382 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
circle of scholars they will doubtless be more and more culti- 
vated, and gradually a knowledge of them will leaven the 
whole land. But at present they do not find favour with the 
governing classes, who in all they do look for some immediate 
advantage, and are unwilling to trouble themselves about any 
branch of knowledge which is not, in some way, subservient to 
the practical interests of their class. For science, as science, 
they have no love. They are willing to use it to serve the 
ends they wish to gain at the moment, but they are equally 
willing to discard it as soon as those ends are accomplished. 
As an instance in point we may quote the equipment and dis- 
bandment of the Lay-Osborn expedition in 1863. Being 
sorely pressed by the Tae-ping rebels, the Chinese Grovernment 
determined to establish a steam navy, which was to be com- 
manded by Englishmen and manned by natives. In prosecu- 
tion of their scheme, they purchased a fleet of despatch and 
gun-boats, but before they arrived the danger was passed. 
Colonel Grordon had captured Nanking and crushed the rebel- 
lion, and as a natural sequence the Government threw over 
their agent Lay, and sent the vessels back to England. Since 
that time other motives have been at work, which have induced 
them again to seek the aid of foreign mechanical science. At 
Tientsin, Shanghai, Nanking and Foochow, they have estab- 
lished arsenals ; and, at the three latter places, dockyards also, 
where vessels of war are built, and every kind of munition of 
war ds manufactured, under the direction of foreign engineers. 
At Foochow the arsenal is situated on the banks of the river 
Min, where, in combination with the yards for the construction 
of vessels and their armaments, have been established schools, in 
which natives are passed through such a course of instruction 
as to fit them for taking the command and management of 
vessels and dockyards. About 300 young Chinamen are here 
engaged in studying navigation and mechanics under the 
superintendence of between sixty and seventy teachers, arti- 
sans, &c., most of whom are French. A half-pay English 
naval officer presides over the school of navigation, and has so 
far succeeded with his pupils as to be able to provide good and 
efficient native crews and engineers for the steamers employed 
on Government duty along the coast. Already several trans- 
ports carrying guns, and gunboats, have been successfully 
launched from the dockyard, and others are rapidly approach- 
ing completion. The former vessels have been employed in 
carrying the imperial grain to the north, and although they 
are entirely manned and officered by natives, it is noteworthy 
that no accident has as yet befallen any of them. 
The arsenals at Nanking and Tientsin are more entirely 
devoted to the manufacture of rifled guns, torpedoes, and all 
