To the Editor of the Nortu-Cuixa Dairy News, Dear Srr,—It is interesting to watch the effect of the Imperial Edict. ordering Mathematics as a subject of exanimation in the State curriculum for degrees. This city, the capital of Hupeh, is near enough to the outside world to respond to a certain extent to the external pressure, and far enough from the coast to give full play to native methods, unhampered wy the intrusion of Western logical minds. What has happened here during the last fortnight is suggestive, In the examination for the Siu Ts'ai degree now going on here, so thoughtful arranged for a temperature verging on 100°, one voluntary stage is that in mathematics. I had one pupil, a boy of eighteen, as a candidate. After the examination ther came to me a venerable dolt of fifty years of age into whom with infinite sweat of brain and brow I had recently drummed the elementary rules of arithmetic, ere to my relief my schoolroom knew him no more, He showed me the examination paper; which consisted of the following two question:
—In the centre of a tank 12 feet across, a lily grows to the height of 3 feet abo the surface. I find that if I pull the lily aslant it will just reach the brim of the tank. Find the depth of the water.
A man five feet high looks at a hill 46 miles away; he notices that the top of a tree 20 feet high, situated between himself and the hill ata distance from himself of three miles is exactly in a line with the top of the hill. Find the height of the hill, My visitor had obtained two answers which I found to be correct. Knowing that the calculation though simple eno pending on the 3rd and 6th books of inchd)
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.