauty making.
"At our Peking school the greatest event of the year
is the graduation. The chapel is beautifully decorated
with flowers and branches of trees, and an attractive
program is prepared.
"Mrs. 's report of a recent Commencement
says : 'The girls came upon the platform with composed
dignity, and gave their essays without any indication
of flight or faint.' Of course they did! This is the
well-bred 'new woman' of China. 'It was a glimpse of
AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION 135
the current of progress that is setting forward here, and
It will have much to do with the re-making of China.
The Chinese are waking up to the fact that to have a
strong nation there must be strong women, and that
crippled mothers cannot produce a nation of strong
men. '
"A delightful feature of the Commencement exercises
at the Foochow girls' school was an address to the
graduating class by Dr. Hii King Eng. The spectacle
of an educated Chinese doctor addressing her young
country women on such an occasion, is of far-reaching
significance. At the Kucheng school, the well-prepared
essays were given on the following topics: 'China's
Noted Women,' 'The Superior Advantages of Girls
Attending Christian Schools,' 'Knowledge is Power,'
'How the Gospel has Benefited Chinese Women,' 'Our
Debt of Gratitude to God. ' Hew like and yet how
unlike our own Commencement themes this sounds!"
(Methodist Leaflet.)
"The school day begins with the daylight, for the
girls are early risers. With the first streak of dawn
the blue cotton cocoons unroll and the black eyes are
wide awake. When this one cotton bed covering i
folded at the side of the bed, the bed is made. Dress-
ing as quickly follows, for a pair of trousers, an upper
garment, a pair of embroidered slippers are easily
donned, but the hair takes time. The girls tiptoe into
the broad hall and silently, by the dim light of a lan-
tern, make their toilets. The hair is oiled and combed
until perfectly smooth and glossy, then braided or
beautifully coiled, and decorated with bright flowers.
The older pupils help the younger ones and often the
most wonderful creations of hair bows and butterflies
appear on the little round heads.
"The six o'clock bell loosens the tongues, opens the
windows, and ushers in the day. At intervals of fifteen
minutes bells call the girls down by classes to small
136 CHINA'S NEW DAY
wooden tubs of hot water ready in the outer court.
After the bath, the frugal souls, economical of time and
the hot water remaining, will hurry to the washtubs and
the bamboo poles in the yard will be clothed upon
by a bright array of freshly washed, stiffly stretched gar-
ments before the seven o'clock breakfast bell rings.
"Then the great tub of rice is carried into the dining
room, a dish each of dried fish, sour vegetable, bean-
curd cakes, and fragrant oil are placed in the center of
each table, and after they have sung grace, the activi-
ties begin. One girl will consume three bowls of rice
in three times three minutes and not fail of her share
of the good things in the center dishes ! This does not
unfit her for her domestic duties, but armed with the
broom, dustpan or duster which bears her name she
will do her share of the daily house cleaning so faith-
fully, that she has no fear of the inspectors, who go
about at eight o'clock to see that all is complete.
"After this the big schoolroom is quiet half an hour
for the 'Morning Watch,' and as the time coincides
with the hour for evening prayer in the churches of
America, surely the Christians at home will be glad to
remember at the Throne of Grace the little Christians
praying in China. At nine o'clock the three men
teachers coming from their homes in the city, walk in
in single file, in long blue cotton gowns, and much
dignity. They conduct prayers with the assembled
girls, teachers and helpers, and the school work of the
day begins* Classes move regularly with singing and
gymnastics for rest periods, and one and one-half hours
for dinner, dish washing and play at noon. At four,
the officers of the 'School city' meet for business.
The policemen bring in all who have broken rules
during the day, the court sits in judgment, and the girl
who has said naughty words, has been noisy at table,
or who has run down the long stairs, must do penance
AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION 137
by washing a window, walking about quietly, or sitting
in meditation.
*' Washing clothes, making shoes, play and supper
fill the time until 6.30, when the older girls sit with
groups of the smaller girls and help them understand
the hard characters until time for evening prayers.
Then comes the early bedtime, the younger girls going
at 7 and the older ones an hour later." (Harriet
Osborne. )
QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY
1. What features in China's history make education
of supreme importance?
2. Compare the Chinese educational revolution with
that of Japan as to causes, leadership, methods, magni-
tude.
3. What factors make outside help necessary to China
if she is to successfully make the great transformation
of her schools?
4. What is the relative importance of the education
of girls in China?
5. What do you consider the greatest educational
opportunity in China? the greatest educational need?
6. Are the college women of America doing their
share in promoting the higher education of Chinese
women?
7. What do you consider the fundamental defects in
China's old educational system?
8. If you had $500,000 to spend on education in China
how and where would you spend it?
9. What is the most pressing educational problem in
China now before your denominational Board?
10. What are the strong and what the weak features
of the educational work of your Board in China?
11. What kind of a Chinese church are you training?
CHAPTER IV
THE CHINESE CHURCH
IF ever the renewed China shall be realized it
must be the work of a living church of Chinese
Christians. \ An army of German, English,
French and American missionaries cannot Chris-
tianize China. The beautiful words of Charlotte
Tucker spoken of missionary work in India are
true everywhere: "We are only coolies who open
the door, they go in themselves."
Am of It is the aim of this present chapter to sketch
Ckapter. on a background of the inadequate native faiths a
picture of the quality and activities of the Chinese
Christian church, and to make clear the part
which the American churches are having in has-
tening its development.
Native Re- In "Rex Christus" we learned the history and
workof the Christian Church in China up to
the beginning of the ' twentieth century. We
learned of_the three religions of China, Confu-
cianism, Buddhism and Taoism. We learned
that Confucius neither claimed to know anything
about death nor about God. When asked about
* God he said, "I do not know man, how can I
know God?" When asked about death, he also
said, (C I do not know life, how can I know
THE CHINESE CHURCH 189
death?'* But he taught the people to reverence
and pay the highest respect even worship
toward their ancestors, and so we call it a
religion.
It is, however, only a system of morality, the Confucianism
difference being that it claims to be a relation a System of
of man toman, while religion is the' relation of ty "
man to God. Confucianism may be considered
the world's greatest system of agnosticism. "
Buddhism, on the other hand, while without a BuddKiam.
belief in a personal God, is a religion, and it is
because of its religious ideals that it acquired
such a hold upon the hearts and lives of the
Chinese people. What Confucianism undertook
to do for the intellectual nature of the Chinese,
Buddhism undertook to do for their spiritual
nature.
Taoism began as a religious philosophy. It Taoism,
developed, however, into a sort of pseudo-scien-
tific system, dealing with astrology, or the study
of the stars, planets and heavenly bodies as they
related to or governed the events of human life.
Taoists devoted themselves to the study of
alchemy, the ancestor of chemistry, and spent
a large part of their time for two centuries before,
and two centuries after Christ, to an effort to dis-.
cover the elixir of life, and a method by which
they might transform cinnabar into gold.
Now the question arises was Confucianism a Was Confu-
success as an educational and moral system. And
our answer would be, as compared with all other cess
140 CHINA'S NEW DAY
non-Christian systems, a decided yes. It de-
veloped the two governments that have stood
longer than any other governments that the world
has to-day, China and Japan. Shall we say that
this was because they followed the command,
"Honor thy father and mother that thy days may
be long in the land which the Lord thy God
giveth thee" ? Whatever may have been the
reason, they have stood the test of time until
they came up against the Christian governments,
when they would have fallen but for the fact that
they were allowed to remain. Was Confucianism
a success as an educational system compared with
Christianity? Let the Chinese answer, nay.
The Chinese and the Japanese have both answered
that question, for both of these Oriental peoples
have discarded their old educational systems of
their own accord China during the last decade
for that inspired by the gospel and developed
first by the church, and later by Christian gov-
ernments.
Was Bud- Was Buddhism a success as a religious system?
dliism a Sue- Let the poverty, the ignorance, the weakness and
the immorality of all the Buddhist countries
testify. What do we hear, year after year from
the countries where Buddhism prevails, plenty
or poverty? Are we not sending to China year
after year great quantities of flour because of
famine and poverty? Are not famine and poverty
because of ignorance? Now why is it that we
seldom hear of famine among Christian nations?
THE CHINESE CHURCH 141
There must be about the gospel something which
inspires men to learn, leads them to discover the
wealth that God has hid away in the earth and
enables them to get it out. Try to work out a
theory of your own as to why the Christian
countries are wealthy, prosperous, intelligent,
progressive, with so many comforts in life, and
why the Buddhist lands are without these things,
and then ask yourself why should I believe in
esoteric Buddhism while I live in a land with a
Bible?
The Buddhist priests are ignorant, and in some ^ Buddllist
of the temples have all the foulness of early
Corinth ; and even the children ridicule them in
their nursery rhymes, for they say:
Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, little girl fair,
There's a priest in the temple without any hair.
You take a tile and I'll take a brick,
And -we'll hit the priest in the back of the neck.
Have the Taoists been a success as scientists? ^ afl Taoism
China has never made a real science. In all her a Success -
implements she is as primitive as her ancestors
of a thousand years ago. Her plow is a forked
stick tipped with a piece of metal which only
roots up the thin surface soil. Her harrow is a
brush pile dragged over the field. She has never
made a cradle or a scythe, but pulls her wheat or
cuts it with a sickle and thrashes it with a rolling
stone. Her drill is a gourd, with a bamboo
attached to the neck, which the farmer rat-a-tap-
taps as he goes along the furrow drill ing one row
142
CHINA'S NEW DAY
Gospel In-
fluence.
Tne Chinese
GKurcn.
Heroism of
of wheat at a time. Her sawmill is nothing but
two men and a crosscut bucksaw. Up to the be-
ginning of the twentieth century her best black-
smith had never made a decent nail. Given that
condition of ngs after twenty-four hundred
years of Taoh scientific theories, about when
in the history G- the world would she be able to
build a railroad.' Her three religions therefore
have all failed each in its own specialty. What
now has the gospel done during the century in
which it has been preached in China?
When the gospel found China she was a closed
land, asleep. She is now awake. What of the
influence of the church in that awaking?
For about ninety years before the Boxer move-
ment the Protestant Church had been at work in
China. During the earlier decades the process
of planting a Chinese church was very slow and
difficult. In 1842 there were but six known
Chinese Christians to show for thirty-five years
of work. Ten years later there were 350; by
1865 there were 2, 000. In ten years these num-
bers had risen to 13,515 and by the end of the
century to 100,000.
The heroism of the missioiia^ies whose unno-
ticed toil had gathered thes multitudes will
never be duly appreciated. lit $' itte of ostracism,
misunderstanding, suspicion,' i* ider the terrible
isolation of their lives, amid' thfe- discouragirig
stolidity and apparent immobiPty'of their Chinefee
neighbors they gave their testimony, sealing it
THE CHINESE CHURCH 14B
often with their blood. The Chinese church is
their memorial.
For years tourists skeptically inclined taunted Quality of
the missionaries with the unreality of their con- CWese
quest. "Rice Christians" they $J}ed the Chinese ckrstans -
church contemptuously, mean 5 * ifif that they pro-
fessed Christianity only to g ^ rice, to secure
some temporal advantage. Weit, patiently, little
by little, in scattered groups all over the empire,
the missionaries had gathered one hundred thou-
sand of these despised rice Christians, most of
them It is true from the humbler classes of the
people. Then came the terrible upheaval of the
Boxer outbreak. Churches were torn down, mis-
sion premises burned, the Christians hunted like
wild beasts. They were led out for execution,
a rude cross was drawn on the ground, they
were promised immunity if by trampling on it
they would renounce the Christian faith. In the
face of certain death by cruel torture at least ten
thousand (some authorities put the figures mu. :
higher) chose death before disloyalty.
Did ever an infant church endure persecution
with more steadfast faith? Pastor Meng of
Paoting-fu, a direct descendant of Mencius, was
away from h9ine in safety when the outbreak
came. He rjjU{jried back the one hundred and
twenty rniles tpj^lie with his flock. He met cruel
scourgings,, ai)d burnings in a vain effort to make
frim recant, anc^as at last beheaded.
A Chinese jpgjgaclier was beaten on the bare
144 CHINA 'S NEW DAY
back with one hundred blows, then bidden to
choose between apostasy and another hundred
blows. Half dead he gasped, " : I value Jesus
Christ more than life, and I will never deny
him." When merciful unconsciousness came
he was left for dead, but a friend took him secretly
and nursed his wounds and he recovered, and to-
day bears about in his happy body the marks of
the Lord Jesus.
Time would fail to tell of poor widows dragged
through the streets, of the voices of Chinese
children who during t the deadly terror of the
siege of Peking, amid screaming shells and the
roar of burning buildings, were heard singing,
"There'll be no dark valley when Jesus comes" ;
of old men and maidens, fathers and mothers,
entire churches who counted not their lives dear
to themselves.
Effects of The effects of such heroism were seen imme-
Heroism, diately after the rebellion. The practical Chinese
wanted a religion that had such power over the
lives of its followers, and in the ten years which
have followed the churches have grown as never
before. The ninety thousand left at the end of
the Boxer rebellion number two hundred and fifty
thousand to-day.
Generosity of Not less notable than its steadfastness is the
Chinese generosity of the Chinese church. In 1903 they
g ave f or c hurch work $2.50 per capita. When it
is considered that the great majority of these
Christians were humble folk with incomes run-
THE CHINESE CHURCH 145
ning from $5 to $15 a month, it is evident that
their gifts were far greater proportionately than
those of American Christians. Some of the
stories of their devotion are very touching: poor
farmers in Tukon rented a piece of land and
worked it in co-operation for the Lord's work;
schoolgirls went without breakfast and gave the
money to the church ; college students accepted as
pastors a pittance when as officials they might
have had affluence Chinese affluence, $100 in-
stead of $5 monthly.
When one young man finished his course in
college he began teaching in the mission for a
salary of five dollars a month, refusing one of
twenty-five which would soon have been advanced
to one hundred a month. While he was teaching
for five dollars he had an opportunity to teach Li
Hung Chang's grandsons English an hour a day
for thirty dollars a month. He did this extra
work and gave the thirty dollars each month to
the school to support a boy in college for a year.
Testimony to the quality of missionary work Testimony of
and the solidity of the Chinese Christianity is Col. CW1
abundant on the part of those who have had
longest and closest opportunity to observe. Col.
Charles Denby, former American Ambassador,
says :
I made a study of missionary work in China. I took
a man-of-war and visited almost every open port in
the empire. At each of these places I, visited and in-
spected every mission station. At the schools the
146 CHINA'S NEW DAY
scholars were arrayed before me and examined. I went
through the missionary hospitals. I attended synods
and church services. I saw the missionaries, ladies and
gentlemen in their homes. I unqualifiedly and in the
strongest language that tongue can utter, give to these
men and women who are living and dying in China and
in the far East my full and unadulterated commenda-
tion. In China the missionaries are the leaders in
every charitable work. They give to the natives largely
out of their scanty earnings, and they honestly admin-
ister the alms of others. When famine arrives, and it
comes every year, or the rivers inundate the soil with
never ceasing frequency, the missionary is the first and
last to give his time and labor to alleviate suffering.
They are the writers of books for the Chinese. They
are the interpreters for them and the legations. The
first graduates of the finest Western colleges supply and
practice surgery, an unknown art among the Chinese.
W. J. Bryane When Mr. William Jennings Bryan took a trip
Testimony. around the world, I had the pleasure of entertain-
ing him at dinner in my own home in Peking,
and of showing him about the city. He gave the
Thanksgiving address in the home of Dr. H. H.
Lowry, to which all Americans were invited, and
he visited and carefully inspected every mission
in the vicinity of which he happened to be.
When he had arrived in India he wrote me the
following letter:
MY DEAR DR. HEADLAND :
I am interested in the work of your girls' school in
Peking and am anxious to know what it costs to sup-
port a girl for a year. Will you kindly write me in
Cairo, Egypt, giving me the necessary information.
Sincerely,
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN.
THE CHINESE CHURCH 147
I wrote at once saying that it cost $30 a year to
put a girl through the girls* high school, or a
boy through the college. He wrote me from
Egypt saying, "Draw on me until further notice
for the support of a girl in the girls* high
school." I had the pleasure of introducing Mr.
Bryan at Bay View, Mich., when he gave his
wonderful lecture on the "Prince of Peace," and
after the lecture he told me that he took up eight
boys and girls in different mission fields, all of
whom he is supporting until the present time.
Such testimony from such a man is worth a good
deal more than that of the tourist who never
visits the missions.
During the past ten years there has been a Advance in
steady advance in all kinds of church work, ct ^ct
while in particular lines the work has been going or
forward with remarkable rapidity. We are told
by the Congregational report on general work
that the year 1910-11 "has been marked in sev-
eral stations by a great advance in the idea of
self-support and responsibility for the church as
a Chinese church. The outcome of this move-
ment has been most striking in Tientsin. The
general policy of the station, as outlined a year
ago, has been to place responsibility upon the
Chinese leaders. Plans for the general work are
made in consultation with them, and the Chris-
tians in several centers are expected to assume
local self-control as soon as they are able to do
so. A particular feature of this readiness has been
148
CHINA'S
DAY
Union
CKurdi.
A Young
Womaa
Evangelist.
evident in the attitude of the Tientsin students in
the theological and arts colleges; they have
evinced a deep interest in the welfare of the
church and station which has been of marked as-
sistance. One of these students has been devoting
himself to the task of arousing the activity of the
church."
As a result of this movement there has been
developed a self-directing, independent, union
church in that city. "The society," continues
the report, "has called a pastor, a man of ex-
perience in the Methodist Mission." Now isn't
it refreshing to find a lot of young and old, new
Chinese Congregational Christians calling a
Methodist pastor.
Dr. Baker of the South China Mission of the
Baptist women writes:
The great spiritual awakening which manifested it-
self a year ago in South China, and which was, humanly
speaking, under the leadership of Miss Yu, that wonder-
ful Chinese evangelist, has spread to various parts of
the empire. She is a member of the Methodist Church
but is not under their Board, as she prefers to be en-
tirely free to go where the Spirit leads her. She has
opened a home in Shanghai called the Bible School and
Prayer Home. Here she holds herself in readiness to
talk and pray with any who come to her. That is the
way she began her work in the first place, just waiting
at home ; for it is contrary to all Chinese customs for
a young, unmarried woman to go about the streets and
into the homes. So she said she knew that if the Lord
had some work for her to do he would send it to her.
It was not long before her room was found by those
THE CHINESE CHURCH 149
wishing spiritual help, and her time was more than
taken. She is such a quiet, modest little woman, but
speaks with the very power of the Spirit. In all her
work there seems to be no dependence upon self, but an
acknowledging of God's hand in it all, and a waiting
upon him for guidance in every affair. I know of no
other Chinese woman who has been so used.
Since Miss Yu's parents are both dead, and her elder
brother says she can do as she likes, there has been no
relative to enforce a marriage, as is the case usually.
Several fine young Christian men have wished to marry
her, but she &ays that it is not the will of the Lord for
her* It is so very unusual that the Chinese would
criticise her severely but for her beautiful Christian
character, which offsets any tendency to gossip.
Turn to the report of the Christian (Disciples) Christian Co-
Church in Central China and you find them em- operation,
phasizing the same phases of work as the Con-
gregational ists in the north. The report from
Chuchou tells us:
Three things have been emphasized : Chinese leader-
ship, co-operation among the Christians, and modern
Bible-study methods of teaching. With the exception
of the time for communion service, the entire Lord's
Day morning has been given up to the work of the
Bible school. The evangelists at the out-stations have
likewise made the lesson the center of the Sunday serv-
ice. Self-support has been on the increase; subscrip-
tions at the annual convention nearly doubled those of
any single previous year.
The Chinese Church cannot fulfill its glorious Needs of tke
mission as the creator of the new China unless Churck.
its nurture is as carefully planned as its planting.
For the American Christian to feel that his work
150 CHINA'S ME W DA T
is done would be a fatal error. The next twenty
years are critical, they demand an outpouring of
life and treasure such as has not been known.
First, tKe Kn- In China, as elsewhere, the child is the key to
argartens. ftie situation, and Jesus is the discoverer of the
child. An evidence of the recognition of the
importance of claiming the children is the up-
springing of kindergartens everywhere.
We are told by the "Missionary Intelligencer**
of Shanghai :
A kindergarten for the tiny Chinese boys and girls
was opened early in the year, with Mrs. Shaw in charge.
This work is new to the Chinese, and not very well
understood by them, so it was most encouraging to
have ten little tots make their appearance. From the
first they were so interested in their work they could
scarcely be induced to go home, and now the number
has increased to eighteen, all that can be accommo-
dated. The mornings are devoted to regular kindergar-
ten work, and in the afternoon the children receive in-
struction in the easy Chinese characters.
Woman'* This is true not only of the work of the mission
Board of Mis- of the Christian Church in Shanghai but of other
missions in other cities as well. Plans for a union
kindergarten to be supporte'd and taught by workers
of different denominations who will combine for
this effort, are already maturing. It is expected
that the outcome will be a kindergarten of the
highest grade possible to provide for the Foochow
Mission, from which trained Chinese workers
will be sent out to spread this beneficent work
among children. The kindergarten which up to
THE CHINESE CHURCH 151
this time has been the work of the Methodist
Woman's Board, has enrolled over fifty mem-
bers, a happy flock who have profited greatly
by the instruction received and have carried the
influence into many homes. At the Christmas
entertainment given in the kindergarten a model
of Foochow City was built by the little people
by the use of blocks. This was a source of
great wonder and interest to the older people who
came to look on.
