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Title: Changing China
Author: Gascoyne-Cecil, William, Gascoyne-Cecil, Florence
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Changing China" ***
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[Frontispiece: Railway Map of China]
CHANGING CHINA
BY THE REV.
LORD WILLIAM GASCOYNE-CECIL
ASSISTED BY
LADY FLORENCE CECIL
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1912
{iii}
PREFACE
Our interest in China was first aroused by a letter from an old
school-fellow, Arthur Polhill, who, with heroic self-denial, has spent
the best part of his life in China as a missionary. Subsequently I
joined the China Emergency Committee, who in 1907 invited us to go out
to the Shanghai Centenary Conference. That visit led naturally to a
tour in China, Korea, and Japan. When we returned we found that great
interest was being felt at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge in
the movement in the Far East; a Committee was formed to study the whole
question, which accepted provisionally the idea of encouraging the
foundation of a Western University. Before finally accepting the idea
it was felt that some one ought to go to the mission centres of China
and find out the opinions of the missionaries working on the field, and
at the same time sound the Chinese Government and see whether it would
be favourable to the scheme. As a result of these deliberations, the
Committee asked us in 1909 to go out again, this time on behalf of the
United Universities Scheme. On our return it was suggested that if we
put our report into the form of a book it might possibly excite
interest in the whole question, especially in the University scheme.
We were deeply impressed with two great facts--the greatness of the
need of Western education from a Christian standpoint and the vital
importance of immediate action.
{iv}
Not only did we seek information from English and American but also
from French and Italian missions as occasion offered. We tested and
compared this information by the information we got from that most
enlightened and able body of men who form the consular body in China.
We are especially grateful to Sir John Jordan, by whose great
diplomatic skill both the position of England and the goodwill of the
Chinese are maintained.
It would be impossible even to record the names of all with whom we
conversed, but our thanks are especially due to the following friends,
not only for their generous hospitality, but also for the patient and
kind way in which they instructed us in the many difficult aspects of
the Chinese problem:--
Sir John and Lady Jordan, British Legation, Peking. H.E. the late
Chang-Chih-Tung. H.E. the late Prince Ito. H.E. Tong-Shao-Yi. H.E.
Tuan-Fang. H.E. Liang-Ten-Sen. Sir Robert Hart. Sir Walter and Lady
Hillier. Sir Robert and Lady Breedon. Dr. Aspland of Peking. Dr. and
Mrs. Avison of Seoul. Dr. and Mrs. Baird of Pyeng-Yang. Bishop and
Mrs. Bashford of Peking. Mr. Blair of Pyeng-Yang. M. et Mme.
Boissonnas, French Legation, Peking. Mr. Bondfield of Shanghai. Miss
Bonnell of Shanghai. Mr. and Mrs. Bonsey of Hankow. Dr. and Mrs.
Booth of Hankow. Miss Brierley of Wuchang. Bishop Cassels of West
China. Mr. U. K. Cheng of Nanking. Dr. and Mrs. Christie of Mukden.
Mr. Chun Bing-Hun of Shanghai. Mr. and Mrs. Clarke of Newchwang. Dr.
Cochrane of Peking. Consul-General and Mrs. Cockburn, late of Seoul.
Miss Corbett of Peking. Mr. Deans of Ichang. Mr. and Mrs. Deeming of
Han-Yang. Dr. Du Bose of Soochow. Mr. Ede of Shanghai. Mr. and Mrs.
Arnold Foster of Wuchang. Consul-General and Mrs. Fraser of Hankow.
Mr. and Mrs. Gage of Changsha. Dr. and Mrs. Gibb of Peking. Dr. and
Mrs. Gillieson of Hankow. Dr. Glenton of Wuchang. Bishop and Mrs.
Graves of Jessfield, Shanghai. Dr. and {v} Mrs. Hawks Pott of
Jessfield, Shanghai. Consul and Mrs. Hewlett of Changsha. Mr.
Hollander of Hankow. Mr. and Mrs. Hoste of the C.I.M. Dr. Huntley of
Han-Yang. Mr. and Mrs. Jackson of Wuchang. Monseigneur Jarlin,
Pe-T'ang, Peking. Dr. Griffith John of Hankow. Miss Joynt of
Hangchow. The late Miss Keane of Shanghai. Dr. and Mrs. Keller of
Changsha. Consul and Mrs. King of Nanking. Dr. and Mrs. Lavington
Hart of Tientsin. Mr. M. T. Liang of Mukden. Mr. and Mrs. Littell of
Hankow. Dr. and Mrs. Lowry of Peking. Mr. and Mrs. MacIntosh of
Tientsin. Dr. and Mrs. Macklin of Nanking. Dr. Macleod of Shanghai.
Dr. and Mrs. Main of Hangchow. Consul-General and Miss Mansfield, late
of Canton. Dr. Martin of Peking. Mr. and Mrs. Meigs of Nanking. Miss
Miner of Peking. Archdeacon and Mrs. Moule of Ningpo. Mr.
Mun-Yew-Chung of Shanghai. Dr. and Mrs. Murray of Peking. Mr. Norris
of Peking. Mr. Oberg of Shanghai. Miss Phelps of Hankow. Mr. Arthur
Polhill of the C.I.M. Miss Porter of Peking. Bishop Price of Fukien.
Deaconess Ransome of Peking. M. et Mme. Ratard, French Consulate,
Shanghai. Mr. Ready of Changsha. Dr. and Mrs. Gilbert Reid of
Shanghai. Dr. Timothy Richard of Shanghai. Mr. and Mrs. Ricketts of
Shan-hai-kwan. Mr. and Mrs. Ridgley of Wuchang. Bishop and Mrs. Roots
of Hankow. Dr. and Mrs. Ross of Mukden. Miss Russell of Peking.
Bishop Scott of North China. Mrs. Scranton of Seoul. Mr. and Mrs.
Sedgwick of Tientsin. Mr. Shen-Tun-Lo of Shanghai. Mr. and Mrs.
Sherman of Hankow. Mr. and Mrs. Smalley of Shanghai. Mr. and Mrs.
Sparham of Hankow. Mr. Sprent of Newchwang. Mr. Squire of Ichang. Mr
and Mrs. Stockman of Ichang. Mr. and Mrs. Symons of Shanghai. Taotai
J. C. Tong of Shanghai. Taotai S. T. Tsêng of Nanking. Mr. James
Tsong of Wuchang. Mr. and Mrs. Turley of Mukden. Bishop Turner of
Korea. Mr. and Mrs. Upward of Hankow. Dean and Mrs. Walker of
Shanghai. Miss Wambold of Seoul. Consul-General Sir Pelham and Miss
Warren of Shanghai. Mr. Warren of Changsha. Mr. Watson of Mukden.
Dr. and Mrs. Weir of Chemulpo. Dr. and Mrs. Wells of Pyeng-Yang.
Consul and Mrs. Willis of Mukden. Mr. and Mrs. Wilson of Changsha.
Mr. Yih-Ming-Tsah of Shanghai. Père Recteur of Ziccawei, Shanghai, and
many others.
{vi}
The following books were consulted:--
Among the Mongols: by James Gilmour, M.A. Annuaire Calendrière pour
1909. Appeal, An: by H. E. T'ang-K'ai-Sun. Buddhism in China: by Rev.
S. Beal. Catholic Church in China, The: by Rev. Bertram Wolferstan,
S.J. Catholic Encyclopædia of Missions. Century of Missions in China:
by D. MacGillivray. China and the Allies: by A. Henry Savage Landor.
China in Transformation: by A. R. Colquhoun. China's Book of Martyrs:
by Luella Miner. China's Only Hope: an Appeal by her greatest Viceroy,
Chang-Chih-Tung. Chin-Chin: by Tcheng-Ki-Tong. Chinese
Characteristics: by Dr. Arthur Smith. Chinese Classics, The: Legge's
Translation. Chinese Empire, The: by Marshall Broomhall. Chinese
Shi-King: by Jennings. Chinese, The: by J. S. Thomson. Development of
Religion in Japan: by Knox. Diplomatic and Consular Reports,
1905-1908. Early Chinese History: by H. J. Allen. Educational
Conquest of the Far East, The: by Lewis. Education in the Far East: by
Thwing. Embassy to China: by Lord M'Cartney. Four Books, The:
Anonymous. Griffith John: by R. Wardlaw Thompson. John Chinaman: by
E. H. Parker. History of China, The: by Boulger. Indiscreet Letters
from Peking: by Putnam Weale. Les Missions Catholiques Françaises aux
XIX. Siècle: by Père J. B. Piolet, S.J. Life and Works of Mencius: by
Legge. Martyred Missionaries of the China Inland Mission, edited by
Marshall Broomhall. Mission in China, A: by Soothill. Mission Methods
in Manchuria: by John Ross, D.D. New China and Old: by Archdeacon
Moule. Original Religion of China: by John Ross, D.D. Pastor Hsi: by
Mrs. Taylor. Railway Enterprise in China: by P. H. Kent. Religions in
China: by Edkins. Religious System of China: by J. J. M. de Groot,
vol. v. Sidelights on Chinese Life: by MacGowan. Taoist Tests.
Things Chinese: by J. Dyer Ball. Troubles de Chine, Les: par Raoul
Allier. Uplift of China, The: by Arthur Smith.
{vii}
CONTENTS
CHINA IN TRANSITION
CHAP. PAGE
I. WHAT HAS AWAKENED CHINA? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
II. WHAT CHINA MEANS TO THE WORLD . . . . . . . . . . 20
III. ORIENTAL AND OCCIDENTAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
IV. FOREIGN RELATIONS OF CHINA . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
V. CHINESE CIVILISATION--ITS WEAK SIDE . . . . . . . 56
VI. CHINESE CIVILISATION--ITS GOOD SIDE . . . . . . . 70
VII. RAILWAYS AND RIVERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
VIII. THE CITIES OF CHINA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
IX. OPIUM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
X. THE WOMEN'S QUESTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
XI. CHINESE ARCHITECTURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
RELIGIONS OF CHINA AND THE MISSIONARY
XII. RELIGIONS IN CHINA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
XIII. CONFUCIAN PHILOSOPHY AND WESTERN CULTURE . . . . . 163
XIV. INTERVIEW AT NANKING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
XV. ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSIONS IN CHINA . . . . . . . . . 183
XVI. OTHER MISSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
XVII. THE EFFECT OF WESTERN LITERATURE IN CHINA . . . . 207
XVIII. MEDICAL MISSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
XIX. MOVEMENT IN KOREA AND MANCHURIA . . . . . . . . . 232
XX. THE FUTURE OF CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA . . . . . . . 242
THE NEW AND THE OLD LEARNING
XXI. EDUCATION, CHIEFLY MISSIONARY . . . . . . . . . . 253
XXII. GOVERNMENT EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM . . . . . . . . . . 266
XXIII. THE SAME IN PRACTICE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
XXIV. DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAY OF EDUCATION . . . . . . . 293
XXV. THE NEED OF A UNIVERSITY EXPLAINED . . . . . . . . 305
XXVI. THE NEED OF A UNIVERSITY EXPLAINED (continued) . . 317
XXVII. CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
APPENDIX
WILL RUSSIA BE REPRESENTED ON THE MISSION FIELD? . . . . . 329
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
{3}
CHINA IN TRANSITION
CHAPTER I
WHAT HAS AWAKENED CHINA?
For centuries China has been the land that never moved. It had a
political history full of wars and bloodshed, of intrigue and murder;
periods of prosperity and enlightenment; periods of darkness and
desolation; but the country remained essentially the same country.
There might be some small alteration in its customs, but China was
distinctly unprogressive. And everybody who knew China ten or fifteen
years ago was prepared to prophesy that it would continue to remain
unprogressive.
Many a missionary speaks of the China that he used to know as a very
different land from the China of to-day. It used to be a sort of Rip
Van Winkle land that had slept a thousand years, and showed every sign
of remaining asleep for another thousand. Mrs. Arnold Foster told us
that when she first came to Wuchang she used to see the soldiers
dressed mediævally, learning to make faces to inspire terror in the
hearts of the adversary. Monseigneur Jarlin, the head of the French
mission in Peking, described the China of olden times by saying that in
his young days all Chinamen had a rooted contempt for everything
Western. Theirs was the {4} only civilised land. The West was the
land of barbarism. Now, he added, the positions are reversed; every
Chinaman despises China, and is convinced that from the West comes the
light of civilisation. Arch-deacon Moule tells how he sailed out to
China in a sailing ship, and found a land absolutely indifferent to the
existence of the West--more ignorant of the West than the West was of
the East, and that, when he was young, was saying a great deal; and now
he finds himself in a land that has telephones and motor cars and takes
an active interest in flying machines.
China has fundamentally altered. She used to be absolutely the most
conservative land in the world. Now she is a land which is seeing so
many radical changes, that a missionary said, when I asked him a
question about China, "You must not rely on me, for I left China three
months ago, so that what I say may be out of date."
China is now progressive; yes, young China believes intensely in
progress, with an optimistic spirit which reminds the onlooker more of
the French pre-Revolution spirit than of anything else. And this
intense belief in progress shows itself at every turn; the Yamen runner
has become a policeman, towns are having the benefit of water-works,
schools are being opened everywhere, railways cover the land. One may
well ask what has accomplished this change, what has awakened China?
Perhaps, like many other great events in history, {5} this change of
opinion in China should be attributed to more than one cause. There
are two chief causes. One may be small, but it is not insignificant;
the other is certainly great and obvious. The less appreciated factor
that is causing the regeneration of China is Christianity; the larger
and more obvious factor is the new national movement.
The cause of the new national movement was the sense of humiliation
brought about by political events culminating in the battle of Mukden,
where a flagrant act of insolent contempt for the laws of neutrality
was felt all the more deeply because China had to submit to that which
she was powerless to resist.
The events of the last few years are so well known that I must ask the
indulgence of the reader in recapitulating them. China, confident in
the number of her people, which reached to a quarter of the world's
population, attempted to assert her rights of suzerainty over Korea
against Japan. She had not realised then that Japan was no longer an
Eastern power, where knights with two-handed swords did deeds of valour
and won for themselves everlasting renown. And when at Ping-yang the
armies met, the Chinese General ascended a hill that he might direct
the armies of the Celestial Empire with a fan. He conceived the battle
to be merely a small affair, where a fan could be seen by all the
officers engaged. The result was, of course, that the German-trained
Japanese army had a very easy victory. The war ended in the taking of
Port Arthur by the Japanese, {6} and China was in the humiliating
position of having to appeal to Western countries to secure her
territory.
So far, however, the sting of her humiliation gave to China a sense of
resentment against all foreigners, rather than a sense of repentance
for her own shortcomings, and the missionaries found hostility to their
work in every part of China. That hostility resulted in the murder of
two German Roman Catholic missionaries in Shantung. The well-known
action of Germany in demanding a cession of territory as a punishment
for this murder may have been a good stroke of policy, but it has
brought but little honour either to Germany or to Christianity. In
fact it may be regarded as a most regrettable action from a missionary
point of view, for it convinced the Chinese that the missionary was but
a part of the civil administration of a hostile country, and that if
China was to be preserved from the foreigner, missionaries must be
induced to leave the country. A deep feeling of national resentment
spread over the land, which was encouraged by some in authority. The
direct connection between Government patronage of the anti-foreign
movement and the German occupation of Kiauchau can be deduced from the
fact that the Governor who was responsible for the awful murders in
Shansi had been Governor of Shantung when Germany took Kiauchau.
The result of this bitter feeling was the creation of a secret and
patriotic society which concealed the nature of its propaganda under a
name with a double {7} meaning. The Boxer Society was, as its name
suggests, apparently an athletic society--a society which had for its
object the encouragement of the art of self-defence. But the name had
another signification. Its real object, as a Chinaman explained to me,
was to "knock the heads of the foreigners off." It was a religious as
well as a political movement, however. It had its prophets, who did
wonders or were thought to do them, and its disciples were believed to
be invulnerable to any Western weapon. It protested against the
movement towards Western ideas, which it regarded as immoral; it
condemned and destroyed everything Western, from straw hats and
cigarettes to mission houses and railways; its disciples believed that
the spirits that defend China were angry at the introduction of Western
things, that they were withholding the rain so necessary to the light
loess land of that district, and that the only way they could be
propitiated was by the sacrifice of a Western life or by the
destruction of a Western building. One of the things that precipitated
the siege of Peking was the apparent success of such an action. In
pursuance of their faith, the Boxers set a light to the rail-head
station of the half-made Hankow-Peking railway, a place called
Pao-ting-fu; the station was a mere wooden barrack, and blazed up
merrily with an imposing column of smoke; hardly had the smoke reached
the heavens, when the sky was overcast with heavy thunder-clouds, and
in a short time the thirsty land received the long-wished-for rain, and
the Boxer {8} prophets pointed with sinister effect to the heavenly
confirmation of their doctrine.
It is necessary to remind the reader of the religious aspect of
Boxerdom, so that he shall realise what its fall meant to many Chinese.
Really their faith in it was wonderful. A Boxer, for instance, at the
siege of Peking walked composedly in front of the Legation, waving his
sword and performing mystic signs; the soldiers first of one then of
another Legation fired on him with no effect; probably his coolness put
out their aim. Another example of their credulity was told me at
Newchwang. The Russians had occupied Newchwang, and, _more suo_, were
pacifying it; they were shooting all the Boxers on whom they could lay
hands, and, I am afraid, a great number who were not Boxers. They
chained one of these fanatics to a stone seat with the intention of
executing him; but they thought they might get some useful information
out of him, so they asked an Englishman who spoke Chinese perfectly to
make inquiries of him, giving him authority to offer a respite as a
reward. He went to the prisoner, and sitting down by him, tried to
induce him to save his life by giving information, but he was met by a
contemptuous refusal; and when he pointed out that the firing party was
there, the misguided man merely said, "I am a Boxer, and their bullets
cannot hurt me." Another minute, of course, proved his error. But his
firmness showed the reality of his conviction.
Sometimes this fanaticism had curious results. {9} A Boxer prophet
assured the village that no works of the West could hurt him, no bullet
could harm him, no train could crush him. As a railway ran near the
village, he and all the inhabitants adjourned thither to put his
invulnerability to the test. The daily train came puffing along, as
the Boxer, waving his sword, stood right in its path. The driver was a
European, and seeing some one on the line, pulled up his train to avoid
running over him. The Boxer pointed to the train triumphantly, and the
astonished villagers became Boxers. There was, however, a sceptic who
refused to believe, so next day they repaired again to the line, and
the Boxer again made his passes and uttered his charms. Alas for him!
this time the driver was a Chinaman, and he was not going to stop his
master's train because a coolie fellow got in the way, so he put on
full steam and cut him to pieces, and the village deserted the Boxer
faith to a man.
With the relief of Peking, the Boxer Society fell; but the popular view
was not that Boxer teaching was false, but that the spirits behind
Western religion were stronger than those behind Boxerdom. So one of
the immediate results of the fall of the Boxers was to establish the
spiritual prestige of Christianity; the second result was to inspire
the Chinese with a respect for the military power of the foreigner.
The Boxers had failed, the foreign powers had taken Peking, the Son of
Heaven had become a fugitive; all this was gall and {10} wormwood to
the Chinaman. The sack of Peking was especially felt, both because of
the wanton destruction that was committed--one informant told me he saw
a vase worth £200 smashed into a thousand atoms by a drunken
soldier--and because the enlightened Chinese knew very well that no
civilised city is sacked at the present time, and that they were being
treated as no other race is now treated.
Yet the old spirit of pride prevented them learning completely the full
truth. The thinking Chinaman was still disposed to attribute the
victory of the West to the superior fighting powers of Western men. A
Chinese gentleman, explaining the fear his people have of Europeans,
said, "They regard you as tigers." The troops who sacked Peking were
to the thinking Chinaman but another example of the well-known truth,
that those nearer the savage state fight better than civilised men, and
really, considering the behaviour of some of the European troops, no
surprise can be felt at this conclusion; it needed another lesson to
make them finally and thoroughly realise the superiority of our
civilisation.
The bitterness of their next humiliation made them ready to learn as
they had never been before in the whole of their history, and events
provided them with teachers who taught them that the cause of this
humiliation was their refusal to accept Western ideas, and that if they
would maintain {11} their independence they must learn the art of war
from their conquerors.
After the siege of Peking came the Russo-Japanese war. The Russians
had long been known and feared by the Chinese; they were to the Chinese
mind the embodiment of the warlike and blood-thirsty spirit of the
West; they were hated for their cruelty and feared for their prowess.
The awful story of the massacre of Blagovestchensk in 1900 was still
present to the popular mind. The story was this. The Amur divides
China from Siberia. When the Boxer movement broke out the Russians
required all the Chinese to go to their side of the river; but with
sinister intent, they removed all the boats, so that no one could
cross. The Chinese pointed this out, and the respectable merchants of
the town presented a petition saying they were ready to obey the
Russian Government in everything, but without the boats they could not
do so; but the Russians insisted that boats or no boats, they must
cross the Amur; they protested, but in vain; a half-circle was formed
round them by the soldiery, and the whole Chinese population of the
city was driven into the river at the point of the bayonet.
The Japanese were also well known to the Chinese; they had been till
lately, when the Western movement had altered everything in Japan,
their pupils in civilisation. The Japanese believed in Confucius, used
Chinese characters, worshipped in Buddhist temples, sacrificed to
ancestors, in fact {12} were in Chinese estimation a civilised race,
though inferior of course to themselves.
When these two antagonists met in Manchuria, the war could not fail to
make a deep impression on China. To begin with, it was an insult
surpassing that of the sack of Peking to the Chinese _amour propre_, to
have the war carried on in Manchuria. Russia and Japan were disputing
over Korea, and both nations were at peace with China. Russia might
have invaded Japan; Japan might have invaded Russia, or both might have
met in Korea, but what they did was to select a province of a neutral
State and decide that there should be the scene of conflict. What made
this more striking was that they agreed to respect the neutrality of
the rest of China; in fact they selected their battle-ground with the
same equanimity as if China and her national rights did not exist.
But the deepest impression made on the Chinese was by the victory of
the Eastern over the Western. The Japanese demonstrated that there was
no essential inferiority of the East to the West, and that when an
Eastern race adopted Western military methods it proved itself superior
to the most powerful of the Western races. This was the lesson the
battle of Mukden taught the Chinese, and which convinced the
anti-foreign party in China, that however much they might hate the
foreigner, they must adopt Western methods if they would retain their
independence. The result was that the progressive and {13}
anti-foreign parties found themselves at one. Both agreed that Western
ideas were necessary. The first, because they believed in Western
progress; the second, because they felt that the only way to preserve
China from the hated foreigner was to learn the secret of his military
power. The first thing to be done was to study Western education, and
then they could hope to hold their own against the Western races, as
Japan had more than held her own against the Russians.
I believe the battle of Mukden will prove one of the turning points in
the history of the world. Few of us have any conception of the
bitterness of the humiliation of China. People speak of Russia as
having been humiliated, but my experience is that the Russians looked
at the whole question as a colonial war in which a bungling Government
embroiled their country--a war which, if it demonstrated the incapacity
of their officers, proved the courage of their soldiers. But the
humiliation of China was intense. When one remembers the position that
the Emperor occupies in China; when one also remembers the reverential
feeling that exists towards ancestors, one realises what it must have
meant to the Chinaman that the site of the tombs of their Emperors
should have been the scene of that titanic struggle between the East
and the West. But the result of that humiliation was to burn in the
lesson that Japan had taken the right course, and that, however hateful
were {14} Western ways, they were a necessity, and that every lover of
China must do his best to introduce them into the Empire.
Of course there are many Chinamen--nay, I should think a vast
majority--who intend to preserve to China the essential points of the
Confucian civilisation; they mean to accept Western ideas only in so
far as they are necessary to struggle against the West. Some, no
doubt, definitely admire the West, but most are anxious for a
compromise; they want to preserve China with its customs, with its
essential thought, but to strengthen it by foreign knowledge and a
foreign military system. The exact degree of what should be preserved
in China and what should be destroyed and replaced by Western
innovations, differs according to the age and the temperament of the
thinkers, but the principle is most generally accepted--Western thought
must be grafted on to Eastern civilisation. When we remember the size
of China, we may well ask ourselves what effect this policy will have
on the rest of the world. We have at present a period of reflection,
for how long we cannot tell. The task of welding East and West into
one whole is in practice proving difficult, and at present failure is
very often the result; but with Japan as a successful example, and with
the threat of national extinction and foreign domination before them,
the Chinese can never give up the effort; and whatever the exact result
may be, I think one may assert {15} without rashness that not only will
it fundamentally alter the whole of China, but through China affect the
whole world.
While detailing the causes which have created the national movement
which is now inducing China to make every effort to perfect her
defences against foreign aggressions, we must not forget that the
awakening of China has a higher side, and one which we can attribute
directly and indirectly to Christianity. The influence of Christianity
can be traced back to the seventh century when missions of Nestorian
Christians came to Thibet and China; they left behind them, it is true,
no converts, but their influence was probably felt through the power
that Lamaism had had over a great part of the Eastern world. A learned
Japanese, discussing this subject, said that no one could study Lamaism
and Buddhism without realising how intimately it had been in touch with
some form of Christianity. Later on the great Roman Catholic missions,
initiated by St. Francis Xavier in the thirteenth century, began to
work in China, and have slowly but surely raised up a large population
who have been Christians for many generations. Their missions were
interrupted by persecutions, but with varying and lately increasing
success they have maintained themselves ever since. In 1807 the
pioneer of Protestant missions, Dr. Morrison, began his work and the
translation of the Bible into Chinese. The work increased, his mission
was followed by other missions, which pursued {16} a policy even more
influential in altering the opinion of China; not only did they with
great heroism preach the Gospel in every province of China, but they
took two actions which have affected China in a very special degree.
First the American missions made the very greatest effort to get hold
of intelligent Chinese men, both Christian and non-Christian, to teach
them Western knowledge, so that they might understand how intimately
Christianity was connected with Christian thought. The result of their
efforts has been that there are a considerable number of enlightened
Chinese gentry who are either Christians or who have a great sympathy
with the Christian side of Western civilisation. Sometimes they
educated these men in China, sometimes they induced them to go to
America for their education; and there they were brought into contact
with the intense, yet rather narrow, New England Christianity. I had
the honour of meeting many of these men in China, and I was convinced
that they have no small part in her awakening.
The English and American missionaries, under the leadership of Dr.
Williamson, inaugurated a second policy, which has had far-reaching
results in causing the changes in China. The Christian Literature
Society was started to supply the Chinese with translations of the best
Western literature. They were followed by Chinese imitators who were
also Christians, and who founded a Chinese Commercial {17} Press.
These two bodies have given to China a vast amount of Western
literature, the first on philanthropic lines with the definite
intention of spreading Christianity, the second on a commercial basis
but with the intention of presenting to their fellow-countrymen the
purer and more beautiful side of Western thought. The publications of
these two bodies reach, I am told, to every educated man in China. If
the humiliations of public events made the Chinese willing to study
Western civilisation, it was these men who afforded them the means of
studying and understanding the best side of that civilisation.
But perhaps those who have done most to give the Chinese a proper
conception of Christianity are the Bible Societies, especially the
British and Foreign Bible Society. Ever since, with the optimism of
faith, the translation of the Scriptures by Dr. Morrison was published
in 1814, they have been scattering the Christian Scriptures throughout
the whole of China, from Mongolia to Tonkin, and I am told that those
Scriptures are read by men in the highest positions and with the most
conservative antecedents in the whole empire. It cannot be doubted
that the indirect fruit of their work has been very great indeed.
China has, through the agencies of these bodies, been brought into
close contact with Christian thought, and has at last realised the true
nature of our religion.
Lastly, there has been the influence of those who {18} died for the
Christian faith during the many persecutions to which Christianity has
been exposed, and which culminated in the Boxer persecution. If
Germany, by her action in Shantung, put before China a false and most
repellent view of Christianity, the heroic sufferings of the martyred
missionaries, both yellow and white, presented Christianity to a
wondering world in its purest aspect. After those thousands of
Christians had suffered in Shan-si, the Home bodies, especially the
China Inland Mission, refused to take any compensation for the blood
that had been shed in the cause of the Gospel. The Chinese were then
convinced that the German presentation of Christianity was not the only
one; if Germany could look on Christianity only as a stalking horse
behind which she could creep up to her prey, the English-speaking races
had a holier ideal to teach and one which was more consonant with the
words of the Founder of our religion. The sufferings of the Christians
were intense, their heroism was great, but the result has been
commensurate with their efforts, and an awakening China looks to our
countries, not solely to teach her the art of war and of killing men,
but also to teach her the great thoughts and the great religion which
has before her very eyes proved capable of producing such noble men and
women.
The awakening of China has two aspects. From one aspect China is
awakening to the value of the science and the arts of the West; from
the other {19} China is awakening to the fact that there is in the West
a power which comes from goodness, and that goodness has its root in
Christian faith. It is this twofold aspect of the awakening of China
which is so important to bear in mind, for if she is to share in our
civilisation in the future, it is both our duty and our interest to see
that this great world-movement is encouraged to develop on its higher
side.
{20}
CHAPTER II
WHAT CHINA MEANS TO THE WORLD
The day is past when any one in Europe, whether Christian or
non-Christian, can be indifferent to what is happening in China. The
Christian has indeed been for a long time alive to the importance of
these developments, but the ordinary citizen with no strong religious
views has usually neither displayed nor felt any interest in a country
separated from us by so many miles and by such an untraversable gulf in
thought and language. If the Christian has urged the importance of
Chinese missions, his neighbours have answered by asking him why he
cannot leave the Chinese to themselves and to their own religion.
Whatever justice the opponent of missions in times past may have
thought he had for this view, he cannot now maintain that the Chinese
question is one which may be put on one side by any thoughtful man.
The movements of this vast mass of humanity, amounting to a quarter of
the population of the world, cannot but fail to have a very real and
vital effect on the whole civilised world.
The revolution that is affecting China brings Europe and America into
close contact with a {21} country equal to Europe in size, and not far
inferior in productive power. A few years ago China was so far away
that except as an outlet for trade it had little interest for people
here. The voyage occupied many months and was esteemed a hazardous
journey, owing to the dangerous coasts and typhoons of the China seas.
Now a train-de-luxe conveys the traveller in a fortnight across Asia to
Peking, and if the accommodation on the Chinese part of the railway is
not altogether luxurious, the traveller remembers that it is far
superior to that on the first railways opened in our own land. The
journey is of course tedious, but the fact that business men in the
north of China are talking of always spending their summer holidays in
England, will show how close China is now to Europe. It is no
exaggeration to say that in reckoning distance by the time it takes to
complete the journey, China is nearer to England than London was to
Scotland in the days of Dr. Johnson, while in point of comfort and
convenience there is no comparison. The journey from London to Peking
is far easier at the present day than the journey from London to
Edinburgh in the days of Johnson's famous trip to the Hebrides.
If in this way we are getting closer to China, we are still more
growing closer in thought. No longer can we speak of a gulf that
separates us from China. Every year English is becoming more and more
the language of educated men in {22} East; even though we cannot read
their books, they are reading ours either in translations or in the
original. Japan has set the example of having English taught
universally in her high schools, and now China is following her
example. A foreigner, talking about Esperanto, remarked: "What would
be the use of making an universal language? English, at any rate in
the East, is the universal language." That barbarous patois, "pidgin"
or business English, lives still in China. It consists of English
roots, enlarged by the addition of Portuguese words, put into Chinese
idiom and pronounced Chinese fashion. But "pidgin" English is fast
giving way to pure English, spoken most commonly with a marked American
accent.
If this growing proximity of China compels the attention of the
civilised world, the virgin wealth of her mineral resources and the
cheapness of her labour have excited the cupidity of the Western
capitalist, and it is daily more obvious that China must become the
centre of international politics, therefore the extent to which she
will affect the rest of the world should be a matter for careful
consideration. India, it will be urged, has long been in contact with
Europe, and the effect on Europe is small. Why should there be any
difference when another Oriental race comes in close proximity with
Europe? Putting on one side the fact that India has, both in trade and
in politics, had a very great effect on England, it can be answered
that there is an essential difference between the {23} brown
inhabitants of India and the yellow race. The former are, through
religion or custom, unable to accommodate themselves to the conditions
of Western civilisation; the latter have shown themselves such adepts
at accepting Western life that they have excelled the white man, to his
great annoyance, in his own civilisation. The Chinaman, who is
forbidden to enter America, Australia, and South Africa, is refused
admittance, not because he has been untried or because he has been
tried and found wanting, but because he has been tried in the three
continents and found by all who have tried him eminently efficient--so
efficient that if he were allowed to continue in those countries, he
would soon render the presence of the white settler unnecessary. He
has been tried in three just balances and been found of such value that
the white voter is unanimous in demanding his exclusion. But even the
most aggressive Chinese exclusionist can scarcely hope to exclude him
from his own country, and the Chinaman who stays at home is probably a
better man than the Chinaman who goes abroad.
Western civilisation may be expected to grow with equal rapidity in
China as it has in Japan. Obviously Japan is the precedent that China
will follow rather than India, whether Hindu or Mohammedan.
A few years ago a man would have been classed as an eccentric who dared
foretell that Russia would be defeated by Japan. When Japan talked
about going to war with Russia, Russia laughed. Who {24} can tell how
we shall speak of China a few years hence? For Japan after all is only
the same size in population as Great Britain, but China is eight times
as large.
There are three ways in which China may affect Europe. Militarily, she
may menace her by her enormous armies enlisted from her vast
population. Commercially, she may afford an outlet for our trade far
greater than we possess at the present time, and perhaps be a
competitor in trade and a place where the capital of Europe will be
invested. Morally, she may either depress or elevate our social
morals. Perhaps the reader may be inclined to smile at the idea of
China being in a higher moral condition than Europe, so as to be able
to react on her beneficially, but stranger things have happened; and if
Europe follows the example of France in deterioration, and China
continues to advance with the same rapidity, China might easily excel
Europe in morals.
Let us first deal with the question from the military point of view.
The military authorities who know the Chinese seem to be equally
divided in opinion; many are confident that they are an unwarlike race,
others maintain and bring evidence to prove that under competent
officers they have great military qualities.
A few years ago, for instance, the development of the military power of
China was regarded as a possible danger to the world, and especially to
England or Russia. It was pointed out that China might easily {25}
descend with a huge army on to India in the distant future, or she
might turn her arms northward and conquer the wide districts of
Siberia. Now the popular view is the reverse, and the military power
of China is regarded as a thing incapable of great development. A
Japanese diplomatist with whom we discussed the question ridiculed the
idea of the yellow peril and smiled at the suggestion that China could
ever be a nation great in war. Certainly her present military power
can be safely ignored except in Manchuria; whether that power is
capable of development is a moot point. Believers in the war-like
possibilities of China point out that as a matter of fact China is by
right of conquest suzerain to such warlike races as the Tibetans and
the Ghurkas, and that her empire reaches as far as Turkestan. In
answer it is urged that the victors were not the Chinese, but the
conquerors and present rulers of the Chinese, the northern Manchus;
who, till they were absorbed by Chinese civilisation, spoke a different
language and wrote a different character.
The Manchus are far from being extinct, though through years of sensual
indulgence they have lost their virility; but the discipline of
religion or the call of a national emergency might restore the war-like
qualities of the race. It was only in 1792 that the Chinese, under
Sund Fo, defeated the Ghurkas, and we must allow that a race who could
defeat these gallant soldiers must be skilled and brave in war. On the
other hand I was assured that the Manchus, {26} so far from showing any
courage in the war with Japan, were the first to flee, and that they
differ in nothing from the Chinese except that they are pensioners and
ride horses. Those who disbelieve in the courage of the Chinese say
the Chinese never had any courage except of a passive order; that they
would endure suffering against any race on earth, and that their whole
history tells that tale; that they have been subject in turn to the
Mongols, the Kins, and the Manchus; and that the period of the Ming
dynasty when they were free, was only because the Mongols had reduced
every nation within many thousands of miles to subjection, and then
they themselves had fallen a prey, not to the Chinese arms directly,
but to the enervating and destructive effects of Chinese civilisation
which rendered them absolutely unable to fight.
Those who argue in this way point to that great feature of Chinese
scenery, the fortified wall. That Great Wall of China, climbing hill
and dale, was built to keep the northern and warlike tribes from
harrying the peace-loving and industrious Chinaman. Behind that wall
lie nothing but fortress after fortress; every city is walled, and
those walls tell their own tale. A warlike race never dwells in walled
cities. When the traveller enters Japan after visiting China, the
first thing which strikes him is the absence of walled cities. The
villages and towns lie along the roads as they do in our own country
instead of clustering behind the tall and gloomy walls of China. {27}
Again, those who say the Chinese will never fight, point out that they
have never been able to reduce two savage races right in their midst,
the Maios and Lolos. One devoted missionary who had spent many years
of his life in the thankless task of attempting to approach these
savage Lolos, gave us an interesting account of the relation between
the Lolos and the Chinese which certainly does not show that the
Chinese have much military skill. The Lolos are a sort of Highland
caterans who live in the mountains in the west of China, and from time
to time raid the peace-loving Chinese villages. The Chinese then
retaliate by organising a large force, who advance on the Lolo country
and burn their villages. The Lolos rarely offer any direct resistance,
as they realise they are hopelessly outnumbered, but take an
opportunity to raid another village and to slaughter hundreds of
defenceless Chinese. If the forces are anything like equal, the Lolos
will fight, and even sometimes when the forces are wholly unequal. On
one occasion seven Lolos and two women put to flight three hundred
Chinese soldiers, killing forty and wounding many more. The Chinese
consequently live in considerable fear of those Highland barbarians,
whose fierce yells and savage onslaught produce absolute panic in their
troops.
Officers who have commanded Chinese troops seem generally to believe in
their capabilities. Gordon, for instance, spoke in the highest terms
of the soldiers who formed his "ever victorious army," and the {28}
English officers who commanded the Weihaiwei regiment and those who
commanded the Chinese volunteers at the siege of Peking spoke equally
well of their men. It is reported that the Chinese soldiers at the
siege of Tientsin would carry the wounded back out of the range of fire
when no European soldiers could be found ready to perform this
dangerous task, but of this story I could find no first-hand
confirmation. But whether the Chinese in times to come will develop an
efficient army or whether they do not, the most competent judges affirm
that Chinese military greatness will always make for peace; that they
will never wage a war of aggression; and that, so far from being a
menace to the world, they will prove to be a security for the world's
peace in the Far East. In fact it is the continuance of China's
military weakness rather than the growth of her military power which is
most likely to disturb the political atmosphere. China is far too rich
a prize to be safe if unguarded, and the acquisition of her wealth will
always prove a temptation to her needy neighbours.
The integrity of the Chinese empire is for many reasons a most
desirable thing, and that integrity can best be maintained by an
increase of China's military power.
One of the reasons why this is so much to be desired is from the
commercial effect which China may have on the rest of the world. If
the vast masses of her singularly excellent workmen are to be exploited
by powers who have no thought for either {29} hers or the world's
welfare; if the sweated den of the alien is a menace to the healthy
conditions of the working man in London; if the policy of such
philanthropists as Lord Shaftesbury has been at all beneficial to the
world at large, the sudden introduction of hundreds of thousands of
ill-paid but efficient working men to the great Western market will
have a deleterious effect on the social conditions of the civilised
world. It is obviously far more simple to bring the factories to China
than to bring the Chinaman to the factories, and this will be freely
done if ever the flag of the foreigner waves over China. The great
advantages that China can offer of cheap labour, cheap coal and cheap
carriage, coupled with the security of a European flag, will have the
effect of attracting to China a very large number of the world's
industries. If this is done gradually, so that the internal market in
China increases proportionally, this will not result in any evil to
other nations. China will share in the wealth of the world, and will
be at once a large producer and a large consumer; but if before Western
civilisation has been assimilated by the working classes Western
factories are extensively started in China the result will be one of
those dislocations of social conditions which we include under the name
of sweating.
Western conditions of labour in Western countries may be deemed by some
to be hard, but no one can doubt that if Western conditions of labour
were forced on a population which did not understand them, they {30}
would have a tendency to become definitely oppressive. The Chinese
coolie will, I fear, be as little able to maintain his ground against
the foreign contractor supported by the arms of a foreign power, as the
Congo native is to maintain his rights against his Belgian oppressor;
and unless Western powers have the humanity and wisdom to resist those
of their own nations who will clamour to make money out of Chinese
labour, Western dominance in China is not to be desired by Western
wage-earners.
[Illustration: HANKOW, THE CHICAGO OF CHINA. RIVER AT LOW WATER, 600
MILES FROM THE SEA. HAN-YANG IRONWORKS]
One of the most impressive sights in China is the Han-yang Ironworks.
They employ three thousand men, and are owned by a body of Chinese
capitalists. They have found it worth while to triple their plant
within the last two or three years, and one can hardly wonder when one
realises that, though the labourers are paid a very high rate according
to Chinese scale, they only get sixpence a day, and even allowing that
it requires three Chinamen to do the work of one Englishman, which is a
higher proportion than is generally claimed, obviously there is a very
large margin of profit to be made by the owners of the works. It is
worthy of note that the Chinese have been unable at present to produce
any native engineers; sixteen Europeans of various nationalities manage
and control the works, though they are owned by Chinese, but the
skilled work is all done by Chinese. For instance, we saw a man
straightening the rails with a steam hammer; it was very skilled work,
and I was told he was making 7d. or {31} 8d. a day. If any social
reformer, if any one interested in the condition of the working
classes, has time to consider this question and to escape from that
parochial mind which so distorts the importance of things, he will see
that the conditions of the working classes in Europe will depend to a
greater degree on the proper development of the social conditions of
China than on any factor at home. To put it briefly, if the fourth of
the labour of this world is living under sweating conditions, the other
three-fourths may consider themselves lucky if their income is not cut
down by 25 per cent.
On the other hand, if the development of China is allowed to pursue its
normal course, and education and enlightenment are encouraged to
proceed by equal steps with material well-being, the commercial
conditions of China, so far from being injurious, will prove beneficial
to the world at large. The internal market, for one thing, will tend
to keep pace with China's productions. If China exports, she will also
import; the volume of trade will no doubt be enormously increased, and
that trade will bring prosperity to China and to those other countries
who are trading with her. Her people will gradually grow accustomed to
Western conditions, and, if China maintains her independence, those
conditions will not be allowed to become too onerous to the poorer
classes. The wealth of another country does not injure her neighbours;
it is rather her poverty which injures them. There is always the
danger that the poorer country {32} will drain the capital from the
richer country, and that a rich country becomes harsh to a poor country
in the same way that the creditor is harsh to the debtor; certainly it
would be most undesirable if a sudden industrial expansion in China
paralysed many industrial undertakings in England by depriving them of
the capital they needed for enlargement, and it would be equally
undesirable to have any industrial undertaking in China controlled by a
Board of Directors in London, whose one object was to increase their
dividends, and who were ignorant of and therefore indifferent to the
injury that might be incidentally done to the welfare of thousands of
Chinese who fell under their power.
And this brings me to the third point of how China may affect the rest
of the world. She may, and most probably will, degrade the moral tone
of Europe. On the other hand, it will be quite possible that she may
act as a moral tonic. We scarcely realise the nature of the chains
that bind one part of our civilisation to another. To hear men talk,
one would suppose that the great factors in the government of mankind
are the laws and regulations made by kings and popular assemblies; but
a deeper inquiry must show that it is only the smaller part of a man's
life that is controlled by law, the greater part is controlled by
custom or fashion which is enforced, to use the technical term, by the
sanction of public opinion. Consider, for instance, the customs of
dress, or of manners, or the hours we keep, or the way we {33} refer to
things, or even our very thoughts--they are all subject to this power;
the State does not generally command any particular dress, yet there is
a large and increasing measure of uniformity in dress. You may go from
Asia to America, from Vancouver to Vladivostock, and you will see
uniformity in the rules of dress. This uniformity is all the more
remarkable, because its laws, instead of being fixed and stationary,
are constantly altered; indeed, in comparison with the power of
fashion, the powers of the greatest autocrat or of the most efficient
public office are as nothing. The autocrat may give an order; the
public office, with its endless clerks and forms, with its miles of
red-tape, may try to see that order carried out; but may quite possibly
fail. But fashion, issuing her capricious orders, has no office, no
clerks, no printed forms that have to be filled up to secure obedience,
yet her subjects yield such willing service that they seek for
information from every quarter as to the nature of her commands, and
when they know them, they count neither money nor comfort to be of
importance compared with obedience to their mistress. The world, while
it wonders at its own submission, enlarges or reduces its clothes,
alters its head-gear, and further, will even change its manners, its
speech, and its thoughts. The latest fashion-book is but the
exaggeration of a world-power; the same power that compels women to
tighten their skirts and widen their hats, makes their husbands talk
about socialism and observe Empire Day. The power of fashion lies in
{34} this, that while every one obeys, no one is conscious of any
difficulty in obeying; the chains with which fashion binds this world
may be so strong that the strongest nature cannot break them, yet they
are so light that the most sensitive natures are not conscious of their
restraint.
But this great power of fashion has its limits, and those are the
limits of our civilisation. The mandate of the dressmaker may reach
from Siberia to Peru, but it has no power in Mohammedan, Hindu, or
Confucian lands; the Turkish lady still veils her face, the Hindu still
adheres to his caste, the Confucian up to this moment still preserves
his queue and his blue robe, but if China accepts our civilisation this
must change. The modern Chinaman dresses in Western fashion; the loose
flowing garment of China acts as a sort of barometer by which the
extent of European pressure can be tested; up-country they are as loose
as ever, but in Shanghai, wherever Chinese dress is still preserved, it
has grown tight. A change typical of what may happen if the union
between the civilisations takes place without any guidance may now be
seen in the streets of Shanghai; the dress of the women is shaped in
the Chinese fashion, they wear the traditional coat and trousers, but
the cut of those garments offends both East and West alike by their
great exiguity.
Every one would allow that Western fashions, or, at any rate, men's
fashions, must to a great extent affect China, but there is a deeper
thought beyond; {35} Western fashions will not merely affect Chinese
dress, but they will also affect Chinese thought, and when they have
incorporated Chinese thought into Western civilisation, when the
conquest is complete and China and the West are one, a reaction will
take place, and that which has subdued China to the yoke of Western
fashion will give in its turn power to China to control the Western
world. Without suggesting for a moment that Peking fashions will take
the place of Paris fashions, or that the Englishman will grow a queue,
I do suggest that there are many precedents in history for expecting
that such a moral force as the Chinese reverence for parents, or such
an immoral position as the Chinese contempt for the working-man, will
not be without its effect on the Western world. Again and again it has
been pointed out by both missionary and Government official, that so
great is the power of China, that she brings into subjugation to her
thought any one who is long resident in her country. If it should
happen that the Western world should neglect the Chinaman when it has
the opportunity of teaching and directing him, longing as he is to
learn about Western civilisation, the punishment of the West will be
that she will, in years to come, be influenced for evil by the power of
the great Celestial Empire. If, on the other hand, the East should
turn towards Christianity, and, taught by Christianity, should learn to
live a higher life, the example of her faith and of her morality will
in years to come react beneficially on the Western world.
{36}
CHAPTER III
ORIENTAL AND OCCIDENTAL
The West cannot either by right or through self-interest ignore the
problem that China has to solve. From being the most conservative
country in the world, she has become a country in which 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 her, and which have been created by a
system of religion and by a history belonging to nations very different
to herself. The full difficulty does not present itself till after
some thought. The problem is quite different from that which has been
before mankind in other parts of the world. China is trying to accept
Western civilisation, but there is a danger that it will be without
Christianity. I know that many Europeans living in 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 have also already shown that China is
quite determined--in fact, she has no alternative--not to {37} remain
the old conservative country that lives on ancient traditions, that
looks back two thousand years for all teaching in the arts of
government.
