the people the power of
foreign education. An imperial college had been established by the
customs service for the special education of young men for diplomatic
and other positions, from which there had gone out young men who were
the representatives of the government as consuls or ministers in the
various countries of Europe and America.

The fever for reading the same books that Kuang Hsu had read was so
great as to tax to the utmost the presses of the port cities to supply
the demand, and the leaders of some of the publication societies feared
that a condition had arisen for which they were unprepared. Books
written by such men as Drs. Allen, Mateer, Martin, Williams and Legge
were brought out in pirated photographic reproductions by the bookshops
of Shanghai and sold for one-tenth the cost of the original work.
Authors, to protect themselves, compelled the pirates to deliver over
the stereotype plates they had made on penalty of being brought before
the officials in litigation if they refused. But during the three years
the Emperor had been studying these foreign books, hundreds of
thousands of young scholars all over the empire had been doing the
same, preparing themselves for whatever emergency the studies of the
young Emperor might bring about.

One day during the early spring a young Chinese reformer came to me to
get a list of the best newspapers and periodicals published in both
England and America. I inquired the reason for this strange move, and
he said:

"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