This work, however, is often carried on with Souther*
great difficulty because of lack of funds. Many Baptist,
of the kindergartens are begun because of a
deeply felt need of the neighborhood, and when
the thing is well started the ladies find themselves
compelled to close the school. Notice the fol-
lowing from the Southern Baptist women's
report:
This work has been in charge of Mrs. Snuggs.
Owing to having no suitable building and other difficul-
ties, the normal kindergarten, started in a hired build-
ing, had to be discontinued the last half of the year.
In one of the Tung Shan Church class rooms a daily
and Sunday kindergarten has been held, with an enroll-
ment of thirty-five and an average attendance of twenty-
eight. Five of the pupils have been baptized. This is
a new but very important branch of the work. What
better time than young childhood can be had for im-
pressing a child's mind and heart? For real success
this work needs a suitable building.
For a long time the American Board Mission American
had been planning for kindergarten work and
152 CHINA'S NE W DA T
carrying it on as best they could. But in 1910
Miss Vanderslice, the long-looked-for kindergart-
ner, arrived in Peking. There is a growing sense
of the importance of this training, not only in
Christian circles, but throughout the city. Mrs.
Stelle, who organized this work in Peking, has
had a number of calls from young men who were
looking into the subject. One of these, Mr.
Yen, son of the President of the Board of Educa-
tion, has a private school for the training of
kindergartners. The Peking kindergarten was
opened in October with an enrollment of thirty-
five. The Pangkiachuang kindergarten is under
the care of a former schoolgirl, who had but a
year and a half of training in Peking. She has
grown with her work and her love has won love
with beautiful results upon the twelve little
people who are her special charge.
SociaUnflu- The teaching of the children in the kindergar-
ten of CKil- ten and the small schools has important social
' Work, influences on the community. In our own part
of the city, when we went out for a walk, the
children would come out of their gate, stare at us
with a frightened look on their faces, and then
turn and run saying in a frightened tone, "The
devil's coming." After we had taught them in
the Sunday school and day schools, when they
saw us coming they would call out, " Teacher,
when is the Sabbath day?"
Pathetic conditions, however, arise in many of
these schools and kindergartens. One of these
THE CHINESE CHURCH 153
is seen in the report of Miss Lochie Rankin in
her report to the Methodist Episcopal Church,
South. She says:
During the year just passed one vexing problem has Needs,
sadly interfered with our plans for model class work
viz., how to seat eighty girls in rooms where ffty
were barely comfortable. Buoyed by the hope that
something would be done when the Bis'hop came to give
at least some promise of relief, we improvised class
rooms, using the veranda and summer house. But
" 'twas not wisely done." It was all very well in fair
weather; but when the rain and frost drove all indoors,
teachers and pupils suffered to such an extent that it
seems best to limit the number of pupils in Memphis
School to fifty until one more class room is added to
the present building.
Are we to leave our day schools without build-
ings, without teachers, without funds at this
critical moment when girls are crowding into our
presence. For years we have been praying that
the doors would open, shall we pray now for door-
keepers to keep them shut, or shall we provide
for their wider opening?
When missionary work began in China atten- Second* Bible
tion was quite naturally concentrated upon the Women,
men. Women were for the most part illiterate.
Chinese customs did not permit them to sit in
mixed assemblages; it was difficult for men to
reach them with the gospel message The result
was an undue proportion of men in the member-
ship of the churches. A few years ago, Bishop
Bashford, noting the few women enrolled as
church members, felt that many cases of arrested
development in the Christian life of men, and
154
CHINAS NEW DAT
The Character
of Cliinese
Bible
Woman.
many cases of lapses in the second generation,
could be traced to the failure to reach the women.
He began systematically to promote the evangeli-
zation of women by women evangelists and the
further training and equipment of the Chinese
Bible women as among the most important fac-
tors in the Christianizing of China. The Meth-
odists have been among the leaders in the emphasis
of training classes and schools for Bible women,
but all denominations are now appreciating the
strategic importance of the Bible woman, and the
necessity for her better and more thorough prepara-
tion for her work.
I do not know of any subject that I should
rather study thoroughly than the Chinese Bible
woman, just for a study in sociology. There is
about the Chinese Bible woman all the interest
that there is to the Southerner in the old
"mammy" of the slave days. But in addition
she is a preacher, a teacher, a nurse, a mother,
a prophetess in the community, in many cases a
heroine, and in almost every instance a widow
for whom there is, according to Chinese ideas of
propriety, no second marriage. We are told in
the books for girls, in the enumeration of a wife's
virtues :
Tenth and last that I would offer
Is, be cautioned all your life;
Once you marry 'tis forever,
Once you may become a wife.
Three dependencies, four virtues,
Let them all be perfect, then
Who can say that mongst our women,
There are no "superior men"?
THE CHINESE CHURCH .155
Many of these Bible women are chiln izus,
"superior men'* or sages, as it is usually trans-
lated in the classics. Every mission has them.
I venture to assert that it would be difficult to
find a mission that had been established for a
dozen, or a score of years, in China that did not
have its Bible woman, who was one of the char-
acters of the city, town or neighborhood, and
always a blessing to Christians and non-Christians
alike.
Take for instance
AUNT HlAN Tke Story of
of the Reformed Church as told by Miss Nellie Auat Hian.
Zwemer. She says:
The first time 1 saw Aunt Hian was nearly fourteen
years ago at our Taw-kio Chapel. After the woman's
meeting I announced that our class for women would
open the next Monday, and I invited all who wished to
learn to read and understand the way of salvation to let
me know if they could come. Aunt Hian was then
nearly seventy years old, a tall, thin woman with a
bright face, but half-closed sore eyes. She prostrated
herself before me as she would before an idol and
begged to be allowed to come to our class. After I
had persuaded her to rise, I told her I feared she was
too old and her eyesight too poor to learn to read, but
if she came to church and listened well and learned to
pray that would do for her. But on Monday forenoon
Aunt Hian appeared. She had walked a long distance,
and was so determined to stay that I let her remain,
thinking it would help her to listen for a few days to
the Bible lessons and to learn a few texts and hymns,
but she was not content with that, and wanted a primer
so that she, too, could learn to read "God's letter," as
156 CHINAS NEW DAY
she had heard some one call the Bible. I gave her the
primer to humor her, but did not intend to spend much
time teaching her. She, however, always stood at my
side when I taught others, and to my surprise knew her
lessons as well as anyone. She always studied aloud,
and when she came to a difficult word would kneel and
say, "This is too hard for me. Holy Spirit, help me
remember.'* Often at six in the morning I would hear
her spell her lesson as she sat on the church steps below
my window.
We have a little book called "Daily Manna," which
has a Bible text, a short explanation of it, and a short
prayer on each page. When she had finished her primer
I helped her spell the words of the first text, and then
showed her the book and told her to read, which she
did well. Then I said, "Now you have read part of
'God's letter.' This is a verse from the Bible." Her
joy and gratitude touched and rebuked me, who had
been able to read God's Word all these years. She knelt
on the floor and most fervently thanked God for helping
her to learn to read. She made rapid progress after
that, and besides her New Testament she has read many
other books, and she reads well.
One of the pictures I love to store in my memory
is seeing her one day, when I passed through her vil-
lage, sitting in her doorway reading one of Christ's
parables to a group of heathen children.
Or wh'o of all the members of the Woman's
Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist
Church does not know
OLD MOTHER WANG,
OldMotHer of the little village of Anchia, in Shantung?
Wang. Now the name Wang is as common in China as
Smith is in America, and yet there is but one
"Old Mother Wang" to any Methodist woman.
THE CHINESE CHURCH 157
Her husband, a graduate of the first degree,
went to Peking to get his second. Failing in
this, he dropped into the street chapel and was
converted. He became a chapel keeper, a
preacher, and in a few months took a cartload of
Christian books and returned home. He began
preaching and selling books. His first work,
however, was with his own family, for he held
that if he could not get them to believe, he could
not persuade his neighbors to accept the doctrine.
He had family prayers. He could not sing so
he read the hymns. Once while reading,
Ye who seek the throne of grace
Do not delay,
Mrs. Wang understood it to mean, for the sounds
were the same, do not use tobacco. She smoked.
Almost all Chinese women do. But she said to
herself, if I can't smoke and go to heaven I'll
put away my pipe. She concluded also that
what was good for her was good for her neigh-
bors, and she induced them to give up their
pipes, and gathering some fuel they had a bonfire.
Her husband being a consumptive lived only
three years after he was converted, but in that
time he had established the church in his own
home as well as in many of the surrounding vil-
lages. After his death Mrs. Wang went to her
son and said, "I am going to Peking to study in
the woman's training school and then come back
and take up your father's work."
He took her to Peking, and, while she studied
158 CHIXA'S XEW DAT
with the women, he was at work in the boys'
school.
One day she inquired of the gatekeeper the
pronunciation of a certain Chinese character.
"Why that is Wang your own name," he ans-
wered. "You are too old and stupid to learn,"
he continued. And Mrs. Wang added, "I
thought I was."
But she was so diligent that in two years she
could read the Gospels, and she ordered the boy
to take her home.
They started in a Chinese cart, but before they
had gone ten miles the cart upset, the old woman
became frightened, and would not get in the
cart again.
A Wheel- The son dismissed the cart, hired a wheelbar-
Barrow Ride. roW5 p u t hi s mother on one side, their bedding
and clothing on the other, and wheeled her four
hundred miles to her home, in order that she
might take up her husband's work.
For thirty years or more she has been going
about among the country villages selling books,
preaching and teaching the women, and when she
was eighty years old she made the trip from Shan-
tung to Peking, a distance of four hundred miles,
in a Chinese cart to ask Mrs. Headland to take
her in and let her preach to the Empress Dowager.
"Because," she said, and her hands shook as
her voice did, "because I am so old, it may be
the Empress Dowager will listen to the gospel
from my lips."
- THE CHINESE CHURCH 159
But it was not possible to take her in, as no
Chinese woman was allowed at the Manchu
Court, and Mother Wang had- to return disap-
pointed to her home.
A few years ago when Miss Clara Cushman
returned to China after an absence of nearly
twenty years she cabled Old Mother Wang not to
go to heaven till she arrived. And the old
woman waited. And the next picture that came
back from China was Clara Cushman, seated on
the ground at the feet of Old Mother Wang.
They are good old saints many of these Bible
women I
One of the places where the Bible women are Bible Women
indispensable is in the Sunday schools. All the ** Su * day
larger girls and boys of the schools and colleges
are used as teachers, and are thus trained for
Christian work, when they have completed their
studies. It is a Bible training school in which
they are taught to sing, pray, preach and teach,
and help others to do the same, and the most im-
portant of all is the help they give to the others.
It fixes the facts in their own minds, teaches
them how to impart them, and gives them a taste
o a profession. Better than this, they are often
instrumental in leading their schoolmates or
others to a knowledge of salvation.
The third need of the Chinese church is the Ttird, tte
strengthening of the Sunday school, particularly Sunday
as an evangelistic agency. In too many cases the Scl1001 -
Sunday school has been maintained as a church
160
CHINA'S NEW DAI
A Heathen
Sunday
School.
agency largely for the nurture of the children of
Christian parents. It is capable of far wider uses,
already being tried in several instances. For
example here is the story of one.
A dozen little children wandered into the
regular morning Sunday school. Being too ig-
norant to go into the regular classes they were
taken by the ladies into a little room not con-
nected with the church, and given a picture card,
over the advertisement on the back of which they
had pasted a sheet on which were the Ten Com-
mandments. The children were promised that
when they had learned them they would get
another card.
The next Sunday they were ready for another
card with a company of other children they had
brought with them.
"But where are we going to put you?'* the
teachers asked. "The room is not big enough
to hold you."
"Waitou outside," exclaimed the children.
There was all out of doors, why talk of room.
"We will knock out a partition," said the
ladies, "and double the size of the room, " and
they gave them a card with the Lord's Prayer on
it.
The next Sunday that was too small, and they
had to knock down another partition, and this
Sunday they gave them a card with a hymn,
Around the throne of God in heaven
Ten thousand children stand.
TAOIST PRIEST
American Board
THE CHINESE CHURCH 161
As I came along the street during the following
week I heard a lot of little folks in the police station
singing this hymn.
One morning when they came the ladies were
embarrassed.
"We have no room that is large enough, " they
explained, "you must come in the afternoon at
two o'clock."
The next Sunday at twelve o'clock the alley
was full of children. They had no clock in
their homes, and for two hours they were packed
in about the gate like so many little sardines, and
it was not many weeks until the church was
crowded to its utmost capacity, with more than
five hundred little tots and their teachers.
What should be done? One of the ladies wrote
home saying, "Our old church is falling down.
We have it propped up both inside and out. We
want $10, 000 dollars to build a church that will
hold fifteen hundred people."
The secretary told them to go ahead. The
church was built, and it was not long until there
were fifteen hundred little half-naked bits of hu-
manity some of them entirely naked filling the
street in front of the church.
But that school changed the sentiment of that
entire section of the city. Where formerly the
missionaries were reviled when they went out
to ride or walk, the little folks now met them
with smiling faces and always greeted them with,
"Teacher, when is the Sabbath day?"
162
CHINAS NEW DAT
Chinese
Pastor Ding:
Another need of the church is the development
of a fervent evangelistic spirit. This revival has
already started almost spontaneously in various
parts of the empire. I have already referred to
the work of Miss Yu in Shanghai. In Shantung
it started with a young Presbyterian pastor, a Mr.
Ding, a graduate of the college at Weihsien, but
the quotation given below is of his work in the
Union College at Tung-chou under the American
Board. It says:
At the end of the second day visible results began to
appear and seventeen young men announced their in-
tention to give their lives to the ministry. This number
grew daily, until on the day of Mr. Ding's departure
sixty-eight volunteers for the ministry joined hands
with him in a great circle and received his parting ad-
vice and benediction. Fifty others in a similar way de-
clared the consecration of their whole lives to God in
whatever calling he might place them. The volunteer
band has now increased to over seventy. Twenty-three
students have united with the local church on profession
of their faith. This means that practically our whole
student body of one hundred and forty-five boys has
been deeply moved.
A similar enthusiastic report comes from both
the president o the Peking University and that
of the girls' high school, while Bishop Bashford
writes : v
During the recent revival under Mr. Ding, one hun-
dred and fifty-three young men signed a solemn cov-
enant with each other and with God, pledging their
lives for the evangelization of China through some
form of distinctively Christian work ; this is the largest
THE CHINESE CHURCH 163
volunteer band to be found in any college in the pagan
world, if not in any college in Christian lands. Of
equal importance is the fact that from our girls' school
on the adjoining compound, during the same revival,
one hundred and sixty-six young women consecrated
their lives to Christian service by a similar covenant.
It is of immeasurable importance in agan 'lands that
young men consecrating their lives to the evangelization
of the empire should fi?id Christian wives and found
Christian homes; for the family, and not the individual
is the unit of society in China, and also in the divine
order.
A pastor in Ichou-fu, West Shantung, writes in
regard to Mr. Ding's work as follows:
In April, 1909, a remarkable movement began among
the students of the Arts' College of the Shantung
Christian University. The claims of the Christian
ministry were presented to the young men by Rev. Ding
Lee May, a Chinese pastor. China's need of the
gospel, the poverty of the church, her need of leader-
ship, the call of Christ were dwelt upon. First, seven
of the seniors, the flower of the class, gave their lives
to the ministry, though they well knew that this meant
turning their backs on the brilliant official careers open
to the possessors of the new Western learning, and the
acceptance instead of poverty and obscurity. The
number of volunteers increased to twenty, to thirty, to
si*ty, to eighty, until out of a student body numbering
three hundred, one hundred and sixteen men had
definitely given themselves to the Christian ministry.
There was no excitement, no outward manifestation of
emotion, but a deep consciousness of the presence of
the spirit of God.
But the most remarkable of all the revivals in Revival at
China during the past ten years begnn in the
southwest of the Fukien Province at Hing Hua,
164
CH 'IN AS NEW DAY
Extended
Chinese Re-
vivals.
New Devel-
opnxents :
without any foreign leader, and without any great
Chinese leader coming to the front, but where
spontaneously the Chinese were moved to gather
in crowds of thousands for a month or more, con-
fessing sins, seeking salvation, and settling old
scores with neighbors.
There are two foreigners who have taken posi-
tions of leadership in this revival work, Rev.
Dr. J. H. Pyke of the Methodist Mission in
North China, and Mr. Goforth of the Canadian
Presbyterian Mission in Honan.
Mr. Goforth, who has a fluent command of
Chinese, conducted evangelistic services in twenty-
eight centers, everywhere with marked demon-
strations of the Spirit. In Nanking fifteen hundred
crowded into a tent made to hold twelve hundred.
The impassive Chinese broke down in scenes of
confession and contrition such as were witnessed
in revivals in the early part of the nineteenth cen-
tury in the United States. In Kai-ting in West
China so marked were the changes wrought in the
life of converts that non- Christians on the street
said, "The Christian's God has come down. ' '
Other remarkable revivals were held. In Hing
Hua the members of a firm that imported opium
were converted. They brought their entire stock
to the pastor to be destroyed. A throng of a
thousand attended the meetings.
Carried on in close connection with the evangelistic
work in Peking is the comparatively recently established
social work. The North Church is now reaping some
THE CHINESE CHURCH 165
of the seed sown during the last six years in the lecture
room work. One family of seven adult members has
come into the church as the result of one woman drop-
ping into the lecture room one afternoon. Last year it Lecture
was decided to change the character of the lectures a Courses,
little; three days in the month lectures are now given
on religion, and three days on secular subjects. The
change was made with some apprehension, but the
women did not take any exception to it, and have come
quite as often to the one as the other.
In the autumn or early winter, representatives of the
five missions working in Peking came together and
made plans for a series of lectures to be given during
the next six months. Twelve places were selected, and
arrangements made for fifty lectures on popular and
interesting themes for women. These lectures have
brought hundreds of women all over the city into touch
with the Christian Church. In two chapels these lectures
have been followed by two weeks' evangelistic services.
The workers in Peking have given much thought to Social Hall in
the question of how best to come into helpful touch Peking,
with large classes of women. The past year a " Social
Hall" has been opened with this need in mind. As
Christian workers we have a duty in teaching how to
co-operate in work for city and individual improve-
ment. In this hall could be held receptions for Chinese
ladies, and five ladies are studying in afternoon classes.
One of the pleasantest receptions was. that given for
the lady teachers of the American Indemnity School
to meet those in government, private and Christian
schools for girls. Another unique event was an anti-
cigarette rally, when teachers and students from twenty-
one schools were represented.
If the Chinese church is to win China for
Christ she must "be able to enlist the whole-
166 CHINA'S NEW DAT
Fifth, Reack- hearted devotion of the student class, both men
ing tke Stu- and women. In this she is being tremendously
dent Class. helped by the student secretaries sent out by the
Y. M. C. A. and the Y. W. C. A. These have
access to student in both missionary and govern-
ment institutions, and have already aroused great
interest in Bible study and succeeded in enlisting
some of the strongest men and women.
ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS
"Japan is too poor and too small to help China
either in finance or war, and her people are so immoral
that contact with them would be harmful rather than
helpful to the Chinese. China wants the best there is
in the world, and as all nations are now open to her
she can get the best. Why should we take ideas from
Japan when the difference between China and Japan and
China and America is only the difference between six
and fourteen days." (Eminent Chinese Official.)
Progrew of " In 1901 there were less than 100 > 000 Protestant
Christian Christians in China. The stations were many of them
Work. in ruins ; the women missionaries were huddled in
Peking, while the men in temporary quarters in the
various centers tried to see what was left of the wrecked
missions. The survivors of the awful massacres were
scattered and depressed and poverty-stricken. Hostile
critics at home .were asserting that missionary work in
China was utterly ruined and that no Chinese would
ever again embrace Christianity. The Chinese seemed
sullen and ugly.
"To-day the destroyed stations are all rebuilt and
enlarged, new buildings have been added, missionaries,
both men and women, travel safely in every part of the
country. More Chinese have been baptized in eight
years than in the fifty preceding. The communicant
THE CH1XESE CHURCH 167
membership of the church has risen (1907) to 180,000,
which means a Christian community of 640,000, besides
120,000 children and young people growing up in the
same holy fellowship." (Condensed from Arthur J.
Brown* )
"It is at this point (the inability to be 'true to the
highest moral consciousness within them') that the
regeneration of China fails at present, and will continue
to fail until some new spiritual regeneration comes to
affect the nation itself." (Col. C. D. Bruce, the head
of Shanghai's efficient police department.)
"So the meetings began. Pastor Ding is an excep- Description of
tional character. He is humble and modest where one a Chinese Re-
feels that one might be proud ; so gracious and full of vivaL
tact that we foreigners, when with him, forget that he
is a Chinese. When he speaks in the pulpit, you do not
see the man ; you only feel the earnestness of his words.
From the first, the people were attracted by his simple
eloquence. Day after day the number grew, until they
taxed the utmost capacity of our new church. Meet-
ings were held four times a day. On the third day, op-
portunities were given to those who wished to study the
gospel to come forward while their names were recorded.
