Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 68.djvu/121

 Rh educational affairs will soon be confirmed under the title Wen Pu or Board of Literature.

It was rather the abuse and not the fault of this literary civil service system that it compelled the mind of China to grind for ages in the mill of blind imitation. A competition which excited the deep interest of a whole nation must have exercised a correspondingly profound influence upon the education of the people and the stability of the government. The old system has cherished whatever national education there has been, and when the influence of western science predominates, as it is beginning to do, we shall see thousands, yea hundreds of thousands, of patient students pursuing scientific studies with an ardor equal to that formerly bestowed on literary competition. The problem of transition is a vast one, and not till men of modern training, necessarily young men, are appointed to the literary chancellorships of the empire, can this new and practical system be adequately established. But the struggle against custom and conservatism is on—probably an intense and prolonged effort, for these do not vanish in a day even in the presence of a goodly band of reformers—and from the struggle the rising race of modern students will come forth victorious to lead their country into the splendid destiny that awaits her.

It remains to be seen just what measures will be taken to establish adequate and efficient modern schools throughout the empire, but already the prime movers in the recent memorial have announced some very ambitious schemes. The viceroy of Chihli has decided to establish a monster normal school at Tientsin in order to prepare men to teach according to modern methods. It will be modeled after the one at Nanking, and will matriculate from Fêngtien, Shangtung, Honan and other provinces, as well as from Chihli. The president will be a returned student from Japan, Chin Pang-ping, who was recently awarded the Hanlin degree after passing a special examination. At Peking it is planned to erect new buildings on a site of more than 2,800 English acres, and to supersede the present Peking University with this new Imperial Chinese University. Dormitory accommodations for some 20,000 students are to be provided, while a portion of the grounds will be set apart for agricultural experiments. The site of the present university is to be utilized for the erection of a school for the daughters of princes, nobles and high ministers of state, which has been sanctioned by the empress dowager in response to the recommendations of H. E. Chang Pei-hsi, minister of education and president of the Board of Revenue, and H. E. Tuan Fang, substantive governor of Hunan province and one of the five imperial commissioners appointed to visit abroad.

At Canton the abolition of the biennial and triennial examinations causes a loss to the provincial treasury of nearly $350,000 silver