ct was necessary to complete this remarkable list,
and this was sent to the legations on the 17th of November. It is as
follows:

"I have the honour to inform Your Excellency that on the 22d of the
moon [November 15, 1908] I reverently received the following edict:

"We received in our early childhood the love and care of Tze-hsi, etc.,
the Great Empress Dowager. Our gratitude is boundless. We have received
the command to succeed to the throne and we fully expected that the
gentle Empress Dowager would be vigorous and reach a hundred years so
that we might be cherished and made glad and reverently receive her
instructions so that our government might be established and the state
made firm. But her toil by day and night gradually weakened her.
Medicine was constantly administered in the hope that she might
recover. Contrary to our hopes, on the 21st day of the moon [November
14th] at the wei-k'o [1-3 P.M.] she took the fairy ride and ascended to
the far country. We cried out and mourned how frantically! We learn
from her testamentary statement that the period of full mourning is to
be limited to twenty-seven days. We certainly cannot be satisfied with
this. Full mourning must be worn for one hundred days and half mourning
for twenty-seven months, by which our grief may be partly expressed.
The order to restrain grief so that the affairs of the empire may be of
first importance we dare not disregard, as it is her parting command.
We will strive to be temperate so as to comfort the spirit of the late
Empress in Heaven."

We call attention to the fact that according to the fourth of these
edicts the death of the Emperor is put at from 5 to 7 P. M on the
evening of the 14th of November, while that of the Empress Dowager is
from 1 to 3 P. M. of the same day at least two hours earlier, and that
in her last edict she is made to speak of the death of Kuang Hsu.
Whether these dates have become mixed in crossing to America we have
not been able to ascertain, though we think it more than likely that
her death occurred on November 15th instead of the 14th.

XXII

The Court and the New Education

Abolish the eight-legged essay. Let the new learning be the test of
scholarship, but include the classics, history, geography and
government of China in the examinations. The true essay will then come
out. If so desired, the eight-legged essay can be studied at home; but
why trouble the school with them, and at the same time waste