An account of another audience, given at the time in the Chinese Times, since defunct, but then published at Tientsin, the nearest Treaty Port to Peking, gives a few details that are perhaps the more interesting from their contrast with the very careful account above quoted, obviously written by a gentleman connected with Diplomacy:

"When the procession reached the North Gate, leading into the garden near the Marble Bridge, the Ministers and others left their chairs and proceeded on foot to a kind of small pavilion, where a collation was served, and where the party waited an hour surrounded by mandarins and a crowd of roughs—chair-coolies (not those of the Legations, who had been left outside), workmen, gardeners, porters, and coolies—who peered in at the windows, and even allowed themselves to make digital examination of the uniforms and decorations of the Ministers. After a lapse of an hour the party were conducted into three tents erected at the foot of the steps of the Tze-kuang-ko, where, divided into three groups—Ministers, attachés, and interpreters—they remained half an hour. Then the Emperor arrived, and M. Von Brandt was the first to enter the presence, where he remained exactly five minutes, all ceremonies included. He was followed by the other Ministers in turn, the audience occupying barely five minutes for each. Then the suites of the Ministers entered, in three ranks. Three salvoes were given on entrance and three on retiring, backwards.

"The audience itself was conducted as follows: M. Von Brandt, the German Minister, delivered a very short speech in English, which M. Popoff, Russian, translated into Chinese; Prince Ch`ing repeated it, kneeling, in Manchu, at the foot of the throne. The Emperor said a few prepared words in reply, which were translated in the reverse order, and the Ministers retired. The Emperor was at a distance of seven or eight yards from the Europeans, raised on a dais with a table in front of him. Behind him stood the Pao-wang and the Ko-wang; at the foot of the dais Prince Ch`ing; and on either side soldiers with side arms. The hall was not a large one; the Europeans were placed near the centre, between two pillars. The rabble crowded up the steps of the Tze-kuang-ko, and no order was kept."

This crowding of the rabble is eminently Chinese, as also that no steps were taken to save the Representatives of the various countries of Europe from the impertinent and dirty hands of workmen and coolies. It is extraordinary to think of European diplomatists submitting to it. Of course they would not have done so, but for the mutual jealousies among themselves. It is this that always gives China her advantage. It is also remarkable that Herr von Brandt should have spoken in English, a fact ignored in German newspapers, although it must have been prearranged, and doubtless after much consideration. But the fact that all this assemblage of Ministers Plenipotentiary with attendant secretaries allowed a Chinese rabble thus to insult them in their official capacity will perhaps make intelligible in England, why our hearts often grow hot within us, while sojourning in China, and our cheeks sometimes burn with shame for our country, which we know to be so strong, and which allows itself at times to be so humiliated by a nation, that naturally becomes more arrogant, seeing itself allowed thus to act. I do not know who the writer of the following poem is; but he expresses my feelings with more calm and dignity than I could myself; therefore I hope he will not be displeased by my quoting it.

"SIC TRANSIT."

March 6th, 1897.

CHAPTER III.
SOLIDARITY, CO-OPERATION, AND IMPERIAL FEDERATION.

Possibly that state of society in which the individual is the unit is a more advanced form of civilisation; but it is impossible to understand China unless it be first realised that the individual life is nothing there, and that the family is the unit; and yet further, that no one stands alone in China, as is so painfully the case in England, but that every one is responsible for some one else, guaranteed by some one else. And here, to those who wish to read a really exact, circumstantial account of the Chinese and their ways, let me recommend John Chinaman, by the Rev. George Cockburn, quite the best book I have read on the subject, and one that deserves a wider circulation than it has attained, being written in terse, epigrammatic English, with a flavour of Tacitus about it. Alas! the writer is no more,—a silent, reserved, black-browed Scotchman, with a fervour of missionary zeal glowing under a most impassive exterior. The riot, in which all our own worldly goods in China were destroyed, wrecked for ever the nervous system of his strong, handsome, brave young wife. And what with that and the details of daily life, all laid upon the shoulders of a man by nature a student and a visionary, he left China, and soon after passed away beyond the veil, where, if we share the Chinese belief, let us trust his spirit is gladdened by words of appreciation of the one little volume in which he embodied the fruits of years of work and thought in China, dying, as far as I remember, almost as it appeared. The wreckage of missionary lives and hopes is one of the tragedies of European life in China, and one which a little more understanding and sympathy on the part of missionary boards at home might often, it would seem, avert.

