CHINA IS SEEKING WESTERN LEARNING.
Eminent Oriental Commissioners Travel
Through the United States to Study
Our Prosperity.
Their excellencies Tuan Fang and Tai Hung Chi, imperial Chinese commissioners, came to the United States with open eyes to learn the advantages of Western civilization. The fact of their coming was in itself significant evidence of an existing state of affairs in China which the Chinese minister to the United States, Sir Chentung Liang Cheng, explained in the following words:
It has been a fervent wish that China would wake from her sleep and join in the march of modern progress. The day of her awakening is at hand. The unrest of our people proves it. Large bodies move slowly, but when they begin to move they gain momentum; and when China gets started in the channels of progress it will be impossible to stop her. She has always looked to the United States in every crisis of her national career. I have no doubt that the result of the coming of the Imperial Commission will bring the two countries into closer relations.
This little speech was delivered a few weeks ago at a banquet in New York, where a number of representative Americans were gathered to meet the visitors. Tuan Fang spoke the same evening—using the Chinese language, his remarks being translated by his secretary, Alfred Sze, who is a graduate of Cornell University, class of 1901.
This translated address included the following passage:
Since our arrival in this country we have had every opportunity to see the material side of your great nation. All business and manufacturing establishments have thrown their doors wide open to us, and afforded us ample facilities to look into the American way of doing things.
Your government has likewise given us the same unrestricted facilities, for all of which we are very, very grateful. It is needless to say that we are deeply impressed with the vast resources of the country and the marvelous energy of its people. We are pleased to note, however, that in the midst of this wonderful material expansion you have not lost sight of the moral upbuilding of the country. We are, therefore, glad to meet here this evening representative Americans who are engaged in this beneficent labor.
This commissioner, Tuan Fang, is a considerable man in his own country. As viceroy of two important provinces—Fu-Kien and Che-Kiang—his influence is far-reaching. What he said about his experiences in the United States was, perhaps, not so important as his definite tribute to American missionaries. The missionary is often charged with arousing hostility by violating native customs; but the viceroy said:
We take pleasure this evening in bearing testimony to the part taken by American missionaries in promoting the progress of the Chinese people. They have borne the light of Western civilization into every nook and corner of the empire. They have rendered inestimable service to China by the laborious task of translating instructive books into the Chinese language.
Truly, after listening that evening to these representatives of cultured China, the hearers could share the feeling of John W. Foster, the toastmaster on this occasion. Mr. Foster, one of the ablest of American diplomats, said:
When I meet a Chinese gentleman I have the impulse to stand uncovered in his presence and to make a profound bow, out of respect to his great empire and race, antedating in their existence and civilization all others of which we have any record, with achievements unsurpassed in literature, in philosophy, in art, and in useful inventions.
Love-Letters of the Great.
Passion, Tenderness, Sweetness, Reverence, All the Deep Tones of Love,
Make Beautiful the Letters Written by Various
Great Men to Their Wives.
Men of genius and power—kings, commanders, poets, painters—belong not to themselves, but to the world. Greatness destroys privacy; and many a person of note has lived to see described in print the most minute of his little, unsuspected peculiarities. This invasion of the right to be let alone is inevitable. Even love-letters do not escape.
It is only a few years since the love-letters of the Brownings—Elizabeth Barrett and Robert—were given to the world. As models in the expression of deep and tender affection it will be long before they are displaced. Yet specimens of the love-letters of other eminent men and women are full of tenderness, passion, reverence.