Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/357

Rh education as some real, practical training. Her people are not ready for the former, but are badly in need of the latter. The first utility of education should be to enable those educated to earn a competency, without which we can hardly expect a man to go about discussing the nice points in law or in science, while a starving family awaits him at home and an empty stomach gnaws within. With her countless millions of population, China has no workmen skilled in the production of any part of the furnishings for the comforts and conveniences of modern life. To-day China is using modern conveniences and appliances that she can not produce. This being the condition, practical manual training in the useful arts is her first necessity. If China wishes to become a member of the great family of civilized nations, she must be educated out of the idea that an educated gentleman should not perform any manual labor, and that learning and labor are divorced from each other.

Though our path is thus strewn with difficulties and obstacles, yet we as educators do not labor without a bright ray of hope. The Chinese mind has all the elements of a good soil for the implantation of the seeds of learning; it only needs proper cultivation. For example, there are in the Li Shing Scientific and Industrial College at Hong Kong, young men and boys who, five months ago, had no idea of what science was, who can now perform chemical experiments understanding^ and discuss many scientific topics intelligently. Once having tasted the flavor of the new learning, some of the students try to devour the subjects with the eagerness of a starving dog that sees a piece of meat. When they are interested in their studies, they apply themselves to their books with all the force of mind and body. This better class of students is very orderly, docile, impressionable and respectful.

Although at first many of the students are slow to comprehend the methods and aims of a system of education so new to them, my experience has been that after a few months some of those who were apparently indifferent suddenly take hold as if by inspiration. Having become interested, nothing can woo them from their books, and, instead of having to hold them to strict account for their daily work, we have to keep them back. I have in mind, in particular, one fourteen-year-old boy who, when he entered our school, was a very idle and playful scholar. He was so idle and unruly that he had to be kept standing by the teacher's desk the greater part of the time. Indeed, we had our doubts whether it was best to allow him to remain with us. After a few weeks his reasoning powers became unearthed and he took an absorbing interest in chemistry. From that time forth there was no further occasion for reprimand; there was a marked changed in all his work and his progress in English was very rapid. His ability to apply what he learns, his power to grasp new ideas and his faculty for