China is changing so rapidly, and is becoming so thoroughly Westernized, especially in the ports where the Chinese come in contact with the foreigner, that she can scarcely be recognized by her old-time friends. We all admit that the change is for the better so far as the nation is concerned, but whether it makes for the individual good is another and more serious question. China is flooded with foreign adventurers who want her untouched wealth, and who have cast their greedy eyes upon her mines of coal and iron and gold. These foreigners from all classes and grades of society have brought dishonesty and corruption in business dealings to the merchant of China, whose word in the old time was as good as his bond. In those days when a Chinaman said, “Can putee book,” it was known that the contract was settled and that he would live up to his spoken word, whether it meant loss or profit to him. But when dealing with the foreigner the Chinese found that there were no old-time customs to bind the merchant from over the seas, except those of bond and written agreement. If he had any traditions of honour, he evidently left them in the homeland, as nothing less than a court of law would hold him to his contract if it seemed expedient for him to break it.
RICE-BOATS ON CANAL, CHINA.
To face p. [260].
For years the word “China” meant to the adventurer of other lands a place for exploitation, where money was to be obtained easily by the man with fluent tongue and winning ways. Even foreign officials did not scruple to use their influence to enter trade. In one of the great inland cities there was no water nearer than a river several miles away. A foreign official, boring an artesian well upon his place and finding pure, clear water, conceived the idea of boring wells throughout the city and bringing water to the doors of the half-million of people who resided in its narrow streets. He interested the officials and raised a sum of money, and to doubly assure the Chinese that their money was safe he signed the contracts, not only with his name but affixed to them the great seal of his Government. After a few months’ trip to his homelands, and a few aimless borings in the earth in search of the water that never came, he relinquished the project, but not the money, and the officials could do nothing but gaze sadly into the great holes that had taken their silver. They learned that wisdom comes with experience and now put into practice the proverb: “When a man has been burned once with hot soup, he for ever afterwards blows upon cold rice.”
Another case in which the Chinese officials were duped by clever-tongued foreigners was in Ningpo. Three Americans visited that city and talked long and loud of the dark streets, the continual fires caused by the flickering lamps of oil that were being constantly overturned by the many children. They showed the officials the benefits of electricity, that a light upon each corner would make it impossible for robbers and evildoers to carry on their work, which must be done in darkness. They promised to turn night into day, to give poor as well as rich the incandescent lamp at no greater cost than the bean-oil wick. They were most plausible, and raised thirty thousand dollars as contract money. They left, ostensibly to buy machinery; the years have passed; they never have returned. Ningpo still has streets of darkness, men still walk abroad with lighted lanterns, the lamp is seen within the cottage, and will continue to be quite likely until the hills shall fade, if electricity depends upon the officials who once dreamed dreams of a city lit by a light from Western lands.
This is one of the most serious handicaps of the missionary in trying to Christianize China. The dissolute white man is in every port, manifesting a lust, greed, and brutality which the Chinese, who are accustomed to associate the citizenship of a person with his religion, attribute to Christianity. It is no wonder that it is hard for the missionary to make converts among the people who have business dealings with men from Christian nations.
But there are other questions besides those of business integrity vitally affecting the Chinese youth to-day. Along with the slight knowledge which they have obtained of the manners and customs of the Western world, they have absorbed many of its vices. With their rose-wine and their samshu the Chinese boy has learned to drink champagne and brandy. I know the father of five sons who told me that he would give all that he possessed in the world if he had not brought those sons to Shanghai.
Change is now the order of the day in China, educationally as well as politically. We do not hear the children shouting their tasks at the top of their little voices, nor do they learn by heart the thirteen classics. The simple schoolroom, with hard benches and earthen floor, with a faint light striking through the unglazed windows, is no more. The old-time examinations at Peking have gone, the degrees which have been the nation’s pride have been abolished, the subjects of study in the schools have been completely changed. The privileges which were once given the scholars, the social and political offices which were once open to the winners of the highest prizes, have been thrown upon the altar of modernity. The faults of the old system of education lay in the stress it placed upon the memorizing of the many books whose contents were not always understood by the young mind, and in the lack of original ideas that might be expressed by a student, who must give the usual interpretation of the classics. Now the introduction of free thought and private opinion has produced an upheaval in the minds of China’s young men, and they say what they think, even trying to show that Confucius was at heart a staunch Republican, and that Mencius only thinly veiled his sentiments of modern philosophy. It is generally conceded that the newer education leads to the greater individualism which is now the battle-cry of China.
The Chinese, both men and women, are reaching out eager hands to obtain for themselves the knowledge that is being brought from other lands. Yet this thirst for education is not a newly acquired virtue, for in no country is real learning held in higher esteem than in China. It is the greatest characteristic of the nation that in every grade of society education is considered above all else. As a race they have devoted themselves to the cultivation of literature for a longer period by some thousands of years than any existing nation. To literature, and to it alone, they look for the rule to guide them in their conduct. To them all writing is sacred, and the very symbols and materials used in the making of the written character have become objects of veneration. Even the smallest village is provided with a scrap-box, into which every bit of paper containing printed or written words is carefully placed, to await a suitable occasion when it may be burned.
The mission schools have been the pioneers in the education of the young people of China, and if the teaching of Christianity has not as yet made many converts, the effect has been great in the spread of higher ideals of education, and much of the credit of the progress of the modern life of China to-day must be given to the mission schools, which have opened new pathways in the field of learning and caused the youth of China to demand a higher system of education throughout the land.