July 23. 6 There is no modern country in the world in.which scientific research has had so many obstacles to overcome as China and yet, this is an almost untouched field about which just enough is Imown by students, working along a dozen different lines of investigation, to make it "fai cinatingly attractive. For generations, as we all know, superstition-and suspicion, prejudice and the physical difficulty of getting about in China, stood in the way. way of research work in almost, of research work in almost every undertaking. The most sinister interpretations were -put upon archaeological, surgical, medic: metalhirgical'and topographical work, and suspicion was attached even to botanical and geological prospecting. It is less than century since a study of the! Chinese language by foreigners was profoundly resented by all Chiniese officialdom and Chiniese who assisted aliens to acquire' Jatowledge of the characters were looked upon as traitors and were threatened with heavy] penalties, One by one such Prejudices and—superstitions were overcome as more and more Chinese were educated abroad, 'a8 mission and government, schools familiarized thousands of youths with scientific teaching, and as army and navy schools introduced technical cow which made clear the purpose of the mysterious and suspicious activities of foreign scientists. Confidence in foreign medi and surgical practice countless thousands were fited and scientific 1 these fields was no longer traced by all Chinese to some devilish and malevolent purpose.
Whatever: suspicions and pre-}- judices were left as obstacles to ielentific work in China seemed to be disappearing rapidly about the time of the revolution and, during the early years of the Republic, China began to attract scientists of all sorts and the country began to yield up a tremendous store of fascinating' facts, substantiated by equally fascinating collections, One could go nowhere without encountering great or small ex-! peditions - of zoologists and botanists, archeologists and anthropologists, geologists and entomologists, while hospitals arose everywhere through which contributions to medical knowledge were disseminated, Then came civil war and banditry, spreading year by year over a larger and larger area, developing from sporadic outbreaks into a continuous performance, until a but-tortly hunt or the survey of an ancient city fifty miles from railway became as much of an adventure in China as in the Warkest heart of Africa. The dangers of civil war, the risk of] being captured by bandits, of] being fired upon by pirates, of losing collections that were the fruits of hard work in primitive country, and the ever-increasing, difficulties of transport through war.zones, began to deter some prospective investigators in China but by no means frightened all from their various fields; and scientific research might have gone on, over-riding obstacles as Chinese commerce does, taking long chances in the face of grave danger, had it not been for the development, a few! years ago, of this all-stultifying foreignism. This newly cultivated prejudice, founded in nothing that China has any reason to be proud of, sets scientific work in this country back] almost. precisely to where it was in the year 1827.
We. reproduced on Tuesday a -long: statement from Mr. Roy! Chapman Andrews, leader of the American Museum of.. Natural History.. expeditions. into. Outer Mongolia; which isa vigorous protest against the shortsighted, mean and petty spirit of "Nationalist" as it manifests itself in opposition to scientific expeditions in China for the sole reason that the investigators are foreigners. We should have been prepared to support Mr. 'Andrews, Dr. Sven Hedin, Mr, Langdon' Warner of Harvard and Mr. Carl Bishop of the Smithsonian Institution and a dozen other scientists, not to mention the sores of medical men from up-country hospitals, ]who find it utterly impossible.to Jearry on' serious and important Jwork, of real interest to the whole learned world, because of the vociferous opposition of, ignorant and spiteful youngsters who pretend to be inspired by the spirit of "Nationalism" in very much stronger express: sions "of feeling than Mr. Andrews' statement. For the {feeling that is behind opposition to bona fide scientific work in [China, one finds it impossible to Jcultivate the least sympathy; for if there is any field in which the whole world belongs to all {the world's peoples and in which barriers of prejudice and ignorance are resented, it is the field lof scientific research, Next to ithe campaign against Christianity there is nothing that will eventually contribute more to the alienation of international goodwill from China than this spiteful campaign—_ against scientific study. Even Soviet, Russia has had the " sagacity throughout her most hydrophobie periods to make as smooth Jas conditions would permit the path of the scientific investigator jand has even gone out of her Jway, by providing for confer-lenees of scientific men in Russia, to prove that she was not altogether barbarous. © In old {Imperial Russia there were areas 80 strictly guarded against esjpionage that the ordinary trave feller had almost to be a personal. friend of the Tsar to lget. permission to cross them; lout over-these areas almost-any scientist with' credentials' could RIX
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.