MODERN CHINESE COLLECTIONS IN HISTORICAL LIGHT 



WITH ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE AMERICAN MUSEUM'h COLLECTION 

 REPRESENTATIVE OF CHINESE CULTURE A DECADE AGO 



By BrrthoUl Laufrr 



THE transfonnatioii of the Chinese Empire from u theocratic-patri- 

 archal system of government into a modern commonwealth on a 

 constitutional and republican basis, effected within the span of a 

 few months, is sure always to remain one of the unique phenomena in con- 

 temporaneous events and certainly one of far-reaching consequence for the 

 future history of the world. Whether there possibly is a causal connection 

 between this singular fact of the rejuvenation of the oldest existing nation 

 and the construction of the greatest wonder of modern engineering, the 

 Panama Canal, is a matter to be left for individual speculation. Certain 

 it is that the China of the future will rank as the second greatest republic, 

 and that the completion of the canal will bring into closest touch the two 

 foremost republics of the world. The republican idea reverberates over 

 the waters of the Pacific from one shore to the other. The Pacific now 

 recapitulates the spectacle seen when culture development was largely 

 concentrated around the Mediterranean, and reached its climax in the 

 republican governments of Greece and Rome. 



The fundamental reform of Chinese government, of law, finance and 

 education, of commercial and industrial factors will naturally result in a 

 proportionate change of the entire culture of the country. Such a change 

 has gradually set in since 1900 and has gone a rapid pace during the last 



lite;., 



Masks used in mystery plays in Peking, at the left an aerial demon, at the riglit a grave- 

 yard ghoul. The central mask represents one of the four Great Kings of Heaven; in the 

 gates of almost every Buddhistir teiniile in (Miina are eolossal clay statues showing the golden 

 crown, the large rings in the ears, the wide open mouth surrounded by flames 



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