Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/395

Rh possibilities of the first, it has become of wide political import. After noting briefly in this paper the period of beginnings and indicating the present-day aspects of this threefold renaissance, we shall in subsequent papers confine ourselves to a consideration of the educational factors.

The intercourse between China and the West began when the Portuguese sent their first trading vessel to her southern ports, of which Canton is the chief, in 1516, and till 1812 it was a purely commercial relation in which the power and civilization of Europe were represented for the most part by the East India Company, seeking only for the

advantages of trade and persistently opposing all efforts designed to enlighten the people with whom they dealt. "The attitude of official China during this period was that of supercilious arrogance. China sought no intercourse with outsiders. If they sought trade with her, it was granted as a gracious favor by an officialdom which despised trade and traders too much to attend seriously to the details involved until they became matters threatening international rupture."

The event which began the new order of things was the 'opium war' between Great Britain and China, which, though little to the credit of a righteous nation, nevertheless has served as the origin of what must ultimately be of immeasurable benefit to the more benighted land. By the treaty of peace of 1812 British subjects were permitted to reside at certain important ports along the eastern coast and to trade