11th November, WHETHER they confess it or not, all foreign residents in China are interested in the wide-spread endeavour of the younger generation of Chi ese to acquire some greater or less amount of Western knowledge. There is not a thoughtful foreign resident in China who does not sympathise with this endeavour, and most of us are really anxious to promote its accomplishment, and see the difficulties in its way removed. What some of these difficulties are is indicated in the very able article by the Rev. Walter N. Fong, M.A, entitled "Some Phases of the Educational Problem in China," in the October number of the "South China Collegian."
Mr. Fong points out first that the fact that th> Chinese want to learn does not of itself prepare their minds for the assimilation of Western knowledge. The first difficulty is found in the ignorance of the parents or guardians, In the first place, as soon as he is sixteen or seventeen, in South China, the student is provided with a wife, and this is a greed hindrance to his advance. "Perhaps he is furnished with enough money to go to school, yet his wife must have some ''pin-money' and as she does not like to ask her father-ialaw for every cent she needs, she soon begins to make demands upon her husband's slender purse." The Chinese young gentleman has no other resources by which he can make a bib to help himself along, and he therefore takes a position as soon as he can get one, and leaves schoo! half or less than half-educated. Their natural guardians generally only want them to get foreign education enough to become clerks or compradores, although they will permit their boys t" be crammed with obsolete classics for fifteen or twenty years with the hope of their obtaining official rank. Even the students who aim higher than "business English" are wanting in earnestness and devotion to learning for its own sake. "They are not willing to sacrifice time, pleasure, and money, and make everything subservient to the one aim of getting a thorough education."
The claims of filial piety, excellent Frawback. Holidays of ten. days, principle as it is in itself, are " great that the student may visit a sick relative, or attend a marriage jor some other family festivity, are constantly demanded, and continuity of studies is broken. The poor physique of so many students is another hindrance; they have not the stamina to keep up steady work. In the schools they have previously attended, their progress has depended on their memory alone, and the necessity to reason out cause ard effect and explain their work is a physical strain, They have sat as children from dawn to dark seven days a week in ill-ven-filated Chinese schools, without physical exercise, and their condition when they come toa Western school is deplorable. Again, Western schools la China, hitherto, have been carried on by missionaries who, however zealous, have not been trained educators, nor have they had fands enough to equip their schools properly. The lack of money and facilities, of libraries and la-oratory advantages, has prevented the obtaining by these schools and colleges of teachers of high standing.
The difficulty the Chinese have in managing schools properly and discriminating between capable and incapable teachers is another serious drawback. "Formerly, they thought that any foreigner could teach any or all of the subjects constituting Western learning. There were always plenty of unscrupulous foreigners willing to take advantage of the ignorance of the Chinese to as_' professors ' of anything regarding educational affairs, and or everything for the sake of the salaries. There were also numerous equally unscrupulous Chinese who, having obtained a smattering of English in some foreign land, returned to China and undertook to ive instruction in many branches."
isplaced confidence has now been naturally succeeded by suspicion, with the result that the instructors the Chinese employ have now to spend a large portion of their energy in managing the "school-managers;" instead of being left free to administer the affairs of each school in accordance with its special needs.
What young China really wants now is practical training in the useful arts. If she "wishes to become a member of the great family of civilised nations, she must be educated out of the idea that an educated gentleman should not perform any and Jabour are divorced from each manual labour, and that leamms
other." But her case is very far from hopeless. The Chinese students learn very quickly, are very orderly, docile, impressionable, and respectful, and when they once become interested in a subject, they devote themselves to it almost too strenuously. Mr. Fong tells of a 14-year old boy who was so idle and inattentive that ib was proposed to send him away. Suddenly, he took an absorbing interest in chemistry, and there was then a marked change in all his work, and he progressed rapidly in English, "His ability to apply what he learns, his power to grasp new ideas, and his faculty for asking pointed questions are marvellous; it takes a well-informed, wide-awake, teacher to cope with him. He is but one of many for whom the modern institutions of learning recently established in China are throwing open the doors of true knowledge." With regular life, improved food, healthy surroundings, and sufficient exercise, the new institutions will provide China with students able to sit at the banquet of learning with those of foreign nations, But the new institutions must ce-operate with, not attempt to rival, each other; Universities in the Western sense cannot be established all at once. Mr. Fong concludes by saying:—"Colleges established in China need strong men who are not afraid of hard work or of difficulties, and who will not worry if they attract but few students; men, who will endeavour to carry on their respective institutions on a modern educational basis, and who will form plans and policies suited to the demands of the time and place. Thus manned, colleges in China will be able to send forth graduates educated in the true sense of the word and fitted to be useful in society. These college-trained men will act as a leaven which in time will change the whole social fabric of Chinese life, thus removing many of the obstacles which now confront the educator. In this way, existing colleges will advertise themselves much more effectively
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.