But to return to the Chinese. If you engage a servant, he is secured by some one to a certain amount, and all you have to do is to ascertain whether the security is in a position to pay should the other decamp with your property, also whether a higher value is likely to be at his disposition. If yours is a well-arranged household, this head man engages the other servants and secures them, reprimanding and discharging them at his pleasure. He, of course, gets a certain amount of the wages you think you are paying them. This, in China, the land of it, is called a "squeeze." But it seems perfectly legitimate, as indeed all squeezes seem legitimate from the Chinese point of view, only sometimes carried to excess. It is the same in business. It is not quite the same in official positions, because there the Viceroy of a province pays so much to get his post, and so do the lesser officials under him. The theory in China is that superior men will always act as such, whatever their pay may be. Therefore a Chinese Viceroy of to-day receives theoretically the living wage of centuries ago. Practically he receives squeezes from every one with whom he is brought in contact, and has paid so much down to acquire the post that unless he holds it for a term of years he is out of pocket. The post of Taotai, or Governor of Shanghai, is one of the most lucrative in China. Tsai, who has made friends with all of us Europeans as no Taotai ever did before—dining out and giving dinner parties, and even balls—Tsai is known to have paid so much to obtain the post as would represent all he could hope to get in every way during two years of office: about £20,000. He was dismissed from his post November, 1898; but possibly may be able to bribe heavily enough to get it back. Li Hung-chang and his two particular dependants of former days, the late Viceroy of Szechuan, degraded because of the anti-foreign riots there, and Shêng, Chief of Telegraphs and Railways, etc., etc., have all done this again and again. When English people were laughing over Li's yellow jacket and peacock feather being taken from him, certain eunuchs of the Palace were growing rich over the process of getting them back again. The eunuch in the closest confidence of the Empress is always said to charge about £1,000 for an interview, and till lately none could be obtained but through him. When a man has enormous wealth, and is degraded, every one naturally feels it is a pity nothing should be got out of him, and he equally naturally is willing to pay much in order to be reinstated in a position to make more. Until the officials of China are properly paid, it is unreasonable to expect them to be honest. And yet some are so even now: not only Chang-chih-tung, the incorruptible Viceroy of Hupeh and Hunan, who, it may be noticed, is constantly being invited to Peking, but—never goes. But others in subordinate positions are pointed out by Chinese: "That is one of the good old school of Chinamen. He takes no bribes, and is the terror of the other officials."

In family life Chinese solidarity has its inconveniences, but it altogether prevents that painful spectacle to which people seem to have hardened their hearts in England, of sending their aged relatives to the workhouse instead of carefully tending them at home as the Chinese do, or of one brother or sister surrounded by every luxury, another haunted by the horror of creditors and with barely the necessaries of life. If you are to help your brother, you must, of course, claim a certain amount of authority over his way of life. In China the father does so; and when he dies, the elder brother sees after and orders his younger brother about; and the younger brother, as a rule, submits. In each of those large and beautiful homesteads in which Chinese live in the country, adding only an additional graceful roof-curve, another courtyard, as more sons bring home more young women to be wives in name, but in reality to be the servants-of-all-work of their mothers, and the mothers of their children—in each of these harmonious agglomerations of courtyards, it is the eldest man who directs the family councils. Thus, when a man dies, the deciding voice is for his eldest brother, not for his eldest son; than which probably no custom could tend more to conservatism, for there never comes a time when the voice of youth makes itself heard with authority.

