Washington, Mar, 7.
Volumes of almost priceless "Chi nese ancient. books td: manuscripts wed. from possible destruction a war sweeps arose China, are: pours ing tothe United Sates tu "ateak According to Dr. Arthur Hummel, chiier of the Oriental Division th Eeherations, but which have "been Sole for pili sums partly to avoid heir fang Into. the hands of the Japanese army and. partly to keep alive Chinese owners who. ate Nov The Library of Congress attends 200,000 Chinese. volumes on ite shelves, but there ate being added toby the thousand ay the Library's ants in China purchase them, Bans Sihers are going into the. ovaries "American universities tu various Dox the count. of what happens in CI tary vast immoch may that regards
mount of the onl Sind ind Chin ax Gnsheined in its literature Will "be preserved safely in this country. But for this, he says, the situation in China "might be' like that which followed the fall Rome in Europe when four centuries of "darkness" ousted The great official " libraries, Hummel goes on, are largely inthe hands of Ameriein institutions, Now comes the turn of books and mani~ scripts in private ownership and nobody knows what treasures of art, ancient science and Titerature" mas not be found "among them, "He forexces the day When the. scholar Chinese history and philosophy will go not to Peiping but to Washington to pursue his advanced studies, Dr. Mwnmet sayx families are parting with their books with great regret but' they face the" aller= natives of Jetting them go into the hands of sympathetic foreigners oF see them lost for ever, the books which recently ved in America are thou histories in great detail concerning almost every corner China, "Curiously each of them, in jealing with local worthies, gives unch space to. the achievements of women, generally "supposed to. have been oppressed, Others are Inw books and legal ease histories, the existence fof which had not been known before.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.