SCIENCE AMONG THE CHINESE 33 



V. The Outlook 



1. Tlie language difficulty is being struggled with, style is being 

 simplified, punctuation lias been introduced. The language is growing 

 and becoming clearer in the hands of modern trained Chinese. The 

 development of the language so as to be able adequately to express the 

 content of modern knowledge presents a most tremendous problem, 

 which only native scholars highly trained in modern thought and 

 equally familiar with their native tongue and its previous development 

 can solve. It will take time, but this difficulty will ultimately be over- 

 come. It is, however, an even greater problem than would have been 

 presented had all the content of modern knowledge knocked at the 

 door of eleventh-century English and demanded immediate expression. 

 The unification of the language of the Empire as foreshadowed by the 

 present determination to make Mandarin universally known will of 

 course aid in this development. So long as this language difficulty 

 remains so largely unsolved, it will be necessary to conduct the higher 

 grades of instruction in the sciences with English as the medium — at 

 least for those who are themselves to be leaders in this renaissance. To 

 have a share in the preparation of men who will solve this problem is 

 about as far as the foreigner can hope to go. 



2. A more widespread contact with translations of western books is 

 slowly but surely bringing the reading Chinese into a fuller apprecia- 

 tion of western or more scientific thinking. Their increasing familiar- 

 ity with the inventions and methods of the west is undermining their 

 superstition, as is also the spread of Christian theology. Eecently we 

 came across two very amusing indications of the difficulties involved in 

 such an awakening among the common people — one in Shantung and 

 one in Hunan, both with regard to the telegraph. 



In Shantung an old farmer was seen contemplating the telegraph 

 wire as it wended its crooked way across his fields. His neighbor 

 remarked that the men who could devise and make use of such a line 

 for the transmission of intelligence could do anything, but the old man 

 replied that he did not think it was worth very much, because he had 

 sat for some weeks watching the wire closely and he had not yet seen 

 anything go by. 



In Hunan, in traversing the main high road from Heng Chow to 

 Yung Chow, we noticed a great number of worn-out straw sandals of 

 carrying coolies, tied in pairs, hanging over the telegraph wire at many 

 places along the line. At one place between poles, there were at least a 

 dozen pairs, and on inquiring of the coolies what the meaning was, 

 we learned that since the coolies were paid by the journey it was very 

 advantageous for them to be swift of foot, and so when their sandals 

 were worn out with much travel, if they succeeded in tossing a pair 



VOL. LXXX. - 3. 



