CHAPTER XXIII
THE SAME IN PRACTICE
Any one who has read the preceding account of the intentions of the Chinese Government might be pardoned if he supposed that after four or five years those intentions had borne fruit in an efficient system of public education. But one who has resided any time in China would only smile at the suggestion that there should be an intimate relation between what the Chinese Government professes to do and what the Chinese Government does. A Manchu Professor whose European education had enabled him to appreciate rightly the weaknesses of the Chinese race, said with great candour, "In China we begin things, but we never finish them." I had the privilege of seeing over some twenty Government schools in China, and the truth of these words was very obvious.
My hospitable host at Nanking, His Excellency Tuan-Fang, hearing that I took an interest in education, declared that he would be very glad that I should see his schools. I expressed a regret that my ignorance of the language would impede me in thoroughly understanding what was being taught. He most hospitably said that I could myself examine the pupils who were studying Western subjects, and who therefore spoke English or French, and that my wife should examine the girls' schools; that we should be accompanied by two interpreters as well as by the Director of Education, and that he would examine the schools in any branch of knowledge that I chose. So we sallied forth, a very imposing body, and I was asked to select what schools I should like to visit. Of course I selected the higher grade schools in which Western subjects were taught. The first school on which we descended was the Agricultural College. The teachers of Western subjects were two Japanese and one Chinaman. They were being taught in Chinese, but I had no difficulty in finding out in the first room we entered what they were learning, because the illustrations were well known to me, for they formed part of a book of elementary botany which I had at one time studied. I suggested to Mr. Tsêng, the interpreter, that the right course would be to ask the Japanese master to select his best pupils and that then he should examine them while I should suggest the questions. It soon became clear that all the Japanese teacher was doing was to teach them to copy the illustrations in the book and nothing else. For the first time we noticed what we afterwards discovered to be the invariable rule, that the Japanese are most perfect draughtsmen, and that every class taught by the Japanese always learnt to draw perfectly, though they learnt little else. The Chinese were rather pleased that the Japanese teacher cut such a sorry figure. We then went to the next room. Again there was a Japanese teacher professing to explain the model of a steam-engine; again the pupils were obviously ignorant; again we bowed and they bowed and we left the room.
The next room had quite a different atmosphere. Obviously efficient work was going on. The men were learning elementary chemistry. The teacher was a Chinaman who had been trained in London and spoke English perfectly. He was as straightforward as he was efficient. He frankly said that the progress that his pupils had made was very limited because of the short time that they had been at work. We congratulated him on the efficient way he was managing his class, and were interested to hear afterwards that he was a Christian. More than once we came across Christian Chinese, and did not know till later that they were Christians, but were struck by their efficiency, which sprang doubtless from a high ideal of work.
We left the Agricultural College and then proceeded to a High School, which is the name that is given to a first-grade school that precedes the University, and which at present stands in its place. We had in this school much the same experience. A Japanese teacher was teaching biology and was dissecting a river mussel. This was done in such a position that only two men could see what was going on. I wondered at this. Then we found out that he could not speak a word of Chinese. He dissected the mussel and professed to give a lecture on its anatomy to a pupil who understood Japanese, and then the pupil delivered the lecture to the rest of the class. My Chinese interpreters were of opinion that very little could filter through the class in this way, but the Director of Education smiled sweetly. He obviously felt that in some mysterious way Western education was percolating to the pupils under his charge. As we returned along the corridor I glanced in. The biological lecture was over; I expect it was the only one of the session, and the pupils went away with admirable pictures of the river mussel. If the Japanese teachers only set up for teachers of drawing, I am certain they would have no equals in the world. A little further on in the same building there was a professed teacher of drawing. The class was not a selected class, they were drawing from a cast of a well-known Greek statue, and the work was simply admirable. I am confident that, except in an art school, you would not find better work in Europe. In the next room there was a science teacher. To impress the Director of Education, he rashly set a machine for demonstrating the vibration of sound at work. The machine would not demonstrate anything, much to the joy of my Chinese friends, solely for the reason that he had not wound it up.
I should tire my readers if I were to go on describing room after room. I cannot of course be certain how far these Japanese teachers had taught science, but at any rate their pupils had not acquired any knowledge, and I think we may easily be too hard on the Japanese. One must remember that they have to supply teachers for all their own schools. Is it likely that they will be either able or willing to send into other countries efficient teachers of Western education? It is not as if Western knowledge had been for long taught in Japan. Their schools are now many and they were few. I suppose no man, no great number of men at any rate, over thirty-five or forty, are equipped with an efficient Western education in Japan. One wonders why they allow their national reputation to be injured by supposing it to be possible for them to supply these teachers of Western knowledge. Political motive suggests itself as a reason why a country so proud and so ambitious as Japan should allow a course that must eventually injure her reputation as an enlightened power.
