662 



The National Geographic Magazine 



to be applying as rapidly as possible. 

 The military or army reorganization 

 board at Peking is exercising supervis- 

 ion over the viceregal and provincial 

 troops and giving cohesion to them, so 

 that they will be in reality an imperial 

 army. It has issued orders to have 

 turned over to it all provincial arsenals 

 and gun factories, a great step toward 

 military centralization. A recent edict 

 decrees that any official having to do with 

 the purchase of arms and army supplies 

 found guilty of dishonesty or accepting 

 bribes shall be decapitated; and it is said 

 that the frauds heretofore practiced by 

 European armament agents are now al- 

 most impossible. 



iHE SOCIAL STATUS OE THE SOLDIER MADE 

 EQUAL TO THAT OE THE CIVILIAN 



The low grade of the military service 

 has been noticed. In the past a marked 

 difference has existed between the civil 

 and military officers of the government. 

 A civil mandarin, for instance, is exempt 

 from corporal punishment in case of mis- 

 demeanors, while a military officer for 

 such offenses can be sentenced to a num- 

 ber of blows with the bamboo. For these 

 reasons Chinese parents have preferred 

 to have their sons study for the literary 

 degree, which opened to them civil offi- 

 cial rank and title. In the reorganization 

 of the official grades now going on, these 

 distinctions are to be 'done away and the 

 military officers to be placed on a status 

 of equality with the civil mandarins. 



Military officers as a class have been 

 illiterate and many of them have risen 

 from the ranks. These defects, it is ex- 

 pected, will in some measure be remedied 

 by the general system of education of 

 which I have spoken. But there have 

 already been established military and 

 naval schools in a number of provinces, 

 and I learn from the report of Secretary 

 Williams to the Department of State 

 that it is proposed to establish in every 

 province two grades of military and naval 

 schools, and in Peking an imperial mili- 

 tary college and also a naval college, stu- 

 dents for which will be supplied from the 



provincial schools just named. In addi- 

 tion, the imperial board of education, 

 with a view to inspiring in the rising 

 generation a patriotic and martial spirit, 

 has required military drill in all the gov- 

 ernment primary and grammar schools 

 and the wearing of a uniform by all the 

 students. 



It must be admitted that the lesson, to 

 which I have alluded, which the nations 

 of our western civilization have with 

 such severity taught the Chinese, that 

 they can only enforce respect, protect 

 their interests, and regain and maintain 

 their sovereignty by force of arms, is in 

 a fair way of being put into practical 

 operation. If they can maintain their 

 existence as a consolidated empire for a 

 single generation longer, as they have 

 for thousands of years, until their army 

 is fully trained, equipped, and made effi- 

 cient for war, and a navy commensurate 

 with this imperial army built and put in 

 hostile array, well may the nations which 

 have despoiled them of their territory and 

 treated their race with contumely and 

 ostracism pray that they may return to 

 the teachings of their great philosopher, 

 who enjoined his followers to practice 

 the spirit of the Golden Rule. 



MANY RAILROADS BEING BUILT UNDER 

 CHINESE INITIATION 



Turning to a more agreeable phase of 

 Chinese progress and reforms, the con- 

 struction of railroads attracts our atten- 

 tion. When they were first sought to be 

 introduced they met with intense oppo- 

 sition from the people, which forced the 

 imperial government to temporize with 

 the matter. An element of superstition 

 entered into the question, and the dis- 

 turbance of the ancestral tombs by the 

 construction of the roads lent sympathy 

 to the opposition. But business con- 

 siderations also influenced the popular 

 hostility. The Grand Canal, which was 

 at the date of its construction the greatest 

 commercial work ever undertaken, has 

 of late years fallen much out of repair; 

 but it still affords employment to a vast 

 amount of capital and hundreds of thou- 



