34 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



so as to hang from the telegraph wire^ they would have the good luck 

 to be as swift of foot as was the electric message in its transmission. 



3. Because of its contact with the west in trade, religion and educa- 

 tion, and chiefly under the influence of mission schools the Chinese 

 government has altered its educational policy, and the changes in the 

 method of instruction and the system of education are for the most 

 part tending to develop a spirit of inquiry and an appreciation of the 

 inductive method, which will after a while begin to yield due fruit. 

 When the influence of returned students who have been adequately 

 trained in western countries and that of the graduates from first-class 

 mission and government colleges becomes more potent, we can expect 

 to see a much more rapid development of the educational system, but 

 here again the magnitude of the undertaking and the difficulties as to 

 efficient teaching force and adequate resources are such, that only 

 natives can handle the ultimate solution. We teachers from abroad 

 can hardly expect to do more than to give the impulse and to help in 

 the preparation of the vanguard of such an advance. 



4. When special and general education has proceeded far enough 

 to provide the trained men needed to make the various adjustments 

 involved in the tremendously complex and many-sided renaissance of 

 this nation and to have provided the background of an enlightened 

 people, there will of a surety be found among Chinese students many 

 who will desire to follow the torch of learning and of truth for its own 

 sake, some of whom, we believe, will attain a high degree of analytical 

 power and experimental skill, for the Chinese after all are capable of 

 exact and careful thought under right conditions, and moreover possess 

 unusual patience and manual skill, so that in the long run we think 

 they may be distinguished in regard to scientific attainments pretty 

 much as the Germans have been for the last century. There are to-day 

 in some of the universities of America and Europe Chinese students 

 who in laboratory work in physics and other natural sciences are dis- 

 tinguishing themselves even in comparison with western students. 

 The Chinese have a power of application and patience and a capacity 

 for detail that is destined to bring success in scientific inquiry when 

 once they get the background, adopt the method and make the start. 



5. The irresistible progress destined to be made by western science 

 in the Chinese empire will surely undermine Chinese faith in the 

 " Book of Changes," which is at the base of Chinese philosophy. What- 

 ever is permanently true will remain in imperishable blocks, but the 

 structure as a whole will fall in ruins, with Chinese ideals pitilessly 

 and irrevocably shattered. At this critical period of the disintegration 

 of outworn forces, what new moral and spiritual ideas are to replace 

 the old in order that the new state of these people may not be worse 

 than the first? 