Eighty-two responded. At all the succeeding meetings,
names were added. The Christians began to work the
children to bring in their playmates, the laborers their
friends, the students their classmates, and the rich their
companions. They could not all come forward, and^so
individuals were given paper and pencil to take the
names throughout the congregation. The number
reached 865. After a few more days, the enrollment
reached 1,000 ; and still the number grew until it stood
at over 1,400.
"It is hard to realize just what these figures stand
for; we ourselves cannot tell. They are not converts,
such as you have in America, but only just wanting to
168
CHINA'S NEW DAT
learn the way which leads to salvation. It is a great
step in advance of the indifference which has hitherto
prevailed. Only a small per cent of the whole are
women, largely because women cannot attend public
meetings as men do, while many who might have come
could not get through the mud with their bound feet.
"It is seldom given to missionaries to see an ingath-
ering like this, far beyond one's greatest hope. It
looms up like a great mystery, holding us in awe and
having but one solution: 'Not by might, not by power,
but by my Spirit, saith the Lord. ' Will those at home
remember these inquirers in prayer that the grace of
the Lord may abound unto them?"
A Simple " A committee of Chinese pastors and elders were
Christian. examining candidates for church membership in an out-
station of Tengchow. An old woman almost blind ap-
peared before them. Her son is an earnest evangelist,
but not often able to go home to his old mother. Pastor
Chang asked her how many gods there were, whether
she kept the Sabbath, etc., to which satisfactory answers
were received. Then came the question, 'What do you
know about the doctrine?' The poor old lady answered
slowly, 'I do not know anything; my son comes once a
year and tells me, but I forget. I cannot see well. I
cannot read. There is no one in our village to teach
me:
" 'Do you trust Jesus?' The face brightens. 'Trust
Jesus? Oh, yes!' 'Are you sure you trust Him?' A
look of wonder comes in the face. 'Why, yes, I trust
Jesus; that is all I know.' "
""Native "Two phrases have long been current in missionary
Agents." literature and correspondence. They are 'native agents'
and native helpers. . . . We have come now to a point
in Japan, China and India . . . where we should not
only abandon this terminology but the whole attitude
of mind of which it is the expression.
THE CHINESE CHURCH 16S
"We cannot always keep the churches of Asia in
leading strings, and we ought not to do so. We must
trust them and help to put them on their feet. . . .
"The more I see of the Christians in Asia, the more
I respect them. In these countries (China and Korea),
the Christians, as a class, have come from the lower
strata of society. I do not mean the very lowest, nor
am I unmindful that some of the Christians are men
and women of the upper classes . . . the Chinese com-
municants are, as a rule, small farmers or shopkeepers.
Few in either China or Korea had any education or
social advantages prior to their baptism. Pastors,
elders, evangelists and teachers have been taken from
this level. . . . Our schools and colleges are now turn-
ing out more highly educated men, but most of the
leaders of the native churches still belong to the first
generation of Christians, and had little education In
youth or until they were converted. But in our con-
ferences these men discussed large questions with intel-
ligence, courtesy and dignity. Sound opinions were
expressed and ably advocated. . . .
"These Christians are often mighty in prayer. A Spiritual
missionary writes of the two Chinese pastors in his Christians,
station: 'The prayerfulness and pastoral spirit of these
leaders have been a rebuke and an inspiration to me.
Their conversation is usually on the Scriptures, the
passages of which they can find better than any foreigner
I know; and their thoughts are much on the problems
of the little groups of Christians. Often on the road
we have stopped and prayed specifically for what the
leaders had jotted down of definite petitions for par-
ticular* needs. The reality, sincerity and naturalness of
their prayers, both in thanksgiving and petition, have
impressed me. Men who are not living in the Spirit
cannot "get up" such 'prayers as they pray all the
time.'
170
CHINA'S NEW DAT
Endurance "Many of these men, too, endure hardness for Christ.
aTU j They do not have the mental and financial support of
Fidelity. ^ e foreigner. No great body of influential people in
other lands holds up their hands. They stand alone,
not only in their social and business relations but some-
times in their own families. They stand, too, as a rule,
in such poverty as \ve but faintly imagine, with only
the barest necessities of physical life and few if any of
its comforts. But they manifest a fidelity and courage
and loving devotion to Christ which deeply move me.
If, as Amiel said, 'the test of every religious, political
or educational system is the man which it forms,'
Christianity is meeting the test in Asia. These men
are our brethren. They are doing, to say the least,
quite as well as any of us would do in similar circum-
stances. Let us honor them and trust them. Let us
not call them any longer our 'agents' or 'helpers,' but
our co-workers and friends.
Resemblance "I felt anew in this tour that the scattered churches
to Early m Asia to-day are in about the same position as the
Christiana, churches of the first century to which the inspired
writers addressed their epistles. They, too, were poor
and lowly people in the midst of a scoffing and hostile
world. The rich and the great heeded them not, and
fidelity to Christ often meant loss of occupation and
persecution which were hard, to bear. To them the
Apostles wrote, expressing the affection which they had
for those early Christians, their anxiety as they con-
sidered the temptations and problems which they were
facing, and yet their absolute confidence that God would
guide his people aright. The Apostles could hardly
have written differently if they had directly addressed
the churches of Asia in the twentieth century. The little
companies of believers at Philippi and Colosse, Corinth
and Ephesus, and the sojourners of the dispersion in
Asia Minor are reproduced to-day in the churches of
China, Japan and Korea. 1 ' (Arthur J. Brown.)
THE CHINESE CHURCH 171
THE XEW CHINESE HERO
" r A memorial meeting was held day before yesterday
for tuo students that were killed in the fighting a few
weeks ago. The head of the board of communications,
who is a strong Christian man, presided at the meeting,
and some say that it was almost an evangelistic meet-
ing. Three Chinese women ( ! !) made speeches that
stirred the audience of several thousand people. That
meeting is a wonderful thing for China. Heretofore
very little honor, if any, has been given to men who
lost their lives in the struggle for better things. The
living have cared little for men of this heroic kind.
Now there will be honor given to those who die for
their country. 7
" The letter from which the above extract was taken,
goes on to speak of the remarkable part which native
Christians are playing in the new government. The
writer says: *I think I told you in my last that quite a
number of the new officers in the Foochow government
are Christians. Of the five boards now organized four
boards have Christians as presidents. One board is
divided into three sub-boards, and of these two vice
presidents are Christians. It really seems as if the op-
portunity for Christianity was never as great as it is
now. Several prominent men are quoted as saying in
public speeches that nothing but Christianity will do
for China now. 1
" The officers in many of the other provisional govern-
ments are Christians or in sympathy with Christianity,
and President Sun Yat Sen himself is an earnest Chris-
tian, baptized many years ago in Canton by a mission-
ary of the American Board. One or two members of
his cabinet share his faith. If anyone had predicted
this twelve years ago he would have been called a mad-
man. Nothing shows more strikingly how far China
has traveled since the days of the Boxer rising and the
massacre of Christians at Taiyuanfu. At the latter
172 CHINA'S NEW DAT
place, indeed, the people have just appointed a native
Christian as head of the police force, to devise measures
for their protection, which the Manchu officials are no
longer able to afford." (" Boston Transcript."')
"Let us consider that a hundred years ago there was
not a Protestant Christian in China, and that now there
are a hundred thousand, and that the great mass of
these have been enrolled during the last fifty years. If
they progress during the next century in the ever-mul-
tiplying numbers of a geometrical progression, as they
have done in the past, before long, this new section of
the body politic will necessarily make itself felt in the
counsels of China. This ever-increasing element of
Christianity, under whose fostering care nearly all the
material progress the country has ever made in recent
years has had its inception, is not to be despised nor
overlooked in prognostications of the future.
"The little white stone of Western progress and
Christianity has been cast into the well-nigh stagnant
pool of Chinese thought, and it has sunk deep into its
very heart, unseen to a great extent in its progress ; but
its influence is making itself visible on the surface in
ever-increasing ripples, which are extending far and
wide, and have not yet reached their limit.
"Had Protestant missionaries done nothing else in
China than prepared and published the books issued by
them in Chinese ; started the schools ; written the books
in English, containing narratives of their own travels,
and accounts of the natives, and of their religious cus-
toms and manners ; translated native works ; instructed
the youth of both sexes j and founded hospitals and
dispensaries had these, we say, been the only things
accomplished by Protestant missionaries, they would
have done a noble work ; but added to all these more
secular labours is the directly religious work of preach-
ing the gospel, tract and Bible distribution, visiting,
THE CHINESE CHURCH 178
gathering together the converts, etc., all of which,
though less appreciated by the general mercantile com-
munity of China, have been as signally successful as
the other class of undertakings.
"If Christian missions advance in the next thirty-five
years in the same ratio as in the past thirty-five years,
there will be at the end of that time twenty-six millions
of communicants and a Christian community of one
hundred million people, one fourth of the Chinese
nation." (Dyer Ball, ^Things Chinese.")
"Then came evening worship, the simple, sweet
service, the little company gathered around a glimmer-
ing tea-oil lamp, spelling out with difficulty that Word
which is spirit and life to every one that believeth ; the
queer, fervent hymn, sung each to his own tune. It
would have seemed a strange picture to your home
friends, could they have looked within, the black walls
looming high into the darkness, the faint light, the bent
forms kneeling not on the damp mud floor, but on their
narrow benches ; but God himself had spoken to these
humble hearts; and here, in this remote, unknown
corner of the earth, they were tasting the sweetness of
the communion of Saints." (Harriet Osborne.)
"One of our preachers took as his text last Sunday,
'And we were in all in the ship two hundred and three
score and sixteen souls.' After a graphic description
of the circumstances, he said, 'And who is there among
us to whom I can liken this 276th man, Paul, who knew
how to be silent, but also knew how to speak and to
act when necessity arose?' My attention was close as
I waited to hear if to his thought Yuan Shi ki, the
long waited for official, was such a one. But no, to
my great surprise, he attributed all these qualities of
courage and resourcefulness to 'the company of foreign
ladies and teachers, who instead of seeking some safe
asylum for themselves in Japan or Korea, have stayed
174 CHINA'S NE W DJLT
and planned day and night for the protection of women
and children and for the families of the people round
about them.' This was such unexpected appreciation
that for a moment it was not easy to keep back the
tears, for many of the Christians have looked askance
upon our efforts to help the people of all faiths and
none, fearing perhaps that their interests might be over-
looked," (Mrs. Aroent in "Life and Light.")
"Two letters in the strange Chinese characters lie
before me. They were received a month ago. One is
from a preacher in our Tsunhua district, the other
from a former servant in our mission. They are
strangely alike in that they contain a list o the names
of those who were known to us all, and after each
name the sentences read like this: 'He was stoned to
death,' 'He was cut in pieces,' 'He was quartered,' 'She
was beheaded and her headless body exposed,' 'His
wife killed herself to escape outrage/ 'These girls have
been made slaves,' 'My family hid in the mountains/
'She was burned,' 'The family were thrown into prison,
and lands and crops confiscated, and homes looted/
'Every Christian village in the district is destroyed and
those who have been killed are not a few.' One of
these letters ends with a plea that Dr. Terry and*
should pray for 'God's church' that peace may soon
come, and the other that we should pray for the 'people
of China,* that they soon may have peace. I could
take my Bible and write the names of our native Chm^
tians in China over against every form of torturXand
suffering mentioned in that eleventh Chapter of
Hebrews.
"There were weak and faithless ones, that we know
and do not deny, but that the great body of Christians
stood firm and went with brave hearts and unflinching
faith to the awful forms of torture and death that only
heathen cruelty can devise is true also, and it should
give to us all a deeper trust, a firmer hold on the
THE CHINE SB CHURCH 175
realities of life and the deep meaning in the Master's
words, 'Whosoever bhall lose his life for my sake and
the gospel's, the same shall save it.'
"In those anxious days in Peking at the time of Con-
ference I had been telling my assistant and one of our
Tsunhua Bible women of the possibility of our never
getting out of Peking alive. They looked at me calmly,
and one said, 'We shall see God perhaps much sooner
than we thought, and in a different way, and Timothy
said, "If we suffer we shall also reign with Him." '
The other said, 'We are in God's hands.' Oh, how
many times we heard our Christians say those words,
fWe are in God's hands!* Very many of them seemed
to be moved by a personal love for Christ and a trust
in his abiding presence in those fearful days."
(Methodist Leaflet.)
QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY
i 1. In the light of the record of the Chinese Chris-
tians during the Boxer outbreak is it fair to doubt their
sincerity ?
2. In what elements is the Chinese church pre-emi-
It&itly strong?
3. What problem -in Chinese evangelism seems most
pressing?
4. In the light of present conditions what action
should be taken by Women's Boards
5. Compare the growth and character of the Chinese
church with that of India, of Japan.
6. If you were to be a missionary in China which
would you choose to do : train Chinese Bible women,
organize Sunday schools, establish kindergartens, do
evangelistic service among women, medical mission
work, train nurses, or teach in a girls' boarding
school? Which seems to offer the greatest opportunity
for fundamental helpfulness ?
176. CHINA'S NEW DAT
7. Resolved that the development of Christian work
for women and girls is the most pressing obligation
upon the church in China.
8. Can you connect the Chinese revivals with similar
movements in other parts of the world?
9. What attitude of mind is indicated by our use of
the term "native church"? What better terminology
might be substituted?
10. What elements may the developed Chinese church
. add to our apprehension of Christian truth ?
11. What reflex benefits 'on the home churches are
missionary activities in China likely to exert?
KINDERGARTEN, BALDWIN MEMORIAL, NANCHANG
Methodist Episcopal Society
AMOY SCHOOLGIRLS SEWING
Dutch Reformed Board
CHAPTER V
MBDICAL MISSIONS AXB THEIR WORK
THE physical betterment of a nation is an essen- CKriatianity
tial part of its regeneration. One of the glorious <1 tKe Body.
by-products of Christianity has been a new sense
of the sacredness of the body and a new study of
its laws. From the viewpoint of Christian mis-
sions, therefore, the medical missionary is a direct
as well as an indirect agency for spreading the
gospel of the kingdom. Direct, in that by him
people see as of old they saw "the lepers
cleansed, the lame walk, the blind see, the
deaf hear * because of the presence of Jesus Christ.
Direct, too, in its removal of barriers of disease
and suffering and filth that prevent the wholesome
grbwth of the spirit. Indirect, in that the med-
ical missionary prepares the way through the soft-
ening of prejudice and the breaking of the thick,
crust of ignorance for the evangelistic worker who
follows.
The aim of the present chapter is to set forth Aim of
the need of China for the gospel of health and Chapter,
sanitation, the beginnings which have been made
through medical missions to meet that need,
the bearing^ of that work on evangelization, and
the crying necessity of further reinforcing this
branch of th$ work.
178 CHINA'S NEW DAT
Physical Suf- * ' The amount of disease and suffering in China, 5 '
says Dr. Stewart in the ' ; Chinese Recorder " of Oc-
tober, 1896, "is very great, and the methods of na-
tive medical practice tend rather to increase than to
lessen it. The rich and poor alike suffer. Igno-
rance, superstition and filth are as apparent and
potent among the wealthy as among the poverty-
stricken. Scientific diagnosis and rational treatment
are an impossibility even to the most wealthy, for the
reason that a requisite knowledge of medicine can-
not be said to exist in China at the present time."
Rural Condi- Throughout the country and the villages the
tions. houses are built of mud or brick, with dirt floors or
porous brick floors. The inmates expectorate all
about thetn until the floor becomes saturated with
the sputum of generations* Tuberculosis is fright-
fully common all over the empire, indeed it is rare
to find a family that is entirely free from the dis-
ease. Outside the door the drainage from the
other houses stands in pools, or drains in a slimy
rivulet to a pond for fertilizer just outside the vil-
lage wall. In the cities the streets are of dirt, and
similar drains of similar slime are to be found
everywhere. In Peking, where they had a great
sewage system, they cleaned the sewers in the
spring by taking the contents out of the sewer, pil-
ing them up on the sidewalk, where they were al-
lowed to dry for a week or ten days, after which
they used this same material for building up the
street whence it had washed into the sewer. Such
a condition in the great Asiatic cities generates
MEDICAL MISSIONS 179
smallpox, cholera, bubonic, pneumonic and other
plagues that strike terror to the heart of the world.
To cope with these conditions China has no
trained body of physicians. Her practice of med-
icine, like her system of education, is antiquated,
empirical, and must needs give way to scientific
methods.
I once went with Dr. Morrison, that wizard of the Visit tH Book
" London Times," to visit Liu Li Chang, the great Street,
book and curio street of Peking. He was anxious
to secure some Chinese medical books of the old
original type* After inquiring at several of the
shops, we finally discovered some which he thought
he wanted. In showing us the books the dealer
also brought forth a chart an anatomical chart I
-* supposed it to be, though I knew that the Chinese
had never studied anatomy. It was almost the
size of the human body, but was covered all over
with black spots which gave it the appearance of
having had the smallpox. Almost every Chinese
under the old regime had had that disease, and so
I said to the dealer: "It looks as though it had
4 blossomed out* (the Chinese name for smallpox),
why does it have all these spots ? "
He smiled, and then by <way of explanation
said : "No, it has not had the smallpox. Those are
the places where you can insert the needle in treat-
ment by acupuncture without killing the patient."
"And about how many patients would you have
to kill in making a chart of this kind before you
discovered all these 4 thousands of spots?"
180
CHINA'S NEW DAT
Various Kind
of Medical
Worts.
Acupuncture.
Chinese Med-
icine not
Wholly Bad.
He shrugged his shoulders, as much as to say
that his business was selling and not making charts.
We found very many works on all phases of
medical -practice, from the eye, ear, nose, throat
and teeth, to the treatment of infantile maladies,
as well as the diseases of camels, oxen and buf-
faloes. Some of these works are veritable ency-
clopedias. One, prepared by a prince a1x>ut five
hundred years ago, is in 168 books, has 1,960 dis-
courses on 2,175 different subjects, with 778 rules,
231 diagrams, and 21,739 prescriptions. Pre-
scriptions enough to cure all the ills of life ; but
when a Chinese has a headache he pastes turnip
skins on his temples to bring the ache out. When
he has a sore throat he pinches it up and down the
two sides and the center until it is black and blue,
in order that by counter-irritation he may cure the
pain within. He still has a sore throat but it is
on the outside.
Treatment by acupuncture is still practiced by
the old Chinese physician, and not always accord-
ing to the spots on the chart, as every physician of
any experience in Chinese practice will tell you.
Without any attention to antiseptic methods they
not infrequently cause blood poison, or introduce
germs which set up inflammation, leaving the pa-
tient with a condition of arm, or limb, or Joint,
which may require amputation.
Now this is not to^ say that there is nothing good
in Chinese medicine. The Chinese begun 2700
years B. C. to experiment with herbs in the treat--
MEDICAL MISSIONS 181
ment of disease, and have discovered, and used for
centuries, many of the common physics, astringents
and other household remedies which our mothers
and grandmothers used. Chinese medicine is still
what our medicine would be without medical col-
leges or systematic instruction.
There are in all communities certain men and CKinese Doc-
women who have a disposition to prescribe or tors -
anyone who is ill. Those who succeed in their
prescriptions finally turn their knowledge into a
commercial channel, supply themselves with an
outfit of medical books, study the Chinese system
of taking the pulse, which may require two years
or more to learn well, in which each finger of
the physician tells its own tale, even to the extent
of learning how many years the patient has to live.
The patient may also keep his own medical books,
and if the prescriptions do not suit him he may
prescribe for himself.
Under the old regime there were no medical No Medical
schools and hence no medical students. No li- Sctoolfl -
cense was necessary in order to practice medicine,
but anyone was allowed to practice who could find
patients to drink his doses.
The practice of surgery was most infrequent, as
the Chinese had superstitions about the effect of
the amputation of any part of the body on the con-
dition of the spirit.
It is no wonder that under such conditions the Advent of
introduction of Western medicine by the mission- Medical
aries was in the highest sense educative and sue-
182 CHINA* S NEW DAY
cessful in opening the way for the preaching of
the gospel. The story has been so fully told in
previous study books that this is not the time to re-
peat it, but rather to consider the present condi-
tion, needs and opportunities of the medical
branch of missionary service.
The Plague. The terrible visitation of the plague, bubonic
and pneumonic, has brought a fresh realization of
the importance of modern medicine and sanitation
to the Chinese. The heroism of medical mission-
aries in aiding the government to stamp it out, has
helped too, to commend Christianity to the people.
46 When plague broke out in great virulence in
Manchuria in the middle of the winter the word
struck terror to the hearts of millions. The whole
world was in practical ignorance of what the
spread of this disease might mean, and even its
manifestations and method of contagion and prop-
agation were in large measure matters of conjecture.