If China, therefore, is neither to become Western nor to remain what
she is, of necessity she will have to blend the two civilisations
together and to take a part from each. The Chinese themselves, with a
sanguineness for which they have no warrant, are quite certain that
this is an easy matter. They tell the inquirer that they have
considered it well, and that they see their way completely through it.
They intend to select from Europe only those things that are
advantageous to the race, and they expect to have no difficulty in
weaving these incongruous elements into their own very complete system
of thought. Statesmen seriously say that three or four months' extra
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 of thought when they
are united into one. The reason {38} probably is that as the bad has
its common origin in the wickedness of human nature, it belongs to both
systems of thought, and therefore both the Chinaman and the Western
meet on common ground when they meet in vice or vileness. On the other
hand, the virtues of both are the result of moral cultivation resting
on authorities which are not recognised by either. Therefore the
tendency is to waive all moral obligations as resting on controverted
grounds. Whatever may be the cause, the result is obvious--the
Westernised Oriental, unless a Christian, is as a rule only one shade
better than the Orientalised Western.
While the careless thinker hopes generally that good will come out of
the union of the two, he is as a rule terrified lest there should be
any tendency to mingle Western with Eastern thought in any one of whom
he is fond. A leading man at Tientsin, extolling the healthy climate
of the place, related how he had kept his children there ever since
they were born. His 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 single sentence." This
enthusiasm for ignorance of the language of a great nation is
extraordinarily difficult to understand until the danger of the mixture
of Eastern and Western thought {39} is realised. Experience has taught
those who have lived in China that it is only a few that can come
unscathed through the terrible trial of having to live in two moral
atmospheres.
One of the most striking books that has ever been written is
"Indiscreet Letters from Peking." The book is marvellous in the power
it has of bringing before the eyes of its reader those awful scenes
during the siege of Peking, but it is far more wonderful in the
character that it imputes to the hypothetical narrator--a character
typical of a man who is equally at home in England and in China; and in
that character is 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; characters such as these are common in a
mixed world, and it is natural that English people should fear that
their children should grow up so unutterably vile. But if the
Englishman fears for his child, ought he to ignore the welfare of the
country in which he lives, and can we pass over this whole problem as
something that does not concern us; for what he fears for his child
will happen to the whole Chinese nation.
The blending together of the East and the West {40} may be accomplished
with the ease which the Chinaman expects--but not in the way in which
he or anybody else could wish--it may be accomplished by the
eradication of all that is good in either race, on the common ground of
vice and sin and evil and 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 traditions of the West and
grafting them on to the Chinese stock. What success has followed the
efforts of those who are thus labouring is rather to be credited to the
intensity of their efforts, to their single-hearted purpose, to their
ready self-denial, than to the ease or simplicity of their task.
No man of any feeling or any conscience could pass indifferently by a
single individual eating the berries of a deadly plant, unconscious
that they were poison. What shall be said, then, if we allow, 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 misery of the very blackest
darkness, where the only motives known are selfishness, lust, pride,
and cruelty, for this is what certainly will happen to China if she
accepts the materialism of the West.
Western thought is very powerful. The way it has dominated the forces
of nature gives it a great {41} prestige. As the Chinaman learns about
steam and electricity, about the telephone, the flying machine, radium,
and a thousand more Western inventions, he cannot 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 Western thought--yes, even more incongruous to
Western than they are to Christian thought. How will he, for instance,
read Confucius' condemnation of war when the Japanese and Germans and
Russians are shouting into his ears, "By war ye shall live and by war
alone."
In an interview I had with that great statesman, Tong-Shao-Yi, he said,
"We respect Confucius because he has never taught any man to err."
Unlike the teaching of Christianity, Confucius preaches that the test
of truth is worldly success, and therefore by that test his preaching
will be tried and found wanting by the materialist. The materialist
will say, if Confucius never taught men to err, how is it that the
Western nations who are ignorant of his teaching have succeeded, and
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 {42} 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."
Confucianism must fall before Western materialism. I do not speak of
Buddhism, for that is falling so quickly that its influence may be said
to be almost gone. China will be left stripped of religion, robbed of
her old ideas, and not clothed with new ones, wandering into all the
misery and humiliation that vice and sin can bring upon mankind, till
the curse of her millions in misery will go out against the harsh
unfeeling West, who could leave her thus blind and helpless without a
guide.
The call is great. Those who have knowledge have no right to keep it
to themselves. The Christian and the Confucian agree in this, as they
do in much else, that all knowledge must be shared. One of the
purposes of this book is to arouse my readers to the importance of
taking some action. Had they had an opportunity of going to China and
seeing things 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 to lead the Chinese empire into safe paths, and to
illuminate her with the highest knowledge of the West. Many efforts
have been made, and there has been much success. I {43} am glad to
testify publicly to the heroic and self-denying character of the
missions, but those who are most successful are those who frankly say
China can never be led by aliens.
No race loves the alien, and the further away the alien is in blood and
language the less he is loved; therefore the Chinese above all races
are least fitted to be led by the European, as they differ from him in
most racial characteristics. If they are to be led by their own race,
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 and left the true part of Western thought." Let us hope that
China may be preserved from such an error, that she may learn Western
knowledge so thoroughly and so well that she may be able to distinguish
the good from the bad, the beautiful from the vile in our system of
thought.
{44}
CHAPTER IV
FOREIGN RELATIONS OF CHINA
It is impossible to study any Chinese question and ignore the relations
of China with foreign powers. They are always curious and generally
unique. Certainly any one who goes to China for the purpose of
studying the mission question cannot but be struck at the extraordinary
treaty rights possessed by missionaries. In most countries the teacher
of religion has no peculiar rights. He is, alas! more often bullied
than favoured by the modern State, even if that State should profess
itself well inclined towards religion. Therefore one would naturally
expect in China, where Christianity is reputed to be disliked, that
those who teach it would have to contend with every form of disability
that a hostile State could inflict.
A feeling of marvel comes over the mind when one realises that in this
land of contradictions the persecuted missionary enjoys quite peculiar
privileges. The ordinary foreigner cannot, for instance, travel in
China except by the courtesy of the Government--a courtesy, indeed,
which is never refused; but a missionary may travel freely. The
ordinary foreigner has no right to stay in any {45} town in China with
the exception of the treaty ports; a missionary may stay where he
likes. The ordinary man cannot buy land; the missionary has a right to
purchase land for the purpose of teaching Christianity.
So it came about, when we were in China, that His Majesty's Consul,
with all the might of England at his back, was unable to buy a suitable
site to erect a house where he could bring his wife. He was living in
a temple, and temples in China are not very comfortable. I should
explain to the uninitiated that every Buddhist temple has guest-rooms
attached to it--Chinese rooms largely composed of wooden screens; and
these temples are let out as residences by a people whose faith has
less hold upon their affections than their purse. Now, ladies are not
as a rule prepared to live in a house with paper partitions in a
climate where the winters are extremely cold; so the Consul asked a
missionary to buy a piece of land on which he could erect a suitable
house, and he had almost succeeded when the Chinese Government found
out that the land was not to be used for missionary purposes and
refused to allow the sale. This does seem a strange situation when one
remembers that had that Consul resigned his appointment and joined a
missionary body, he could have bought the land and settled his wife
comfortably in four solid stone walls, but because he was England's
representative and not a missionary he had to shiver between wood and
{46} paper screens, and this in a country which is supposed to hate
missionaries.
The explanation of this curious situation is really twofold. First,
the hatred that the official bears for the missionary is not of such an
intense character as to induce him to offer a very strenuous resistance
to the missionaries who desire to buy land; and secondly, missionaries
have peculiar and special rights secured to them by a series of
treaties among the most curious in the history of diplomacy.
In 1844 the Americans got by treaty a right to the free exercise of the
Christian religion in the open ports. This right, sufficiently
remarkable in itself, has often been stipulated by a State for its own
nationals resident in a foreign country, but I doubt if it has ever
before been known for a country to insist on the right of preaching a
religion to somebody else's citizens. This was obviously an
interference of the sovereign rights of China.
It was pushed even further in 1860. The French and English had just
completed the sack of the "Summer Palace," and whatever the justice or
the injustice of the war may have been, China had tasted her first
great lesson of humiliation from the hand of Western powers, and was in
no condition to resist any of their demands. The English and the
French made treaties, most of them concerned with commercial and
military matters with which it is not necessary to trouble the reader,
and the French had a condition which was quite reasonable, that the
{47} Chinese should restore all the buildings that had been destroyed
in the late troubles; the wording of the clause was so vague that it
could be made to apply, and did apply, to any building which had been
destroyed at any previous time in the history of China, but the most
remarkable part of the clause needs further explanation. The French
had as their interpreter a very able Jesuit, Père Delamarre, and as the
French Minister could not read Chinese, he had to trust his interpreter
with regard to the Chinese version, and this man inserted into the
treaty two other provisions, one securing that Christians should have a
right to the free exercise of their religion all over China, and the
other that French missionaries should have the right to rent land in
all the provinces in the empire and to buy and construct houses. When
this pious fraud was discovered, the French Minister thought it would
do no good to denounce his interpreter, and therefore the treaty was
treated by the French as binding and never questioned by the Chinese;
the other powers profited by it under the "most favoured nation" clause.
The Roman Catholics a few years later pushed the wording of this treaty
to its uttermost. Their missions had been at work for 150 years or
more, and they could prove a great number of confiscations which had to
be made good by the Chinese. Just at that time in France Napoleon III.
was trying to establish a doubtful title by the help of the Pope, {48}
and it was his policy to push in every way the interests of the Roman
Catholics. China had felt the weight of European armies and she was
unable to resist these claims, and so it came about that the very
country which now is the centre of free thought was the means of
forcing Christianity upon the Chinese through fear of her armed power.
Can you be surprised at the answer I got when I asked a Chinese
statesman, who I knew was sympathetic with the teaching of
Christianity, why China, who had always professed, and to a very great
extent had practised tolerance, should persecute Christianity? His
reply was, the Chinese did not hate Christianity, and were indeed
tolerant of missions, but they still disliked them, because
Christianity is the religion of the military races, and they had a
historical tradition that the advance of Christianity was connected
with war.
This bad reputation has been intensified by the action of the Germans.
No reasonable man can condemn the Germans for wishing to enlarge and
develop their trade. We can understand the patriotic German saying
that it was the duty of Germany to establish good government in
Shantung, but it is very hard to understand how any one can defend the
taking of Kiauchau on the ground that certain German missionaries had
been murdered. The taking of Kiauchau by the Germans has completed the
work begun by the French. Christianity and the foreign relations of
China are {49} inextricably mixed up, and every Chinaman, believed till
lately that Christianity was the religion which has led foreign nations
to enter his land. "First the missionary, then the trader, lastly the
gunboat," has been too often the order of advance. I am happy to be
able to say that the Americans and the English have made great efforts
to dissociate themselves from this evil, and have tried to avoid any
appearance of such a connection. I was told that in Shansi, owing to
the indemnity for the murders of missionaries being retained to China
and spent on founding a University instead of being accepted by the
missions, Protestant missions are very popular. "You have only to say
you are an English clergyman," said my Chinese informant, "and every
door will be open to you."
The present aspect of foreign affairs has tended to destroy the
unfortunate connection between Christianity and foreign aggression.
The two great powers whose armies have met in Manchuria have neither of
them any interest in missions. Russia has never had any missions in
China. She forbade them, I understand, because they were likely to
embroil her in unnecessary wars. Japan, of course, has none. The
Germans, who made the murder of missionaries the reason of aggression,
have not many missionaries in China belonging to their nationality.
China, therefore, is coming to look upon Christianity as not quite so
dangerous a thing as it seemed when it was essentially the religion of
the French and of the English {50} whose armies and navies then held
China in fear. Still the political situation cannot but have great
interest to the missionary. Even while he rejoices that the foreign
relations of China and his work are not so intimately connected as they
used to be, he must ask himself, what will the result to my work be, if
in the great world struggle Japan or Russia should dominate? At
present he fears Japan more than Russia; and his fears are shared, but
for other reasons, by the Chinese.
The wildest and most ambitious schemes are accredited to Japan, I
cannot say with how much truth. Her purse is empty, but she has far
more courage and skill in war than most nations. If she possessed even
one part of China she might add to her wealth to such an extent that no
race could dare to oppose her, while if she governed China, her armies,
supported by the wealth of that mighty empire, might threaten the
stability of Europe. She is reported to have two regiments working as
private individuals in Fukien, and to be prepared to seize the province
in case of any disorder. The fact that there are many Japanese in the
province, and that all the Japanese are trained soldiers, gives some
cloak to this suggestion. The Fukienese speak a different dialect to
the rest of China, and they have a natural geographical frontier, which
would enable the Japanese to maintain themselves there if they were
once established.
Again, the recent events have shown that they are preparing to exercise
sovereign rights over Chinese {51} territory in Manchuria. On the
other hand, Russia is arming; she is double-tracking the railway from
St. Petersburg to Irkutsk, and she is getting ready again for a
struggle in Manchuria; the gossip among the officers there is that
there is to be a war; the Russians do not for a moment regard
themselves as defeated; they think of the late campaign merely as an
"unfortunate incident."
But the most important development in Russian policy is the proposed
railway across Mongolia which will give Russia an entrance to the west
of China and into Peking. It is hard to see how, if an advance were
made along that line, Japan could in any way resist Russia; the whole
breadth of China would lie between them. Meanwhile the Germans of the
east have perfected a railway system which converts Kiauchau from being
an out-of-the-way place which no one cared about, to a door into the
very heart of China. In commercial circles in China it is reported
that the Commandant of the Tientsin garrison suggested that the object
of the building of the German Fleet was not so much to conquer England
as to ensure that Germany should be able to maintain her position in
the Far East and make full use of Kiauchau as a way by which her armies
might enter China. When one looks at the map and sees how China is
surrounded by these powers, and how they are pressing upon her, one
realises why the Chinese are feeling that Western education is an
absolute necessity, and that if they are to maintain their {52}
independence they must understand the arts of war. A great Viceroy was
reported to have said that he frankly expected China to be conquered,
and to learn from her conquerors the Western arts which would in turn
enable her to dominate the West; for this has been her history in the
past, that may be her history in the future, and I think that the
nations, who propose to conquer her, will do wisely if they consider
what might be the result of her influence on them.
China is trying to defend herself by building a navy and creating an
army. The navy is rather an _opéra bouffe_ concern; every now and then
she talks of having ships; the representatives of all the shipbuilders
of the world fly to Peking and try in every way to induce China to buy
a fleet which they offer to provide at the very shortest notice, but at
present she has none. She has, as a practical step, created a training
school of officers. It consists only of some 140 men, and is taught by
two British officers lent her by our navy. They said that there was
the greatest difficulty in getting the Chinese to be practical; they
induced the Government at last to put an old ship at their disposal.
For a long time this was refused, and when it was granted it was
regarded as a most wonderful and original departure. The Chinese way
of training naval officers would have been to have instructed them on
literary subjects, and to encourage them to write essays and poems on
the sea. To take them out on {53} the Yangtsze in a ship and actually
to show them how a ship was managed, was a wholly new idea, but one of
which they approve under the impulse of the modern fashion of doing
things in accordance with Western traditions.
As to the army, its exterior is certainly not prepossessing; far and
away the most efficient part of it has been created by Yuan-Shi-Kei in
Manchuria, and the Chinese are very anxious to show it to the passing
traveller. Both times when we passed through Manchuria, on every
station were armed guards, and in one case they were inspected by a
General who was travelling in our train. He was saluted by the
officers in charge in Chinese fashion, which is a modified form of a
kow-tow, and consists to all intents and purposes of a curtsey. It had
a distinctly funny appearance to see the officers in charge of the
guards curtseying as we steamed into the stations. Down at Nanking the
army was far less smart--in fact, it had the appearance of being a very
disorderly rabble; I understand when the Empress died it was regarded
as such a danger that those in authority put the broad Yangtsze between
them and a possible mutiny.
The real danger to China as regards foreign relations is that her bad
finance or her own want of discipline may bring about a state of
internal disorder which may compel the interference of foreign powers.
Last year this nearly did happen. Two regiments mutinied and seized a
town on the {54} Yangtsze; they stopped all communications with the
outside world, and to all intents and purposes were in a fair way to
commence a rebellion. Close by them were several other regiments who
might be expected to throw in their lot with them, and the position was
very critical. The missionaries inside the town were in fear of their
lives, and with difficulty managed to communicate with the British
Consul and to tell him of their plight. He ordered a gunboat to go
down, and the presence of the gunboat intimidated the mutineers. At
the same time the Governor of the city showed remarkable courage in
going round the town pacifying the mob. The authorities were able to
move in two other regiments, who had no sympathy with the mutiny. The
mutineers were disarmed and the incident closed. But such an incident
may occur at any moment. The condition of the country is such that
anywhere a rising may occur, and the fire once alight may be hard to
extinguish; the result of the conflagration must be that the powers
must enter to secure the safety of their nationals.
Altogether poor China is in a dangerous position in regard to her
foreign relations; all round her echoes the cry, "You must reform or
disappear." Every railway that is made, every loan that is floated,
every trade that is opened up, bring to China increased
responsibilities in her foreign relations. If she by her good
government and readiness to reform can show that she is able to
maintain {55} order in her own land, and to give to foreigners an equal
security to that they have in any other country, her empire may endure
for many hundred years; but if she be found wanting at the present time
and the corruption of her officials renders her unable to maintain
order in her country or to fulfil her financial obligations, a new
phase in Chinese history will be reached, which will, I believe, be of
extraordinary danger to Europe; China will yield to the military might
of the West only to rise again to dominate those who dominated her.
The missionary who looks at these dark clouds which surround China, the
land of his adoption, feels that there is only one course to take,
namely, the course that he is taking, to try and build up in China a
high tone of morality, founded on religion, which may enable her to
accept necessary reforms and to put herself abreast of other nations.
{56}
CHAPTER V
CHINESE CIVILISATION--ITS WEAK SIDE
I do not suppose that we can have any conception of the amount of
suffering which goes on at the present time in China. The first time
we were in China I had the honour of meeting a Mr. Ede, who had just
returned from distributing food in a famine-stricken district, and his
description was truly terrible; the young men had walked away and found
work in other districts, but the old people and the children had to
remain. What had caused the famine in this case was characteristic of
unreformed China; "China's sorrow," the river Hoang-ho, had done what
it is ever doing, that is, it had flooded a district. When you pass
over it, it looks most innocuous. It is wholly unable, as a rule, to
fill its own vast bed, which is covered with delightful sands,
reminding one more than anything else of the sea-shore at low tide; but
this sand is what makes it dangerous, for it is not good heavy English
sand, but a light sand which is called "loess," and when the river
comes down in a flood--that is to say, when they have rainy weather in
Thibet or the sun shines unduly on Himalayan snows--this sand is
carried along with the water, {57} and it is asserted indeed that the
river consists more of sand than of water; as the river slackens the
sand is deposited and the bed is filled up, with the result that the
next flood, taking the Chinese unawares, overflows its banks and
reduces a huge district to poverty; they cannot sow their fields
because they cannot see them. Of course the authorities should not be
taken by surprise and the banks should be made up, and canals should be
cut to take away the water in case of a flood; an enlightened Chinese
engineer assured me he had a scheme for raising the level of huge
districts of China by using this peculiar character of the Hoang-ho and
turning its sand and water flood on to bare places, and he asserted
that the results were most wonderfully successful, and that districts
which were unfertile before, when well washed and covered up with this
loess, became fertile. Still, however beneficial a flood may be to the
land in the end, its immediate result is to starve the population who
are flooded out, for they have no reserves of food.
In the case already referred to, the country was a long time under
water, because a canal which should have drained it away was not kept
clear. The money had been paid, but, as often happens in China, the
work had not been done. The action that the authorities took was
characteristic of Chinese government. China possesses the system of
internal custom-houses--a system which the wildest advocate of Tariff
Reform would hardly like {58} to see introduced into Europe; these
custom-houses are called "Likin," and are a source at once of a great
deal of profit to the provinces and of irritation to all traders. The
Chinese used these custom-houses to engineer a corner in rice by which
the area of scarcity of food was enormously increased and several
officials amassed considerable sums of money; by the law of China it is
illegal to export rice even from one province to another; this law was
put in force, and the rice supply was cut off; at the same time early
in the famine certain rich men bought up rice freely, with the result
that it rose to a very high figure, so that round the area of famine
and desolation there was an area of scarcity and shortage.
A large amount of food from all parts of the world was sent by the
famine funds, but it was very difficult to induce the officials to
allow the food to enter the famine district. They were filled with all
sorts of scruples. They were afraid, for instance, that the steamers
towing the barges full of food on a canal which had not before been
opened for steamers, might excite the hostility of the population; they
were courteous, they were diplomatic, but they were obstructive; and so
it came about that while there was a famine in one district of China,
in the other districts there was a very heavy surplus, of which they
had difficulty in disposing. All this did not create the slightest
surprise in those who knew China. When the story was told {59} us all
the old Chinese hands merely said, "How like China," or "Just like
them." This was our first insight into what the civilisation of China
means, and therefore for the first time we realised the problem that is
before the world--the problem which missionaries, with great devotion,
are trying to solve.
Chinese civilisation is not, as many people imagine it to be, a mere
courtesy title for a state in reality only a degree off barbarism.
Many of my humbler parishioners, for instance, when we left for China,
ranked the Chinese as something very near cannibals, and I do not think
they would have been in the least surprised to hear that we had been
roasted and eaten by the natives. The Chinese have perhaps a greater
right to be called civilised than we have on this side of the world;
their civilisation dates from eras we are accustomed to call Biblical.
Confucius and Ezra represent contemporaneous ideas--ideas that are not
wholly different in thought. While on the other side of the globe
civilisation has been handed from nation to nation, and a civilised
race has become barbarous and a barbarous race civilised, the Chinese,
without making any very great advance, have steadily proceeded along a
path of progress, and at the present time they possess a very carefully
organised system of society. On paper the whole thing is perfect: the
Emperor at the top, the Viceroys over each province, under them the
Prefectures, and so down to the village community {60} in the country
or the trade guild in the town. The system of government is so perfect
that they claim that they are able to discover any individual wanted
among those 400,000,000 of Chinese, unless his disguise is very
perfect. When we were chatting over the revolutionaries and talking
about a certain doctor dodging in and out of China at the risk of his
life, I said that I wondered that there was any difficulty at all for a
man who was bred in the country wandering where he liked, and I was
assured that such was the organisation of the Chinese Government that
they could lay hands even in the remotest village on anybody if they
required him, and that the only way a revolutionary could hope to
escape arrest was by a most perfect and complete disguise.
With this splendid organisation is joined great solidarity. The
Chinese race are essentially one. If it were your duty to look through
reports coming from China, as it has been mine, the first thing that
would strike you would be its essential oneness; you will not find more
difference between different parts of China than there is between
England and Ireland. I do not for a moment mean to say that there are
no differences between the Chinese--that would be untrue; but you will
not find such a difference as one might expect from the diversity of
geographical conditions. The civilisation is essentially similar. It
is a civilisation with great merits. The population is sober,
industrious, and perhaps I might add honest, {61} all lovers of China
will certainly agree; but if you are writing, as I am, to people who
have never been out of England, I think you will have to qualify the
phrase with some such a one as "honest as compared with other
Orientals," or "honest when contrasted with the Japanese."
They are also extremely obedient; their idea of the respect which
should be paid to authority far exceeds that which prevails on this
side of the globe. I think we may add with truth that great numbers of
them are very loyal to their employers. But when this much has been
said, the dark side of their civilisation must be added--it is
essentially corrupt and cruel; the ideas of honour, purity, mercy are
but too little understood. Missionaries assured us that there was no
word for purity that could be applied to a man, while the same word
stands for honesty and stupidity.
Yet this nation is in many ways well fitted for the mechanical age in
which we live. What the owner of the factory wants is an industrious,
sober, and obedient man, and he does not want, or at least does not
realise that he wants, an honourable, pure, and merciful man. The
Chinaman will be in his element in the factory; the long hours of
monotonous toil will not be unpleasant to him; he is always sober--in
fact, he is by nature and culture the ideal factory hand; and yet this
is what constitutes his danger. He will tend to introduce into Europe
the vices which are now desolating his own country, unless, indeed,
{62} the European teacher can help him to eradicate those vices.
I have given you some idea of his corruption by the story told at the
beginning of this chapter, but we heard many others all to the same
effect. We went up the Yangtsze in one of the China Merchants' boats
with an old Swedish captain who liked the Chinese and rather disliked
the missionaries, so his evidence was not biassed by any wish to prove
that our civilisation was more perfect than that of the Chinese. We
asked him why it was that he being a European should be captain of a
ship that was owned by Chinese, and largely used by them. He told us
that the Chinese merchants had once tried to have a Chinese captain,
but the moment the ship reached the first port of the Yangtsze, the
custom officers were on board rummaging here and rummaging there. Very
soon a large amount of contraband was found on the ship, put there with
the knowledge of the captain. The consequence was the ship was fined
and delayed. They tried Chinese captains again and again with the same
result, and so they have been reduced to employ Europeans to secure
honourable officers. He, however, had to confess that the Chinese
distrusted the sobriety of the European officers, and assured us that
the old comprador on board, one of whose duties apparently was to look
after the passengers and take their tickets, was in reality a spy on
them.
Perhaps the best instance of the corruption of the {63} Chinese is
their action with regard to the currency. In the good old days the
currency of China was the silver shoe or ingot, which had no exact
weight, and had therefore to be weighed at every transaction. Below
that was the copper currency, which had no fixed relation to the silver
currency, but only the relation of copper to silver. A copper cash,
therefore, represented only its actual value in copper. It was
naturally a most unwieldy coin. The old books of travel in China give
lamentable pictures of the traveller riding about with huge strings of
copper cash almost crushing him with their weight. When the whites
began to trade in China they introduced the Mexican dollar with its
subsidiary coinage, and this was the common currency in all the ports
until a few years ago; but when the Chinese began to Westernise they
considered it inconsistent with their dignity not to have a coinage of
their own. Led by the Japanese, and assisted by several firms whose
speciality was the erection of mints and mintage machinery, they
started mints all over the country, and they have kept these mints busy
with the most _funeste_ results. To begin with, they coined a dollar
in imitation of the Mexican dollar, but even in this the mints did not
agree. Some dollars are very light, some slightly below value, and
some are nearly true. The first experience of the traveller is that he
possesses in his pocket a set of coins which no one will accept, except
at a great reduction. But the muddle goes further than that. It was
very profitable coining light coins, {64} but it was still more
profitable to do so in the lower denominations. The Chinese thought,
or chose to think, that it did not matter what the intrinsic value of a
10-cent piece was as long as you wrote on it 10 cents. They have no
bank or post-office where you have a legal right to get a dollar for
ten 10-cent pieces, and the result therefore of recklessly coining the
base 10-cent pieces has been not only to depreciate it with regard to
the dollar, but to make it an uncertain value, so that you must go to
the money exchangers almost every morning and ask for the rate of
exchange between the dollar and the small silver pieces.
Of course at every step on this downward path the officials concerned
made a great deal of money; their next step was to deal with the copper
coin in the same way, so now there is no fixed relation between the
copper coinage and the silver coinage, nor between the large copper and
the small, and this is still further confusing, as the provinces having
different mints have dollars of different values. And now I hear that
they have begun to make money by debasing the old silver shoe coinage,
which, though it is sold by weight, used to have a certain standard of
purity, and they have issued cash which have no intrinsic value at all,
and that do not represent the fraction of a coin having any intrinsic
value. The result of this currency "Rake's Progress" has been to
produce what corruption always does produce--widespread poverty.
Everybody cheats. The stationmasters {65} along the line assure the
European superintendents that the fares are always paid in the most
debased coinage, and it is very hard to deny the probability of this.
But of course the stationmasters take care if any coin comes to their
hand which is not debased to do a bit of exchange on their own account.
If Chinese civilisation is corrupt, it is also cruel, not with the wild
tempestuous cruelty of the savage, but with the cruelty of the
civilised man who at once uses human suffering as the best engine for
human government, and never cares to cure it unless he has some
pecuniary object in view. The Chinese are inured to pain, and some
people argue that they do not feel it to the same degree as Western
nations. No doubt the sensation of pain is intensified in people of
highly developed nervous organisation, and the Chinese have a nervous
organisation of a very quiescent kind. I remember, when we first
landed at Hong-Kong, being struck by a Chinaman who had chosen as his
bed for his midday siesta an ordinary piece of granite curbing; and as
you go along in the train every freight car that you pass has some one
sleeping on it to protect it from robbery, and a truck of coals or a
load of stone is obviously regarded as a most comfortable
resting-place. Some of the doctors maintained that this was the case
throughout their nervous system--they were insensitive to pain; others
said that pain, like everything else, is a thing to which you can get
accustomed, and that pain has played so large a part in their lives
that they are {66} accustomed to it, and are not therefore afraid of
it. Take, for instance, the foot-binding of the women; every family in
China must be accustomed to hear the sobs and cries of the little girls
as they are going through the first stages of foot-binding. Or take
again the public flogging; all the working classes of China must be
quite accustomed to the idea that men are flogged for certain offences
till their flesh is of the consistency of a jelly. A doctor,
describing the state in which men are brought into the hospital after
such floggings, said that it was a difficult matter to avoid
mortification setting in, and it was only with very careful treatment
that they could be cured, the whole flesh having to slough away, being
absolutely crushed and battered.
Yet this strange people are so indifferent to these horrors, that even
those who suffer will laugh amidst their sufferings. We were told the
following tale, whether true or not I cannot say. A man was being
bambooed for an offence, and astonished the officials by laughing all
the time; the more he was flogged the harder he laughed, till at last
those who were punishing him stopped to ask him the reason of his
mirth. "You have got the wrong man," he said. It is always a comfort
to have a keen sense of humour.
I do not think there is anything more awful than the descriptions one
has as to the indifference to suffering that is displayed by the
average Chinaman. I remember a story told me by a sailor. As a ship
{67} was being loaded, a man, obviously on the verge of death, came and
asked for work, but failed to get it. Shortly after he was seen
hanging about the ship, and at night they found him lying between some
bales. He was turned out, but he constantly crept back, first to one
place, then to another, till at last the sailor came to know his face
quite well. One day, as the sailor went ashore, he was attracted by a
little crowd looking at something, and this proved to be the poor
fellow in his death struggle, lying in a gutter of water. He called
the attention of a Chinese policeman to him. The Chinese policeman
explained that he would move him when he was dead, as he had orders to
remove all corpses, but that he could not move him while he was alive.
Dr. Macklin of Nanking told us story after story of the way in which
the Chinese would leave people in a dying condition on the road. A
little time ago he had ridden into an old temple, and there he saw a
man apparently asleep, but on looking at him more closely, he saw that
his eyes were wide open and that the flies were walking right across
his eyeballs, showing that he was quite insensitive. He called to one
or two men and asked them to help him to carry this poor sufferer to
some house near, but they could not or would not find a house to keep
him in; and so in the end Dr. Macklin determined to take him straight
back to Nanking, which he did. There he administered a very heavy dose
of quinine hypodermically, with the result that the man soon showed
{68} signs of returning consciousness. It was a case of malignant
malaria, and had he not been found by Dr. Macklin, the man must have
been eaten by wild dogs or have died from the disease; as it was he
recovered, and proved to be a hard-working young farmer who was in
search of work, as his home had been ruined by a local failure of
crops. He had apparently contracted malaria, and owing to his poor and
ill-nourished condition it had gone hardly with him.
[Illustration: CHINESE CIVILISATION: ITS BAD SIDE--AN OLD BEGGAR. ITS
GOOD SIDE--A GARDEN]
But story after story was told us always to the same effect--that the
quality of mercy is not highly esteemed by the Chinese. The appeal the
beggar makes to you as he runs after you is the old Buddhist appeal,
which after all is essentially selfish, as he beseeches you "to acquire
merit" by helping him; we must remember that even this reason for mercy
is despised by the gentry and literati of China as essentially
belonging to Buddhism. Perhaps the most lurid stories that we heard
were up river. One came from the country of the Lolos. The Chinese
were going out to fight the Lolos, and the missionary saw them carrying
a handsome young man bound on a plank so that he could not move--so
bound that his head was thrown back. After certain ceremonies they cut
the man's throat, and scattered the blood on the flags; it was a sort
of human sacrifice. Another story we heard from some devoted
Franciscan Sisters up at Ichang. They assured us that if a mother
found her children {69} weakly, and she lost one or two, she would make
up her mind that the reason they were ill was because an evil spirit
had a grudge against her. She would then take one of her remaining
children, and, in the hope of propitiating the evil spirit, she would
burn that child alive. We could not believe this story was true; but
that evening we saw some hard-working Presbyterian ladies, common-sense
efficient Scotchwomen, and they assured us that it was quite true.
{70}
CHAPTER VI
CHINESE CIVILISATION--ITS GOOD SIDE
It would give a very false idea of the Chinese if great stress were not
laid on the good side of their civilisation. They have many fine
qualities, and in more than one point they are superior to the nominal
Christianity of some Western countries. The first thing perhaps that
strikes a foreigner when he is brought into contact with the Chinese is
their great courtesy; their literati are such gentlefolk. Even the
less cultured people have most refined manners; no one is ever rude;
and one of the things they cannot understand is how we can esteem a
rough, frank, honest man. There is a case when they would not appoint
a certain Englishman to a commercial post, preferring a man of far less
attainments and of much shorter service, because the former was rude.
That was enough. It was no use telling them that his honesty was above
suspicion, that he was a reliable business man, that he was very hard
working, that he had many years of hard service behind him; they
allowed all this freely, but they shrugged their shoulders and said,
"The truth is, he is such a rude fellow, and he will give such very
great offence by his bad manners," so they would not have him.
{71}
When a visitor enters a Yamen, he realises that his manners must be
those of a most polished diplomat. Before him walks a servant, holding
aloft his visiting card. One really ought to have special Chinese
cards printed on beautiful sheets of red paper with queer-looking
characters on them setting forth one's rank and name. However, in
these days of admiration of the West, our poor little white cards are
considered adequate. The Viceroy or official meets the visitor,
enthusiastically shaking his own hands--the Chinese salutation--and
bowing low; the particular door at which he meets his guest marks the
amount of respect he wishes to pay him, and is therefore of some
importance. In my case, when my host was favourable to higher
education, I was received in the outer court. At every door there was
a polite contest as to who should go through it first, and at last we
found ourselves in a room where tea, dessert, champagne, and cigarettes
were offered, although of the two latter I was unworthy. Then began
the conversation. I found less stiffness once I had explained that I
came to gather opinions about a scheme for education. After the
stately interview was over there was an equally ceremonious
leave-taking.
Though the methods of the Chinese in doing business may be exasperating
to a Western whose time is money and who wants them to come to some
immediate decision, they are invariably delightful and courteous in all
their negotiations. This courtesy is all the direct result of
Confucian teaching. Stress is {72} laid there on courteous behaviour,
perhaps even to a degree which may strike the Western traveller as
absurd. This courtesy, I understand, extends even to those of lower
degree. Your servant in speaking to another calls him brother, and
nothing makes the servant despise his master so much as seeing him lose
his temper: it is to his mind a mark of our savagery.
The Chinese have higher virtues than courtesy. They are essentially
industrious. You have only to look at a Chinaman's garden to realise
the extent to which he possesses this quality. I am certain that those
people who are proud of the culture of their kitchen gardens would be
surprised and ashamed if they could compare them with those of a
Chinaman. One passes garden after garden with rows of plants placed at
even distances and every plant exactly the right distance in those
rows, with never a weed to be seen all over the whole plot. Again in
handicraft there is the same industry; you buy Chinese embroidery for a
song in such a place as Changsha. No one will tell you that Chinamen
ever object to length of hours; they are ideal men for work that needs
care and accuracy.
Again they are very patient. A monotonous task is not at all
unpleasing to them. An acute French observer used the word
_routinière_ in describing this characteristic. Even in intellectual
work this liking for monotonous repetition will show itself. One of
the doctors told us that he had the very greatest {73} difficulty in
inducing his pupils not to perpetuate his most casual gestures when he
was demonstrating. For instance, when teaching bacteriology, quite
unconsciously he might from time to time put an instrument down on the
table, and just touch it again. Months after he would find one of his
pupils when doing the same experiment repeating every gesture he had
accidentally made with careful imitation. It was clear that the
student had monotonously continued to practice these gestures for no
other reason but that he had seen his master make them. All those
words which our writers on social subjects are so fond of inditing
against the modern factory system have no meaning to the Chinaman.
Those complaints about long hours at mechanical work rendering the
worker little better than a machine are doubtless true of the white
race, but are quite beside the point as applied to the Chinese. If the
Chinaman is well paid in the factory he will prefer rather than
otherwise that the work should be mechanical; he will not mind if the
hours are long.
Again, he is cheerful and contented under very adverse circumstances.
When we were being rowed in a native boat up the Yangtsze, and the men
were straining every nerve against the current, while they were chilled
by a drizzling rain, there was never a word of discontent; they were
always cheerful and bright, good-tempered and merry.
Their highest quality is obedience, which is the result of their
Confucian culture. The central virtue {74} of that teaching is
obedience to parents, and they hold that doctrine to a degree which to
the Western mind seems exaggerated. One of the grown-up sons of a
Chinese clergyman did something which he considered unbecoming in a
Christian; to the surprise of the missionary, he did not hesitate to
administer a sound thrashing to his son, which the young man took
without the slightest resistance, and in this action the clergyman was
supported by the public opinion of the congregation. This quality
gives to China its great power, and it is one of the points in which
there is the greatest divergence between the teaching of the West and
of the East. Every Chinaman points out to you how little Westerns care
for their parents. I remember a Chinese gentleman explaining in a
patronising way to the other Chinese that, strange though it seemed, he
knew it as a fact that one of the commandments of our religion really
was that we should honour our parents.
Were it not for this principle of obedience which is implanted in the
mind of every Chinaman, the government of China would scarcely endure
for a day; but he is taught from his earliest youth to obey his father,
not as we teach in the West because the child is unable to think and
understand, so that obedience to parents is a virtue which must fall
into disuse as knowledge increases, but as an absolute duty, a duty
equally incumbent on a man of forty as on a child of four. This
principle is extended to that of civil government; the local {75}
official is in their quaint phrase "the father and mother of his
people," and the obedience to parents taught in childhood is therefore
extended to those who govern. No Chinaman has any doubt but that the
first duty of man is obedience to authority. Let us hope these
qualities will ever endure.
What may happen, and, alas, I am afraid, is at the present moment
happening, is that the two civilisations may be so blended together
that the qualities of each may be lost and its peculiar virtues
destroyed while its characteristic vices are preserved. The great
qualities of obedience to parents, of courtesy to strangers, are being
forgotten. The Chinaman educated in the States is rude and abrupt; he
fancies that it is Western and business-like. Every Chinese gentleman
to whom I talked, allowed that one of the worst results of Western
teaching had been that a Westernised Chinaman was less obedient and
respectful to his parents. On the other hand, the Westernised Chinaman
does not acquire the peculiar virtues of the Englishman.
The superficial Chinese thinker wants China to learn only the material
side of our civilisation, to profit by our mechanical excellence
without learning anything of our ethics. His view is that the West is
immoral but wealthy; he regards Europe as the place where there is no
principle excepting money-worship, and therefore he argues that if you
would Westernise China you must despise morality and seek for money.
Chang-Chih-Tung voiced this thought when he said, {76} "Western
education is practical, Chinese education is moral." If you try to
argue with a thoughtless Chinaman who has perhaps never left China, and
whose only experience of Western life is what he has seen in a treaty
port, you will find that it is hard to convince him that Western
education produces a high moral tone. After all we may, to a certain
extent, be to blame for their want of appreciation of the morality of
the West, for too often we show to the Chinese a very degraded side of
our civilisation; and though I do not think that Shanghai at the
present merits the term that was applied to it fifty years ago of being
a "moral sink," yet undoubtedly the treaty ports, both by their
constitution and by their geographical position, collect very
unpleasant specimens of white civilisation. There are a certain number
of men who spend a great part of their existence being deported from
Shanghai to Hong-Kong, and from Hong-Kong to Shanghai.
One of the comedies in the tragedy of the extinction of the
independence of Korea is illustrative of this point. The Emperor of
Korea heard that the Western races were far more trustworthy than those
of the East, and so fearing assassination after the murder of the
Queen, he determined to enrol a corps of Europeans as a body-guard; he
sent over officers to Shanghai with orders to enlist Europeans.
Unfortunately for himself he did not take the precaution of sending
with them any Western to help in the selection of the men. To Korean
eyes all Westerns {77} look alike, and as they were offering good pay,
they soon had their corps complete; they returned to Seoul, and the
corps was installed with suitable uniforms, and, alas, rifles and
ammunition. The moment the corps was paid, the greater bulk of them
got drunk, and for the next few hours Seoul was distinctly an
undesirable place of residence, filled with drunken men of all
nationalities shouting and shrieking and firing loaded rifles
recklessly in every direction. The poor Emperor trembled as he looked
from his palace windows at his body-guard out on the drink, and he made
up his mind that it would be better to take a reasonable chance of
assassination by the Japanese than to risk the danger of being guarded
by this inebriate troop of Westerns. With the help of the Consul the
body-guard when sober were returned to Shanghai, and let us trust the
Chinese heard the story and were convinced that in accepting Western
civilisation they must be careful to avoid accepting the vices of the
West.
At Changsha I heard a similar story, but with a tragic side, which one
felt exonerated the Chinese for being rather incredulous as to the
morality of our civilisation. Changsha, I should explain, is reputed
one of the most bigoted cities in China; even at the present moment
white women are advised not to walk through the streets. The Hunanese
have a bold independent character, which makes them rather hostile to
any foreigner or to foreign ways, and I am afraid that the story I am
going to repeat will have {78} confirmed them in their conviction that
foreigners are undesirable. Two white men belonging to one of the
South European races--Greeks, I think--settled themselves down in
defiance of treaty rights in Changsha, and at once opened a gambling
hell. Very soon they taught the Chinese, who are as a race very
addicted to gambling, new and most pernicious forms of that hateful
vice. The Governor complained to the Consul; the Consul sent his
officer down, accompanied by the police, to arrest the Greeks; the
Private Secretary to the Governor informed the Consul of the tragedy
that followed. The Consular officer warned the Greeks that they must
give up their gambling establishment and go back to Hankow. They said
they would not. He told them that if they refused he would arrest
them, take them to the boat, and send them down by force to Hankow.
They still refused, and he advanced, upon which one of the Greeks shot
the officer dead. The Chinese police after their manner vanished,
while the Governor's Private Secretary, according to his own account,
spent most of the time of the interview under the table. The Greeks,
seeing the coast clear, and realising that vengeance must come, took to
the open country. The Chinese were told to arrest them if they could.
Of course they had no difficulty in finding them, but to arrest them
was a different matter. They mobilised two or three regiments, and
surrounding the house in which the Greeks had taken refuge, they kept
on firing at long range till they judged, from there being no signs of
life, that they {79} must have killed them. They then carried off the
bodies, but thought it better to describe the incident in an official
document as a case of suicide from fear of arrest, lest they should be
held responsible for the death of these murderers. The next Greeks
that came up the river were sent down with a guard of forty men, and so
terrified were the Chinese that they had to put them first-class, as no
Chinese would have dared to have travelled with them.
There were several other stories told at Changsha to the same effect.
The European that the Chinaman sees in that sort of place is too often
one of those worthless men who has found his own country impossible to
live in, and who hopes that his vices and crimes may escape unnoticed
in distant China. Can one wonder that the Chinese are liable to
misunderstand the West, and were it not for the saintly life of many
missionaries, the high character and strict justice of our
Consuls--yes, and the admirable discipline and management of such great
undertakings as that of Butterfield and Swire--the evil would be
incurable; but though there are many specimens of the bad, there are
also not a few men who by their lives have testified before the Chinese
to the greatness of our social and moral traditions and to the religion
by which they are inspired.
{80}
CHAPTER VII
RAILWAYS AND RIVERS
The rivers and railways of China form a very marked contrast. The
rivers represent the old means of communication, the railways the new,
and the comparison between the river and the railway enables the
traveller to compare new with old China and to realise the great
changes that are taking place there and the transitional character of
the phase through which the country is now passing.
Ancient China, as compared to ancient Europe, was a most progressive
country, a very essential point to remember when we have to consider
what will be the attitude of the Chinese with regard to modern
progress. Theoretically they have always been progressive; practically
they have passed through an age of progress and reached the other side.
That age of progress improved very much their means of communication.
China is naturally well endowed with rivers, and those rivers were
infinitely extended by a system of canals. Of these the Grand Canal is
the most perfect example. The traveller cannot sail along the Grand
Canal and look at the masonry walls of that great work, or the high
bridges that span it, without realising that in its time it was one
{81} of the greatest works the world had ever seen. That canal,
typical of modern China, is now in disrepair, but the spirit of the men
who built it is not gone; it is the same spirit that now welcomes
railways all over China.
The greatest of China's natural waterways is the Yangtsze-Kiang; it
cuts right through the centre of China from the sea to Chungking and
further; it has many important tributaries, which lead through great
lakes and afford a very useful means of communication to vast districts
in Central China.
Along that great river for six hundred miles, ships of the largest size
can sail in the summer; battleships, though not of the largest class,
can ascend to Hankow. Beyond Hankow the river is much shallower, and
communication with Ichang is often interrupted in the winter by want of
water. A thousand miles from the sea begin those wonderful gorges of
the Yangtsze which are among the greatest wonders of the world.
Up to Ichang, the Yangtsze is still a big, rather dull yellow river, a
vastly overgrown Thames, a mass of sandbanks, running through almost
consistently uninteresting country; but after that thousand miles, it
develops into a sort of huge Rhine. The river is still yellow, but it
runs through green mountains and grey rocks. At times it swirls along
with an oily surface dented here and there by whirlpools which tell of
some sunken rock; at other times the grey rocks creep closer together
and the yellow {82} Yangtsze foams itself white in its effort to
squeeze through the narrow opening left. In quieter reaches of the
river a house-boat or luban can be rowed or sailed. The rowing is
rather jerky, the sailing delightful, and so the advance of the
traveller is pleasant and uneventful; but when the boat reaches the
rapids, the only way to get her through is by towing.
There is a temptation always to delay putting men ashore to tow--a
temptation which ended in our house-boat being bumped upon a rock.
Our captain (we call him "lowdah" in China) had cleverly devised, by
creeping along the side of the river under shelter of projecting rocks
and then by dodging round the points, everybody shrieking and yelling
as they strained at the oar, to avoid the necessity of towing; but a
more malign whirlpool than the rest twisted us round till the oars on
one side of the boat could not row because they were fouled on the
rocks, and then another twisted us sideways on to a submerged rock, and
there the current held us till the police-boat the Chinese Government
supplies to foreign travellers kindly took our rope ashore and we were
hauled off without apparently having suffered any damage.
These police-boats, or "red boats," are a great feature in travelling
on the Yangtsze. They add enormously, to begin with, to the artistic
effect, as they are furnished with an art-blue sail, which would
rejoice the heart of an artist, but the nervous traveller {83} regards
them with feelings of a warmer nature than those their æsthetic effect
would arouse. They guarantee, if not the safety of boats and goods, at
least the safety of his person amidst the terrible rapids of the river.
If his boat should be wrecked and his goods become the property of the
fishes, he knows that the "red boat" will dart into the rapids, and
owing to its peculiar construction and the skill of the boatmen, will
be able to rescue and return him, a washed and grateful traveller, to
Ichang.
The excitement of passing the rapids is intense. It is a pleasurable
sensation when you watch from the shore some one else passing through
them; it is more exciting but less pleasurable to be on the boat itself
at that moment. The excitement is largely a question of the size of
the boat, whence the wisdom of taking a small boat even if it is less
comfortable. To watch an eighty-ton junk being hauled through a narrow
passage of foaming water is intensely thrilling. It is a matter of
great difficulty owing to the rocky nature both of the channel and the
shore.
