appeal to one most because of their unfailing human interest and the
possibilities stored up in them. They are of every kind and degree of
excellence, or badness, according to the way they are looked at. On
the whole, most of them seem to be doing good and even the poorest
keep the children off the street. Often there are amusing features. In
the Chinese city, on a signboard over a doorway appears the rather
unusual announcement, “English taught from A. to L.” Just what is done
with the remaining letters of the alphabet is not explained. On a
side street the passerby reads again in large English letters, “Daily
Progressive School.” In two poorly lighted, none too clean rooms of an
old Chinese house, thirty or forty children bend over their roughly
made desks, studying aloud in vociferous tones. The head teacher quiets
them while he greets the chance visitor and points with pride to his
foreign textbooks in geography and English. He too has ideals, and
when reference is made to the name of the school, answers, “Yes, that
is what I want to make it, ‘Daily Progressive.’” He adds that he has
started two branches of his “Daily Progressive School” in other parts
of Shanghai. Then comes the unexpected question, “Are you a Christian?”
“I am a Christian,” naming the mission school where he received his
education.
Sometimes a little day-school is hidden away in the back room of a
rambling old house, or in an inner apartment of a Buddhist temple,
where the unsophisticated easily loses himself amid its labyrinthine
windings. During the stormy iconoclastic days of the revolution,
temples and ancestral halls were turned over wholesale by the
provisional government to be used as schools, and though many have
reverted to their original purposes, others, like Li Hung Chang’s
Temple in Shanghai, are still kept as seats of learning. This memorial
to the great statesman, built by public funds, was taken possession of
five years ago by the trustees of Fuh-tan College, and now the bronze
statue of the famous Li from its pedestal in the garden looks down each
day on three hundred and fifty students hurrying to and fro through
the numberless courts and passageways. Commencement exercises are held
in the Hall of Ancestral Worship, where, on a raised platform against
an ornate background, sits the Chinese President, an alumnus of Yale,
surrounded by his faculty, all in collegiate cap and gown, making one
of the curious anomalies common in these days of transition.
From the Provincial Normal School, located in the Chinese city, thirty
young men graduated last year and more than five hundred have gone
out from its doors during the eleven years since it was opened. Such
is the demand for teachers that long before the school-year closes
every member of the graduating class has been spoken for. The alumni
are scattered far and wide over the country. Near the Normal School
is a large practice school of four hundred pupils. The students of
the Normal School are taught music, clay-modelling, wood-carving,
painting, drawing. They are ardent patriots and keenly resent any real
or supposed indignity offered to their native land. Sometimes they
express their patriotism in original ways, as they did not long ago,
when feeling ran high because of the unreasonable demands made on
China by Japan. The boys’ sleeping and study rooms open onto courts in
the rambling structure, or rather a series of Chinese buildings which
constitute the school plant. These rooms were cleared out and each one
made the scene of some pictorial or material representation of the
current political issue. Many of the exhibits were exceedingly clever,
a few were most amusing, but all were strikingly illustrative of the
animus of the student body and showed the kind of teachers that are
being sent forth over China to instill their principles into the minds
of the rising generation.
It is significant of the spirit of the times that a young man in
Shanghai a few months ago went to his father and begged to be given
his portion of the family gambling money. With it he opened a school
which has now one hundred and fifty pupils. The secretary of the
Provincial Educational Association, recently back from an extended tour
in America, requested a resident missionary to give him lessons in
English. He was so impressed with the excellence of the American system
that he decided to introduce the same methods into his own schools as
rapidly as possible, and wanted a better knowledge of English that he
might be qualified to select text-books and arrange courses of study.
Last summer for the first time the Shanghai prefect fixed a uniform
vacation period for the elementary schools extending through five
weeks, from July 22d to August 25th. In sending out the notice the
prefect added a clause to the effect that during two weeks of the
vacation three hours a day must be spent by the pupils in reviewing
their lessons.
There are two flourishing Japanese schools in Shanghai. One is a large
public school that is growing so rapidly a new building has been added
to the group which suffices for six or seven hundred pupils. Boys
and girls of all ages are accommodated under the same roof, but with
the exception of the very little children in the kindergarten, they
occupy separate rooms and have their recess at different hours. They
make a pretty sight in their gay coloured garments flitting about in
the sunshine like radiant butterflies during play hours, or pouring
joyously out on the street at the close of school, some going off in
ricshas accompanied by nurses, more on foot, while a lot of youngsters
scramble onto the street cars, clutching their coppers in dirty little
paws, each one carrying a school bag or books tied up in a square of
cloth, and a little lunch box, while on every urchin’s head rests a
smart military cap.
The other school is a Japanese College with nearly three hundred
students, strong of body, alert in mind, picked men all of them.