Its virulence and rapid spread were very patent
facts, and with the help of all the foreign medical
experts available, the Chinese Government set about
the prevention of the spread of the disease in so far
as it was able. Too much cannot be said in praise
of these men who gave their best efforts, even in
the face of death, in order to save the lives of
others, and especial gratitude should be felt to the
unknown thousands who as police 1 , military or
sanitary officers performed their duties without
hesitation, courageously and w,ell. The infection
spread all through Manchuria and into many dis-
MEDICAL MISSIONS 183
tricts in Chihli and Shantung. A natural corol-
lary of the plague was the International Plague
Conference held in Mukden, whose principal find-
ings are now known to the world, that the
plague (pneumonic) originates with the taraba-
gan, a species of marmot; that infection is not
carried on the breath, but is carried in the sputum,
and that the bacillus dies very quickly without
proper nourishment and cultivation."
An instance of the thorough way in which the Japanese
Japanese deal with the plague was mentioned in
a recent issue of the u Missionary Review of the
World." In Formosa they are in control of a
Chinese population of 3,000,000, They levy a tax
of two rats on every household. Every rat is
examined, and if found to be infected the house
from which it came is cleansed and disinfected.
During the last eight years 35,000,000 rats have
been thus destroyed. Twice every year each
house and shop has to disgorge all its effects and
to be thoroughly cleaned out. The streets are
lined with rows of tables piled with bottles, boots",
fruits, boxes, tins, cans, pots and pans, while an
inspector passes along to see that the shops are
properly clean.
" The people of Tientsin," says Dr. Stevenson, Impression on
' 4 are awake to the fact that vaccination does prevent tne Chinese,
smallpox, so many children are brought to us for
vaccination. No one realizes as the Chinese do
the awful ravages of this disease. Perhaps the one
thing that has made the greatest impression on the
184 CHINA'S NE W DAT
Chinese from a medical standpoint has been the
presence of the plague in North China. The for- 1
eign-trained Chinese doctors did most effective
work in sanitation and isolation. Dr. Wu Lien
Te won the admiration of both foreigners and
Chinese for the able way in which he directed
several thousand men granted him by the gov-
ernment to aid in stamping out the plague.
" One can scarcely realize the difficulty encoun-
tered by those in charge of this work because of
the ignorance and superstition of the great masses
of the people. They never isolate themselves for
any infectious disease. When one has scarlet fever
or smallpox it is the custom for all the relatives
and friends to call and see him. However, the
people of Tientsin are being educated up to for-
eign medicine and seldom call us too late."
Tke Chinese One of the finest products of missionary pio-
neering in medicine has been the young Chinese
physicians trained in Western medicine. At first
the training was necessarily incomplete and par-
tial, but even, then surprisingly good results in
strength of character, influence and -skill were
reached as the following incident will show.
One of the first graduates from the school of
medicine in Peking University was Dr. Wang.
When the Boxer trouble reached Peking he was
arrested, his little son with him. The Boxers
were ordered to put to death anyone who would
not give up his faith and burn incense to the gods
in the temple. But educated men were few in
China, and so they said to him :
MEDICAL MISSIONS 185
"Dr. Wang, you are an educated man; we do AClnnese
not want to put you to death, but we have no lib- Clristian
erty in the matter. You go with us and burn PWcian.
some incense and we will let you go."
" No," said he, " I will not burn incense."
" Well, we want to make it easy for you, 5 ' they
continued, " you just get some one to go and burn
incense in your place and it will be all right."
" No, I will not get anyone to burn incense for
me," he persisted.
"Well, we will get some one to burn incense
for you," they continued. " You just go over to
the temple with us."
" No," he answered, " I will not do that." Faithful unto
"Then," they continued, "we must kill you." Dcatk
"You may kill me," he answered, "but I will
not worship your gods. How could I look my
teachers in the face, if I burned incense in that
temple-? to say nothing of my Christ ! We are
four generations of Christians, my grandfather, my
father, myself and this little boy. Do you think I
would allow this child to see his father deny his
Saviour? Kill me if you will ,but I will not deny
my Lord." They ran him through with a spear.
Tt was their own conversation afterwards, over-
heard by one of our coolies who was carrying
water for them at the time, that furnished us with
the above information. As they themselves said :
" It was a pity to kill such a man."
But important as were the* earlier developments
of medical missions the establishment- of hospitals
186 CHINA' S NE W DAY
Medical Mis- and training schools for women marked a develop-
sionsfor ment possibly even more influential. From the
Women. Chinese viewpoint it was unsuitable that women
should be treated in general hospitals or by male
practitioners. Yet women were the greatest suf-
ferers from' the defects of Chinese medical skill,
and the ignorance and superstition of mothers re-
sulted in a frightfully heavy toll of infant death
and in general ill health and misery. The Women's
Boards went about to undertake this form of min-
istry, and have developed some of the institutions
of most widespread beneficent influence. The
following may be mentioned as typical.
At Kityang, China, is the Josephine M. Bixby
Hospital for women and children (Baptist) .
Dr. Bixby. " Dr. Bixby was an Iowa girl. Converted at
sixteen, she soon determined to give her life to the
foreign work. Declining all proffered aid she
maintained herself for two years in the Training
School for Nurses, two years in the Woman's
Medical College and some time in the Moody In-
stitute, all in Chicago.
" She sailed from San Francisco October 16,
1894, and reached Swatow, China, November 8th.
Here she commenced the study of the Chinese
language and took charge of some patients in con-
tiection with Dr. Scott. Together they treated
more than a thousand patients a week, Dr. Bixby
attending specially to the eye and ear patients.
And in a little more than a year she assumed
charge at Kityang. Here amid privations and
MBDICAL MISSIONS 187
difficulties, work that demanded a man's strength,
with none but native assistants, whom she had
trained, sometimes alone at the station and taking
charge of other's work during their furloughs, she
wrought and planned and hoped and accom-
plished for eleven years. Then came the few
months of suffering, and on Sabbath morning,
June 16, 1907, she passed over to the true
6 Homeland.' "
Let us follow Dr. Bixby through one day's
work, typical of hospital work thrc agh all the
stations in that locality.
"From half past eight to nine o'clock every
morning we have a singing and preaching service Work,
at thechapeL This is under Mr. Speicher's direc-
tion, and that of native preachers. At nine o'clock
I repair to the hospital, and, if it is- not 'dispensary
day/ spend the morning with my native helpers,
looking after our in-patients. If it is dispensary
day, my two boys attend to the dressing and treat-
ing of eyes, before nine o'clock, and at nine the
door is opened and tickets are given out as the
people come in, and we dispense medicines, and
treat eyes, and all ' sorts of maladies until noon.
44 The religious service for the in-patients is held
in the evening, when all who are able to do so are
gathered in the waiting room, and after a song is
sung, a portion of the gospel is read and explained
by one of the helpers, then a prayer is offered,
and it is no uncommon thing for several to rise
before the prayer is offered, and unsolicited, re-
188 CHINA' S NEW DAY
quest that prayer be made for them. The dis-
pensary also is always opened with a short service.
" We often find their ignorance exceedingly
dense and to make even a slight impression upon
them a most discouraging task, yet the work is not
hopeless for many have learned while in the hos-
pital to read a few hymns or tracts, and have
learned to pray, and have taken home with them
some seed truths, which, being divine, we know
cannot die."
The Oldest We ^ n< * at Canton the oldest and largest
Mission Hos- mission hospital in the world, founded in 1835 by
pitaL Dr. Peter Parker. It is supported by the Canton
Medical Society, the physicians being furnished by
the Board. There are 61 wards, with 300 beds,
and over 20,000 patients treated annually. From
1853 to 1899 it. was superintended by Dr. John
G. Kerr, who trained 150 Chinese students, and
translated over 20 medical works into Chinese.
He also founded the only insane asylum in China.
This hospital with its large chapel and schools is
one of the most important evangelistic agencies in
Southern China. Dr. John M. Swan is now in
charge. Chinese friends have presented a build-
ing for a medical college. There are five dis-
pensaries in different parts of the city.
Dr. Mary The largest medical work for women in all
Fulton. China under a single missionary continues to be
the allied institutions in Canton, under Dr. Mary
Fulton, namely, the David Gregg Hospital for
Women, the Hackett Medical College, the Julia
MEDICAL MISSIONS 189
M. Turner Training School for Nurses and the
maternity and children's wards. Dr. Fulton is
assisted by Dr. Boyd, while such help as their
duties permits is given by Dr. Niles, Dr. Machle
and Dr, Selden. It is more difficult to have hos-
pital work exclusively for women than for men.
In a recent report Dr. Fulton says :
" It is not easy for the ordinary Chinese mother
to leave her house. She must watch the door,
attend to the children, cook, mend, etc. She has
control of no money, and it is given only grudg-
ingly if 'she must enter a hospital. I have known
husbands to come to our sick women, and scold
them for not getting well of some serious illness
after a residence with us of a few days. The
women are afraid to remain away long from
home. One woman said she must hurry home or
her husband would bring back another wife during
her absence. With the men it is different. They
go where and when they please and carry all the
money with them. They remain in a hospital till
cured or as long as they wish.
" Forty-eight young women are enrolled at the HacrettMed-
Hackett Medical College. Instruction is given ical College.
by five Chinese and five foreign teachers.
" In January, three were graduated, making 34 in
the seven years. Some are pushing out into un-
touched regions, which is helping to accomplish
our, object of supplying each large town with two
Christian physicians. Eleven were engaged as
instructors in medicine in different places. We
190 CHINA'S NEW DAT
have three students from Foochow, one from
Amoy, two from Hainan. The two who came
from Honolulu over four years ago to study with
Dr. Chesnut received their diplomas this year.
One is now in Heung Shan and one is to assist a
foreigner n a hospital. They seem like a sacred
legacy, and I am grateful they are finally launched
on their life-work."
Ten nurses are under training at the Julia M.
Turner Training School.
Demand for "The demand for nurses has exceeded the
Nurse*. supply. We need a new building for a nurses'
home. One of our nurses who speaks English is so
constantly wanted that she has been compelled to
put up her price. Dr. Davenport says, ' She is
worth it, as she is a perfect success.' This is
high praise from an English doctor for a girl
trained in a native hospital."
Dr. Fulton managed in some mysterious way to
spend five hours a day in translation work. Three
books are in progress, two of which will soon be
published. She has translated: "Remarkable
Answers to Prayer," "Diseases of Children,"
" Nursing in Abdominal Surgery," u Gynecology,"
etc. She says :
"China is awakening so rapidly that she is not
only crying from hunger, but one may say scream-
ing for immediate nourishment in the way of
books and help of every kind."
"After medical work in Amoy itself was given
up by the English Presbyterians, in 1894, the
MEDICAL MISSIONS 191
Board of tlie Reformed Church, in America, de- Hope and
cided to take it up. In 1897 the first steps were Wiltelmin
taken. Money for a hospital for men was raised Hospitals,
in America, and for a hospital for women in The
Netherlands. The former was called Hope Hos-
pital, and the latter at first Netherlands Women's
Hospital, but subsequently Wilhelmina Hospital,
after the Queen, whose mother is now its official
' Protectress.'
"Since the beginning of the work in Hope
and Wilhelmina Hospitals, 16,000 in-patients and
125,000 out-patients have been treated. Over
7,000 operations of all kinds have been performed.
"The work is divided into four parts. First,
there is the Dispensary. Five days are given to.
this a week. To these clinics patients are ad-
mitted free of charge, except that they must pay
three cents for the card giving their number.
This is paid but once, unless they lose their card,
when a fine of three cents is imposed. Medicines-
and dressings are free. Only the bottles have to
be paid for/*
"In Shanghai," says the Protestant Episcopal Protestant
report, " medical work has arisen out of the Episcopal
physical needs of the people of China as natu-
rally as the evangelistic and educational work
has been done in answer to their spiritual
and intellectual needs. It is not to be considered
as a bait by which men are drawn to accept the
gospel, -but as holding something o the same
place as the miracles of mercy which our Lord
192 CHINA'S NEW DAT
worked upon the sick. These were the natural
outflowing of His love to man and the work of the
medical missionary is the free and unselfish devo-
tion of time and skill to heal the bodily ills of
men. It serves, no doubt, as an evidence of what
Christianity means, but it is more than this ; it is
Christian love in action, and love is the true motive
for every form of missionary work.
u In the District of Shanghai there are at Shang-
hai, St. Luke's Ho'spital for men and St. Eliza-
beth's for women, with dispensaries at both hos-
pitals and two more dispensaries at Jessfield and
Wusih.
u ln the District of Hankow there are St. Peter's
Hospital for men and the Elizabeth Bunn Hospital
for women in Wuchang, with dispensaries at each
place.
" In the district of Wuhu there is St. James' hos-
pital, Anking, for both men and women, and a
dispensary connected with it*
44 The hospitals for women are under the charge
of women physicians. The doctors, whether men
or women, are graduates of the best medical
schools, and the aim of all these institutions is to
give the Chinese the benefit of the best care and
the highest skill in the present, and to supply
them with the object lesson of a few well-equipped,
well-organized and well-conducted institutions,
that they may be led to provide large numbers of
similar institutions for themselves and their coun-
trymen in the future. Working with the American
MEDICAL MISSIONS 198
doctors are Chinese doctors who have gradu-
ated from mission medical schools, and assistants
who have been trained in the mission hospitals.
The hospitals owe much also to the American
women who have come out as nurses. Their as-
sistance in the operating rooms and care for the
cleanliness of the hospitals, their training of
Chinese nurses, and their work with the women
in the dispensaries are of the greatest value. The .
value of the medical work is so plain to the com-
munity where it is established that it usually re-
ceives substantial .support in fees and subscriptions
from Chinese and foreigners."
Among the women's hospitals in Shanghai none Dr. R e if S ny-
stands higher in the estimation of the community cler's Work,
than that of the Woman's Union Missionary So-
ciety, for so many years under the superintendence
of Dr. Reifsnyder. She is a woman of great
strength of character, broad views, large vision,
and has had a tremendous influence on the com-
munity through her medical work.
The women of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 'Mary Black
South, have the Mary Black Hospital in Soochow, Hospital in
in charge of Dr. Margaret H. Polk, of whom they
say:
" Under Dr. Folk's unfaltering consecration of
life and energy to her chosen work it has grown
to proportions wholly beyond the power of one
woman to manage. She is now senior physician
to 10,000 patients per year, this being the annual
average from 1905 to 1910. She is general super-
194 CHINA'S NEW DAY
visor of all hospital business, including the design-
ing and erection of buildings. She is surgeon in
charge of the hospital, instructor in the Soochow
Medical College, lecturer in the School of Phar-
macy and in the School of Nursing.
"In response to her repeated calls for help,
Miss Mary Hood, our first trained nurse, was sent
to her in 1907. She organized a class of nurse-
training students, which movement holds promise
of unspeakable relief to the suffering race of
Chinese women and children."
Dr. Lucy P. ^ ne work of the Woman's Board of the Con-
Bement's gregational Church is found at Foochow, at
Work. Shao-wu, where Dr. Lucy P. Bement is seeing
16,000 patients annually, besides her hospital
in-patients, at Pang-Chuang, where " the clientele
expanded rapidly from 2,000 in 1882 to 8,000 in
1886. It reached 15,000 patients per annum in
the first decade, and 25,000 in 1897. Of in-
patients there were from 500 to 800 annually, af-
fording a large field for special Christian work, as
the average stay of each patient was ten days. A
venerable preacher became hospital chaplain, per-
forming his duties admirably for ten years, from
1890 to 1900.
" A summary of the work of two decades is typ-
ical of the vaster work in the empire. The first
decade sums up 44,163 individuals treated ; the
second decade, 98,952, making a total of 143,000
first treatments, and of 280,000 total treatments.
The proportion of men to women was as Jive to
MEDICAL MISSIONS 195
three. Surgical operations' during first decade,
3,768; during second, 7,823; a total of 11,000.
One fourth of these were operations connected
with the eye."
Dr. F. F. Tucker is in charge of the men's hos- Mrs. Dr.
pital and dispensary work here, but there is "a Tucker,
third court, for women only, and here the eyes,
ulcers, aches, babes and children are even more
appealing than in the other wards. These pa-
tients are largely under the special care of Dr.
Emma Boose Tucker. Mr. Roosevelt is reported
to have said in speaking of the kind of American
he met in Africa, * But his wife is a better fellow
still ;' and so it seems to these humble and needy
women who must be reached by the woman phy-
sician, if they are to be won, body and soul/'
Again at Lintsing this same Board has Dr. Dr. Susan B,
Susan B* Tallmon, who in a description of a day's Tallmon.
clinic, gives the following interesting paragraph
interesting because unusual :
" That girlish-looking mother asks if we cannot
see her baby. She and her husband have walked
six miles to bring the child, he carrying it in one
of two baskets suspended from the ends of a pole
resting on his shoulder. The baby is a girl and
only a year old. Her head is swollen to much
more than its natural size, and her eyelids are so
puffed that they seem near bursting. No; we
will not take her into the dispensary ; we will treat
her here on the porch. I am afraid she has ery-
sipelas, and we do nt>t wish to gbt any unnecessary
196
CHINA'S NEW DAY
Sleeper Davis
Memorial
Hospital.
Fund for the
Destitute.
germs into the room. How anxious the parents
are I Who says baby girls in China are seldom
loved ?"
An insight into the unselfish ministry of these
medical missionaries is given in the report of the
Sleeper Davis Memorial Hospital :
"It is not always telling the story of Christ
and his love that counts most. A woman was
carried from her home to the hospital on a
stretcher. For weeks she had been suffering with
inflammatory rheumatism, and the slightest move-
ment seemed to cause intense pain. For weeks
she had lain on her kang, or warm brick bed, with-
out bath, and without change of clothing. Natu-
rally, a bath was the doctor's first order ; and Miss
Powell, wishing to give her nurses an object les-
son, determined to carry out the order herself. It
was a difficult and unpleasant task, but proved
well worth while. I am sure that woman will
never cease to speak of Miss Powell's gentleness
and kindness. 'Why,' she said, 4 I have many
dear friends and relatives, but there is no one who
would do for me what you have done to-day ! *
She went home several weeks later, impressed
with the thought that there is power in the Chris-
tian religion to change the human heart.
u We have had in our hands this year a small
fund which has enabled us to furnish medicine,
surgical dressing, food and clothing to a few very
needy ones. Destitute old ladies and neglected
little children have been among the recipients.
M&DICAZ, MISSIONS 197
Each of these poor people has a story. We hope
the fund -will be added to, so the good work may
continue through the coming year. Often our
wealthy Chinese patrons are glad to contribute
toward the support of the poor in our hospital
wards.
* * For several years we have returned to the
Missionary Society their annual appropriation for
the support of the hospital . More money conies
in each year from the sale of medicine and dis-
pensary tickets. We depend largely for running
expenses on the income from our outside practice,
" The educated classes believe in Western medi- .
cine and are willing to pay for the services of a
Western doctor in their homes.**
The Woman's Hospital in Ch'ang Li (Metho- Hospital
dist) is again left without a doctor. In comment, without a
Dr. Keeler, in charge of the men's hospital, says :
" Here we have a complete and commodious set of
buildings with ten thousand dollars invested, good
living quarters, and a situation which for natural
beauty, mountain scenery and healthful surround-
ings is unequaled in North China, with ten thou-
sand sick and suffering children and women crying,
4 Come over and help us 1 ' Is it not possible by
prayer and perseverance to find in all America a
woman doctor to do this work ? Another hospi-
tal whose one physician must come home on fur-
lough pleads for, 'Just one of the ordinary all round
good doctors of whom there are so many at home.
If only they could know the need in China/"
198
CHINA'S NE W DA T
/ There has been one unique feature about the
work of the Methodibt church in Southern and
Central China, viz., the medical education of
young Chinese ladies in America.
CLmese The first of these was Hii King Eng of Foo-
Women Pky- c how. Mrs. Keen of Philadelphia took an interest
sidans. . Q this young lady. She first entered the Foo-
chow boarding school, then studied music, then
became a student helper in the Woman's hospital,
then took a course in the Ohio Wesleyan Univer-
sity, and in 1888 entered the Woman's Medical
College at Philadelphia. As the result of a fever
her health became impaired, and she returned
to her home in Foochow where she assisted in the
work until, "in the fall of 1892 she returned to
Philadelphia to complete her course in the
Woman's Medical College. After graduating
with honor in 1894, she took special hospital
work, and went back to her native city in 1895, a
regular medical missionary of the Woman's For-
eign Missionary Society.
Woolston "As head of the Woolston Memorial Hospital,
Memorial her Christian love, natural kindness and courtesy
Hospital. an( j medical skill draw to her the hearts of hun-
dreds of suffering women, who feel that there is
sympathy for them in her every look and touch.
Many tablets have been presented to the hospital
in token of appreciation of her work, while her
missionary associates have a laudable pride in her
success as a doctor, and her faithfulness wins their
affectionate regard.
MEDICAL MISSIONS 199
44 A total of more than 26,753 prescriptions for
the year 1909 partially indicates the extent of her
labor of love.
44 The graduation of the first student from
Woolston Hospital in 1902 was the occasion of
much rejoicing and lively explosions of festive
firecrackers. It was celebrated in an ancestral
hall, loaned for the exercises, and was the first
time that a Christian service had been held in an
ancestral temple.
44 The people were eager and curious to witness
this departure.
44 In Dr. Hii's quaint phraseology, 4 seeing a
Chinese young woman receiving her diploma made Married or
many Chinese parents regret that their daughters
were 'engaged, or married, or drowned,' while
others exclaimed, 4 Alas ! who knew girls could do
so much good to the world, more than our boys I * **
This graduate, it is interesting to note, was Hii
Seuk Eng, the sister of Dr. Hii, who is now act-
ing as her assistant in the hospital.
