s see if Mr. Title-Changing
Lawyer, also fattening needlessly at the expense of the people, does
not go to our next legislature and stifle any measure for reforming
land-title registration. And in saying this I am not to be understood
as making any wholesale condemnation of either Chinese bankers or our
American lawyers. The ablest advocates of the Torrens system I know
are lawyers, men who say that lawyers ought to be content with the
really useful ways of earning money and not insist on keeping up
utterly useless and indefensible means of getting fees out of the
people. Such lawyers, indeed, deserve honor; my criticism is aimed
only at those who realize the wisdom of a changed system but are led
by selfishness to oppose it.

{99}

After all, however, the most revolutionary and iconoclastic reform in
the new China is the changed policy of the schools. For thousands of
years the education has been exclusively literary. The aim has been to
produce scholars. A thorough knowledge of the works of the sages and
poets, and the ability to write learned essays or beautiful verses,
this has been the test of merit. When Colonel Denby wrote his book on
China five years ago he could say:

"The Chinese scholar knows nothing of ancient or modern history
(outside of China), geography, astronomy, zoology or physics. He
knows perfectly well the dynastic history of his own country and he
composes beautiful poems, and these are his only accomplishments."

But now all this is changed. The ancient system of selecting public
officials by examination as to classical scholarship was abolished the
year after Colonel Denby's book was published, and the new ideal of
the school is to train men and women for useful living, for practical
things, and to combine culture with utility. Japanese education now
has the same aim. There, in fact, even the study of the languages is
made to subserve a practical end. Where the American boy studies Latin
and soon forgets it, the Japanese boy studies English and continues to
read English and speak it on occasion the rest of his life, increasing
his efficiency and usefulness in no small measure as a result. In
Japan, too, I found the keenest interest in the teaching of
agriculture to boys and domestic science to girls; and in all these
things China is also moving--blunderingly, perhaps, but yet making
progress--toward the most modern educational ideas.

As a matter of fact, much as America has talked