Sketches from Formosa.

3l6
SKETCHES FROM FORMOSA
for that still higher course which is meant to fit young
men for becoming the future evangelists and pastors of
the Church. It need hardly be added that the Bible is
constantly used in those elementary and advanced schools,
and that all parents and relatives know of the distinc-
tively Christian influence which pupils come under after
their enrolment.
When the Japanese took possession of the Island, after
its cession to them in 1895, they at once saw that measures
on a very liberal scale were needed for educating those
millions of people of strange speech who had thus been
brought within the limits of their Empire
; and,
accordingly, when several Departments were created for
Finance, Police, Public Works, Agriculture, and Communications
(the latter taking cognizance of roads and
railways with postal and telegraph work), an Educational
Bureau was also formed, and soon entered upon its
duties by opening Free Common Schools in every im-
portant township and district of the Island. At these,
a prominent place was given to instruction in the Japanese
language, as well as in arithmetic and geography ; but
qualified Chinese teachers were also engaged to carry on
the teaching work they had been accustomed to. A
thoroughly equipped Medical College was afterwards
established at Taihoku, and other Technical Schools at
the same centre for qualifying young natives to take up
appointments in the Postal, Customs, and other branches
of the public service. The great enthusiasm thrown
into all this work will be understood on remembering
that boys attending Common Schools who stand well in
their examinations are passed on to one or other of the
higher institutions at Taihoku, where they receive
slightly larger monthly allowances during their years of
probation than our Mission pays to unmarried young
men who have gone out as preachers at the close of their