Standing as she does, the first Chinese woman
physician educated in a foreign land, Dr. Hii King
Eng is an honor to her race and a joy to the So-
ciety under whose auspices she works. Her life,
too, is well expressed in her own words, 4t I just
4 look up * and 4 lend a hand/ "
44 While in this country her influence was very
helpful to others. One grateful mother exclaimed,
4 Little did I dream when giving money for the
work in China that a Chinese girl would lead my
200 CHINA'S NB W DAT
daughter to Christ !' God is faithful to his prom-
ises. As we send the joy and blessing to the far
away ones, he gives us back joy and blessing
4 good measure, pressed down and running over.' "
In Central China Miss Gertrude Howe has the
distinction of having been instrumental in educat-
ing two young ladies who have caused favorable
comment in two continents. These two ladies are
Dr. Ida Kahn and Dr. Mary Stone.
Dr. Mary Mary Stone was born on the " first day of the
Stone. third moon" in 1873, in a Christian home. Her
parents were among the first Christian converts m
China. With true devotion the little black-eyed
baby was baptized and consecrated to " Heaven's
Lord." Dr. Ida Kahn, in writing of her friend's
early life, says :
" With a faith which was strong and clear they
brought up little Mary with natural feet, thus giv-
ing her the distinction of being the first native girl,
not a slave, in Central and West China to have her
feet left as God had made them.
" She began her Chinese studies early and
proved an apt student. When she was seven years
old two missionary doctors opened a hospital in
Kiu Kiang. Seeing the good accomplished by
these ladies, Mary's father thought he would like
to have his daughter help her country women in
the same way. So he took her to one of the phy-
sicians, asking her to teach Mary to be a doctor.
This she kindly consented to do, as Miss Howe
agreed first to teach her English.
MEDICAL MISSIONS 201
u At nineteen years of age she obtained her
matriculation at the University of Michigan. She
graduated in 1896 and returned to work among her
own people."
The second of these native Christian Chinese
doctors, Ida Kahn, was also born in 1873, but be-
gan her life in a heathen home. We will let Dr*
Stone tell the story :
fct According to the Chinese custom, a fortune Dr. Ida Katn.
teller was called to tell her fate and to advise the
mother concerning this new daughter. The blind
man came, leaning for support on a small boy,
hired by the fortune teller to lead the way. Then,
though his blind eyes could not see the bright
young face before him, he pronounced that she
should be killed or sent away to another family.
4 For/ said he, 4 if she is allowed to live in this
house you could not have the son you so desired,
and who will be your heir when you die ? ' The
mother was not so hard-hearted as to kill her
child, nor was she compelled, to do it by her
good-natured husband, who in this matter excelled
some of his hot-tempered countrymen who drive
their wives to shameful lengths by harsh words or
blows. So accordingly a family was to be sought
that would satisfy her ambitious motherly heart.
Another fortune teller was consulted, and this time
it was found that Ida was born under the dog's
, star, while her intended was born under the car's
star, which was just the reverse of what it should
be, for in China girls should always be inferior to
202 CHINA'S NEW DAT
boys. But the child's life was not to be so easily
slighted, when the Heavenly Father had sent it
down with a mission to fulfill. After learning the
story of the child from her native teacher, Miss
Adopted by Howe and another missionary lady went in sedan
Miss Howe, chairs to Ida's home and carried her back with
them that very afternoon, and Miss Howe adopted
her as her own. Ida's early years were spent in
studying English, as.well as Chinese, but of course,
being a native, she spent more of her time on
Chinese studies. She was baptized at twelve
years of age and at thirteen she was received into
full connection with the church*
u Miss Howe brought her over to America to
study medicine, as it was necessary in order to
obtain a thorough training, for many practical
courses, such .as dissection, etc., are not allowed
in China.
"At the age of eighteen she passed the entrance
examinations to the medical department of Michi-
gan University at Ann Arbor. She finished her
course o studies the next year and began her work
among her sisters in China, pointing them to the
Great Physician, who is able to make them every
whit whole."
A lawyer said to Dr. Kahn : " I am glad you
are going back as a doctor* Doctors are more
needed than missionaries."
"No, sir/' said the doctor. " I do not think
so, eternity is longer than time." Though zealous
in the profession, both doctors feel that the soul is
MEDICAL MISSIONS 203
even more important than the bady, and the great
purpose in their faithful ministration to the sick
and weary bodies of their sisters is to lead the
sin-sick soul to the Great Physician.
The success of these two devoted young doctors Government
was so remarkable that it attracted the attention Recognition,
of the government, and a very flattering offer of
positions in the new university in Shanghai was
pressed upon them by a high official. This they
did not deem it wise to accept, but remained in
the service of the Woman's Foreign Missionary-
Society, where they are free to do their Christian
work.
"But/' some one asks, "are the medical needs Dr.
of China so great? Have we not provided for a
visitation of most of the people ?" In one of the
districts in North China in which the only
woman evangelist is Miss Ella Glover, and the
only physician Dr. Edna G. Terry, the superin-
tendent says: "If each missionary were to visit
one village a day, rain or shine, summer and
winter, week after week, month after month,
never resting, never making a return visit, it
would take eleven years to complete one visita-
tion. In the meantime must the people die/* or
shall we put forth a little extra energy and send
more men and women to the front? This is by
no means one of the largest districts in the
bounds of the conference, and in some of the con-
ferences there are very much larger ones, notably
in West China. When one contemplates the
204
CHINAS NEW DAY
tremendous influence that has been exerted on
China by the few workers who have been sent,
allowing for all the influence of governments and
of business, he cannot but feel that the income
from the funds and the _lives invested has been
great indeed, and that there are few places in the
world where greater results could have been ob-
tained in the same length of time.
Insufficient The marvel which these women have accom-
Equipment. pHshed grows when it is remembered with what
meager and inadequate equipment it has been
done. To-day the Boards are facing the necessity
of modern structures, adequate, well lighted, san-
itary, with the best equipment, if they are to
maintain the leadership so gloriously won. Miss
Withers, a Baptist missionary, wrote to her Board
the following appeal, which might with equal
justice have been sent to many others:
Government "As I have said often and often before, China
Competition, is waking to her own needs these days and, as
you well know, has men and women in all walks
of life, in America and in England and Germany,
training to become their own teachers. What has
that to do with us and our hospital? Only this
that when they start their hospitals, medical
schools, etc., these people will be their own
teachers, and then, where is the Christian hos-
pital with its influence to come in? Where is
the opportunity to teach in the homes the love
of the Great Physician? Gone! It frightens me
to think about it. If we have the best to offer
MEDICAL MISSIONS 205
them, they will not feel the need of a school or
hospital of their own here, and thus our work can
go on. Now is our time, before these govern-
ment hospitals and schools are opened.
"Then, furthermore, why should you send us
out here to waste our lives, when our lives can
and will count for so much, if only we have things
we need to use in our work ?
" Pardon me if I seem to speak strongly on this Modem Tools
subject. But the time has come when we must Indispensable,
have these things, or stop thinking we can run
a hospital. If we ever get the place fixed up
once as it should be, then we can and will make
it pay for itself. But first we must have it fur-
nished."
Says a Methodist report in regard to the Isa-
bella Fisher Hospital, the only hospital for
women in the city of Tientsin :
"The urgent need of this work is a new
building. The hospital is a row of Chinese
rooms with dirt floors that are damp and unsani-
tary. The patients are not as crowded as they
would be in their homes, and the ^ooms are
cleaned and whitewashed often. For twenty
years Dr. Stevenson has worked under these dis-
couraging circumstances. "
There is no greater opportunity for enlightened A Great Op-
philanthropy than is presented in China to-day, portunity.
Here are two hundred million women and girls,
the mothers and future home makers for one
fourth the human race. They are desperately in
206
CHINA'S NEW DAY
Education of
Native
Worker*.
Women's
Mescal Col-
need of just what the hospital, the woman's med-
ical college, the nurses' training school will bring
them. One tenth the sum that would found a
memorial hospital in America will found one in
China. What would endow a bed- in New York
will found a nurses' training school in China.
A living memorial that shall go on repeating it-
self in blessing to unnumbered generations is
within the reach of every Christian woman in
America who contemplates a five or ten thousand
dollar shaft in a cemetery.
And now I come to one of the most important
parts of woman's medical work the education
of native assistants. China must eventually be
converted by converted Chinese, and healed by
native physicians. We welcomed the day when
we began to see departments of Western medicine
opened in connection with the government uni-
versities. There was at the time a fight made on
the part of the conservatives in Peking, that
Chinese medicine should also be taught, and a
school and hospital of Chinese medicine was
opened in the Southern city of Peking. So far as
I know it has not been duplicated anywhere else
in the empire.
What now about medical colleges for Chinese
women. Most Chinese women, who are medical
graduates, so far as I know, have taken their
courses in Western colleges, and this for the
reason that no woman's college worth the name
had thus far been opened. Efforts have been
MEDICAL MISSIONS 207
made in South China, notably at Canton, and
something has been done. The .North China
Educational Union has undertaken to open a
woman's medical college in Peking.
The following account of the school is taken Dr. Gloss and
from the report oj Dr. Anna D. Gloss, who is tte Union
one of the instructors and is at present in charge : Medical Col-
"The location of tlrs school in Peking is for- i? 7 efor _
& Women, Pe-
tunate for several reasons. The climate is good,
The cold, dry winters leave little to be desired.
There are mission stations at convenient distances,
where girls from the South can go to spend their
vacations out of the city.
"The lectures are given in Mandarin. Some of
the men who have been giving lectures in the
Union Medical College have consented to fur-
nish the same lectures to the women that have
been prepared for the men ; thus with the mini-
mum of labor, giving most valuable assistance in
the teaching at the woman's college.
"Three years of English is required for en-
trance, and English is continued as a study
throughout the course, with the expectation that
the students will be able to read medical journals
in English and thus be always able to keep in
touch with the most advanced medical thought.
The course of study as planned covers six years.
The first three years are devoted to lectures and
laboratory work, the last three to lectures and
clinical work in the women's hospitals of the
Methodist and Presbyterian Missions.
208
CHINA'S NE W DA T
Report of its
Work
Interdenomi-
national Co-
operation.
"Whatever may have been the attitude of other
countries toward the advent of the woman physi-
cian, China certainly has always given her a hearty
welcome. That her work is waiting her, is 'proven
by the rapid growth of the college in Canton,
and the royal reception given its graduates."
Student^ come from various parts of China;
those from Nanking find no difficulty in studying
in the Peking dialect; those from Foochow, how-
ever, need an extra year to study the new dialect.
Dr. Hopkins, one of the leading teachers of the
union medical colleges, says that the four young
women in his classes are the equal of the best
medical students he has seen.
The first class was opened in February, 1908.
Dr. Manderson and Dr. Stryker send this year's
report: "The Union Medical College for Women
completed its third year last January. The two
members of the first class are now in their fourth
year, and are maintaining the high standard of
scholarship which they set for themselves during
their first year. There are four students in the
second class. They are all women of strong
Christian character; in the laboratory, in the
recitation room, and on examination days they
have done excellent work; and their enthusiasm
and ready responsiveness have been a constant
inspiration to their instructors.
"Dr. Eliza Leonard, of the American Presby-
terian Mission, is Dean of the college. During
the year the Presbyterian Mission has furnished
MEDICAL MISSIONS 209
three instructors ; the American Board, one in-
structor; the Methodist General Board, one
.instructor, and the Methodist Woman's Foreign
Missionary Society, three instructors. We feel
that the Presbyterian Mission has been most gen-
erous, since they have as yet no students in the
college. The course of study was planned for
six years. Experience, however, has shown that
by lengthening each term the work may be done
in a shDrter time. We now expect our first class
will be ready for graduation in five years, or in
January, 1913. As the number of students in-
creases, our need of a building becomes more
urgent. For laboratory facilities this year we are
indebted to the Woman's Union College in the
American Board Mission. Mrs. Jewell has pro-
vided dormitory space in the Mary Porter Game-
well School, and Miss Powell has arranged to
have meals served for the medical students in
the Sleeper Davis Memorial Hospital. Part of
the lectures and recitations have been given in
the Methodist compound."
The college at Canton under Dr. Mary Fulton, Wort at
mentioned by Dr. Gloss, has had the advantage of Canton,
being in a port city that has long been open to
foreign intercourse, where prejudice has been
broken down, where the advantages of a great
work for men has long been an example. We
may learn a lesson from the success of this col-
lege. What has happened in Canton may happen
in any one of a dozen other cities.
210 CHINAS NEW DAT
Training Connected with almost every hospital there is
Nurses. a class of young women who are studying to be-
come trained nurses or helpers. -This harmonizes
with the whole genius of Chinese medicine, for
as we have indicated, the Chinese doctor, under
the old regime, was nothing other than a man
with a disposition to prescribe, while the mid-
wife, who takes the place of the doctor for
women, is only a woman with a certain amount
of experience.
Uncared-for / The necessity for trained nurses is apparent
Sufferers. when we come to consider the way the sick are
left uncared for. In the case of a necrosed bone,
tubercular joints or glands, or other similar
affections, the patient is often removed from the
living rooms to some outhouse. This is one of
the common sights a physician is called upon to
witness, A little child, a beautiful young girl,
a mother, or an old woman, lying in some out-
house, shut off from all the members of her fam-
ily, is left to lie uncared for and alone. If the
family is poor, and the relatives cannot afford to
hire an attendant, the poor sufferer lies alone
from morning till night and from night till morn-
ing, the paper windows all gone and swarms of
flies buzzing about her. Thus she awaits death
to relieve her. The physicians tell us that there
are thousands of such suffering ones to-day in
China where an operation, with the wound
properly treated and dressed, would restore the
sufferer to her family.
MEDICAL MISSIONS 211
The character of the missionary physician has Character of
been one of the greatest assets of the Christian tkc Mission-
Church in China. It may be doubted whether aryPtysi-
any group of men and women have done more to cian '
interpret Christ to the Chinese than have the
medical missionaries. t/The stones of Dr. Eleanor
Chesnut and of Dr. Macdonald Westwater, "the
saviour of Liao-yang," are instances in point.
A less familiar example is the part taken by >r.
Macklin in the recent capitulation of Nanking to
the revolutionary forces. Dr. Macklin is at the
head of the Christian hospital in Nanking. An
article in the "North China Daily * News"
(Peking) of December 8th, says :
"A prominent part in the capitulation was
taken by Dr. Macklin, who was accompanied by
the Rev. Frank Garrett and Mr. Hales. Dr.
Macklin's story is full of interest.
"It appears that the day before the capitula- Dr. Macklin
tion, an Imperialist General Chao, in command
of one thousand men, had two of his fingers dam-
aged by a piece of shell or a bullet, and that in
the afternoon Dr. Macklin operated on him and
fixed him up. He told Dr. Macklin that he and
his men were anxious to surrender but that they
were afraid to, and that he was not going to
leave his men in the lurch. Dr. Macklin told
him that he had better go round and get together
a few leading men for a conference which they
could hold at his (Dn Macklin's) house.
212
CHINAS NEW DAT
Arranges
Capitulation
to Revolu-
tionaries.
"This was apparently done, and the conference
decided to surrender, whereupon Dr. Macklin
volunteered to go out and talk to the Revolu-
tionaries, and his offer was eagerly accepted.
He, with a party, got down to the gate (presum-
ably the one opposite Purple Mountain probably
the Taiping Gate) about 4 a. m. and started to
dig a way through (the gate had been filled up
like the other). In the meantime Dr. Macklin
went up into the wall with lanterns, which lan-
terns immediately drew shell fire, presumably
from Purple Mountain. Macklin put his lamp
out quick, but some of the Chinese apparently
didn't know how to put the lamps out, and Dr.
Macklin hurried round and did it for them. The
firing continued, so they moved down off the
wall and waited a bit Just as dawn began to
break they went up on the wall again at another
spot and this time apparently succeeded in attract-
ing attention not only from Revolutionaries but
from quite another and undesirable quarter also.
"There was at this time still an Imperialist
force (estimated at 750) defending the Tartar
city, and directly some Revolutionaries advanced
in response to the signals of Dr. Macklin's party,
this force opened fire both on the Revolutionaries
who retired, and on Dr. Macklin's people.'*
The article then goes on to show how Dr.
Macklin dug his way through the loose rubble
that filled the gate and led a party of Chinese
toward the revolutionary lines, although in con-
MEDICAL MISSIONS 213
stant peril through the whistling bullets. Through
his efforts a conference was arranged and the
force in the Tartar city persuaded to surrender.
A large number of the wounded were brought
into his hospital for treatment, and then the
doctor was put in charge of the relief work.
The article continues:
"Such relief is only to be given by his organi- i^ charge of
zation in return for work, and I understand that Relief Work,
this is to take the form of colonization of the
large tracts of waste land inside the city, hitherto
the property of Manchu pensioners who would
neither work it themselves or allow it to be
worked. In this work he has the candid assistance
of the new officials, and he is very optimistic*
" According to Dr. Macklin, all private prop-
erty, even of Imperial officials, is being scrupu-
lously respected, and the land which is to be taken
by the authorities for his scheme is only public
land or the land granted to the pensioners re-
ferred to above (corruptly according to the Revo-
lutionaries).
"Whatever maybe the eventual fate of these c land
colonies/ there is no doubt that his relief schemes
are well worthy of support. It is only fair to Dr.
Macklin, however, to add that be never asked the
writer to draw attention to his plans he just told
me about them very enthusiastically, and I was
struck first by the -rapidity with which he has got
to work, and secondly by the great fact that there
at least is a real effort not to pauperize."
214 CHINA'S NEW DAT
Dr. Macklin had previously written under
date of October 20th: '
"I am now circulating lots of literature. It is
a great time, and literature counts. . . .
"Just enjoying the revolution. . . .
"I enclose a card of Mr. Kung, who is in the
seventieth-odd generation from Confucius (Kung
Fo Yei). He is a graduate, I believe, of Yale,
and a student of finance. I had a long talk with
him on finance and single tax. I had a long
talk the other day with Wu Ting Fang. They
may call me in to help them on taxation. It
takes w'ith intelligent Chinese. Now is the psy-
chological moment for hard work. I want to get
literature in the hands of the peace commis-
sioners."
A Missionary We have here the cheering spectacle of a medi-
Refonner. cal missionary who is engaged not only in reliev-
ing physical suffering but has time as well to
study into the single tax philosophy of Henry
George and to become an active propagandist of
this one of the advanced applications of Christian
theory to political practice. This is illustrative
of a big section of missionary activity that seldom
gets catalogued.
Summing Up: In this chapter emphas is has been put on the
Need of PLy- physical need of China for what Western medi-
wcxans aad c j ne can d 0j an( j U p 0n the S pi r j tua i bearings of
UMes " that work on the permeation of the nation by the
good tidings of liberty to body and soul. In
closing I wish to emphasize still further the
MEDICAL MISSIONS 215
urgency of the present crisis. There are hospi-
tals in China which have been closed for a year
at a time for want of physicians. All are under-
manned both with physicians and nurses. The
loudest call is a call for service. Dr. Ellen C.
Potter of the Woman's Medical College in Phil-
adelphia has said in a recent paper:
We now face and have faced for several years an^
ever-increasing demand for medical missionaries (both
men and women) and an alarming decrease in the
supply.
During the last ten years there has been a marked
decrease in the number of men and women studying
medicine for the following reasons :
First. A systematic campaign based on financial
considerations has been waged to decrease the number
of those entering upon the study of medicine because
of previous "over production"; this over production,
however, was considered only in relation to our own
country.
Reports of the council on medical education of the
American Medical Association show that the number
of medical students in the United States in 1900 was
25,171; in 1910, 21,526. The total number of women
students in 1904 was 1,129 ; in 1910, 907.
The total number of medical graduates in 1900,
5,214; in 1910, 3,976, of which number only 3,544
passed the State Boards of Medical Examiners.
Bulletin No. 4, Carnegie Foundation for the Ad-
vancement of Teaching, page 154, states that in consid-
ering the reconstruction of medical education in the
United States it is estimated that an annual production
of 3,500 physicians will be necessary to meet the de-
mands in this country for at least the next generation.
When these figures are compared with those given
216 CHINA'S NEW DAT
above it is evident that in the year 1910 there was prac-
tically no surplus for foreign service.
Second. The increased academic requirements for
admission to medical schools has materially cut down
the number of students. This tends to improve the
quality of the average physician, but bars out admirable
candidates with good general culture yet lacking in
certain technical academic counts.
Third. The increased cost of maintenance of medi-
cal schools, because of the large demands in laboratory
equipment, has increased tuition fees; (note 2), and the
high cobt of food stuffs has increased living expenses,
thus excluding many candidates on the financial basis
alone.
Fourth. Last but by no means least, many young
women are deterred from the study of medicine by the
protests of friends and relatives who cannot endure
that they should brand themselves as "strong-minded"
(for say what you will women physicians are still
looked upon as a little "queer" if not actually
"peculiar").
This then accounts for the decreased number of med-
ical candidates before Foreign Mission Boards.