Not only are all the members of a family thus knit together by mutual responsibilities, but families are again thus knit. It is the village elders who are responsible if any crime is committed in the district. It is they who have to discover and bring back stolen articles; it is they who have to quiet disturbances and settle disputes about boundaries. The principle of local self-government has in the course of centuries been perfected in China, where all that Mr. Ruskin aims at appears to have been attained centuries ago: village industries, local self-government, no railways, no machinery, hand labour, and each village, as far as possible each self-sufficing family, growing its own silk or cotton, weaving at home its own cloth, eating its own rice and beans, and Indian corn and pork. Schools are established by little collections of families, or tutors engaged, as the case may be. In either case the teacher is poorly paid, but meets with a respect altogether out of proportion to his salary. It is all very ideal; but the result is not perfect, human nature being what it is. In many ways, however, it appears a much happier system than our English system, and perhaps in consequence the people of China appear very contented. As a rule in the country each family tills its own bit of ground, and—where opium has not spread its poisonous influence—has held the same for centuries. The family tree is well known, and Chinese will tell you quietly "We are Cantonese," or "We are from Hunan," and only careful inquiry will elicit that their branch of the family came thence some three centuries ago.

In the towns the guilds represent family life on a larger scale. A man comes from Kiangsi, let us say, to Chungking, over a thousand miles away, and having probably spent months on the journey. He has brought no letters of introduction, but he straightway goes to the guild-house of his province, with its particularly beautiful green-tiled pagoda overlooking the river, a pale-pink lantern hanging from the upturned end of each delightful roof-curve, and there, making due reverence, he relates how he is So-and-so, the son of So-and-so, and straightway every one there knows all about him, and can easily ascertain if his story be correct. Here are friends found for him at once, a free employment agency, if that is what he is after, or a bureau of information about the various businesses of the city, their solvency and the like. Here is a lovely club-house, where he can dine or be dined, have private and confidential conversations in retired nooks, or sit with all the men of his province sipping tea and eating cakes, while a play is performed before them by their own special troupe of actors, who act after the manner of their province. I do not know who first started the legend that Chinese plays last for days, if not weeks. But it is not true, any more than that green tea is rendered green by being fired in copper pans and is poison to the nerves. Tea is green by nature, though it may be rendered black by fermentation, and is always fired in iron pans; and weak green tea as drunk in China is like balm to the nerves compared to Indian tannin-strong decoctions. In like manner Chinese plays are really short, though they make up in noise for what they lack in length.

But probably the custom that has the greatest effect upon Chinese life is that, just as twelve centuries ago they introduced competitive examinations, to which we have now in our nineteenth century of Christianity turned as to a sheet-anchor, so centuries ago the Chinese resorted to the principle of co-operation. In a Chinese business, be it large or be it small, pretty well every man in the business has his share; so that you are sometimes astonished when a merchant introduces to you as his partners a set of young men, who in England would be junior clerks. Even the coolie wrappering the tea-boxes says "We are doing well this year," and works with a will through the night, knowing he too will have his portion in the increased business this increased work signifies. The way, indeed, in which Chinese work through the night is most remarkable. Men will row a boat day and night for four or five days, knowing that the sum of money gained will thus be quicker earned, and only pausing one at a time to take a whiff at a pipe or to eat. They will press wool all through the night to oblige their employer without a murmur, if only given free meals whilst doing this additional work. The truth is, the habit of industry has been so engendered in Chinese as to be second nature, their whole system tending to encourage it, whilst ours, with our free poor-houses and licensed public-houses, tends rather in the other direction; our Trades Unions seem trying all they can to further diminish the incentives to good work on the part of skilled workmen by denying them any higher wage than that obtained by the incompetent. Co-operation after the Chinese model will, it is to be hoped, eventually put this right again. There is so much we might learn from the Chinese; but we have never followed the system we press upon Oriental nations, of sending out clever young students to other countries to see what they can learn that would be advantageous among our own people. In some ways China would serve as a warning. But a civilisation, that reached its acme while William the Norman was conquering England, and that yet survives intact, must surely have many a lesson to teach.

Besides all this mutual support and responsibility, Chinese customs are such that, as people often say somewhat sadly, you cannot alter one without altering all. The people here referred to are not the twenty-years-in-China-and-not-speak-a-word-of-the-language men, but Europeans who have tried to study the Chinese sympathetically. As it is, if you were to alter their houses and make them less draughty and damp, then all their clothing must be altered. That is again the case if you try to encourage them to play cricket—for which there is no sufficient level space in the west of China—or take part in other sports. But if you were to attempt to alter their clothing before you had rebuilt their houses, they would all be dying of dysentery or fever. In like manner, if you attempted to dragoon the Chinese into greater cleanliness, or into taking certain sanitary precautions, you would require a police force, which does not exist. But how to obtain that until you have got this self-respecting, self-governing people to see any advantage in being dragooned?

