Intimate China: The Chinese as I Have Seen Them

by Mrs. Archibald Little

MEMORIAL OF PRINCE KUNG ON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A COLLEGE FOR THE CULTIVATION OF WESTERN SCIENCE (1887).

Your Majesty's servant and other Ministers of the Council for Foreign Affairs on their knees present this memorial in regard to regulations for teaching Astronomy and the selection of students.

The sciences being indispensable to the understanding of machinery and the manufacture of firearms, we have resolved on erecting for this purpose a special department in the Tung-wen College, to which scholars of a high grade may be admitted, and in which men from the West shall be invited to give instruction.

The scheme having met with your Majesty's approval, we beg to state that it did not originate in a fondness for novelties, or in admiration for the abstract subtleties of Western science, but solely from the consideration that the mechanical arts of the West all have their source in the science of Mathematics. Now, if the Chinese Government desires to introduce the building of steamers and construction of machinery, and yet declines to borrow instruction from the men of the West, there is danger lest, following our own ideas, we should squander funds to no purpose.

We have weighed the matter maturely before laying it before the Throne. But among persons who are unacquainted with the subject there are some who will regard this matter as unimportant; some who will censure us as wrong in abandoning the methods of China for those of the West; and some who will even denounce the proposal that Chinese should submit to be instructed by people of the West as shameful in the extreme. Those who urge such objections are ignorant of the demands of the times.

In the first place it is high time that some plan should be devised for infusing new elements of strength into the government of China. Those who understand the times are of opinion that the only way of effecting this is to introduce the learning and mechanical arts of Western nations. Provincial governors, such as Tso Tsung-tang and Li Hung-chang, are firm in this conviction, and constantly presenting it in their addresses to the Throne. The last-mentioned officer last year opened an arsenal for the manufacture of arms, and invited men and officers from the metropolitan garrison to go there for instruction; while the other established in Foochow a school for the study of foreign languages and arts, with a view to the instruction of young men in ship-building and the manufacture of engines. The urgency of such studies is, therefore, an opinion which is not confined to us, your servants.

Should it be said that the purchase of firearms and steamers has been tried, and found to be both cheap and convenient, so that we may spare ourselves the trouble and expense of home production, we reply that it is not merely the manufacture of arms and the construction of ships that China needs to learn. But in respect to these two objects, which is the wiser course, in view of the future—to content ourselves with purchase, and leave the source of supply in the hands of others, or to render ourselves independent by making ourselves masters of their arts—it is hardly necessary to inquire.

As to the imputation of abandoning the methods of China, is it not altogether a fictitious charge? For, on inquiry, it will be found that Western science had its root in the astronomy of China, which Western scholars confess themselves to have derived from Eastern lands. They have minds adapted to reasoning and abstruse study, so that they were able to deduce from it new arts which shed a lustre on those nations; but, in reality, the original belonged to China, and Europeans learned it from us. If, therefore, we apply ourselves to those studies, our future progress will be built on our own foundation. Having the root in our possession, we shall not need to look to others for assistance, an advantage which it is impossible to over-estimate.

As to the value to be set on the science of the West, your illustrious ancestor, Kang Hsi, gave it his hearty approbation, promoting its teachers to offices of conspicuous dignity, and employing them to prepare the Imperial calendar; thus setting an example of liberality equalled only by the vastness of his all-comprehending wisdom. Our dynasty ought not to forget its own precedents, especially in relation to a matter which occupied the first place among the studies of the ancients.

In olden times yeomen and common soldiers were all acquainted with Astronomy; but in later ages an interdict was put upon it, and those who cultivated this branch of science became few. In the reign of Kang Hsi the prohibition was removed, and astronomical science once more began to flourish. Mathematics were studied together with the classics, the evidence of which we find in the published works of several schools. A proverb says, "A thing unknown is a scholar's shame." Now, when a man of letters, on stepping from his door, raises his eyes to the stars, and is unable to tell what they are, is not this enough to make him blush? Even if no schools were established, the educated ought to apply themselves to such studies. How much more so when a goal is proposed for them to aim at?