348 EAMBLES 01? A NATUEALI8T. [Ch, XX. 



man of learning in China will be able to proclaim his con- 

 tempt, and boast of his ignorance, of Western learning — for 

 that very learning wUl become his best passport to office, 

 and a distinctive qualification which will raise him above his 

 fellows. 



This memorial has received the imperial sanction, and 

 the thin end of the wedge has been fairly driven into 

 Chinese prejudice and exclusiveness. And when it is 

 remembered that it was only nine years after Lord Elgin's 

 forced treaty, and only seven since a British conquering 

 army entered Pekin, it speaks weU for China, which up to 

 that time believed itself the only country in the world 

 worthy of imitation ; and that everything appertaining to it 

 — its language, laws, literature — were the sole fountains 

 from which all the other benighted nations could derive 

 benefit or instruction. 



Those who have heard that it has lately been a moot 

 point whether railways should or should not be forthwith 

 introduced into China, wiU have a strong feeling of the 

 rapidity with which innovation is gaining ground. But 

 although for the present the Chinese Government has de- 

 cided against the introduction of a railway system, it is no 

 less remarkable that such a novelty should have been ever 

 canvassed in high quarters, and the subject really argued, 

 and not thrown aside as unworthy of consideration. It was 

 proposed to make an experimental line, but Prince Kung 

 met the idea by a sophism, in which he admitted the ad- 

 mirable character of the invention, and the benefits con- 

 ferred by railways, and therefore argued that there was no 

 necessity for constructing an experimental line to prove 

 such well-known facts. But the real truth is, that aU the 

 objections which fifty years ago were urged against railways 



