Scientific precision would require that we take at least two views of che historic relations of these educational developments (1) to note wherein the new plan breaks with the old; (2) to trace the early suggestions of the present proposals; in a word we should j study these odic's both as a revolution and as.an evolution. As to the first point of view it is only necessary now to suggest the old systems without elaborating the contrast The examination halls and ghe pahkw w-n-chang, the strenuous struggle for place, and reorganised on a more practical basis. And though, by a strange freak of fortune, the has within a few weeks been practical a lone away with by the dismissal of the entire foreign staff, this too may only tend to prove the wisdom of the present administration. The reform of 1898 was a forced growth—n hot-house produet—nurtured by scholarly enthusiasm and Imperial zeal. It presented a beautiful specimen of what the common soil of the country might produce under proper conditions, and so Conduced, in an educational way, to the development of it to the more natural advance movement of last year. The present educational reform is still chiefly on paper, but the edicts have a measured tone that indicates not only serious intention, but reserve strength. So fur as I have noticed there has been, in these edicts, no direct appeal to the gentry and literati to come forward with their private funds for the establishment of schools. Yet they have thus come forward in great numbers. In the edicts of 1898 we find reiterated appeals, to the point of peevishness, for such support, and yet it failed to come.
Another forerunner of these edicts, which must be mentioned in connection with those of 1398, is the remarkable book of the Viceroy Chang Chi-tung. It is only necessary to recall that he proposed the very measures, and in the very terms, which were embodied in some of the most radical of the educational Edicts of 1898. and reproduced as we have sen in 1901.
'This leads us to note, finally, among the springs of the present movement the later joint memorial of the two Yangtze Viceroys. This bold-and able document, which appeared just at the close of the fateful year of the' Boxer outbreak, propose specifically the four lines of educational reform which we have found followed out in these Edicts.
Tu fact, we must credit much of the the travesty on justice in the formalls of Present movement to the admittedly in the Councils of State the tests and in the use of money in lieu of weighty influence ability—these are the familiar features fof these two men, together with the present Remembering that the the examination system by whic China has Viceroy of Chibli. attempted to secre "justice, honesty and foreign Plenipotentiaries in the protocols the best first." As to studying abroad, the kept hands off the subject of internal shall_find ourselves discredited repressive, self-sufficient icy of Chinese reforms, education' has largely shut out he youth from these advantages of foreign study, which the more enlightened government of {Japan has so eagerly utilised. The barren schools, the traditional devotion of scholars memory training given to boys in the Chinese tothe ancient classics, and their indifference to the movements of modern histo sufficient suggestion of the vast advance in ideals of educational organisation to be found in these documents of the last half year.
The second historical aspect of these Edict:—the study of their evolution—is e interesting and more difficult. It is of primary importance that we guard against thinking of these Edicts as new propositions and expecting, thereupon, that the new broom will sweep clean, Going no further back than the period of the reform movement in 1899S, believe that we shall find. in the connection between the two movements, the key to a* just estimate of the significance of each. Turn the pages of the pamphlet containing the reform Ediets of 1898, and you will be startled to find many of their provisions, especially on education, word for word the same as these. The abolition of the pahkw wen chang and the introduction of modera branches in examinations; the reform of the military examination system; the employment of real ability in public service; the transformation of the shuywtn and the establishment of a graded system of schools and colleges, culminate all were included in the edicts of 1893. ing la a grea. University at Peking, The only relic of these innovations that survived the shock of the coup-tat was the Peking University. Now all the other projects have been reinaugurated, with more orderly method and with important ampliby history if we fail to accord high praise to men like these—men who, facing the future and the light, still stand firmly on the traditions of twenty-five centuries of the world's most scholarly culture—who, by so doing, are able to keep their hold on the hearts of their countrymen; and, as justly hope, will prove able to carry the nation forward in the path of a rational reform.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.