November 19. another column we publish remarkable address on education in China, which was delivered recently in Foochow College by Mr. E.S. Ling, a former student of that institu We have no wish to read into indictment more than the author intended, but it is clear that ko spoke from personal knowledge and that he had found the condition of things which he deprecated exi i more than one part of Ling inveighs primarily the lack of moral and educational discipline in Chinese Government schools. The students, he infers, have imbibed advanced ideas without ridding themselves of the irresponsibility of youth. Doctrines of equality and liberty, culled, we are told, from Japanese sources, have been interpreted as authoriz~ ing a general lawlessness of conduct at home, in the school and in public. The most ardent reformers in China can scarcely wish that the new order, with its many untried innovations, should altogether ssu] plant the old virtues that have held together for so long the component parts of this heterogeneous empire. Among these filial, respect always occupied a prominent place but even this is threatened, according to the lecturer who took the Foochow scholars to task. In the schools there is a dangerous tendency for the students to introduce practices well known in the industrial world, for the purpose of attaining their own ends. By means of " unions" and threatened strikes they are able virtually, to dominate an educational institution, even to the extent of laying down rules for their own tuition and regulating their own examinations. Finally, if we may still follow our authority in passages which we do not reproduce, out of school hours Young China displays signs of moral degeneration which, if unchecked, must ultimately undermine the vigour and manhood of the country.
One swallow does not make a summer, and Mr. Ling, we feel confident, would not wish it to be "inferred that the canker of which he complains has entered all Government schools in China. Its presence, however, in a few may well be viewed with anxiety by the more enlightened Chinese, for the educational institutions of the Empire have already shown a wonderfal response to intercollegiato cooperation in various
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.