io6 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



whose very position is an outcome of the system they are commanded to 

 aid in abolishing. An edict after all is only an edict, and it may be 

 too early yet to say just how it will be received when its measures begin 

 actually to operate. It seems scarcely credible that it will go into 

 full effect without some opposition in some quarters. Nevertheless, 

 it is sure that, be the opposition what it may, the new regime is bound 

 to triumph and produce mighty results at no far distant date. ' Out of 

 the shadows of night an emjhre rolls into light. It is daybreak every- 

 where.' 



In order to understand the ' ins and outs ' of educational reform, 

 as well as of reform in general, during the last decade in China, it is 

 necessary to review a bit of Chinese court history. 



In 1875, Prince Tsai Tien, then four years old, was selected by his 

 aunt, the empress dowager, to succeed on the dragon throne her son, 

 the Emperor Tung Chih. who had just died at the age of eighteen. 

 In so doing she was led by motives of policy. There were two dis- 

 tinctly more eligible princes whom she ignored in order to hold the 

 reins of government more completely in her own hands, for they were 

 young men likely to desire to have their own way. All the con- 

 spiracies to oust the empress dowager and her partisans resulting 

 from the choice of the infant Kuang Hsii, which was the reigning 

 title conferred on him, were promptly crushed by the late Marquis 

 Li Hung-chang, then viceroy of Chihli, who occupied the ' Forbidden 

 City ' with his foreign-drilled troops. In 1889 his majesty was per- 

 mitted by the empress dowager nominally to assume the reins of gov- 

 ernment, with herself, of course, as principal adviser and director of 

 affairs. For nearly ten years nothing worthy of note can be recorded, 

 except that his actions were dominated by the influence and policy of 

 his aunt. But the psychological moment, though utterly unforeseen, 

 was fast approaching. 



Through the continued influence of the mission schools and col- 

 leges throughout the land and the increasing contact in trade and 

 diplomacy with western nations, western learning in all its depart^ 

 ments assumed an increasing value, and ideas of change began to fer- 

 ment in the Chinese mind. Prince Kung of the imperial family ad- 

 dressed the throne prior to the Japanese War, declaring that the 

 progress of the empire demanded the casting aside of their superficial 

 learning and the acquisition of the arts and sciences which are the 

 foundation of the prosperity of western nations. Encouraged by the 

 governmental approval of certain modern schools established in Shang- 

 hai and Tientsin, other men having the ear of the emperor, who was 

 profoundly moved by the result of the war with Japan and clearly saw 

 that there must be something wrong with his country and its mode of 

 government, advocated the new education, and their pleas, aided by the 



