February 14, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



261 



coolie, why should not a coolie he always 

 remain? Is not education disquieting to 

 the individual and disturbing to society? 

 Is it not better for man to be half blind 

 and content than to see plainly and be dis- 

 contented? Such questioning is in the air 

 at Peking, Wauchang and Shanghai. It 

 serves, if not to cut the name of education, 

 at least to dull its enthusiasms. 



But the severest difficulty found in the 

 progi'ess of Chinese education lies in the 

 lack of a sufficient number of good teachers. 

 The government, provincial and national, 

 went into the work of education as a sort 

 of leap into the dark. It adopted and 

 created the material forms and forces of 

 education, which are evident and impres- 

 sive enough. It built schoolhouses, large 

 and long and high. In not a few capitals 

 the schoolhouses are the most impressive 

 structures. But the government failed to 

 take proper account of the fact that, if it is 

 easy to build a schoolhouse, it is hard to 

 get a teacher. Teachers can not be made 

 in a year as can a schoolhouse. The gov- 

 ernment did not put the cart of the school 

 before the horse of the teacher, for though 

 there was the cart there was no horse. 

 Teachers in a sense are grown ; and growth, 

 unlike manufacturing, takes much time. 

 Therefore, while there were and are school- 

 houses, and also pupils, in abundance, too 

 great abundance in a sense, there was and 

 is a dearth of teachers. The gun was 

 made and mounted, but there was no gun- 

 ner to fire it. In such a dearth incom- 

 petency flourishes. But the dearth was 

 and is so great that the number Of even 

 incompetent teachers proves to be insuf- 

 ficient. Some schoolhouses are, therefore, 

 houses without schools, and other school- 

 houses are only half occupied. In such a 

 condition Japan would even now be 

 plunged, had she not established normal 

 schools— and some excellent ones, too— for 



ti-aining teachers. This need of Japan 

 President Eliot pointed out a generation 

 ago. China has normal schools, but they 

 are new, and they, too, lack proper teachers. 

 The fact is that China went into this great 

 work of the education of a quarter of the 

 population of the globe without proper 

 prevision or provision. The mission 

 schools and colleges, such as St. Johns, at 

 Shanghai, and the North China Union Col- 

 lege, near Peking, are implored by the 

 government officials to send teachers to the 

 government schools, but these colleges and 

 others like them, in many cases, can not, 

 simply because the supply is inadequate. 



It may be said that the dearth of good 

 teachers in the government schools of China 

 should prove to be an impressive fact to 

 the American man who is graduating at 

 his college. Teachers of English and of 

 the sciences are specially needed. Many 

 motives, selfward and altruistic, would 

 urge him to go to China on graduation. 

 He can earn twice as much money as a 

 teacher in China as he can at home. He 

 can gather up into his manhood experi- 

 ences, new, diverse, moving and enriching. 

 Whether he can do more good than at home 

 is a personal question, in which a stranger 

 should not meddle. But, if meeting re- 

 sponsive minds, eager and by nature strong, 

 which are to become makers of other minds, 

 represents an opportunity for doing much 

 good, certainly the Chinese government 

 schools represent a very rich opportunity. 



These difficulties which I thus outline are 

 very general and constant. The teachers 

 now on the ground are dealing with them 

 as best they may. Both foreign teachers 

 and native are laboring together to over- 

 come what obstacles they can not remove, 

 and to remove all that can be removed. 

 The problem is hard. The quantitative 

 relation is significant. To educate four 

 hundred millions is a problem unlike edu- 