The next school we went over was very interesting. It was what is called a Law School. The men who are learning in this school will be the future officials of China; only, following the Chinese custom, they will rarely or never hold office in the province in which they were born and educated. They were men of some standing, and it looked strange to see all these senior men, over sixty in number, sitting like children at the school desks. They were dressed, in uniform, and were under a sort of military discipline. The senior pupil gave the word of command, and at once the class sprang to attention and saluted us, while we bowed first to the teacher, then to the class, after which the examination began. They were chiefly taught by Chinese, and, as one might expect, were well taught in the Chinese Classics. We were informed that the Japanese teacher was teaching them Western law; but in answer to an inquiry he explained that he had not yet taught them any law, but that he was teaching them the Japanese language, since it was through the Japanese language alone a knowledge of Western law could be attained. The reason seemed very inconclusive especially when one remembers that the Japanese know and write Chinese characters, so that it is easy to get any work that is printed in Japan printed in the character which every Chinaman can read. I have before explained the peculiar merit of the Chinese character is that people who speak different dialects and even languages can read it equally well. I pointed all this out to my Chinese friends. I think their suspicions too were aroused. Certainly this experience lends colour to the suggestion that Japan hopes that the Manchu dynasty will be succeeded, not by a Chinese dynasty, but by a dynasty from a race whose courage, energy, and intellect has already humiliated Russia and China, and may not inconceivably dominate China, should, for instance, Germany and England go to war.
We then went to see some classes taught by Americans. Two things struck me in those classes. First, for some reason I cannot understand, unless there was jealousy at work, the class was small compared with the enormous classes which I had seen elsewhere—thirty, twenty, or even fifteen were the numbers that white men were teaching. The other thing which struck me was that the selection of subjects might be improved. For instance, one of the teachers was teaching Anson's Law of Contract; one could scarcely see how a knowledge of the English law of contract could be very beneficial to a resident in China; and on looking over the book that another class was using, I found that they were being instructed how to buy an advowson in England. I cannot of course say that the class was actually taught this interesting information, but it was certainly in their text-book. Another text-book was a summary of the history of the world; it was issued by an American firm. On looking up the chapter which referred to China I found the most extreme expression that an American democratic feeling could prompt used with regard to the Emperor of China. I pointed this out to the Chinamen. Apparently no one had taken the trouble to glance through the books that were being used. Such action is regrettable, because it inevitably brings Western education into disrepute, and suggests it to be something essentially revolutionary.
Another curious experience was to find a Cantonese Chinaman teaching a science class in English because he did not know Mandarin. It will be one of the limitations to the usefulness of the Hong-Kong University that the bulk of the students who attend it will be Cantonese-speaking Chinamen, and they will therefore be inefficient as teachers to the great mass of the Chinese empire. A University which hopes to produce teachers which shall teach the whole of China must be a University situated in Mandarin-speaking China.
It was waxing late after we had seen these schools. We had consumed a great amount of the day in partaking of a most excellent Chinese luncheon, where the only mistake I had made—at least the only one of which I was conscious—was in not being instructed in the nature of the entertainment. I had yielded to the solicitations of my host and had partaken largely of the first two or three courses. Later on in the luncheon I was divided between the desire to be polite and a fear that the capacity of the human body might be exceeded. Our host was the Director of Education, and my interpreter whispered to me that he had a great knowledge of cooking and that "he loved a dry joke." His skill as a Director of Education, especially of Western subjects, might be doubted; but as a kindly host and an amusing companion he would have few equals in our country. This aspect of the Chinese official too often escapes the Western critic; whether efficient or inefficient, they are always agreeable men. After luncheon he begged to be excused, as he had a visit of ceremony to pay; it was the birthday of a dear friend's mother. His official robes were brought out, and clothed in them he took his seat in a sedan chair and left us.
We were taken on, rather unwillingly I fancied, to see the Commercial School. The hour of the classes was over, but still the school was really instructive. What was so remarkable about it was the extreme simplicity of the place where the boys lodged. The school is not maintained by Government, but by the rich Silk Guild of Nanking. Many members of this Silk Guild, I was assured, would only be able to read and write enough to carry on their business. They are a rich and powerful body, and this school is intended for their sons. The dormitory was a slate-covered building without any ceiling, and the beds were arranged like berths on board ship, one on the top of the other, with narrow passages between them. In this way, of course, a room was made to hold a perfectly surprising number of individuals. I could not help remembering the Church Army Lodging-house at home. If we arranged the beds as they were arranged in that room, though we should double or treble the number of travellers we could house, we should incur the wrath of the sanitary authority.
Very different was the Naval School. Here reigned efficiency, for the Naval School is under the partial control of two officers lent by His Majesty's Navy. The limit of their control was the limit of their efficiency. For instance, the Chinese Government sometimes refused to let their naval officers be shown an actual ship; their idea was much the same as that of the lady who forbid her son to bathe until he had learnt to swim. The difficulty was very great for anything like practical instruction. Continual representations induced the Chinese Government to allow the boys to have a trip on the river in an old ship. The moment this was accomplished there was great self-congratulation on the part of the Chinese official; from resisting this reasonable suggestion they changed to self-laudation at the wisdom of accepting the plan. The efficiency of the teaching was not only hindered by the want of practical knowledge, which is of course fatal to naval efficiency, but these officers had also to complain of what so many other Europeans have to complain—first, that the people whom they were sent to teach did not know enough English, so that much of their time was spent in teaching elementary English; secondly, that their classes were not large enough. Far away the most effective way of using a Western teacher would be to use them as we saw them used in one school. The Western teacher was supported by two or three Chinese assistants; he gave his lecture in English, and the pupils took notes; then the assistants went round the desks, looked at the notes, and explained in Chinese all those points that the pupils had not fully taken in. This plan has another advantage, that it trains these Chinese teachers to continue the work of a Western teacher, and in some ways it is a more efficient system than the normal schools. The Western teacher of course exercises a general supervision over his class and maintains order and discipline.