The solidarity of the Chinese race is one of the reasons it has lasted so long upon the earth, and its civilisation remained the same. It is twenty-one centuries since the Emperor Tze Hoang-ti said "Good government is impossible under a multiplicity of masters," and did away with the feudal system. It is twelve centuries since the Chinese found out what Burns only taught us the other day, that "A man's a man for a' that," and, giving up the idea of rank, began to fill posts by competitive examinations. Another of their most remarkable methods we shall probably copy whenever we begin seriously to consider Imperial Federation. They never send any man to be an official in his own province. Thus we should have Canadian officials in places of trust here or in Australia, and Australians in England or Canada. And to each province in China so many Government posts, civil and military, are assigned. If England had followed this method, there might be the United States of England now instead of America, for no system is better calculated to knit closely together the outlying regions of a great empire, than that in accordance with which every official in turn has to be examined as to his qualifications for office at the capital, and to return there to pay his respects to his sovereign before entering upon each new office.

The contemplation of China is discouraging: to think it got so far so long ago, and yet has got no farther! The Emperor Hoang-ti, who lived 200 B.C., may be supposed to have foreseen the deadening effect that government by literary men has upon a nation, for he burnt all their books except those that treat of practical arts. He was even as advanced as Mr Auberon Herbert, and warned rulers against the multiplication of unnecessary laws. Laotze, China's greatest sage, although too spiritually-minded a man to have gained such a following as was afterwards obtained by Confucius, again insists that the spiritual weapons of this world cannot be formed by laws and regulations: "Prohibitory enactments, and too constant intermeddling in political and social matters, merely produce the evils they are intended to avert. The ruler is above all things to practise wu-wei, or inaction."

The Chinese, it seems, experimented in socialism eight centuries ago. The Emperor Chin-tsung II., at a very early age, and led thereto by Wu-gan-chi, the compiler of a vast encyclopædia, conceived the idea that "the State should take the entire management of commerce, industry, and agriculture into its own hands, with the view of succouring the working classes and preventing their being ground to the dust by the rich." To quote again from W. D. Babington's Fallacies of Race Theories: "The poor were to be exempt from taxation, land was to be assigned to them, and seed-corn provided. Every one was to have a sufficiency; there were to be no poor and no over-rich. The literati in vain resisted the innovations, the fallacy of which they demonstrated from their standpoint. The specious arguments of the would-be reformer convinced the young Emperor and gained the favour of the people. Wu-gan-chi triumphed. The vast province of Shensi was chosen as the theatre for the display of the great social experiment that was to regenerate mankind. The result was failure, complete and disastrous. The people, neither driven by want nor incited by the hope of gain, ceased to labour; and the province was soon in a fair way to become a desert." Mencius, Confucius' greatest follower, taught that "the people are the most important element in the country, and the ruler is the least." Mencius openly said that if a ruler did not rule for his people's good it was a duty to resist his authority and depose him.

Whilst other nations have vaguely asked Quis custodiet custodes? the Chinese invented the College of Censors and the Tribunal of History, both selected from their most distinguished scholars. It is the duty of Censors to remonstrate with the Emperor when necessary, as well as to report to the College, or to the Emperor himself, any breach of propriety in courts of justice or elsewhere. They have no especial office but to notice the doings of other officials. The Tribunal of History is busy recording the events of each Emperor's reign; but no Emperor has ever seen what is written about him, nor is any history published till the dynasty of which it treats is at an end. Chinese history is full of examples of the courage and adherence to truth with which the members of this tribunal have been inspired.

