The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Awakening of China, by W.A.P. Martin

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Title: The Awakening of China

Author: W.A.P. Martin

Release Date: February 21, 2005 [EBook #15125]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AWAKENING OF CHINA ***

Produced by Robert J. Hall.

The Awakening of China

By W. A. P. MARTIN, D.D., LL.D

Formerly President of the Chinese Imperial University

Author of "A Cycle of Cathay," "The Siege
in Peking," "The Lore of Cathay," etc.

[Page v]
PREFACE

China is the theatre of the greatest movement now taking place
on the face of the globe. In comparison with it, the agitation
in Russia shrinks to insignificance; for it is not political, but
social. Its object is not a changed dynasty, nor a revolution in
the form of government; but, with higher aim and deeper motive, it
promises nothing short of the complete renovation of the oldest,
most populous, and most conservative of empires. Is there a people
in either hemisphere that can afford to look on with indifference?

When, some thirty years ago, Japan adopted the outward forms of
Western civilisation, her action was regarded by many as a stage
trick--a sort of travesty employed for a temporary purpose. But
what do they think now, when they see cabinets and chambers of
commerce compelled to reckon with the British of the North Pacific?
The awakening of Japan's huge neighbour promises to yield results
equally startling and on a vastly extended scale.

Political agitation, whether periodic like the tides or unforeseen
like the hurricane, is in general superficial and temporary; but
the social movement in China has its origin in subterranean forces
such as raise continents from the bosom of the deep. To explain
those forces is the object of the present work.

It is the fascination of this grand spectacle that has
[Page vi]
brought me back to China, after a short visit to my native land--and
to this capital, after a sojourn of some years in the central provinces.
Had the people continued to be as inert and immobile as they appeared
to be half a century ago, I might have been tempted to despair
of their fut