duly 17, Indeed it is difficult to imagine an argument more"likely to appeal to the present Government at Nanking than. the impressive declaration of patriotic Chinese citizens pleading for the preservation of their educational rights. The suggestions which have " inspired order, would be ludicrous were the issue less important. The idea. that religious education, as imparted. in the mission schools, furthers the imperialistic aims of Western Powers has only to be stated to be dismissed with of the Christian Community in China Against the Ministry of Education's regulations—regarding religious instruction in schools will assuredly receive! careful and sympathetic thought! from men who owe so much to the system which is declared to be in danger. Registration of Schools by the Ministry may enables author-subversive institutions, The Question is that of the conditions which it is desired to attach to registration, The petition which was published yesterday re-Presents no foreign inter) tion of this issue. The: signa tories are Chinese who stand for three-fourths of the Chine Christians in this countr; definitely assert that the large number of schools maintained by the various mission interes cerned will have to close down. The signatories, very ni are chiefly exerci: effect which such els ye on the member of their munity, The 1 generaved of its only source of education for the battle of life; it would be condemned to struggle against the handicap of imperfect training and it would be cast into the outer darkness of and nor ance.
There is another problem: these mi established schools by the grace of funds supplied by generous donors principally outside China, The intention of those donors is not in doubt. That the intention has been honoured with due regard to the broad principles of tolerance always desirable in strange land, few would seriously deny. The agents of that trust—the directors of the various missions—eannot false to it. Compliance with the terms of the regulation of the Ministry of Education is therefore in all probability impossible to entertain for a moment, That, 80 far.as can be judged, is not merely the attitude of the 'Missions as interpreted by the signatories to the protest, it 18 Likely to be endorsed by' other Christian missions as well—to say nothing of the independent Chinese Church. Thus the Nai King Government have viously to consider. the reaching implications of their order as it stands. It clear-the ridicule it deserves. The really vital question is whether the Ministry's order is not unconsciously inspired -by forces which in Eastern Europe and Western Asia have thrown down religion from its high places-and have set up in. its: place an empty, soulless-impiety which i8 far more fanatical, far more bigoted and far more destructive of national liberty than any religion yet known to man. it will be argued, no doubt, that, apart from Moscow, there is a modern school of philosophy' which, while affecting high educational aims and principles, sternly condemnatory of the delusion of religion in the curricula. of schools;—This philosophy may be all that its! devotees claim' for it If it be, it will falsity the experience of man from the earliest times and the inquiry may well be made whether its chief exponents are themselves beyond reproach in the certainty of their views ile dismissal of religion factory to the empirical adventurer, It is an uncomfortable: theory for the statesman. to adopt, Even now Russia has yot to learn to the full what the attack on her ancient faiths will eventually mean. One thing i train: attempts to secularize education on the basis of autocratic negation of the elementary rights of citizenship must fail. They will, in fact, rally the very forees which they de to weaken. When a Chine dent, for example, is refused a passport to America unless he or she undertakes to refrain from studying religion in the country of educational choice, there is at once created the conditions which make either for dissimulation and chicanery, or for defiant embrace of principles which the ban seeks to destroy. Nationalism built up on this foundation cannot attain to stability. It has its origin in pretences too fantastic for progress to be secured. On this ground alone, leaving aside the material and legal aspects of the problem, the protest of the Chinese' Churches should com mand earnest consideration. The Ministry, as a whole, cannot be greatly enamoured of this order or the policy which it expresss. This view is reinforced by perusal of another order which just emanated from the Propaganda Bureau of thi Central Executive Committee".
The purport of this order is to forbid church and mission schools to keep ly gives rise to the liveest apprehension in. the minds of well-informed. Chinese solicitous on. the one hand. for the welfare of their.children and on the other for the progress of China itself.
"religious books, magazines; papers, pictures, ete. in their libraries (including rooms) because the latter are instruments to drug' youth. and. make them. blind. to knowledge and thinking!
That the order has evoked protest of this kind is a matter for congratulation,—It shows that where they appreciate the value of a gift, Chinese: leaders of thought ' are not reluctant to enter the field. in defence of it and also realize the responsibility of this is for them to shoulder.
The order, after exempting from its operation religious literature supplied to colleges and senior middle schools for reference purposes or for philosophical study, concludes:
"AIL grades of church and mission schools are not permitted to: have religious pictures. This order is to be strictly observed."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.