There is little doubt that a great future awaits these young men if they will grasp it. Not many years &go the word student in China was synonymous for insubordination and intransigence. The first batch sent to America in the 1870's were swiftly brought home when the visiting mandarin reported to Peking that they were simply turning into denationalized revolutionaries. In the lurid years of Tuchun warfare from 1922- 30, it looked as if this foreboding had been verified. Every Chinese college seemed to be a hotbed of sedition, and in the centre of every commotion students were the chief agitators.
One sees those days in better perspective now. Violent and often jameworthy as the students were, they represented a force for good. The old scholar class who had led China for so many centuries had vanished, the new students boldly claimed their mantle, and in so doing represented the birth of public opinion against the bad conditions of the day. It is not too much to say that the solidarity and energy of the Chinese student body are largely responsible for the wondrous unity which China now shows against Japan.
The Chinese Government has been blamed for refusing so many students leave to fight. But it looks to the future, when trained minds and hands "will be needed to rebuild the shattered country. It is pleasant to think that Great Britain is doing something to equip China's young men for that day.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.