The Yangtsze rises and falls some hundreds of feet in the year, and at
low water the banks are a mass of rough rocks which remind one more of
the sea than of a river. The men who tow are called trackers, and they
have to climb over these rocks tugging and straining at the rope while
a certain number of them, stripped to nudity, try to keep the rope
clear of the rocks which constantly entangle it both on shore and in
the water. It is splendid to {84} watch these men as they bound from
rock to rock to disengage the rope from some projecting point, or as,
leaping into the stream, they swim across to isolated rocks and
extricate it from all sorts of impossible situations. Meanwhile the
junk creeps up inch by inch, at times standing almost still while the
water surges past her and makes a wave at her bow which would not
misbecome a torpedo-destroyer in full steam. Woe betide the junk if
the rope should foul and break in spite of the efforts of these men,
for then she would be at the mercy of the current, and if it should so
happen that there was no wind, the mariners on board have no command
over her, and she must drift as chance will guide her till quieter
water is reached. Of course if there is a wind they can haul up their
sail, and then, though they will descend backwards down the stream,
they will do it with dignity and safety. We passed a junk doing this.
Her rope had apparently broken, her huge sails were set to a stiff
breeze; as you watched her by the water she seemed to be sailing at a
good rate forwards; as you watched her by the land she was travelling a
good steady pace down stream. If she cannot hoist her sail because the
wind is unfavourable, then she will rush back, inadequately guided by
three huge strange-looking oars. The one at the bow, worked by six
men, can twist her round like a teetotum, so that as she dashes down
stream, the captain can select which part of her shall bump against the
submerged rocks, which after all is but a poor {85} privilege, when you
remember that eighty tons of woodwork banged against massive granite
rock must be resolved into its constituent boards, whatever part of it
strikes the rock first. The two other oars are even less helpful.
With eight men at each, they can propel the boat at the rate of about
three miles an hour; but what use is that when the stream is bearing
the junk to destruction at twenty miles an hour. If the rope breaks,
it is rather a question of good luck than good guidance. If there is
no rock in the way, the junk happily sails down and is brought up in
the quieter waters below the rapids. If there is a rock in the way,
the junk arrives at the end of the rapid in a condition which would
please firewood collectors but no one else. Those of the crew who can
swim get ashore, and those who cannot are either picked up by the "red
boat," or if there is not one there, they disappear; their bodies are
recovered several days later lower down the river. From a Chinese
point of view this is all a small matter; what is important is that a
junk containing a valuable cargo has been lost. So frequent have been
these losses that five per cent. insurance is demanded for cargoes
going above Ichang.
[Illustration: GORGES OF THE YANGTSZE: AN AWKWARD MOMENT. JUNK
NEGOTIATING RAPIDS. (Notice coils of bamboo rope)]
Perhaps I ought to say one word about the rope on which the safety of
the junk depends. It is made of plaited bamboo, which is
extraordinarily light, and does not fray, though it is so stiff that it
behaves like a wire rope. Its great lightness {86} allows of the use
of ropes of enormous length. I do not think it is an exaggeration to
say that some of them are a quarter of a mile long. They are very
strong, and therefore can be of wonderfully narrow diameter, but
apparently they last but a short time, and every boat is furnished with
coil after coil of bamboo rope ready for all emergencies. A horrible
accident happens when owing to bad steering the trackers are pulled
back off the narrow ledges cut into the face of the precipices, which
at times border the river, so that they fall into the rapid.
They are an attractive body of men, these trackers. They leap over the
most incredible chasms in the rocks, they climb like cats up the
precipices, they pull like devils, while one master encourages them by
beating a drum on board the junk, and another belabours them on shore
with a bit of bamboo rope, which makes an excellent substitute for a
birch rod, and yet withal they are cheerful. When it rains or snows
they are wet through; when the sun is hot--and remember the Yangtsze is
in the same latitude as North Africa--they expose their bent backs to
the scorching sun; yet apparently they never grumble, but they wile
away the hours of their labour with cheerful song. When they row or
pull easily, the song is a weird antiphonal chant--it seems to be
sometimes a solo and a chorus, sometimes two equally balanced choruses;
but when the work becomes hard, the song changes into a wild snarl and
they laugh a savage laugh as they strain and sweat to the {87}
uttermost. I will complete their description by saying that their
views of decency are those of Adam before the Fall, and that they
preserve their strength by a diet of rice and beans with a handful of
cabbages as a relish. At night they sleep on the deck of the junk on
their rough Chinese bedding with only a mat roofing to keep the rain
off them. And as I watched their cheerful demeanour, I felt more
convinced than ever that the natural virtues of the Chinese are of the
very highest order.
Perhaps I ought to say one word about the beauty of the gorges. I
think in two points they excel. First, in the height of the massive
cliffs, through which the Yangtsze has cut its way like a knife; the
size of the river and the size of the cliffs are so much in proportion
that the eagle circling above the gorge looks like a swallow, and the
crowd of trackers appears as a disturbed ant colony. The other way in
which the gorges excel in beauty is in colouring; at one point
especially it was most remarkable--the rocks were red, the mountains
when we saw them were purple, and the purple and red harmonising with
the fresh green foliage of early summer and the deep yellow of the
river, made a rich combination of tints in the landscape which could
hardly be surpassed. It is typical of the state in which China is at
the present day that a scheme should be on foot for building a railway
which no doubt will render the gorges of the Yangtsze a silent highway,
and, instead of hearing the wild song of the tracker or the savage
beating of the tom-tom, {88} the lonely eagle will circle above a
silent river on which the fisherman's bark alone will sail in the
future.
For all schemes to tame the wild and fierce Yangtsze are clearly
impossible. The river rises and falls more than a hundred feet with
great rapidity, and no human hand could ever throw a dam across this
mass of surging water. Possibly it might be used as a source of power
for electrical work, but it is far more probable that the smaller
rivers which fall into the Yangtsze will be chosen for that purpose.
This district may be a tourist resort, and dwellers in the plains of
China may seek coolness and beauty on one of the crags that overhang
the river; the modern hotel may perch itself beside the ancient
Buddhist temple; but the days of the river as a great commercial route
of China are numbered as soon as the railway linking far-western
Szechuan to the rest of China is completed. One wild scheme proposes
that the railway should come from Russia straight down from Szechuan,
in which case more than probably Szechuan will fall completely under
the influence of the Russian Government.
One of the results of Westernising China must be to produce an
industrial revolution. All those men, for instance, who make a living
by leaping from crag to crag, from rock to rock, and swimming,
struggling, rowing in that river Yangtsze will find their living gone.
But not only will the railway make many poor who had a competence, but
it must make many rich {89} who before were poor. In this case, for
instance, all those commodities which are now extremely dear in
Szechuan, because of the cost of transit, will fall in price, and there
will be a period when there will be a wide margin of profit between the
cost of importation and the conventional price the people are used to
pay, and those who live by trade will grow rich.
What has happened in the West must also happen in the East. The
introduction of steam did not make the official classes or even the
working classes immediately rich. The people who immediately profited
by improved means of production and communication were the great middle
class; afterwards as the working class realised that the margin of
profit would allow of larger wages, they compelled the masters to share
these advantages with them. So it will probably happen in China. With
the railway will come a rich middle class who will be a factor of
growing importance in future China.
A great contrast between the Yangtsze and its wild gorges is the great
trunk line from Peking to Canton which runs at right angles through the
Yangtsze north and south, and must make Hankow, the place where it
crosses the Yangtsze, one of the greatest cities in the whole world.
The railway is only completed as far as Hankow. It runs from Peking
right across the plains of China, which are so desolate in the spring
and so fertile in the summer, and which depend for their fertility on
the July rains. At every station a great Chinese inn is erected--that
{90} is to say, a big courtyard with rooms round. At first, of course,
trade was small; the Chinese village community has but little that it
wants either to buy or sell; each community is to a great extent
self-supporting. A farmer reckoned, I was told by a Chinese official,
that if he had made 30s. a year, he had done well. That does not mean
that he lived on 30s. a year, though in a country where men are paid
threepence a day, one would almost have been ready to believe it; but
it means that he had fifteen dollars a year to spend on things outside
his daily food. His farm supplies him with food and drink and his
vicious luxury, opium; his women make his clothes; it only remains for
him to buy material for the clothes and the little extras that they
cannot make, besides salt. He pays for the few things that he has
bought, probably with the opium he produces, or in Manchuria with
beans; but the trade has been of microscopical dimensions owing to the
difficulties of transit.
When the railway is made he finds at the railway inn the Chinese
merchant ready to buy and sell anything that he on his part is ready to
trade. At first, such things as sewing cotton and cigarettes are the
things that are traded against silk or opium, and then comes Chinese
medicine and mineral oil, and so trade begins, and soon the Chinese inn
becomes a market-place, and the railways begin carrying goods.
Of course the full development of the railway system must depend on the
feeding lines and in what {91} we had in Europe before the railway
system, and what the Chinese have not got, the feeding roads. In
Manchuria--for China, like England, is more go-ahead in the north than
in the south--they are already moving in this direction. The Russian
railways, possessed now by the Japanese, are very busy carrying beans
to Dalny, and soon the Japanese lines from Mukden to Antung will be
equally busy, and the line from Mukden to Tientsin also will carry this
crop. What they are now considering at Mukden is how they can arrange
a feeding system of light railways, by which a bigger area of ground
can be brought within reach of the railway system. To give some idea
of the energy and progressive character of the officials in those
parts, I may mention that they are already making inquiries as to the
mono-rail system for such railways.
The Chinese have made up their minds to welcome railways, and though
they would far prefer railways to be built with Chinese capital, they
are of necessity compelled to accept European capital, since their
fellow-countrymen want very high interest for their money. The Germans
have taken very full advantage of the Chinese desire for railways, and
have linked Kiauchau with the railway system of China.
The effect of all this must be very far reaching. To begin with, it
will alter the influence of foreign powers. As the railway service is
completed, Kiauchau will become a very much more important centre than
it is now. If a railway that links Peking to Nanking, {92} or, to be
accurate, to a town on the Yangtsze opposite to Nanking, is cut by a
railway from Kiauchau, the result will be that Kiauchau will become the
nearest ice-free port for an enormous district of China. This cannot
fail to strengthen the German influence, and the German influence is
connected, as we have already explained, too much with that political
side of missions which has caused them to be distrusted by peace-loving
Chinese. The Chinese will ask themselves, will there not soon be a
missionary incident which will justify a further aggression by Germany
along the railway, which lies so handy for a military advance, and they
will be suspicious of any German missionary effort in that quarter.
But the effect of the railways is much more far reaching than any
casual advantage that it may give to various powers, whether it be to
Germany in Shantung, or to Russia or Japan in Manchuria, or to France
in Yunnan, or to Russia in Szechuan. It will have two main effects.
First and foremost it must place the whole of China in the same
position that Shanghai and Tientsin occupy at the present moment--that
is, it must make the whole of China a mixture of Eastern and Western
civilisation. It may be urged that the rivers of China have already
been the means of bringing East and West into close contact with one
another, and yet that China remains still a separate and different
country to the treaty ports.
{93}
The answer is, firstly, that it is comparatively only a short time
since the river has been opened to foreign trade, and that a great
advance has been made in the treaty ports, so much so that a man in the
customs service living by the gorges of the Yangtsze described the
difference between the treaty ports and the rest of China by saying, "A
man who has only seen Shanghai and Hankow has never seen China."
Secondly, a railway has a great educational effect. When a railway is
first opened the Chinese crowd to see it; they get in the way of the
engine, they are run over, they accuse it of malign powers, and then
they come to the conclusion that it is after all only a machine, and
they take readily to travelling by rail.
For instance, the railway from Tientsin up to Manchuria has already
completely altered the conditions of culture in the north. It has
enabled a large number of labourers to migrate every year to cultivate
the fertile but icy districts of Manchuria, so that it is quite a sight
to see truck-load after truck-load of farm labourers travelling like
cattle, going up from the south to the districts of the north at the
rate of three dollars for a twenty-two hours' journey.
Not only does the railway carry the Tientsin labourer in a truck to the
Manchurian beanfield, but it also carries first-class the Chinese
merchant who will buy the crop of beans to the advantage of the farmer
and to his own greater advantage. The {94} Chinese are rich in
traders, and such an opportunity would never be allowed to pass. Every
year will produce a greater number of wealthy Chinese merchants, many
of them very ignorant both of Western and Eastern knowledge, but
probably some of them owning a respect for that knowledge whose lack
they have felt in proportion to their own ignorance, for there is no
man more inclined as a class to endow educational institutions than he
who in his youth has felt the need of them.
China now needs help to found a University teaching Western knowledge.
Once it is formed, there is every reason to believe that it will be
endowed by the same class that has endowed similar institutions in our
own country.
{95}
CHAPTER VIII
THE CITIES Of CHINA
Nowhere is the transitional period through which China is passing more
obvious than in the cities of China; many towns are still completely
Chinese, but as you approach the ports you find more and more Western
development. The contrast between towns is extremely marked. Shanghai
or Tientsin are Western towns and centres of civilisation; the
difference between them and such towns as Hangchow or Ichang is very
great. The true Chinese city is not without its beauty--in fact, in
many ways it is a beautiful and wonderful place. But to appreciate it
eyes only are wanted, and a nose is a misfortune. The streets are
extremely narrow passages, which are bordered on either side by most
attractive shops, particularly in the main street. The stranger longs
to stop and buy things as he goes along, but the difficulty is that it
takes so much time; he must either be prepared to pay twice the value
of the things he wants, or to spend hours in negotiation. There is one
curious exception to this rule; the silk guild at Shanghai does not
allow its members to bargain, and therefore in the silk shop the real
price is told at once.
{96}
The shopkeepers are charming, and there are numbers of
salesmen--salesmen who do not mind taking any amount of trouble to
please. It is delightful, if insidious, to go into those shops; and
one can well believe that if a Chinese silk shop were opened in London,
and silk sold at Chinese prices, the shop would have plenty of
customers. The quality of Chinese silk far exceeds that of the silks
of the West. A Chinese gentleman mentioned as an example of this
superiority that one of his gowns was made of French silk, and that it
was torn and spoilt after two or three years; but that he had had gowns
of Chinese silk for twenty years or more which were quite as good as on
the day he bought them, and that he had only put them on one side
because the fashions in men's garments change in China as they do
elsewhere for ladies. The same gentleman related many interesting
things about the silk trade. The quality of the silk is determined by
the silk guild. This is much more like the guilds in mediæval Europe
than anything that we have nowadays, and that is why China is not
exporting more silk than she is at present. These silk guilds to a
certain extent prevent the Chinese catering for European customers, as
they will not allow or at any rate encourage the production of silks
that would take on the European market. The West has many faults as
well as many virtues, and one of its faults is that it no longer cares
for articles of sterling value, which last long and for which a high
price must be paid, {97} but it delights in attractive articles of poor
quality at a low price. It is to be feared that the West may spoil
some of China's great products as she has spoilt the great arts and
productions of India.
But to return to Chinese streets. Next the silk shop will be the
silver shop. Here again the work is admirable. At such a place as
Kiukiang you can spend an hour or more bargaining, and watching the
wonderful skill of the silversmiths as they turn out beautiful silver
ornaments. It is pleasant to wander along and to look into the shops
and see the strange things that are for sale--fish of many kinds in one
shop, rice and grain in another, strange vegetables, little bits of
pork, flattened ducks; or to glance at the clothes and the coats hung
out, many of them of brilliant colours. The signs over the shops and
the names of the merchants are a feature in themselves, illuminated as
they are in vivid hues of red and gold, in those wonderful characters
so full of mystery to the foreigner.
In a native city up-country the traveller is practically forced to go
through the city in a chair. There are no wheel conveyances except
wheelbarrows, and, except where there are Manchus, horses are quite
unknown. Walking is profoundly unpleasant for a European, for as he
walks along he is constantly jostled by porters carrying loads of goods
on a bamboo across their shoulders; or cries are heard, and a Chinese
Mandarin is carried past shoulder high, leaning forward looking out of
his {98} chair perhaps with a smile, of contempt for the foreigner who
can so demean himself as to go on foot like a common coolie; or perhaps
it is a lady with her chair closely covered in and only a glimpse to be
seen of a rouged and powdered face, for the Chinese women paint to
excess, as part of their ordinary toilette. Next comes the
water-carrier hurrying past with his two buckets of water; or perhaps
it is some malodorous burden which makes a Western long to be deprived
of the sense of smell. But in a chair a ride through a Chinese town is
delightful; the chair-coolies push past foot-passengers who accept
their buffets with the greatest equanimity, and from a comparatively
elevated position the traveller can look down on the crowd.
But when the Chinese city is near a port, all this begins to change.
The chair is replaced by the ricksha, and though in many ways it is
less comfortable than a chair, the ricksha is after all the beginning
of the rule of the West, being a labour-saving machine. One coolie or
two at the most can drag a man quickly and easily where with a chair
three or four bearers would be needed. Outside the old town will be
built the new native town, and the new native town is built on European
lines, with comparatively wide streets. In a treaty port the completed
specimen of the transitional stage through which all China is passing
is to be seen. Shanghai is a most delightful town, although it seems
commonplace to those who live there, but {99} to a stranger it is a
place full of contradictions and eccentricities. The first thing that
strikes one in Shanghai is that none of the natives know any of the
names of the streets. It is true they are written up in large letters
both in English and in Chinese; but as not one of the coolies can read,
they have not the very slightest idea that that is the name of the
street--they call it quite a different name; and as they speak a
different language both to that of the educated Chinaman and to the
Englishman, there is no reason why they should ever learn the names
given by them. The habitual way of directing a ricksha coolie is by a
sort of pantomime, and there is always a great element of uncertainty
as to whether he will get to his destination even with the oldest
resident unless he knows the way himself. I arrived at Tientsin and
tried to go and see Dr. Lavington Hart, whose college is known all over
China, I may say all over the world, but the Chinese porter was quite
unable to make the coolie understand where it was, and so we wandered
about for some time till the coolie got tired and put me down opposite
what fortunately turned out to be the house of a Japanese gentleman. I
entered the house, and was surprised that the Chinese servant who met
me did not altogether seem to expect me; but as he could not speak
English and I could not speak Chinese, it was impossible to inquire if
anything was wrong. I was just wondering why Dr. Hart should live in a
Japanese house, {100} when the door opened and a Japanese gentleman
walked in. Fortunately for me he spoke both Chinese and English well;
so after explanations I was again sent on my road, and found Dr.
Lavington Hart waiting dinner for me, and wondering how I had got lost.
He then told me that I should have asked not for his college but for
the hospital opposite, and that I should have asked not for the street
but for the Chinese name of the doctor of the hospital who had been
dead ten or fifteen years.
There is a moral in all this: it shows the state of confusion that
exists in small as well as in large things. I asked several Englishmen
why they did not accept the native names of the streets; their answer
was that the coolies could not read them; and when I suggested that
common sense would expect that the coolies' names should be taken for
the streets, for after all that is how most of the streets in England
were originally named, the suggestion met with no approval. These
small matters show what a great gulf there is between the thoughts of
the two races. If the coolies had been Italians or Germans or
Russians, their names would have been accepted, or they would have been
compelled to learn the new names.
Another example of the difficulty of carrying on the details of city
life is afforded by a common spectacle at Shanghai. In the crowded
streets you see a little crowd of policemen. The group consists of
three splendid men, typical of three different {101} civilisations.
First there is the English policeman; next to him is a black-bearded
man, bigger than the first, a Sikh, every gesture and action revealing
the martial characteristics of his race; then a Chinaman completes the
group, blue-coated and wearing a queue and a round Chinese hat as a
sign of office. The traveller wonders why this trio is needed till he
sees them in action. A motor car rushes down one road, a ricksha comes
down another, and a Chinese wheelbarrow with six women sitting on it
slowly progresses down a third. All three conveyances are controlled
by Chinamen, and when they meet, all shout and shriek at the top of
their voices; no one keeps the rule of the road, with the probable
result that the wheelbarrow is upset, the ricksha is forced against the
wall, and the motor car pulled up dead. Then the police force comes
into action. The Chinese policeman objurgates vociferously and makes
signals indifferently to everybody; the Sikh policeman at once begins
to thrash the Chinese coolie; meanwhile the English policeman at last
gets the traffic on the right side of the road, quiets his
subordinates, sees justice done, and restores order. Possibly if the
matter had been left to the Chinese policeman, he would have arranged
it in the end; the traffic in Peking was controlled entirely by Chinese
policemen and was fairly well managed.
There is an extraordinary example of the want of consideration for the
feelings of the Chinese to {102} be seen in the public gardens at
Shanghai. There stands a notice which contains, among several
regulations, first, that "no dogs or bicycles shall be admitted";
secondly, that "no Chinese shall be admitted except servants in
attendance on foreigners." Considering that the land is Chinese soil,
one cannot but wonder that any one who had dealings with the Chinese
should allow so ill-mannered a notice to be put up. No Chinese
gentleman would object for a moment if the notice had been to the
effect that unclean persons and beggars should be excluded from the
gardens; but to exclude the cultured Chinese merchant who is every whit
as clean as his Western neighbour, or to exclude the respectable people
of the middle class whose orderly behaviour is beyond suspicion, is as
unreasonable as it is regrettable.
Again, the Shanghai municipality has no Chinese representatives upon
it, though the great bulk of the population is Chinese, with the result
that from time to time they come across Chinese prejudices and quite
unnecessarily irritate the population which they govern. The Chinese
have a principle that a woman shall be publicly punished only for
adultery and open shameless theft; her "face" or dignity must be
preserved; and therefore she should never be made to answer for her
offences in open court, her husband or her father being held
responsible for her behaviour and for her punishment. The right way of
dealing with any woman who is charged with an offence is to do as we do
in England with regard to children, to summon {103} not her but those
responsible for her behaviour. I was assured by a Chinese official
that the trouble which culminated in the Shanghai riots originated from
disregard of this principle. The refusal of the Shanghai municipality
to have Chinese representatives upon it is the more remarkable, as I
was informed at Hong-Kong that they have such representatives, and find
them most useful in assisting in the government of the Chinese. It is
not surprising that Shanghai is a town to which it is diplomatic to
make no reference in conversation with a Chinese gentleman.
There is more to be said for the mistrust of the Chinese Post-office
and for the continuation of the curious system by which each nation has
its own post-office. Nothing is more annoying to the traveller in
Shanghai than the trouble he has to get his letters. If it should so
happen that he has correspondents in many countries, he has to go to
every one of the many post-offices in Shanghai, and they are situated
in different parts of the town and in places very difficult to find.
There is the Imperial Chinese Post-office, to which he first repairs,
and where he will find letters from any correspondent in China; then
with the greatest difficulty he reaches the English Post-office; after
which he remembers that some of his friends may be on a holiday in
France, therefore he must go to the French Post-office, and so on.
When he asks why the Chinese Post-office cannot be trusted, he is told
that the Chinese themselves will not trust their {104} post-office
unless there be a European official in control, and that the old
Chinese system by which letters are forwarded by private companies
still continues in many parts of China, although they possess branches
of the Imperial Chinese Post-office. Still the traveller wearily
thinks at the end of his day's journey that without undue trust in
another nationality, or any loss of national prestige, an International
Post-office might be arranged in a town like Shanghai, with its vast
travelling population.
Shanghai with its mixture of races, with its national antipathies and
jealousies, is indeed one of the most attractive but strangest towns in
the whole world. Every race meets there; and as one wanders down the
Nanking road, one never tires of watching the nationalities which
throng that thoroughfare. There walks a tall bearded Russian, a fat
German, jostling perhaps a tiny Japanese officer, whose whole air shows
that he regards himself as a member of the conquering race that has
checkmated the vast power of Europe; there are sleek Chinese in Western
carriages, and there are thin Americans in Eastern rickshas; the motor
cycle rushes past, nearly colliding with a closely-curtained chair
bearing a Chinese lady of rank, or a splendid Indian in a yellow silk
coat is struck in the face by the hat of a Frenchman, who finds the
pavements of Shanghai too narrow for his sweeping salute; one hears
guttural German alternating with Cockney slang; Parisian toilettes are
seen next half-naked coolies; a couple of sailors on {105} a tandem
cycle almost upset two Japanese beauties as they shuffle along with
their toes turned in; a grey gowned Buddhist priest elbows a bearded
Roman missionary; a Russian shop where patriotism rather than love of
gain induces the owners to conceal the nature of their wares by
employing the Russian alphabet overhead, stands opposite a Japanese
shop which, in not too perfect English, assures the wide world that
their heads can be cut cheaply; an English lady looks askance at the
tightness of her Chinese sister's nether garments, while the Chinese
sister wonders how the white race can tolerate the indecency that
allows a woman to show her shape and wear transparent sleeves.
Yes, Shanghai on a spring afternoon is a most interesting place; and
yet as you turn your eyes to the river and catch sight of the dark grey
warship, you realise that beneath all this peace and busy commerce lies
the fear of the grim realities of war. China may assimilate the
adjuncts of Western life, but she will never welcome the Western. The
racial gulf that divides them is far too deep. It may be temporarily
bridged by the heroism of a missionary; the enthusiasm of Christianity
may make those who embrace it brothers; but the feeling of love will
not extend one inch beyond the influence of religion; and those who
ponder on the future as they watch the many-hued crowd that passes must
grow more and more sure that the future of China lies with the Chinese
alone; and however much as a race they may {106} be willing to learn
from the West, they will as a race be led only by their own people.
The Westerner may be employed; Western teaching may be learnt; Western
garments may be worn; but, as a Chinese professor said, "The wearer
will be a Chinaman all the same."
{107}
CHAPTER IX
OPIUM
There was one marked difference in the cities of China as we saw them
in our two visits, and this was the change that had taken place in the
matter of opium-smoking. Opium-smoking in 1907 was such a common vice
that you could see men smoking it at the doors of their houses. In
1909 opium-smoking hid itself, and those that smoked, smoked secretly,
or at any rate less ostentatiously. I doubt whether so great an
alteration has taken place in any country, certainly not of late years.
Each race has its peculiar vice; in fact, we may go further than that,
we may say that it is a remarkable fact that the great bulk of mankind
insists on taking some form of poison; in fact, it is only a minute
minority which wholly abstains from this practice. The poisons used by
mankind have different effects and have a different degree of toxic
power, but the reason they are used is because in some way they
stimulate or soothe the nervous system. Opium, alcohol, tobacco, tea,
coffee, hashish, are examples of this widespread habit of humanity; but
these different drugs have the most different effects on the welfare of
man. Some seem to be wholly {108} innocuous if not beneficial, and
others seem to be absolutely pernicious and to do nothing but evil; and
further than that, one may say that a different preparation of the same
drug or a different way of taking it produces differing results. A
still more curious thing is that though all mankind is agreed in taking
some poison, there is a marked, racial tendency to accept one
particular poison and to detest others, and at times it seems as if the
habit of taking one was sufficient to prevent another having any
attraction.
As we went to China we passed through the Suez Canal, and heard what a
curse hashish was in Egypt, and how the Egyptian Government had
endeavoured to secure total prohibition of the use of this obnoxious
drug, a course which was impossible owing to the great amount of
smuggling that was facilitated by the wide deserts that surround Egypt.
When we arrived at Saigon (we were travelling by the French mail) we
first came in contact with the terrible vice of the Chinese. A French
lady was pointed out to us by a doctor, and he asked us to observe the
odd glassy look of her eyes, the intense suavity of her manner and the
contempt which she evinced for truth, and he told us that these were
all symptoms of the vice of opium-smoking that she had contracted from
association with the Annamites. The French for some mysterious reason
seem more prone to acquire this vice than do our own countrymen, for
though in 1907 it was rife in South China, {109} no one ever suggested
that any English smoked opium at Hong-Kong.
As we went up to Canton crowds of people were smoking opium on the
Chinese deck, and when we wandered round they had no objection to our
standing watching the lazy process of dipping the needle into the
treacle-like mixture, turning it round till a bead was formed, then
putting it into the lamp to light and thence transferring it to the
opium pipe, when after three whiffs or so the process had to be begun
again.
The first effect of opium-smoking is to make a man intelligent and
amiable. It is for this reason that opium-smoking--so the Chinese
explained to us--is used largely in business. When business is
difficult, and you cannot get three or four men to agree, the opium
pipe is brought out, and after two or three whiffs the cantankerous
people are reasonable, and the people whose dignity is hurt are
forgiving, and business is easily and rapidly transacted. The next
stage of smoking is stupidity. As you watch an opium-smoker in that
condition he nods amiably at you with a rather imbecile look. The last
stage is one of heavy senseless sleep. The habitual opium-smoker
rarely passes the first stage, and its apparently beneficial influence
constitutes its danger. Each man says to himself: "I will never take
it to excess; I will merely use it and not abuse it; it makes life
sweet to me and business easy."
I have always thought that those who condemn {110} opium have a
tendency to prove too much in their argument. If it could be shown
that the effects of opium-taking were invariably pernicious, it would
be very hard to see how the vice could take such a hold as it has taken
on the Chinese race; if the young men regularly saw that the older men
were brought to inanity and death by the use of opium, they would
themselves be terrified of contracting the vice, and it would not have
spread as rapidly as it has done. The vice is essentially modern.
Opium has only been grown in China for about seventy or eighty years,
and it has only been imported in large quantities for a scarcely longer
period of time. An inhabitant of Shansi told us that though every one
smoked opium, and it was a terrible curse, his father remembered its
introduction. Opium is certainly deleterious to the moral fibre of a
race, and in many cases it produces death and misery; but there are a
certain number of cases where no obvious evil effects follow from its
consumption--cases when as a rule a man is well-nourished, for it acts
most deleteriously on a man's powers of digestion. Men who have good
food can better tolerate the effects of the drug, so a mission doctor
explained, and their comparative immunity tempts others to follow their
example. Men do not see at once the evil that will result, and so its
use has spread by leaps and bounds. The Chinese Government have always
theoretically resisted it, but their action has been hampered by their
not being permitted to {111} prohibit its importation. For many years
the pro-opium party in China used those treaty obligations by which
China was bound to permit the importation of opium as a reason for
stopping any efforts to extirpate the vice in the country. Not only
were there always a great number of people in high places addicted to
the vice, who were naturally unwilling to remove from themselves the
opportunity of its gratification, but also there was a vast number of
people who rapidly acquired a great pecuniary interest both in the
maintenance and extension of this trade.
Unfortunately for humanity, opium was not only very injurious but
extremely portable, and it therefore formed in a country where means of
communication are bad a very useful article of exchange. The peasant
farmer will grow most things on his little farm which he and his family
consume--in most respects they will be a self-supporting community--but
there must be a certain number of things which they will need to buy,
and for which they must give something in exchange; that something must
be portable. In many cases the only way of bringing your goods to the
market is by carrying them on your own back. Opium, alas, forms, in
soils which it suits, a most remunerative crop. The whole product of
several fields can be carried quite easily on a man's back and can be
sent down to the market, where it will find a ready sale, and the
result of that sale will be invested in articles of which the farmer
and his family have need.
{112}
Not only the farmer, but the trader, both Chinese and European, find it
a most profitable source of trade. It was hard, and it is hard, to
persuade the European trader that it is injurious to China, and to
understand the reason we must turn back to the thought which was
suggested at the beginning of the chapter, namely, that it is very
doubtful whether the English race has any natural desire for the vice,
while it is most patent that the Chinese have a peculiar national
tendency towards this form of dissipation. When people have no desire
for an intoxicant themselves, it is hard to persuade them that others
may have a desire which may be beyond all power of restraint. The
trading class mixes but little socially with the Chinese, and the
people with whom they are brought in contact are very generally
pecuniarily interested in the opium trade, and therefore they have
neither the evidence of the Chinese nor of their own temptation to
convince them of the insidious and dangerous character of this vice to
the Chinese race.
The English race has long been conversant with opium. In the form of
laudanum it used to be sold freely in the eastern counties. I have
heard people describe years ago how the old women from the fen round
Lowestoffe, or the marshes as they are there called, would call on
market day at the chemist for their regular supply of laudanum, which
they would take in quantities sufficient to make any ordinary person go
fast asleep. It was used there, as it is used in many {113} countries,
as a prophylactic against ague. The doctors now deny that it has any
beneficial effect, but the people in the eastern counties used to think
differently. But when I was a curate at Yarmouth I could find no
traces of this vice; it had apparently been exterminated not by any
social reform or moral movement, but by the superior attraction of
alcohol; and in my day Yarmouth and the district round was terribly
addicted to the national vice of intemperance. I noticed the same
thing in Shanghai. The English know opium; most of them have out of
curiosity tried a pipe; and they describe the effects as trifling or
very unpleasant. One man said that he felt as if all his bones were a
jelly; another that he felt as if he was floating between heaven and
earth; a third that he found no pleasure in it at all, but that he had
a "filthy headache" next day. On the other hand, if you go into the
Shanghai Club you can see at once what is the attractive vice to the
European at Shanghai; the whole of one side of the entrance hall was
nothing more than the bar of an overgrown public-house. You will hear
story after story which tells the same old tale that alcohol,
especially in its strongest form, is the greatest pleasure and the
worst danger to the Englishman abroad as at home.
If opium is unattractive to the white man, on the other hand alcohol is
equally unattractive to the yellow man; in fact, their relative
position is much the same. The yellow man has known of alcohol from
the very earliest ages. Dr. Ross quotes the {114} second ode of the
Book of Poetry as showing how well known drunkenness was to the
Chinese: "Before they drank too much, they were dignified and grave;
but with too much drink their dignity changed to indecency, their
gravity to rudeness; the fact is, that when they have become drunk they
lose all sense of order. When the guests have drunk too much, they
shout, they brawl, they upset the orderly arrangement of the dishes,
they dance about unsteadily, their caps are set awry and threaten to
fall off, they dance about and do not know when to stop. Had they gone
out before drinking so deeply, both host and guest would have been
happier. Drinking gives real happiness only when it is taken in
moderation according to propriety."
Drunkenness seems to have been extirpated from China by the same
process that laudanum-taking was from the eastern counties, namely, it
has given way before the more entrancing vice of opium-smoking. I was
assured that the Tibetans do not share with the Chinese this preference
for opium, and this is all the more remarkable because from their
geographical position they have always been in close contact with
India, which is apparently the home of the opium vice, but they have
adhered steadily to the vice of drunkenness. The Chinese have free
trade in drink; they have no licensing laws; any one may sell alcohol
at any time of the day, in any place they like; and yet alcohol has so
few votaries that you will scarcely see a drunken man from one end of
China to another.
{115}
If the English commercial world is incredulous to the danger of opium
to the Chinaman, not so the Chinese world. People will tell you that
Orientals love to agree with you in whatever you say, but I heard a
British Vice-consul flatly contradicted by a Chinese official when the
Vice-consul expressed a doubt as to the danger of the vice, and I must
say the Chinese disputant supported his contradiction with an argument
which seemed to me perfectly unanswerable. He said: "Look at the
Japanese; they are impartial spectators of the vice of alcoholism and
opium-smoking; they are conversant with the worst forms of alcoholism
that white men can show them. It is well known that white sailors are
great offenders in this respect. Every port in Japan knows what it is
to see a drunken sailor finding his way to his ship. They are equally
conversant with the vice of opium-smoking. They have intimate contact
with the Chinese; they know both the recent origin of this vice and its
terrible ravages; and what do they do? Do they forbid both vices
equally? No; they are so convinced that opium is so much more
dangerous than alcohol, that they will not allow it to be introduced
into their country for smoking purposes, and the smuggler is liable to
five years' penal servitude. But the vice of alcoholism they treat as
something which, though harmful, can never threaten their national
existence."
Perhaps we who have suffered much more from the vice of alcoholism than
of opium-smoking may be {116} inclined to think that while the Japanese
are right in the opium question, they are acting imprudently in
allowing alcoholism to gain such a hold on their people; but whether
they are right or wrong, there can be no doubt that the Chinese
official had justice on his side when he pointed out that to the
Japanese mind the evils that opium-smoking had done to China were of a
most serious character.
His Excellency Tang-K'ai-Sun spoke the Chinese mind when, in an
eloquent speech at the Shanghai Conference, he told of the awful
desolation that opium was bringing to his land. But it is unnecessary
to quote the opinion of individual Chinamen; they are practically
unanimous on this subject. One has only got to point to what China has
done to show two things. First, that the curse of opium-smoking was
far greater and more horrible than anything that we have experienced on
this side of the globe; next, that there is latent in the Chinese
character a vigour and an energy which, when it is called into action,
despises all obstacles and acts so efficiently as to leave the world
lost in astonishment. Realise what China has done. China is addicted
to a vice which has a far greater hold upon her than alcoholism has
upon us; she determines that within ten years that vice is to cease.
The production of the poppy is to be diminished till none is produced;
opium-smokers are to be held up to public scorn; opium dens--which are
really the equivalent of our public-houses--are to be closed; all
officials who take {117} opium are to be turned out of Government
employ; the only exception that is made is for old men, and that
exception was quite unavoidable. So vigorous was the action of the
Government that men who have for forty or fifty years of their lives
taken opium, tried to give it up; the result was in several cases that
they were unable to support the physical strain; a great illness, even
death, ensued; and so the edict was relaxed; men over sixty were
allowed to continue smoking. When all this was published, every one
smiled. They argued that China was trying to do the impossible. A
vice like opium-smoking may be extirpated, but only after years of
struggle. A generation must come and a generation must go before opium
or any similar vice shows appreciable diminution.
We ourselves have not been unsuccessful in struggling against the vice
of alcoholism; but consider the number of years since Father Mathew
first spoke against drink. England may be growing sober, but it is by
slow if steady degrees. But China hopes to accomplish in ten years
what has taken England so many patient years of toil to effect
partially. The idea that China could do this was regarded by most
Westerns as almost laughable. In 1907, when the edict was first put
forth, all those we met in China held this view; even missionaries,
while they gave every credit to the Government for what it intended,
shook their heads and foretold disappointment. We noticed as we passed
along that {118} wonderful line that links Hankow to Peking and Peking
to Harbin in 1907 that the country was beautiful with the white and
pink crops of poppy, till at times one might imagine that the
transformation scene of a London theatre was before us rather than the
land of China, and remembering what we had been told, we also
confidently expected failure to the edict which requires the
destruction of so many miles of this pernicious if beautiful crop.
In 1909, when we again traversed the same country, we could not see a
single poppy flower; not only so, but we made every effort to see if we
could find a field. We went for a twenty mile walk at Ichang through
the country, where no one could have expected a foreigner to come, and
we only found one tiny patch of poppy, and one in which the ruthless
hand of the law had rooted up the growing crop. As we went up the
Gorges of the Yangtsze we scanned with a strong glass the hillside, and
never once on those glorious mountains did we see any sign of opium
cultivation. We asked about the officials; not only was the Government
enforcing the law that officials must give up opium-smoking, but they
were taking a more effectual action; they were requiring all those who
were going to be officials to spend some time under supervision, to
ensure that they should not be opium-smokers. Could any Western power
hope to accomplish such a feat? Would the most extreme temperance
reformer suggest that all public-houses should be closed, that the
amount of barley {119} should be diminished every year till within ten
years none should be grown, and that all the Government officials, from
the Prime Minister downwards, should become total abstainers within
that period? The reason of this vigorous action of China and its
present success is to be attributed to two things: first, to the
terrible and very real national fear that this vice will destroy the
nation, as it has destroyed countless families and individuals;
secondly, to the vast store of energy which enables China to accept new
ideas and act vigorously on them.
The great revolution of thought that is going on has called forth this
vigour. The China of yesterday was _fainéant_ and unprogressive. The
China that is emerging out of this revolution of thought is energetic,
though possibly unpractical. The old traditions of Government are not
lost, and they wait but for the man and the hour to enable China to act
as vigorously as she has done in time past. Her action in this opium
question may be ill-considered in some details; it may even fail; but
it has shown the world that China is in earnest, and that she can act
with a vigour which will cause wonder and envy on this side of the
world. Every missionary reports that even high officials are coming
asking to be cured of the opium habit. The missionaries have founded
refuges where they receive and cure those who are ready to submit to
the terrible ordeal, for their suffering is intense. Many quack cures
are advertised. Some are definitely pernicious; for instance, the
{120} morphia syringe has become a common article for sale in some
parts of China. Some few may be beneficial. There is no doubt that
the movement against opium is a great national movement, and is not the
result of the action of any small or fanatical party. What China has
done proves that this is so.
Let me close the chapter by a quotation from the ablest of the foreign
representatives at Peking, Sir John Jordan. Writing to Sir Edward
Grey, he says: "It is true that the Chinese Government have in recent
years effected some far-reaching changes, of which the abolition of the
old examination system is perhaps the most striking instance; but to
sweep away in a decade habits which have been the growth of at least a
century, and which have gained a firm hold upon 8,000,000 of the adult
population of the empire, is a task which has, I imagine, been rarely
attempted with success in the course of history; and the attempt, it
must be remembered, is to be made at a time when the Central Government
has largely lost the power to impose its will upon the provinces. The
authors of the movement are, however, confident of success, and China
will deserve and doubtless receive much sympathy in any serious effort
she may make to stamp out the evil."
{121}
CHAPTER X
THE WOMEN'S QUESTION
The desire for radical change is never so much to be dreaded as when it
attacks the home life of a nation. That quiet life so often hidden
away because of its very sacredness by the Eastern races is like
everything else in China disturbed by the introduction of Western
civilisation, and in no other part of human life will its two different
sides be more apparent. Western civilisation without Christianity will
destroy the home life as it destroys most Eastern things it touches,
and will do little to construct a new life to take the place of the one
it destroys. The Japanese complain that Western civilisation has
destroyed both the modesty and the religion of their women, and
Christianity has not yet been able to any great extent to reconstruct
on the basis of true religion new ideals of feminine life. Therefore
the Chinese, with all their enthusiasm for Western culture, are looking
a little nervously at what they see has happened in Japan. They say
that their home life is not now unbeautiful; even those who are
disposed to admit that the life of the Western woman is founded on
higher ideals than their own will not allow that their national home
life deserves unmixed {122} condemnation. Everybody agrees that the
wanton destruction of the laws which govern women's life in China may
have a terrible result when Western civilisation is unwisely
introduced, especially if it is made to appear to be a civilisation
without religion. The missionaries see in this crisis the necessity
for vigorous action; while thankful for the movement, they realise the
responsibility it puts upon Christians to see that that movement is
wisely directed. In the memorial from the Centenary Conference at
Shanghai in 1907 to the Home Churches, they say:--
"The changed attitude of China towards female education and the place
of woman, lays upon us great responsibilities. The uplifting of woman
is a first need in the moral regeneration of a people, and one of the
things in which Christianity has a totally different ideal from that
which the religions of China have encouraged. The present change of
national sentiment on the subject is one of the indirect but none the
less striking changes that the slow but steady dissemination of
Christian ideas in China during the past century has led to. Let it be
remembered, however, that it requires the Christian motive power to
make it successful and fruitful."
It is somewhat difficult to obtain information from the Chinese
themselves as to the position of women. They are very averse to
discussing the subject; in fact, it is not even regarded as good
manners for a man to ask after the health of his most intimate friend's
wife; and all the information that we could {123} get had for the most
part to be obtained by Lady Florence Cecil through feminine sources.
We may generally state, however, that the position of women in China is
neither so low as that which they occupy in India or among the
Mohammedans, neither is it in any degree so high as the position of
women in Western lands. The woman is completely subject to the man;
till she marries she is subject to her father, when she is married she
is subject to her husband, and if her husband dies she is then subject
to her son, and rarely re-marries. These are called the three
obediences. She is not educated as a rule, because both public opinion
and Chinese philosophy regard her as mentally far inferior to the man.
We shall explain later on how in Chinese thought everything is divided
into a good and an evil principle--a Yang and a Yin. The woman is
distinctly Yin. She is therefore necessary to man, but at the same
time inferior.
Again, with regard to the question of polygamy, her position is an
intermediate one between the avowed polygamy of Moslem countries and
the ill-maintained monogamy of many a Latin country. In Hong-Kong the
position was explained by a Chinaman to me thus: that when a woman grew
old it was regarded as her duty to provide a secondary wife for her
husband's pleasure and as a companion for herself--a companion with a
sense of servitude in it. If this was done in an orderly manner, it
was absolutely approved by Chinese public opinion. If, {124} on the
other hand, the husband, ignoring the wife's rights, should choose a
secondary wife for himself and set her up in another house, his
attitude would be regarded as distinctly doubtful by the respectable
Chinese. In the same way if an official were appointed to a distant
post he would probably not think of imposing upon his wife with her
deformed feet the pain and discomfort of a long journey; he would most
likely take a natural-footed woman, who will be for that reason a
slave; in fact, one gentleman went so far as to say that he thought
that the squeezed feet had a great deal to do with this institution of
a secondary wife, because he noted that the secondary wives of all the
officials when they were travelling were natural-footed women.
The secondary wife would be rarely a woman of good class; it is allowed
to be an inferior position. On the other hand, if she bears her
husband a son, and that son is recognised, all that son's relations,
and therefore all his mother's relations, become relations of the
father.
The curious tangle which such a position begets when brought into
contact with the Christian idea is exemplified in this story. A rich
Chinaman had three wives. By his lawful wife he had nine children; by
the other two he had none; but his second wife was a woman of very
strong character, and she was brought in touch with the missionaries by
the Chinese wife of a European. She apparently ruled the house with a
kindly rule to which all the others {125} bowed. She did everything in
an energetic and vigorous way, and she studied Christianity till she
was convinced of its truth, and then she demanded baptism. There was a
great difficulty; she must leave her husband before she could be
baptized. After considerable delay she accepted the condition, but
resistance came, not alone from the man, but from the other two wives.
They could not possibly get on without her; they were like sisters; and
she must be allowed to return to the house. She refused, though the
pressure was extreme. The man said that he had promised his ancestors
that none of his children should be Christians, and that his own mother
would not forgive him; but the woman held firm, and at last she was
baptized. Her face was beautiful to behold while she was accepting
Christianity and renouncing all that made life sweet to her. The
husband was so moved by her fortitude that he signed a paper promising
not to molest her, and yet to support her apart, so that she should not
be in any need.
At the Shanghai Conference there were, curious to relate, many women
who wished the Christian body to recognise existing polygamy among the
Chinese. A sentence of the resolution proposed was that "secondary
wives may be admitted to membership if obviously true Christians." Mr.
Arnold Foster resisted the inclusion of these words, and they were
lost. No doubt the Conference was wise in taking this line. It is
most essential to maintain the purity {126} of the home life, and the
difficulty that arises from secondary wives desiring to join the
Christian Church can never be a very important one, as the vast
majority of Chinese are monogamous.
A serious evil this custom creates is that of female slavery. Both in
Japan and China one of the awful penalties of poverty is that a man is
sometimes forced to sell his female children. These little girls are
bought by prudent Chinamen, first to be servants to their own wives and
then to act as secondary wives to their sons to prevent them going
elsewhere. Sometimes they are kidnapped by men who make a regular
business of this cruel traffic. Stories are told of boat-loads of
these children being brought down the Yangtsze, concealed below the
deck and terrorised to keep them quiet by one of their number being
killed before their eyes. On one occasion a missionary suddenly saw a
hand thrust through the planks of the deck, and on investigation he
discovered a dozen children hidden below, and as it turned out they had
been kidnapped, not bought, he was able to get them released. These
slaves are the absolute property of their owners, and many are the
tales told of the cruel and neglectful treatment to which they are
subjected. In Shanghai the Chinese police will report such cases, and
in consequence the ladies of the settlement have founded an admirable
institution to which they can be brought. The Slave Refuge deserves
all support. There the little girls are taught and cared for, and
helped to {127} forget the terrible experiences some of them have gone
through. Sad to relate, many of them have to be taken first to the
hospital to be cured from the effects of the ill-treatment they have
received. One poor little thing went into convulsions when a fire was
lit in the ward; it was difficult to understand the reason, but when it
happened again and the poor child uttered incoherent appeals for mercy,
it was discovered that she thought the fire was lit to heat opium
needles with which to torture her. Her system was too shattered for
recovery, but many others get quite well and form a pleasing sight at
work and play in the bright cheerful Refuge, with the happy elasticity
of youth forgetting the injuries which in some cases have left on them
permanent scars. But I fear the system of slavery continues very
commonly all over China, and such a philanthropic effort as the
Shanghai Slave Refuge can touch but a very small proportion of them.
