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GENERAL SURVEY, 13The general introduction of foreign liquors also cannot prove other than an injury to the physical constitution of the Chinese and the morale of China.The status of the Chinese Press is a matter of thegravest concern both to the people of China and to therulers. At presentit seems difficult to know what toexpect some journals being summarily suppressed, and;then reincarnated under other names. The control ofimportant organs by wealthy officials is an evil of greatimportance, which is apparently less in evidence than ayear or two ago. But in this as an other lines it isdangerous to give too much liberty before there issufficient self-restraint to prevent its abuse.Rumors regarding numerous social reforms whichare supposed to be just below the dip of the horizoncontinue to abound, and some of them may be not faroff. Among them are the abolition of the eunuch system, the discontinuance of girl slavery, permission forthe removal of the queue, and the like. The Occidentalbow has been recognized as a useful compromise betweenthe varying Chinese and Manchu salutations in Peking.Hand-shaking between Chinese and foreigners has (soto speak) made great strides, and the increasing opportunities of meeting gentry and officials afford numerousvaluable opportunities for mutual adjustments.It is greatly to be regretted that one is unable todetect any signs of improvement in the administrationof the national system of education. As a whole itappears to be unsystematized, uncoordinated, expensive,and inefficient. In the eighteen provinces there arethought to be about 350 foreigners employed in Chineseschools, of whom perhaps six-sevenths are Japanese.There is, as there has been from the outset, a greatdearth of competent teachers, and especially of thosetrained for their work and interested in it. The adoption of the Western Sunday as a school holiday, so widelyhailed as a bright sign of promise, has probably provedan almost unmixed evil in periodically removing pupils