naries.
Dr. Ferguson of the Methodist Episcopal Mission was called to the
presidency of the Nanyang College at Shanghai; Dr. Hayes, to be
head of a new university in Shantung; and Dr. Martin, after serving
for twenty-five years as head of the Diplomatic College in Peking,
was, in 1898, made president of the new Imperial University. His
appointment was by decree from the Throne, published in the Government
_Gazette_; and mandarin rank next to the highest was conferred
on him. On terminating his connection with that institution, after
it was broken up by Boxers, he was recalled to China to take charge
of a university for the two provinces of Hupeh and Hunan.

CREATORS OF CHINESE JOURNALISM

In the movement of modern society, no force is more conspicuous
than journalism. In this our missionaries have from the first taken
a leading part, as it was they who introduced it to China. At every
central station for the last half-century periodicals have been
issued by them in the Chinese language.
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The man who has done most in this line is Dr. Y. J. Allen, of the
Methodist Episcopal Church South. He has devoted a lifetime to
it, besides translating numerous books.

Formerly the Chinese had only one newspaper in the empire--the
_Peking Gazette_, the oldest journal in the world. They now
have, in imitation of foreigners, some scores of dailies, in which
they give foreign news, and which they print in foreign type. The
highest mandarins wince under their stinging criticisms.

THEY LEAD A VERNACULAR REVOLUTION

It is one of the triumphs of Christianity to have given a written
form to the language of modern Europe. It is doing the same for
heathen nations in all parts of the earth. Nor does China offer
an exception. The culture for which her learned classes are noted
is wholly confined to a classic language that is read everywhere,
and spoken nowhere, somewhat as Latin was in the West in the Middle
Ages, save that Latin was really a tongue capable of being employed
in speech, whereas the classical language of China is not addressed
to the ear but to the eye, being, as Dr. Medhurst said, "an occulage,
not a language."

The mandarin or spoken language of the north was, indeed, reduced
to writing by the Chinese themselves; and a similar beginning was
made with some of the southern dialects. In all these efforts the
Chinese ideographs have been employed; but so numerous and disjointed
are they that the labour of yea