Probably when the little slaves are destined to be wives to their
mistresses' sons they are treated less cruelly, and though employed as
household drudges, do not live actively unhappy lives.
Without stating that women as a whole are miserable, I think it would
be no exaggeration to say that they are infinitely less happy than
their Western sisters. Many of the national customs militate against
their happiness. The custom of child betrothal, for instance, condemns
a woman to live completely subject to a man for whom she perhaps {128}
has the greatest natural antipathy. Stories are told of brides
committing suicide rather than leave their father's house to be married
to men for whom they feel no affection; yet as a whole they accept
their position, and a Chinese woman has neither the will nor the power
to be untrue to her husband.
Again, the rule of the husband's mother is very often extremely harsh;
the child-wife is little better than her drudge. On the other hand,
when a woman grows older, her position is one of considerable strength.
I was assured that they take a keen interest in the management of their
husbands' properties, and often show themselves excellent business
women. The position which the late Empress of China acquired shows
that women's position is the very reverse of inferior when dignified by
age.
And now before all this woman's world glitters Western civilisation;
the greater dignity which is accorded therein to women is envied and
the laws which restrain her are misunderstood. The Chinese women hear
stories of Western life. At first such strange perversions are
believed as that in the West women rule. One missionary explained that
this absurd figment came from the rule of the late Queen; another
attributed it to the custom men have when travelling in China of
walking while their wives remained in the carrying chair. To the
Chinaman such a course admits of but one explanation: the {129} woman
must be greater than the man because she is carried while he walks.
Again, in Western China they learnt through their local press that
girls and boys received a similar education in England, and they
concluded that the dress must be also similar, and the missionaries
were more amused than scandalised at seeing a Government girls' school
turned out in boys' clothes. It was explained to us that this was far
from being an uncommon custom in China; slave-girls who have been
brought up with natural feet are habitually dressed as boys, and it is
common now for fathers of small daughters with unbound feet to avoid
the unpleasant taunts of the ignorant by allowing their daughters while
they are children to wear boys' clothes.
Still on the whole the desire for imitation of the West has been very
beneficial to the women of China, especially in this matter of
foot-binding. This disgusting custom is going out of fashion among the
enlightened and educated classes; two or three Chinese gentlemen
assured us that this was so; and in a place like Shanghai, where the
Western movement is very strong, the number of women with unbound feet
is quite remarkable; the greater number of them naturally have had
their feet bound, and as feet bound from infancy never become quite
normal, they still have something of the tottering walk which used to
be the admiration of every Chinaman; in fact, this tottering walk is
preserved as a piece of {130} affectation. A lady told us that even
her Christian girls' school was not above such a feminine weakness. As
they walked to Church they would step out with the swinging stride that
regular gymnastic exercises and a most comfortable dress have
encouraged; suddenly the lady would see the whole of her school struck
with a sort of paralysis which made them exchange their easy gait for
the "tottering-lily" walk of the Chinese small-footed women. The cause
is that the boys' school has just come into sight. I fear it must be
admitted that foot-binding continues to be practised in the interior
amongst the poorer women, who cling to the custom for fear of ridicule.
The most beneficial effect of the admiration of the West is the earnest
desire that it has given to Chinese women for education. So keen is
this desire that even married women will become children again and take
their position in the class. Husbands who have received Western
education are most anxious that their wives should share somewhat in
their interests.
Lady Florence could see over girls' schools where a man's visit would
not have been acceptable, so she visited many of all varieties,
including two at Peking of a rather unusual description. One of them
was carried on by a Manchu lady of high position, connected with a
great Manchu prince. Her attitude generally towards the forward
women's movement offends her family, as she lectures publicly on topics
of the time. {131} Her school is small, and, alas, not very efficient,
she having fallen into the usual fallacy amongst the Chinese of
believing that a Japanese instructress must of necessity be efficient.
Still her desire to give education to the children of the poor is
worthy of nothing but commendation. She looked most impressive, being
a fine big handsome woman, attired in the Manchu long robe with the
ornate Manchu head-dress. The second school my wife saw was managed by
another Manchu lady, and it seemed more orderly and more successful
than the other. These two schools testified to a desire to improve the
status of women. My wife visited many other schools, some belonging to
missions of various denominations, which attracted the daughters and
even the wives of upper-class men, who mixed quite happily with girls
of lower degree, being all united in a fervent desire for education,
the ruling desire now in China among women of all classes.
This desire for education is a great opportunity for the missionaries,
and they appeal most eloquently in the message from which we have
already quoted for help from their sisters in England. "We need more
schools for girls and more consecrated and highly trained women
competent to conduct such schools and gradually to give higher and
higher instruction in them. We need more training schools, also, for
Chinese women, to fit them to work among their sisters, and we need
educated Christian ladies from our homelands for Zenana work in the
houses of the {132} well-to-do. Such work would have been impossible a
few years ago; now the visits of such workers would in many cases be
cordially welcomed by Chinese ladies, and frequently they would be
returned, for the seclusion of women in China is not at all as strict
as it is in India. This, so far, has been a comparatively unworked
sphere of usefulness in China, but it is one full of promise and of
gracious opportunity in the present."
The difficulty of education is in one way increased and in another way
decreased by the ignorance which many women have of reading the Chinese
characters. A new system has been invented by which Chinese can be
written in our letters as pronounced. This is called by the rather
uncouth name of "Romanised." At the Shanghai Conference we were told
wonderful stories of the incredibly short space of time in which women
learnt to read by this system. A woman of sixty-seven learnt in two
months; while one lady asserted that she had taught a boy to read
between Friday and Wednesday, I may add inclusive. This extraordinary
achievement is not quite so impossible as it would be with our more
complicated languages. The Chinese have extremely few sounds, and
their language is monosyllabic in formation. However, we do not ask
our readers to accept this as the normal rate of education; still the
thing is worth mentioning, because it is possibly the beginning of a
great movement which may alter the whole of education in the Far East.
The extreme ease with {133} which Chinese can be written in our letters
may induce some daring spirit to advocate it as a system fitted for the
education of the poor, though this is at present quite improbable.
A far darker side to the introduction of Western ways is the gradual
naturalisation of the social evils of the West. Lady Florence had the
privilege of seeing some of the rescue work undertaken by devoted
missionary ladies in Shanghai. Being an open port, this town, in
common, I believe, with the other semi-Westernised ports in China,
bears a very bad character as regards purity of morals. The advent of
the foreigner has done nothing but harm in this respect. Wonderful and
horrible though it may seem, the vice-mart exists in the ports mainly
in connection with the foreigners, who appear to have shown the way to
the Chinese. There is a street in Shanghai, the Foochow Road, where
terrible scandals occur almost openly; signs whose intention is veiled
to the outsider by his ignorance of Chinese characters, boldly
advertise the merits of various houses and their inmates. Formerly
these wretched girls were even paraded in open chairs, but this has
been stopped, though they are still carried about in closed chairs.
The scenes in this street as night falls are a sad witness to the ill
effect of Western ideas without Christianity. It must never be
forgotten that the victims of this condition of things are literally
victims. They have no choice in the matter. They are sold by their
parents, even by their husbands, {134} into their terrible position;
and though some may live a life of luxury, most of them are cruelly
treated, beaten, tortured to prevent flight, and, as is proved by their
subsequent conduct, they regard the life with absolute loathing.
Inspired by profound pity for these poor creatures, these excellent
ladies started a Refuge for them with a receiving-house in the very
midst of this locality of ill-fame. To this haven the poor things
often flee even in the middle of the night, facing the unknown,
undeterred by rumours of the evil intentions of the foreigners put
about by their owners, rather than endure longer the life of
degradation and misery to which they have been condemned. The
missionaries receive them and pass them on to the "Door of Hope," the
appropriately named Refuge, which restores them to hope and peace and
happiness. There were to be seen some eighty young women living a
hard-working simple life, contented and merry, and apparently never
regretting for one moment the fine clothes and lazy luxury which many
of them had renounced. The ladies teach them useful arts, instruct
them in Christianity, and fit them for wives to Chinese Christians who
will be good to them, and, understanding well that their former life
was involuntary, are glad to have wives with a modicum of education.
The ladies will allow non-Christians to mate with non-Christians, if of
good character; but they will not permit any of their rescued flock to
become secondary wives. {135} Two things are remarkable in this work
of almost divine compassion--a relapse is practically unknown; and it
is the Chinese who are most helpful in encouraging it--more so than
foreigners; the Chinese often themselves suggest the "Door of Hope" to
these girls, and help in police cases to save them from their brutal
owners.
The risk that China runs at this moment in the home-life is the same as
the risk that she is running in every other department of her national
existence. If the materialist side of Western civilisation is the one
that is the most apparent, it is scarcely possible that it will fail to
do great damage to her home-life. A thoughtful Chinaman, talking about
the whole question, argued in favour of a complete acceptance of
Western ideas. He was afraid of a half measure. He said that there
was no question that women in the West are restrained by a mass of
conventions of whose value they are perhaps unconscious, but which are
very apparent to those who have been brought up in a different
civilisation. It is the existence of these conventions that makes
their liberty possible. If the Chinese are to accept Western
civilisation for their women, and he regarded this as inevitable, they
must learn the conventions; and therefore his solution to the problem
was that Chinese girls should be brought to England and brought up as
English girls.
But many missionaries plead for the opposite policy. They say: "Let us
preserve what is good in the Chinese home-life, let Christianity
permeate {136} that life and make it beautiful, but do not destroy it.
The Chinese home-life fits the Chinese race. The Westernised
Chinawoman will combine the errors of both civilisations and the
virtues of neither."
Without giving an opinion on this very vexed question, we may express a
hope that a policy of prudence and moderation will govern the action of
those who are concerned with women's education, for the degree of
alteration which may be necessary in women's life to make them fitted
to receive Western civilisation will be a matter rather of experiment
than of theory. At any rate let Christianity precede any large
alterations, for Christianity alone can make the life of a Western
woman intelligible and consistent to her Eastern sister.
{137}
CHAPTER XI
CHINESE ARCHITECTURE
Among the many ways a nation has of expressing its thoughts and of
showing its individuality, none is more valuable to mankind in general
than its art.
Perhaps it can be said that every civilised nation has contributed to
the common stock of art, and certainly China has done her share. The
porcelain which is called after her name testifies to her pre-eminence
in ceramic art, and should make Westerns cautious in expressing their
contempt for a race which is generally acknowledged to be the
originator of this industry. I will not attempt to express an opinion
about the mysteries of this art, except to regret that the name of the
country should be so attached to this product of her skill as
constantly to cause confusion. When my friend Archdeacon Moule
published his interesting book on "New China and Old," a lady wrote to
him to say that she did not care for new china, but as she was a
collector of old china, she would much like to read his book.
China has contributed to other forms of art as well. Her embroideries
and her lacquer work are well known; her ivory carving and silver work
have found a place in every collection. Her art, as we {138} might
expect from a race which has been under artificial conditions of
civilisation for many years, is distinctly artificial. In it you can
see the spirit of a race who for many centuries have been taught to
control themselves and to avoid the natural expression of their
feelings. If it is artificial in form, it is pleasing in colour and
superb in workmanship. There are few who will not agree that every
effort should be made to preserve these arts from being injured by a
false admiration of Western models. The only possible exception being
modern embroideries, which might be considerably improved if more
harmonious colours were blended together.
China excels in another art, though her excellence is not admitted
either by the foreign resident or even by the native student. In
certain forms of architecture she is unequalled. Yet when the
Westerner comes to China he glories in bringing with him Western
architecture, indifferent as to whether it is suited to the climatic
conditions or is in itself beautiful. Take, for instance, the English
churches of China. Could any form of architecture be less suited to a
country like China, where the sun is frequently oppressively hot, than
Gothic architecture? The large windows, the pointed arch, and the
weak, open, high-pitched roof may be suitable in a country like ours
which has little sunlight, and where a wet drifting snow will often
force an entrance into the best-designed roof; but in a country like
China, where the sun is the chief difficulty, some construction {139}
should be preferred which renders a heavy and heat-proof roof possible.
If antipathy to the Chinese necessitated a Western type of building,
Italian or even Romanesque architecture might be selected, and a
building with a massive roof supported on solid arches might resist the
rays of the sun. But why not accept the Chinese architecture as
eminently fitted for the climate?
If Christianity is to be assimilated by China and become part of their
national existence, the buildings in which it is proclaimed should be
essentially national. The intention of the Christian should be written
clearly on the face of every landscape where the new and beautiful
Chinese building rises up for the religion which is, as we maintain, as
essentially fitted for the Chinese as it is for the English. We do not
worship in a Roman basilica, but in the buildings that the northern
architects have devised as suitable, both for Christian worship and for
our climate. The new Chinese churches need not be replicas of the
Chinese temples; the object of the building is different, therefore the
building should differ, but there are many other forms in which it is
possible for the architect to express in Chinese architecture the
eternal truths of Christianity.
Again, why are all the schools and colleges erected on Western
patterns. The Chinese are used to and prefer their own architecture,
and from a sanitary point of view I hardly think it is inferior. The
average Westerner in China has but one idea, and {140} that is that the
Chinese must become like a Western nation or must remain untouched by
Western civilisation. He absolutely refuses the suggestion that the
architecture of China can be altered to suit modern conditions.
It is said that the thoughts of all nations are written in their
architecture; that you can see the nobility of the Middle Ages in the
Gothic cathedral, or the fulness of the thought of the Renaissance in
the Palladian facade; certainly on the modern Chinese town the story of
their change of thought is being rapidly written, perhaps with truth,
but certainly not with beauty. The Western man absolutely despising
all things Chinese refuses to erect any building which preserves even a
detail of the national architecture; the Westernising Chinaman in
faithful imitation erects Western buildings, but with this difference;
whereas the buildings of the Western have some beauty--for instance,
the cathedral at Shanghai is a noble building and the Pe-T'ang at
Peking would not disgrace an Italian town, even the bankers' palaces at
Hankow are not unworthy dwellings for merchant princes--the Chinese
imitations of these Western buildings have but little beauty to commend
them, and as far as I could understand they are really less serviceable
than a true Chinese building.
No European resident in China will ever allow that Chinese buildings
are either beautiful or useful, and if any one suggests that a Western
house shall {141} be built in the Chinese style the suggestion is
scouted as absurd; yet the British Legation at Peking is an old Chinese
palace, and no one who has seen it ever doubts that it is one of the
most beautiful buildings in the whole of China, and if this building
has been found fitting for His Majesty's Representative, surely some
such building might serve for others of less high station.
As to the spiritual ideals in Chinese architecture, who can doubt them
when they look at some of the pagodas that the reverence of Buddhism
has produced. These pagodas tell in every line of a nation that would
reach up above mere utilitarianism to higher thoughts. The uselessness
of the pagoda which so often annoys the practical Englishman is one of
its chief merits. It stands there in all its beauty pleading with
mankind for a love of beauty for its own sake and a belief in a
beautiful spirit world. The whole of Buddhist thought is intimately
connected with the love of beauty. When a Chinese gentleman was asked
if the Chinese had any love of beauty, he said: "You will notice that
their temples are always built in beautiful spots, so that they who
worship in them should satisfy their love of beauty."
Even if the pagoda is merely regarded as a thing to bring luck to a
town, it still merits admiration, for there must be something fine in a
race that believes a beautiful thing can bring the blessing of the
heavenly bodies on the earth. No one can {142} study the details of
any of these pagodas without being confident that those who erected
them had as their main object the erection of a beautiful building.
Or again, take the Temple of Heaven. Is there any monument in the
whole world that has more feeling of beauty about it? The white altar
lying uncovered testifies to the fundamental faith of the Chinese that
there is a God in heaven who dwelleth not in temples made with hands,
while the detail of the carving, though showing a certain sameness, yet
indicates their belief that God must love beauty. To see the white
Altar of Heaven together with the blue-roofed Temple beyond on some
sunny day when the flowers are blooming and the dark green of the pine
grove is in strong contrast with the light green of the spring herbage,
is one of those visions of beauty which make a man dream and dream
again of the noble future that may be before a race which has its
holiest places in such lovely surroundings.
As most of the readers of this book may never have seen a Chinese
building, perhaps it should be described. The architecture of the
Chinese differs from that of the West in almost every detail. A
Chinese town is a town without chimneys, and yet the absence of those
chimneys which Renaissance architects made such a feature of domestic
architecture is never missed, for Chinese roofs are curved and
decorated with quaint figures; they are often {143} coloured, bright
yellow if the building is an imperial building, or bright blue or blue
and green with yellow lines, as taste may direct. Common houses have
not such ornate roofs, but I am speaking of the houses which have some
claim to architectural excellence. This great roof is carried directly
on pillars, so that it is possible to have a Chinese house without
walls, and these wall-less houses are most suitable to a country where
the summer is hot. The massive character of the roof prevents the heat
of the sun penetrating, and the absence of walls allows of a free
current of air; if there are walls they are generally wooden screens
filled in with paper, and the effect in some old Chinese houses is very
lovely.
For winter weather these houses seem cold to us, but the Chinese have
always believed in the open-air policy. They never heat their houses;
they rely either on warm clothing or on a flue-heated bed at night; and
as they are as a race very subject to consumption, probably this policy
is one which is best suited to their constitutions. At any rate it
seems strange that while we in England are advocating open-air schools,
open-air cures, and sleeping with the window open, in China Western
influence should be destroying the admiration for a splendid form of
architecture, the characteristic of which was that while it was of
great beauty, it also shielded the inmates from the intense heat of
summer and gave them ample fresh air.
When some Chinese literati were questioned {144} about this
architecture they freely confessed that they preferred their native
buildings, but they seemed to think that a Western school could not be
efficient unless it was held in a Western building. Missionaries and
others being questioned on this point maintained that Western houses
were in the end the cheapest, but the Chinese would not allow this.
They said that a Chinese house would cost far more than a Western house
if it were beautifully adorned with carving, but if it was built simply
it would work out at less cost.
Chinese architecture is obviously a construction which lends itself to
the use of iron. A Chinese building with iron substituted for wood
would look as well, for they always paint their wood; this ought to be
a very cheap form of construction in a land which is going to produce
iron at a very low rate. The truth is that it is neither a question of
cost nor of efficiency which makes the Chinese architecture despised;
it is part of the great movement which expresses itself in stone and
brick--a movement which is tending to bring the Eastern countries into
misery--a movement which is planting in the East all that is
commonplace, all that is hideous in the West, and that is destroying
all that is beautiful in the East both in thought and colour and form.
It is the counterpart of the movement which is destroying the faith of
the Eastern nations and is only substituting the materialism which has
degraded the West.
{147}
RELIGIONS OF CHINA AND THE MISSIONARY
CHAPTER XII
RELIGIONS IN CHINA
The real power of a race lies in its religion; other motives inevitably
tend to egotism, disorganisation, and national death, and China is no
exception to the rule; the strength and the weakness of China lies in
her religion and in its absence. There are few nations who set less
store by the outward observance of religion and yet there are few
nations with a greater belief in the supernatural. On the one hand,
the temples are deserted or turned into schools, and the Chinese are
believed to have no other motives than self-interest. On the other
hand, the whole of Chinese life turns round the relation of man to the
spirit of his ancestors and to the spiritual world, and the Chinaman
obviously believes that a man's soul is immortal and that its welfare
has the very closest connection with the welfare of his descendant.
The commercial man will tell you that the Chinese are
materialists--people who have no faith; and yet with glorious
inconsistency he will explain that the difficulty of using Chinese
labour abroad is that even the commonest coolie demands that his body
shall be repatriated and shall lie in some place which will not hinder
his son doing filial {148} worship to his spirit. The whole question
of what the race believes is rendered more difficult of comprehension
to a Westerner by the confused nature of that belief, and is
complicated by the characteristic of the Chinese of mixing all
religions together regardless of their natural incongruity. It is
hoped that the reader will bear this in mind during the following
explanation.
The religions of China are usually classed as three. Not three
well-marked religions in our sense of the word, but three elements
which tend to merge into a common religion. There are separate
religions. A large number of Chinese, for instance, are Mohammedan,
and they neither marry nor are given in marriage to the other Chinese;
there is a very small Jewish community; and there is also a native
Greek Christian village still tolerated by the Chinese, which was
transplanted from Siberia as the result of a Chinese conquest in the
days of Peter the Great; there are a quarter of a million Christians
converted by non-Roman missions, besides a million belonging to the
Roman Catholic Communion. But Christianity, Judaism, and Mohammedanism
put all together, form but a small part of the Chinese community, and
the greater part of China believes, according to all orthodox
expositors, in three religions--Buddhism, Taoism, and what is termed
Confucianism.
This conglomerate of three religions consists in its turn of composite
faiths. Buddhism in China is not like the Buddhism of Ceylon with its
agnostic {149} teaching. Buddhism is divided into two great
divisions--the "greater vehicle" and the "lesser vehicle." The "lesser
vehicle" is known to the world as pure Buddhism; the "greater vehicle"
contains many sects, all of which claim that the revelation extended to
Gautama was only a partial revelation, and that the truth has been more
fully revealed to those who succeeded him. This is called Lamaism, and
in China has incorporated much of the idolatry which it supplanted and
perhaps some of the Nestorian Christianity which succeeded it; in fact,
the Buddhist temple in China is nothing more than an idol temple.
Buddha of Gautama is always the principal idol; he is represented calm
and without thought or trouble; he sits, the embodiment of peace and
rest; but though he may be the first in the Buddhist temple, he is far
from being alone; close behind him in popular estimation come two other
deities, Amita and Kwannin. Amita, Amitobha or O-mi-to, is held by
some to be the father of Kwannin, and is at once a guardian of the
Western Paradise and the personification of purity; to this wholly
mythical personage is attributed such virtue that the mere repetition
of his name will secure salvation. In Japan a sect holds that every
Buddhist law can be broken with immunity as long as there is faith in
Amita. In China such statements are made as this: to follow the strict
law of Buddhism is to climb to heaven as a fly crawls up the wall, but
to attain Salvation by repeating {150} the name O-mi-to is like sailing
heavenwards in a boat with wind and tide behind, at the pace of a
hundred li an hour. There is a general agreement that adherence to the
strict Buddhist law of chastity, honesty, truth, temperance, abstinence
from anger and serenity of mind, is an ideal which is impossible at any
rate for the laity. But the exact method of escaping this burden
differs in various sects. The most popular is by a "saving faith" in
Amita.
If the origin of this deity can be attributed to the personification of
a spirit of purity, the origin of the next, Kwannin, is probably from
some source outside Buddhism. She is the goddess of mercy, but
whatever her origin, she at present represents the remnants of either
the Nestorian or the mediæval Roman teaching. In Peking they have a
curious image of her which any one might mistake for a Madonna, the
truth being that there was at one time an intimate contact between
Christianity and Buddhism, when many of the externals of the Christian
religion and some of its doctrines were transplanted. The Buddhist
temple with its altar in the centre looks strangely like a Christian
church, and the Buddhist monks and nuns, with their rosaries and their
regular hours for chanting and service, recall the Roman Catholic
services; the picture of the Buddhist hell which stands in the great
Mongol temple at Peking reminds one of a scene from Dante's Inferno,
and among the many things the Buddhists borrow from Christian sources
{151} are these two ideas, embodied in two idols, the goddess of mercy
who intercedes for mankind, and the god of faith in whom the worshipper
should put all trust and confidence. Besides these gods there are the
god of war and the god of good-fellowship, probably taken from old
heathen sources. Again, there are hundreds of Buddhas, or as we should
call them, "saints," whose position is somewhere between human and
divine, much the same position that the saints occupy in the mind of a
Neapolitan peasant.
After Buddhism comes Taoism. Taoism is again a conglomerate faith.
Technically it is the faith of Laotze, who was an opponent and a
contemporary of Confucius. He taught a dualism which reminds the
Westerner of the doctrine of the Manichees. Again, Western and Eastern
thought have been confused; Manichees are known to have existed in
China, and whether Manichæism originally came from the East or whether
subsequently Chinese thought has been affected by Manichæism is hard to
decide. At any rate, Laotze did not claim that his teaching was
original; he was merely the prophet of an established school of
thought. The greater part of China follows his rival and despises
Laotze's teaching, yet the dualism that he taught is part of the
essential faith of China, and a part which is most opposed to all that
is good. He taught that good and evil were essentially divided, were
halves, as it were, of one whole. He called them the "Yang" and the
"Yin"--terms {152} which are in no way confined to the few disciples
who now follow him. This division between good and evil makes up the
mystery of the world--light and darkness, heaven and earth, male and
female, each couple makes up one whole divided between good and evil;
and so the world beyond is peopled with good and evil spirits, the
"Yang" and the "Yin." Obviously such a faith has all the evil which we
recognise in Manichæism, and its practical disadvantages are very
great. For instance, the inferior position of women is defended as
inevitable; they are "Yin." No mine must be sunk or cutting made for
fear of angering the earth spirits, for as man is as essentially a part
of the world as the earth, those earth spirits will avenge themselves
upon him. Even such great men and such good Confucianists as His
Excellency the late Chang-Chih-Tung are not insensitive to such a
superstition. The town over which he ruled was divided by a steep
gravel hill. A Western engineer recommended that this hill should be
cut through to facilitate access from one part of the town to the
other, and the Viceroy, ever ready to accept new and Western ideas of
practical advantage, immediately ordered the suggestion to be carried
out. Shortly afterwards a large wen developed on his neck, and,
arguing that an evil spirit of the earth, who had originally made the
gravel hill, was so angered at the destruction of it that he determined
to re-make it on the neck of the offender, the Governor had the cutting
filled up, and there it stands to this very day, a {153} witness of the
evil influence that an evil religion can have on the greatest men of a
nation. Taoism has now but few adherents, and yet there are many
Taoist priests, since these priests are regarded as particularly
efficient in dealing with the evil spirits in whom Taoism believes so
fully.
The third religion is generally called Confucianism, and this may
easily lead to a great misunderstanding, for under the term
Confucianism two very different things are included. First, a belief
in the philosophy of Confucius. This for the most part is outside what
we are accustomed to call religion, and we shall have occasion to deal
with it later on. Secondly, and more commonly, the spiritual beliefs
of those who call themselves Confucians, and who, owing to his silence
on religion, have to find other authorities for their faith. Sometimes
they claim that their faith was the same as the faith of Confucius,
that the background of his philosophy was the religion that they
believe, but more commonly they accept it without any question. This
religion is commonly mixed up both with Buddhism and with Taoism, but
its essential doctrine is very distinct and has great weight in China,
namely, that the spirits of men who are dead live and have influence
over the lives of their descendants. I was told by a Chinese Christian
that a religious Chinaman of the lower class never goes out without
burning a stick of incense to the tablet of his father, and no one can
go through Chinese towns without being impressed by the number of
people who in that {154} poor country are kept hard at work
manufacturing mock money to be burnt for the use of parents and
ancestors.
The missionaries find that this doctrine is the hardest doctrine for
Christianity to assail; and there are not a few who, despairing of
success, suggest that the position must be turned, and ancestor worship
must be Christianised and accepted as an essential part of a man's
belief. The logical Western mind immediately wants to know what is
behind the ancestor; if an ancestor is to have power he can only have
it, says the logical Westerner, by being in contact with some higher
power. One of the greatest missionaries that China possesses answers
this difficulty by saying that the Chinese mind is not the Western
mind; that he does not concern himself very much with remote
speculation; he has not that itching longing to use the word "why,"
which is at once the glory and the difficulty of the Western mind, and
therefore he looks at the spiritual world much as he looks at the
earthly world; the man immediately over him in the town is the
magistrate, and, to use the Chinese phrase, "is the father and mother
of his people," and so over him in spiritual things is his father and
grandfather. Behind the magistrate there is in his distant thought the
prefect--the head of the prefecture or Fu town--a being who only comes
into his village life when there is trouble and difficulty; he comes to
punish, rarely to reward, and so behind his father and grandfather in
{155} the spiritual world are the great clan leaders whom he worships
at regular intervals with the rest of his clan. In civil government
there are in a distant background a Viceroy with awful powers and awful
majesty, and an Emperor whose very name is so divine that he scarcely
likes to use it; and behind the clan leaders are many beings borrowed
from Buddhism, relics of old idolatry, muddled up with Taoism; and in
the dim and distant background is the Supreme Being--the Supreme Being
Who rewards the just and punishes the unjust, Who can in no way be
deceived, Who refuses the rain to the sinner and makes the land
desolate, Who has power to dethrone the earthly Emperor and to place
China under a foreign domination. This great and awful power is,
however, so far distant that the average Chinaman thinks but little
about Him.
The Temple of Heaven at Peking is the beautiful shrine of this Supreme
Being. Here once a year, after spending a night fasting, the Emperor,
as the father of his nation, worships the great God who made heaven and
earth. The chief feature of this worship is that it is performed in
the open air on a beautiful marble dais. No place in China is quite so
lovely; it is the fitting shrine of the beautiful faith of China's most
glorious days, a faith which though dormant is not dead. The traveller
who stands there should remember that the worship which is here
performed is as old as the date of the patriarchs and not un-akin to
their religious {156} ideals; and if there are some things which are
not sympathetic to the Christian idea, they are subordinate. In the
main it is the worship of the One True Being.
This faith has no right to be called Confucian. There is great doubt
about the faith of Confucius. He is silent about religion, or he
refers to it only indirectly; it is no part of his teaching; but his
indirect references to it apparently express a belief in a Supreme
Being whom he calls "Heaven," a Supreme Being who has an influence on
human affairs. He also recognises ancestor worship, but with such a
dubious phrase that many Chinese and English scholars have doubted his
meaning. Neither is this the faith of all the leading Confucianists in
China, many of whom are professedly agnostics in matters of religion,
and follow the teaching of Chu; but it is the faith, the ill-understood
faith, of the great multitude of thinking and non-thinking Chinamen,
and it is looked upon as the State religion of China. Its power over
China is universal and yet insecure.
Many ages ago it was partially defeated by the more logical and more
sympathetic faith of Buddhism. The fight was bitter, the persecutions
were cruel, but Buddhism conquered. Now Buddhism fails. With its
failure a vast mass of superstition, kept alive by the sacrifice to the
ancestor, once more rises up and stands right in the path of
progress--right in the way of civilisation. It was superstition that
moved the Boxer, and this it was that lost credit when {157} Boxerdom
failed. Story after story is told of the influence of this incoherent
but vital mass of religion. The junk will dart across the bows of your
steamer; there will be much whistling, reversing of engines, peremptory
commands in English, abuse in Chinese; and when you inquire why the
lowdah of the junk risked his cargo, perhaps his life, and put the
steamer and its passengers in a state of excitement, if not in
jeopardy, the answer is that every junk lowdah is afraid of the evil
spirit that is following him, and if he crosses the steamer's bow he
expects that the evil spirit, seeing a more worthy quarry, will neglect
him and follow the steamer. The head of the Shanghai Telephone Company
tells how he is not uncommonly met by some sleek well-to-do Chinaman
who is most distressed because the shadow of a telephone pole falls
over his door, so that as he goes out he passes beneath it, and that
will bring bad luck. The houses in China stand unconformably with the
road, because a certain aspect is lucky; a cracker is exploded to
frighten the evil spirits away, and so on through tales innumerable.
The world around is full of evil spirits to the Chinaman. Every
village has the witch doctor who is learned in the ways of these evil
spirits. Diabolical possession is as present with them as ever it was
in Bible times. Your hard-headed commercial man smiles when he relates
these stories, incredulous that there can be any foundation for them;
but those who have dwelt among the Chinese take much the same line
{158} about these stories as we do about spiritualism. Much is folly,
more is fraud; but behind both the folly and the fraud there is a
mysterious reality. The faith of the masses of China in the spiritual
world has never been encouraged by its philosophers. It owes its
vitality to the fact that, as with us, so with them, manifestations of
powers beyond this world are real if ill-comprehended, and connected
too often with man's evil side. The Psychical Research Society will do
well to inquire closely into many of these phenomena. Nothing
convinced me of the reality of this belief more than the line that was
taken by one of our English missionaries. He was speaking of
diabolical possession, and he related the same story which one has
heard so often that a man suddenly spoke as another personality; and
then he added, "I realised that it was not he who was speaking to me,
but the evil spirit within him;" and he went on, "I was afraid to speak
to him, because if you speak to those who are possessed with an evil
spirit, the evil spirit will take possession of you." It was strange
to hear such a testimony to the reality of diabolical possession from
an Englishman, but you will hear it from every Chinaman. Those who
have read "Pastor Hsi" will remember how firm was his belief in such
possession.
Against all this mass of the evil world the Chinaman has but one
defence: his father and his ancestor belong to that world and they will
defend him; and so the ancestor cult is intimately connected with this
{159} belief in evil spirits. If the father does not bestir himself
the son may come to harm--in fact, the main part of a Chinaman's
religious idea centres round ancestor worship; and there is no such
awful moment in a Christian convert's life as when he is required to
destroy the tablet of his ancestors. A Confucianist cannot understand
the missionary position; to his mind contempt for the ancestor only
means a deep and spiritual scepticism, an absence of all faith in the
supernatural, a negation of all sense of duty. A missionary recounted
a story illustrative of this difficulty. He was travelling up-country
in China, and his road lay along the same way down which a well-to-do
merchant was travelling, and as they journeyed on side by side and met
every night at the inns at which they put up, he noticed that the
Chinaman eyed him askance; but as the missionary spoke Chinese well,
and as travellers have many little wants which another traveller can
supply, it was not unnatural that in spite of the mistrust manifested
by the Chinaman they should fall gradually into more intimate converse.
One night as they were sitting at an inn the Chinaman said to the
missionary, "Do you know I thought you were a Christian, but I see you
are a good fellow." The missionary assured him that he was a
Christian, and did not deny that he was a good fellow. He felt,
however, that there was some obstacle in the Chinaman's mind that kept
them still apart, and as they journeyed on from day to day and had
grown more intimate, the Chinaman said, "You know {160} people do tell
such lies that one cannot believe a word they say." The missionary
assented to this general proposition as true of all the world, but
asked for a more immediate application. The Chinaman continued: "Well,
I hope you will not be offended if I tell you the lies they tell about
you--lies that I am afraid I believed till I met you and could see what
a good fellow you are. They say--" but he broke off. "Pardon me, it
is such a horrible accusation that I do not like to repeat it, even
though I know that it is untrue." The missionary pressed him to tell
what this accusation was, and the Chinaman continued apologetically, "I
know that it is such a lie that I am ashamed that my people should tell
such lies, but they do say that you Christians actually teach men to
break up the tablet on which their father's name is written;" and the
missionary realised all at once the depth of the conviction of the
Chinaman and the wide gulf that separated him from Christianity. And
so many and many a person who knows China best confidently asserts that
Christianity will never become the religion of China till it permits
and recognises this ancestral worship.
But now a new factor has entered into this problem. Western
materialism is spreading its malign influence over China; the educated
classes of Japan boldly profess that they have long since ceased to
believe in any religion, and they are calling upon China with great
effect to follow their example, and so the position changes altogether.
Ancestor worship, {161} with all its accompanying superstition, tends
to disappear where Western knowledge is taught. The Boxers were not
untrue prophets when they told their people that they or Western
civilisation, as they knew it, must leave China, and that they could
not co-exist. The position is surely one that must excite the very
deepest interest. It is scarcely conceivable that a race so deeply
convinced of the realities of the spiritual world will, as a whole,
accept the belief that there are no spirits. It is equally
inconceivable that with modern Western education the people shall
believe in the spirit that follows the junk, or in the spirit that is
angered by a mining operation. The religious sentiment of China will,
as it were, be turned out of doors by Western knowledge. There will be
a terrible moment when, with all the insolence of youth, the young man
refuses to believe in God or in a devil, and rushes into every wild
anarchical and socialistic scheme to satisfy his craving for action.
It is a terrible moment, and one which one sees rapidly developing in
Japan and among the Westernised Chinese; but beyond that terrible
period there dawns a brighter day when China will reassert its natural
sentiment and will accept Christianity as the only reasonable religion
that is consonant with modern science and a belief in the spiritual
world. The question of policy that needs solving is whether it is wise
in the face of this great Western unbelieving movement to treat respect
for {162} ancestors too drastically. Western education must remove its
objectionable features and Christianity might accept the modified form
of this belief which is not wholly inconsistent with the doctrine of
the resurrection of the dead.
{163}
CHAPTER XIII
CONFUCIAN PHILOSOPHY AND WESTERN CULTURE
It is not realised in the West how much the modern movement in Japan
owes its power and vitality to a native movement which welcomed change.
In Japan Buddhism had failed, the one school of Confucianism which
believed in change was dominant, and therefore it was a comparatively
easy matter to introduce the extensive changes of Western civilisation.
There was no religion with roots deeply entwined in the hearts of the
people to oppose such a change. Shintoism had not yet been
rediscovered and established, and it consisted merely of a mass of
superstition, without any literature or organisation. Thus it was the
combination of these facts, with the threatening attitude of Western
powers, which made all the prophecies of men who knew the East untrue.
No one understood the vital power of the movement in Japan. If, thirty
years ago, some one had written a book to prove that Japan would one
day defeat Russia, people would have laughed at the suggestion, and the
authority of people who had lived in the East all their lives would
have been quoted to prove that an Eastern race could never fully accept
Western civilisation. The prophets were misled by {164} the precedent
of India and Turkey. The Western civilisation is met there by
religions whose tenets are opposed to Western thought, and as long as
those religions hold, Western views will make but small progress; but
in Japan there was no such religion, and in China to-day there is no
such religion. The Buddhism of China, like the Buddhism of Japan, may
satisfy the cravings for spiritual religion of the uneducated and the
ignorant; but the thinkers of both races--the statesmen, the writers,
the leaders--are uninfluenced by Buddhism. Taoism has contributed to
the thought and superstition of China, but is in no way now an
important factor in her development; the philosophy of Confucius is the
one vital force in the land.
Its doctrines are in no way opposed to our civilisation; it teaches
mainly that a man must be sincere to his own higher nature; it has a
profound belief in the greatness of human nature, and a very inadequate
explanation, therefore, of the failures of that nature. That man must
be sincere, so that the full beauty of his nature may appear, is one of
its main tenets, and that this beautiful thing must be decorated with
knowledge is a natural corollary. It undertakes the reform of the
world, by convincing the ruler of his duty, and through him compelling
the ruled to tread the right path, contrasting here very strongly with
the religion of our Bible, though perhaps not with political
Christianity. All through its teaching there is an underlying
suggestion that {165} subjects will obey their rulers not only
outwardly but also inwardly in their opinions and convictions.
Confucianism does not believe in government by the people, of the
people, for the people; but it believes very strongly in government for
the people by the rulers. Many of its maxims might be cut out as
texts, and hung up in the House of Commons with great appropriateness.
It constantly pictures a well-ordered peaceful state, in which the
dignity of government is well maintained, and where the working-man
shall profit by his work through justice and peace, and the trader grow
rich in confident security. In all this teaching it is not opposed to
Western civilisation. Confucius advocates the reform of society by the
action of the State. Thus the sanitary laws, the education laws, the
temperance laws of the West are thoroughly consistent with the teaching
of Confucius. Where that teaching differs from the West is that it
disbelieves in democracy. Yet Confucianism cares nothing for a man's
birth: all men are born equal to the Confucianist as to the Christian;
and so Confucianism has, for many centuries, welcomed people of the
lowest birth as Governors, if they could pass the requisite
examinations, and, having given every opportunity to men of all classes
to become officials, it entrusts them and not the people with the
government of the country.
In another way Confucianism is opposed to Western civilisation.
Confucianism believes intensely in the dignity of government; their
classics are full {166} of examples of people who, at the risk of their
lives, defied kings and maintained the dignity of their positions; and
this doctrine of dignity is consequently very deeply ingrained in
Chinese thought; it is in reality the base of that curious doctrine of
"face" by which a man will do anything rather than confess that he is
wrong. A great missionary recounts how his wonderful work at Tientsin
was once threatened with destruction because a boy from the south of
China knocked a boy from the north off his bicycle, with the result
that the college was soon divided into two factions on the question as
to who should pay for the injured bicycle. The matter was only with
difficulty arranged by the President paying for the bicycle and
charging it to the guilty boy; but the boy did not mind paying--he
minded confessing that he was wrong. There was another case in this
same college where a boy had been induced to confess privately his
sorrow that he had wilfully insulted a master. He was prepared to
suffer expulsion rather than confess his fault openly. He was
miserable at the prospect of leaving the college, and when a great
appeal was made to his better feelings to say that he was sorry, he
shook his head sadly. At last he was asked, "Have you never allowed
you were wrong in your whole life?" "No," he said, with a look of
pride, "_never_." Odious and detestable as this doctrine is in private
life, I think I have the authority of St. Augustine for saying that it
is a maxim of good government that however wrong an {167} order may be,
a superior should not confess his error, so necessary is this doctrine
of dignity to government. Thus the Chinese expression "face" has been
commonly accepted as a good English expression when speaking about
governments.
No doubt it is this sense of dignity which gives such authority to the
Chinese official. In many ways it may be an element of weakness. I
was surprised to learn that the officials in the Yamen had never been
in the shops of the city; it is beneath their dignity. Goods are
brought to them and they buy in their own houses. For instance we were
told how in Changsha two patriotic bas-reliefs were put up in a shop,
one of them representing the Westerns bringing tribute to the Emperor
of China, and the other depicting a Western woman, chained and
dishevelled, being led in as a slave. Of course our very excellent and
most efficient representative, Consul Hewlett, made instant
representation to the Governor and the objectionable figures were
removed; but the Chinese officials claimed that they were completely
ignorant of what was happening in the shops of the town, because they
never went there.
It is obvious that this high estimation of dignity makes much of
Western government antipathetic to a Chinaman; he cannot sympathise
with a civilisation which admires government by noisy agitation, vulgar
posters, indecent journalism. Such an agitation as that in favour of
women's suffrage is inconceivable and disgusting beyond words to the
mind of {168} a Chinese thinker; that women, whose dignity is such that
they should never be tried in a public court; that educated ladies,
whose names, in China, must scarcely be mentioned owing to their
exalted position, should wrestle in a public crowd and be arrested, is
one of those mysteries in Western government that the dignified Eastern
mind can never hope to understand.
Confucianism, considered by itself, is not unfavourable to Western
civilisation, and its great influence in China will no doubt largely
accelerate the Westernisation of that vast empire. For instance, the
policy of education is one which has been followed by China for many a
long year; all that the Chinese are doing is to alter the object of
that education. It used to aim at giving men a complete knowledge of
the Chinese classics; now it aims at giving them in addition a
knowledge of the West and of natural sciences; and so such an eminent
Confucian scholar and such an ardent Conservative as the late
Chang-Chih-Tung was the foremost advocate for a Western education.
Again the development of the Press on Western lines takes place rapidly
in China, where newspapers have long been known, and which boasts of
being a country possessing the oldest newspaper in the world, the
_Peking Gazette_. Translations of Western literature issued by the
Christian Literature Society are read with avidity by a race that
esteems literature highly, no matter with what subject it deals, {169}
and who has no worse an epithet for one of its emperors than
"book-burner."
Though Confucianism is not antipathetic to Western civilisation as a
whole, and by its philosophy and literature encourages education in
Western ideas, yet those ideas will, I fear, be fatal to that mighty
system of ethics that has kept China together, and has enabled her to
conquer her conquerors so many times. The countries that have never
known Confucius are succeeding far better than the countries that have
been taught by him. The fact that he always claimed that any race who
followed his teaching would be prosperous, coupled with the fact that
China, with her splendid resources and immense population, is far
poorer and weaker than nations who know nothing of his teaching, is
sufficient to bring its own condemnation to this philosophy. There is
a marked difference in the teaching of Christianity and Confucianism in
this respect. Christianity, by the example of its founder, teaches
that the world must be reformed through the individual; and that the
destruction of a State, whether it be Jerusalem or Rome, is only a
painful incident in the upward advance of mankind. If every Western
State were destroyed, the true Christian would only pause longer over
his reading of the prophet Jeremiah; but when China, the home of
Confucianism, realises her powerlessness in the face of the West, in
sorrow and regret she will close the books of Confucius, as the books
that guided the {170} State to destruction, even though that teaching
was pleasant and beautiful.
A great Chinaman realised that this was the position of Japan, and told
me that he did not believe that in Japan any one really believed in
Buddhism or in Confucianism or in the new-found Shintoism; and that, as
they had not yet accepted Christianity, they were in a state, odious to
the Western and Eastern alike, of being without moral guidance in this
world. The position of Japan to-day will, in all probability, be, both
in regard to the constructive and destructive effects of Western
civilisation, the condition of China to-morrow, unless indeed
Christianity can fill the vacant place in Chinese thought. Never
before has such an opportunity been presented to the Christian world as
this vast mass of population included under the name of China, left
homeless by the action of world thought.
Those millions of people, for instance, who yearn for a spiritual
religion, and who have found in times past some comfort in the confused
and corrupt faith of Chinese Buddhism, are now ready with open ears to
listen to any one who is prepared to teach them a higher and more
spiritual religion. The Confucian scholar who realises the debt that
China owes to the teaching of the sage, and yet who feels that Western
civilisation is sapping his authority and leaving China without a moral
guide, welcomes readily the teaching of the moral philosopher who is
prepared to show that Confucianism is essentially {171} right and has
evidence of Divine truth within it, but that it only errs in not
realising that the complete salvation of man can only be accomplished
by those who appeal to his spiritual nature as well as to his moral
sentiments.
If Christianity conquers China, one of her first actions will be to
reinstate Confucius in the position from which Western materialism has
dethroned him; but the task would be infinitely easier if Christians
could take effective action at once. Every day that passes makes the
position more difficult. Every Confucian scholar who shuts up his
books and opens the books of the materialistic philosopher of the West,
will prove an additional obstacle in the way of the Christianisation of
China. The great danger is that the West, ignorant of what is
happening in the East, will let this opportunity pass and allow Western
materialism to establish itself as a force in China, as it has
established itself as a force in Japan. The world is full of examples
of lost opportunities; let us hope that China will not have to be added
to that sad category.
{172}
CHAPTER XIV
INTERVIEW AT NANKING
The best view of the religion of China is to be obtained from the
enlightened Chinese themselves, and their views will probably be of
interest to our readers. It should be explained that one of the
objects of our second visit to China was to inquire whether the Chinese
officials would welcome the foundation of Universities in which Western
knowledge could be taught, and whose atmosphere should be Christian.
When the matter was first discussed in England it crept into the
newspapers, and I immediately received an invitation from the Director
of Chinese Students in London to discuss the subject with him. I had
two interviews with him. What surprised me was that against all the
opinion of the average Englishman who is conversant with China he did
not regard the Christian character of the University as a deterrent,
but he asked one question on which he apparently laid the very greatest
stress. He inquired, "If a University is started in China on such
lines as you propose, will you guarantee that the teachers are
efficient?" I immediately assured him that the learned committees who
were considering the question at both Universities would, whatever
{173} else they did, never allow any one to go out as teacher unless he
was most fully qualified. He then assured me that he had no doubt the
scheme would meet with very great sympathy in China, and that he would
give me letters of introduction to various people who would give the
very fullest information on the subject. Among these was one to that
most eminent man, Tuan-Fang, Viceroy of Nanking.
When I arrived at Nanking I presented my letter of introduction through
the Consul, and the Viceroy most cordially invited me to tiffin at the
Yamen. With further courtesy he sent his carriage to fetch me. We had
a most sumptuous repast, at which about twenty officials were present,
and in consideration of my being a foreigner some European food was
provided. They appeared much pleased when I assured them that I
appreciated Chinese quite as much as European food. We had a most
pleasant luncheon, at which we discussed all manner of topics. I was
asked to explain exactly the position of Oxford and Cambridge, and when
I mentioned that Oxford was over a thousand years old, I had evidently
established the reputation of my University far above that of all
competitors. The Viceroy then admired the school system of England.
