We have all heard of the proverb, Every dog has its day." and also Ever; thing comes to him who waits." The returned Chinese student is not an exception to these two old sayings, and I may safely state that his day is not far off.
The returned student from abroad differs from his brother educated in China in this: he has been fortunate enough nos only to have learnt to speak and write English, but also to have lived a Western-ex's life, to have partaken of the latter's hopes and disappointments, and to have enjoyed happiness xs he enjoys, and suffered pain as he suffers. In other words, although externally and superficially he appears as any other Chinese, his mind and spirit have been Westernised, As rule, he has gone through some college, and it is a well-known fact that men just coming from college have an exayzerated opinion of themselves and their abilities and a general contempt for all others. His college friends knowingly prophesy his future greatness and exaltation, some gain so far as to expect him to r fo their country as the representa ti his Imperial Chinese Majesty i faith of their rhapsodies And he would. most solemnly promise his Indy friends that they should mot be forgotten at the opening ball of his future consulate or legation Distance lends enchantment" is true with countries as well as persons, and he finds that the Flowery Kingdom, which way always an enchanting topic of eonvermention in his adopted country, is not s> fascinating ax it appeared in' his mind's eye, or even from the deck of the tender that brings him up from Woosung.
But after all, as to material comforts and convenience, however indispensable sometimes seem to be, their spiritual understanding and sympathy. "Give me the luxuries of the latter, atid I will dispense with the necessities of the former," one would explain with good reason. Here again, the returned student finds himself in a quandary, an anomaly among his fellow-creatures on his return to his mother-land. His modes and lines of thought having unconsciously been metamorphosed, and his actions affected.
ner he is rewarded by his own country with suspicion, if not with actual disfavour, while his friends and acquaint ances among Westerners in the East are too few to take the place of those he left behind. The one considers him as puerile and useless, the other as spoilt and uppish. On better acquaintance, he is neither the one nor the other. Indeed, he is not half bad" after all.
His great drawback is his woeful ignss—ance of his own language, having either forgotten it during his lengthy stay abroad, or never had a thorough knowledge of it in
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.