They are sent from Japan by their respective prefectures to study
in Shanghai for three years, every expense being met. The course
includes commerce, engineering, and agriculture. During the fourteen
years since the school opened, eight hundred have graduated, seventy
receiving certificates last June. At the end of the second year’s work,
seventy or eighty of the most promising students at the expense of
the school, are sent far and wide over China to study the country and
its condition, agricultural, mining, social, political. “When the men
graduate from the college they return to Japan, do they not?” was asked
of the president. “Oh, no,” came the emphatic reply, “they are expected
to stay in China and help the Chinese develop their resources.”
A group of schools in Shanghai which are not for the study of books,
but, in their line, of great value, the public generally knows little
about. These are the six Singer Sewing-Machine Schools for women and
girls. The Singer Sewing-Machine made its advent in China a decade ago,
and thus far it is without a rival. It “took” almost at once with the
Chinese and is now found everywhere, even in the most unlooked for and
absurdly out-of-the-way places. In 1910 Singer Sewing-Machine schools
were started in Shanghai. At first they met with small success. Those
for men were a signal failure and soon closed their doors. The few who
ventured to enter the schools for women and girls had to be paid for
coming, but the old conservatism seemed to die out with the revolution.
The leading school now numbers fifty pupils. The period of training
covers three, six, or twelve months according to the kind of work taken
up, whether plain tailoring or fancy embroidery. The pupils come from
widely scattered districts and it is the intention when they return
to their village or town that they shall open a school of their own,
and in this way introduce the machines throughout the country. There
are already more than four hundred selling stations in China, each in
charge of a Chinese agent. The machines are sold on the installment
plan. “We consider ourselves missionaries in our way,” said the foreign
representative of the company in Shanghai, “for is it not a charity to
lighten the labour of these poor hard-working people by selling them
our sewing-machines on easy terms?” The Singer Company subscribes
liberally to all benevolences, and during the revolution, and the
rebellion the following year, it loaned its machines free of charge
to organizations engaged in making garments for the destitute. One
effective way it has of advertising is to send men about the streets
of Shanghai dressed fantastically in clothes made in its shops, while
offering for sale small articles carried in portable show-cases.
VIII
A WIZARD PUBLISHING HOUSE
“The pen is mightier than the sword” has through the centuries been a
working axiom in China, for soldiers stood at the foot of the social
ladder, while scholars sat proudly on the top rung. Recent experiences,
it is true, have somewhat altered the views of the people, though
not reversed them. But the accompanying adage, “The printed page
is mightier than the sword,” has not seemed to acquire popularity,
despite the fact that printing from movable type was discovered in old
China long before Gutenberg saw the light of day. Indeed, the “Peking
Gazette,” whose lineal descendant still flourishes in the Capital,
claims the honour of being the first newspaper ever published. It was
printed from wooden blocks, some of which are still in existence, no
one knows just how long ago, though tradition makes it as many as a
thousand years. But for centuries the art was little used and even as
late as the Chino-Japanese war in 1894 news travelled so slowly that
people living only seventy-five miles from the coast had not even
heard there was a war. Now, Shanghai alone, which is far in advance of
other cities in this respect, publishes more than thirty newspapers
and periodicals, twelve of them being dailies. Many of the sheets
are illustrated, and as a proof that they are thoroughly abreast of
the times, advertisements of well known patent medicines are given a
prominent place!
With the dawn of China’s “New Day,” and the increasing thirst for
Western learning, an insistent cry was heard, not alone for newspapers,
but for books, books, and plenty of them. Then to meet the need arose
the Commercial Press. The story of the rapid growth and development of
this great publishing house reads like a tale from the Arabian Nights.
The idea was born in the minds of three young, wide-awake Chinese,
all practical printers, and all of them Christians, the product of a
Presbyterian Mission School in Shanghai. Work began in 1897 in a modest
way with two small printing presses. The shop was a Chinese house
in an alley off one of the main roads. These quarters were speedily
outgrown, and after two moves the plant was finally lodged permanently
in a group of fine brick buildings covering eight acres in the northern
end of the city. To-day sixty modern presses, the very best to be had,
are annually, in round figures, using up twenty-five thousand reams
of foreign paper and thirty-four hundred reams of Chinese paper, the
bulk of which is turned into school books and scattered far and wide
over the land, from Manchuria to Thibet. The year after the revolution,
although new machinery was bought, additional workmen taken on as fast
as they could be found, and the presses kept running night and day, the
enormous demand for books could not be met.
[Illustration: CHINESE COMPOSING ROOM]
From the first, the policy of the Commercial Press has been never
to print any books that are antagonistic to the Christian religion,
and to this purpose it has faithfully adhered. Indeed, the twenty or
more heads of departments are either Christians or in sympathy with
Christianity.