He said the schools were "like a forest," and he assured me that he
took the very greatest interest in education, and promised after
luncheon to show me some of his schools. I expressed admiration of
Chinese learning, and he told me it was divided into four {174}
heads--morals, elegancy of style, philosophy, and manners. The respect
that His Excellency had for Confucius did not prevent him from admiring
other philosophers, especially Mih-Tieh, the philosopher who taught the
doctrine of universal love. This was the more remarkable, because at
Hankow the very same point had been discussed with some Chinese clergy
over Sunday supper, and they had referred to this philosopher's works
with considerable admiration, and had declared that his doctrine was
much more consonant with Christianity than that of any other Chinese
philosopher.
His Excellency then discussed the danger of a modern education. He
quite realised the obvious evils that resulted from rashly encouraging
Western education without an ethical basis. He said they had observed
that those who returned from the West were less dutiful to parents than
those who had remained in China. Then we had a long talk as to whether
it was possible to assimilate the two and to give a man a perfect
foreign and a perfect Chinese education. The difficulty felt was that
men with a perfect foreign education were too often unable to write
Chinese with sufficient elegance to satisfy the fastidious taste of the
cultivated Chinese scholar. All this conversation was carried on at
the dinner-table, chiefly through interpreters, with a crowd of Chinese
servants, excluded from the room, but looking through a window to watch
when our needs required their presence.
{175}
We discussed after tiffin the scheme for a University and the relations
between Confucianism and Christianity. His Excellency was much pleased
that I should take such interest in things Chinese, and immediately
said that as I had come all the way to China to inquire into these
things, I ought to receive every information. Turning to his
secretaries, he told them that on the next day they were to provide
scholars learned in Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism to give me all
the information that I required, and arranged that the Consul and I
should return next day. He then suggested that we should go and
inspect the school that was next his palace, and in which his own
daughter was being educated.
The school was for children of the highest class, and contained only
about thirty boys and thirty girls. He conducted a sort of informal
examination which I should have thought must have been extremely trying
for the children. His Excellency and myself came first, then two
interpreters, and then about twenty officials. When the scholars were
examined in Western knowledge, we were asked to put a question or to
look at a copy-book; when they were examined in Confucian knowledge,
His Excellency put the question, and the interpreters translated to me
both the question and the answer. The intelligence of the children was
of a very high order, and they were very attractive. The uniform of
the boys resembled that of a French schoolboy, though the cut of the
trousers showed that the {176} costume had been made by a Chinese
tailor, probably after a Japanese model. The girls were dressed in
grey coats and trousers and had natural feet; this was perhaps not
quite so remarkable as it at first appeared when one remembers that the
Viceroy is a Manchu, and the Manchus have never admired the distorted
foot of a Chinese woman; but as they went through their musical drill
one could not help thinking that the neat coat buttoned across and
reaching to the knees over loose trousers was about as ideal a dress as
has ever been invented for women. His Excellency did not fail to make
his own daughter stand up, and asked her many difficult questions,
which she answered very well in a calm and collected manner. After
showing us these schools His Excellency said that we must stop a third
day and see many of the other schools in Nanking.
Next morning I was most distressed to find that my friend Mr. King, His
Majesty's Consul, was too unwell to attend the interview which I was to
have with the learned men of Nanking, and so with some trepidation lest
I should make sad faults in my manners without his kindly guidance, I
drove up to the Yamen. There I was received by a crowd of officials,
among whom were two great Confucian scholars with the Hanlin Degree, an
authority on Buddhism and an authority on Taoism, whose knowledge
subsequently proved to be extremely small.
The courtesy of the Chinese officials, the charm of their manner, the
mixture of dignity and good nature {177} which is such a characteristic
of their behaviour, makes controversy with them delightful. I do not
think any one who has known them can be but greatly attracted by their
courtesy and kindness. All Chinese are courteous, but the Chinese
literati, perhaps naturally, greatly excel their fellow-countrymen in
this charming characteristic. I should add that the two interpreters
who were provided were men whose mastery of English was only equalled
by their wide learning and pleasant address. One of them had been in
England and was indeed a great traveller; he had ridden all through the
passes which separate India from Chinese Turkestan; he belonged to a
very great family, and traced his descent from one of the leading
pupils of Confucius.
We discussed Confucianism first. I set the ball rolling by asking what
was meant by the phrase "superior man." The position was a pleasant
one; I was there to be instructed, and could therefore ask as many
questions as I chose. The "superior man" is a translation of a phrase
in the Chinese classics which perhaps might be better translated "ideal
man"; at least so I gathered from these gentlemen; and that in the
works of Confucius and Mencius his qualities are fully described. With
great joy the whole party fell upon the question, and next minute they
were engaged in a courteous polemic as to how exactly they should
describe the "superior man," and the answer came that he must be a
conscientious man, a man very true to himself, charitable, just and
{178} truthful. When they were pressed as to whether wealth was at all
necessary to the "ideal man," they indignantly repudiated the
suggestion; the "superior man" might equally be a beggar sitting by the
roadside or a Viceroy sitting in his palace. It was more interesting
when they were asked whether he need be a learned man. There was some
doubt and hesitation in the answers; the doctors again consulted with
one another, and the answer came, "No, learning was not at all
necessary." I asked whether the "ideal man" might be a non-Chinaman,
and it was held that he might belong to any race. But the next
question was far more difficult for them to answer. Nothing that they
had said prevented the "superior man" being a Christian; a Christian
might be true and conscientious and charitable. I quoted the case of a
foreign doctor living in their city, and asked how he failed to come
within their definition of the "superior man," but the Hanlin scholars
could not agree; no Christian, in their opinion, could be a "superior
man." But my interpreter added that he himself did not endorse this;
to his mind any man who fulfilled the requirements should be classed as
a "superior man."
We then changed the conversation to the question of "whether Confucius
believed in God or not?" I had been instructed in this controversy by
one of the most learned missionaries in China, Dr. Ross of Mukden.
They maintained, as he told me they would maintain, that the Heaven of
Confucius meant Reason. {179} But Reason cannot possibly punish the
guilty, though the guilty might be punished by their want of Reason.
And as Confucius refers in several places to Heaven as a power that
punishes, the definition is obviously incorrect. It dates from a
philosopher called Chu. Again the learned men were absorbed in
controversy, every one enjoying such a discussion. The greatest number
still held to the doctrine that Heaven meant Reason, but a certain
number held that it meant a personal God. It ended in the controversy
becoming quite heated, and in a copy of Dr. Legge's translation of the
Chinese classics being fetched, so that I might fully understand their
different points of view. In the end we agreed that there was a
considerable force in the argument that Confucius believed in a
personal God.
When I further asked how Reason could possibly punish a bad man when he
was dead, and how it was that many a bad man, as we all know, died in
wealth and prosperity, they answered that after death his memory was
punished by his bad deeds coming to light. I suggested that if a man
was dead this did not matter to him, and that Confucius' assertion that
punishment followed sin implied a future life. When they were further
asked whether Confucius taught that all secret sin should one day be
made public, there was an eloquent silence, and we dropped the subject.
We then went on to discuss Buddhism, and a pleasant old gentleman
leaning on a stick was {180} brought up to instruct me in the doctrine
of Buddhism. It was obvious from the jocose and pleasant way the
matter was treated, that this was very different ground to the
philosophy of Confucius. Then, though everybody was courteous,
everybody was keenly and seriously interested, but Buddhism was
regarded as a most amusing topic; I was assured that only a few women
believed in it, and that none of those in the room gave it the
slightest credence. They explained to me why the Dalai Lama came to
Peking. Two of the disciples of Buddha had been reincarnated, and the
greatest of those two was the Dalai Lama, but it was impossible to tell
in which baby the reincarnation took place without coming to the Mongol
Temple at Peking; then lots were cast and the matter was settled. I
had my doubts whether the old gentleman was accurate, but clearly no
one else in the room had the smallest acquaintance with the subject;
they made a marked difference between the Buddhism of the Lama Temple
at Peking and that of the Monastery at Hangchow, which they called
Indian Buddhism, and said the district was often named Little India;
but when I tried to discover how many sects of Buddhists there were in
China, or what was the nature of their tenets, I could get no
information from these gentlemen.
His Excellency Tuan-Fang joined us at this moment and asked whether I
could possibly read a Sanscrit manuscript that he had discovered, and
{181} which, from the Chinese notes appended to it, he gathered
referred to Buddhism. He also wished to discuss the origin of Chinese
characters; he had a theory that they came from Egypt, and he showed
many rubbings of hieroglyphics which he had had made from monuments in
Egypt to prove his point.
But I wanted to ask some questions about Taoism. I had tried to
understand Taoism and had found it extremely difficult, and I thought
these cultured literati could give me some assistance. I was soon
undeceived. Nobody believed in Taoism, and they knew nothing of its
doctrine or of its worship. They suggested that the Taoist priests
were often to be found in a Buddhist temple, but one scholar said that
that was only because the Taoist priest liked to make a little money by
selling incense sticks.
Then His Excellency turned the tables and began asking questions about
Christianity. The thing that troubled him was that the Bible which he
had read was in such poor style. He wanted to know whether I thought
our Blessed Saviour habitually wrote in good style or not. I explained
that He had originally spoken in Aramaic, which had been translated
into Greek, and from the Greek into English, and then had been
retranslated by Englishmen into Chinese, so naturally the Chinese
version could but inadequately represent the full beauty of His words.
It is worthy of notice how much the Chinese mind is attracted by all
purely literary subjects, and how {182} little they care about physical
science. For instance, when the Viceroy asked me about the sun
standing still in the Book of Joshua, which led us into natural
science, it was immediately obvious that this was a subject in which
these gentlemen took no interest.
We then repaired to a sumptuous luncheon prepared entirely in Chinese
fashion. The viands were exquisitely cooked, and comprised bird's-nest
soup, shark's fins, white fungus, and all the usual Chinese delicacies.
The hospitality of my host made me regret that the capacity of a human
body is limited, and if it were not for the excellency of the Chinese
cooking, dyspepsia must have been the result. Over luncheon we
discussed all manner of topics, and I noticed how extremely sensitive
my hosts were to the slightest want of manners. They referred to a
mutual friend, a European, in the severest terms because he lacked in
courtesy. They discussed also the question of foot-binding. They were
convinced that the habit is being given up, and they assured me that it
did cause girls excruciating agony. They said the younger generation
of Chinese gentlemen would not marry women with deformed feet.
I left the Yamen a great admirer of the culture that could make men so
pleasant. If they lacked directness as controversialists, they were
most agreeable in their extreme civility and their imperturbable good
humour. I shall always look back to my days at Nanking as some of the
pleasantest of my life.
{183}
CHAPTER XV
ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSIONS IN CHINA
It is only just to put in the forefront of the influences that are
Christianising and changing China the French, Italian, and other
missions of the Roman Catholic Communion. Our first contact with the
wonderful work which these missions are accomplishing was in French
China, at that very interesting but most pestilential locality, Saigon.
We were received with the greatest kindness by the Sous-Gouverneur at
the French Government House, a palatial residence worthy rather of an
emperor than a governor, compared to which Government House at
Hong-Kong seemed but a cottage. Yet even there life was hardly
bearable even under an electric fan. The heat was stifling. It had
been impossible to drive out except in the middle of the night, and so
we were entertained by being taken by night to see our first glimpse of
Chinese civilisation, for the Chinese once dominated this country, and
have left their civilisation behind them.
Driving back, our French host regaled us with stories of the people,
and incidentally mentioned the great power which Christianity has in
these colonies. We were much impressed by his {184} testimony to the
efficiency of mission work, for the French official is far from
favourable to the Roman Catholic Church. He told us not only was a
large part of the country round Saigon Christian, but Christianity was
such a vital thing that the Church had no difficulty in getting
sufficient money to build splendid churches. Next day I called on the
Bishop. He was a splendid type of Roman Catholic missionary, with his
white beard and his courtly manners. We found several such in our
wanderings, for Catholic missions are spread all over China, and have
been founded many years. He spoke of the great success of the work,
and thought that the hostility of the French Government was in some
ways preferable to their patronage, for the personal lives of many of
the officials are far from admirable. Their morality would better
befit our Restoration Period than the twentieth century. A Governor's
mistress was a person recognised and courted by official society, and
it was perhaps to the advantage of the mission that in the native mind
Christianity was dissociated from such evil doings.
I asked him how he supported the climate, which we had found barely
endurable for two days. He replied that the climate was quite cool to
the missionary who lived a chaste and temperate life, but that the
Government found it terrible for their officials. This may be quite
true, but still I think chaste and temperate Englishmen would find the
climate of Saigon intolerable. We do not make {185} sufficient
allowance in speaking of a healthy or unhealthy climate for the origin
of the missionary. If he comes from Marseilles in the South of France,
it is not perhaps wonderful that he should find the countries which are
not hotter than his native land in the summer quite tolerable.
The history of Catholic missions is apparently to be divided into three
periods. The first period terminates in 1742 and commences with the
first mission of the Jesuits under Father Ricci in 1584. During this
period the Roman Catholic missions, directed by a series of men of
extreme ability, endeavoured and nearly succeeded in converting China
from the "top downwards," for, owing to their wonderful scientific
attainments, the missionaries received important posts under the
Chinese Government. The fall of the Ming dynasty and the conquest of
China by the Manchus only served to improve their position; they
directed not only the Government astronomical observatory, but they
even superintended the arsenal and became the cartographers of the
empire. They had many adherents chiefly among the learned.
Christianity, like Confucianism, had commended itself to the intellect
of the country. In pursuit of this policy they endeavoured to
harmonise Christianity with the thought of the literati of China; such
a process was no doubt extremely dangerous, but they thought that it
was possible to tolerate ancestor worship and the adoration of
Confucius; whether they were right or {186} whether they were wrong,
while they did it Christianity had many educated adherents.
Another kind of missionary next appeared in China, the Dominicans, who
made up in fanaticism for what they lacked in wisdom. These men
offended every prejudice of the Chinese; they taught the harshest and
narrowest form of the Roman Catholic doctrine. The foot was to be made
to fit the shoe, and not the shoe to fit the foot. There were riots
and troubles, and the Dominicans blamed the highly placed Jesuits and
freely accused them of having denied the faith and of having accepted
high office as the reward for unfaithfulness. Appeals were made to
Rome. Rome, many thousands of miles away, wavered, unable probably to
understand either the controversy or its importance. The heroism of
missionaries travelling over miles of sea and being shipwrecked in
their endeavours to reach Rome reads like a romance. But in 1742 the
matter was finally settled by Benedict XIV. in a Bull "Ex quo
singulari," and the Jesuits were defeated--a defeat which was completed
by their suppression in China in 1773.
With their defeat the Roman missions entered on the second period of
their history. They were no longer directed by very able men, and they
became rather the Church of the poor than of the rich. They
experienced constant persecution, and, to gain weight and position,
they finally accepted the French, who were then in the zenith of their
power, as their {187} patrons. Such a course necessarily involved that
they must do all they could to further the French interests, and the
Roman Catholic missions became more and more an adjunct of French
diplomacy, defended by France and on their side advancing the interests
of the French. It is impossible to say exactly when this policy began.
Louis XIV. had sent large gifts to the Emperor of China, but he does
not seem to have had any intentions beyond giving countenance and
weight to the Roman Catholic missions. Some one pointed out to
Napoleon I. the great value of China, and the man of great ideas,
always dreaming of that Empire in the East which he was never to found,
clearly thought there was something to be made of this. He helped the
missionary societies with funds--it is curious to think of Napoleon I.
as the supporter of foreign missions. This act came, like most other
French secrets of the time, to the ears of Pitt; and he managed that
the information should reach the Emperor of China, and sent through a
safe channel advice that the Emperor of China should look upon the
Roman missions as dangerous and France as a "wicked power." Whether
this advice would have been taken to heart or not is doubtful. Roman
missions were unpopular in China; still they had powerful friends; but
the discovery of one of their missionaries with maps of China intended
for the use of foreign countries convinced her of the truth of the
English suggestion, and Roman missions were put {188} down at the
beginning of the nineteenth century with a relentless hand. In 1840
there broke out the first foreign war between China and the West, and
after this Catholic missions became more and more an appanage of French
policy. Whether the French had distantly intended the conquest of
China, or whether they merely looked upon China as an outlet for her
trade, they used the Catholic missions as a means whereby French
interests should be pushed. Certainly the author of _Les Missions
Catholiques Françaises_ does not hesitate to suggest that France was
rewarded for the protection of missions by an increased trade.
In 1842, as the result of a war, a treaty was signed to which we have
before referred, and in 1860 it was followed by another. Both gave
missionaries extensive rights. Can you wonder that the peace-loving
Chinaman, looking back on history, finds it difficult to understand why
the preachers of the gospel of love should have been so often followed
by the armies and fleets of the military races of the West? The coping
stone to this policy of propagating Christianity by the power and
influence of a foreign nation was placed by an edict which just
preceded the Boxer movement. That edict astonished even the Roman
Catholics, for the author of _Les Missions Catholiques Françaises au
XIX. Siècle_ speaks of the extraordinary surprise it was to the Roman
Catholic body. This edict ordained that bishops and priests should
have official rank in China; that the bishops {189} should be equal in
rank to viceroys and governors, and the vicars-general and the
arch-priests should be equal to treasurers and judges, while the other
priests should be equal to prefects of the first and second class; and
that if any question of importance arose in connection with the
missions, the bishop or missionaries should call in the intervention of
the Minister or Consul to whom the Pope had confided the protection of
the Catholics. The edict closes with three injunctions. First, that
the people in general were to live at peace with the Catholics;
secondly, that the bishops should instruct the Catholics to live at
peace with the rest of the world; and lastly, that the judges should
judge fairly between Catholics and non-Catholics.
This edict can perhaps be regarded rather as a victory of French
diplomacy than of the Roman Church. French diplomacy had converted the
whole of the Roman Catholic work into an agency for the national
aggrandisement of France; the Roman Catholic Church had sold herself to
the French Government; her old traditional policy of employing the
powers of this world to propagate Christianity had involved her in this
position; and she had presented Christianity to her converts as
something which, however great its spiritual gain, had also very real
temporal advantages. The Church was a great society which would defend
you in this world just as it would give you promises of security in the
world to come. So she had instituted a regular system by which her
adherents were defended in any lawsuit or attack. {190} This
interference in lawsuits was, however, not peculiar to the Roman
Catholics. It is an old Chinese custom--a custom in which both Romans
and other denominations have acquiesced; still it was exaggerated by
the Roman Catholic Church till it brought down upon her the anger of
the Chinese official world.
It is hard for a Westerner, with his ideas of an independent court of
justice, to comprehend the system. A lawsuit is not regarded in China
as a thing to be settled simply on its merits. They are only a factor
in the decision. The general desire is that, if all things are equal,
justice shall be done; but together with justice the judge has to
consider the social position of the litigants and their power of
vengeance or of reward. The best analogy to a Chinese lawsuit is an
English election. If you read the speeches and addresses you will
conceive that the whole desire of a candidate engaged in an English
election is that justice should be done, but in practice you soon
discover that the influence of individuals has to be considered as
well. A candidate who always disregards justice is universally
condemned; but a candidate who wilfully offends powerful people, who is
not prepared to give and take, to sacrifice a conviction here, to push
forward a little beyond the line of justice there, is equally unable to
gain the suffrages of the voters; and in China the judge stands in the
same position as the candidate does in England. If he is convinced
that a certain {191} cause is backed by very powerful people who can
secure him a better appointment and a higher salary, or who if angered
might even succeed in getting him dismissed from his post, he decides
the case in that litigant's favour. If, on the other hand, the parties
are about equally matched in influence and power, like the English
candidate he then considers the justice of the case; and therefore the
first thing a litigant does is to try and secure all the influential
support within his reach. Chinese officials told me that they have to
have their cards printed with "for visiting purposes only" written on
them, otherwise they are stolen and used without their knowledge in the
furtherance of some lawsuit, and English Protestant missionaries
confirmed the story.
Though this interference in lawsuits is a universal custom, its extreme
use is peculiar to the Roman Catholics. To attack a Roman Catholic was
to bring the whole strength of his mission, with the diplomacy of
France behind it, against you. It was in furtherance of this policy
that the Roman Catholics were anxious to hold official rank. An
official will not speak to any one below his rank; the missionary finds
access to the Viceroys very difficult; but if the Roman Hierarchy had
this high official rank, the Bishop had only to pay a visit in his
green official chair, when, by the strict etiquette of China, he must
be received with all politeness, and his visit must be returned. To
procure these privileges the Roman Catholics were prepared to sell to
France the large {192} and undoubted influence they had among many
thousands in China. There is a certain poetic justice in the Roman
Catholic Church suffering from the actions of the French Government at
home.
Still justice compels us to remember that they have not been alone in
this policy. Missionaries of other faiths and other lands have both
relied on the defence of foreign powers and have interfered with the
lawsuits of their converts. A Protestant missionary from the Southern
States of America frankly defended the system. He boldly asserted that
non-interference in a lawsuit would be simply misunderstood by the
Chinese. When he was young he had absolutely refused to interfere in a
case where a widow was being oppressed, and a non-Christian Chinese
gentleman had interviewed him, and after some circumlocution, had
remonstrated with him on his hardness of heart, that he, a teacher of
the religion of love, should neglect the widow in her necessity.
Still, the Roman Church, as in Ireland, as in France, as in Italy, is
an institution which is essentially political; and the traditional
policy of the Roman Church has been followed in China with the
invariable result, first, that when the power of the State is used to
promote her tenets she grows strong, and next when that power is
withdrawn or becomes hostile she feels the loss of the earthly support
on which she has relied and apparently grows weaker. This is, however,
only transitory; the Roman Church, for instance, is growing stronger,
not weaker, now {193} that she has lost the support of French
diplomacy, and the missions have entered upon their third epoch when
they are preaching Christianity without any special support of a
foreign government and are succeeding. For there are few bodies of
people in this world who are more heroic and devoted than the Roman
missionaries; they have died by fever, have been massacred, they live
on a miserable pittance; I was told that one enlightened missionary,
once a Professor in Paris University, lived on £12 a year; and their
heroism and self-denial reaps a large reward.
Their most beautiful and most successful works are the orphanages which
they maintain. They accept any of those children whom the Chinese
mothers cast out to die, either because of their poverty or because
they are girls. These children are brought up with infinite care and
kindness, and are taught embroidery, lace-making, and other trades. No
more beautiful sight can be seen than one of these orphanages, with the
happy children hard at work and rejoicing as only Chinese rejoice in
pleasant labour. When these children grow up they are married to
Christians, and from them springs a native Christian population, which
has never known any of the horrors of heathenism. As a rule they live
in small societies. I believe there is an island on the Yangtsze which
is entirely peopled by Christians. The work may be great, but the cost
is great too. Many a life has been laid down so that these children
might be Christians.
{194}
I recall one scene at Ichang. There rises near the town a great
orphanage, and when we visited it, we found the French sisters looking
weary and whiter than their white robes. An epidemic of smallpox had
broken out in the orphanage, and out of 140 orphans, 28 had died of
small-pox, besides which the sisters had suffered themselves from
malaria. One could but admire the devotion of these women living far
off from their own country, tending children whom no one else would
tend, and gaining as their reward hatred and misunderstanding from the
Chinese. A Bishop belonging to this mission had been murdered, and a
lay brother told me that it was because they were accused of stealing
children to make Western medicine out of their eyes. This strange
slander arises apparently from the desire, which is not understood by
the Chinese, to save and preserve the lives of other people's children.
Chinese ethics have no place for such altruism. Your duty never
extends beyond your own relations, either by blood or from official
position. There is another reason, however, for this notion. The
Roman Catholics have a system of native agents who are prepared to
baptize any child, whether of heathen or Christian parents, who is
dying. This system is very well organised. Some of these agents
perambulate districts and some remain at fixed points. Perhaps not
unnaturally the Chinese cannot understand this methodical search for
dying children, and as a reason must be found, and as the reason that
seems most probable to the Chinese {195} mind is some form of personal
gain, they have invented this slander.
Whether we approve or disapprove the general action of the Roman
Catholics--and our feelings are probably very mixed on this subject--we
must recognise that they are a very great factor in the change that is
coming over China. For centuries they have stood before the Chinese as
associating with Christianity the science and the knowledge the Chinese
have always admired. The wonderful work done by the Jesuits of the
eighteenth century has established a tradition of excellent scientific
work which is well maintained by the learned brothers of the Ziccawei
Observatory. Many hundreds of lives have been saved at sea by the
splendid meteorological service they have organised, and the sailor who
cares nothing for Roman or for Protestant walks down on the Bund to see
what the Ziccawei brothers can tell him about the probability of a
typhoon. The benefit of their service, though great, is not limited to
the number of lives of mariners that their science preserves; their
science is an object-lesson to the Chinese--an object-lesson especially
useful at a time when materialism is taunting Christianity with
obscurantism.
Missionaries in the field do not entirely recognise the connection that
exists between their own work and the work of other denominations. The
man on the mission field sees his bit of work, and realises that it is
a failure or that it is a success, but he does not {196} realise how
intimately associated that success or failure is with world movements
over which he has but the very slightest control. These world
movements are dependent on many factors that must be beyond his direct
knowledge, and one of the factors that influence the success of
Protestant missions is the wide influence of Catholic work. Conversely
every new Protestant mission that opens the door of a school or a
college probably tends to augment the number of Roman Catholics in
China. The question put to the Chinaman is not, "Will you be Roman or
Protestant?" That was the question that was put to the European in the
sixteenth century. The question is, "Will you become a materialist or
a Christian?" And the answer he makes must be largely affected by his
experience of the intellectual efficiency and high moral tone of those
he calls Christians. I despair of persuading my Protestant friends
that the reputation of the Ziccawei brothers is a valuable asset in
evangelical work, and I equally despair of persuading the Roman
Catholic that the splendid educational establishments of American
Protestantism is one of the reasons why their numbers are increasing by
leaps and bounds; but the Chinaman would probably think the remark
self-obvious.
How small the differences appear that we think so profound was first
brought home to me as we passed through the Red Sea on the French mail
in company with a body of Coptic schoolmasters who were going to
civilise Menelik's subjects in Abyssinia. {197} As it was Sunday
morning these young men came up to me to ask an explanation of the
ceremony of ship inspection which is performed with some pomp by the
French captain on that day. With a wholly exaggerated idea as to the
religiosity of the French they had concluded that this was a Christian
ceremony, and when I had explained to them that on a French ship it was
illegal to have a service, they were distressed, for they explained
that though they had been educated in many different quarters, they
were all in agreement on religious matters. One had been educated in
the Protestant College in Beyrout, and another had been educated in the
Jesuit College at Cairo, which, he added in explanation, is practically
the same thing. This statement would be regarded as accurate by the
average Chinaman.
At any rate, no one can doubt the importance of Roman Catholic work in
China. They now claim to have over a million of adherents, served by
nearly two thousand priests, and when one reads that they declare that
they have made in Peking alone thirty-three thousand converts in one
year, one realises what a power they are in the Christianisation of
China. In the West such figures would mean the downfall of
Protestantism, but in China such figures mean the growth of a common
Christianity which all denominations can influence and in which all
denominations can have a share. Remember, though a million Christians
sounds a vast number, it is small compared with the four hundred
millions who now form the population of China.
{198}
CHAPTER XVI
OTHER MISSIONS
Though the Roman Catholic missions were first in the field by several
centuries, it must not be supposed that they are now the only Christian
influence at work. The work of other bodies is extensive and very
important. The pioneer society was the London Mission, which began
work under Dr. Morrison in 1807. Very soon after them the British and
Foreign Bible Society began work in 1812. But no great mission work
was undertaken till after the treaty of 1842. Then society after
society sprang up. One of the earliest was the Church of England
Missionary Society, which has a very extensive work, especially in
Eastern China. Among the earliest of its missionaries were the two
veteran brothers, Bishop Moule and Archdeacon Moule, who have for half
a century ordered its ranks with courage and self-denial. The
Presbyterian Mission was not long behind them, and the American
Methodist Missions began work practically at the same time; and so
missions have gone on increasing till there are over sixty missions,
over and above the Roman Catholic Missions, at work in China, with a
staff of over three thousand five hundred white workers and a {199}
body of converts numbering over a quarter of a million.
The people who are opposed to missions will immediately say what a
regrettable thing it is that Christianity should present such a picture
of division to the heathen, and they will probably find a great number
of people who are sympathetically inclined to missions and who
cordially agree with them. There can be no doubt that it would be far
better if the Christian Church presented a picture of unity to the
whole world. It would be far better that we should all think alike;
but if we cannot think alike, it would be a great mistake to seek for
unity by encouraging people to suppress their convictions. Unity is
very valuable, but it can never be so valuable as are truth and
honesty. Far better to accept the truth and say that there is a
difference of opinion rather than by denying the truth and concealing
the divisions that really exist to give a false appearance of unity.
If this is true of other parts of the world, it is even more true of
China. Her national tendency is to regard conviction as of little
importance, and on the other hand to lay great stress on uniformity.
Perhaps one should say that this is the natural result of an autocratic
government. Autocratic government naturally encourages the doctrine
that everybody should agree with the autocrat. Now the advance of the
West has been accomplished by encouraging liberty of opinion, therefore
the people who are to expound the great doctrines of Western
civilisation rightly appear before {200} the Chinese world showing a
great diversity of view.
It is most regrettable when liberty is exchanged for tyranny, when the
acceptance of one opinion involves the persecution of another, when
Christians not only differ but persecute and thwart each other's
efforts. This may be an evil in our own land, an evil which we hope
will soon pass away, but in China that evil does not exist except
between the Roman and the non-Roman bodies.
There are great differences of opinion. The extreme Ritualist position
is ably represented in China, the ultra-Protestant position has equally
able representatives, and I have seen them uniting in the Shanghai
Conference in defence of the Apostles' Creed against a Latitudinarian
attack. To the Chinese I think they present not the aspect of
different bodies opposing one another, but rather different regiments
of the same army intent on overthrowing the same enemy; and though they
are clothed in a different uniform and use different weapons they serve
under the same general.
[Illustration: TRAVELLING IN CHINA--OLD STYLE. A RAILWAY STATION--NEW
STYLE]
The American bodies are far the richest. Whether it is that the United
States is a richer country than England, or whether it is that they are
more liberal in their gifts to missions, or whether it is that they are
more inclined to spend their money on Chinese missions, the result is
certain, the American missions have every advantage that money can
give. Their splendid educational establishments are a feature in {201}
many towns. If the American missions have the advantage of the English
missions in money, both British and American missions have an equal
right to claim that they have as representatives in China a body of
self-denying and enthusiastic men. It would be invidious to make any
reference to the excellence of any special mission. Among the British
missions, the London Mission claims indeed the greatest number of
converts, though the Church Missionary Society does not come far behind
it. Again, the Presbyterian Missions and the China Inland Mission have
a large and growing work. The latter is a most curious development of
missionary policy. The missionaries, differing in many doctrinal
particulars, have agreed to co-operate under the name of China Inland
Missions in the west of China; they have agreed not to oppose each
other in any way, and to give each other mutual support. They are
under the head of a director who organises and arranges their separate
provinces. A great feature of this scheme is that they effect a large
saving in the expenses of mission work by co-operation. A white man
cannot live in many districts in China without a supply of medicines
and some Western comforts; they arrange for the forwarding of these
things, and help the missionaries in their journeys.
Bishop Cassels is at once a member of this mission and of the C.M.S.
He is a splendid example of the courage that is necessary for
missionary work. He has been through the Gorges of the Yangtsze twenty
{202} times. Once he was unwise enough to forsake the small native
boat in which he habitually travels and to entrust himself to a
steamer, which, under the pilotage of a German captain, was going to
attempt the rapids. They did very well till they happened to bump on a
rock, when the captain lost his head, and instead of beaching her, he
tried to anchor. The water surged in and soon put out his fires, thus
preventing him from raising his anchor, with the result that the ship
gradually filled and sank and the passengers had to swim for their
lives.
The S.P.G. Mission is excellently manned, but suffers much from want of
pecuniary support. I cannot help feeling that if it was but once
realised how important it is that the capital of China, whither resort
all the intellectual and ambitious men of China, should thoroughly
understand the logical position and the reverent worship of the Church
of England, that the necessary funds would be forthcoming. It is most
desirable that China should understand that there is a _via media_
between Rome and Protestantism.
Without wishing in any way to detract from the necessity for missions
to other parts of the world, we may point out that China has at this
moment a very special claim. No one would say that the mission work in
India or in Africa demands within the next few years that the
intellectual side of Christianity should be thoroughly explained, but
this is actually the case in China. The intellectual men of {203}
China who gather together at Peking are now demanding to know what
truth there is in Christianity. They must be answered by men as
intellectual as themselves, who will be able with courtesy and force to
convince them that Christianity is a religion that is thoroughly
consistent both with modern science and with the intellectual progress
of the world.
No better mission to undertake that work can be conceived than the
North China Mission of the Church of England. This mission, under the
leadership of Bishop Scott, represents with dignity the tolerant and
reverential attitude of the Church of England. One cannot help
thinking that if he had a sufficiently liberal support, so that he
could have a college where he could undertake the education of some of
those future statesmen of China who are desiring to understand Western
things, that his mission might be the means of encouraging a movement
towards Christianity among the scholars and statesmen of China. That
distinguished Baptist missionary, Dr. Timothy Richard, told me that he
thought that the dignity of the Church of England, especially as so
ably represented by Bishop Scott, might be a great asset in convincing
the Chinese literati that Christianity was a religion which would
harmonise with their love of order and dignity.
Of missions of other nations we saw one or two examples, but they are
few in number if you except the Roman Catholic Missions. It is rather
a pity that the Scandinavian Missions do not throw all their {204}
effort into work in Manchuria; few races would endure the bitter cold
of Manchuria better than they, and Manchuria is readier to accept
Western ideas than perhaps any other part of China. She has felt and
realised the pressure of the West, she has suffered under the burden of
Russian domination, she has seen the Westernised armies of conquering
Japan put to flight the northern invader. As we stood on the 203 Metre
Hill and realised on that shattered hill-top how Manchuria has seen the
full force of the destructive power of Western civilisation; as we
counted the wrecks that then lay at the mouth of the harbour; as we
looked at each shattered homestead, yes, and at the bones that were
still unburied, we felt that the great land of Manchuria has a special
need that some one should show her that Western civilisation can indeed
produce something more lovely than shells and bayonets.
I am happy to be able to say that a splendid work is being carried on
by the Presbyterian Missions; they have shown to the Northern Chinese
another form of courage than that which was shown by the warriors of
Russia and Japan. Two stories remain in my mind among many. First a
story of the old days before Russia had made the Trans-Siberian
Railway, before the Japanese had for the first time taken Port Arthur.
A British mission doctor was at work. The Chinese, _more suo_, had
determined to get rid of this example of the mercy of Western
civilisation. They did not dare to kill him openly, so they sent a
{205} messenger who feigned to have come from a sick man out in the
country. The doctor and his Chinese dresser, unconscious of the plot,
readily obeyed the summons. They noticed that a child followed them,
and they did their best to induce him to go home, but he would not.
When they arrived at the village inn they discovered that the sick man
did not exist. They were in doubt what to do, when suddenly the door
was thrown open and several of the soldiers of the Viceroy's bodyguard
rushed in, and seizing the two, they declared that they had stolen a
child to make medicine out of his eyes. They then proceeded to torture
the doctor by tying his hands behind his back and suspending him by
them to the roof. Such was the agony that the doctor lost
consciousness. They then took him down, and he was put into a
loathsome Chinese prison, where he was exposed to mental torture as
severe as the physical torture which he had already endured. He was
told that he would be beheaded, and every preparation was made, and
then at the last moment he was taken back to the prison. This was
repeated till they thought they had shattered his nerve, and then he
was allowed to go free. With that calm courage which has so often
characterised the action of the members of the missionary body he
returned to his work fearless of death and torture.
Another story, which has its humorous side, was also told us. At the
time of the Russian occupation of Newchwang, the Russians had, as we
have {206} described above, been "pacifying" the town, and a crowd of
terrified Chinese had taken refuge in the Presbyterian Mission
compound, where there was only one lady. She, however, came from
Belfast, and had all the courage of the Northern Irish in her veins. A
body of Russian soldiers came towards the mission with the intention of
shooting the Chinese. She took a horsewhip in her hand, and regardless
of the loaded rifle or the bloody bayonet, commenced to belabour the
soldiers with it. There are some things which are understood by all
nations, and the use of the horse-whip was at once appreciated by the
Russians, who fled before her, leaving her a victor and the saviour of
her Chinese friends.
I know people say that women should not be exposed to the risks of a
missionary's life, but the answer is that were women not employed, half
the mission work would be left undone and the heroism with which women
have endured death and danger has been no small factor in the spread of
Christianity and in producing the change in China.
{207}
CHAPTER XVII
THE EFFECT OF WESTERN LITERATURE IN CHINA
Among the influences that have awakened China, outside the great lesson
of political events, none has been more influential than literature in
its many branches. The Chinese have always been a literary race. They
invented printing about the same time that the savage Saxons welcomed
the first book written by the Venerable Bede, and the influence of
literature has therefore held sway many hundred years in China. But
for the last six hundred years there have not been many works of
original thought produced in native literature. Most of their writings
have been commentaries on the Classics following along the beaten
paths, or works of poetry full of references to the Shi-King or the
classic poetry of the Chinese. The literature of China is
characteristic of her civilisation. It is confined by an artificiality
which has its origin in an inordinate respect for the past and an
absolute distrust of the future. Every book looks backward to the
period when China's thought was pure and great.
This period continued till the Anglo-Saxon influence made itself felt
through its missions. Very early in the history of Protestant missions
it was {208} perceived that in a country like China some other appeal
must be made than could be made by the white missionary. A nation
reverencing the printed page to such a degree that men will carefully
pick up a piece of paper and put it on one side rather than trample it
heedlessly, for fear lest that piece of paper should contain words of
wisdom, is obviously a nation that can best be reached through printed
matter, and so Dr. Morrison, the pioneer of Protestant missions,
devoted the greater part of his missionary life to translating the Holy
Scriptures. The matter was not so simple as might appear to those who
are only conversant with the civilisation of younger and less
artificial races than the Chinese. It is not enough to translate a
work into Chinese; the spoken language is nowhere used for literature.
The literary language commonly called Wenli probably never was spoken,
and is so full of artificial rules of construction that it is only
after many years that a man can hope to write it efficiently.
Chang-Chih-Tung says that it requires ten years for a Chinaman to
become an efficient translator. That does not mean that it takes ten
years for a Chinaman to learn English, but ten years for a man to be
able to put into good Chinese the thoughts that he has learned from the
West.
The written language of China, it should be remembered, is not a
language in which sounds are portrayed by means of signs as it is with
Western languages. Each character represents an idea, the only analogy
in our language being the numerals and {209} some few signs we have for
simple words such as "cross" or "and." Therefore when new ideas are
developed new signs are required. These can be created out of old
signs. For instance, I understand that a railway engine is called a
fire carriage. This, by the way, caused great confusion of mind in a
certain district to the Christian converts who were conversant with the
story of Elijah, for some of them erroneously concluded that Elijah
left this earth in a railway train.
Another instance of the difficulty of expressing new things was
afforded when a certain mission started work in China. They were in
some perplexity as to the title that they should choose for their
society. They wanted to convey to the Chinese that their denomination
claimed especially to feed the souls of men. They explained all this
to an educated Chinaman, and quoted some well-known texts. He
immediately wrote down two characters, and assured them that they
represented what they had said about the spiritual food that they
provided, and would also be very popular with the Chinese, as indeed it
proved. The moment they opened the door of the chapel they were
besieged by hundreds of Chinese of the poorer class, who, after
listening for a short time, went away discontentedly. The missionaries
found out afterwards that the title they had been given literally
translated was "Health-giving Free Restaurant," a most attractive title
to the hungry Chinaman.
There is indeed another way of representing new {210} words. The word
can be borrowed bodily from another language and pronounced in a
Chinese way, and the word-signs which best represent the sounds can
then be employed. This is often done with proper names. For instance,
a great Chinese statesman told me that he referred to Sir Edward Grey
in his despatches to China by three signs which had the three sounds Ga
La Hay, but this system is obviously open to misconstruction, because
the reader might be tempted to give the words their normal meaning. I
believe that such terms as X-rays and ultimatum have been so adopted
bodily into the Chinese language. Ninety per cent., however, of the
new word-signs which go to make up what the Chinese call modern style
are new combinations of ancient ideographs.
One of the pioneers in this translation work said at the Shanghai
Conference that the first thing a missionary had to do before he could
convert the people was to convert the language. Until he had invented
a new set of word-sounds to convey Christian ideas, the preaching of
Christianity laboured under the very greatest disadvantage. The "term
controversy," that is, the controversy as to what sign should be chosen
to signify the Christian's God, was an example of this. It arose first
in the Roman Communion and afterwards gave great trouble to other
Communions. The choice lay between three terms--one signifying
originally "Supreme Ruler," one "Heaven," and the last "Spirit," none
of which quite {211} expressed our idea of God. What Christians felt
was felt by other translators also, and one of the great causes of
advance in China has been the formation of a language which can now
thoroughly express all the ideas that are characteristic of the West.
Many of these word-signs come from Japan. Japan, using the same
written script as China, and having accepted Western thought, is more
easily able to compose the word-sign necessary for its expression, and
it is in this way among many others that the influence of Japan will be
very important if not paramount in far Eastern countries.
Every missionary body has tried to produce Christian literature; the
great difficulty has been to get the translator. The method usually
employed is to get a Chinese graduate, too often not a Christian, and
to make him, under careful supervision, write down the phrases rendered
by the missionary into Chinese. Even so the difficulties are very
great. The object of literature is differently understood in the West
and in the East. A Chinese scholar who was very conversant with both
languages explained the difficulties by the following anecdote.
Engrossed in the study of Western knowledge he had neglected his
Chinese literature, and was in imminent danger of failing in his
examination. Happily for him the night before his examination he read
a classical author much admired by connoisseurs but not much read owing
to his great obscurity of expression. A particularly recondite {212}
phrase dwelt in his memory because it had cost him so much trouble to
discover its meaning. Next day he used the phrase in his paper, and
when his paper was returned to him with the marks of the examiner upon
it, it was obvious that it was this phrase, surrounded on all sides by
the marks of his examiner's approbation, which had been the means of
his passing that examination. Subsequently he went to Chicago
University. "There," he said, with the quiet humour of a Chinaman, "I
learnt that the object of an essay was to convey an idea in as simple a
manner as possible. This is not the Chinese plan."
One of the pioneers in this work was the body which is now called the
Christian Literature Society for China. Assisted by a brilliant staff,
Dr. Timothy Richard has produced a great mass of excellent work which
has profound influence on thought in China. No better test can be
found of the wonderful work that they have done than the fact that the
greatest statesman that China possessed, and also her greatest
Confucianist scholar, should refer to one of their publications, _The
Review of the Times_, as one of the causes of China's enlightenment.
The Christian Literature Society has not, however, been the only
labourer in the field. Good work has been done by the Religious Tract
Society, which has depôts in various parts of China for the sale of
good literature; and there have been other societies which have also
published books, including the Mission Press, belonging {213} to the
Roman Catholics, which is situated at Hong-Kong.
But in speaking of Christian literature we must not forget the various
Bible Societies which have done such varied and excellent work in
China, chief among which has been the British and Foreign Bible
Society. Far beyond where the white missionary could reach, the
productions of this Society have penetrated; even right across the
deserts of Mongolia have their colporteurs carried their wares. Of the
conversations which I had with various Chinese gentlemen one was
especially remarkable as a testimony to their activity. My
interlocutor was one of those fat lazy men who enjoy the good things of
life and care but little for serious matters, and yet I was surprised
to find that he was obviously acquainted with, at any rate, some of the
tenets of the Christian faith, and I wondered how this indolent man had
obtained such knowledge. I felt certain that his dignity would never
have permitted him to have talked to a Christian missionary, much less
to have listened to a Christian sermon. At last he incidentally
mentioned that though a Confucianist he was well acquainted with the
Gospel of St. Mark. I could not well ask him how he had obtained it,
but no doubt it had come to him through the means of the British and
Foreign Bible Society.
We happened upon another example of the influence of the Bible Society.
We were coming down on the boat from Canton, and, walking on the
Chinese {214} deck, I saw a man smoking opium and reading an English
book. As I saw he knew English, I addressed him; under the influence
of opium, he was wonderfully communicative. The book turned out to be
St. John's Gospel, and he was reading about our Lord's Crucifixion. He
had only picked it up because he wanted to improve his English, but he
was deeply impressed by it, and his comments were most interesting. He
asked me whether it was true that when our Lord was crucified He had
stood alone against all the power of the Jews and the Romans, and when
he received an answer in the affirmative, he added, "Then He must have
been Divine, for no man who was not Divine could have stood alone." To
the Chinese mind, which is incapable of any separate action, which is
powerless unless it has the moral support of the Government, of a
Guild, or even of a secret society, the story of the Crucifixion
appeals most strongly as an example of Divine strength of purpose.
This strange contrast between the opium-smoker and the Bible was
typical of China. The forces of good and evil were wrestling together
for the possession of that man's life; the forces of good having been
put into his hands no doubt by the instrumentality of some Bible
Society.
But the good work that has been directly done by all these societies
has been greatly augmented by the good work that they have done
indirectly through the medium of some of their converts. A body of
Christian young men determined to start {215} a publishing house on
their own account, the object of which should be that the published
books, both translations and original works, should best convey to the
Chinese mind lofty and noble ideas in Western thought. If these books
were not intended to be definitely propagandist they were at least
calculated to teach the ethical system of Christianity. The work of
the Shanghai Commercial Press has had a great influence on the thought
of China; from thence has issued forth a mass of literature both for
schools and for the general public which has introduced Western thought
to the Chinese. Many of our standard authors have been translated, and
the Chinaman, moved by his love of literature, is now becoming
intimately acquainted with every literary activity of our civilisation.
When one looks at those strange word-signs it seems hard to believe
that any one could read them with ease and rapidity; yet Chinamen say,
though writing is a matter of great difficulty and requires much time,
reading the characters is quicker than reading our system of printing,
each idea being conveyed by one sign, instead of, as in our language,
by many letters.
These signs are apparently things to which sentiment attaches. We
heard a most interesting debate at the Conference of the Anglican
Church at Shanghai as to the title by which the Anglican body should be
generally known, and it was instructive to watch the differences
between the views of the English and the Chinese minds on the question,
as the debate {216} was translated by a most able interpreter, Mr.
Tsen. We began with what threatened to be a rather dreary Anglo-Saxon
debate between the High and the Low Church. One felt the old
atmosphere of the sixteenth and seventeenth century of English history
very present in the room. The debate was on the question as to whether
the word "Catholic" should form part of the title. I need not detail
the arguments that were advanced on both sides; they are too well
known. Then we turned to the Chinese translation, and at once the
fires of Smithfield and the thunders of the Reformation disappeared as
by magic, and the blue-robed men from all parts of China woke up to an
interest that was as extraordinary as it was instructive. We gathered,
by means of our interpreter, two or three most interesting facts.
First, there was unanimity in the room that the title should not in any
way, indirectly or by allusion, convey the idea that the Anglican
Church had anything to do with England. The view of China for the
Chinese obviously commanded the assent of all in the room; even those
who had been influenced the other way by their teachers, had to allow
that the word Anglican would be fatal to the popularity of the Church.
When "The Holy Catholic Church of China" was proposed as a title, it
was suggested by the white men that it savoured of insolence, as
implying that the other communions did not belong to it. This met with
no favour from the Chinese. Their argument was simple; we are {217}
all going to be one body in a short time, so the others can share in
our title if it is a good one, and if it is not, we can share theirs.
