The printing office is a commodious building, with several presses, several fonts of movable Chinese, and one of English type. When I was there one great book had just been finished, and another was just being printed. No more remarkable books have ever been issued from the government press, and if they are prophetic of the near future we may look for its coming with no little hope.
The book just published is a report on education in the West, by Dr. Martin. It is the result of a recent examination of the chief schools of learning in America and Europe. The report is quite full, giving an account of the principal classes of schools, elementary and professional, of the two continents, and closing with an exhibit of the present state of our own Michigan University. I wish there were space to speak of it at length, but the mere catalogue of some of the titles of its chapters will show its scope and purpose as well as the most elaborate description. Among the principal headings are such as these: “Elements Common to the Education of all Western Nations;” “Classification of Schools;” “Primary Schools;” “Education of Women;” “Education of the Blind and Deaf;” “Literary and Scientific Associations;” “The Nations Learning from Each Other;” “Rise and Progress of Science;” “Educational Statistics.” Beside these there is an account of professional schools of all classes. These will give some conception of the character of this most significant work. It is published with a preface by one of the ministers, by order of the Council for Foreign Affairs.
Who may estimate the influence of such a work as this, published and sanctioned by such high authority? The educational system of the West could have no more favorable introduction, as no foreigner in the empire is more highly esteemed than the learned author. It was fitting that such a book should come from the pen of Dr. Martin. In his translations of Woolsey’s and Wheaton’s treatises on international law, he had already shown the Chinese the public law of the nations of the West, and in this he describes the educational system on which their intellectual life is based. Others, it is true, have already taught the Chinese much, but it is scarcely injustice to say that from no one could this work come with such weighty authority as from the president of their own highest western school. It may be regarded as destined to play no unimportant part in shaping the intellectual life of the China of the future.
The other book, a much larger one, is an exhaustive treatise on anatomy, in ten volumes, by Dr. Dudgeon, a professor in the college, and a member of the London Missionary Society in Peking. He has been in charge for many years of the London Mission Hospital, and has long been engaged in the preparation of this great work. One of the conditions on which it was published was that the authorities should retain one hundred and fifty copies for their own use. How great a change this indicates, and how eloquently it speaks for the future of medical science in China, none but the older missionaries can adequately appreciate. Twenty years ago, few even of the most sanguine, could have believed that in the ancient capital itself, almost under the very shadow of the Imperial Palace, the work of an English medical missionary would be printed at the public expense, and official sanction be given to this recent innovation of the once universally feared and detested foreigner. Yet so it is. It is needless to speculate on what its influence must be on the future of medical education in this ancient empire.
Such is some of the work done in this most interesting school. It would be a pleasing task to note the changes which its very existence indicates, and speak of what its influence must be on the future. But this paper, being too long already, with a single further remark I will bring it to a close. The president of this great school is a Christian man, once a missionary of the Presbyterian Board, and still interested in all missionary work. In accepting his new position he gave up neither his faith nor his interest in the evangelization of the land. This is a matter of great moment, and it can not but be a theme for rejoicing that the highest foreign school in the empire is under the presidency of such a man. Of course he is not permitted to teach Christianity directly, but his influence and life are on the side of Christian principles, and Christianity will suffer no injustice at his hands. China is slowly opening her doors to the introduction of Western learning. She cares nothing as yet for our religion, but our science she will have. Is it not then important that it should be given her by Christian men, and not by such as him who, in the Japanese University at Tokio once told his students, that in the West Christianity was the religion of only women and babes? If Christian educators can take a leading part in this movement now, they may be able to hold it when it becomes more general, and thus the Chinese, in receiving science may the more readily accept that best of all gifts, a pure and undefiled Christianity. This must be the hope of all men interested in the future of China, and patiently waiting for the time when the religion of Christ shall cover the whole earth.
EIGHT CENTURIES WITH WALTER SCOTT.
By WALLACE BRUCE.