FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161  
162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   >>   >|  
y crowned with many laurels, showing how much the viceroy's heart was set on the education of his people. In the interest of the educational movement, I was called to Chang's assistance in 1902. The Imperial University was destroyed in the Boxer War, and, seeing no prospect of its reestablishment I was on the way to my home in America when, on reaching Vancouver, I found a telegram from Viceroy Chang, asking me to be president of a university which he proposed to open, and to instruct his junior officials in international law. I engaged for three years; and I now look back on my recent campaign in Central China as one of the most interesting passages in a life of over half a century in the Far East. Besides instructing his mandarins in the law of nations, I had to give them some notion of geography and history, the two cooerdinates of time and place, without which they might, like some of their writers, mistake Rhode Island for the Island of Rhodes, and Rome, New York, for the City of the Seven Hills. A book on the Intercourse of Nations and a translation of Dudley Field's "International Code," remain as tangible results of those lectures. But the university failed to materialise. Within a month after my arrival the viceroy was ordered to remove to Nanking to take up a post rendered vacant by the death of his eminent colleague, Liu. Calling at my house on the eve of embarking he said, "I asked you to come here to be president of a university for two provinces. If you will go with me to Nanking, I will make you president of a university [Page 230] for five provinces," meaning that he would combine the educational interests of the two viceroyalties, and showing how the university scheme had expanded in his fertile brain. Before he had been a month at that higher post he learned to his intense disappointment that he was only to hold the place for another appointee. After nearly a year at Nanking, he was summoned to Peking, where he spent another year in complete uncertainty as to his future destination. In the meantime the university existed only on paper. In justice to the viceroy I ought to say that nothing could exceed the courtesy and punctuality with which he discharged his obligations to me. The despatch which once a month brought me my stipend was always addressed to me as president of the Wuchang University, though as a matter of fact I might as well have been styled president of the University of Weissn
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161  
162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

university

 

president

 

University

 

Nanking

 

viceroy

 

provinces

 
showing
 

educational

 
Island
 
meaning

combine

 
ordered
 
arrival
 

remove

 
Within
 

lectures

 
failed
 

materialise

 
rendered
 

vacant


embarking

 
Calling
 

interests

 

eminent

 

colleague

 

appointee

 

discharged

 

punctuality

 

obligations

 

despatch


courtesy

 

exceed

 

brought

 
stipend
 
styled
 

Weissn

 

matter

 

addressed

 

Wuchang

 

justice


intense

 

learned

 
disappointment
 

higher

 
Before
 
scheme
 

expanded

 
fertile
 
future
 

destination