Then there was this feeling, which it was impossible for a stranger to
appreciate, that each ideograph had a sentiment attached to it, and
that therefore the title must be composed of ideographs which had not
merely a suitable meaning but also a beautiful association. In the end
they adopted for their title the ideographs that are used in the Creed
for the Holy Catholic Church, not meaning thereby that they were the
only branch of the Catholic Church in China, but that they were a true
branch of the Catholic Church. There was another point made obvious to
the onlooker, a point which will be dealt with further on in this book,
namely, that owing to the different policies of the missions, the
American body dominated in debate because they were represented by an
extremely able body of Chinamen, while the English missions had as
Chinese representatives only men of ordinary education.
But to return to the question of literature. Though literature has
been instrumental in disseminating both the truths of Christianity and
the noble ethical teaching of the West, it has also been instrumental
in disseminating much that is evil and corrupt in Western literature.
Perhaps it is not extraordinary that the Japanese bookseller finds that
the erotic novel from Paris sells more freely when translated than the
English story whose whole {218} motive depends on a proper
comprehension of the Christian ethical position. _The Dame aux
Camélias_, by Dumas, is the most popular of the Western works, and one
cannot but tremble to think what incalculable injury such stories will
do to a nation which does not understand the relative positions in
which those works are held by men of high character in the West.
Chang-Chih-Tung refers in one of his works to the apparent immorality
of Western thought; and if we grant that books like these are typical
of Western thought, we shall not be able to wonder at his conclusion.
Through the distorted medium of such translations Western civilisation
must seem wholly detestable. The Chinaman will naturally say, "Your
boasted morality is merely a hypocritical covering for a profligacy
which we should never permit in our land."
Not only are French novels translated, but all the works which Western
thought has produced against the Christian faith. Haeckel's "Riddle of
the Universe" is a typical example. In literature, as in every other
department of life in China, two elements of Western civilisation
strive for mastery. On one side there are arrayed the powers of
Christianity and the interpretation of Western civilisation as a
product of Christian thought; on the other side lies materialism, and
the explanation of Western civilisation as a natural result of
evolution which is developing an irreligious but most comfortable
world. If China listens to the first, she will become like other {219}
nations, a great power, not only rich, but honourable, true, and
merciful, the result of the teaching of Christian faith and ethics. If
she listens to the second, the efficiency of China will be rendered
terrible by a low morality, which will not only desolate and depress
many millions, but even have a deleterious effect on the West which so
mistaught her.
{220}
CHAPTER XVIII
MEDICAL MISSIONS
After literature perhaps we should place medical missions as one of the
most effective ways of placing before the Chinese the difference
between our civilisations and of showing them the truth and beauty of
Christianity. There are three or possibly four reasons why medical
missions are a right and effective way of conducting the Christian
propaganda. First, they are an object-lesson of the love which
Christianity inculcates. In school teaching we find that the
object-lesson is the most efficient and easiest way of getting the
human mind to understand a quite new idea; medical missions are
object-lessons of the essential character of Christian teaching.
Chinese ethics are very distinct in limiting the duty of man to certain
well-known relations. They are five in number: the relation of the
sovereign and minister, of the husband and wife, of the father and son,
of the elder and younger brother, and of friends. No Confucian
recognises the universal brotherhood of man; that is solely a Christian
doctrine. Thus Confucius reproves the man who wishes to offer
sacrifices to some one else's forefathers; that appears to him to be as
officious as the duty of {221} offering sacrifices to his own ancestors
is important; a man has no obligations to any one else but to those who
stand to him in one of these five relations. Very different is the
tone of the Apocrypha, which is not of very different date, and which
puts burial of the dead among one of the first duties of man without
specifying the necessity of any close relationship.
The action of missionaries in coming to China was therefore wholly
misunderstood by the Chinese. They were regarded as merely the
emissaries of foreign powers, sent to spy out the land. Considering
the way in which the Roman Catholic missions did as a fact identify
themselves with the foreign policy of France, one cannot altogether
wonder that the Chinese attributed to their mission the selfish
principles they themselves would have followed. The first purpose,
therefore, served by medical missions is to demonstrate to the Chinese
that Christianity has higher ideals than Confucianism.
Their second great object is one that must appeal to the heart of
everybody who has been in China. It is impossible to work among the
Chinese without being rendered miserable by the appalling amount of
suffering and misery that exists at the present day. The poverty of
England cannot be spoken of in the same breath nor can in any way be
compared with the poverty of China. Deplorable as is the condition of
many individuals in England, harsh as is the action of some of our
casual wards, {222} any one who has studied both will freely allow that
the poor in England are rich compared to the poor in China. Among the
vast crowd that wanders along the North Road to London, you will
scarcely see one without boots; there is scarcely one who does not get
a piece of bread to eat when he is hungry; there are none who are
suffering from untended wounds or unalleviated sickness. The workhouse
infirmary will always open its doors, however harsh the Guardians, to
those who are absolutely ill. But in China, starvation is quite
common. Missionaries tell you how at certain junctures they have
travelled along a road, passing man after man lying at the point of
death, and those who are sick have too often no resource but to wait
with patience the pain and death they foresee as their fate. The
missionary feels, as he preaches the doctrine of love, that he cannot
consistently ignore these suffering multitudes.
The third reason why medical missions are maintained is because they
are a means of approaching people who otherwise would not hear the
Christian truth. The man who has successfully healed the body has some
reasonable hope to expect that the patient will accept that medicine
that he offers to cure the soul. So medical missions have been started
in every place. We visited many excellent medical missions, from
chilly Mukden to torrid Canton. There are many stories told how in the
days when the Chinese would not listen to {223} missionaries, the
medical missionary obtained that hearing which was refused to his
clerical brothers. I was told one medical missionary found that the
moment that he was extracting teeth was the moment when he could best
advance his teaching. I have never heard the story substantiated;
unless the Chinese are very different from us, one would have thought
that the teaching would have had a distinctly painful association.
Perhaps he took as his thesis the extraction of sin from the character.
His success was equalled by that non-medical missionary who had the
advantage of having a set of false teeth; these he used to take out
before the astonished coolies and replace them; then having attracted
their attention by this manoeuvre, he took up his parable on the need
for taking away their sins from them and for putting new life into them.
The Chinese coolie loves a jest, and once he is on the laugh he will,
unlike his English brother, be much more inclined to attend to serious
teaching. One of the missionaries who understands this trait of the
Chinese best is Dr. Duncan Main of Hangchow, where we spent two most
interesting days seeing his hospitals and work and visiting his
patients.
There is no better testimony to his great work than his obvious
popularity. Wherever he goes there are smiles and greetings. He
explains as we walk who are the individuals who salute him. That great
fat man who stands bowing and smiling is a {224} merchant of some
wealth; his wife has been in the hospital; she has been tended by Dr.
Main and by his skill has been cured. That old woman who stands by him
smiling is another ex-patient. That young man with an intellectual
face and a dark robe is an old medical student, now a doctor himself
with a large practice, and he has settled near Dr. Main's hospital.
And so his work increases and grows and the good he does must live
after him. He takes us into the out-patients' room; they are a motley
crowd, with strappings and bandages on various parts of their persons.
While they are sitting there a lay-reader expounds to them the elements
of Christian teaching. What a contrast to their minds must be the
plain forcible teaching and the simple effective remedies and medicines
of the Christians to the incantations and nauseous compounds of their
native doctors. There is a great doubt as to what is the nature of
many of the Chinese drugs. They always prescribe a vast number, many
of which are apparently innocuous in their effect; they always give
them in large quantities, and do not in any way attempt to isolate and
extract the active properties of the things they use. You see a man
eating a large bowl of some nauseous compound and you are told he is
taking Chinese medicine. You ask a captain what his cargo consists of,
and he tells you that it is largely made up of Chinese medicine. Some
of the medicine seems to be prescribed on the principle of our old
herbals; that is, there is a fancied resemblance between the plant and
the disease. Others seem to {225} come from well-known remedies
administered in various ways; ground-up deer's horns from the mountains
of Siberia has probably much the same effect as chalk has in our
pharmacopoeia. But there also seems to be some possibility that the
Chinese doctors have certain useful remedies which are unknown to
Western medicine.
There is a strange story told in Shanghai about a certain remedy for a
horrible disease called "sprue." The story is well known to every
resident in Shanghai, still it will bear repetition. A certain quack
called "French Peter"--I do not know his proper name--habitually cured
sprue. Cases which English doctors had absolutely failed to cure, and
which threatened ruining a career or loss of life, he cured in a few
weeks. He had two remedies--a white powder and a black draught. He
himself was a most unattractive-looking man. My informant told me that
his career was being threatened by this horrible disease, and that he
was expecting to leave China in a week or two, when some one suggested
that he should try "French Peter." When they met, "French Peter's"
appearance was so unprepossessing that the sick man's courage nearly
failed him. He had been for weeks on a milk diet, and the first thing
that the man said to him was, "Look here, take these medicines and go
and have a good beefsteak for luncheon." He decided to try them. He
ate his beefsteak, he took the white powder and the black draught, and
I think within three weeks was quite well. "French Peter" would {226}
never tell his secret or where he got his remedies; at least he used to
give different accounts to different people. I believe he is now dead,
but on talking the matter over with some Chinese friends they assured
me that the remedies were well known to Chinese doctors, and that
"French Peter" had got them from one of their compatriots.
Dr. Main deals with his patients in the same cheery way that he
addresses every one; a word or two suffices to discover the nature of
their ailment. If the case is very serious, the patient is detained
for further examination; if it is trivial, it is attended to at once by
a native dresser. For the rest he himself prescribes.
Then he takes us up to the wards, and explains that the great
difficulty is to get the Chinese to care for cleanliness. That is the
same story in every hospital; they cannot believe it matters very much
whether the thing is kept clean or not. The medical students will
proceed to handle anything after they have washed their hands and think
that the previous washing insures asepticism, regardless of the fact
that they have touched many septic things.
Dr. Main's hospital is typical of mission hospitals--Dr. Christie's
hospital at Mukden, Dr. Gillison's at Hankow, Dr. Cochrane's at Peking,
and many others. There are also hospitals for women. We saw many; the
first we visited, the Presbyterian Hospital at Canton, was a good
example, impressing us not only by its efficiency, but also by the
great service it performed to the suffering {227} masses of China by
training women doctors, who are permitted to minister to their sisters
when etiquette does not permit of male medical attendance. The lady
who showed us round the hospital spoke English fluently; she was
dressed in the dress of the Cantonese woman, which suited her
profession admirably, as it consisted of a long black coat and
trousers. Some hospitals are reserved for the very poor; at Nanking,
for instance, Dr. Macklin showed us over his beggar hospital. He
follows the parable of the Good Samaritan most literally, and wherever
he finds a poor, starving, dying man, he brings him in. Clearly he
cannot afford anything but a limited accommodation for these poor
creatures, but he is on the whole most successful, and there is many a
man whom poverty had brought near to death whose life he has saved. As
one looked at those types of suffering humanity and realised the good
that Dr. Macklin was doing, one felt that the days of saintly service
were not over yet.
Another beautiful work is Dr. Main's leper hospital at Hangchow. It
was a weird and strange experience to hear those lepers singing our old
English hymns. Leprosy, as my readers doubtless know, does not often
leave open sores; it slowly eats away the body while it leaves the skin
intact; and so you see men without hands and arms yet with finger nails
upon the stump, blind men without noses, and very commonly men whose
voices are cracked and broken. These lepers are housed in an old
temple, in one of the most beautiful situations in China--a {228}
situation which is supposed to be the original of the landscape on the
old willow pattern plates; and the beauty of their surroundings
contrasts strangely with their hideous forms and harsh voices. There
was an infinite pathos when by that blue lake and purple mountain,
those harsh but plaintive voices sang the old tune of "Jesu, lover of
my soul"; and though we could not follow the Chinese words, the faces
of these poor sufferers were eloquent in expressing how fully they felt
the meaning of that hymn.
But above all we should mention the great work that is being carried on
by Dr. Cochrane at Peking. He has managed to induce all the medical
missions in Peking to unite in founding a great hospital--a hospital
which has received the approval of Government. This successful example
of federation has solved a difficult problem. No doubt the efficiency
of medical missions in many a town is impeded by their want of unity.
A mission body will open a medical mission, and will send out a doctor
or even two in charge; one doctor must go on his furlough, another is
perhaps ill, and the result is that the mission is closed. The
commercial community are rather ready to point out that the mission
hospital is closed in the summer when there is the greatest need for
it. The answer to the taunt is the policy of federation. While it is
next to impossible to keep open the mission hospitals in an unhealthy
climate with a limited staff, it is perfectly possible to do it if the
staff is increased. Every doctor in Central and Southern China must
{229} have a certain period of rest, otherwise he will not be able to
stand the enervating effects of a semi-tropical climate; and however
possible it is to keep white men at work for three or four years
without a holiday, and I know commercial people claim that this has
been done in certain individual instances, it is in reality the very
poorest economy. The mission doctor is far too valuable a person to
have his life cast away by such a foolish policy of extravagance. He
must have his rest every year and his furlough every seven years. But
it is not necessary that the hospitals should be closed if the staff is
big enough; a certain number of the hospital staff can go on leave, and
when they are rested, can come back and allow others to go in their
turn. Dr. Cochrane has shown at Peking that such federation is
possible, and the China Emergency Committee is making every effort to
encourage a similar federation in other parts of China. Medical
missions are splendid examples of Christian charity and love, but they
are rather sad examples of the lack of unity among Christian men.
Analogous to the medical mission are the missions to the blind and the
deaf. The blind are a striking example of how Christianity alleviates
misery, for the blind in China learn to read more quickly than those
who have sight. The teachers of the blind have invented a system of
raised type by which the Chinaman can read every word that is
pronounced in Chinese. It is not our letter system, which they {230}
would find difficult to understand, but something after the nature of
the Japanese system. Each syllable is represented by a sign; so,
strange as it may appear, the blind man not having to study the
character learns to read more quickly than the man with normal sight.
There is an excellent school for the blind at Peking, under Dr.
Murray's superintendence. There is another at Hankow, where we saw a
most striking instance of the beauty of holiness. One of the masters
at this blind school was a blind man himself; he was a most ardent
Christian; he had been taught to play the organ, which, indeed, is a
speciality at that school, many of the organists in the mission
churches in Hankow coming from it, and one could not look upon his face
without feeling a conviction that his spiritual vision was as clear as
his physical sight was dark.
There is a fourth reason, and one which applies as much to educational
missions as to medical missions, why both are fitting and proper ways
to teach Christianity. Christianity claims to and does benefit the
whole of man, not merely his spiritual side. Mankind cannot properly
be cut up and divided into spirit, mind, and body. He is essentially
one, and it is most necessary that those who are learning about our
religion, should understand that while we claim every benefit should
come from the spiritual part of our nature, we are prepared to show
that we in no wise despise the body, which needs religious care as much
as the soul. Neither are we careless about the {231} mind. So the
three parts of mission work go hand in hand, for preaching and prayer
will heal the ills of the soul, the medical mission deals with the ills
of the body, and the educational mission makes the mind healthy and
strong. We shall deal with the educational side of mission work later
on.
{232}
CHAPTER XIX
MOVEMENT IN KOREA AND MANCHURIA
One of the movements which will affect Christianity all over the East
has had its origin in Korea. Just as the suffering and miserable heart
of the individual man is that which Christianity finds most suitable
for its home, so it is with a nation. It is at the moment of national
adversity and humiliation that religious movements most readily rise.
Korea had looked upon herself as the equal of Japan. From Korea came
much of the civilisation which adorned Japan before the great Western
movement. When Prince Ito with the eyes of a statesman was realising
that Japan must either accept the domination of the West or its
civilisation, Korea was immovably entrenched in her belief in her
national greatness and in her contempt for the Western world. So
Westernised Japan has overcome her ancient rival and teacher, and Korea
is humbled to the very dust.
In many ways that humiliation is rendered more poignant owing to the
lack of sympathy between the races. Though they both have taken their
civilisation from China and have a common classical literature, they
are diametrically opposed in many things. The Japanese are essentially
a clean race. {233} They wash constantly; they will not enter a house
with their shoes on their feet. No one who knows them will accuse the
Koreans of excess in cleanliness. On the other hand, the Japanese very
frequently lack modesty. Many are the stories that residents will
tell; and we have seen the Japanese women clothed in the garb of Eve
appear in the public bath and even in the street. On the other hand,
the Koreans may be corrupt and immoral, but they are modest. The women
of Seoul as they walk through the streets cover their faces with their
green cloaks, till one almost thinks one must be in a Mohammedan land.
Those green cloaks are a perpetual reminder of the ancient hostility
between the races.
The picturesque story is worth telling. The Japanese, knowing of the
absence of the Korean armies, determined to surprise Seoul. They
thought they had succeeded, when to their amazement they saw the walls
of Seoul covered with what they took for warlike Koreans. The ready
wit of the women had saved their town. They had dressed themselves in
their husbands' clothes and so deceived their hereditary foes. The
Emperor rewarded them by giving them the right to wear the man's green
coat, which they wear not in coat fashion, but over their heads, the
sleeves partially veiling their faces; and as one wanders down the main
street of Seoul and watches the modest but gaily-dressed crowd of
Koreans--the women in their green coats with red ribbons, the men in
white garments wearing their curious top-knots {234} and quaint
hats--one understands the antipathy they must feel for the short,
muscular, soberly-dressed Japanese who by his courage and daring has
subdued them and now tramples on their national susceptibilities and
ignores their national rights.
There are several missions in Korea, but there is one which, _primâ
facie_, would call for no special remark. It ministers to the
white-robed Koreans in the same way that many another mission ministers
to these Eastern peoples--teaching and preaching. Externally there is
nothing exceptional about the missionaries. I will not say that their
mission is uninteresting, but it is unexciting. They are Americans by
nationality and Scotch by name and blood, and they follow the national
Presbyterian faith with all its cautious teaching, with all its prim
simplicity. No one would regard them as the mission that was likely to
create a great excitement or raise a great enthusiasm, neither indeed
do they so regard themselves. Their conception of mission work was the
sensible and reasonable plan of converting a sufficient number to make
them teachers and preachers, and then having educated them, to send
them out to convert their own fellow-countrymen. In 1906 and the
beginning of 1907 they were filled with dark forebodings for the future
of Korea. The temporary occupation of Korea by the Japanese was
obviously going to be changed into a permanency. The murder of the
Queen had shown what the Japanese would do, and the victory over Russia
had shown what they {235} could do. Korea was at their mercy. Subdued
yet not conquered in spirit, the missionaries, knowing their people
well, foresaw that a bitter friction must arise between the two races;
that rebellions and the consequent fierce repression must bring to
their infant church a time of great trouble; and so, like the wise
Christian men that they were, they took themselves to the Christian's
weapon, namely, prayer. They earnestly prayed that in some way a great
blessing should fall on their converts. That prayer was seemingly
unanswered, the grasp of Japan was not relaxed. Except for the wisdom
and gentleness of the great Prince Ito, there was nothing but
oppression and sufferings for the Koreans. The Japanese army had
learnt not only their military art but their statecraft in Germany, and
the latter is traditionally harsh. Break, crush, and bully are the
maxims which find general acceptance in the Prussian Court. Prince
Ito, however, was a great admirer of English imperial policy with its
maxims of justice to the weak, mercy to the conquered, and reverence
for all national traditions; but Prince Ito could not control the
Japanese soldiers, and the moans of the oppressed Koreans echoed
throughout her land.
In the spring of 1907 the Presbyterian Mission held what is called its
country class--that is to say, that the men who had been converted were
summoned from all the country villages to the town of Pyeng-Yang, and
there they attended for several days' instructions in the Christian
faith. This {236} excellent rule enables Christians who believe but
who are ignorant to acquire a more ultimate knowledge of the truths of
Christianity. These meetings are wholly unemotional; they are in no
sense revival meetings, nor even devotional; they are essentially
educational. Their object is to teach and not to excite. For the
Scottish-American has a double national tradition that knowledge is
strength. These meetings had been held one or two days; they had
followed their usual uneventful if beneficial course, and showed every
probability of ending as they had begun, when one of the Koreans rose
from the centre of the room and interrupted the ordinary course of the
meeting by asking leave to speak. As he insisted, permission was given
him. He declared that he had a sin on his conscience that forbade him
listening to the teaching of the missionaries in peace, and that
further he must declare this sin. The Presbyterian missionaries do not
encourage this kind of open confession of sin, but still to get on with
the meeting and to quiet him they gave him leave to speak. He then
declared that he had felt some months ago a feeling of bitterness
towards one of the missionaries, a Mr. Blair, who was our informant.
Mr. Blair assured him that so far from feeling that there was any need
for this confession he regarded the matter as trivial, and hoping again
to bring the meeting back to the point he suggested that they should
say the Lord's Prayer. Hardly had he uttered in Korean the words "Our
Father," when {237} a sudden emotion seemed to rush over all those who
were there present. The missionaries described it as at once one of
the most awful and one of the most mysterious moments of their lives.
They were not revivalists; they had not encouraged it; they did not
believe in it; they disliked an emotional religion with which they had
no sympathy; and here they were in the face of a movement which was
beyond, not only their experience, but that of the greatest
revivalists. They tried to stop it, but unavailingly. The Koreans,
unlike the Chinese, always sit upon the floor, and as the missionaries
looked out over the meeting from the platform on which they stood, they
saw the faces of their converts racked with every form of mental
anguish. Some were swinging themselves forward striking their heads on
the ground, hoping, as it were, to obtain by insensibility peace from
their torturing thoughts; some were in the presence of an awful terror;
some were leaping up demanding to be heard, longing to free their souls
from the weight they felt would crush them; others with set faces were
resolutely determined not to yield to the inspiration of the spirit
which suggested that they should gain relief by frank confession. The
missionaries having failed to bring the meeting to a close, submitted
to what they felt was the will of a higher Being, and the meeting went
on till fatigue produced a temporary and a partial rest. Though the
meeting was closed, the missionaries learnt afterwards that many {238}
Koreans went on all through the night in agonised prayer.
The next day they hoped the thing was over, and that the incident might
be reckoned among those strange experiences which workers in the
mission field must occasionally expect to encounter; but not so--the
meeting next night was the same as its predecessor. They noticed
several interesting facts. One, for instance, was, that the women were
far less affected than the men. The movement did not reach them till
later, and never so fully. Another remarkable thing about this
movement was that though the Methodists are by tradition a revivalist
body, and though they have a vigorous mission working in that town, yet
the revival only spread to their converts after many days, and then
neither with the spontaneity nor the fire with which it had been
manifested in the Presbyterian Mission.
Of the reality of the confession of sin there could be no doubt. One
man, for instance, confessed to having stolen gold from a local
gold-mining company, and produced the wedge of gold which he had
stolen, and asked them to treat him as he deserved. The manager of the
company luckily was a European, who wisely refused to punish a man who
had so spontaneously confessed his theft. Many of the sins that were
confessed would not bear repetition. Some confessed even to such awful
sins as that of murder of parents. One man in particular, a trusted
servant of the mission, resisted confession, and day by day {239}
became more and more racked with mental agony, till the missionaries
feared that his health would not endure the terrible strain of such
mental anguish, and they advised him to make a free confession of his
sins. At last he came to them with a sum of money in his hand; he had
raised it by selling some houses which he had bought as a provision for
his old age, and he confessed to the sin that was torturing him. He
had done what is constantly done in the East--he had peculated. His
position had been that of an agent whom the missionaries employ to make
many of their small payments, and out of each of these payments he had
taken "a squeeze." With these he had bought the houses which now he
had sold. He left the missionaries happy in heart though empty in
pocket.
This movement spread more or less over the Presbyterian missions in
Korea, but never with such intensity as manifested at Pyeng-Yang. We
heard it spoken of by a non-Christian Korean, a member of the Court of
the Emperor of Korea. He had heard of it, and said men were saying
this movement is a wonderful thing, for under its influence men
confessed crimes of which even torture would not have induced them to
own themselves guilty. A Chinese merchant also heard of it in
Manchuria. The man came down to Pyeng-Yang, and happened to stop with
the Chinese merchants. He mentioned that there were Christians in
Manchuria, and the Chinese merchants immediately took an interest.
When he asked what {240} they knew of the Christians, they answered,
"Good men, good men." One of them was owed by a Korean twenty dollars,
who would only allow that he owed ten, and the merchant having no means
of redress, had written off the debt; but when this revival took place,
the Korean came with the other ten dollars together with interest, and
what of course would appeal even more to the Eastern mind, with the
frank confession that he had lied. This practical illustration of the
effects of Christianity greatly impressed the Chinese.
When we arrived at Pyeng-Yang the movement was over. We went to some
of their meetings. They were very common-place ordinary meetings. All
that struck us was that there was a tone of reverence, a sense of
reality, which made one feel that Christianity was as sincere in Korea
as it is in our own land.
The movement has spread from Korea to Manchuria. In Manchuria the
movement had not quite the same spontaneity that it had in Korea; it
savoured more of the revival meetings of the West. It needed the
stirring words of a great preacher, Mr. Goforth, to start it, yet there
were one or two curious manifestations of power. One is worth telling.
One brother was heard expostulating with another; he was asking why his
brother had, forgetful of his family dignity or "face," confessed to
sins which brought not only himself but his family into disrespect.
The other answered, "When the Spirit of God takes hold of a man, he
cannot help speaking." {241} Two still more curious instances are worth
recording: one in which two soldiers who were not Christians were so
moved that they confessed their sins; another which seems to prove the
presence of a force exterior to human influence or to the emotions
caused by eloquence or moving hymns. An elder of the Church had
forgotten or been detained from going to one of these meetings; when
the speakers went to inquire next day why he had not been there, he
asked them in return to tell him what they had done at the meeting, and
they told him that many people had confessed their sins. He was deeply
interested, and said: "I was sitting in my house at the hour of your
meeting; I suddenly felt as if all my sins were laid before me, and I
realised as I had never done before my many shortcomings."
And so the movement has spread through Manchuria to China. If it has
lost something of its freshness, something of its force, it still
remains a movement that may accomplish great things. No one who has
read the history of the Wesleyan movement, and of the wonderful
manifestations that accompanied its commencement, will look without
interest and expectation for the work which this movement may
accomplish. Let us hope that it will bring to China a sense of reality
in spiritual things which the present materialist teaching threatens to
eliminate from her national life.
{242}
CHAPTER XX
THE FUTURE OF CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA
At the great Shanghai Conference we always spoke of the "Church in
China," implying thereby that there was to be one Christian body in the
Chinese empire. This ideal is lofty and not impossible. There is a
reasonable expectation that the great intellectual movement in China
will render the Chinese very ready to accept new ideas, and the rate of
conversion in China gives one reasonable hope that the new ideas may be
Christian and not those of Western materialism. If China becomes
Christian there will no doubt be a great tendency to accept the unity
of Christianity as an essential doctrine. As a race they clearly tend
towards union as much as the Anglo-Saxon race tends towards disunion.
The British empire has been held together by its fear of its enemies;
the Chinese empire has been held together through their natural love of
union, which is the dominant characteristic of the race. Remove the
enemies of the British empire and she will naturally divide, but force
the Chinese empire apart and she will naturally return to one body.
Chinese Christianity will, if it is truly Chinese, tend to one body.
This truth, which I think would have been {243} allowed by the whole
Shanghai Conference, opens up a train of thought which is full of
foreboding and yet of hope.
One obvious criticism of what was said of the Church in China was kept
largely out of sight at the Shanghai Conference, namely, that as the
Roman Communion far outnumbers the whole of the non-Roman Communions
put together, the Church in China, therefore, if it is to consist of
all Christians, will be something very different to what the majority
of those present at that Conference would like. Some men maintain that
the Chinese love of unity will not go so far as to compel the union
between Protestant and Catholic, and that in China the schism which has
rent Christianity in twain in Europe will be continued. I would ask
those who think thus if they think this is desirable even if it is
possible. Once foreign influence and support has been removed, would
not such a division soon produce a state of great friction, resulting
probably in the destruction of the smaller body. But it is most
improbable; a race which has habitually put together Taoism, Buddhism,
and Confucianism will have no difficulty at all in uniting Romanism and
Protestantism. I do not mean to say that Rome will conquer; it does
not seem likely. The power of the Romans is great when they are
preaching our common Christianity, but their peculiar doctrine of the
pre-eminence of Rome is most unattractive to the Chinaman. After all,
Rome is a very small place to a man who lives in China. Think how
little {244} we know of ancient Chinese history, and realise how little
China knows of the history of our civilisation. Home at the present
day is to the Chinaman merely the capital of Germany's weakest ally.
The reasoning of the universality of the Roman Church, always faulty,
seems almost ridiculous in China. The Chinaman on one side is
conversant with America, on the other side she is in touch with India,
while on the north she has a frontier which stretches for thousands and
thousands of miles between her and the great Orthodox Church of Russia.
One's eyes naturally turn to this immense line of frontier between
Confucianism and Christianity, and one wonders how any Chinaman can
possibly think of Rome as the one Catholic Church. If the Roman
Church, with its foreign domination and its tacit acceptance of the
fact that only members of the Italian nation can receive Divine
authority to guide the Church on earth, is unattractive to the mind of
the man who lives in the Far East, on the other hand its ornate and
dignified services must be most attractive to a race whose national
philosophy puts pre-eminent weight on dignity and decorum in dress and
demeanour. If the Roman Church could give up her Latin services, could
frankly become a national Church which owed no obedience to any Pontiff
outside China, one would regret the possibility but one would have to
allow the probability of her complete domination over the Chinese
empire. Again one's eyes turn to the northern frontier, and one asks
oneself {245} whether that great Orthodox Church, the dignity of whose
services is without parallel, and which frankly accepts the national
Church as a reasonable Christian position, will not one day be a large
factor in the future missionary work in China. After what we had seen
and heard at the Centenary Conference, and after we had realised the
great extent of the Roman work, we felt that till one understood why
the Russian Church conducted no missionary work one could not
understand the whole missionary problem; for when the Russian Church
does undertake such work, her geographical position must render her
important.
The whole of this question is of the greatest interest to the student
of missions, but especially to an Anglican. The great value of the
Anglican position has always seemed that, to use an election phrase, we
offer a platform on which all those who call themselves Christian might
possibly unite. The great rent which divides Protestant from Catholic
seems not only to make it impossible for Latin Christians to unite with
the Teuton Protestant Churches, but also renders it hard for the latter
to unite with the great Churches of Eastern Europe. Of course all this
has only an academic interest in England, but in China with its rapidly
growing Christianity and an intellectual revolution surging forward to
unknown possibilities, all this is of vital interest. What will
Chinese Christianity be? Is it to be an ornate Christianity to which
the converts {246} of Rome and possibly the converts of the Orthodox
Church will adhere, an ornate Church sullied no doubt with the faults
of her parents, a Church possibly attractive to the Buddhist, for he
will not need to traverse any great distance in thought to enter her
portals; or is it to be a great Protestant Church, cold and bare,
vigorous and energetic, a Church in which the uniform of the Teuton
mind will sit badly on the Chinese convert, a Church which may in many
things represent truly the will of our mutual Master, but a Church
which leaves the Oriental cold and miserable, while it practically
tears from our Bible those endless chapters on the decoration of Temple
and Tabernacle, those constant commands to an exact and ordered ritual.
I write with what the Germans call "objectivity"; the Teuton within me
dislikes ritual; but the Chinaman is no Teuton, and the Chinaman loves
ritual as much as any man on earth. No one who has been received by a
Chinese Viceroy in his Yamen can have the very slightest doubt on this
subject. If the Protestant bodies hope to force on the Chinese a
non-ornate form of Christianity, they will be doing exactly what the
Italian Church did to the Northern races, and which produced the great
upheaval of the Reformation. The Reformation was essentially the
rebellion of the Teuton mind against a forced acceptance of the Italian
view of Christianity. To force on the Chinese converts a Christianity
shorn of all ritual and display will produce in years to come some
similar upheaval. {247} There is yet a third possibility. The
Anglican position affords the means of avoiding such an upheaval, and
of permitting a union of all Christians on the basis of an ornate
service and evangelical Christianity. For while it permits a service
equal in dignity to that of Rome or of Russia, it insists equally with
the bodies who pride themselves on the name of Protestant on the
supreme value of the Bible.
The very hope I have that Christianity will conquer China makes me
fearful for the future. The age of persecution is past, the blood of
the martyrs has been shed, and the seed of a Church freely sown. But
after the age of persecution comes the age of heresy, and to preserve
Christianity in China from future dangers, not only is union necessary,
but a well-ordered Church bound by creeds, respecting tradition, which
shall embrace all those Christians by whomsoever they have been
converted who love the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. The great danger
I fear for the future Church in China is one of Eastern and not Western
origin. I do not fear the domination of Rome. I doubt that the
Protestant Communions will succeed in ultimately persuading the Chinese
to worship God in a bare building and without vestments.
China and Japan will, if they are conquered by Christianity, be neither
Protestant nor Catholic any more than we are Nestorian or Eutychian.
Their divisions, their dangers, their struggles, will arise from a
wholly different set of circumstances. I fear {248} the dangers will
come from an effort to incorporate Buddhism and Christianity in one
religion. This is all the more probable as it has doubtless happened
before. Nestorianism and Buddhism are the probable parents of the
present Chinese Lamaism. It is, however, not given for us to see into
the future, but we can look back into the past, and we can see that our
predecessors in the faith nearly invariably made the mistake of
supposing that the old dangers were going to recur, and of therefore
depending on the old measures of defence.
The future Church in the Far East must fight her own battles. She must
solve her own problems. All we can do is to hand over to her the truth
in all its fulness, and teach her to look for divine guidance, to
forget such words as Protestant, Roman Catholic, Nonconformist, and
Anglican; to learn merely the word "Christian" and the word "Love." If
Far Eastern Christianity will have its battles to fight, it will have
also its message to give to the West, "that they without us should not
be made perfect." It may be that the message of the East to the West
will be that as God is One, so must His followers be; that strong and
mighty as is the West, there is in her an element of the very greatest
weakness; that the discord that reigns between Christian and Christian,
between race and race, between class and class, is not the will of the
Creator, but is the result of the national sins of the white races.
The Far East, with its greater power of unity, {249} may illumine the
West with a higher conception of this great virtue, and the world may
be a far holier and happier place when the yellow race has preached to
the world the great doctrine of peace on earth and goodwill to men.
{253}
THE NEW AND THE OLD LEARNING
CHAPTER XXI
EDUCATION, CHIEFLY MISSIONARY
I have before had occasion to refer to the great influence education
has had on the awakening of China, and I think the Americans can fairly
claim to have been the greatest workers in this field. The Roman
Catholics have from time immemorial been most careful to train children
in Christian truth, and they have wonderful institutions for this
purpose. In 1852 the Jesuits founded the College of St. Ignatius for
the education of native priests, and since that day they have founded
many educational institutions. They have besides a very large number
of primary schools, intended originally merely to preserve their
converts from too intimate contact with the heathen world, and they
have also many higher schools. In those schools they teach modern
knowledge, making a speciality of teaching French, which they can do
with great efficiency, as many of their number belong to the French
nation. In the German sphere of influence there are Catholic schools
where German is taught; but though the work is excellent, it cannot be
compared with the work of the Americans, who were really the pioneers
of higher education in China.
{254}
When the American missionaries began to arrive, a new departure was
inaugurated in education. The school and college were no longer places
where Christians were simply educated; they were places where
Christians, confident in the truth of their teaching, gave away to
heathen and Christian alike all the knowledge that the West possessed.
The conception was bold; it was grand. It showed a statesmanlike grip
of the situation and a courage which can only come from a consciousness
of the strength of the Christian position, that Christianity was not a
narrow religion fearing free inquiry. Christianity, on the contrary,
was a religion which could only be appreciated by those who had the
very fullest knowledge. These teachers boldly declared that ignorance
was the mother of religious error, and therefore the duty of every
Christian was at once to remove ignorance and to share with every one
the knowledge that can alone make the world capable of truly
appreciating God's power as manifested in every department of science.
So these schools and colleges grew up. Those who believed in this
policy did not belong to any one denomination, though they did belong
to one nation--America. There were many opponents to this policy. It
was argued that the duty of the mission bodies was to preach the
Gospel, and that however advantageous education might be, it was not
the business of the Christian to give it; but whatever doubt there was
then, facts have been too strong for those who {255} opposed the
educational policy, and any one travelling through China realises more
and more how the Mission that has spent money on education is the
Mission that has the power of expansion. The Mission that has no
educational system is always cabined and confined for want of money and
men. They are always writing home to ask that another man shall be
sent out; some one has broken down or some new opportunity for work has
been opened, and so "they must press upon the Home Board the great
importance of sending out at as early a date as possible one or more
helpers." The Home Board is always answering those letters, expressing
"every sympathy with their anxiety," but in reality pouring cold water
on their enthusiasm, and pointing out that the supply of men is limited
and that the supply of money is yet more limited. Thus the opportunity
passes and the mission cannot expand. The same little church stands
filled with converts; the same mission building houses the tired out
and climate-stricken white missionaries. Such a mission, while
inspiring the greatest respect for the heroism of the missionaries,
arouses also a feeling of despair. How is it possible that a mission
like this can really solve the problem of making Christianity a
national religion? How can spiritual ministrations be performed by
aliens, supported by alien money collected from a possibly hostile race?
A very different effect is made on the mind of the onlooker when he
comes upon some mission that {256} has made education a speciality.
There all is life, vigour and success. One of the most successful of
the American missionaries, Bishop Roots, of the Episcopal Church of
America, explained the system by which he is succeeding in making
Christianity an indigenous religion. At his large college, presided
over by Mr. Jackson, many are heathen. Some go through the college and
imbibe a certain respect for Christian ethics, which will not only make
them a benefit to China but will make an intellectual atmosphere
sympathetic to Christian teaching. Some, however, will become
Christians who will mostly go out into the world and take their place,
and a high place too, in the leadership of the future China, as much
owing to the excellence of the teaching that they have received as to
the high morality which is produced by their Christian faith. Then
there will be a few who will feel a distinct call to go out as
missionaries to their own people. These men will have no temptation to
become Christians for the loaves and fishes, because, owing to the
excellence of the education that they have received and the great
prosperity that is dawning over China, they could command a large
salary in the open market. These highly-educated clergy are able to go
out and put Christianity to the Chinese in a manner which no white man
could hope to equal.
What Bishop Roots told me can be well illustrated by two little
incidents. In Hankow, where his work is increasing by leaps and
bounds, the Lutheran {257} Mission failed, and therefore it resigned
the chapel to him. He accepted readily, and soon his Chinese clergy
were preaching to crowded congregations. The second incident was this:
I expressed a wish to make a present to one of these Christian
scholars, and I asked what books he would like to receive. I was told
that such books as Balfour's "Defence of Philosophic Doubt" and
Haldane's "Pathway to Reality" were the kind that would appeal to such
young men. Not only will these men carry the Gospel to their
fellow-countrymen far more efficiently than can the alien, but they
will to a great extent be able to live on the subscriptions of their
congregations, and so the communion to which they belong will become
not only self-propagating but self-supporting.
To understand the importance of this controversy the various aims of
missionary education must be realised, and it is because those aims are
different that the controversy has been confused and the value of
education as an assistance to missionary effort in China misunderstood.
There are really seven aims: three which are common to all missionary
effort in all lands, and four which especially apply to countries like
China which are passing through a transitional period of thought. The
three which are common to all missionary effort are (1) evangelisation;
(2) edification of the Christian body; (3) education of preachers and
teachers. The four that are peculiar to China in her present
transitional condition are (4) preparation of secular leaders; (5)
leavening of the whole public opinion; (6) opposition {258} to Western
materialism; (7) association of Christianity with learning.
The arguments for the first three are applicable to every land.
Evangelisation can no doubt be carried on most efficiently before the
mind has received any intellectual bias. The Jesuit priest is reported
to have said, "If I have the child till he is ten, I do not care who
has him afterwards;" and therefore, as in all the world so in China,
the Roman Catholics have always made a great effort to educate
children. They have preferred those who have had no home-ties, orphans
and waifs, and have by this policy built up a huge Christian population
numbering over a million. This population is thoroughly Christian in
sentiment; they have never known an idolatrous atmosphere, and they
live to a great extent by themselves in communities. While they are
thoroughly Christian, they are also absolutely Chinese; no effort is
made to Westernise the children in any way. From this great Christian
body Catholic priests are drawn, and I believe so completely Christian
are they, that no difference is made between them and white men by such
an important body as the Jesuits. When other Christian bodies began
missionary work in China they also started schools, but the difference
of their schools was that they aimed much more at the second than at
the first object. The school was not merely a place to attract
homeless children and bring them up as Christians; it was also intended
to edify and adorn with knowledge the children of Christians. {259}
Non-Christians were largely admitted, but I think that I am right in
stating that the object was much more edification than evangelisation.
In a corrupt society like China, where all knowledge is intermingled
with vice, it is inevitable that Christian schools should be erected
for the Christian body, and it is equally inevitable that those who are
non-Christians but who admire the schools greatly should try and enter
them. The feature of these schools for the most part, though not
invariably, in contrast to the earlier Roman Catholic schools, is that
Western education is to a certain extent, varying in each mission,
superadded to Chinese learning; and therefore, though the school is
essentially a school for Chinese learning, the children as a rule learn
something also of Western knowledge.
Out of these schools naturally arise others which have the third aim of
missionary education as their object, namely, the preparation of
preachers and teachers who in the future shall be the real missionary
body of China. Every thinking man realises that the alien missionary
can only exist in a brief transitional period. The true teachers of a
race must be those who are linked to it by ties of blood and tradition,
and nearly every mission has therefore set to work to create a native
ministry which is sooner or later to take over the task of the
conversion of China. This is regarded by many, nay, by most, as the
great aim of missionary educational work. The degree of preparation,
however, differs widely in different missions. {260} Some missions,
drawing their teachers from the lower ranks of society, are quite
content to give them an education which will enable them to lead and
teach the lower class among whom they move; other missions held that
the Christian teacher must not merely he able to lead the ignorant but
must be able also to meet in controversy those who may be well equipped
with Western knowledge; and therefore while in some missions the
education of native pastors is conducted solely in Chinese, in others
the teaching is in English, to enable the teachers and preachers to
keep abreast with the thought of Western countries and to defend their
land by pen and sermon as much against the errors of the West as
against the superstition of the East.
It is in the preparation of these highly educated men that an
opportunity is given for the fourth aim of missionary education in
China: one which would not be applicable in every country, but which is
vitally important in China, namely, the preparation of secular leaders
in China. To understand the importance of this we must be always
reminding our readers that China is in the midst of an intellectual
revolution. She is passing through a period which is in some way
comparable to the period of the Renaissance in Europe, but which
exceeds it both in importance and in danger, because in Europe, as the
name shows, it was essentially a reintroduction of forgotten but not
new knowledge with its subsequent enlargement and development. In
China {261} the revolution is caused by the introduction of foreign
knowledge, which is absolutely inharmonious and in many ways opposed to
native thought. In Europe the foundations of knowledge were always
secure; it was only the superstructure that was altered. In China the
very foundations are being uprooted; the result is that China is at the
present without leaders, except for a narrow band of men, who owing to
the foresight of some Christians in the past have received a Western
education. There are plenty of old-fashioned leaders, who have led or
failed to lead the sleepy China of years ago--men of considerable
ability but in a state of great mental confusion, owing to their
powerlessness to comprehend the many aspects of the civilisation which
is being forced upon them and which is unnatural to them. They cannot
understand our currency questions, our financial operations; they only
dimly realise the possibilities and problems connected with military
and naval armaments. They yearn for the years gone by, but an
inexorable fate urges their country forward into new positions, which
bring with them new responsibilities, new powers and new dangers.
China demands men to lead her through this terrible state of confusion
and change, and she turns round to find the men who understand Western
civilisation, who have the character and the knowledge necessary to
deal with all these problems. Just at this moment, any man of ability
who has an intimate knowledge of Western things stands a chance of high
{262} preferment. It may be that this demand will be satisfied by the
number of students China has sent abroad to be educated, but the size
of China and the great demand for men skilled in Western learning make
many of those having a most intimate knowledge of China confident that
this is an opportunity that is still open, that it is still possible to
direct to some degree the minds and thought of those who will lead
China as statesmen, as authors, and as men of learning. The production
of these men can be carried on to great advantage in the same
establishment as that in which the clergy are receiving their
education; the educated clergyman, the future pressmen and statesmen of
China are in this way brought in close contact with one another, and
even from one establishment the good that may come to China is quite
incalculable.
This brings us to the fifth great aim of education, the leavening of
public opinion in China so that Christianity will find ground prepared
for its sowing. The destruction of superstition, the production of
Western ethics make Christianity a reasonable instead of an
unreasonable religion to those who hear it preached. Clearly to leaven
public opinion influence must be applied to those who will control such
powers as those of the press and the school; the teacher and the writer
are the men who should be especially aimed at; and to attain this aim,
it is necessary to institute and maintain {263} places where higher
knowledge is taught rather than only primary schools.
But there is another object, the sixth aim for education in China. One
of the unpleasant features in the revolution that is going on in
Chinese thought is the present introduction of Western materialism,
which to judge by the example in Japan, will grow more rankly after
transplantation. The West has a double aspect when seen from the East;
it is a Christian world where women are pure and men are honourable; it
is a rich world where there are no moral obligations. The first aspect
is the one that is represented by the missionary; the second aspect is
too often taught by the sailor and merchant classes; and when the
Chinaman asks what is the thought and the base of Western teaching, the
Japanese materialist, pointing to the example set by many Western
lives, declares that Christianity in Europe is like Buddhism in Japan,
a religion that at one time had many adherents but whose influence is
fast waning, and it is in resisting this materialism that the
Missionary College and University perform perhaps their most important
task.
The men who are to do this work must be men most highly skilled in
Western knowledge; they must understand science and be able to meet a
follower of Haeckel in debate, they must be competent to discuss
sociology with disciples of Herbert Spencer, and they must not be
afraid to dip into the {264} study of comparative religion; in
addition, they must be qualified to write excellent Chinese and to be
firm in their Christian faith. The production of such men as these
should also satisfy the seventh and last aim of Christian education: it
will associate learning with Christianity in the minds of the Chinese.
The keynote of Chinese thought is its great admiration for learning.
In China there is no caste or class, no division except between the
ignorant and the learned; if Christianity is associated with ignorance,
its influence will be lost, and it is no mean object to make
Christianity and knowledge in the mind of the Chinaman two parts of one
great idea.
It is obvious that as missionary societies lay weight on one or the
other of these objects, they will support a different kind of school.
If their object is the first, they will seek to educate the orphan and
the waif, and the school and the orphanage will be, as they are in the
Roman Catholic body, intimately joined together. If the object is to
edify the Christian body and to provide it with a suitable pastor, the
missionary body will erect primary schools for Christian children and
theological and normal schools to complete their school system. If, on
the other hand, the missionary body aims at leavening the whole thought
of China, of capturing China for Christ, or if it aims at defending
China against the terrible pest of Western materialism--which will turn
the light that China now has into black darkness and harden her for
ever against Christian teaching--the High School, {265} College, and
the University will be the objects on which the money will be spent.
This last has been the object of the American bodies; and I think China
owes a great debt of gratitude, under God, to the great width of
thought and grasp of the situation that the American mind has exhibited.
{266}
CHAPTER XXII
GOVERNMENT EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM
One of the highest testimonials to the wisdom of the missionaries in
inaugurating an educational policy has been given by the Chinese
Government. Imitation is the sincerest flattery, and missionary
education has its imitator in no less a body than the Chinese
Government. The Chinese have always loved education, but the education
they admired was the literary education which had for its commencement
the Chinese character and for its end the Chinese Classics; their
system of teaching was different from our own; they were far greater
believers in learning by rote than the most conservative English
schoolmaster who ever set a long repetition lesson to his pupils. It
is a strange sight to see an old-fashioned Chinese school, the boys all
shouting out at the top of their voices the names of the characters
whose meaning they do not understand. An essential part of the
performance is the clamorous shouting; the louder they shout, the
harder they are working and the quicker they think they learn, so when
the visitor surprises a class their voices are not raised above a
pleasant and reasonable elevation, but after he has been {267}
discovered by the class, the shouts increase in volume till the noise
is only to be compared to the paroquets' cage in the Zoological Gardens.