In the April number of the "Intercollegian" (1911),
I find the medical needs of many Boards enumerated,
and I find sixty-one mn and thirty women physicians and
twenty-nine trained nurses needed at once, while many of the
Boards state that they have been searching for candidates for
from three to five years*
How are we to work out the solution of this problem
and to bring more women into the field of medicine?
First. Le't the Boards co-operate in the establishment
of an Information and Press Bureau. Let them make
it a business to get in touch with the academic student
world through its college journals (remembering that
not one undergraduate in a hundred sees "The Inter-
collegian" or her denominational mission papers unless
MEDICAL MISSIONS 217
already committed to the service of missions), through
vesper services, missionary meetings, Christian Asso-
ciations, Summer Conferences, demonstrating the defi-
nite need in specified places of medical workers.
Let this Press Bureau reach the nurses through their
local clubs and other organizations and through the
nursing journals. The young women who have neither
gone to college nor yet to study nursing, and who are
still searching for their places in the world's work, can
be told of the need in a very definite way through the
young people's church societies and church papers, and
through the various summer conferences.
Second*- Let the Boards themselves establish, or influence
wealthy men and women of the various denominations to
establish, scholarships in wisely chosen medical schools, and
let the scholarships cover more than mere tuition, that
the student may be relieved of all strain except that
incident to her studies.
Third. Have a medical member on each Board.
This medical representative should be not only a capable
practitioner, but should have some knowledge of hos-
pital management, and if possible also of medical teach-
ing, that she may give the best service to the Board.
Fourth. Establish a system of short term medical
missionary service two or three years as has been suc-
cessfully done in some other lines. These short ser-
vices will be of great value in easing the work for the
permanent incumbent, making vacation and furlough
more easily possible and in some instances securing for
the Boards permanent workers.
There are two fields to be cultivated if we would
fully meet the need fo'r medical workers that at home,
which we have just considered, and the field in the
Orient, for the women of the East are capable, as are
our own, of becoming good physicians and nurses.
In the very nature of things we cannot expect to send
from this country all the medical help that is needed.
218 CHINA'S NE W DA T
Let our Boards co-operate for medical education in
the East; selecting an already established hospital in a
large city, or establishing a new union hospital around
which it will be possible to develop a medical school.
We, as women, should remember that the teaching of
these young- women of the East must be largely by
women ; therefore the great weight of responsibility for
the suffering women of the Orient rests on us.
The suggestions of Dr. Potter are so weighty
with good sense that I have ventured to quote
her quite fully. Along some such lines not only
the Women's Boards but the members of local
auxiliaries must work if this most urgent need is
to be met.
c j XT j A second need has already been disclosed, and
Second Need . . J . '
of Equipment *t 1S * or mo " ern ? scientific, adequate equipment
in both buildings and apparatus. This need may
best be met by interesting Christians of ample
means in the definite needs of individual hospi-
tals. These needs can be obtained from the
Boards, and if brought home to those already in-
terested in hospital work here at home they could
be met without a doubt.
The religion of the Great Physician must be
adequately presented to the Chinese if that great
empire is to be won for Christ.
ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS
"The call for women doctors is especially emphasized
(in China) as their services are most acceptable and, as
a rule, essential to the treatment which suffering wom-
anhood often needs. Facilities for the medical educa-
tion of the Chinese, both men and women, are greatly
needed and produce results of large usefulness as a
missionary agency.
MEDICAL MISSIONS 219
"The value placed upon woman's work for woman
in China is frequently referred to with much urgency in
the replies of missionaries.'* ("Report of Edinburgh
World Missionary Conference," Vol. I, p. 305.)
"For reasons already stated China's women are a
strategic element to be won; yet unless specially sought
after, they cannot be largely affected by the gospel.
Attendance upon an ordinary street chapel is out of the
question, and even attendance at Sunday church service
calls for a willingness to face criticism and misunder-
standing which few are ready to meet, particularly
among the wealthy and official classes." ("Edin-
burgh World Missionary Conference Report," Vol.
I, page 94.)
"In 1893 Baroness Burdette-Coutts prepared for the
Chicago World's Fair a book of about five hundred
pages devoted to the details of woman's organized work
in charity and philanthropy in Great Britain. One thou-
sand one hundred and sixty-four societies were selected
for the inquiries : 362 societies in aid of children, 102
in aid of girlhood, 130 for the friendless, 200 in aid of
women, 62 orders of deaconesses. Two hundred and
ninety of these reported 84,129 voluntary workers and
4,814 paid workers. There are by a carefully prepared
and most conservative estimate in the English-speaking
world of to-day not less than two million women locally
known as workers to be depended upon in philanthropic
movements ; women so situated in respect to their home
duties that they can contend with the hunger and dirt of
the outside world, and this they do.
"If the other great religions of the world are as fruit-
ful of practical altruism as Christianity there ought to
be one million philanthropic women workers in the
Turkish Empire, five million Hindu women devoting
themselves to philanthropy, and seven million of
Chinese women in the service of humanity.
220 CHINAS NEW DAY
"The attitude of Christianity throughout Christendom
toward poverty is emphasized by a contrast with the great
ethnic religions as to their surplus altruistic energy in
aid of the poor. Christianity maintains in non-Christian
lands 100 institutions for lepers, 247 foundling homes and
orphanages, 651 training schools for nurses and physi-
cians, 379 hospitals and 783 dispensaries. J ' ( Condensed
from Tenney's " Contrasts in Social Progress.")
" 'Little did I dream, when sending my money to
China, that a Chinese girl would come over here and
lead my own daughter to Christ,' said a Christian
woman in Ohio, as she gratefully acknowledged that
Dr. Htt King Eng had been the means under God of
winning her child to Christ.
"In 1896, five years after Dr. Hu's return, two other
Chinese girls, Ida Kahn and Mary Stone, graduated
with honor from the medical department of the Michi-
gan University. " (Methodist Leaflet. )
QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY
1. What are the Chinese practices of midwifery ?
2. In what ways is it advantageous to train a Chinese
woman in medicine in her own country?
3. How do medical missions strongly commend the gos-
pel? How do they diffuse a knowledge of Christianity?
4. Which do you regard as most needed in China,
general hospitals, or hospitals for women and children?
5. What deductions would you make in regard to the
ability of Chinese women from the first Chinese women
physicians ?
6. How many more modern hospitals ought China to
have if she were to be as well provided as the United
States?
7. How many hospitals should we have in the United
States if we were no better provided than China?
8. What part may the missionaries play in helping
China to make the change to modern medicine?
9. Why is the present moment critical ?
CHAPTER VI
THE PRINTED PAGE
ONE of the miracle workers of the present day power of
is the printed book. It was to be expected that Print.
one of the signs of China's awakening would be
an immense increase in her demand for books of
Western learning. It has been impossible to
translate and circulate with sufficient rapidity
books to satisfy this new hunger of the mind.
It is the aim of this chapter first to show the Aim of Chap-
high relative importance of literary agencies in ter.
shaping the new life in China because of her
pre-eminent reverence for literature, second to
recount the agencies of the Christian Church
already at work, and third to stimulate the
further development of such agencies.
I was talking one day with a Chinese gentle-
man, and the conversation drifted to the various
influences that were being brought to bear upon
the Chinese Government and the Chinese people.
"What do you think/' I asked him, "is the Method, of
best method of bringing any subject to the atten-
tion of the people as a whole?"
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Well," I replied, "there are various w.ays
we have in the West of arousing the people and
222 CHINA'S NEW DAY
getting their attention. One is by lecturing,
another by preaching, another by schools and
education, and another by writing books and
tracts, and publishing newspapers."
"Two of these methods are familiar to the
Chinese, and have been for centuries, and two
are not."
" Which are familiar?" I asked.
"Education and literature are methods which
the Chinese have used for twenty to thirty centu-
ries to arouse and interest the people," he replied.
"What about preaching and lecturing?" I
asked.
"They are new to us," he replied.
"Then of education and literature, which has
the wider influence?' 7 I asked.
"Education has a deeper and more lasting in-
fluence, but literature has more rapid and wider
results."
CKineseLove "From the cradle to the grave, " he went on
Literature. to sa y ? fc h e Chinese love literature. The child,
with open mouth and twinkling eyes, listens to
the nurse, in the city or in the country, repeating
rhymes appropriate to its particular neighbor-
hood. I have seen the little girl in the city with
a little red and black spotted beetle on her finger
repeating,
Ladybug, ladybug fly away, de,
Fly to the mountain and feed upon dew,
Feed upon dew and sleep on a rug,
And then fly away like a good little bug.
THE PRINTED PAGE 228
''Thousands 9f such rhymes may be found in
all parts of China/'
"Yes," I replied, "I am aware that China is
rich in such nursery lore."
"Leaving the nursery," he went on, "we have Primers,
books appropriate for children of all ages. As
soon as the little 'boy is ready to enter upon his
studies, he is given a primer that will instill into
him all the chief incidents of the history of the
past, and another that will help him to under-
stand what is the proper thing to be done under
all social and human relations."
"That is the <Ti Tze Kuei,' or Rules of Be-
havior for Children, is it not?" I asked, for I
had already translated the primer into English,
and was struck with many of the good bits of
advice it contains. For instance among the very
first lines the boy is taught that:
Love in each heart for all people should spring,
Specially to the benevolent cling,
Strength if you've left, be it small, be it great,
Spend it in study, both early and late.
In another place the boy is taught that:
When riding or driving, you always descend
From your, horse or your cart, when, you meet with a
friend,
Nor remount till your friend has passed by, I should
say,
A. hundred, or more than that, steps on his way.
In the chapter on education we have given a
definite outline of the literature that the Chinese
224 CHINA'S NEW DAT
have prepared for the education of their youth.
It is scarcely necessary to add here that practically
all of this literature is designed with a definite
aim of preparing boys for official life, and as
there was no possibility of girls occupying any
official position, when the education of girls was
mentioned their first question was:
Wliy Educate * 'What do you want to educate a girl for ? She
Girls? has no prospect of getting into official life."
"Well," you answer, "an education will make
her larger, broader, better; more able to per-
form the duties of life, and better able to take a
place beside her husband."
"But there is no place beside her husband for
her to take," he answers. "Her place is in the
home, having babies and taking care of the
family. There is no place in social or official
life for a man and a woman to be side by side.
The only place where she can influence or advise
him is in their own private apartments."
"Well," you answer, "teach her to read so
that she can familiarize herself with history,
poetry, philosophy, fiction, and have some way
by which to entertain herself when she is lonely."
Do Not Want "No," he replies, "we do not want her to
Her to Read. re ad novels. The novels are not fit for her to
read."
It is indeed worthy of note, that while the
Chinese classics are among the purest in the
world, containing not a single word which could
not be read before a mixed audience, their fiction
a
&$'
p
THE PRINTED PAGE 225
is of a very different style. Men who have spent
years reading Chinese novels with the design of
finding one that is fit to translate into English,
have given up in despair. Their novels are too
realistic. They have no idea of omitting the
unmentionable things of life, but make them a
part of their plot and their conversations. The
"Hung Lou Meng" or Dream of the Red Cham-
ber, is one of their largest and best novels, and
describes Chinese life better than- any but a
Chinese could describe it, and has been read by
more people, I have no doubt, than any other
novel in the world. But it would be impossible
to think of reading it in a mixed company.
I cannot think of Chinese poetry without wish- Chinese
ing that we had some poetical genius who could Poetry by
give us a worthy translation of some of China's Women.
best productions. Dr. Martin has given us a
very good translation of an inscription on a fan
written by a lady of the court a concubine and
presented to the Emperor about 18 B. C. It is
a very touching simile couched in choice lan-
guage:
Of fresh new silk all snowy white,
And round as harvest moon,
A pledge of purity and love,
A small, but welcome boon. f
While summer lasts, borne in the hand
Or folded on the breast,
'Twill gently soothe thy burning brow,
And charm thee to thy rest.
226 CHINA* S NM W DA T
But ah ! when autumn frosts descend,
And winter winds blow cold,
No longer sought, no longer loved,
'Twill lie in dust and mould.
This silken fan then deign accept,
Sad emblem of my lot,
Caressed and cherished for an hour,
Then speedily forgot
Bool of Prof. Herbert A. Giles, a prince of translators,
Poetry. among other good things has given us a small
volume of " Chinese Poetry in English Verse,"
from which the following specimen, familiar to
every schoolboy, is taken. It is from Su
Tung-p'o, whose name itself is poetic. He was
a great poet as well as a great official who lived
on the east slope of a mountain, and so he usually
signed himself East Slope Su. He says:
One half hour of a" night in spring is worth a thousand
taels;
When the clear sweet scent of flowers is felt and the
moon her luster pales.
When mellowed sounds of song and flute are borne
along the breeze,
And through the stilly scene the swing sounds swish*
ing from the trees.
TttfTang I wish it were possible to give some idea of
Poetry. the period of the Tang poetry, from the seventh
to the tenth centuries the dark ages of Europe.
It is the most brilliant epoch in Chinese history.
The reign of the Emperor Ming Huang was the
focal point of tlje period the Elizabethan Age.
He was himself a general, a poet, a patron of
THE PRINTED PAGE 227
literature in all its forms, and he established
schools in every village. He was a lover of music,
and, as we have indicated elewhere, it was he
who took a trip to the moon with his magician,
who threw his staff into the air and it became a
dazzling bridge on which the two could travel.
In the mansion of the moon they beheld such
performances, and listened to such strains, as
enabled him after his return to establish a college
for the education and drilling of young men and
maidens for the operatic performances played by
what is called "the young people of the Pear
Garden." Certain it is that a new style of music,
of a more joyous natui'e, was created at this time
to take the place of the stiff and solemn kind that
was then in vogue.
It is his encouragement of poetry upon which Poetry as
his fame rests, and by which he did most for the Abundant as
literary development of his people. Wherever a
poet was found, and it is noteworthy that most
of them came from the mountainous regions of
Szechuan, or the beautiful lake regions of the
central provinces, he was invited, urged, and if
necessary, forced to appear at court. During this
reign poetry was as abundant as water, and was
taken by all classes with greater avidity than
they took their food. It is said of one of the
officials that he spent much of his time under some
fine trees in his courtyard reciting poetry, and when
called upon by anyone, he would send word to his
visitor that he was 'engaged in official business
228 CHINA S NB W DA T
and must beg to be excused. It is said also of
one of the poets that having been raised to the
position of Secretary of the Imperial Banqueting
Court, his poetry gained such an influence over
the ladies of the palace that they never wearied
of repeating his verses; while of another, we are
told that having been captured by a band of rob-
bers, the captain, when he learned his name ex-
claimed, "What, the poet! Well you need not
be afraid, we won't hurt you. We like your
'poetry too well, make us some now." To which
he at once responded with the following verse:
Rotters Love The rainy mists blow gently o'er the village by the
Poetry. stream,
When from the leafy forest glades the brigand daggers
gleam,
And yet there is no need to fear nor step from out the
way,
For more than half the world consists of bigger rogues
than they.
The men loved poetry, the women loved poetry,
even the robbers in the cornfields loved the poets
and their songs.
For the sake of Chinese literature it would be
of interest to review Chinese philosophy in the
two periods B. C. 600-A. D. 97, and that of the
eleventh century of our era. All that can be given
concerning their literature, however, will simply
be to show what great things the Chinese have
done in this realm, in order to show that we must
do something worth while if we expect to effect
THE PRINTED PAGE 229
any changes in their mode of thought. A page
or two must be devoted to some phases of Chinese
philosophical discussions.
More than three hundred years before Christ Dispute
there was begun a discussion on "the nature of AboutNaturc
man," which lasted for more than a thousand **
years. It was pursued with the greatest
thoroughness and aroused widespread interest.
One school of philosophy said that the nature of
man was evil, another that it was good, a third
declared that it was neither good nor evil, while
a fourth taught that it was both good and evil.
A last effort was made to harmonize these
different views by Han Yu, "the Prince of Liter-
ature, ' ' about 800 A. D. "The nature of man, ' '
said he, "dates from the beginning of life; the
feelings date from his contact with external
things, or birth. According to their nature there
are three grades of men:
The Superior,
The Middle, and
The Inferior.
"The Superior grade is good, and good only;
the Middle grade is capable of being led, it may
rise to the superior or sink to the inferior; the
Inferior is evil, and evil only. The question
then arises as to whether the nature of the
Superior and Inferior grades can be changed. I
reply, By study the Superior may become more
intelligent; by restraint, or awe of power, the
Inferior comes to have few faults. But the
280 CHINAS NEW DAT
grades have been pronounced by Confucius to be
unchangeable when he says, 'The progress of
the Superior man is upward, that of the Inferior
man is downward.' "
Big Tilings in This is merely a glimpse of the literature of
Literature. the Chinese on two great subjects: poetry, and
this one phase of philosophy. They have one
history of China, which has been fitly termed "a
stack of histories/' in 3,264 volumes. One med-
ical work contains 168 books, 1,960 discourses,
on 2,175 different subjects, with 778 rules, 231
diagrams and 21,739 prescriptions. They have
one encyclopedia of the best literature which con-
tains 22,937 books. The Emperor K'ang Hsi,
the first great Manchu, wrote 176 books, besides
governing China 60 years; while his grandson
Ch'ien Lung, who gave up the throne after having
ruled 60 years, so as not to outdo his grandfather,
had written no less than 33,950 poetical composi-
tions, published in 382 books, all completed 13
years before the end of his reign, while the works
of these last years have never gone through the
press. They have one biographical encyclopedia
of 1,628 volumes, 376 of which are devoted to
famous women, more than one fifth of the whole,
while in their biographical dictionary of artists
of 24 volumes, four are devoted to the lives of
great women, one sixth of the whole.
In the conversation with which I began this
chapter, my Chinese friend said that they love
literature, which I think I have shown to be true*
THE PRINTED PAGE 231
He said also that the best way to bring any sub-
ject to the attention of the Chinese was by the
printed page, and I asked him what evidence he
had for the truth of such a statement.
"Study the introduction and growth of Bud- Buddhism
dhism," he replied. "It is a system which has EataLlisked by
but little to recommend it over against Taoism Literature,
and Confucianism, except that during China's
dark ages, it deluged China with a literature,
most of which, it is true, was in translation of
books brought from India, some of which were
good, but most of them indifferent, and these at
a time when the making of books was anything
but an easy task.
"Buddhism was introduced in 65 A. D. By the Making
year 400 the Emperor was such an ardent disciple Buddtiat
of the Buddhist faith as to call a council of 600 Bookfl -
priests to assist in the translation of books, at
which he was himself present, while two of the
princes helped to transcribe the work of the
tranlators. In A. D. 451, a Buddhist temple
was allowed in every city, with 40 or 50 priests,
and the Emperor himself shaved the heads of
some of those who took the vows. In A. D*
467, the Prince of Wei constructed an image of
Buddha fifty feet high, in which he used five
tons of brass and six hundredweight of gold,
and five years thereafter he resigned his throne
and became a Buddhist monk."
"But what has that to do with literature?'* I
asked.
232
CHINA'S NEW DAT
New Books.
Tang Poetry
Result of
Study.
"Let me finish," he answered, and continued,
" At the beginning of the sixth century there were
not less than 3,000 Hindus in China, while the
temples had multiplied to 13,000, and the prince
himself discoursed publicly on the Sacred Books.
The first Emperor of the Liang dynasty three
times assumed Buddhist vows, expounded the
sutras to his courtiers, and finally gave up the
throne and entered a monastery at Nanking. By
730 A. D., we are told that 2,278 different works
had been translated by not less than 176 different
translators. Such was the growth of Buddhism,
due for the most part to the influence exerted by
the importation into China of such a vast amount
of new thought and literature.
"Nor was this all," he went on. "It is sup-
posed that the period of the Tang poetry is due
to the literary impetus given by the making of
tonic dictionaries, the discovery of the four tones,
and other study of the language done by the Bud-
dhists in making these translations. The thought
which I wish to impress upon you," he contin-
ued looking me right in the eye, "is this, that
the establishment of Buddhism is due largely to
the fact that it prepared for itself a vast amount
of literature. In doing so it enriched China,
not only by what it imported, and the develop-
ment it brought about, but also by the impetus it
gave to the Chinese in the revival of learning*"
"It seems to me that what you say is worth
consideration," I remarked.
THE PRINTED PAGE 233
"If it stood alone, perhaps it might not be," Catholicism
he answered, "but it does not stand alone. What Established bj
I have said of Buddhism is true also of Catholi- Literature,
cism. This as you know was first introduced
into China by John de Mento in A. D. 1293, but
was exterminated by the Ming dynasty a century
later, and it was not reintroduced until it was
brought by Mathew Ricci in A. D. 1589, about
three hundred and twenty years ago. Father Ricci
arrived in Peking January 4, 1601, and by the
year 1636 he and his associate workers, together
with their Chinese converts, had published no
less than 340 volumes, some of them religious,
but most of them on natural philosophy and
mathematics. This book making was kept up by
Longobardi, Schall, Verbiest, and their associates
and successors, the last two being the most inti-
mate advisers of the last emperors of the Ming
and the first emperors of the present dynasty. It
is not too much to say that the astronomy and
mathematics of the Chinese were changed so
materially as never to allow them to go back tp
their old theories, and because of this literary
assistance, more perhaps than anything else >
Catholicism was established throughout the em-
pire. During the first fifteen years of the eigttfr
eenth century, in the . governor-generalship o
Kiangnan and Kiangsi alone, there were 100
churches, ancj a hundred thousand converts.
