A conference on such subjects ought to bear good frn*t and the more the teachers of China can get together to discuss their work and methods and aims, the better it will be for education. I believe the government school teachers as a class are very worthy men, and for the most part men who love their work. We are often apt to criticize them for their lack of backbone when dealing with the unruly clement among their students; but we ought not to forget that in too many cases they cannot look for support from their superiors—the directors and inspectors—in any stand they may make in the matter of revolts against authority. Then again, though their salaries may appear fairly large on paper, they are not always regularly _patid. Usually the soldiers get the first claim on the contents of a depleted treasury, and the teachers the last, for the soldier armed with his rifle and bayonet is a greater power in China than the schoolmaster armed with his pen and his primer.
I hear there is a good deal of sickness about in the city, especially amongst the young. Smallpox and measles appear to be rampant.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.