Another peculiarity of the school is that all the pupils turn their
backs to their master; the doctrine being that if they were allowed to
watch their master, it would be perfectly impossible for him to detect
their many little acts of dishonesty. The missionaries at first
painfully imitated these schools; they felt that it was impossible to
trust the children of their converts to the heathen atmosphere of a
Chinese school, and at the same time they realised what great value and
importance was placed by the Chinese on education. These schools led
on to a sort of middle school called "shu-yuen," which existed in all
big towns, which in its turn led on to four Universities, but they have
been, I believe, for some time in an inefficient condition. Still for
good or for evil the system was there, and long before our own new
departure in education, the Chinese were quite accustomed to the idea
that the boy who had sufficient ability might climb the ladder of
learning, from class to class, from school to school, till at last he
took the coveted Hanlin Degree. So high a value did the Chinese place
on education, that it was possible, and it did indeed happen, that boys
of the very humblest parentage climbed that ladder till they reached
the most exalted positions.
The first sign of an alteration of this system was {268} the book that
was issued after the Chinese-Japanese war by Chang-Chih-Tung. That
remarkable statesman realised after China's crushing defeat that a
general reform was absolutely necessary if she was to maintain her
place among the free and independent nations of the world, and he wrote
a book entitled "China's Only Hope," in which he strongly advocated the
acceptance in some measure of Western education. His scheme is the one
which practically obtains now in China, that is of making Chinese
learning the foundation on which Western education is to be placed. He
had a great disbelief, like most Chinese, in the difficulty of
acquiring Western education. He writes: "Comparative study of foreign
geography, especially that of Russia, France, Germany, England, Japan,
and America; a cursory survey of the size and distance, capital,
principal ports, climate, defences, wealth, and power of these (the
time required to complete this course ten days)." It is very hard for
the Chinese literati to understand the difficulties of acquiring
Western learning. Chang was a man of no mean intellect, and one of the
reasons why he was so anxious to preserve Chinese learning was because
he realised the destructive effect Western learning has on Oriental
faiths. He hoped to preserve the ethics of Confucianism and to attach
to them the practical knowledge of the West, which he realised was a
necessity for China. He summed up the position by saying, "Western
knowledge is practical, Chinese learning is moral."
{269}
The immediate result of this book was absolutely the reverse of what
its author intended. A million copies of the book had been issued, and
it circulated throughout China. It raised a storm of opposition, and
probably was one of the causes which produced the Boxer outbreak; but
the failure of Boxerdom and the Russo-Japanese war convinced China that
Chang-Chih-Tung was right, and his book may now be taken as the book
which best expresses the intellectual position of the moderate reformer.
He first deals with that very difficult question of finance. He
proposes to finance the schools with a wholesale disendowment of the
two religions in which he does not believe, Buddhism and Taoism. He
writes: "Buddhism is on its last legs, Taoism is discouraged because
its devils have become irresponsive and inefficacious." He then
suggests that seven temples out of ten should be used both as regards
their building and their funds for educational purposes. But he has a
sympathetic way of treating the disendowed clergy of China. He
suggests that they could be comforted by a liberal bestowal of official
distinction upon themselves and upon their relatives. Who can tell if
Welsh Disestablishment would not be popular if all the clergy were to
be made archdeacons and their brothers and fathers knights. But he has
a historical precedent for disendowment--Buddhism has apparently
experienced the process of disendowment three times; but as the last
disendowment was {270} in 846, on our side of the world we should not
regard it as a precedent of much value.
In establishing schools he adopts five principles. The first is one to
which we have already referred, that the new and the old are to be
woven into one, the Chinese Classics are to be made by some magical
process the foundation of the teaching of Western education. The
second is a very un-Western but possibly a sound way of looking at the
question. He puts forward two objects of education: first, government;
secondly, science. The first includes all knowledge necessary for the
government of mankind--geography, political economy, fiscal science,
the military art, and though he does not mention it, I suppose history.
The second is natural science, and includes mathematics, mining,
therapeutics, sound, light, chemistry, &c. The third principle is one
that we rarely act on in our own country, namely, that the child shall
be only educated in the subjects for which he has a natural aptitude.
The fourth principle is one that applies absolutely to China; it is the
abolition of what is called the three-legged essay, a complicated feat
of archaic and artificial writing which only exists for the purpose of
examination, something analogous to our Latin verses. The fifth
principle shows that China is as far ahead of us in some ways as she is
behind us in others. China has passed beyond the stage of free
education to the stage of universal scholarship; all students are paid,
and this has brought about a great abuse; {271} men study merely to
obtain a living who have no aptitude for learning, and on whom
educational money is really wasted, and so he abolishes payment.
His Excellency closes his advice with a suggestion that societies for
the promotion of education should be formed. The Chinaman loves these
little social clubs and gatherings. His chess club, his poetry club,
his domino club, are national institutions. Why not, suggests His
Excellency, have an educational club, or as I suppose we should call
it, a mutual improvement society. Thus wrote the great Viceroy who
more than any other man prevented the spread of the Boxer outbreak from
desolating Central and Southern China. During that Boxer rebellion all
advance was impossible, but after that overflowing flood of disorder
was passed, the reforms suggested by Chang-Chih-Tung began to be
seriously considered, and on January 13, 1903, an Imperial Edict was
put forth renovating and organising, at least on paper, the whole
educational system of China. It would not be China if there were not a
great deal of sound sense in that edict; it would not be China if on
paper the organisation did not seem to be perfect; it would not be
China if as a matter of fact the whole scheme were not to a great
extent a failure.
The scheme was very complete. It began at the bottom and continued
through every grade of education to the top. First there were to be
infant schools; these were to receive children from three to {272}
seven years old, and their object was to give the first idea of right
and to keep the children from the dangers of the street. These schools
were to be succeeded by primary schools of two departments, and
children were to enter the schools as they left the infant school when
they were seven years old, and to continue in them till they were
twelve. The subjects to be taught were morals, Chinese language,
arithmetic, history, geography, physical science and gymnastics. At
present there was to be no compulsory attendance, but that was looked
forward to as the future ideal. The schools were to be free, and the
money was to be produced either by taxes or by a raid on some
endowments, notably endowments of religion or of the theatre--for
theatres in China are endowed. Funds were also to be found by
subscription, and titles and ranks were promised to those who shall
open schools; unlike our own country, where, alas, the spending time on
education for the poor is only rewarded by abuse. These primary
schools would lead into higher schools, and these schools would be the
last on the ladder of education, in which only Chinese subjects were to
be taught. Above them were to be what they call middle schools, and
the subjects to be taught are roughly those which are taught in our
High Schools: the Chinese Classics, Chinese language and literature,
foreign languages (one at least to be obligatory), history, geography,
physics, chemistry, science of government, political economy, drawing,
gymnastics; and after the example of Western schools, singing {273}
would be also taught. These schools lead on to the superior schools in
which higher branches of the same subjects are taught. These schools
were to be divided into three sections. The first section consists of
law, literature, and commerce; the second section of sciences, civil
engineering, and agriculture; the third section of medicine. It is
noteworthy that English is necessary for those who are learning the
first two sections, while German is compulsory for those who are
learning the third section--in either case a third language may be
added; and these superior schools were to lead on to a University, in
which there were to be eight faculties. The first faculty is
essentially a Chinese one, and I suppose would be best expressed to our
thought by "belles-lettres," but it includes such things as rites and
poetry; the second faculty is that of law; the third, history and
geography; the fourth, medicine and pharmacy; the fifth, science; the
sixth, agriculture; the seventh, civil engineering; the eighth,
commerce.
The University course was to take three years, and there was to be a
University installed in each province. The educational system was to
be perfected by two other institutions--a post-graduate college where
research was to be undertaken, and a normal college which was to be
divided into an inferior and a superior one for the purpose, the one of
preparing schoolmasters for the village schools, the other for higher
education. A far less ambitious scheme for the education of girls has
been added to this by {274} an edict of 1907. If my readers have waded
through this scheme I am afraid that they will have come to the
conclusion that China has nothing to learn from Western powers, but
rather she ought to be able to teach them how to perfect their own
incomplete system of education; but alas, this scheme is only on paper.
In the province where H.E. Yuan-Shih-Kai ruled the schools approach in
some degree to the level of Western efficiency. In every other
province that I visited or heard about, the results of this edict were
markedly disappointing; the only exception being where the Universities
had been organised, not in the form or terms of the edict, but by
Western teachers acting on more or less independent lines. For
instance, there is a splendid University which has been founded by Dr.
Timothy Richard in Shansi.
That University has a curious history. After the Boxer massacres
compensation was demanded by the Powers both for the buildings that
were destroyed and for the missionaries that were killed. A certain
number of the missionary bodies refused absolutely to take any
compensation. Animated by the spirit of the early Christian Church,
they would not allow that the blood that had been shed for the sacred
cause could be paid for in money. At this juncture there threatened to
be rather an impasse. The Western Government were insisting on
compensation, and it was doubtful and uncertain how that compensation
should be paid. The Chinese Government sent for the Protestant
missionary in whom they had the {275} greatest confidence, Dr. Timothy
Richard, and he made a suggestion which was at once acceptable to both
the Chinese and to the missionary body, that the money should be
devoted to the founding of a great University; for ignorance is the
most common cause of fanaticism, and the terrible massacres enacted in
China would never have taken place had China understood, as
Chang-Chih-Tung did understand, that Western science and enlightenment
were for the benefit of China; so this University was founded. It was
founded under peculiar terms. It is under the government of China, and
yet not completely so. Dr. Timothy Richard is for a certain number of
years one of its governors, and he has for ten years at least the
control of the Western side of the education. He is supported by an
able staff, and the Rev. W. E. Soothill is the existing President. At
the end of the ten years which are just running out, the status of the
University is to be altered, and is, as far as I understand, to return
to the ordinary status of a Government University. I need hardly say
that this University has been highly satisfactory in its teaching, and
lately it has sent many of its students to England to complete their
education. It suffers, however, from the absence of a proper
preparatory course. One of the difficulties that lie right in the way
of Chang-Chih-Tung's compromise is the difficulty of finding time for a
Western preparatory course, and that is only equalled by the difficulty
of finding teachers. Without time and teachers the students {276}
arrive at the University period of their lives with only a very
elementary knowledge of Western subjects. This college can hardly be
cited as a college of high governmental efficiency, but should rather
be regarded as an example of the good that a man like Dr. Timothy
Richard can do if he is only allowed scope.
Another Western University under Chinese Government control is the one
at Tientsin, the Pei-Yang University. That University has the
advantage of being well supported by efficient Government schools at
Pao-ting-fu. One interesting detail about the Pao-ting-fu school--a
fact indeed which in two or three ways should give us food for
thought--is that it is controlled by a Christian who is allowed by the
Government, against their own regulations, to carry on an active
propaganda. He was the man who, when the missionaries were murdered at
Shansi, at the risk of his life brought down a message from them
written in blood on a piece of stuff. Perhaps it is not extraordinary
to find that such a man is producing excellent work. The Pei-Yang
University, however, falls far short of our ideals of what a University
standard should be. Still, as far as it goes, it is very efficient.
It is taught by a very effective body of professors. It has 150
students, and teaches law, mining, and engineering. The staff is
American with very few exceptions. One of those exceptions is Mr.
Wang, a Chinese gentleman who received his education in London. Very
little philosophy is taught, {277} only three hours a week are given
for Chinese learning, and the students are expected to acquire a
sufficient knowledge of Chinese subjects before they come to the
University. The American professors, who proved to be a delightful set
of men, allowed that there was no real scientific training given in
this school. They gave the same account of their pupils which you will
hear in every Chinese school. They excelled in algebra, drawing, and
in the most stupendous power of committing formulæ to memory. One of
the difficulties of teaching a Chinese class is that they have so
little difficulty in learning by rote that they much prefer learning
the text-books by heart to trying to understand them. The Law School
in the Pei-Yang University is taught by a man who has no knowledge of
Chinese law. This is one of the small mistakes made by American
educators in China, which I think must be somewhat misleading for China
in the future. To learn nothing but Western law, and to imagine that
that Western law can be applied directly to the Chinese people, is to
make the same mistake that Macaulay so eloquently condemned in the old
East India Company. Such a system of teaching can only make
unreasonable revolutionaries.
These two examples of teaching institutions carried on under the
Chinese Government by Western teachers are wholly exceptional, and
though excellent in their way are unimportant, and having regard to the
vast mass of the population of China are inconsiderable. What are five
or six {278} hundred students to a population of four hundred millions.
I must reserve the account of what I saw of the schools under Chinese
management, including the Peking University, to another chapter.
{279}
CHAPTER XXIII
THE SAME IN PRACTICE
Any one who has read the preceding account of the intentions of the
Chinese Government might be pardoned if he supposed that after four or
five years those intentions had borne fruit in an efficient system of
public education. But one who has resided any time in China would only
smile at the suggestion that there should be an intimate relation
between what the Chinese Government professes to do and what the
Chinese Government does. A Manchu Professor whose European education
had enabled him to appreciate rightly the weaknesses of the Chinese
race, said with great candour, "In China we begin things, but we never
finish them." I had the privilege of seeing over some twenty
Government schools in China, and the truth of these words was very
obvious.
My hospitable host at Nanking, His Excellency Tuan-Fang, hearing that I
took an interest in education, declared that he would be very glad that
I should see his schools. I expressed a regret that my ignorance of
the language would impede me in thoroughly understanding what was being
taught. He most hospitably said that I could myself examine {280} the
pupils who were studying Western subjects, and who therefore spoke
English or French, and that my wife should examine the girls' schools;
that we should be accompanied by two interpreters as well as by the
Director of Education, and that he would examine the schools in any
branch of knowledge that I chose. So we sallied forth, a very imposing
body, and I was asked to select what schools I should like to visit.
Of course I selected the higher grade schools in which Western subjects
were taught. The first school on which we descended was the
Agricultural College. The teachers of Western subjects were two
Japanese and one Chinaman. They were being taught in Chinese, but I
had no difficulty in finding out in the first room we entered what they
were learning, because the illustrations were well known to me, for
they formed part of a book of elementary botany which I had at one time
studied. I suggested to Mr. Tsêng, the interpreter, that the right
course would be to ask the Japanese master to select his best pupils
and that then he should examine them while I should suggest the
questions. It soon became clear that all the Japanese teacher was
doing was to teach them to copy the illustrations in the book and
nothing else. For the first time we noticed what we afterwards
discovered to be the invariable rule, that the Japanese are most
perfect draughtsmen, and that every class taught by the Japanese always
learnt to draw perfectly, though they learnt little else. The Chinese
were rather pleased that the Japanese teacher cut such a sorry figure.
We then {281} went to the next room. Again there was a Japanese
teacher professing to explain the model of a steam-engine; again the
pupils were obviously ignorant; again we bowed and they bowed and we
left the room.
The next room had quite a different atmosphere. Obviously efficient
work was going on. The men were learning elementary chemistry. The
teacher was a Chinaman who had been trained in London and spoke English
perfectly. He was as straightforward as he was efficient. He frankly
said that the progress that his pupils had made was very limited
because of the short time that they had been at work. We congratulated
him on the efficient way he was managing his class, and were interested
to hear afterwards that he was a Christian. More than once we came
across Christian Chinese, and did not know till later that they were
Christians, but were struck by their efficiency, which sprang doubtless
from a high ideal of work.
We left the Agricultural College and then proceeded to a High School,
which is the name that is given to a first-grade school that precedes
the University, and which at present stands in its place. We had in
this school much the same experience. A Japanese teacher was teaching
biology and was dissecting a river mussel. This was done in such a
position that only two men could see what was going on. I wondered at
this. Then we found out that he could not speak a word of Chinese. He
dissected the {282} mussel and professed to give a lecture on its
anatomy to a pupil who understood Japanese, and then the pupil
delivered the lecture to the rest of the class. My Chinese
interpreters were of opinion that very little could filter through the
class in this way, but the Director of Education smiled sweetly. He
obviously felt that in some mysterious way Western education was
percolating to the pupils under his charge. As we returned along the
corridor I glanced in. The biological lecture was over; I expect it
was the only one of the session, and the pupils went away with
admirable pictures of the river mussel. If the Japanese teachers only
set up for teachers of drawing, I am certain they would have no equals
in the world. A little further on in the same building there was a
professed teacher of drawing. The class was not a selected class, they
were drawing from a cast of a well-known Greek statue, and the work was
simply admirable. I am confident that, except in an art school, you
would not find better work in Europe. In the next room there was a
science teacher. To impress the Director of Education, he rashly set a
machine for demonstrating the vibration of sound at work. The machine
would not demonstrate anything, much to the joy of my Chinese friends,
solely for the reason that he had not wound it up.
I should tire my readers if I were to go on describing room after room.
I cannot of course be certain how far these Japanese teachers had
taught science, but at any rate their pupils had not {283} acquired any
knowledge, and I think we may easily be too hard on the Japanese. One
must remember that they have to supply teachers for all their own
schools. Is it likely that they will be either able or willing to send
into other countries efficient teachers of Western education? It is
not as if Western knowledge had been for long taught in Japan. Their
schools are now many and they were few. I suppose no man, no great
number of men at any rate, over thirty-five or forty, are equipped with
an efficient Western education in Japan. One wonders why they allow
their national reputation to be injured by supposing it to be possible
for them to supply these teachers of Western knowledge. Political
motive suggests itself as a reason why a country so proud and so
ambitious as Japan should allow a course that must eventually injure
her reputation as an enlightened power.
The next school we went over was very interesting. It was what is
called a Law School. The men who are learning in this school will be
the future officials of China; only, following the Chinese custom, they
will rarely or never hold office in the province in which they were
born and educated. They were men of some standing, and it looked
strange to see all these senior men, over sixty in number, sitting like
children at the school desks. They were dressed, in uniform, and were
under a sort of military discipline. The senior pupil gave the word of
command, and at once the class sprang to attention and saluted {284}
us, while we bowed first to the teacher, then to the class, after which
the examination began. They were chiefly taught by Chinese, and, as
one might expect, were well taught in the Chinese Classics. We were
informed that the Japanese teacher was teaching them Western law; but
in answer to an inquiry he explained that he had not yet taught them
any law, but that he was teaching them the Japanese language, since it
was through the Japanese language alone a knowledge of Western law
could be attained. The reason seemed very inconclusive especially when
one remembers that the Japanese know and write Chinese characters, so
that it is easy to get any work that is printed in Japan printed in the
character which every Chinaman can read. I have before explained the
peculiar merit of the Chinese character is that people who speak
different dialects and even languages can read it equally well. I
pointed all this out to my Chinese friends. I think their suspicions
too were aroused. Certainly this experience lends colour to the
suggestion that Japan hopes that the Manchu dynasty will be succeeded,
not by a Chinese dynasty, but by a dynasty from a race whose courage,
energy, and intellect has already humiliated Russia and China, and may
not inconceivably dominate China, should, for instance, Germany and
England go to war.
We then went to see some classes taught by Americans. Two things
struck me in those classes. First, for some reason I cannot
understand, unless {285} there was jealousy at work, the class was
small compared with the enormous classes which I had seen
elsewhere--thirty, twenty, or even fifteen were the numbers that white
men were teaching. The other thing which struck me was that the
selection of subjects might be improved. For instance, one of the
teachers was teaching Anson's Law of Contract; one could scarcely see
how a knowledge of the English law of contract could be very beneficial
to a resident in China; and on looking over the book that another class
was using, I found that they were being instructed how to buy an
advowson in England. I cannot of course say that the class was
actually taught this interesting information, but it was certainly in
their text-book. Another text-book was a summary of the history of the
world; it was issued by an American firm. On looking up the chapter
which referred to China I found the most extreme expression that an
American democratic feeling could prompt used with regard to the
Emperor of China. I pointed this out to the Chinamen. Apparently no
one had taken the trouble to glance through the books that were being
used. Such action is regrettable, because it inevitably brings Western
education into disrepute, and suggests it to be something essentially
revolutionary.
Another curious experience was to find a Cantonese Chinaman teaching a
science class in English because he did not know Mandarin. It will be
one of the limitations to the usefulness of the Hong-Kong {286}
University that the bulk of the students who attend it will be
Cantonese-speaking Chinamen, and they will therefore be inefficient as
teachers to the great mass of the Chinese empire. A University which
hopes to produce teachers which shall teach the whole of China must be
a University situated in Mandarin-speaking China.
It was waxing late after we had seen these schools. We had consumed a
great amount of the day in partaking of a most excellent Chinese
luncheon, where the only mistake I had made--at least the only one of
which I was conscious--was in not being instructed in the nature of the
entertainment. I had yielded to the solicitations of my host and had
partaken largely of the first two or three courses. Later on in the
luncheon I was divided between the desire to be polite and a fear that
the capacity of the human body might be exceeded. Our host was the
Director of Education, and my interpreter whispered to me that he had a
great knowledge of cooking and that "he loved a dry joke." His skill
as a Director of Education, especially of Western subjects, might be
doubted; but as a kindly host and an amusing companion he would have
few equals in our country. This aspect of the Chinese official too
often escapes the Western critic; whether efficient or inefficient,
they are always agreeable men. After luncheon he begged to be excused,
as he had a visit of ceremony to pay; it was the birthday of a dear
friend's mother. {287} His official robes were brought out, and
clothed in them he took his seat in a sedan chair and left us.
We were taken on, rather unwillingly I fancied, to see the Commercial
School. The hour of the classes was over, but still the school was
really instructive. What was so remarkable about it was the extreme
simplicity of the place where the boys lodged. The school is not
maintained by Government, but by the rich Silk Guild of Nanking. Many
members of this Silk Guild, I was assured, would only be able to read
and write enough to carry on their business. They are a rich and
powerful body, and this school is intended for their sons. The
dormitory was a slate-covered building without any ceiling, and the
beds were arranged like berths on board ship, one on the top of the
other, with narrow passages between them. In this way, of course, a
room was made to hold a perfectly surprising number of individuals. I
could not help remembering the Church Army Lodging-house at home. If
we arranged the beds as they were arranged in that room, though we
should double or treble the number of travellers we could house, we
should incur the wrath of the sanitary authority.
Very different was the Naval School. Here reigned efficiency, for the
Naval School is under the partial control of two officers lent by His
Majesty's Navy. The limit of their control was the limit of their
efficiency. For instance, the Chinese Government sometimes refused to
let their naval officers be shown an actual ship; their idea was much
the same {288} as that of the lady who forbid her son to bathe until he
had learnt to swim. The difficulty was very great for anything like
practical instruction. Continual representations induced the Chinese
Government to allow the boys to have a trip on the river in an old
ship. The moment this was accomplished there was great
self-congratulation on the part of the Chinese official; from resisting
this reasonable suggestion they changed to self-laudation at the wisdom
of accepting the plan. The efficiency of the teaching was not only
hindered by the want of practical knowledge, which is of course fatal
to naval efficiency, but these officers had also to complain of what so
many other Europeans have to complain--first, that the people whom they
were sent to teach did not know enough English, so that much of their
time was spent in teaching elementary English; secondly, that their
classes were not large enough. Far away the most effective way of
using a Western teacher would be to use them as we saw them used in one
school. The Western teacher was supported by two or three Chinese
assistants; he gave his lecture in English, and the pupils took notes;
then the assistants went round the desks, looked at the notes, and
explained in Chinese all those points that the pupils had not fully
taken in. This plan has another advantage, that it trains these
Chinese teachers to continue the work of a Western teacher, and in some
ways it is a more efficient system than the normal schools. The
Western teacher of course exercises a general {289} supervision over
his class and maintains order and discipline.
While I had been busy with the boys' schools, my wife had been busy
with the girls' schools. She was taken over the Viceroy's School, the
one already described where the little girls showed such surprising
knowledge of the Chinese Classics. Her experience was less happy than
mine. The children were being drilled by a Japanese instructress who
could hardly play at all; she used a small gem harmonium, and the
drilling was little better than a feeble country dance. The same
instructress was responsible for a singing lesson; she played with one
hand on a harmonium, and allowed the children to bawl as they pleased
without either time or tune. All the pupils at this school were day
scholars.
The interpreter who conducted Mrs. King, the Consul's wife, and my wife
over this and the following schools had removed his own daughter to a
mission school, thinking she would receive better teaching. As regards
the musical part of the instruction there can be no question but that
he was right. The next school she saw was also for the children of the
gentry, who supported it by subscriptions. There were 140 girls, fifty
of whom were boarders whose parents paid for their board. These fifty
young ladies all slept in one room, and their toilet arrangements
impressed my wife as anything but luxurious; the effect was more like a
steerage cabin on a big liner than an ordinary school dormitory. The
class-rooms {290} were all on the ground floor, leading from courtyard
to courtyard in Chinese house fashion. The instruction seemed to be
mainly Chinese, with attention paid to geography, drawing, and fancy
work, English being taught by a young Chinese teacher in a rather
elementary way. The mistresses appeared in dignified skirts, no doubt
as a symbol of authority.
The last school she was shown was larger and less exclusive. It was
well organised, the classes being arranged with sense and
discrimination. There were 200 pupils of all ages and ranks, the
school being a public one. They were mostly dressed in black. Ten
lady teachers presided over this school, including a normal class with
a male superintendent; the whole in Chinese buildings. The teaching
comprised Confucian ethics, the Chinese characters, arithmetic,
geography, drawing from flat copies, and English given by a young
Chinese girl who had been educated in a Shanghai mission school.
The instruction seemed to be good on the whole. About one-fourth of
the scholars boarded at the school. Attached to it was a kindergarten
managed rather sleepily by two Japanese. Again the children's singing
was hardly worthy of the name. My wife was impressed by the
inferiority of the Government girls' schools to the mission girls'
schools in almost every particular. Doubtless they will soon improve,
but at present the Government does not seem able to obtain efficient
teachers, and is much too inclined to spend vast sums on practically
useless {291} apparatus--useless because the instructors do not
understand how to use it.
Our experiences at Nanking were extremely interesting, but they were
not exceptional. We saw over Government schools at Wuchang, again at
Changsha, and also we saw something of the Peking University. At
Changsha matters were not nearly so far advanced as they were at
Nanking. There were the same Japanese teachers, one of whom taught
English, but I could not get a single copy-book produced to show how
far they had advanced in the knowledge of this language. There were
the same American teachers; good men, but unable to do much owing to
their want of knowledge of Chinese, and owing, as I said before, to a
certain jealousy which prevented them having a sufficient number of
pupils. The very excellent school which is carried on at Shanghai,
under Western management, forms a good contrast to the others. This
school does not profess to teach very advanced subjects, but it teaches
ordinary English subjects most efficiently. The system is this: the
boys are first taught in Chinese, while they are acquiring the
rudiments of Western knowledge and of the English language; they are
then transferred to a class which is taught in English by Chinese; here
they acquire from their own countrymen a very thorough knowledge of
English and a tolerable knowledge of Western subjects. In both these
divisions of the school all explanations are given in Chinese. After
they have acquired a good knowledge of English they are then {292}
advanced to the class which is taught by an Englishman, who has some
knowledge of Chinese; here they perfect their knowledge of English, and
the teacher can if necessary explain a difficulty by the help of a
Chinese word. Lastly, they are taught absolutely in English by an
Englishman who need not know any Chinese, as it is never used.
At Wuchang the schools were similar to those of Nanking. The only
school which was exceptionally interesting was the School of Languages.
This was managed by a Manchu, who was prompt, exact, and efficient--in
fact, the very greatest contrast to the usual Chinese official. He
spoke French perfectly, as he had been brought up in Paris and spent
some time in the West. In a few words he showed that he understood the
problem of education in China. He told me that his nation would never
succeed in teaching their nationals Western subjects until they
selected teachers who had some experience in the knowledge and in the
art of teaching, and that the habit of regarding all Westerners as
capable of teaching all Western subjects must produce disaster. He
boldly professed himself a Roman Catholic, and was one of several
examples that came under my notice of the wonderful influence that
Christianity has on the formation of a vigorous character. The boys
had been very well taught in English and French, and I gathered in
German and Russian as well. Certainly if China gets such men to lead
her, she need have little fear of the power of the West.
{293}
CHAPTER XXIV
DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAY OF EDUCATION
The difficulties in the way of education differ in Government schools
and in Mission schools. If the Chinese Government could unite the
Government schools to the Mission schools, they would overcome all
these difficulties, and they would have a most perfect system of
Western education. Of all the difficulties lying in the way of
Government schools, first and foremost is the fundamental weakness of
China, that weakness which is endangering her national existence, a
weakness which I fear she will never completely surmount until she
accepts a higher ideal. For her weakness is the universal greed for
gain. Resident after resident reported the same cause of weakness,
that a Chinaman cannot resist taking his "squeeze"--that is, his
commission. It is not of course so dishonest as it would be on our
side of the globe, because a Chinaman is more or less avowedly paid by
these commissions, and therefore in many ways they are rather
equivalent to the fees paid by an Englishman to a Government office
than to illicit commissions, the acceptance of which in this country is
punishable by law. If it is not as immoral, it is almost as
deleterious to efficiency, because it tends {294} to make officials
unreasonable in their action. To ask the reason why things are done in
China, is always to receive the answer that somebody got a "squeeze"
thereby.
And so it is with education. As we wandered through room after room
filled with apparatus sufficient to teach thousands of students, and of
such a complicated nature as absolutely to confuse those students when
taught, one longed that a tithe of this expenditure could have been
used for that modicum of apparatus which is necessary to make not a few
mission schools thoroughly efficient. Much of the apparatus has never
got outside its packing cases, and perhaps a great deal had better
permanently remain there, for nothing is so subversive to the proper
teaching of men whose great defect is that they have never handled
things with their hands, as to give them complicated apparatus to
demonstrate the most recondite laws of science. A great scientific
teacher, when consulted about the apparatus necessary for elementary
science, advised plenty of bonnet wire, glass tubes, and one or two
other little things of that sort. When one asks why the Chinese have
been so lavish in their expenditure on apparatus which they cannot and
will not use, the reply is the same old answer--somebody got a
commission. Bui I think beyond that there is a real belief that
education is a matter of expensive apparatus--a belief which is not
altogether unknown on this side of the globe.
{295}
This brings me to the second great difficulty in the path of Government
education. They will believe that an efficient education results
rather from having an expensive building than from a competent teacher.
I have before had occasion to refer to the extreme simplicity of the
life of the Chinese. Many of the schools were housed, and very
comfortably housed, in Chinese houses. The Chinese house always looks
out on a courtyard, and courtyard is joined to courtyard by passages.
The rooms are only divided from the courtyard by carved wooden screens
whose interstices are sometimes filled with paper and sometimes not.
They are eminently sanitary--in fact, to a large extent they fulfil the
requirements of the "open-air cure." In one case in the courtyard were
a lot of basins and ewers, and the boys were compelled to have a wash,
which if extensive must, in the winter, have been extremely unpleasant.
For all this I expressed my sincere admiration to my friend the
Director of Education, but he received my compliment much in the same
spirit with which a mother accepts your assertion that her child is far
prettier in her every-day dress with tousled hair than she is in her
Sunday clothes, as with hideous tidiness and pharisaic pomp she wends
her way to church. My compliment was taken almost as an insult. I was
then shown the ideal of China, a huge and hideous building, modelled on
the architecture which white men deem necessary to enable them to
support the tropical heat, to the fatal effects of which they are {296}
so sensitive; massive walls to carry the heavy roof; huge arched
verandahs where white people may get the breath of air they so need.
Of what use are all these to a race who cannot understand what you mean
when you speak of the heat being unhealthy, who, however sensitive to
cold and wet, flourish in the warmth to which they have been accustomed
all their lives? The Chinese do not admire this architecture for its
æsthetic effect; they care little about its heat-resisting qualities.
They like it because it is Western; because Western people are educated
in such buildings; because, I suppose, they expect Western learning to
work in some way through those massive stone walls to the minds of the
pupils; and because they fancy Western ideas would be more easily
understood in these hideous surroundings.
Thirdly, there is no serious effort made to get good teachers. At one
time, I understand, they had in their service a very remarkable body of
men--men like Professor Martin of Peking--whose knowledge was only
equalled by the sincerity of their purpose. Lately they have been
getting rid of these men as fast as they could, the cry of "China for
the Chinese" being perhaps responsible for this movement; and they have
endeavoured to replace them by Chinese subjects with but little
success. They have therefore fallen back again on foreigners, largely
on Japanese. These men are some of them very able and qualified
teachers; some, on the other hand, have had little or no experience of
teaching, and their inefficiency tends {297} to bring all foreign
teachers into disrepute. Not only must the teacher have a special
knowledge of the art of teaching, but a teacher of a race like the
Chinese, with different traditions to our own, must well understand
those traditions. We can best realise the enormous difficulty a
Chinese student has of learning from a Western teacher by remembering
how impossible it is for any of us to understand something that is put
from a Chinese point of view.
If the Chinese Government want efficient foreign teachers, they must
not pick up anybody, but they must hold out inducements to young men to
come as teachers, and must give them security of tenure. If, for
instance, the Chinese Government had in their service such an efficient
body of men as could be found in the mission schools, they would have
no difficulty. Another difficulty which stands in the way of the
Chinese schools is their want of discipline. One of the most
remarkable developments in China is the school strike. They have
undoubtedly extraordinary powers of united action, but the school
strike originates as much in the weakness of the teachers as it does in
the remarkable power the Chinese race has of united action; you hear of
it all over China, and it is sometimes ludicrous, sometimes serious.
One school struck because the foreign teachers required the pupils to
pass an examination of efficiency before they would give them a
testimonial. This was deemed most incorrect by the {298} scholars, who
held a doctrine which would be very attractive to our own
undergraduates, that residence alone was a sufficient qualification for
a degree. Many of the strikes take place for most occult reasons.
And this brings me to mission schools, for strikes take place equally
with them as in Government schools. They occur in boys' and in girls'
schools, and for the most un-understandable reasons. In one school the
strike began because a Chinese teacher caught hold of a boy's queue and
dragged him by it. The boy's "face" was injured, and his companions
made common cause. Another strike took place in a girls' school
because a girl was punished. Of course these strikes do not occur
where there is an efficient and vigorous teacher. It was attempted,
for instance, with Archdeacon Moule, but it only ended in the leaders
being caned. Still, one mission had its school practically ruined by
one of these strikes; it was the result of an intrigue by an
unbelieving teacher who had been employed by mistake. These strikes
are not a very great difficulty to the mission when it is in charge of
efficient and experienced men; a little justice and firmness apparently
soon disposes of any unreasonable resistance to authority, and tact and
knowledge prevent any friction which may result from regulations that
may be offensive to Chinese ideas.
A far greater difficulty in the mission schools is the question of
finance. The Chinese for the most part pay their scholars; the result
is that the mission school {299} has to compete not only against a free
school, but against a school in which pupils are paid to come, and it
appears as if it would be almost an impossibility for mission schools
to support themselves against such competition. As a matter of fact it
is usually found that so great a value do the Chinese put on the
efficient education that they receive in the mission school that they
are willing to pay a reasonable fee rather than be paid for the useless
education given by the Government school. Still it makes finance a
certain difficulty. Many of the schools are largely self-supporting;
others rely on fees to find board and lodgings for the pupils and the
salaries of the native teachers. So that every school more or less
carries a great financial burden.
The great difficulty of mission schools at the present time springs
partially from Government action. The ideal of every Chinaman is at
present to be in the service of the Government; we must emphasise that
word "at present," because undoubtedly, owing to the railway
development of China, a wealthy commercial class must arise all over
her land, as it has already risen in the great port towns. This class
will be independent of Government and will be the class that needs
Western education more than any other class, for they will be in
intimate contact with the West. But at present those who seek a higher
education hope for the most part for Government employment. One of the
rules of Government employment is that the officials shall on {300}
certain days repair to the various temples to represent the Emperor,
and it is naturally held that such action is impossible for a
Christian. Besides this, the Government makes it extremely hard if not
impossible for a Christian to go to its University at Peking. All
teachers and pupils in a Government school are required on the
Emperor's birthday to bow down or kow-tow to the tablet of Confucius.
Missionaries hold that such action is not consistent with the Christian
faith, and therefore the mission school is very loath to send its
Christian pupils on to the Government University.
It must, however, be stated that several Chinese scholars, including a
Christian, have indignantly denied that the kow-towing to the tablet of
Confucius implies anything more than the respect due to the greatest
thinker that China ever possessed. We had the privilege of being shown
over Peking University by an extremely able and pleasant Chinese
gentleman, a Christian. He showed us the tablet of Confucius and
explained to us the ceremony. It must be owned that externally there
was but little that one could associate with the idea of divinity. The
tablet was behind a glass case, and at first it suggested some sort of
educational apparatus. The desks were placed at right angles to it, so
that it did not actually occupy what could be regarded as the chief
place in the room. The gentleman who showed us over strenuously denied
that any of the pupils in Peking Government University could regard
{301} Confucius as God. None were admitted to the University except
those who were already well versed in the Chinese Classics, and they
knew perfectly well that in these Classics Confucius said that he had
no supernatural power; while the leading commentator on Confucius, the
man whose teaching had more than any other influenced modern
Confucianism, was avowedly an agnostic, and therefore, so far from
regarding the tablet as divine, it would be nearer the truth to say
that the greater bulk of the scholars disbelieve in the idea of God
altogether, or at any rate hold an agnostic position with regard to it.
When I put these difficulties to an eminent missionary the answer was,
yes, but by a late edict they have made Confucius equal to heaven and
earth, and so whatever doubts there were before have been resolved, and
the Chinese Government has decreed to Confucius divine honour. I put
this criticism to an able civil servant in the employ of the Chinese
Government, and he answered that that decree was really intended to
have the opposite effect. The Chinese are aware that they are as a
matter of fact relegating Confucius to a secondary place in education,
and they are therefore most anxious to propitiate the Confucian
scholars. They have compromised the matter much on the same system
that we use in the West with regard to some politician whose services
have been valuable, but who is actually a hindrance in the House of
Commons. Confucius has been given divine honours {302} as the worn-out
politician in England is given a peerage; it is a form of honourable
retirement. A very intellectual Chinese, however, expressed himself
quite otherwise, saying that anybody who understood Chinese views would
have grasped the meaning of making Confucius equal to heaven and earth.
As heaven and earth induce the wealth of mankind, so has Confucius done
by his teaching; as heaven and earth can change things and make things
exist that were not, so with Confucius; but that Chinese theology
regards heaven and earth as created by the one God, and therefore
Confucius is put in the position of an exalted but a created being.
What impresses perhaps the Westerner more than this rather recondite
Chinese reasoning is the simple fact that while by the Government edict
it is decreed that the tablet of Confucius shall be honoured by three
bowings and nine knockings, it is also ordained that the schoolmaster
shall be honoured by one bowing or kow-tow and three times knocking the
ground with the head. The similarity of the salute to the schoolmaster
and to the tablet of Confucius rather disposes of the idea that the act
of reverence to the tablet involves worship. On the other hand, it is
pointed out that this is the main ceremony that is observed in what are
called the temples of Confucius; but when this was put to a Chinaman,
his answer was that they were not temples, and if there had been any
worship in those temples, they would have been frequented {303} as much
by the women and children as by the men, but as a matter of fact they
were frequented only by literati. When it was suggested that on
occasion, however, there were sacrifices in these temples, he did not
deny this, but changed the subject.
But we must not say that the respect and reverence offered to
Confucius, whether it involves idolatry or not, is the only reason why
Christian pupils are advised not to go to the Government Universities.
There are two other great reasons. The first is an extremely practical
one: the education in Government Universities is avowedly imperfect.
The fact that the Government have subscribed to the English University
at Hong-Kong and to the German College in Shantung show that they are
aware of their own shortcomings. The second reason is that the racial
characteristics of Chinamen demand that they should act as a body. An
acute observer asserted that, as far as he was able to judge the
matter, no Chinaman ever acted independently; and that therefore it is
putting a burden greater than the race can bear to ask that Christians
should maintain their Christianity when they are surrounded by an
unbelieving and heathen atmosphere; and that, as a matter of fact, the
result of sending students to Government Universities would, except in
cases of men of very strong character, be to send them to unbelief.
Yet a greater and simpler objection is that these Government
Universities for the most {304} part do not exist, and that it is
impossible for small institutions like that at Peking to take even a
hundredth part of the students who are clamouring for Western
education. But the mission schools have another and a newer
difficulty, one which is causing the greatest heart-searching. This I
must reserve for the next chapter.
{305}
CHAPTER XXV
THE NEED OF A UNIVERSITY EXPLAINED
The great danger that threatens mission schools, a danger which is
increasing every year, is that the best pupils of these schools have to
go to Universities in search of Western knowledge where they are
exposed to the insidious attacks of Western materialism.
The teachers have at present no alternative; they have to send the best
and brightest of their pupils somewhere to complete their education.
It would be unfair on a boy to refuse to send him on, and if he is to
receive a higher education, where can he get it but at some place where
the atmosphere is distinctly anti-Christian.
There is in the East no place with a neutral atmosphere as there is in
the West. In the West most people have had some Christian training, or
at least they comprehend Christian ethics. So in a Western
institution, even if the education be wholly secular, a Christian does
not find everything antipathetic to his faith. But in the East the
vast majority are non-Christian, and consequently the moral and
intellectual atmosphere is hostile and antipathetic to a Christian.
Here if an institution is non-religious it is probably not hostile to
religion. {306} In the East if an institution is non-religious it is
probably anti-Christian. At present the only University in action is
that of Tokio, though we are promised others, and its ill effects have
been so obvious that the Chinese Government have ordered a wholesale
withdrawal of pupils from its unhealthy influence.
As we have already pointed out, Western civilisation is magnificent but
it is destructive, and when taught without any constructive religious
teaching it inevitably tends to destroy all spiritual ideas and too
often also to pervert the moral ideals of the race. As the pupil goes
through the mission school he learns within its walls to shake himself
free from the haunting fear of demons which besets every Chinaman; he
has slowly realised that God is holy, good and loving, and has either
accepted Christianity or stands on the threshold of the formal
acceptance; he has reached the end of the curriculum of the school or
college and his brilliancy demands a higher education. Attracted by
the reputation of Tokio, he goes to its University, and there he finds
himself in an atmosphere where all the destructive thought of Europe
grows rankly; the good God in whom he has learned to believe in the
mission school follows in the track of the demons of his youth, and he
is left believing in a world founded by blind chance, where ethics are
things of service to restrain your neighbour but folly to follow
yourself. "Eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," is the lesson which
is not perhaps taught in so many words, but {307} which none the less
is forced into his mind; his views become those of Falstaff; all that
is fine, all that is noble, flees from his life; though he no longer
believes in the God of Love, he does not return to the belief in the
demons of his youth; there is nothing in his world beyond getting rich
or gratifying the flesh and laughing at those people who believe in
higher ideals. He has been acquainted with and has learnt to loathe
from his youth up the philosophy of Yang Choo. He has, for instance,
despised such a sentence as this: "The people of high antiquity knew
both the shortness of life and how suddenly and completely it might be
closed by death, and therefore they obeyed every suggestion of the
movements of their hearts, refusing not what was natural for them to
like, nor seeking to avoid any pleasure that occurred to them, they
paid no heed to the incitement of fame; they enjoyed themselves
according to their nature; they did not resist the common tendency of
all things to self-enjoyment; they cared not to be famous after death.
They managed to keep clear of punishment; as to fame and praise, being
first or last, long life or short life, these things did not come into
their calculations." And now he finds that the philosophy of Yang Choo
is as he supposes the newest thought of the great rich successful
Western world; as he returns to his home and spreads abroad the
poisonous doctrines that he has imbibed, the missionary wonders
whether, after all, it would not have been better to have left the man
to his primitive demonology.
{308}
The American mission bodies saw this danger from the first, and have
already set up great educational establishments which to a certain
extent supply this need. That great institution Bishop Graves' College
at Jessfield, the Boone College at Wuchang, the British College at
Weihsien, and Methodist Universities at Soochow and Peking, are all
examples of good work. But they do not, any of them, bring the student
up to what we call University standard, or what I understand is called
in America the post-graduate course; what is felt is, that there is
need of an institution in which the highest knowledge shall be taught,
where the true aspect of Western thought shall be shown--not that
aspect which is bringing France to destruction, not that aspect which
makes Belgium unconcerned at the Congo scandals, but the aspect which
both in America and in England we have always admired at least in
theory, and in practice when we have been strong. The fundamental
truth on which our civilisation rests is that God is good, and that
therefore truth and progress are right and possible, and that the
highest expression of the goodness of God is in His incarnation as it
is universally taught by Christians of various views and of many
denominations. The West owes to the East, if there is any common duty
of man to man, to set before it the real truth as to the greatness of
Western civilisation, namely, that it is the result of Christianity.
But missions are not anxious merely for a University {309} as a means
of defence against the materialistic onslaught which threatens their
work--they need it for many other reasons; for instance, the University
would make it possible for all denominations to have highly educated
native ministers. No student of missions can ever be content to regard
them as an ideal arrangement. The conception of a race being
ministered to spiritually by another race is obviously inadequate; it
is open to many criticisms; there must be a confusion in the mind of
the convert between what is national and what is Christian; one Chinese
regarded Christianity with doubt because he had heard that the German
Emperor is a Christian, and to his mind he is the embodiment of the
fierce piratical Western races. The word which the Chinese use for
robbers means red-bearded men, so associated, alas, is the Western race
in China with war and rapine; it is easy for a member of the Western
races to be misunderstood when he is talking about the religion of
love. Would any English parish like as its Rector a Chinaman, even if
he were saintly and went so far as to cut off his queue?
Setting aside the associations of the Western race, the Western race
has great difficulty in speaking Chinese without making ridiculous
mistakes. Who among us has not smiled when the Chinaman's inability to
say the letter "r" has caused him to offer us "lice" to eat, but what
must it be to the Chinaman when he hears the Western preacher lost
amidst those mysterious Chinese intonations, and {310} therefore making
some wonderful statement. A Chinese gentleman assured me that he had
listened to a missionary extolling the virtues of a wild pig.
Reverence forbids explaining what was really meant. If the ministers
of religion are to be Chinese, it is obvious that they must be highly
educated Chinese; to have religion taught by ignorant men in a country
like China where learning is reverenced so profoundly, must be to
condemn it as the religion of the coolie. The Chinese minister must be
able to maintain his position, not only against the Confucian scholar,
but against the Western materialist, and must therefore have an equally
good education. Without saying that it is reasonable to expect that
the Western missionary should be withdrawn within the next few years, I
think it is wisdom for every mission body to aim at founding a body of
educated native clergy who can free Christianity from the taunt of
being a foreign religion, and who can, when the foreigner leaves China,
take his place and uphold the faith.
If to have an educated native ministry is one great object of the
University, another great and only less important object is the
creation of an intellectual Christian laity who shall form and direct
Christian public opinion. The school teacher, the writer, are only one
degree less important, if indeed they are so, than the Christian
minister; and if as China assimilates Western civilisation, she finds
in her midst a body of men conversant {311} with the best side of that
civilisation, able to interpret its mysteries to her, so that it does
not become subversive to all spiritual religion and morality, it is
more than probable that she will take those men and put them in high
positions, and the grain of mustard seed will by their means grow into
a plant which shall overshadow the whole of China. The other day I was
reading how St. Grimaldi and St. Neots founded the University of Oxford
in 886. Theology, grammar and rhetoric, music and arithmetic, geometry
and astronomy, were the subjects taught. After a thousand years we are
in a position to judge of the success of the experiment. Surely every
one will wish to have a hand in founding a similar undertaking.
