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The National Geographic Magazine 



sented cigarettes with such lavish gener- 

 osity to the man in the street that his 

 suspicions have been aroused; he does 

 not know what the hoped-for quid pro 

 quo is, but feels sure that the motive was 

 not philanthropy. A report was there- 

 fore started that the cigarettes were in- 

 jurious, and that it was a wholesale at- 

 tempt to poison the people. As a result, 

 some public-spirited students prepared 

 a number of posters which they pasted 

 under the new advertisements, informing 

 the people that the tobacco contained 

 opium or morphia and warning them 

 against smoking to their hurt. This is 

 said to have neutralized the effect of the 

 advertisements in the popular mind and 

 given a temporary check to the cigarette 

 trade." 



A COMMON LANGUAGE; FOR THE PEOPLE; 



Returning to the subject of education, 

 another important benefit to result from 

 the general system of schools throughout 

 the Empire is to provide a common lan- 

 guage for the people. There are many 

 dialects in the different provinces, and 

 on the seaboard especially between 

 Shanghai and the southern border al- 

 most every district has its own dialect; 

 so that it is often impossible for the in- 

 habitants of adjoining localities to com- 

 municate with each other, except through 

 the written language. The new regula- 

 tions require the Mandarin dialect to be 

 used in the instruction in all the govern- 

 ment schools. Hence it may be expected 

 that the coming generation, educated in 

 the schools, will speak a common lan- 

 guage, and this should greatly tend 

 toward the consolidation of the Empire. 



The croakers, mainly among the for- 

 eign residents, predict that what they 

 term the educational craze will soon lose 

 its force, that the inexperienced board of 

 education at Peking will not be able to 

 skillfully direct it, that the financial 

 schemes will prove ineffective, and that 

 there will be in time a return to the an- 

 tiquated methods. The advocates and 

 supporters of the new education are likely 

 to encounter opposition and disappoint- 



ment before their plans are fully suc- 

 cessful, but I believe their hopes will be 

 eventually realized. An intelligent ob- 

 server, writing from the capital of the 

 province of Fukien, says: 



"The new education has struck this 

 place with full force. The old schools 

 have disappeared. Everywhere one 

 meets boys in caps and uniforms, with 

 school books under their arms. The 

 books are as modern as their appearance, 

 and they are of all ages from 7 to 8 

 years to past 30 years. There can be no 

 successful reaction in China now. The 

 new educational movement all through 

 the provinces makes it impossible."* 



Chinese; educated in America becom- 

 ing PROMINENT 



About thirty years ago the Chinese 

 government entered upon the project of 

 sending boys selected from good fami- 

 lies to be educated in the United States, 

 several scores of them were placed in 

 families and schools in New England, 

 and the enterprise bid fair to assume 

 very large proportions. Coincident with 

 the demand from California for the ex- 

 clusion of Chinese laborers, which led 

 to the exclusion treaty of 1880, the con- 

 servatives in the government brought 

 about a cessation of the movement. 

 Those who were educated in this country 

 returned to their native land, but they 

 were not welcomed by the then ruling 

 powers in the government. They were 

 in great measure excluded from the pub- 

 lic service, for which they were well 

 fitted; but in late years many of them 

 have been given prominent places in the 

 government and are now most conspicu- 

 ous in inaugurating and carrying for- 

 ward the reform movements of the day. 



One of the important and influential 

 persons in Peking is Tang Shao-yi (or 

 Tong Shon Tee), one of the American 

 educated students sent to this country in 



*An interesting report on the new educa- 

 tional movement, prepared by the intelligent 

 Chinese Secretary of the American Legation, 

 Edward T. Williams, will be found in Foreign 

 Relations of the United States, 1905, p. 197. 