The survey o;fc the empire was carried on by the
Emperor's command from 1708 to 1718 under
234 CHINA' S NE W DA T
the direction of the Jesuits, of whom Regis,
Bovet, and Jartoux were the most prominent
members.'*
I was not a little surprised at the readiness
with which my friend quoted all ^ ?mes and
dates, but I said nothing and he continued.
"When the missionaries were expelled under
Yung Cheng, it is said that three hundred thou-
sand converts were deprived of teachers, and after
the numbers had been reduced by persecution, the
priests are accused by one of their own number
of conducting themselves with such ostentation as
to be unable to reach the masses. The accusation
made by Father Ripa is as follows :
Conversions ft 'The diffusion of our holy religion in these
tte Result of parts has been almost wholly owing to the cate-
Books. chists who are in the service, to other Christians,
or to the distribution of Christian books in the
Chinese language.' In 1861 we are told that
they had 31 bishops, 664 European priests,
559 native priests, 1,092,818 converts, 34 colleges
and 34 convents. Allowing for a large overesti-
mate, or for many adherents who were weak dis-
ciples, they have still a goodly company for 360
years' work. The Catholics in China are doing
no small amount of bookmaking, and what they
do they do well, putting up their volumes in a
form and style that would do credit to any press.
An examination of the catalogue of the Pel Tang
press in Peking will indicate the character of the
work they do."
THE PRINTED PAGB 235
"May I ask if you belong to the Catholic
Church?" I inquired, for I began to have a sus-
picion that he was praising his own creed.
"I belong to" ro church," he answered; "I
Dimply "fPy^KVee things as they are. The Roman
Catholics and Buddhists began in the right way
to make a success of the introduction of their
systems into China, and had the former not been
ambitious for temporal power when they beheld
their efforts more or less crowned with success,
Catholicism would have been far more wide-
spread than it is to-day."
"You think then, that literature is an important
adjunct in the introduction of religion into
China," I remarked.
"Contrast with these two systems the attempt Nestorian*
at the introduction of Christianity into China by Fail from
the Nestorians in A. D. 505. During the period Lacfcof
when B'uddhism was making such monumental "
efforts in the production of literature and taking
such rapid strides, the Nestorians brought Chris^
tianity to China, but so far as we know at present
they have left no record of their presence other
than the self-eulogistic tablet at Sianfu, a replica
of which may be found in the Metropolitan
Museum in New York. To blot out Catholicism
and Buddhism from China, one would have to
destroy a large part of her best literature and
learning; For while Bud<Jhism cannot claim a
fo book that raijfcs with the sacred books of
and Taoism, she has insinuated
236 CHINA' S NB W DA T
herself into all the ramifications of Chinese liter-
ature and life. And, indeed, this Nestorian tab-
let contains a very "complimentary reference to
Buddhism, in the description of how the priest
I Ssu clothed the naked, fed the poor, attended
on and healed the sick, and buried the dead. If
he were a Buddhist priest it is a complimentary
reference, and, if not, the mention of Buddhism
in this connection is still an indication that
Buddhists were beyond all others in such benevo-
lent work.
"To destroy Catholicism would throw Chinese
astronomy and mathematics back where they were
a thousand years ago. But Nestorianism has
passed away, leaving nothing but the epitaph on
a single tombstone to tell of its existence. The
inscription says that 'the Scriptures weretranslated
and churches built;' and this was done 'when the
pure, bright, illustrious religion was introduced
to our T'ang dynasty.' But if the Scriptures
were translated, and if other books for the in-
struction of the people were written, they have
either all passed away or lie buried among the
uninvestigated debris of Chinese literature."
I did not know whether to agree with him or not,
but he was giving me a lot of things to think about,
and I allowed him to proceed without interruption.
Mohammed "We are not confined, however," he went On,
Faikafrom "to the tablet for the proof that Nestorianism
k"* of was k ot jj widespread and influential. This fact
is testified to by such early travelers as Sir John
Mandeville and Marco Polo, of the general
THE PRINTED PAGE 237
truth of whose statements there is at present little
reason for doubt. In addition to these we have
various other proofs, chief among which is the
general belief in the Christian Prince, Prester
John, and his dominions, and in the record of
Friar Odoric of Pardenone, the story of whose
travels in Western India and Northern China
agrees in the main with the record of Sir John
Mandeville. But, as we have said, although the
Nestorians were numerous during the Yuan
dynasty, at the present time with the exception of
the stone tablet, so far as I am aware, not a trace
gf them is left* Such could not have been the
case if they had been as diligent as the Buddhists
in the preparation of a good literature/'
"I cannot but allow that thei*e is a good deal Islam,
of truth in what you are saying," I admitted.
"What I have said of the. Nestorians/' he con-
tinued, "may be said with equal emphasis of the
Mohammedans. Very little is known by the
common people about them and their creed.
They are exceedingly uncommunicative on sub-
jects relating to .themselves. When their system
was introduced into China, and how, it is diffi-
cult to say. It is usually attributed to Wokassm,
a maternal uncle of the Prophet,' during the
seventh century. As early as the T'ang dynasty
the Mohammedan missionaries came to Canton
and Hangchow. , " , ,
"It was not introduced, however, merely at one Brpurfkt & t
place. It was carried by sea to the southern Many Place*.
238 CHINAS NEW DAT
cities, and by caravans of traders from Central
Asia to the northwest, west and southwest
provinces. Jt will thus be seen that the Moham-
medans have been in China for not less than
twelve or thirteen centuries. In all the border
provinces they are numerous. Their customs in
regard to pork, wine and idols are very strict.
They have a school in connection with almost all
of the large temples for the study of the Koran in
the native Arabic. But they seem not to have
learned the influence of literature upon the minds
of the people, and its disintegrating power on
Chinese life; and so they are practically without
books for the instruction of the masses, and
Poor in Liter- without a distinct literature as a representative of
ature. the sect. Consequently they have made less
progress as an integral factor in Chinese religious
life in thirteen centuries than Buddhism did in
five. It is not improbable that when the Nes-
torians were cut off from the mother church by
the rise of the Moslems and the conquests of the
Mongols they gradually amalgamated themselves
with the Mohammedans, as they had long since
ceased to maintain the purity of their faith, as
well as to circulate the Scriptures, which we are
told had been translated into Chinese. Certain
it is that the two sects which prepared an abun-
dant literature succeeded in establishing them-
selves in China, and the two which did not, have
failed to get a hold upon the hearts of the
people."
THE PRINTED PAGE 239
"And what do you think of our Protestant
methods?*' I inquired.
"Wise," he answered, "the wisest that could
possibly be adopted."
"In what way? may I ask."
"In the opening of schools and hospitals as
well as churches, and the making of books," he
replied.
"Will you explain what you mean by the
making of books?" I requested.
"Protestantism," he replied, "began with Protestants
literature. It would seem almost as if some Began witk
mysterious power was directing the pioneers of
Protestant missions in this particular direction.
First, they were shut out from preaching to the
people, and their efforts were directed toward
the making of dictionaries and other books which
would assist them in the translation of the Scrip-
tures, and to the compilation of books which would
help the people to understand the Bible, and give
the people some idea of the world as it exists
outside of the Middle Kingdom. This, however,
is only one form that literature took with Protes-
tant missions in those early days. Their Bible
translation was one advantage they had over the
Romish Church which withholds the Scriptures
from the , common people. The various Bible
societies are among the pioneers in taking* up
this work. Nevertheless those who are engaged
by the Bible societies did not confine themselves
to this line alone* But with all deference to all
240 CHINA'S NEW DAT *
other literature, the Bible is the great civilizer.
I know, as you do, that wherever the Bible has
gone, progress has gone with it. I realize that
the governments that are wielding the power of
the world to-day, are the lands with the Bible.
I understand too, that there never has been a
system of thought organized into a science outside
of a land with a Bible. I know that the wealth
of the world is in the hands of the people who
have the Bible. I realize that the music of the
world has been inspired by the gospel, and exe-
cuted for its praise, while the progress in the
manufacture of musical instruments is the result
of the demand on the part of the cathedrals and
churches. I understand that the best art of the
world the progress and development of art is
the result of the inspiration of the gospel, and it
has been executed by the man with a cross about
his neck and a Bible in his robe. Only the man
with a microscopic vision can spend his time
picking to pieces the Book which has led in the
progress of the world's civilization. Jesus Christ
is the light of the world in every sense in which
that sentence can be interpreted, for every oil lamp,
gas light, electric, acetylene, oxyhydric or any
other light, except a tallow candle or a dish of oil
with a wick floating therein, has been made in a
land with a Bible. The light, the progress and
the comfort of the world is the result of the Bible,
and so it was wise that Protestantism began by
translating and circulating the Scriptures."
THE PRINTED PAGE 241
"You have a high appreciation of the Bible,"
I suggested.
"Nobody that has lived in a land without a; Influence of
Bible, and has studied the history of the progress tteBible -
of thought, of invention, of clean cities, of com-
fortable homes, methods of travel, labor-saving
devices, can avoid having a high appreciation of
the Bible," he answered.
"But, you know, there are some people in my
country who do not give the Bible credit for that
progress," I volunteered.
"Those are the people who have either never
lived outside of a Christian country, or who make
no distinction between intellectual and religious
thinking, or whose lives do not harmonize with
the teachings of the Scriptures," he replied.
"No," I answered, "they think the white man
has done it."
"Then why did not the white man do it before Chinese
he got the Bible?" he asked. "My ancestors Ahead of Us
were a thousand years ahead of yours, before you Before We
got the Bible. We were clothed in silk, living
in brick houses, with a great government, a
great literature and a great civilization, when
your ancestors were clothed in skins and living in
caves, mud huts, or nesting in the trees. The
only way you can explain your progress, is by
admitting that your Bible made your church,
your church sent her priests and missionaries,
they established your colleges and made -your
books, and your civilization is the result."
242
CHINAS NEW DAT
Protatant
Translations.
Christian
Evidences.
So much for the views of my Chinese friend.
They certainly are worthy of careful thought and
point the way to one of the greatest lines of in-
fluence open to the Christian Church. The in-
nate reverence for theprintedpage on the part of the
Chinese people is unequalled by that of any other
nation. Even a scrap of paper fluttering in the
street is carefully rescued if it contains printed
characters. The Protestant missionaries have not
been slow to take advantage of this trait.
It was not long after mission work was begun
by the Protestants before they began the translation
of such books as the "Pilgrim's Progress," and
the preparation of "Evidences of Christianity,"
"Bible Stories," and various small books, stories
and tracts which the conditions and circumstances
of their teaching, preaching or medical work de-
manded, and so tract societies were formed in
various parts of the empire. It would be a diffi-
cult matter to try to say how many editions "Pil-
grim's Progress" and "Evidences of Chris-
tianity" have gone through, to say nothing. of the
number of volumes that have been printed.
An amusing story is told about the "Evidences
of Christianity," prepared by Dr. Martin. A
copy of it and one of the Gospel of Luke was
given to an official at the same time by a mis-
sionary. Some time thereafter he met the official
and during the conversation asked, "How did
Your Excellency enjoy the books?"
THE PRINTED PAGE 243
"'The Evidences of Christianity, '" he re-
plied, "I enjoyed very much. It is logically
written from beginning to the end."
"And how did you enjoy the 'Good News of
Luke'?" he inquired further.
"Well, to be frank," he answered, "I do not
think Luke sticks to the subject."
In addition to the tract societies there was es- Tract and
tablished a number of years ago a "Society for OtKerSocie-
the Diffusion of Knowledge," the design of ties -
which was to publish and sell to the Chinese a
large number of books that may or may not be
distinctively Christian or religious. Books like
McKenzie's "Nineteenth Century," Edward
Bellamy's "Looking Backward," religious or
semi-religious stories, books that may be used as
study books, or for collateral reading in schools,
or for the scholars in, the old regime to use to
become acquainted with the elements of Western
learning, have been 'published by this society.
When the Emperor Kuang Hsu turned his at- Demand for
tention to foreign learning and began buying Books of So-
their books, Such a demand arose for their pub- f**? *
lications throughout the empire, that although Q^^
they kept their presses going night and day, they Knowledge,
were unable to produce books fast enough to sat-
isfy the public appetite. It was at this time that
Chang Chih-tung in "China's Only Hope," ad-
vised that Chinese members of legations in
foreign countries should study the languages of
the people to which they are sent and translate
244 CHINA' S NE W DA T
the best works of those countries into Chinese.
He commended very highly the work done in this
line by such missionaries as Drs. Young J.
Allen, Timothy Richard, and others who were
devoting their time to the preparation of books,
and he advised that large editions of these books
be printed and scattered broadcast throughout the
empire.
About this time there was a good deal of
pirating of foreign books by the native printers
of Shanghai. Many of the best books had
scarcely left the press, before a pirated edition
by the photographic process, was reproduced by
the native shops in the city. Legge's "Four
Books," which regularly cost eight or nine
dollars, could be bought in a pirated edition for
$1.75, and even Williams' dictionary of the
Chinese language was put upon the market at a
phenomenally low price.
Need of Lit- * C ^P ^ e Blowing from the "New York In-
. dependent.'* It is in regard to a call from
Dr. Timothy Richard, the head of the Society for
the Diffusion of Knowledge among the Chinese:
"No missionary in China has a higher repu-
tation for wisdom than Timothy Richard, and it
is worthy of note that he calls for one hundred
missionaries who shall devote themselves entirely
to literary work. The purpose is to reach the
higher class of the Chinese, the scholars and
leaders. In this he agrees with the Rev. Gilbert
Reid, who has made himself a missionary to the
THE PRINTED PAGE 245
literati and officials, believing that through them
the people as a whole are to be reached.
" While prejudice against the missionary has
been removed there is as yet no great move-
ment among the leaders of China to accept the
Christian faith. The missionary labors have not
been directed to them very much. The literature
has been chiefly meant for the instruction of con-
verts in schools and churches. Mr. Richard and
other thoughtful missionaries believe that a chief
reason for the failure of Christianity to attract the
leading classes in China is because it has not
been presented to them in the right way. Mr.
Richard says:
" 'They think that there is one great lack in our
mission methods now, viz., men who have first
studied the religion and literature of China and
know what its strength and weakness are on the
one hand, and who also on the other hand have
so studied the deep philosophical and historical
fruits of Christianity in other lands, that they
can clearly point out where Christianity excels
the best the Chinese have in Confucianism or
Buddhism. Moreover, Christians have not come
to destroy, but to fulfill. Mere assertion will not
convince. The superior ideals will have fo be
made clear and definite, so as to win the admira-
tion of the best.'
"Mr. Richard is one of a number of thought-
ful missionaries who believed that if a hundred
men were to devote themselves to this kind of
246 CHINA'S NEW DAY
work they might succeed in a comparatively
short time in attracting large numbers of the
leaders in the Chinese Empire to accept Chris-
tianity, in which case the masses would follow.
Buddhism won its way through its high litera-
ture. It would be well if every mission should
set aside one or two of its best literary men for
this task."
Appetite for You will observe that it is taken for granted by
Literature. all who write on China that the Chinese have a
tremendous appetite for literature. We have
seen how certain systems have been established
through the influence of literatoe while others
which produced no literature have failed. We
have seen what the tract societies are doing, and
though they are working for the most part among
the lower classes, we should remember that the
lower classes of to-day may be the middle classes
of to-morrow, and the upper classes of the near
future. Missionary societies do a wise thing
when they transfer those missionaries who have
literary ability to this particular work; relieving
them of all other duties that will interfere with
their best literary output. I venture to say that
missionaries all over China have found that persons
come 4 and apply for membership in the church
who were first led to take this step by the reading
of such books as "Evidences of Christianity," or
others of a like nature. All those who have the
ability to make such books should write as many
of them as possible.
THE PRINTED PAGE 247
In adition to the books issued by the various ManyScLol-
societies, there are many scholars who publish are PutHsk
their own works. There is an Educational As- TteirOwr
sociation which publishes a large number of
scientific and other works. There are institutions
of learning which issue publications prepared by
their own teachers, and there is scarcely one of
the larger missions which does not issue books
either from their own or other presses, all of
which help to swell the ranks of what might be
termed a Protestant Christian literature.
Prior to the Boxer movement there were but Newspapers,
few newspapers in China. Now there are more
than two hundred newspapers, with a rapidly in-
creasing circulation. Formerly the official classes
paid little attention to this class of literature, but
with the beginning of Kuang Hsu's reforms the
paper edited by Dr. Allen began exerting a tre-
mendous influence. Many of the leading journals
have been bought by men connected with provin-
cial governments, and their future utterances will
be more carefully guarded no doubt than
formerly.
One of the recent developments is the upspring- Chinese Put-
ing of printing offices all over the empire. One lk*$ Com-
of the most noted of these is "The Commercial
Press, Limited," of Shanghai. This Press was
started twelve years ago by Christian Chinese,
who had learned the trade, while employed by
the Presbyterian Mission Press. After a time,
these young and ambitious Chinese naturally
248 CHINA'S NEW DAY
wanted to go into business for themselves. They
therefore opened a small job printing shop near
by. By skill and diligence, their business soon
increased. When the new government system of
education was adopted and foreign text-books
were called for, the managers were enterprising
enough to foresee the opportunity. They en-
larged their plant and began to turn out the
desired books. To-day, this Press is the largest
in all Asia, employing over one thousand hands,
all of them Chinese except about a dozen Japanese.
It is equipped with the latest and best German,
English and American machinery. It has a cap-
ital of $1,000,000, one third of which is held by
Japanese and two thirds by Chinese. It uses not
only Chinese paper, but stock imported from
Austria, Sweden, England and Japan, chiefly
from Austria and Sweden. It has opened twenty
branch presses in various cities of China. It is
managed on the co-operative plan, sharing profits
w:th its employees. The net profits are divided
into twenty parts. Five of these are distributed
among the employees, ten go to the shareholders,
three to the reserve fund, and two to the schools
of children of employees, to sick and injured em-
ployees and the widows and orphans of those who
have died. The net profits distributed in these
ways last year were $200,000 Mcx. It is grati-
fying to know, not only that the managers of this
great institution are Christian men, but that of the
three founders and present managers, one is the
THE PRINTED PAGE 249
son-in-law and the other two are sons of the first pu-
pil of the Presbyterian boarding school at Ningpo.
The head of every important department, except
one, is a Christian, and sixty per cent of the men
who are in responsible positions are Christians.
This Press now issues most of the text-books
used in the government schools and a large pro-
portion of the bank notes which are in circulation.
The variety of the literary work that has to be Reformed
done in China may be gathered from the follow- CLurck.
ing from the Reformed Church in America as
taken from their report of their Amoy Mission.
Varieties of books have to be made for the col-
loquial dialects.
"The work of Dr. Talmage In preparing his
dictionary has been described in another con-
nection above. The other members of the mis-
sion had a prominent share in the preparation of
the Bible in the Amoy Romanized Colloquial,
and in 1905 the preparation of an edition of the
New Testament with references was done almost
entirely by the members of our own mission.
A number of text-books, both in Chinese char-
acter and Amoy Romanized, have been pre-
pared by our missionaries. The number of
books in the Romanized Colloquial is now
more than fifty volumes, and more than half of
these were translated or written by our own
workers* Much more of this work would have
been done had not the pressure of other work
prevented. "
250
CHINA'S NEW DAY
Mission
Presses.
Sctoolboots.
Modern
Methods.
The most important mission press in China is
that of the Presbyterians at Shanghai which turns
out millions of pages annually. The Baptist
Publication Society circulates its literature n the
fields of all the Baptist missions in China and
sends books also to the Chinese scattered in many
countries. One tract written by a Chinese pastor
is definitely known to have been the means of the
conversion of several hundred persons. It is en-
titled, "The Truth Manifested." The Metho-
dists also have a mission press at Shanghai. No
church in China is doing more to furnish whole-
some literature for the people than the China
Inland Mission. The Methodist Church of Can-
ada is opening likewise a large work in the great
Province of Szechuan.
One of the greatest works in the line of litera-
ture that is now in progress is the production of
schoolbooks. The old primers mentioned in the
beginning of this chapter have served their day
and are now put aside forever. The Commercial
Press in Shanghai has young Chinese scholars,
educated in Christian schools, familiar with the
various series of schoolbooks used in America,
preparing similar series for use in the native
schools. Primers, with conversations and illus-
trations, like the modern primers now issued in
such an attractive variety by our great publishing
houses, together with graded readers up to the
sixth or higjher, prepared on the same scientific
plan as our own. The children study now just
THE PRINTED PAGE 251
as our children do, understanding the meaning
and significance of each character when they learn
it, and not having to wait until they have com-
mitted the whole book before they are taught
what it means. This is one of the triumphs of
mission work in China, the liberation of a
hundred million 01 more of children from the
shackles of the old rdgirae, and the teaching of
modern methods, liberating the memory and
developing the reason. Time would fail to tell
what has been done. Would that the American
people might realize that now is the time to in-
duce China to catch step with Europe. Why
cannot we show her that what made us will make
her the gospel of the Master?
