r decapitation. However, he is being cared for, and it
is doubtful whether the authorities--or even the emperor himself--will
mete out punishment to him when he grows older. He did nothing; he knew
nothing. At the present time he is going through a class-book which
teaches him the language to be used in audience with the Son of
Heaven--he will probably be taken before the emperor when he is old
enough. But now he is not living the life of a boy--no playmates, no
toys, no romps and frolics. He, like Topsy, merely grows--in
surroundings which only a dark prison life can give him.

This was the first time I had even been in prison in China. This remark
rather tickled the governor, and on taking my departure he assured me
that it was an honor to him, which the Chinese language was too poor to
express, that I should have allowed my honorable and dignified person to
visit his mean and contemptible abode. He commenced this compliment to
me as he was showing me the well-equipped hospital in connection with
the prison--containing eight separate wards in charge of a Chinese
doctor.

I smiled in return a smile of deepest gratitude, and waving a fond
farewell, left him in a happy mood.

THE SCHOOLS

One would scarce dream of a university for the province of Yuen-nan. Yet
such is the case.

In former days--and it is true, too, to a great extent to-day--the
prominent place given to education in China rendered the village schools
an object of more than common interest, where the educated men of the
Empire received their first intellectual training. Probably in no other
country was there such uniformity in the standards of instruction. Every
educated man was then a potential school master--this was certainly true
of Yuen-nan. But all is now changing, as the infusion of the spirit of
the phrase "China for the Chinese" gains forceful meaning among the
people.

The highest hill within the city precincts has been chosen as the site
for a university, which is truly a remarkable building for Western
China. One of the students of the late. Dr. Mateer (Shantung) was the
architect--a man who came originally to the school as a teacher of
mathematics--and it cannot be said that the huge oblong building, with a
long narrow wing on either side of a central dome, is the acme of beauty
from a purely architectural standpoint.

Of red-faced brick, this university, which cost over two hundred
thousand taels to build, is most imposing, and pos