About. Girl Students It Is amall wonder that the modern young Ghinese woman should. come in for her share of censure on the score of radicalism, disregard standing traditions and a bob-haired abandonment of her a at heritage. Apart from the facts on: hears, confirming all this, there the-alluring pastime, which the whole world has yielded to, of finding fault with the "modern" woman.
The Yerm is supposed to cover a multitude of And no amount of probing under the venser by Kindly souls counteract the hue and ery raised by thoro remembering the charms of a by-gone femininity.
China, too, has her poetical fancy about the reigning beauties of. the past. The conservative ranks find much fault with Chinese women's new freedom. Yet, the battalion of sturdy young women, some, it is true, a bit breath-taking in' their behaviour, makes the old types seem as wan and out of place as a rosebud pressed—for sentimental reasons—between the pages of one of Bertrand Russell's textbooks.
This and much more was to be gained from a visit to an able Chinese woman educationalist who has been making mental notes for a number of years about China's changing young womanhood. She is 'Miss Kao Kun-shan, at present professor of education' at the Fourth Chungsan University (formerly the Southeastern University) at king, and a member of the Ministry of Education, for examining and revising text-books used in clemotitary and secondary schools.
Miss Kao, a graduate of the local institution, St, Mary's Hall, and holder of BS, and M.A. degrees, in Education, from Columbia University in New York, shows an understanding of the young women of her country to-day, which can only come through close ' contact. She holds that the real students of the present time are not radicals, two interesting points stand out. Although officially open. ty women, few of the ce-educational univer: tities or colleges have an enrolment vf girl students equal to more than present equipment dormitories do not lend them-solves to large numbers of women students. As a second point, the average young radical, whose fancy is piqued by that most alluring of all games, in which feminine proficiency is' now as assured as masculine—polities—is not a college graduate, side activities, and thus it is thata Chinese girl, who enters a co-educational college to compete among men students, is generally a quiet type who reads enormously, and is, in fact, something of a "blue stocking." Besides being bookish, she is by instinct a bit shy of' public opinion, and s0 has very little contact with the men students outside of the classroom. She is demure and studious, and, almost without exception, docs excellent work. And considering the small opportunity she has to meet, in a social way, any of her fellow-classmates, it continue to be a source of wonderment how she manages, as she occasionally does, to culminate in matrimony the shy romance which has begun for her in the classroom. More often, however, she aims at foing to a foreign university. Sometimes, too, she thinks longingly of a career in the public sense, for her scholastic training makes her a valuable asset to executives in pol ties, But as a type, Miss Kao st tes most emphatically, the "ce-ed" is a conservative. You will practically never find her in the ranks of the radicals.
Throwing OM Inhibitions Her more strenuous sister, who frequently comes before the sea: alized public eye because of her shocking escapades, is quite another type. Like all consctvative Chinese, Miss Kao cannot dwell lovingly Spon the really radical young woman, Yet she thinks, in all fair-.\ness, that the radical has made a definite place for herself in public affairs, Men do not approve of the type, and the old saying that "she is not the kind of girl men marry"
often heard in conversation about the radical young woman. Unfortunately for the soothsayers, how-over, she sometimes is the type men marry, and these men.are generally her ce-workers. Miss Kao thinks The Girl "Radical" v, "Ca-Ed"
The latter is generally a product of tris' normal schools, where she received good training—if unconscious on the part of her edueators—in radicalism. When in school, she was forced to hide none of her lights under the traditional bushel. She none of the inferiority which ercop into the minds of Chinese girls in ce-due generally, where the of men students as well as actual numbers of them dominate, 'Thus the student in a girls' school can blossom into a full-blown radical unhindered, if her temperament is 80 to begin with, Moreover, her powers of leadership are much developed. that the Chinese as a race are not conservative, Hence, the natural growth of the radical young Chinese woman. One of the things which bespeaks most eloquently her "new freedom" is her underlying disregard of what men may think of her. As these short-haired young women, who talk about free love and government positions in the same breath, are no longer concerned with the search for a rich husband to give them ease ai position, and as they are given important posts in the various ministries, ete, what is the worry? So they question blandly and continue to do as they please regardless of masculine censure. But this radicalism can only be looked on as a phase, Miss Kao thinks, and as essential values do remain the same Miss Kao characterizes the real student, however, as a distinctly conservative type, The thirst for Knowledge precludes strenu.us out throughout the ages, it is quite likely that the pendulum, swung too balance—LBW, far to one side, will find its middle
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.