Commenting on the directions of this Inevitable evolution, Sir Frederick observed that this phase of 'China seems to be particularly exerising the Chinese themselves. "To-@ay the Chinese are taking' stock, jas it were," remarked the visitor. "Those who were students during the early years of the 20th Century realise in their maturity, that the process of swallowing whole the entire message of western culture could not be accomplished. As a result, all serious Chinese students of their own situation are reviewing the past believe that the Chinese were so fascinated by evidences of Western power that they were ready to imimitate everything Western," he said, adding, "Unfortunately, they missed the essential point in' our historic development, namely this—the respective positions of Europe and America have been won naturally, the modern world. They have not been derived from forms of government or military power—they have sprung from the essential character of the nations themselves. To-day. the Chinese are beginning to get down to realities. Therefore, despite widespread disillusionment over the political results: of nationalism. the situation is fundamentally hopeful."
Queried on the pessimism that pre-valls in some quarters, Sir Frederick admitted that "pessimism is bound to prevail amongst the short-sighted, but," he declared, "with the long view, which must be that of the Chinese themselves, the whole development is fraught with hope. That hope lies, on the political and economic sides, in the fact that China slowly but surely emerging from the noisy propagandist and sentiment al phase. "Intelligent Chinese are endeavouring to sift the facts in their own situation, and because the limita. tion of their number is such that they constitute a nucleus in the vast theatre of Chin lems."
"However," continued Sir Frederick, "it is true, I've found in my personal experience, that the great masses of foreign-educated Chinese have completely lost touch with their own people and their own historical, traditional, and cultural back-ground, Hence at one time, there was a clash betwixt those who were inclined to let things take their destined cours and those who insisted upon promulgating purely Western modes. of solution. Happily for China, the majority of those in positions of leadership to-day are, in most instances, Chinese educated abroad who have earned the fundamental application of solentine methods in the solution of contemporary problems, without at all losing their own in: valuable reverence for their essentially Chinese traditions."
Thus, despite various influences and currents abroad in the land, Sir Frederick believes that the hew processes of adaptation, rather than those of adoption, will eventuate to China's ultimate achievement as a nation, without loss of the purely Chinese aspects of society inherited from the ast.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.