apr. 380.
We publish to-day the first of a series of six articles by the Rev. G. G. Warren of Changsha, which we have no hesitation in pressing on the attention of all readers. Mr. Warren's name over any article is, if he will allow us to say so, a guarantee of incisive thinking and easy expression. 'To add to this, he writes with a profound experience of many years' accumulation of the subject in hand. More and more people are becoming keenly interested in that subject. It used to be a maxim with British newspapers that if readers were to be coaxed into reading an article about education, that fatal word must neither appear in the headline nor in at least the first paragraph. To this we no doubt owe the state of affairs that Mr.
Warren describes. But times are changing. The day is gone by when business men were content to dwell for years in China without studying her language: and with this change has also begun to grow an appreciation of the vivid need of providing for the fullest possible education of Young China in the learning of the West.
The cause which Mr. Warren champions, in a nutshell, is the founding of British Universities in central and northern China for the Chinese after the fashion of what Hongkong has done for them in the South. And in unfolding his theme, he has given some comparisons of what other nations have done in this direction, which will open British eyes no less widely than unpleasantly. Most conspicuous is the hold which the various richly equipped German colleges have managed to acquire on the affections of their pupils—so much so, Mr. Warren tells us, that the medical students are proposing to call themselves, if they have not already done so, "German trained" instead of the usual "'foreign.'' Tt will be remembered in this connexion that when during the war the German engineering school was made to migrate from Shanghai to Woosung, no power available could secure its removal to any more distant abode. These facts are not pleasant to recall and we shall be blamed by some for giving them further advertisement but we disagree with that view. Facts they remain, however, much it may be sought to cover them up, and if they are to be overcome they must be faced frankly. A further unpalatable fact is that Great Britain has lagged deplorably behind other nations in institutions for the teaching of Chinese. That she had the field to herself fifty years ago and failed to realize the opportunity, is merely an illustration, for those who are fond of moralizing on human fallibilities, of the abiding need of competition as the mainspring in all progress. The importent point to remember is that we have still the opportunity if we will avail ourselves of it. While others have been allowed to get a long start, they are not beyond overtaking, if we are ready to act vigorously on our belief, built up on the sure foundation of many years' experience, that we have something to offer the Chinese which they do appreciate and that the winning of their personal regard is certainly not less possible for us than for others.
It would be folly to pretend that the original motive of these well endowed educational establishments that we see about China was not the furtherance of trade. The German business firms which offered to supply the plant if their own Government would supply the teachers did so because they wanted to cultivate a taste for German products among Chinese buyers. No; Chinese supposes that foreigners leave their own countries and come to Asia for their health.
Amicable trade relations are a very good basis for international friendship and there is no sense or use in pretending otherwise. But while this has to be recognized, we may fairly claim that the universities which it is desired to establish have their higher purpose. For whatever motive we choose to name, Westerners have brought a large section of Young China along a new path and it is their bounden duty to see that their followers are not left until the goal is reached. Yet that is y nearly what is happening today. The divine discontent ci the West (if divine it really be) has stirred toa certain depth the fatalism of the East. It has evoked brilliant visions but it has not yet taught the visionaries how they may be realized. If Young China be left at that stage to grope out its own solution of the problems to which Western influence has brought it, the whole world will suffer unrest for no one can tell how many decades, Consciousiy or unconsciously every foreigner who comes to Asia is a missionary, and there are only two courses open to him. either to go away, leaving Asia to relapse into the ancient dreams from which she is beginning to awake, or to push resolutely forward in the belief that the message We express in our lives, our habits and our conversation is one that she may accept and have profit therefrom, if only she be Versed in it to the end.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.