Changing China

there is rapid change. The whole civilisation of this vast country of 400,000,000 is becoming fundamentally altered by the importation into it of ideas and thoughts which are not native to h

n Tientsin and Shanghai, who give but little thought to the problems before them, somewhat vaguely hope that in the near future China will become a European nation; but a little consideration must convince everybody that this is impossible. We

tra study will enable the educated Chinaman to learn all that is necessary of Western civilisation, and then those who have acquired this knowledge can return to China and teach their fellow-countrymen; and it is impossible to convince the Chinese that the uniting together of two different webs of thought is a matter of extreme difficulty, and, it may be added, of extreme risk. The pleasing dream that you can arbitrarily select the good points of West and East and weave them into one is the very reverse of the truth. What naturally happens is the very opposite. There is a tendency to preserve that which is bad and not that which is good in two different systems

friend from home, ignorant of life in a Chinese port, said in an appreciative way, "How nice it must be for your children to be able to speak Chinese; I suppose you encourage them to learn it?" The dweller in China turned on him in anger and said, "Thank God, my children do not know one word of Chinese; I would send them home to-morrow if I caught them learning a s

portrayed a true but curiously unpleasant picture of the characteristics of both races. The narrator has the courage of a lion; he is absolutely without any sense of honour. He fires at an adversary under the flag of truce. He misuses a Manchu woman who in the horrors of the sack throws herself on his mercy. He connives at the breaking of a solemnly pledged word of honour by a soldier. The character is not overdrawn;

cruelty; unless, indeed, the efforts of those who are now labouring to weave together that which is good in both civilisations are supported. The difficulty of preserving the good points and high qualities of Chinese thought is only equalled by the difficulty of introducing the splendid tradit

w, not only one individual but a fourth of the population of the world, to eat of a deadly poison which must deprive them of all happiness and of life, which must condemn them by millions to the mi

fail to be impressed, he must admit that these people have knowledge. Do not for a moment imagine that, after such an illumination, he will be able to go back to the works of Confucius and learn again the old maxims, many of which are antipathetic to Weste

d that China, who outnumbers them greatly, and who after years of education and training and of following faithfully his teaching, has failed? How is it, they will ask, that she is so powerless, that were it not for European jealousies she could not stand a day before the least warlike of these Western nations? The Confucian will answer, "He taught us to despise war, and that is why we are weak." The materialist will certainly retort, "So he has taught you to err." Confucianis

ings for themselves, I would only have asked them to think; but as there are many who have not had that opportunity, I would try and show them the transitional condition through which China is passing, the danger of that condition ending in disaster, a disaster wide as the world itself. I hope to show them what is being done at the present time t

e, their own race must be fit to lead them. They must have leaders who understand the whole of Western knowledge, and will be able to take what is true and leave what is false. A Japanese thinker said the other day, "Our people have made a great mistake-they have taken the false