446 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



positions so great that in many of the lower schools it is almost a case 

 of the blind leading the blind. This, too, is gradually righting itself as 

 the number of graduates of the new system increase. A third disadvan- 

 tage is the coordinate of the second; the students entering a school are 

 seldom properly prepared to undertake the work prescribed for them. 

 These early defects of adjustment will gradually be outgrown — rapidly 

 outgrown when the control of educational affairs comes into the hands 

 of really competent officials. The hampering effect of these officials is 

 well seen in the case of the Imperial University of Peking (which must 

 not be confused with Peking University, an American Methodist insti- 

 tution). This has, in some sense, been the outgrowth of the Tung-wen- 

 Kuan, established under the scholarly Dr. W. A. P. Martin many years 

 ago. Like an unsuccessful corporation, it has gone through a series of 

 reorganizations and at last seems firmly established with a large staff 

 of foreign and Chinese professors and, with modern buildings in course 

 of erection, should do effective work. 



A marked feature of the situation is that the most effective educa- 

 tional work is now being done by schools that are not a regular part of 

 the system and have, therefore, to some degree at least, escaped official 

 control. The number of such institutions is remarkably great, some of 

 them having been in existence before 1902, and others having sprung up 

 to meet real or fancied special needs since that time. Of these easily 

 the first is the Imperial Pei-Yang University at Tientsin, which was 

 founded by Dr. Charles D. Tenney (who had been tutor to the family of 

 H. E. Li Hung-chang) before 1900 and was reorganized by him in 1902, 

 after its destruction in the Boxer outbreak. This remarkably able man, 

 who is now Chinese Secretarv to the American Legation in Peking, also 

 organized the school system of the entire province of Chihli, and it is 

 to his effective work that the great growth of modern education in 

 Chihli shown in the preceding table is largely due. The effective work 

 of the Pei-Yang University has been due to its having been almost free 

 from official control during development, at first under the administra- 

 tion of Dr. Tenney and later under Wang Shoh-lien, an equally able 

 Chinese, who, though educated in England for the naval service, has 

 done the most effective work of any Chinese in the development of the 

 new system. When the national and provincial boards of education are 

 composed of men of this calibre, educational progress will be rapid. 

 Graduation from this institution is recognized by American universities 

 as equivalent to attaining the B.S. degree; it thus enjoys the unique dis- 

 tinction of being the only Chinese institution of learning whose degree 

 (Chin-shih) is recognized abroad. It should be added here that this, 

 and all other schools, can not grant a degree jjer se; the school devotes 

 itself to the work of instruction; degrees are granted upon examination 

 by an official board created for the purpose. This school is now prac- 

 tically a part of the regular system. 



