Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/202

190 the sacrifice. Bought and sold, kidnapped and forced into a life of prostitution and helpless misery, woman is indeed among the Chinese an object of pity and commiseration. The evidences are constantly before our eyes in our own country, wherever the Chinese are gathered in communities, that her lot here is in no way ameliorated, nor have her Christian surroundings so far, in any perceptible degree, tended to work her elevation or emancipation. It is a work that must first be successfully begun and carried out before we may indulge in the idle dream of Chinese conversion to the doctrines of Christianity. It is another—if not the most important factor—in the Chinese problem which we are called upon to solve, in so far as the Chinese who are to remain among us are concerned, and adds perhaps the most serious complexity to the puzzle.

The children born upon our soil so far are in the main illegitimate, and in all cases are, by the very nature of their surroundings, barred out from possible education in common with the children of our population in general. There can therefore be no common school system which in its proper sense can be made applicable to them. What then occurs? Either they must be debarred from being educated at the public expense, or a school system must be devised for their own separate teaching. In the latter case there will no longer be a common school system, but a line of class distinction will at once be drawn, and the virtual introduction of the caste system will begin. "Will not this even build higher still the barrier between Christianity and idolatry, and will not the way of conversion be made still more difficult than before?

It has been truly said of the Chinese as they exist in the San Francisco colony that "they are not only not amenable to law, but they are governed by secret tribunals unrecognized and unauthorized by law." These tribunals "levy taxes, command masses of men, intimidate interpreters and witnesses, enforce perjury, regulate trade, punish the refractory, remove witnesses beyond the reach of the courts, control liberty of action, and prevent the return of Chinese to their home in China without their consent." And this system grows out of the inherent quality of the Chinese mind. It is part and parcel of their natures to be their own masters, to acknowledge no law or rule of action not of their own making. It is this quality of mind, this ancestral inheritance, that must be eradicated and changed before the Chinese can be made to stand upon an equality before the law with other American citizens. It adds another to the many complications of the Chinese problem which is before us for solution, and as it involves a change of natural proclivities which can not be brought about except by the slow evolutionary process through successive generations, it