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40 CHINA MISSION YEAR BOOK.ment. The task set before the organizers of the newsystem was to provide regulations for the control ofinstruction in schools and also for examination of pupils,while at the same time making sure that there should bea sufficient supply of capable men to fill the offices underthe Civil Service.The change in the aim of education has been contemporaneous with changes which are occurring in thegeneral government of China. As long as the governingpower remained in the hands of the few and did not concern the ordinary citizen, it was sufficient that the educational methods in vogue should produce a requisitenumber of educated men to fillplaces of responsibility.With the preparations which have been made for theintroduction of constitutional government for severalyears, the importance of universal education has cometo be recognized. It would be impossible to expect acountry to be governed well, on democratic lines, whilethe populace remained uneducated. Where the vote ofthe individual is so bound up with the general governmental arrangements of his country that it affects forgood or evil the destinies of his fellow-citizens, it is recognized that this individual should be one who hasreceived some sort of an education. China with a Constitution, Provincial Parliaments and local MunicipalAdministrations, would be in a worse condition thanbefore if the voters who are responsible for casting theirvotes in favour of a certain plan are known to be menwho, from lack of education, can have no possibleunderstanding of what is proposed. Education must gohand in hand with the growth of constitutional government, even though the urgency of the situation may notallow it to take itsproper place by preceding such government. If it were necessary to choose between thesway of an educated, benevolent autocrat and that of anuneducated populace, the good of those governed wouldbe best promoted by the former. Universal educationshould be rightly considered of the utmost importance iu

GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS. .41a natiun which islooking forward to being governed. bya Constitution. Up to the present, there has been nodivorce of education from the general governmentalquestions occupying the attention of China s statesmen.The men who have given most time toward the formulation of a scheme of education for the Kmpire havelortunately been statesmen with wide experience in Provincial and Metropolitan Administrations. This hashad far-reaching, beneficial effects in maintaining thestandards of education along national lines. The neweducation is not being introduced into China, as it wasinto Japan, as an importation from abroad, but is developing out of former conditions into something adapted tothe new life of the nation.that the first steps takenIt was reasonable to expectby a Government accustomed to the former regimewould be the founding of schools and colleges devoted toinstruction in higher branches. Men of thorough attainments in the new learning were needed at once, and theattempt was made to produce them from these advancedschools. Laboratories were equipped, foreign instructors engaged, large buildings erected, and generous endowments provided. It was soon found, however, thatthese provisions did not make itpossible to turn out thefinished product of well-educated men in a short time.Students who entered after having had irregular trainingfor several years in various schools were still obliged topursue their studies for many subsequent years in orderto attain to a fixed uniform standard. One school ofhigh grade in the north gathered students from southernports where foreign schools had been established formany years. This plan of securing students was notcontinued, for the reason that the Provincial Government soon decided that its first duty was to educatestudents from its own province, and that, in orderto do so, it must take them through several y.earbof preparatory training before they were fit to commence special studies Other schools started with

GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS. .41a natiun which islooking forward to being governed. bya Constitution. Up to the present, there has been nodivorce of education from the general governmentalquestions occupying the attention of China s statesmen.The men who have given most time toward the formulation of a scheme of education for the Kmpire havelortunately been statesmen with wide experience in Provincial and Metropolitan Administrations. This hashad far-reaching, beneficial effects in maintaining thestandards of education along national lines. The neweducation is not being introduced into China, as it wasinto Japan, as an importation from abroad, but is developing out of former conditions into something adapted tothe new life of the nation.that the first steps takenIt was reasonable to expectby a Government accustomed to the former regimewould be the founding of schools and colleges devoted toinstruction in higher branches. Men of thorough attainments in the new learning were needed at once, and theattempt was made to produce them from these advancedschools. Laboratories were equipped, foreign instructors engaged, large buildings erected, and generous endowments provided. It was soon found, however, thatthese provisions did not make itpossible to turn out thefinished product of well-educated men in a short time.Students who entered after having had irregular trainingfor several years in various schools were still obliged topursue their studies for many subsequent years in orderto attain to a fixed uniform standard. One school ofhigh grade in the north gathered students from southernports where foreign schools had been established formany years. This plan of securing students was notcontinued, for the reason that the Provincial Government soon decided that its first duty was to educatestudents from its own province, and that, in orderto do so, it must take them through several y.earbof preparatory training before they were fit to commence special studies Other schools started with

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