g. For a paragon of intelligence and courage, how
pitiful this relapse into superstition! Did not China after a trial
of European methods also relapse during the Boxer craze into her old
superstitions? And is she not at this moment taking the medicine
of Japan? To Japan she looks for guidance in the conduct of her
public schools as well as for the training of her army and navy.
To Japan she is sending her sons and daughters in growing numbers.
No fewer than eight thousand of her young men, and, what is more
significant, one or two hundred of her young women from the best
families are now in those islands inhaling the breath of a new
life.

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Some writers have sounded a note of alarm in consequence of this
wholesale surrender on the part of China. But for my part I have
no fear of any sinister tendency in the teachings of Japan, whether
political or educational. On a memorable occasion twelve years ago,
when Marquis Ito was entertained at a banquet in Peking by the
governor of the city and the chancellor of the Imperial University, I
congratulated him on the fact that "Japan exerts a stronger influence
on China than any Western power--just as the moon raises a higher
tide than the more distant sun"--implying, what the Japanese are
ready enough to admit, that their country shines by borrowed light.

After all, the renovating effect, for which I look to them, will
not come so much from their teaching as from their example. "What
is to hinder us from doing what those islanders have done?" is an
argument oft reiterated by Viceroy Chang in his appeals to his drowsy
countrymen. It was, as I have said, largely under his influence that
the Emperor was led to adopt a new educational programme twelve
years ago. Nor can there be a doubt that by his influence more than
that of any other man, the Empress Dowager was induced to reenact
and to enlarge that programme.

To show what is going on in this very decade: On September 3, 1905,
an edict was issued "abolishing the literary competitive examinations
of the old style," and ordering that "hereafter exclusive attention
shall be given to the establishment of schools of modern learning
throughout the Empire in lieu thereof." The next day a supplementary
decree ordained that
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the provincial chancellors or examiners who, like Othello, found their
occupation gone, should have the duty of examining and inspecting the
schools in their several provinces; and, to give