It is all so beautiful in description, one sighs in thinking it over. But it must be remembered that it was yet more beautiful, startlingly beautiful, at the period of the world's history when it was all originated, and that to this day the Chinese peasant enjoys a degree of liberty and immunity from Government interference unknown on the Continent of Europe. There is no passport system; he can travel where he pleases; he can form and join any kind of association; his Press was free till the Empress Tze Hsi, probably inspired by Russian influence, issued her edict against it in 1898; his right of public meeting and free speech are still unquestioned. Public readers and trained orators travel about the country instructing the people. The system of appealing to the people by placarding the walls has been very far developed in China. There is there complete liberty of conscience. And at the same time, as all people who know China will testify, the moral conscience of the people is so educated that an appeal to it never falls flat, as it often would in England. Try to stop two men fighting, saying it is wrong to fight, and you will hear no one say in China, "Oh, let them fight it out!" Appeal to the teaching of Confucius, and every Chinaman will treat you with respect, and at least try to appear guided by it. How far in Europe would this be the case with a citation from the Bible?

The system of education, the crippling of the women by footbinding, and consequent enfeebling of the race, together with the subsequent resort to opium-smoking, are the three apparent evil influences that spoil what otherwise seems so ideal a system of civilisation. Possibly we should add to this, that the system of Confucius—China's great teacher—is merely a system of ethics, and that thus for generations the cultured portion of the nation has tried to do without a religion, although falling back upon Taoism and Buddhism to meet the needs of the human heart. That any civilisation should have lasted so long without a living religion is surprising. But Buddhism has evidently had an enormous influence upon China, though its temples are crumbling now, its priests rarely knowing even its first elements. The good that it could do for China it has done. And now another influence is needed.

On February 12th, 1896, a newspaper correspondent wrote from Peking: "The Reform Club established a few months ago, which gave such promise of good things to come, and which has been referred to frequently in the public prints in China, has burst. It has been denounced by one of the Censors, and the Society has collapsed at once. The Club has been searched, the members, some fifty or more Hanlin scholars, have absconded, and the printers have been imprisoned. Such is the end, for the present at least, of what promised to be the awakening of China. It was initiated and supported largely at least by three well-known foreigners, two of them well-known missionaries, and it met with much support and encouragement from all classes. Its little Gazette was latterly enlarged and its name changed. One or more translators were engaged to translate the best articles from the English newspapers and magazines, of which some two dozen or more were ordered for the Club. The members contributed liberally, we understand, towards its expenses; and if ever there was hope of new life being instilled into the old dry bones of China, it was certainly confidently looked for from this young, healthy, and vigorous Society. It has been conducted, we believe, with great ability; differences among the leaders have cropped up, but after discussions the affairs of the Club have each time been placed on a more secure and lasting basis. Foreign dinners at a native hotel have been part of the programme; and this element is not to be despised by any means. The Chinese transact nearly all their important business at the tea-shops and restaurants, and certainly a good dinner and a glass of champagne help wonderfully to smooth matters. We regret exceedingly the decease of the Reform Club."

People in general laughed about it a little. There had before been the short statement: "A Censor has impeached the new Hanlin Reform Club, and it has been closed by Imperial rescript."

Thomas Huxley once wrote that "with wisdom and uprightness even a small nation might make its way worthily; no sight in the world is more saddening and revolting than is offered by men sunk in ignorance of everything except what other men have written, and seemingly devoid of moral belief and guidance, yet with their sense of literary beauty so keen and their power of expression so cultivated that they mistake their own caterwauling for the music of the spheres."

