REVIEWS OF RECENT BOOKS 



rigid selection and some cutting might have reduced the 



.limit' to good advantage, for one wants facts interpreted 



and related either to the discovery of a definite problem with a suggested 



solution, if possible, or to an aim. There is many a paragraph that 



would never be missed had it been omitted. 



The more or less formal presentation of these masses of facts, 

 although illuminated by photographs, maps and graphs, together with 

 not as much interpretation and problem—stating as one expects in 

 such a work, together, also, with a lack of completeness due to the 

 limitations involved, suggest that the name of the book is misleading 

 Instead of "Peking. A Social Survey," "A Social Handbook of 

 Peking" would describe the contents. A title should suggest the 

 contents rather than describe an hope. 



The first chapter in these three hundred pages provides the 

 raison d'etre for the work and sets forth the general conclusions of 

 the study. They represent not so much conclusions as brief summary 

 descriptions of the conditions regarding geography, government, popula- 

 tion, health, education, commercial life, recreation, the social evil, 

 poverty and philanthropy, and prisons. Then, introduced by an 

 historical account of Peking, rather dry because necessarily brief, 

 each of these topics is given such detailed treatment as could be 

 afforded by the facts that were discoverable. These chapters, in 

 spite of certain deficiencies of completeness and analytical interpreta- 

 tion, contain some very interesting sections, such as, an account of 

 the growth of the Renaissance Movement and a description of an 

 annual meeting of the Gild of the Blind. 



In the long and arduous task of setting up these details, it is 

 hardly surprising that a number of traditional attitudes should find 

 expression. A careful student of things Chinese hesitates to accept 

 what would find only too ready an acceptance, at least in America, in 

 references to China as a country of "an excess population." Careful 

 treatment in the interests of accuracy would have called this "centers 

 <»f congested population." To dispose of a race by reference to 

 "phlegmatic temperament"; to assert degeneracy in country villages 

 ;is "75 per cent, morons or worse"; to account for prostitution by an 

 insistence upon a Chinese "low estimate of women" ; and to consider 

 a "low standard of living" more fundamental than poverty, — are 

 inaccuracies that might well be excused but remain inaccuracies, 

 nevertheless, at least unless substantial proof be presented therewith. 



The next section presents about one hundred pages of the results 

 of some real survey work as conducted in two or three limited districts. 

 Technically the best part of the book is Chapter XV, Church Survey, 



