'A very interesting pamphlet has been, sent to us, entitled the ' Minutes of the China Mission Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, held at Shanghai, Chins, October 11-16, 1888, Bishop 4. W. Wilson was President, the Rev. A. P. Parker, Secretary, the Rev. W. B. Bonnell, Statistical Secretary, and the Rev, Sz Tez-kia Chinese Secretary of the Conference. The pamphlet opens with a list of the ten clerical members and six lay delegates of the Conference, and this is followed by the minutes of the Conference, which are of a very formal nature. We find that the foreign members this year number 24, the native members 262 and the local preachers 9, against 18,198, and 9 respectively last year. 'There are 7 Church edifices valued at $16,437, 8 foreign parson ages valued at $39,500, 5 native parsonages Valued at $3,970, other property valued at $27,050, 3 ladies' homes, W.B.M., valued at $28,600, the Anglu-Chinese "Cones valued at $58,000, and the Buffington Institute, at Soochow, valued at $5,300. 'There are also 6 boarding and 16 day schools under W.B.M., with property, including foreign teachers' residences, valued at controls a very valuable estate. More in-$40,000; 90 that altogether this_ mission generally, however, than the re the appended Reports, The first is from the Anglo-Chinese College in Hongkew, which is now nearly seven years old, and enrolled 108 pupils in the past
gan with a balance in hand of $1,264.50; The accounts shew that the year the total receipts were $2,214.25, of which $1,516 were tuition fees, and the total expenditure $2,941.42, leaving a balance at the end of the financial year of $627.34. Successful as the school in the following Ritieultees under which schools like this from the report shews one of the laban:
"Owing to the fact that so few of the Bicult to settle upon any course of pupils remain after the fourth year, it is in the higher branches. Having acquire a smattering of English, the young men and their parents are impatient if not content with such inferior attainment, On the first opportunity to obtain positions with even moderate salaries out and off they go, protest and advice and even their own inclinations going for nothing when silver dollars are in view and filial piety says: "Ge and take them."
And Mr. Bonnell, the Acting Principal, adds:—' The demand for native scholars, well trained in science and mathematica, is still to be created; at least, it is nob yet felt in this school."
Mr. Parker writes the report of the Buffington Institute, at Soochow, the first object of which, he tells us, is to raise up educated and trained assistants for mission work. Seventy-five pupils were enrolled during the year, of whom twenty were in the English school. The ditticulty noted by Mr. Bonnell occurs here also, Mr. Parker says "One matter troubles me. The education that we give these boys fits then to obtain better salaries than we have hitherto been accustomed to pay, and as they are just like the foreign Christians in this as in most other respects, they will most likely go, in the majority of cases, where they can get the best salaries. The two young men, just about to graduate, want more salary than I had expected to give, and will probably go elsewhere if their salaries are not considerably increased. I have been told that one of them has had an offer of $20 a month from some one in Soochow, to teach Mathematics. They are both earnest
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.