It was in this strain Europeans in the East meditated. But on returning to China in the autumn of 1897, I found in Shanghai evidences of progress and reform on all sides. A Chinese newspaper, generally spoken of in English as Chinese Progress, was being issued regularly, and newspapers edited by friends of its editor were coming out in Hunan and even in far-away Szechuan. The Chinese "Do-not-bind-feet" Society of Canton had opened an office in one of the principal streets of Shanghai, and was memorialising Viceroys, as also the Superintendents of Northern and Southern trade. Directly on arrival I received an invitation to a public dinner in the name of ten Chinese ladies, of whom I had never heard before. It was to be in the large dining-hall in a Chinese garden in the Bubbling Well Road, the fashionable drive of Shanghai, and by degrees I found all my most intimate friends were invited. We agreed with one another to go, though wondering a good deal what the real meaning of the invitation was, and why we were selected. The hall is a very large one, sometimes used for big balls, with rooms opening off it on either side; and after the English ladies had laid aside their wraps in a room to the right—one or two Chinese gentlemen, who had evidently been superintending the arrangement of the dinner, encouraging them to do so—we asked where our Chinese hostesses were. They were already assembled in the rooms opening off the hall to the left, and I still remember the expression of intense anxiety on the Chinese gentlemen's faces as they saw us leave them and advance to join their womenkind, none of whom spoke any English, nor knew anything of English ways and manners. At first the Chinese ladies did not exactly receive us; but when we began to go round and bow to each lady in turn, after the Chinese fashion, one after another stood up and smilingly greeted us. Then those of us who could talked Chinese, and one or two of the Chinese ladies began to move about, exhibiting the ground-plan of a proposed school for the higher education of Chinese young ladies. And thus gradually we began to understand what it was all about. But on that occasion it was the English ladies who were frivolous, the Chinese who were serious. For they were so elaborately dressed, so covered with ornaments, English ladies were always breaking off and saying, "Oh, do allow me to admire that bracelet!" or "What lovely embroidery!" whilst the Chinese ladies very earnestly pointed at their ground-plan, and looked interrogations. It gradually came out that it was the Manager of the Telegraph Company and his friends who were bent upon starting this school; that this being a new departure they thought it well for the ladies interested to confer with the ladies of other nations accustomed to education; and that, considering who was likely to be helpful, they had asked a few missionary ladies, and all the officers and committee of the T`ien Tsu Hui ("Natural Feet Society"), thinking that the foreign ladies, who had started that, must be interested in helping Chinese women.

Presently we were summoned to dinner by an intimation, "Chinese ladies to the left, foreign ladies to the right!" "Because of the fire," was added sotto voce, for Chinese, in their often triple furs, have naturally a horror of fires; but we refused to be thus summarily separated, as we sat down about two hundred women to a dinner served in the foreign style, with champagne, etc., and were rather alarmed to find our hostesses allowing their little children to drink as freely of champagne as of their own light Chinese wines.

That dinner was the beginning of an interchange of civilities between foreign and Chinese ladies such as had never occurred before. The daughter of Kang, commonly called the Modern Sage, after the title given to Confucius, was naturally one of these ladies. She wore Manchu dress, which puzzled us, as she is Cantonese. Her father had never allowed her feet to be bound, and she had herself written an article against binding, which had appeared in a Chinese newspaper; thus she, like several other Chinese ladies, considered the dress of the Manchus, who never bind feet, the most convenient. The relations of Mr. Liang, editor of Chinese Progress, were also present. At the subsequent meetings some of the Chinese ladies pleaded earnestly that Europeans should take shares in the school. They did not want their money, they said, but feared that unless there were European shareholders their Government might seize all the funds. The European ladies, however, could never quite satisfy themselves as to the various guarantees necessary. There were, indeed, many difficulties about starting this new school, as may be seen by the following letter, written by two Chinese lady doctors, who had been asked in the first instance to undertake its management. They had been educated in America, where they had passed all the necessary examinations very brilliantly; and it was the idea of the lustre they had thus conferred upon their own nation in a foreign land, that had first led a wealthy ship-owner, running steamers on the Poyang Lake, to conceive the idea of a school for girls. It had been warmly taken up by the late tutor of the ladies of the Imperial Household, who had been dismissed from his post because of his radical notions, and was thus free to devote himself to advancing education generally. The Manager of the Telegraph Company then became the leader, and the prospectus of the school was published in the North China Herald, with the names of the two Chinese lady doctors as its managers. On which they wrote the following letter to the editor, which, as I afterwards ascertained, was bonâ fide written by themselves, not at foreign instigation. They even refused to accept any corrections, saying if they wrote it at all it must be their own letter. It is so striking as the composition of Chinese women, that I am sure I shall be pardoned for giving it in extenso.

"Sir,—In your issue of December 24th appeared a translation of the prospectus of a school in Shanghai for Chinese girls; and since our names were given to the public as would-be teachers, we hope you will permit a word of much-needed explanation. If you, Mr. Editor, give such welcome to this sign of progress as is expressed in your editorial, then much more should those of our own people, who may be prepared to appreciate its possibilities. Yet the joy might not be without alloy.

