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EAST ASIA.
THE NEW IDEAS SOCIAL PROGRESS.
The residence of so many Chinese abroad tends quite as much as the presence
of foreigners in China to bring about the inevitable renovation of the land.
Careful observers, the Chinese preserve
in their memory all the lessons taught
them by the hard struggle for existence. They thus learn to adapt themselves to
the new conditions, modifying their methods and adopting foreign arts, not with
the youthful enthusiasm of the Japanese, but with determination and indomitable
perseverance.
Proud of their ancient culture, and fully conscious of the superiority
of some of their processes, they are never tempted blindly^to accept foreign ideas
and fashions. Unlike the Japanese, they refuse to conform in dress to the " Eed-
haired Barbarians," but they are fully alive to the advantages to be derived from
Western inventions. Apart from the mandarins, who have privileges to safeguard,
and who are consequently wedded to the old ways, the bulk of the people perfectly
understand how much they have to learn from Europeans. Patients crowd the
English and French hospitals in Tientsin, Shanghai, Amoy, and other places, and
the fanciful native pharmacopoeia, in which magic played such a large part, is thus
being gradually assimilated to that of the West. Vaccination has already replaced
the dangerous method of inoculation by the nostrils ; and enlightened practitioners,
with a knowledge of anatomy, physiology, and hygienics, begin to make their
appearance here and there amid the countless tribe of quacks and charlatans.
European schools have been opened in the treaty ports, where the students have
have even
readily followed all the instructions of their foreign teachers. They
learned the music of the " Barbarians," to which they were formerly supposed to
be absolutely insensible. In spite of the great difficulties presented by works
translated from such totally different languages, thousands of scientific books have
already been published and largely circulated. The native journals issued by
foreigners in the treaty ports are eagerly read, and amongst others the Shunpao, a
daily paper published in Shanghai, had recently as many as 8,000 native subscribers.
Yielding to the pressure of public opinion, the Government itself established
in 1868 a bureau in the arsenal of Kiangnan, for the purpose of publishing Chinese
editions of the chief European scientific works. It has also founded in Peking the
Titiigtcen Kican, an administrative college, where English, French, Russian, and
German are taught, and where physics, chemistry, medicine, physiology, astronomy,
and other branches are intrusted to foreign professors, assisted by native tutors.
Most of the courses are conducted in English, and this college, which had about
100 students in 1876, now supplies a portion of the officials engaged in the
administration of the empire. On the other hand, the Government establishment
hitherto maintained at Hartford, in Connecticut, was suppressed in 1881, in
consequence of the dangerous
students.
influence of American customs and ideas on the
PUBLIC INSTRUCTION THE LITERATI.
In Chinese the word lino is applied equally to instruction and to religion, and
study is, in fact, regarded as a religious cult. For thousands of years the obliga-