"The young Chinese reformers in Peking have organized a Reform Club. Some of them read and speak English, others French, others German and still others Russian, and we are providing ourselves with all the leading periodicals of these various countries that we may read and study them. We have rented a building, prepared rooms, and propose to have a club where we can assemble whenever we have leisure, for conversation, discussion, reading, lectures or whatever will best contribute to the ends we have in view."
"And what are those ends?" I inquired.
"The bringing about of a new regime in China," he answered. "Our recent defeat by the Japanese has shown us that unless some radical changes are made we must take a second place among the peoples of the Orient."
"This is a new move in Peking, is it not?"
"New in Peking," he answered, "but not new in the empire. Reform clubs are being organized in all the great cities and capitals. In Hsian, books have been purchased by all classes from the governor of the province down to the humblest scholar, and the aristocracy have organized classes, and are inviting the foreigners to lecture to them. Every one, except a few of the oldest conservative scholars, are discarding their Confucian theories and reconstructing their ideas in view of present day problems. There is an intellectual fermentation now going on from which a new China is certain to be evolved, and we propose to be ready for it when it comes."
The leader of this reform party was Kang Yu-wei, a young Cantonese, who had made a thorough study of the reforms of Peter the Great in Russia, and the more recent reforms in Japan, the history of which he had prepared in two volumes which he sent to the Emperor. He had made a reputation for himself in his native place as a "Modern Sage and Reformer," was hailed as a "young Confucius," was appointed a third-class secretary in the Board of Works, and as the Emperor and he had been studying on the same lines, Kang, through the influence of the brother of the chief concubine, was introduced to His Majesty. He had a three hours' conference with the Foreign Office, in which he urged that China should imitate Japan, and that the old conservative ministers and viceroys should be replaced by young men imbued with Western ideas, who might confer with the Emperor daily in regard to all kinds of reform measures.
This interview was reported to Kuang Hsu by Prince Kung and Jung Lu, who both being old, and one of them the greatest of the conservatives, could hardly be expected to approve of his theories. Kang, however, was asked to embody his suggestions in a memorial, was later given an audience with the Emperor, and finally called into the palace to assist him in the reforms he had already undertaken. And if Kang Yu-wei had been as great a statesman as he was reformer, Kuang Hsu might never have been deposed.
The crisis came during the summer of 1898. I had taken my family to the seashore to spend our summer vacation. A young Chinese scholar—a Hanlin—who had been studying in the university for some years, and with whom I was translating a work on psychology, had gone with me. He took the Peking Gazette, which he read daily, and commented upon with more or less interest, until June 23d, when an edict was issued abolishing the literary essay of the old regime as a part of the government examination, and substituting therefor various branches of the new learning. "We have been compelled to issue this decree," said the Emperor, "because our examinations have reached the lowest ebb, and we see no remedy for these matters except to change entirely the old methods for a new course of competition."
"What do you think of that?" I asked the Hanlin.
"The greatest step that has ever yet been taken," he replied.