There is nothing in combined action which is foreign to their capacity, for they have practised village democracy for centuries, reaching common conclusions upon the matters within the limited competence of the village authorities; and " the authorities have acted in" responsibility to the governed numbers, looking downward for the approval which could be easily given or held, But when the field is wider, and the word of mouth will not carry freely among the members of the body politic, a certain amount of education must come in, so that the written word may supplement the spoken, and an avenue of.intelligfence be opened to the popular mind through which it may be empower-effect the union, achieve strength, and may also learn to avoid such use ofts, power as would involve destraction, instead of Bro-motion, of the people's: common interests.
'An overwhelming proportion of] the' Chinese people is illiterate and densely ignorant.' 'The' percentage of, illiteracy -has been' variously estimated. "There ate rio statistics. But shortly before the overthrow of the Enipire' the Chi. nese Government, in'connection with one of its schemes of reform, estifpated that after its educational should be in operation for number of ieralgs reduced to 99 per cent of the population. This is probably overstated; but being a Chinese governmental estimate, it does not err through motive. Other students of China have placed the literates at [between 98% per cent and 97. At all events it is enormous.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.