10S POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



schools of three grades: (1) in provincial capitals, (2) in prefectural 

 cities, (3) in district cities, and demanded an immediate census of 

 existing colleges and free schools providing that funds for education 

 be derived from the earnings of the China Merchants' Steam Naviga- 

 tion Company, the Imperial Telegraph Administration, the Weising 

 Lottery and the gifts of wealthy men, who were to be rewarded with 

 rank beyond the usual scale. All memorial or other temples, except 

 those in which sacrifices are required by edict, were to be turned into 

 schools and colleges for the new learning, and all who studied in and 

 graduated from these new institutions were to be accepted in the gov- 

 ernment service in the usual way. Other edicts commended copy- 

 right and patent privileges and offered rewards to authors of books 

 and inventors of machinery and works of utility. 



Considerable consternation was caused by these decrees. So long, 

 however, as the reforms did not interfere with the dominance of the 

 dowager, she offered no great opposition; but when the reformers 

 aimed at her confinement at Eho Park, so as to remove her from the 

 scene of action, she, backed by the reactionary party, which, after all, 

 comprised the most powerful portion of both the metropolitan and the 

 provisional mandarinate, promptly brought about the coup d'etat of 

 September 22, 1898, by which her majesty removed Kuang Hsu from 

 power, became regent both in name and in fact once more, ordered the 

 execution of Kang Yu-wei and many of his supporters of lesser rank, 

 and cashiered those of higher station. Kang Yu-wei escaped, but six 

 promising young men were put to death without trial within a few 

 days. On November 13, the empress dowager issued a decree ap- 

 proving a memorial from the ministers of the Board of Eites, dilating 

 on " the supreme importance of making it known throughout the whole 

 empire that there are to be no changes from the old method of literary 

 examinations among candidates for degrees, in order to set at rest, once 

 for all, the present uncertainty that has been caused by the emperor's 

 recent reform measures in the above direction." 



Thus an era of intensified, bigoted conservatism returned, and 

 strange to say, the literati, who as the real leaders of the people had for 

 so many years solidly opposed western education, were the chief mourn- 

 ers. According to Mr. E. E. Lewis, there is evidence that in the in- 

 land provinces of Honan, Hunan, Shansi and Szechuan, as well as in 

 the literary centers nearer the port cities, the literati were greatly dis- 

 appointed when the Manchu clan leaders crushed the plans of reform. 

 This new attitude of the literati was a revelation to most onlookers and 

 foreshadowed the remarkable way in which more recent changes have 

 been received by them. 



The leaven which the emperor had introduced was working in the 

 empire, though he himself was a discredited prisoner in his own palace. 