The foundation of this University cannot for two or three reasons be
left to one body. In the first place, no one communion will be rich
enough to undertake such a work; secondly, it might cause a certain
narrowness of atmosphere; thirdly and chiefly, co-operation among
Christians would afford an object-lesson to the Chinese of the real
unity there is between them. We are constantly twitted with the fact
that we confuse the heathen by professing the religion of love and then
setting before them a mass of warring sects. If we can unite in the
founding of such a University, we shall show that though we see the
Christian truth in different aspects we have agreed that truth is one,
and have in spite of our divisions a fundamental unity. When {312}
this matter was referred to at the Shanghai Conference, considerable
difficulty was felt among missionaries as to the terms on which such a
University should be founded. It was agreed to refer it to the
Committee on Education, and that Committee of Education has in the year
1909 welcomed the formation of such a University. Dr. Hawks Pott, who
of all men in China can best speak as an authority on education, since
he has organised and maintained that wonderful institution at
Jessfield, warmly advocated its formation.
No doubt one of the reasons why the missionaries now see their way to
the acceptance of this University is because a neutral body has come
forward to initiate the undertaking. Committees of the Universities of
Oxford and Cambridge have been sitting for many months considering the
question with all the skill and ability which their great learning and
technical knowledge enable them to bring to bear on this subject.
Though of course they have a thorough knowledge of education in all its
aspects, they were aware that they lacked knowledge of China and the
Chinese, so for many months they heard and examined the evidence of any
one who was thoroughly acquainted with China and with the conditions of
missionary work. They devised a scheme which they thought would at
once satisfy the workers in the mission field and be acceptable to the
Chinese. The mere outline of the scheme is that this University should
encourage the formation of denominational hostels, which shall {313} be
under the control of individual missionary bodies, and which shall form
colleges at the University; and while the University alone would
concern itself with giving secular teaching from a neutral standpoint,
the colleges would give Christian teaching to their pupils. In this
way all conflict between missions would be avoided; each mission would
continue to care for the pupils which it had hitherto sheltered and
educated. To the University would accrue the great gain of having a
supply of properly prepared pupils coming into it from the mission
schools, one of the causes of disappointment of ill-considered
University schemes being that there is no proper provision for a supply
of pupils. In the West there are numerous secondary schools, and any
University can easily find a sufficient number of pupils properly
grounded in knowledge. In the East to erect a University without
feeding schools is like building a house in the Chinese fashion roof
first. The Yale University Mission found itself compelled to set up
elementary schools to teach the elementary Western knowledge which was
necessary before even the lowest grade of college work could be
attempted. Western teachers are, as we have before explained, few and
far between outside the mission schools, and therefore mission schools
would both help and be helped by a University. The University
completes the work they have begun, and returns the men to the mission
to carry on its work with honour and efficiency. On the other hand,
the mission supplies the {314} University with pupils, which after all
are the prime necessity of education.
Another great feature of the Oxford and Cambridge scheme was that the
University should aim to be a native University, and this no doubt was
the side which attracted the Chinese. Instead of using knowledge, the
common heritage of all men, as the means of imposing the domination of
the alien on China, knowledge is offered by this University as
essentially the thing which belongs to China as well as to any other
race. If in the commencement the majority of the professors must
belong to the Western race, it is to be hoped that many of its
professors will soon come from China, and that when the University is
well begun, and Christianity has become as national a religion as it is
in our land, and Western civilisation has lost the right to describe
itself by that epithet, and has become the civilisation of the East as
of the West, then the University whose foundation is now being laid may
be the great light of the future China.
Perhaps the most important part of the scheme is that which suggests
denominational hostels as the proper solution of the difficulties that
beset union and interdenominational work in the mission field.
There are obvious difficulties in arranging for a common religious
teaching, and, on the other hand, it is very advantageous for the many
mission bodies at work in China to show a united front against the new
materialism and the ancient superstition. {315} Nothing so shows the
power of Christian love as a union work of this nature.
We Christians are often taunted with our differences, and we are
assured that many will support any scheme that makes for union and
peace between the different elements of the Christian world. Here is a
scheme which will tend to bring Christians together, and to induce that
mutual respect and toleration which must be the foundation of a closer
union. The baby must walk before he runs, and if the Christians of
China can maintain such a University, their daily intercourse will
greatly assist any further scheme for unity.
But there is another use in the hostel system which should not be
overlooked. At all times one of the great hindrances to the education
of young men is the tendency that they have to waste their strength in
riot and wantonness. The Chinaman is perhaps more subject to these
temptations than the Westerner. A student said: "We cannot work; we
are too profligate." A Chinese statesman advised against certain towns
as possible sites for a University because of their tendency to entice
men into vicious courses. Far the most efficient way of opposing this
evil is to make some one responsible for the moral welfare of the young
men, and this is done in the hostel system.
Every hostel would be governed by some person who would make the moral
welfare of the young men his peculiar care and study. The head of the
hostel might or might not be on the teaching staff of the {316}
University; but whether he taught or not, his first duty would be the
care of the moral and spiritual welfare of those committed to his
charge. He would give all his energy to reproduce the highest moral
tone of a Western University.
This scheme is being tried in Chentu, where a union University is being
started. And I believe it is in every way proving successful. Those
who have not realised the size of China will be perhaps inclined to ask
why not unite the two schemes? The simple answer to those who have
travelled is that the distances are too vast. You might as well talk
of uniting Oxford and Harvard, for those two Universities are about as
far from one another in time as Hankow is from Chentu. Even when the
railway is built the distances will be immense. The enormous distances
of China are also a reason why it was impossible to amalgamate the
Hong-Kong scheme and the Oxford and Cambridge scheme. Hong-Kong is now
ten days to a fortnight away from Hankow, and such a different language
is spoken there that the dwellers in Northern and Central China are
often forced to use English to understand one another.
The University of Hong-Kong will be very beneficial to the colony, and
is an example of the generosity of the merchants and citizens of that
town; but as a means of naturalising the higher side of our
civilisation it labours under the great disadvantage of not being
either in China nor under the Chinese flag, nor of speaking the
prevailing language.
{317}
CHAPTER XXVI
THE NEED OF A UNIVERSITY EXPLAINED (_continued_)
The Committees at Oxford and Cambridge had not been without hope that
the missionary world would accept the scheme readily once it was well
understood.
They had had the advantage of many interviews with missionaries and
others in London at their joint meetings so as to make it a matter of
some certainty that a large portion of the Western educators of China
would agree with them. But they were rather doubtful whether the
scheme would be welcomed by the Chinese official world.
The commercial world in London that had dealings with China was rather
pessimistic. They held the view that you only had to mention the word
Christian or missionary to a Chinese official and it would have the
same effect that the word rats has on a terrier. But as I have before
related, we were agreeably surprised to find at the very outset that
the Chinese official world were far from hostile, and that we were
given, unasked, letters of introduction, whose contents I did not know
except that they procured for us a welcome in China which was as
surprising as it was delightful. I learnt in China that knowledge
{318} and learning is so loved and respected that those whose object is
its dissemination will ever find a ready welcome, and I learnt also
that whatever may have been their sentiments in the past, in the
present the Chinese have no hatred towards Christianity, but they
regard it as one of the least odious parts of the Western civilisation
which has become for them a necessity. I had also the privilege of
seeing His Excellency Tong-Shao-Yi in London, and he did not discourage
the plan.
When we arrived at Harbin we found an official ready to receive us who
had been sent to welcome the scheme to China. His instructions were to
accompany us to Kwangchangtzu and to watch over our comfort. As he
only spoke Chinese, conversation was difficult; but with the aid of a
member of the Imperial Customs we gathered the object of his mission.
At Mukden we met with a similar civility. I was invited to dine at the
Yamen. I shall always remember my drive to that dinner. At Mukden no
carrying chairs are used, but a springless cart, in which the
traveller, or more accurately the sufferer, reclines. I was late for
dinner, so the order was given to the charioteer to drive quick, and as
we bounded over the unpaved streets of a Manchurian town I had an
opportunity of realising one of the minor discomforts of Chinese
missionary life. At the Yamen the same civility was shown to the
scheme, and next day Dr. Ross, my kindly host, took me to see a Manchu
noble of high rank. He was more than encouraging. He first sounded
the note {319} that I found vibrating through the whole of China. He
asked why did not the West concern itself with such things as
education, which benefit man, rather than with war, which produces such
endless suffering and misery.
At Peking I met some great officials who all were favourable, but it
was not till we got south that we encountered what can only be
described as enthusiasm for Western education. One gentleman advised
that such an institution should be started at once, and recommended the
recall of all students studying in Western lands to fill its ranks.
Another who was interpreting was not satisfied with the prudent
official reply I received that the plan was good, but that I must make
inquiries at Peking. He added: "Make inquiries at Peking; but if they
refuse, go on with your scheme all the same." A body of young men who
had been educated at Boone College sent a petition that the scheme
should be forthwith undertaken, but perhaps the most remarkable
experience was that which I had at Shanghai. I was entertained by
thirteen of the gentry who had all received their education in the
West. We discussed every aspect of the plan, and when I pressed upon
them that one of the good results of the University would be that it
would have a healthy moral environment, an old man turned to his
companions and said: "We have ourselves had experience of this. The
environment in which we lived when we were in the West was different
from that in which we found ourselves when we returned {320} to
Shanghai, and did not it largely affect our lives?" After we had
talked some time the question was put plainly to them: "Would they
support such a University?" One of them turned round and said: "Of
course we should. It is obvious that if you will give us in China the
same sort of University as there is in England, if only on the score of
expense, we shall want to send our sons there; besides which no one
likes parting from their children and leaving them in a distant land."
I discussed the matter with a Chinese statesman in Peking. I asked
whether Peking would not be a good centre, but he was very adverse to
the idea, because he said that Peking had such a bad moral tone that
boys would not be able to do any good work, and that he himself far
preferred that Chinese boys should be sent at ten years old to England
to receive their whole education in our country. When we pointed out
to him how, except in the case of a few rich men, such a course would
be quite impossible, he said: "Then put your University right away in
the western hills out of reach of the immoral influences of a town."
There can be few more eloquent testimonies to the necessity of another
University; nothing but a Christian University could succeed in
creating the moral atmosphere, which this wise man saw was the power of
the West. In the same conversation he gave a further testimony to the
power of Christianity, all the more striking that it was uttered by a
man who was not a Christian. He said: "Yes, {321} I have no doubt that
all that is good in the West comes from Christianity."
All the officials we interviewed always ended their encomiums on the
suggested scheme by a saving clause to the effect that, before we did
anything, we must ask his Excellency Chang-Chih-Tung. When we passed
through Peking the first time we failed to see him, and it was
therefore with some anxiety I sought an interview with him on our
return journey.
Chang was a figure in the politics of China whose importance it would
be hard to over-estimate. Not that he had the reputation for being a
peculiarly able man; in fact, some of the Europeans spoke slightingly
of his mentality. His force and influence came rather from his moral
qualities. He was the perfect type of Confucian scholar.
Wonderfully well versed in all the knowledge of the literati of China,
he was far from despising any form of knowledge; in fact, he was one of
the first of the statesmen of China to recognise the importance of
Western education. When we were discussing with some leading merchants
the want of integrity of many of the officials, they claimed Chang as
an exception with enthusiasm. He had held the highest offices and
still remained comparatively poor. His reputation for clean-handedness
was enhanced by his age. In China the old are greatly reverenced, and
an old, honest, and learned statesman combined three of the qualities
most admired in China.
It was therefore with some trepidation that I {322} found myself going
to see a man whose moral authority was so great that he could with a
word mar or make the University scheme as far as the power of the
Chinese officials extended, and in his case this was very far. I was
alone, for owing to the rather heated debates that divided the British
and Chinese Governments over the Canton-Wuchang Railway, it was thought
advisable that no member of the Legation should come with me. I drove
down to the north end of the city, and turning down a by-lane, scarcely
wide enough for the carriage to pass, we drew up opposite a very modest
dwelling. I was received by His Excellency's nephew, a man of
extremely courtly manners; and as he conducted me across the yard I was
struck by the simplicity of the house. The room, for instance, into
which I was ushered had a brick floor, and was separated from the
courtyard only by a paper and wood screen. Imagine what the intense
cold must be in a Peking winter when the thermometer is somewhere below
zero! The furniture of the room was equally simple. Two Chinese
chairs of the Chinese guest-room pattern, standing on each side of the
usual Chinese table, were supported on the other side of the room by a
token of the ever-encroaching West in the shape of a common round table
and some mongrel-looking stools, which looked as if they were
productions of Japan palmed off as European.
As we sat and talked (for I was too early for my interview) my host
told me all about his uncle's {323} family, and the while I wondered at
the austerity of the dwelling of the greatest man in China after those
of royal blood.
His Excellency was then ready to receive me, and we adjourned to
another equally simple room where the usual table with tea, sweetmeats,
and wine was laid out. Chang during the whole interview smoked a long
pipe, which required all the efforts of what I took to be two boys, but
who really were slave-girls, to keep alight. He wanted to know where
the money was to come from. I assured him that there are many generous
people in England and America who, desiring to leave a good name behind
them, and convinced that education confers on humanity incalculable
benefits, are willing to give largely to such a cause.
Then he inquired what line we should take with regard to Confucian
learning; I said Christianity and Confucianism need not be opposed, and
we should respect and encourage the teaching of the sage. He clearly
approved, and gave me advice as to the course of study to be
followed--first, Chinese letters, then foreign languages; and he
advised as the site for the University some place near Wuchang and not
Peking.
He then assured me that I might tell my countrymen that he approved of
the scheme. "Who," said he, "could but approve of such a scheme?"
As I left he accompanied me across the courtyard, though I protested,
and I felt I had been honoured {324} by this interview with one of
China's greatest men. He was the embodiment of all that was fine in
China. He belonged to an age that is passing away. The Chinese
statesman of the future will learn Western luxury with Western
knowledge.
{325}
CHAPTER XXVII
CONCLUSION
One word in conclusion. I have tried to show the greatness of the
crisis that is before us. The civilisation which has long been worn by
the white man alone is now being donned by the yellow man, not as the
result only of missionary effort, but as the result of those great
world causes over which puny mankind has no control; and I have tried
to show that all that we can do is to recognise and frankly accept this
great fact, namely, that the members of the human race who are subject
to and governed by our civilisation are to be nearly doubled, and that
the second half will import into that civilisation not only new
traditions, but a new racial personality, which must cause a
fundamental alteration in many of its traditions and customs. We must
not say that the movement will be shortly completed, for it has
scarcely yet begun; but we have seen enough in the success that has
attended the movement both in Japan and in China, to convince us that
it will ultimately dominate the Far East. This movement may be for
good or for evil; it may be for the downfall of the world, for the
perpetual misery of mankind, if that which is evil in both
civilisations is to be perpetuated and {326} that which is good is to
be destroyed; or it may be for the benefit of mankind if, when the
Christian civilisation welcomes the great yellow races, it accepts from
them, as it has accepted from many other races, their characteristic
virtues. Hitherto our civilisation has grown richer; every race it has
conquered has added beauty to its traditions and nobility to its
ideals. We may look forward with hope, if not with confidence, to its
future. But if this momentous change in the history of the world is to
be well directed, it can only be done by men of sincere Christian
faith; and if the civilisation is to augment these benefits to mankind,
it can only be by being more fully endued with the Christian ethics on
which its whole greatness depends.
For the perpetuation of this ethic, for the education of the future
thinkers of China, we suggest a University is needed; that University
should not be founded by one race alone. Some may differ from us, and
hold that other action is advisable. They may be right, but it behoves
them to formulate their policy, because one thing seems certain--that a
policy of inaction at the present moment is one which is fraught with
risk, if not with disaster. If no one makes any effort to direct the
thought of this vast unit of mankind into the right paths, it is
improbable that good will naturally result. The fitting of Western
thought to an Oriental race, while it must be chiefly left to the race
itself, needs clearly the help of those who are conversant with the
best aspects {327} of that Western thought and of its history. The
missionary has done much, but he himself is the first to say, "I cannot
do all; I must be supported by those who will teach my converts the
fulness of Western knowledge." And so the missionaries have
inaugurated a policy of education which is most successful as far as it
has gone. The question before all well-wishers of China is, shall it
go further; shall we show China the intellectual light by which we are
walking, or shall we leave China to stumble in the darkness till she
falls into deeper error.
Those who look forward to progress in this world must also look forward
to breaking up the old evil traditions and to founding new ones; the
old tradition, which limited love to citizens of the same State, which
put bounds on charity, so that man did not love man unless he spoke the
same language, or at least had the same coloured skin, is dying fast
though it is dying hard. A new tradition is being founded, and must be
further developed, in which, as in the parable of the Good Samaritan,
the word love is taught as passing and transcending all bounds of race
and language. The cultivation of this new tradition is vital to the
existence of our civilisation. If love cannot bind races together, the
improved arts of war will in time extinguish the civilisation that gave
them birth. If we are to encourage international love, we can best do
it by sharing together in international acts of mercy and generosity.
The great Chinese race has need of the wealth of Western {328}
knowledge. Let Western races join together to give them what they
need, and in so doing they will not merely benefit China, though as
China counts for a quarter of the population of this world, and is
nearly equal to the number of men who have a right to call themselves
civilised, that were no small merit; but they will do more, for they
will by common acts of mercy and love bind each to each so that the
horrid curse of racial hatred shall not be again able to divide them.
The elements of good in one race will be brought in contact with the
similar elements in another race; men will learn to trust men; and that
which the thundering cannon can never compel, or the keenest wit of
statesmen ever compass, will be accomplished by the obedience and
simple faith of the Christian men and women of all races, and the world
will be welded into one solid piece, where men can work without wasting
their efforts in making machines to torture and kill their fellow-men,
and where at last the prophecy shall be fulfilled: "They shall beat
their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks."
{329}
APPENDIX
WILL RUSSIA BE REPRESENTED ON THE MISSION FIELD?
When it was settled that we should go to China to see what
opportunities there were there for an educational mission emanating
from our English Universities, we decided to go _viâ_ Siberia, and stop
at St. Petersburg and also at Irkutsk on the way. I had previously
found the journey of fifteen days without a break exhausting to myself
and still more so to my wife who accompanied me. The plan had also the
advantage that it gave me an opportunity of trying to find out why the
great Russian Church had never attempted any serious mission work in
China. From a mere inspection of the map one would naturally have
expected that the Christian power which had a frontier with China of
thousands and thousands of miles would have been the most forward in
that country in fulfilling the command of the founder of Christianity
to give His message of happiness to every living man. In our previous
tour we had been surprised to find that the missionary efforts of
Russia were insignificant in China, though, strange to say, they were
fairly vigorous in Japan. When we arrived at St. Petersburg I was
fortunate enough to obtain letters of introduction to the courteous
gentleman who then represented the imperial power in the councils of
the Russian Church, M. Iwolsky, Procurator of the Holy Synod. One
thing became evident; for the time being Russia is so much absorbed in
politics as to be oblivious of other duties. Living in England, we can
little realise the excitement and anxiety that filled the minds of many
who dwelt in the far off villages of Russia, while they waited to hear
whether or not they were to be engulfed in a revolution as dangerous
{330} and as far-reaching as that which more than a hundred years ago
overwhelmed France.
A lady described to me how she had sat in terror in her country house
when all communication from St. Petersburg had ceased owing to the
strikes, while the smoke of surrounding houses which had been set on
fire by marauding bands told of the fate which might possibly await
her. Now all that is over. The revolution--so they think in
Russia--is a thing of the past; and Russia has entered on a course of
conservative reform to which, if she adheres, will doubtless make her a
prosperous and contented empire.
I gathered from some of my informants that the reasons why Russia had
been backward in the mission field, and also why she was racked with
revolution, were in reality the same, namely, that the Orthodox Church
was not so vigorous and had not that hold on the consciences of the
people that it ought to have. Not that for one moment Russia is
ceasing to be religious. The attendance at Father John's funeral was
quoted as disproving such a possibility. People of the working and
middle classes came for miles to stand on a bleak cold day for long
hours merely to catch a glimpse of the coffin which contained the
mortal remains of a man who, according to their belief, lived more than
any man in accordance with God's law. Russia is religious to the very
core; but, like all religious nations, our own included, she longs to
express her deep sincerity through diversity and not through
uniformity. Alas! there are people in every nation who want to put us
in one religious uniform and to march us like soldiers at the word of
command straight into heaven's gate. In England this view only makes
some good and narrow-minded people anxious to have such a thing as
religious uniformity in our schools; but in Russia this doctrine has
been more vigorously held, and is doubtless responsible for the waning
power of the Orthodox Church. Mr. Pobiedonosteff, leader of the
reactionary movement, nearly caused a revolution, and certainly {331}
weakened the Church, by insisting on Uniformity and Orthodoxy. He
believed that there could be but one form of religion in the State, and
therefore he discouraged every other form of religious activity. Not
only did he rightly forbid those strange wild immoral sects who
practise and teach mutilation, but even the sober and devout followers
of Lord Radstock were to be silenced. The result of such a policy was
but too obvious. Religion was made odious by the insincerity which
such a policy must foster, and the State became detestable to all
earnest Christians who claimed the inherent right of every living soul
to love and worship his Creator in accordance with his true convictions.
All this has now passed like a bad dream. People in Russia may believe
what they like and worship God how they like. M. Iwolsky was most
anxious that the world should know that he, the then representative of
temporal power in the councils of the Russian Church, so far from
encouraging the idea that Christ's Church can be controlled by a
temporal power, however great, was most careful to maintain that in
spiritual matters the Church is independent of the State, even if in
temporal matters she submit herself to the authority of Government.
Peter the Great abolished the Patriarchate; he added many, though not
all, of the powers of the Patriarchate to the Crown; and therefore the
Emperor represents the Patriarch in many ways. But it is wholly
misunderstanding his position to say that in spiritual matters he is
supreme. The Russian Church, like all other branches of the Church, is
controlled and governed by councils, both general and provincial.
But M. Iwolsky had to confess that the power which the State wielded in
the Synod of the Church was still very great. The Crown has three ways
in which it can influence the council. First, though the members of
the council are representatives of the Church, it is the Crown who
decides (with the exception of the Metropolitans) who those
representatives shall be; secondly, the Crown, through the Procurator,
can forbid any action which {332} brings the Synod into conflict with
the laws of the State; lastly, the Procurator, as representative of the
Crown, must always be present at the debates of the Synod, and has
always a right to express his opinion, even on spiritual questions.
Such powers put together clearly give the Crown a control not only in
things temporal, but, if it is desired, an influence in things
spiritual as well. Still it cannot be too widely known that at any
rate in theory the Russian Church is in things spiritual independent of
temporal power. Most Englishmen would think, no doubt, that if the
Church is to hold her rightful place in the hearts of Russians, she can
only do it by relying on the power of preaching rather than on the
power of the sword. Therefore it would be best for both Church and
State if they had less to do with one another. English Churchmen will
be glad to hear that there is some prospect of a Synod of the Orthodox
Church being held, independently of the existing Holy Synod--a council
which may rank as a General Synod of the Greek Communion, if other
branches of the Orthodox Church are invited to join in its
deliberations, of which there is some prospect. The object of this
Synod will be to reform the discipline of the Church, a matter which is
engaging, I understand, the sincere attention of the devout Christians
of Russia. Few things bear truer witness to the weakness of the Church
in Russia than the low moral tone which exists, as all witnesses aver,
in every grade of Russian social life. The outward observance of the
fasts and feasts and ceremonies of the Church, though admirable in
itself, is perfectly consistent with a great deal of scepticism with
regard to the truths of Christianity. It is not uncharitable to
suspect such scepticism when a great profession of Christianity is
accompanied by a low moral tone. The Church has felt her weakness and
has sought the help of the State, and has therefore not succeeded in
her mission.
Now happier days have opened for Russia which it is hoped may lead on
to happier ones beyond. The State no {333} longer helps the Church by
silencing her critics, by exiling those who cannot agree with her: the
Buddhist who lately at the definite command of the Government had
accepted Christianity has returned to sincerity and open profession of
Buddhism. The Church no longer so supported by the State may feel her
weakness, but she will grow rather than diminish in strength as she
learns to use more and more the real weapon of Christianity, namely,
the sacred truths of our religion published both by writing and by
preaching. Russia is one of the great nations of the world. The
Orthodox Church which dominates Russia is both true and faithful, and
she will guide her people into prosperity and peace when she has
learned to follow her Master's example and to order the sword drawn in
her defence to be returned altogether to its sheath.
Nothing can be at present expected from the unorthodox bodies who until
lately have been persecuted to such a degree that they have scarcely
been able to exist. In external matters the Orthodox Church commands
the obedience of the nation to a wonderful degree, but in controlling
the deep convictions of the heart she lacks power. Nowhere is this
more obvious than in the moral tone which prevails in Russian society.
Perhaps it is not just or fair to take the capital of Siberia as a
specimen of ordinary moral life in Russia, but one might well say at
Irkutsk that all save the spirit of man is divine. We had been to a
certain extent prepared by our previous tour to disbelieve in the
horrors of the climate of Siberia, but what we saw and heard at Irkutsk
has convinced me that Siberia should rank high among the places that
are reckoned pleasant for human habitation. Siberia, or certainly the
eastern part of Siberia, is not the dreary plain, wind-swept and
miserable, that one read of in one's childhood. On the contrary, it is
a land of constant calms and steady sunshine, a land of lakes and
hills, and though it is cold, the cold seems but trifling in the
glorious sunshine of a Siberian winter. I feel certain that if Lake
Baikal were {334} somewhere within reach of London it would be one of
the most frequented centres for pleasure-seekers. And from the point
of view of wealth it is a most favoured land; a land where there is
gold and where there is coal; a land where there is copper and silver,
and where a hot summer ripens thoroughly all cereal crops. For
sportsmen it seems a veritable paradise. The pheasant (or at least his
brother) with whom we have long been conversant as dying of every
disease in the moist coverts of England, lives wild in this dry and
healthy climate. The wild boar and the wolf, the bear and many forms
of the antelope and deer, are to be found on the borders between
Siberia and China. The rivers are full of salmon and other fish whose
names I cannot attempt to give.
If an Englishman were asked to choose whether he would live in St.
Petersburg or in exile at Irkutsk, he would, I believe, have no doubt
in deciding in favour of the latter, if--and that is a great if--the
spirit of man were not so human and corrupt. We were told that there
are six hundred women who are divorced in the jurisdiction of Irkutsk.
Such a statement indeed seems incredible, but certainly the morals of
the officers leave much to be desired. Vices go in flocks, therefore
laziness perhaps accounts for the amazing state of things which exists
in Irkutsk. The town is as full of officers as Eton is of boys.
Epaulettes jostle you in the streets, you tumble over swords in the
restaurants, and with all this force at the disposal of the
authorities--for I conclude that some at least of these officers have
soldiers under them--the streets of Irkutsk are unsafe after dark.
Person after person warned us of the danger of being unarmed at night,
at any rate in the by-streets. People are murdered in their own houses
in the suburbs; women have their fur coats torn off their backs. One
is aghast at the incredible slackness of the authorities, who instead
of instituting a reasonable police force such as exists even in Chinese
cities, allow the city to be watched at night by aged Dogberrys in huge
fur coats armed with {335} rattles which they use incessantly.
Certainly, though they may fail to frighten away robbers with this
primitive weapon of protection, they succeed in interrupting the
slumbers of the visitor. In the department of municipal activity the
town is equally badly organised. The streets were under snow, and as
upon a hard-seated sledge we leapt from hole to hole, we had at least
the comfort of realising that in summer their condition must be even
more trying.
It is unsafe to trust gossip, but I give it for what it is worth. We
were assured that the only reason why the priceless wealth which Russia
possesses in the gold mines of Siberia was not further developed was
because of a similar official incompetence. There is said to be a
great deal of secret digging for gold. Men disappear in the summer and
reappear in the autumn with a pound's weight of pure gold, for the gold
lies only about three metres below the ground. But if this primitive
form of mining came to the knowledge of the Government it would put in
force the mining laws which would then successfully stifle the industry.
It is needless to add that profligacy and laziness are not the only
vices against which Russian Christianity has to contend. Their people
have another in common with ourselves of which the Church is only too
well aware and which it is making great efforts to suppress, namely,
drunkenness. Actually on our journey we had an example of this vice
which every one regarded as comic, but which might have been tragic.
The train is brought suddenly to a standstill. There is something
wrong. Everybody tumbles out of the carriage to look. A man is lying
in the snow. At first it is thought he has been knocked down by a
previous train. Further examination shows that it is only a man dead
drunk lying right across the line--the result of keeping one of the
festivals of the Church. Every one laughs; he is pulled out of the
way, we climb back into the train, leaving him in the care of a priest,
quite unconscious how near he has been to death. Drunkenness is a
terrible evil in our own land, but its results are far more terrible in
{336} this land of frost-bite. There are numbers of people without
hands and feet begging in the street, and we were told that the general
cause of these injuries was vodka. A man going home falls into a
drunken sleep on the way: he awakes next morning with his hands and
feet frost-bitten, or perhaps he never wakes again: the sleep of
drunkenness merges into the sleep of death.
As one considers these things one realises why the Buddhist Bouriat and
the Mohammedan Tartar still adhere to their ancient faiths.
I do not think an Englishman has a right to criticise other nations
when so much remains to be done at home. Still one cannot truthfully
say that, however numerous her churches or well-attended her services,
the Orthodox Church directs Russia while she is powerless to make
headway against these vices.
The great trials through which Russia has passed hold out every reason
to hope that with liberty, purity of worship will be again established,
and where there is purity of faith there must be mission work. No
doubt the Government has hindered mission work; in fact, they have
forbidden it in China. Christianity was to them so much the handmaid
of the State as to be inconceivable outside the State; but all this is
breaking down. The great mission work conducted in Japan to which I
have before referred has shown that the Orthodox Church grows well on
Eastern soil. The existence of a village preserving the Orthodox
religion in the middle of China which has been spoken of above, has
demonstrated at least the vitality of that faith among the Chinese
nation. When the Russian missionaries cross the frontier they will not
leave their own country weaker, but their work will be a token that
Russia is purifying her faith and is advancing along the road that
leads to holiness.
{337}
INDEX
Abyssinia, 196
Accuracy of Chinese, 72
Agnosticism, 301
Agricultural College, 280
Aims of missionary education, 257 _et seq._
Altar of Heaven, 142, 155
America, 244, 254, 308
American Methodist Mission, 198
American missions, 16, 192, 200, 217
Americans, 234, 253 _et seq._, 277, 284
Amita, 149, 150
Amitobha, 149
Amur, The, 11
Ancestor worship, 153 _et seq._, 160, 161
Ancestral tablet, 159
Anglican Church Conference, 215
Anglicans, 216, 245 _et seq._
Anglo-Saxon race, 242
Anson's Law of Contract, 285
Antung, 91
Apocrypha, 221
Apostles' Creed, defence of, 200
Apparatus, 290, 294
Architecture, 137 _et seq._, 295
Art, Chinese, 137, 138
Association of Christianity with learning, 258 _et seq._
Autocratic government, result of, 199
B
Baikal Lake, 333
Balfour's "Defence of Philosophic Doubt," 257
Bamboo rope, 85
Bambooing, 66
Beggar Hospital, 227
Belgium, 308
Benedict XIV., 186
Bible Societies, 17
Bible Society, British and Foreign, 17, 198, 213
Bible, style of, 181
Blagovestchensk, 11
Blair, Mr., 236
Blind, Missions to, 201 _et seq._
Boone College, Wuchang, 308, 319
Bouriat, Buddhist, 336
Boxer Movement, 7, 9, 18, 156, 161, 188, 269, 271, 274
British missions, 201 _et seq._
Buddha, 149
Buddhism, 148 _et seq._, 164, 170, 175, 179 _et seq._, 243,
248, 263, 269, 333
Buddhist temples, 45, 141
Bull, Papal, 186
Butterfield and Swire, 79
C
Cambridge, 173, 312
Canton, 113
Canton Women's Hospital, 226
Canton-Wuchang Railway, 322
Cantonese dialect, 286
Cassels, Bishop, 201
Centenary Conference, 122, 125, 132, 200, 210, 242 _et seq._
Chair travelling, 97
Chang-Chih-Tung, 75, 152, 168, 208, 218, 268 _et seq._,
321 _et seq._
Changsha, 77 _et seq._, 167, 291
Characters, Chinese, 132, 181, 208 _et seq._
Chentu, 316
Chicago University, 212
China Emergency Committee, 229
China for the Chinese, 216, 296
China Inland Mission, 201
China Merchants' boats, 62
"China's Only Hope," 268
Chinese clergy, 174, 257, 259 _et seq._, 310
Chinese-Japanese War, 5, 268
Christianity in China tolerated, 45 _et seq._
Christie, Dr., 226
Chu, 156, 179
Chungking, 81
Church of England, 202, 203
"Church in China," 242
Church Missionary Society, 201
Cities, Chinese, 95 _et seq._
Civilisation, Chinese, 56 _et seq._
Classics, Chinese, 168, 207, 260, 270, 301
Cleanliness, difficulty with Chinese, 226
Clergy, Chinese, 174, 257, 259 _et seq._, 310
Cochrane, Dr., 226, 228 _et seq._
Colleges, 254 _et seq._, 303, 308
Commercial power of China, 29
Commercial Press, 16, 215
Commercial School, 287
Confucian teaching, 73, 156, 159, 163 _et seq._, 321, 323
Confucianism, 148, 153 _et seq._, 163 _et seq._, 175, 221, 243, 261
Confucius, 41, 42, 59, 156, 163 _et seq._, 220, 300 _et seq._
Copts, 196
Corruption of Chinese, 62, 293
Courtesy of Chinese, 70 _et seq._
Cruelty of Chinese, 65 _et seq._
Currency, 63 _et seq._
D
Dalai Lama, 180
Delamarre, Père, 47
Diabolical possession, 158
Difficulties of education, 293 _et seq._
Difficulties of translation, 208 _et seq._
Director of Chinese students, 172
Director of education, 280 _et seq._, 295
Discipline, want of, 297 _et seq._
Divine honours to Confucius, 301
Dominicans, 186
"Door of Hope," 134
Drugs, Chinese, 224
Dumas, _Dame aux Camelias_, 218
Duty to parents, 74, 174
E
Ede, Mr., 56
Edict against opium, 117
Edict, educational, 271
Edict on Confucius, 302
Edict on official rank for Roman Catholic missions, 188, 189
Edification of Christianity, 257 _et seq._
Education, 253 _et seq._
Education, Committee of, 312
Education of preachers, 257 _et seq._
Educational, 230, 231
Educational policy in China, 254 _et seq._
Emperor of China, 187, 275, 300
Emperor of Korea, 76, 239
Emperor of Russia, 331
Emperor, German, 309
Empress of China, the late, 128
Episcopal Church of America, 256
Ethics, Chinese, 70 _et seq._, 220
Evangelisation, 257 _et seq._
Ezra, 59
F
"Face," 166, 167, 240, 298
Famine in China, 56
Fashion, power of, 33
Fashions in China, 34
Financial difficulties in schools, 298 _et seq._
Foot-binding, 66, 124, 129, 130, 182
Foster, Mr. Arnold, 125
Foster, Mrs. Arnold, 3
France, foreign policy of, 24, 187, 191, 221, 308
Franciscan Sisters, 68, 194
French officials, 184
"French Peter," 225, 226
French policy, 188
French ship, 197
French, the, 46, 186, 187, 188, 192, 253
Fukien, 50
G
Gardens, 72
Gardens, public, Shanghai, 102
Gautama, 149
Geography, 268
Germans, 253
Germany, 6, 18, 48, 49 _et seq._, 235
Ghurkas, 25
Gillieson, Dr., 226
Girls' schools, 130 _et seq._, 289 _et seq._, 298
Goforth, Mr., 240
Gold in Siberia, 335
Gorges of Yangtsze, 81 _et seq._, 201
Gospel, St. Luke's, comments on, 214
Gospel, St. Mark's, Chinaman's acquaintance with, 213
Government educational systems, 266 _et seq._
Grand Canal, 80
Graves, Bishop, 308
Greek Church, Chinese, 148, 336
Green Korean coats, 233
Grey, Sir Edward, 120, 210
H
Haeckel's "Riddle of the Universe," 218, 263
Haldane's "Pathway to Reality," 257
Hangchow, 223 _et seq._
Hangchow, monastery at, 180
Hankow, 78, 81, 89, 140, 174, 226, 229, 316, 319
Hanlin scholars, 176 _et seq._, 267
Han-Yang Ironworks, 30
Harbin, 315
Hart, Dr. Lavington, 99
Hashish, 108
Heat at Saigon, 183, 184
"Heaven," 156, 178, 179, 210
Heaven, Temple of, 142
Hewlett, Consul, 167
High schools, 281
Higher schools, 272
Hoang-ho River, 56, 57
Home Board, 245
Home life, Chinese, 135, 136
Hong-Kong, 76, 103, 109, 183, 213, 283, 303, 316
Hunan, 77
I
Ichang, 68, 81, 85, 194
Ideographs, 217
Ignatius, College of St., 253
India, 164, 244
India, comparison with China, 22, 23
India, home of opium, 114
India, Little, 180
Indian Buddhism, 180
"Indiscreet Letters from Peking," 39
Industry, Chinese, 72
Infant schools, 271
Inns, Chinese, 89
Intellectual side of Christianity, 202
Intonations, Chinese, 309
Irkutsk, 51, 329, 333 _et seq._
Ironworks, Han-Yang, 30
Ito, Prince, 232, 235
Iwolsky, M., 329 _et seq._
J
Jackson, Mr., 256
Japan, 50, 121, 126, 149, 160 _et seq._, 170, 204, 210, 263,
283, 325, 329, 330
Japan and Korea, 5, 232 _et seq._
Japan and Russia, 12, 23, 49 _et seq._
Japanese, 61
Japanese, _re_ opium, 115, 116
Japanese teachers, 131, 280 _et seq._, 295
Jarlin, Monseigneur, 3
Jessfield College, 308, 312
Jesuits, 185, 186, 253, 258
Jesuits, scientific attainments of, 185, 195
Jesuits, suppression of, in China, 186
Jews, Chinese, 148
John, Father, 330
Jordan, Sir John, 120
K
Kiauchau, 6, 48, 51, 91, 92
King, Consul, 176
Kins, 26
Kiukiang, 97
Korea, 76, 232 _et seq._
Korea and Japan, 5, 12, 232 _et seq._
Korean women, 233
Kow-tow, 300
Kwangchangtzu, 318
Kwannin, 149, 150
L
Lamaism, 15, 149, 248
Languages, School of, 292
Laotze, 151
Laudanum, 112 _et seq._
Law Schools, 277, 283
Lawsuits, Chinese, 191, 192
Lawsuits, interference in, 189 _et seq._
Leavening of public opinion, 257 _et seq._
Legation, British, 141
Legge's, Dr., Chinese Classics, 179
Leper Hospital, 227
Likin, 58
Literati, Chinese, 177, 186, 203, 321
Literature, effect of Western, 207 _et seq._
Literature Society, Christian, 16, 168, 212
Lolos, 27, 68
London Mission, 198, 201
Louis XIV., 187
Lutherans, 256
M
Macklin, Dr., 67, 227
Main, Dr. Duncan, 223 _et seq._
Maios, 27
Manchu ladies, 130, 131
Manchuria, 12, 51, 53, 90 _et seq._, 204, 232 _et seq._
Manohus, 25, 176, 185, 279, 292, 318
Mandarin-speaking, 285, 286
Manichæism, 151, 152
Martin, Professor, 296
Materialism, Western, 171, 305 _et seq._
Medical missions, 220 _et seq._
Mencius, 177
Methodist colleges, 308
Methodists, 238
Middle schools, 272
Mih-Tieh, 174
Military power of China, 24, 25
Ming dynasty, 26, 185
Mission Press, 212
Missions, 183 _et seq._, 198 _et seq._, 220 _et seq._,
253 _et seq._, 305 _et seq._
Missions Catholiques Françaises, Les, 188
Modesty, lack of, in Japanese, 233
Mohammedans, Chinese, 148
Mongolia, 51, 213
Mongols, 26
Monotonous employment, love of, 73
Moral power of China, 32
Morrison, Dr., 15, 17, 198, 208
Moule, Archdeacon, 4, 137, 198, 298
Moule, Bishop, 198
Movement in Korea and Manchuria, 232 _et seq._
Mukden, 91, 226, 318
Mukden, battle of, 5, 13
Murray, Dr., 230
Mutiny, 54
N
Nanking, 63, 67, 92, 297 _et seq._
Nanking, hospital at, 227
Nanking, interviews at, 172 _et seq._
Napoleon I., 187
Napoleon III., 47
Native ministry, 257, 259 _et seq._, 310
Naval school, 52, 287
Need of University explained, 305 _et seq._
Nestorians, 15, 149, 150, 248
Newchwang, 8, 205
North China Mission, 203
O
Obedience of Chinese, 61
Obedience to parents, 74
Observatory Ziccawei, 195
Official rank for Roman Catholic Missions, 188, 189, 191
Officials, Chinese, 167, 172, 283, 299, 317
Officials, French, 184
Old, reverence for the, 321
O-mi-to, 149
Opium, 107 _et seq._
Opium, edict against, 117
Opposition to Western materialism, 258 _et seq._
Organisation of Chinese Government, 60
Orientals, 36 _et seq._, 61
Orphanages, Roman Catholic, 193, 194, 264
Orthodox Church of Russia, 244, 245, 330 _et seq._
Oxford and Cambridge, 173, 312
P
Pagodas, 141
Pao-ting-fu, 7, 276
Pastor Hsi, 158
Patience of Chinese, 72
Patriarchate, the, 331
Pei-Yang University, 276
Peking, Blind Mission at, 229
Peking Gazette, 168
Peking, interviews at, 319 _et seq._
Peking, Lama Temple at, 180
Peking, Methodist University, 308
Peking, missions at, 203
Peking, Mongol Temple at, 150, 180
Peking, Roman Catholics at, 197
Peking, sack of, 10
Peking to Canton railway, 89
Peking, Union Hospital at, 226
Peking University, 291, 300
Pe-T'ang, the, 140
Physical science uninteresting to Chinese, 182
Pidgin English, 22
Pitt, 187
Pobiedonosteff, M., 330
Police, different nationalities of, 101
Port Arthur, 5, 204
Post-offices, 103 _et seq._
Pott, Dr Hawks, 312
Poverty in China, 221
Preparation of secular teachers, 257
Presbyterians and their missions, 69, 198, 201, 204, 235 _et seq._
Press, the, 168
Primary schools, 272
Procurator of Holy Synod, 321 _et seq._
Pyeng-Yang, 5, 235 _et seq._
Q
Queen of England, the late, 128
Queen of Korea, murder of the, 76, 234
R
Railways, 88 _et seq._
Rapids of Yangtsze, 82 _et seq._
"Reason," 178, 179
Red boat, 82, 85
Reformation, the, 246
Religions of China, 147 _et seq._
Religious Tract Society, 212
Renaissance, the, 260
Rescue work, 133 _et seq._
"Review of the Times," the, 212
Revival, 236 _et seq._
Ricci, Father, 185
Richard, Dr. Timothy, 203, 212, 274 _et seq._
Rickshas, 98
Ritual, 246
Rivers, 80 _et seq._
Roman Catholic missions, 183 _et seq._, 203
Roman Catholics, 46, 47, 148, 213, 243, 258, 292
Roman Church, policy of, 192, 243, 244
Romanised system of reading, 132
Rome, appeal to, 186
Roofs, Chinese, 142, 143
Roots, Bishop, 256
Ross, Dr., 113, 178, 318
Russia and Japan, 23, 49 _et seq._, 163
Russia in mission field, 329
Russia, Orthodox Church of, 244, 330 _et seq._
Russians, 204 _et seq._
Russo-Japanese War, 11 _et seq._, 163
S
Saigon, 183, 184
Saigon, Bishop of, 184
Saigon, climate of, 184
St. Augustine, 166
St. Petersburg, 51, 329, 330
Sanscrit MS., 180
Scandinavian Missions, 203
Scheme, United Universities, 312 _et seq._, 317 _et seq._
School uniform, 175, 283
School, Viceroy's, 175 _et seq._
Schools, 253 _et seq._
Schools in England, 173
Schools in Nanking, 173 _et seq._
Scotch, the, 69, 234
Scott, Bishop, 203
Secondary wives, 123 _et seq._
Seoul, 77, 233 _et seq._
Shanghai, 36, 76, 95, 105, 113, 126, 129, 133, 140, 225, 291
Shansi, 6, 18, 49, 110, 274
Shantung, 6, 18, 92, 303
Shi-King, 207
Shintoism, 163, 170
Shops, Chinese, 96 _et seq._
Shu-yuen, 261
Siberia, 25, 148, 329, 333 _et seq._
Silk Guild, 95, 287
Slanders against missions, 194
Slave Refuge, 126
Slaves, 126 _et seq._, 323
Solidarity of Chinese, 60
Songs of trackers, 84
Soochow, University at, 308
Soothill, Mr., 275
Spencer, Herbert, 263
S.P.G., a _via media_, 202
S.P.G. Mission, 202
"Spirit," 210
Sprue, 225, 226
Squeeze, 293, 294
Starvation common, 222
Streets, Chinese, 97 _et seq._
Strikes in schools, 297 _et seq._
Summer Palace, sack of, 46
Sund Fo, 25
"Superior man," 177, 178
Superior schools, 273
Superstition, 156, 157 _et seq._
Supreme Being, 155, 156, 220
Synod of Russian Church, 331 _et seq._
Szechuan, 88, 92
T
Tablet of Confucius, 300 _et seq._
T'ang-K'ai-Sun, His Excellency, 116
Taoism, 151 _et seq._, 164, 175, 181, 243, 269
Tartar, Mohammedan, 336
Temple of Heaven, 142, 155
Teuton mind, 246
Theatres, 272
Tibetans, 25, 114
Tientsin, 28, 36, 38, 61, 91, 93, 95, 99, 166, 276
Tokio, 306
Tong-Shao-Yi, His Excellency, 41, 318
Tonkin, 17
Torture of medical missionary, 205
Trackers on Yangtsze, 83, 86, 87
Trans-Siberian Railway, 21, 204, 329
Travelling, comfort in, 21
Treaties, 46, 47, 188
Tuan-Fang, His Excellency, 173 _et seq._, 279
Turkey, 164
U
Union Hospital, 226
United States, 200
United Universities Scheme, 312 _et seq._, 317 _et seq._
Unity in China, 242
Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, 312
Universities in Soochow and Peking, 308
University, Paris Professor, 193
University, Pei-Yang, 276
University of Oxford, 311
University government, 303
University government system, 273
University in Chentu, 316
University in China, 94, 172, 175, 263
University in Hong-Kong, 286, 303
University in Peking, 291, 304
University in Shansi, 274 _et seq._
University in Tokio, 306
V
Viceroy of Nanking, 173 _et seq._
Vices, Chinese, 62
Virtues, Chinese, 72
W
Wall, Great, 26
Wang, Mr., 276
War in 1840, 188
Weihsien, 308
Wenli, 208
Wesleyan movement, 241
West and East, 36 _et seq._
Western civilisation, two elements of, 218, 325 _et seq._
Wheelbarrows, 101
Williamson, Dr., 16
Willow pattern from Hangchow Lake, 228
Women, Chinese, 102, 121 _et seq._
Word-signs, 210 _et seq._, 215
Wuchang, 291, 292, 323
X
Xavier, St. Francis, 15
Y
Yale University Mission, 313
Yamen, 71, 167, 173, 176, 182, 246, 318
Yang and Yin, 121, 151, 152
Yang Choo, 307
Yangtsze, island on, 193
Yangtsze-Kiang, 53, 54, 62, 73, 81 _et seq._, 118, 126
Yuan-Shi-Kai, His Excellency, 274
Yunnan, 92
Z
Zenana work, 131
Ziccawei Observatory, 195, 196
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