THE sessions which have been held by the Educational Association have shown what an immense amount of thought and work has been given not to the programme, but to the duties of particular committees, For example, the committee on terminology 3 reports over 12,000 technical and scientific terms. Moreover, the members of the Association, now reported to be over 250, are engaged in some form of effort in introducing Western education to all parts of China either by direct instruction in the classroom or by the preparation of books. All this work is in the main a free gift to China. The property of this
several millions of taels and the an-educational enterprise amounts to nual expenditure cannot be less than 500,000 taels. The benefits accruing to all classes of the Chinese are beyond calculation, and it is most probable that the actual work done all these years, and the benefits which issue therefrom, are almost totally unknown to the Conservative authorities in Peking and elsewhere, a fact 1081! which can account for the slight! given to foreign educationalists by—=|the Imperial Director of the New Learning. It is therefore a most wise procedure on the part of the Educational Association to send in to the Government a Memorial on jthe work of the Association and in behalf of larger toleration, by a committee of distinguished and esteemed names, The programme of the last triennial meeting was so lengthy that discussion and the mutual interchange of views were made impossible, The number of committees is really appalling, but we doubt not the talent of the committee men will be sufficient to cope with the duties assigned them. A careful reading of the papers fully priated will be a good schooling in itself. To the majority of those interested in education this will be the only way of receiving the information and inspiration of the educational conference. The names of those connected prominently with the conference, or the Association, seem to be almost exclusively from the body of Christian missionaries, jand, to speak more specifically, of Protestant missionaries. It seems, therefore, that the Educational Association is more property a Missionary Educational Association. Whether this is the interest or wish of the Association we do not know. An article in the constitution reads." All members of Protestant Christian Churches who are, or have been, engaged in educational work, or in making and editing school and text books, shall be eligible to membership in this Association." This indicates that there is a religious qualification to this Educational Association, As such there are advantages, for we ate thereby enabled to know in compact form the good work done for education by Protestant missionaries. But it should not be forgotten that there are many excellent educationalists in China who are not represented in this particular Association. The French missionary educationalists are not behind the British in point of number, and it would be helpful, at this critical juncture in Chinese reform, to have the views of these men. So also in the government institutions there are learned men from different countries, whose life-work
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.