"Several months ago the prospectus was brought to us as yet in an unfinished state, and parts of the first and last clauses referring to the establishment of Confucianism did not appear. Had these been there, we should not have allowed our names to go down as teachers. In making this statement, we realise that we only escape the charge of 'narrow-mindness' by the fact that we decidedly are not foreigners. We love our native China too much to fail to realise the truth in your admission 'that a slavish adherence to Confucianism alone has done far too much to limit and confine the Chinese mind for centuries,' and it is because we are not hopeful of the result 'when reverence for Confucianism is to be combined with the study of Western languages and sciences' that we cannot lend ourselves to the project as it seems to be drifting. It was with the express understanding that there should be entire religious liberty, that we consented to take up this work, and religious liberty would admit all who found moral and spiritual support in Confucianism to avail themselves of it. The tablets, that Confucianism cherished, might be set up by its supporters near the school, but not in the grounds: as might Christian churches be opened, if friends were found to build them. Such a course would conserve liberty of conscience.

"Now, according to the prospectus published in that very excellent Chinese journal The Progress, twice a year sacrifices are to be made in this school to posthumous tablets of Confucius and such worthy patrons of the school as may be honoured by a place in its pantheon. Had the statement been made that twice a year days would be set apart as memorial days to these distinguished personages, upon which occasions their lives should be reviewed to us in a manner to inspire young girls by their examples, no one would join more heartily in paying honour to their memory than ourselves. But the idea of sacrifice to human beings seems too blind in the light of this nineteenth century for any participation on our part. We have seen other countries, and learned of the sages of other lands; and although it may be only because of prejudice, yet we can truly say that we honour none as we do our own Confucius. But honour to the best of human beings is not unmixed blessing when it creates an idol and holds the eyes of the devotees down to earth. We do not think it the sentiment that will make the education of women successful or even safe. The educational institutions for women during the time of the Three Dynasties were not of the excellent things that Confucius sought to reestablish. Had he done so, how could he have uttered such words as these?—'Of all people girls and servants are the most difficult to behave to. If you are familiar to them, they lose their humility. If you maintain your reserve, they are discontented' (see Legge's Classics). Alas that we have no record that the Master ever turned his attention to a remedy for such a sad state of affairs!

"One there was who never spoke in disparaging tone to or of women. Only His sustaining counsel could give us courage to start out upon the pathway, slippery as it must needs be in the present stage of China's civilisation, along which educated women must needs pick their way. We do not feel that we should be doing our country-women best service in starting them out with only a Confucian outfit.

"This prospectus is, no doubt, intended to be a working-plan that will carry the co-operation of the largest number. We realise it is easier to see its inconsistencies than to unite opposing factions. Doubtless it embraces a truly progressive element in the land which has compromised under the proposed cult. The articles at first brought to us contained two sections aimed against concubinage and girl-slavery. When we reflect upon these destroyers that have fixed upon the vitals of Chinese home life, and then read the substitution of the words referring to Shanghai girls, 'especially in the Settlements,' Mencius' words recur to us (see Legge's Classics): 'Here is a man whose fourth finger is bent and cannot be stretched out straight.... If there be any one who can make it straight, he will not think the way from Tsin to Ts`oo far to go.... When a man's finger is not like that of other people, he knows he feels dissatisfied; but if his mind differs, he feels no dissatisfaction. This is called "Ignorance of the relative importance of things!"' We fear the day of our Chinese deliverance is not quite at hand.

"The Spirit that can mould the hearts of men has been abroad and wrought in the hearts of many, or they would not so ardently desire something progressive; but we regret to see it quenched even in a reviving flood of Confucianism. Let us intreat you, friends of China's progress, to lend your influence to the leaders of our people, that they strive not to bottle the new wine (spirit) of progress in old bottles, 'else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish.'

"Mary Stone, of Hupeh,
"Ida Kahn, of Kiangsi.

"Kiukiang, December 27th, 1897."

Somehow, however, all difficulties were surmounted, and in June, 1898, I had the pleasure of writing the following account of the first high school for girls opened in China:

"Turning off to the left from the long green avenue but a few minutes before arriving at the Arsenal, the visitor comes upon the pretty conglomeration of buildings in which the much-talked-of Chinese young ladies' school has now actually been opened. There are the usual Chinese courtyards, with somewhat more than the usual fantastic Chinese decoration, ornamental tiles making open screens rather than walls, through which the wind can blow freely, yet at the same time giving a feeling of privacy; as also writhing dragons and birds and beasts. It is quite Chinese, and very pretty and æsthetic. But the windows are foreign, and there is no house in the European settlement more airy, nor perhaps so clean.

