In former letters we have spoken of the Viceroy's Agricultural School. The story of it is only another putting of the story of most of Chang Chih-tung's undertakings. Money has been poured out, two excellent Professors of Agriculture have been engaged from the United States, large quantities of farming machinery have been imported, some splendid proclamations have been posted on the city walls; and Chinese officialism, viceregal vacillation, and iguorance have done their best to wreck the whole scheme. Men have left their country and come to China with large hopes and earnest. purposes, and have been hindered and hampered at, almost every move. We pass over such details as breach of contract, describing wretched Chinese houses as furnished foreign residences, and the usual difficulties that must meet all those who have to work through interpreters, and just touch upon some of the chief difficulties that have to be contended with. Instead of English-speaking students nine youths were found, only a few of whom had '2 working knowledge of English. Their American instructors were not even allowed time to set to work to Team Chinese but after being kept busily engaged doing nothing they have bad to begin to teach ra and arithmetic, If they wished to go about the country and see what China's agriculture was like they were generally prevented. Land was bought Find being in the hands of Chinese market iecomeal, here a bit and there a bit, the gardeners who wanted the school to wait until they could reap their cabbages. The Professors desired to get some tea plants for experimenting but were told: "It can't be done, the Vicery has no money." A short time later news came that the Viceroy was Fapant When he did hear that the present ing to send for special tea planters from instructors wanted tea plants, he immediately offered to obtain any genre for them and now at last some 3,000 plants have been sent down and in a year or two tea gardens may take the place of mulberry orchards. The latest development has been a new proclamation, appealing for 50 new students. The inducements to learning include the study of English, Chemistry and Mathematics, the students to be between 16 and 20 yours old. They are not to receive money nor, on the other hand, are they to be paid for coming to schovi. Time fails to tell of the labourers who fare engaged to work the farm but who being paid (at least we charitably believe so) by the wei yuan, will only work when. the eyes of the foreigner are upon them, or to comment on the waggons that being left out of doors one night in the courtyard of the school were found the next morning with all the bolts, and whatever else about them was portable, taken away. Kleptomauia is rampant, even the labels with instructions about machinery were stolen, apparently by too diligent students of the English language, which reminds me that a student once asked. me to help him translate an English letter. When I looked at it I found it was a private letter stolen out of the wastepaper basket of some one in Wuchang.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.