35o POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



trained educators. Educational institutions are expensive and even 

 the missionaries who were skilled in the art of teaching had no money 

 for the necessary equipment. 



The main reason why no teachers of high standing, who could hold 

 professorships in any of the reputable colleges at home, have been work- 

 ing in China is the lack of money and facilities to induce them to 

 come. When a scholar leaves civilization to go to regions far from 

 home he must see some advantage in going. If he can go with a finan- 

 cial gain or library and laboratory advantages, he is willing to sacrifice 

 the comforts and conveniences of the homeland. But China did not 

 have the money to pay for high-salaried teachers or to provide any 

 library or laboratory inducements for the scholar. 



Nowadays we hear much of the colleges of western learning which 

 the Chinese government proposes to establish in all parts of the empire. 

 This calls to mind another difficulty, viz., the inability of the Chinese 

 to manage a school properly. Most of the Chinese who try to start 

 institutions of learning have no idea what a foreign college looks like. 

 They have no means of knowing how to select men; neither are they 

 capable of knowing whether the teachers whom they employ know how 

 to give instruction. Formerly they thought that any foreigner could 

 teach any or all of the subjects constituting ' western ' learning. 

 There were always plenty of unscrupulous foreigners willing to take 

 advantage of the ignorance of the Chinese regarding educational affairs 

 and to pose as ' professors ' of anything or everything for the sake of 

 the salaries. There were also numerous equally unscrupulous Chinese, 

 who, having obtained a smattering of English in some foreign land, 

 returned to China and undertook to give instruction in many branches. 



Experience with such impostors has taught the Chinese to be sus- 

 picious of eve^body and everything concerning western learning. We 

 can not blame them for this. Confused by such experiences and rein- 

 forced by their profound ignorance of modern education, the Chinese 

 school managers are exceedingly difficult to ' handle/ Notwithstand- 

 ing their good intentions, they really do not know what they intend 

 to do. As a result, the instructors whom they employ have to spend a 

 large portion of their energy in managing the ' school-managers,' in- 

 stead of being free to devote all of their attention to their school work 

 proper. 



Most of the schools in China, present as well as past, have big 

 names only, regulations by the volume and curricula which exist only 

 on paper. With their characteristic power in imitation and their time- 

 honored conservatism, the Chinese school trustees want to follow this 

 or that school instead of leaving the instructors free to administer the 

 affairs of each school in accordance with its own peculiar needs. 



What China needs to-day is not so much the higher theoretical 