"But the matter of interest is not the building, nor the furniture, but the teachers and the taught. There they stood, the sixteen young girls, who are the first promise of the regeneration of China; and judged as young girls they certainly promised remarkably well. It is natural to suppose that several of them are the children of parents of more than ordinary enlightenment. But whether they are or not, they certainly looked it. Their manners were naturally very superior to those of the girls one is accustomed to see in Chinese schools. They were readier to laugh and see a joke. But if some of those girls do not decidedly distinguish themselves in the years to come, it will be the fault of their instructors, or I am no physiognomist. They were busy with reading-books, and the teacher, a nice quiet-looking Chinese woman, had not the least idea of showing them off, so it was hard to test them. She said she could not say yet herself which were the brightest girls. Several had natural feet, and most of the others were eager to state they had "let out" their feet. None were the least smartly dressed, but several had very well-dressed hair, and were very neatly shod. One girl had the Manchu shoe without that objectionable heel in the middle, that must make walking on it like walking upon stilts.

"The bedrooms were all upstairs, four girls in a room, and nothing could have looked cleaner and neater than the arrangements: white mosquito curtains round the bed, a box under each for the girl's clothes, a stool for her to sit upon; one shining wardrobe amongst the four; a washstand with rail at the back on which to hang towels, and a looking-glass in the centre. The teachers had rooms to themselves. The teacher of sewing was upstairs, with only too exquisitely fine work all ready to spoil the poor girls' eyes and exercise their patience. There was another lady, who has been teaching drawing in the Imperial Palace, painting for the Empress there. Whether she is only on a visit to recover her health, or is now teaching drawing in this school—they have a drawing mistress—I did not quite make out. But she is the sort of woman whom one seems to know, by her clever, thoughtful, extremely observant face, before ever speaking to her; and when I found she was from Yunnan, we sat and chatted about 'Mount Omi and Beyond' in quite a friendly way. One of Miss Heygood's Chinese pupils is to come in on Monday and begin teaching English, as they think a Chinese teacher will do for a beginning. Probably she will understand Chinese difficulties better than any of us could. But it is a question whether her pronunciation can be quite satisfactory.

"A good deal of the furniture was foreign, and it seemed to be all foreign in the long reception-room, to be eventually used as a class-room, where on Wednesday, June 1st, a large company of foreign ladies sat down to a most excellent Chinese dinner, with knives and forks for those who wanted, and champagne served freely. The two previous days gentlemen had been received, and June 2nd was to be exclusively for Chinese ladies. One of the daughters of Mr. King, Manager of the Telegraphs, presided at one end of the table at which I was, and his daughter-in-law sat at the other end. There was another table in an adjoining room. Mrs. Shen Tun-ho and Mrs. King Lien-shan had cards printed in English with 'Chinese Girl School Committee' in the corner. Mrs. Mei Shen-in had on hers, 'Native Director of Chinese Female School.'

"It is difficult for ladies to decide what guarantee is obtainable that any money they may contribute will be well used, and not diverted from the purpose for which it is intended. But if some of the active business men of Shanghai can make the necessary inquiries on these heads, certainly what was to be seen on June 1st sufficiently spoke for the great energy and care displayed by the Ladies' Committee, and Mr. King, who is understood to be the prime mover in the matter. Every detail seemed to have been well seen after. Even baths and a bath-room are provided. Each girl is only to pay six shillings a month; and this being so, it is not to be wondered at that already another house is being secured, and there are promises of sufficient girl pupils already to fill it. There is also talk of opening another girls' school."

And now in 1899 I hear that already a third school for girls has been started by Mr. King, whose energy in the matter is the more to be admired when it is considered that he is so deaf all communication with him has to be carried on in writing. But, alas for China! Mr. Timothy Richard, the inspiring secretary of the Society for the Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge, has had to take over the schools and put in a European manager, to save them from the Empress Tze Hsi's grasping fingers.