While I had been busy with the boys' schools, my wife had been busy with the girls' schools. She was taken over the Viceroy's School, the one already described where the little girls showed such surprising knowledge of the Chinese Classics. Her experience was less happy than mine. The children were being drilled by a Japanese instructress who could hardly play at all; she used a small gem harmonium, and the drilling was little better than a feeble country dance. The same instructress was responsible for a singing lesson; she played with one hand on a harmonium, and allowed the children to bawl as they pleased without either time or tune. All the pupils at this school were day scholars.
The interpreter who conducted Mrs. King, the Consul's wife, and my wife over this and the following schools had removed his own daughter to a mission school, thinking she would receive better teaching. As regards the musical part of the instruction there can be no question but that he was right. The next school she saw was also for the children of the gentry, who supported it by subscriptions. There were 140 girls, fifty of whom were boarders whose parents paid for their board. These fifty young ladies all slept in one room, and their toilet arrangements impressed my wife as anything but luxurious; the effect was more like a steerage cabin on a big liner than an ordinary school dormitory. The class-rooms were all on the ground floor, leading from courtyard to courtyard in Chinese house fashion. The instruction seemed to be mainly Chinese, with attention paid to geography, drawing, and fancy work, English being taught by a young Chinese teacher in a rather elementary way. The mistresses appeared in dignified skirts, no doubt as a symbol of authority.
The last school she was shown was larger and less exclusive. It was well organised, the classes being arranged with sense and discrimination. There were 200 pupils of all ages and ranks, the school being a public one. They were mostly dressed in black. Ten lady teachers presided over this school, including a normal class with a male superintendent; the whole in Chinese buildings. The teaching comprised Confucian ethics, the Chinese characters, arithmetic, geography, drawing from flat copies, and English given by a young Chinese girl who had been educated in a Shanghai mission school.
The instruction seemed to be good on the whole. About one-fourth of the scholars boarded at the school. Attached to it was a kindergarten managed rather sleepily by two Japanese. Again the children's singing was hardly worthy of the name. My wife was impressed by the inferiority of the Government girls' schools to the mission girls' schools in almost every particular. Doubtless they will soon improve, but at present the Government does not seem able to obtain efficient teachers, and is much too inclined to spend vast sums on practically useless apparatus—useless because the instructors do not understand how to use it.
Our experiences at Nanking were extremely interesting, but they were not exceptional. We saw over Government schools at Wuchang, again at Changsha, and also we saw something of the Peking University. At Changsha matters were not nearly so far advanced as they were at Nanking. There were the same Japanese teachers, one of whom taught English, but I could not get a single copy-book produced to show how far they had advanced in the knowledge of this language. There were the same American teachers; good men, but unable to do much owing to their want of knowledge of Chinese, and owing, as I said before, to a certain jealousy which prevented them having a sufficient number of pupils. The very excellent school which is carried on at Shanghai, under Western management, forms a good contrast to the others. This school does not profess to teach very advanced subjects, but it teaches ordinary English subjects most efficiently. The system is this: the boys are first taught in Chinese, while they are acquiring the rudiments of Western knowledge and of the English language; they are then transferred to a class which is taught in English by Chinese; here they acquire from their own countrymen a very thorough knowledge of English and a tolerable knowledge of Western subjects. In both these divisions of the school all explanations are given in Chinese. After they have acquired a good knowledge of English they are then advanced to the class which is taught by an Englishman, who has some knowledge of Chinese; here they perfect their knowledge of English, and the teacher can if necessary explain a difficulty by the help of a Chinese word. Lastly, they are taught absolutely in English by an Englishman who need not know any Chinese, as it is never used.
At Wuchang the schools were similar to those of Nanking. The only school which was exceptionally interesting was the School of Languages. This was managed by a Manchu, who was prompt, exact, and efficient—in fact, the very greatest contrast to the usual Chinese official. He spoke French perfectly, as he had been brought up in Paris and spent some time in the West. In a few words he showed that he understood the problem of education in China. He told me that his nation would never succeed in teaching their nationals Western subjects until they selected teachers who had some experience in the knowledge and in the art of teaching, and that the habit of regarding all Westerners as capable of teaching all Western subjects must produce disaster. He boldly professed himself a Roman Catholic, and was one of several examples that came under my notice of the wonderful influence that Christianity has on the formation of a vigorous character. The boys had been very well taught in English and French, and I gathered in German and Russian as well. Certainly if China gets such men to lead her, she need have little fear of the power of the West.