ot worth
saving. It cannot therefore be regarded as wholly and altogether
satisfactory.

The best Chinese educationists are aware of this, and have established
schools and universities which are modern but under Chinese direction.
In these, a certain proportion of the teachers are European or
American, but the spirit of the teaching is not that of the Y.M.C.A. One
can never rid oneself of the feeling that the education controlled by
white men is not disinterested; it seems always designed, unconsciously
in the main, to produce convenient tools for the capitalist penetration
of China by the merchants and manufacturers of the nation concerned.
Modern Chinese schools and universities are singularly different: they
are not hotbeds of rabid nationalism as they would be in any other
country, but institutions where the student is taught to think freely,
and his thoughts are judged by their intelligence, not by their utility
to exploiters. The outcome, among the best young men, is a really
beautiful intellectual disinterestedness. The discussions which I used
to have in my seminar (consisting of students belonging to the Peking
Government University) could not have been surpassed anywhere for
keenness, candour, and fearlessness. I had the same impression of the
Science Society of Nanking, and of all similar bodies wherever I came
across them. There is, among the young, a passionate desire to acquire
Western knowledge, together with a vivid realization of Western vices.
They wish to be scientific but not mechanical, industrial but not
capitalistic. To a man they are Socialists, as are most of the best
among their Chinese teachers. They respect the knowledge of Europeans,
but quietly put aside their arrogance. For the present, the purely
Chinese modern educational institutions, such as the Peking Government
University, leave much to be desired from the point of view of
instruction; there are no adequate libraries, the teaching of English is
not sufficiently thorough, and there is not enough mental discipline.
But these are the faults of youth, and are unimportant compared with the
profoundly humanistic attitude to life which is formed in the students.
Most of the faults may be traced to the lack of funds, because the
Government--loved by the Powers on account of its weakness--has to part
with all its funds to the military chieftains who fight each other and
plunder the country, as in Europe--for China must be compared with
Europ