Some one has said that the translation of the Work of
Bible into a language is like the running of a BrituKBitle
railway through undeveloped country. The first
Bible society to enter China was the British and
Foreign Bible Society, In 1810 it published a
Chinese translation of Acts by Morrison. Since
then it has translated many versions in Mandarin,
and in Wen-li in thirteen local dialects. The in-
crease in their circulation for the last decade,
5,200,908 copies, was more than the entire circu-
lation of the first eighty years.
In 1910 all previous records were broken when
in one half ,day 72,000 books left the depot.
During the- year 2,107 cases of Scriptures weigh-
ing 86J- tons have been dispatched. The total
of Bibles, Testaments and portions sold was
252 CHINA'S NEW DAY
1,508, 220, "given away 8,129. The amount con-
tributed in China as donations in support of the
Society's work was $5,503.80.
American Tne American Bible Society has broken all
Bifcle Society, records with a sale of 849,276, an increase of
forty per cent on the sales of 1909. If to this is
added the number of Chinese Bibles, Testaments
and portions sold by them not directly to the
Chinese but to other mission agencies we have a
total of 1,028,496, a gain of over one hundred
per cent.
TKe National This differs from the other great societies in
Bible Society putting out illustrated gospels and portions, con-
of Scotland, taining brief explanations of some puzzling terms
in addition to the Bible text. In this pioneer
work it has the backing of the missionaries. It
has circulated 1,358,384 Bibles, Testaments or
portions, a gain of 243,322.
China a Bible The combined sales of these three great agen-
Buying cies put China among the foremost Bible buying
Nation, nations of the earth. The vast total of sales from
the beginning of their work to the end of 1909 is
43,796,815 copies or portions of the Bible.
Pocket Testa- At the missionary conference in Shanghai in
meat League. 1907 a committee was appointed to promote Bible
study. Following the phenomenal success of the
Pocket Testament League in Korea, it was decided
at the close of the Chapman- Alexander meetings
in 1909 to push the work in China. *The Bible
societies published the Gospel of Mark in a special
edition with ornamental cover. This was sold
THE PRINTED PAGE 253
at a very low price. Thirty thousand copies
have been sold for this purpose.
ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS
" Three times has God in his providence given us an
opportunity in China to win the whole empire, but each
time the Christian Church has failed because of weak-
ness in the literary department. First; sixty years ago
the Taipings had more than a hundred million followers
but had no adequate literature to counteract the Old
Testament idea of the conquest of Canaan and therefore
failed.
"The second failure was twelve years ago when re-
formers, who believed in the Fatherhood of God and
the brotherhood of nations, though they had over a
million followers, in three years, failed for lack of ade-
quate Christian literature acting simultaneously on the
whole empire.
"The third failure was last year, when the great
founder of modern education in China asked a mission-
ary to provide text-books for the twenty universities of
China, but this opportunity could not be taken advan-
tage of because Christian missions had not a sufficient
number of literary men to accomplish the task. These
are among the great tragedies in Christian missions. 7 '
(Rev. Timothy Richard, D.D., at Edinburgh Confer-
ence.)
"Christianity is a reading religion. Strong and val-
iant books are in demand throughout Christendom.
The mental ongoing which is so characteristic of the
Christian peoples is through their conquering so many
books and taking to themselves something of their
mighty personality. China, the most literary of the
non-Christian nations, has no books to speak of, aside
from one library of one hundred and sixty-eight thou-
254 CHINA'S NEW DAY
sand volumes, and small libraries in the eighteen
provinces and little gatherings of books in the Bud-
dhist monasteries. But if Confucianism were as good
a patron of books as is Christianity in America there
would be in the Celestial Kingdom to-day more than
twenty-nine thousand libraries, each averaging eighty-
five hundred volumes.
" In the diffusion of literature the non-Christian faiths
. . . (may be compared with the Christian). . . . Not
until the Brahmans, the Buddhists, the Confucianists
and the Mohammedans of the world flood Christendom
annually with 381,166,106 pages of non-Christian litera-
ture will they do what the united mission presses are
now doing with Christian literature in non-Christian
lands. . . .
"To take up the comparative circulation of the Sacred
Books. Not until the erudite scholars of China send
forth Mencius and Confucius in four hundred and
twenty-six translations, and circulate them broadcast
throughout Africa and among the American aborigines
as well as among the white barbarians shall we believe
that their philosophy of life will prevail among all
nations." (Edward P. Tenney, "Contrasts in Social
Progress," p. 205.)
"The most important thing in China just now is that
the women be educated. " (Yuan Shi ki.)
QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY
1. Show how the need of translation of the best books
of the West into Chinese opens a new field for work.
2. Are the gifts for this necessarily the same as those
needed for the usual type of missionary work?
3. If you could translate into Chinese, what ten books
would you select first?
THE PRINTED PAGE 255
4. If you could translate one brief tract containing a
statement of Christian truth, what one would you
select ? What are the greatest tracts ever written?
5. Aside from religious literature what do you think
the greatest need in the way of reading matter on the
part of Chinese Christians?
6. What countries are the heaviest purchasers of the
Bible?
7. What is the relation of the colporteur to other
forms of missionary work?
8. What would it cost to supply a station with a
hundred Chinese Bibles and Testaments?
9. Describe the methods of Bible study in mission
schools.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The list of books that follows will be found valuable
for reference and should be put into public libraries. A
Committee from leading churches can secure this in
almost any town without difficulty. If study classes
desire any or all of the books they may be obtained
through the Central Committee on United Study of
Missions, West Medford, Mass.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
THE CHANGING CHINESE, Professor Ross (Century).
$2.40.
Of compelling interest.
CHANGING CHINA, Lord and Lady Cecil (Macmillan) .
$2.00.
Written by commissioner sent out to locate the
Oxford Mission.
THINGS CHiNESE,-Dyer Ball (Scribner's). $4.00.
A mine of information.
UNDER THE EMPRESS DOWAGER, Bland and Backhouse
(Lippincott) . $4.00.
An authoritative account.
Two YEARS IN THE FORBIDDEN CITY, Princess Der
Ling (Moffatt, Yard). $2.00.
A fascinating and reliable account of court life by
a lady in waiting.
THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN IN CHINA, Margaret Bur-
ton (Revell). $1.50.
The best book on the subject, indispensable'.
EDUCATIONAL CONQUEST OF THE FAR EAST, R. E. Lewis
(Revell). $1.00.
Not new, but valuable.
THE CHINA MISSION YEAR BOOK, 1910 and 1911. 2 vol.
(Christian Lit. Soc., Shanghai.)
Two exceedingly valuable handbooks.
NEW FORCES IN OLD CHINA, Arthur J. Brown (Revell).
An admirable survey of the situation.
MEDICAL MISSIONS : THEIR PLACE AND POWER, John
Lowe (Revell). $1.50.
CHINA AND AMERICA TO-DAY, Arthur H. Smith (Revell).
$1.25.
Stimulating and suggestive.
CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS, Arthur H. Smith (Revell).
$2.00.
Illustrated indispensable
258 BI&LIO GRAPHT
VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA, Arthur H. Smith (RevelH.
$2.00.
A sociological study invaluable.
CHINA IN CONVULSION, Arthur H. Smith (Revell). 2
vol. $5.00
A superb study of the Boxer uprising a -wealth of
illustrations, charts, maps, etc.
COURT LIFE IN CHINA, A. H. Headland (Revell).
An intimate picture of court life, finely illustrated.
THE REAL CHINAMAN, Chester Holcombe.
Full of human interest.
YANKEES OF THE EAST, W. E. Curtis.
OPPORTUNITIES IN THE PATH OF THE GREAT PHYSI-
CIAN, Valeria F. Penrose (Westminster Press) . $1.00.
Illustrated. Very readable account of Medical
Missions.
CHINA'S BOOK OF MARTYRS, Luella Miner (Westminster
, Press). $1.50.
Record of heroic martyrdoms in 1900.
A YANKEE ON THE YANGTZE, W. E. Geil (Armstrong).
. $2.00.
Very attractive book of travel, fine illustrations,
favorable to missions.
THE COMING CHINA, J. K. Goodrich (McClurg). $1.50.
Exceedingly interesting survey well illustrated.
DRUGGING A NATION, Samuel Merwin.
A history of the Chinese opium curse.
THE REVOLUTION OP CHINA, Arthur Judson Brown,
D.D., 212 pp., 24 illustrations, map or China. 75 cts.
A valuable reference book.
INDEX
Abeel, David, p. 119.
Acupuncture, p. 180.
Agriculture, Chinese, p. 141.
Allen, Dr. Young J., p. 13.
American Bible Society, p.
252.
American influence in Edu-
cation, pp. 15, 76, 100,
109, 113, 116, 124, 130,
132, 142, 172, 189, 240.
Anglo-Chinese College,
Shanghai, p. 72.
Battle of Assam, p. 2.
Baptist Missions, American,
pp. 119, 122, 148, 151.
Baptist Missions, English,
p. 121.
Bashford, Bi&hop, pp. 110.
153.
Bement, Dr. Lucy P., p.
194.
Bible in China, pp. 240, 249,
251-252.
Bible Women, pp. 153, 175.
Bixby, Josephine M., Hos-
pital, p. 186.
Black, Mary, Hospital, p.
193.
Boonc College, p. 127.
Boxer Uprising, pp. 21, 34,
125, 143, 171, 184, 247.
British and Foreign Bible
Society, p. 251.
Bryan, Col. W. J., Testi-
mony of, p. 146.
Brown, Dr. A. J., p. 31.
Bubonic Plague, p. 182.
Buddhism, pp. 139, 140, 141,
231-233.
Burton, Margaret, p. 131.
Cambridge University Mis-
sion, p. 126.
Canton Christian College,
pp. 126, 128.
Canton Hospital, pp. 188,
209.
Ceremony, Chinese love of,
p. 4.
Chang Chih-tung, p, 243.
Chengtu, Union Educational
Work Jn, p. 23.
Chesnut, Dr. Eleanor, p.
211. ,
Chicago University Mis-
sion, p. 126.
Chih-tung, Chang, p. 14.
China, Importance of, p. 43.
"China's Only Hope," pp.
13, 14, 243.
Chinese Christians, pp. 69,
73, 138, 142, 143, 144, 148.
Chinese family customs, pp.
56, 65, 66, 67, 75, 77, 81,
82, 86, 130.
Chinese language chang-
ing, p. 31.
Chinese, moral character of,
pp. 36, 37, 75, 76, 143, 246.
Chino-Japanese War, pp. 1,
35.
Chinese superstition, p. 79.
Chinese Women Physicians,
p. 198.
Chinese Classics, <Confu-
cian, p. 92.
Chinese Classic, One Thou-
sand Character, pp. 91,
223.
Church Union in America,
p. 123.
Classics for girls, pp. 47,
57, 90.
Christian Chinese Women,
pp. 3, 69, 73, 76, 78, 79,
83, 84, 148, 153, 168, 189.
Christianity, quality of Chi-
nese, pp. 69, 73, 83, 138,
143-148, 154, 164, 167-172,
174, 184.
Christian Union Effort, pp.
120, 148, 150, 207.
Christians (Disciples), Mis-
sion of, pp. 122, 149, 150.
Church of England Mis-
sions, pp. 120, 121.
(Coal deposits, p. 17.
Concubinage, pp 66, 85;
Confucius, pp, 76, 133, 138.
Confucianism, p. 140.
Conger, Mrs.* her services,
pp. 23 ; 54.
260
IND&X
Congregational ist Missions,
pp. 118, 120, 147, 152, 171,
194, 209.
Conservatism, p. 1.
Constitutional Commission,
pp. 25, 111.
Contrasts between Chinese
and Western customs, p.
37.
Denby, Col. Charles, testi-
mony of, p. 145.
Dennis, Rev. J. S., pp. 81,
83, 84.
Disease in China, pp. 178,
210.
Ding, Pastor, Chinese
Evangelist, pp. 162-163.
East China Union, p. 122.
East China Union Medical
College, p. 122.
Edicts of Kuang Hsu, pp.
15, 16, 17, 18, 35, 102, 104,
105.
Edict of Hsuan Tung, pp.
29, 30.
Education, classical system
of, pp. 89-95, 98, 99.
Education, classical system,
defects of, pp. 94, 96, 100.
Educational revolution, pp.
15, 26, 38, 72, 74, 77, 88,
102, 104, 105-109, 113, 124,
132.
Education of girls, pp. 46,
74, ' 76, 77, 110-112, 113,
117-121, 130, 135-137, 163,
206, 224.
Education, established by
Western universities, p.
125.
Emperor Kuang Hsii, pp.
7-12, 18, 19, 35, 101.
Empress Dowager, birthday
gift to, pp. 3-5; career or,
pp. 5-7, 59, 106; deposes
emperor, p. 19; issues
edicts, pp. 22, 25, 26, 40,
107; reactionary policy,
pp. 34, 40, 43, 106; cor-
ruption of her court, p. 37.
Eng, Dr. Hii King, pp. 198,
220.
England, aggressions of, p.
36.
Eunuchs in palace, pp. 7, 8,
37.
European politics, p. 13.
Evangelists, Chinese, pp.
148, 162.
Factors in making New
China, p. 1.
Feng Shua, pp. 17, 79, 96.
Fergusson, Rev. John C.,
p. 16.
Fisher, Isabelle, Hospital,
p. 205.
Foochow University, pp.
72, 123.
Foot-binding, pp 57, 58.
French Aggressions, p. 21.
Friends, Mission of, p. 122.
Fulton, Dr. Mary, of Can-
ton, pp. 188, 209.
Gamewell, Mary Porter, p.
209.
Generosity of Chinese
Christians, p. 144.
German Aggressions, pp.
20, 35, 102. *
Glass, Dr. Anna D., p. 207.
Goforth, Mr., of Canadian
Prcsbyteri&p Mission, p.
164.
Government universities
have missionary presi-
dents, p. 15,
Great Britain, opium treaty
of, p. 24.
Gregg, David, Hospital, p.
Ilackett Medical College,
pp. 188, 189.
Hankow Union Medical
College, p. 122.
Harvard, the Chinese, p.
125.
Hay, John, p. 104.
Hayes, Rev. W. M., pp. 15,
108.
Ilian, Aunt, p. 155.
INDEX
261
Hope and Wilhelmina Hos-
pitals, p. 191.
Hospitals, pp. 186-205.
Husbands, henpecked, p. 50.
Illustrative quotations, pp.
34, 75, 128, 166, 218, 248.
Immorality, Chinese, pp.
83,85.
Imperial Postal System, p.
32.
Industrial Conditions, p.
142.
Infanticide, p. 81.
Intellectual revolution, pp.
1, 13, 14, 15, 38, 62, 133.
Interdenominational effcort,
pp. 120-124.
Japan, pp. 2, 3, 35.
Japanese education, p. 124.
Japanese thoroughness, p.
183,
Jones, Rev. G. Ileber, p. 2.
Kahn, Dr. Ida, p. 201.
Kiaochiao, seized by Ger-
many, p. 20.
Kindergartens, pp. 150-153.
Korea, p. 2.
Kuang Hsu, pp. 7-21, 243.
Language, remarkable
changes in, p. 31.
Li Hung Chang, pp. 23, 35,
54.
Literature, Chinese, pp.
221-230.
Literature, Chinese venera-
tion for, pp. 221, 246.
London Missionary Society,
pp, 116, 121, 122.
Luke, Gospel of, p. 8.
Ma, General, story of, p. 52.
Macklin, Dr., of Nanking,
p. 211.
Manchus, p. 29.
Mancleville, Sir John, p.
236.
Martjln, Dr. W. A. P., pp.
15, 34, 105, 117.
Martyrdom of Chinese
Christians, pp. 143-144,
174, 184.
Mateer, C. W., p. 117.
Medical Missions, pp. 122-
126, 177-220.
Medicine, Chinese, pp. 179-
181.
Mencius, p. 143.
Methodist, Canadian, Mis-
sions, p. 122.
Methodist Episcopal Mis-
sions, pp. 120, 121, 122,
153, 154, 193, 205, 209.
Miner, Miss, o Peking, p.
118.
Mineral wealth of China, p.
17.
Mines, Board of, p. 17.
Mission Presses, p. 250.
Missionaries Medical, need
of, pp. 215-217.
Missionaries, win govern-
ment approbation, p. 33.
Missionaries, testimony to,
p. 145-146.
Mohammedan missions, pp.
237-238.
Mongol girls 7 school, pp.
111-1147
Municipal improvement, p.
33.
Nanking University, pp. 72,
122.
Nestorian Missions, p. 235.
Nevius, John L., p. 117.
New Testament sent to Em-
press, p. 3.
Newspapers, Chinese, p.
247.
North China College, Foo-
chow, p. 118.
Nursery rhymes, pp. 90, 91.
Nurses, Chinese, pp. 189,
190, 210.
Oberlin College, Mission
of, p. 126.
Opium problem, pp. 23, 24,
25, 39, 62, 63.
Opportunity, Supreme, in
China, p. 74.
Paoting-fu, Princeton Mis-
sion in, p. 126.
INDEX
Parker, Peter, medical mis-
sionary, p. 188.
Peking Gazette, pp. 98, 105.
Peking University, pp. 72,
102.
Persecution of Chinese
Christians, pp. 143, 174,
184.
Philosophy, Chinese, p. 228.
Physical suffering in China,
p. 178.
Plague, fighing the, p. 182.
Poetry, Chinese, pp. 225-
228.
Political Amnesty, p. 30.
Port Arthur, seized by
Russia, pp. 20, 35.
Postal Service, pp. 31, 32.
Presbyterian Missions, pp.
117, 121, 122, 208.
Presbyterian Missions, Ca-
nadian, p. 164.
Princeton College, Mission
of, p. 126.
Protestant Advance, pp.
166, 172, 239.
Protestant Episcopal Mis-
sions, pp. 120, 191, 192.
Provincial assemblies, p. 27.
Public school system inau-
gurated by missionary, p.
16.
Publishing houses, Chinese,
p. 247.
Questions in review, pp. 44,
87, 137, 175, 220, 254.
Railroads, Board of, p. 16;
expansion of, pp. 16 ? 33;
loans, p. 29.
Reformed Church Missions,
pp. 119, 155, 191, 249.
Reifsnyder, Dr., of Shang-
hai, p. 193.
Revivals, pp. 162-165, 167.
Revolution, Chinese, pp.
41, 42, 43, 54, 62, 211-214.
Richard, Rev. Timothy, pp.
13, 16, 244, 253.
Roman Catholic Missions,
" pp. 233-236.
Russian aggressions, pp. 20,
35, 102.
Sanitary conditions, pp.
178, 210.
Schools, missionary, p. 72.
Shanghai, p. 125.
Shansi University, p. 108.
Shantung Union, p. 121.
Single tax in China, p. 214.
Sleeper Davis Memorial
Hospital, p. 196.
Smith, Rev. A. H., pp. 75,
77, 118, 133.
Society for diffusion of
Christian knowledge, p.
243.
St. Elizabeth's Hospital, p.
192.
St. Luke's Hospital, p. 192.
St. John's University, pp.
72, 125, 131-132.
Stone, Dr. Mary, p. 200.
Student vevivals, pp. 162-
163,
Sunday schools, pp. 159-161.
Sun Yat Sen, p. 171.
Szechuan, opium reform in,
p. 25; rising in, p. , 29 ;
edu-cation in, p. 122.
Tang poetry, p. 226.
Taoism, pp. 139, 141.
Telegraph system, p. 33.
Teng Chou College, p. 132.
Tenney, Rev. C. D., pp. 15,
16, 109, 117, 254.
Translation of Bible, p. 251.
Translations of English
Works, pp. 190, 242-246.
Training schools for nurses,
pp. 191, 210.
Tsao, Lady, Chinese author,
p. 54.
Tuang Fang, p. 130.
Turner, Julia M., training
school, p. 189.
Union missionary activities,
pp. 120-127, 148, 150, 207,
Union Medical College for
women, p, 207.
Wang, Old Mother., pp. 73,
156.
INDEX
263
Wang, Dr., Chinese martyr,
p. 185.
Weihsien College, p. 121.
Wesleyan missions, p, 122.
Westwater, Dr. Macdonald,
p. 211.
Woman, a noble, her brave
deed, pp. 69, 114.
Woman's Board of Mis-
sions, p. 150.
Woman's position chang-
ing, pp. 62, 73, 76, 78, 83.
Women, Chinese, impor-
tance of, pp. 45, 76, 78,
80 ; education of, pp. 46,
47, 48, 112, 130, 131, 189 ;
edit newspaper, p. 48 ;
learned lady, p. 48 ; poets,
' pp. 49, 59, 225; position
in the home, pp. 53, 57.
65, 73, 76, 81, 189; admi-
ration of American home,
p. 55; artists, p. 59;
rulers, pp. 59, 60; demi-
monde, pp. 64, 83; the
slave girl, pp. 67, 69-71,
83; the concubine, pp. 66,
83, 85; the Bible woman,
pp. 153, JL75; the nurse,
p. 190 ; physical needs of,
pp. 186, 189, 219; the
physician, p. 198.
Woman's Union Missionary
Society, p. 193.
Yale University, the Chinese
mission of, p. 125.
Yuan Shi Ki, governor of
Shantung, pp. 16, 22, 77,
108.
Yu-wei, Kang, "the young
Confucius," p. 14.
Yu, Miss, Chinese evange-
list, p. 148.
1 36 524