Nor long ago we reviewed the first number of a magazine newly published in Shanghai under the title of the "All Story Monthly" which contained nothing but trans-Jations into Chinese o° English novels, That magazine, if we are not mistaken, died the death of so many similar ventures in other lands. But the taste at whicl was directed lives on and multiplies, as evidenced, among other witnesses, by an extremely interesting letter from the Shanghai correspondent of "The Times" which has lately come to hand. The picture of a Chinese public immersed in the thrills of an English novel is too incongruous to be easily reconciled with our traditional ideas of Chi: nese thought and Chinese insularity. But it is one that we must accept in our estimation of the new China which is now coming to the Birth. Elsewhere the enormous increase during recent years in the popularity of Dickens' among his own countrymen has been remarked and it is something to put, alongside of this that translations of Dickens command a steady sale in China, Allowance must be made for the difference of the Oriental and the Occidental attitude towards matters of love and sentiment, on which a Western writer so much depends. In the popular Chinese novel " Vu Chiao Li," it may be remembered, the writer has no difficulty with a hero who falls in love with two ladies. He marries both and all three live" happily ever after." Thus it is not difficult to understand how "to the Celestial mind the love affairs of David Copperfield can only detract from the human interest." Stories of adventure, however, are unfailingly popular; perhaps as the natural complement of the ordinarily peace-loving and uneventful lives of the nese. Detective stories are eagerly enright ap; and these may well accord with accepted notions of the Oriental mind as shrewd and complex. La Dame our Camilias is said to be the most widely read of Westera stories in China; and it is worth remembering that the Japanese actress Soda Yacco has made her greatest " hit " in a dramatized version of the same romance. Jvanhoe Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe and Sherlock Holmes are yerevsi welcomed. Beyond such as these there is "a large sale of sensational stories published in J shockers of an unedifying description": and since the influence of this class of reading is presumably pernicious in any mind, it is rightly contended that the provision of a hundred good books suitable for Chinese readers would be of the greatest help to the cause of eivilization. Here is an obvious sngyestion for Lord Avebury with the advice, perhaps, of the China Society.
Attractive as these considerations are from a psychological point of view their real importance lies in the indication they afford of the striking social changes now at work in China. These changes may be said to date from the time of the Chino-Japanese war. Stirred the humiliation of an ignominious de- i feat, the people of the Middle Kingdom appear to have realized then for the first time the possibilities of Western education; and s it is legitimate to believe that the desire to retain their own country for themselves, and to get back what of it has slipped into the control of foreign hands, is even more the ruling passion of the Chinese than of other nations, an explanation is easily found for the eagerness with which foreign learning is now pursued. It is possible the Chinese are inclined to regard that learning too much as a talisman; to confuse the thing in itself with the results it is ly to achieve either as productive of moral principle or when grafted upon an ancient and already exalted code of ethics. Such a mental confusion would be a natural legacy from the days of the older code when proficiency in archery was considered as much a qualification for naval service as the ability to sail a boat. But the remarkable feature of the new tendencies is that they have originated among the masses of the population instead of spreading downwards from above as_was the case with Japan, True to its principle of endorsing public opinion rather than guiding, the Chinese Government has set itself with noticeable diligence to he objects which it feels saily dectred. There is a marked contrast between the efficiency of the Doara of Education established in 1305, and the indeterminate of otter schemes of reform which flicker uncertain through the maze of intrigue and caprice which fogs the action of the Peking Government. At. the present time, we are told, there are three principal agencies for the dissemination of educational literature. The Commercial Press comes first. It is described as a well-managed and progressive company with branches all over the Empire, and it issues books of the type known in Europe as "first readers"
within the reach of Next in order, but less praiseworthy in general style and nent, are the books which come quantities from Japan, there are the missionary associations which are putting upon the Chinese market an enormous mass of entirely non-theological books dealing with such subjects as mathematics and mechanics, philosophy, political economy and the art of government, military science, hygiene and history.
What, then, is to be the result of this influx of western thought upon the minds of the Chinese?" As yet there are but the most general dications, and those, it must be confessed, are not altogether satisfactory. Upon the good side we have fo reckon the gradual assimiunal from
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.