The rules of this house governing the treatment of employees may
not sound unusual to Western ears, but studied in comparison with
conditions as they have been in China, and still are for the most part,
their true worth is keenly realized. The Commercial Press employs about
fourteen hundred men and four hundred women. Several of the boys are
deaf mutes from a missionary institution in the north, and a number
are from the Shanghai Reformatory, taken on by the company to give
them a fresh start in life, with a hostel built especially for their
accommodation. Most of the women work in the bindery, though they are
found here and there throughout the establishment and some of the
lighter machinery is operated by them. One is a forewoman and a few
bright girls are studying to be bookkeepers. None are admitted under
fourteen years of age, while the majority are much older. An innovation
has lately been introduced, permitting women to work in the same
room with men, although at different tables. It has proved a perfect
success. All hands attend strictly to business and the new arrangement
has distinct advantages over the old, as, in giving employees better
light and air, since the rooms can be kept larger. The hours of labour
are from 7:30 to 12 and from 1 to 5:30 o’clock. The bell rings for
the women to leave five minutes before the men. “Ladies first, you
see,” a member of the staff laughingly remarked to a visitor. When
a woman expects to become a mother she is given two months off with
full pay and five dollars in addition to meet extra expenses. Sundays
are holidays. About one-eighth of the force are Christians and two
Protestant churches are located in the neighborhood of the Works,
which many of them attend. Wages are excellent with the addition of
a bonus for special merit. There is a reserve fund for the benefit
of the families of the deceased, and old, retired employees. Profit
sharing is a part of the system and the head men in each department are
shareholders in the company.
A small hospital with accommodation for a score of patients, and with
an immaculate dispensary and operating room, is another feature of
this remarkable establishment. An attendant is always present, and a
Chinese foreign-trained doctor visits the hospital every morning. The
clinic is open to outsiders as well as employees and their families.
All pay a fee of three Chinese coppers, about one cent, as it has
been found necessary to charge something to keep the place from being
overrun. Near the Commercial Press the management has built a number
of small but comfortable houses, and these are rented, at a nominal
rate, to employees who care to occupy them. A school is maintained for
the children of employees, and a night-school and reading-room for
apprentices. A kindergarten, for which the Commercial Press furnishes
the premises and the Presbyterian Mission Press the teachers, is also
close by. None of these schools are free, as parents are able to
pay a little tuition and feel more self-respecting to do so. A tea
garden, made attractive with shrubs, flowers, and seats scattered
about on the well-kept lawn, furnishes a delightful resting-place for
the clerks when off duty. The fire brigade is a most important factor
in the concern. It is composed of twenty-six men, all employees, and
is kept at a high grade of efficiency by frequent drills. A stone’s
throw from the main building is the fire station, fitted up with bright
hose wagons, ladders, buckets, torches for carrying safety oil lamps
of brass, besides complete uniforms for the men, the burnished brass
helmets being their special pride. The brigade stands ready to respond
to a limited number of outside calls.
Visitors to the press works are always cordially welcomed, and
courteously shown over the establishment by a competent guide, whenever
possible a member of the staff. So extensive is the plant it usually
requires several hours for even a cursory tour of inspection. Two of
the buildings are used for the printing plant and foundry, one for the
Chinese bindery, another is reserved for the editorial department,
Chinese and English, two are warehouses, one is a carpentry shop, and
one, a long low building somewhat apart from the others, is devoted to
photography and its various branches. The rooms are airy, clean, and
cheerful, in marked contrast to most of the workshops in China. Each is
connected by telephone with the main office, and light tracks are laid
for carrying merchandise to and fro. Electric motors supply the motive
power, while both gas and electricity are used for lighting purposes.
Most of the printing presses are from England and America. Those for
finer work, including the immense wonder-working machines in the colour
printing department, are of German manufacture. The Commercial Press
was the first firm to introduce three-colour printing into China. One
is tempted to linger long beside these marvellous presses. As the blue,
yellow, red, each in its turn, is added so quickly and easily to the
maps, charts, pictures, and kindergarten scrolls, the visitor is almost
persuaded that he is viewing an exhibition of the cunning art of a
magician, rather than the automatic movements of an insensate piece of
machinery. Here is laid before the eyes a gay picture of the landing
of Columbus for a history of America in Chinese, and yonder an equally
charming one of the child Raleigh for a history of England. Much is
made of illustrations in the school books published by the Commercial
Press. Their ethical readers for little folks are fascinating
productions. Each page is a coloured picture, which teaches its own
lesson. Children are represented on their way to school, saluting the
teacher, reciting their lessons, giving alms to the poor, caring for
the aged, the young, sick, and blind, dusting and sweeping the rooms,
washing, brushing, mending, and folding clothes, brushing their teeth,
eating, playing. Houses are pictured as clean and sanitary, living as
wholesome and pure. Especial emphasis is placed on proper manners and
morals, teaching sadly needed to-day in China, when there is such an
alarming tendency to abandon all that was really admirable under the
old régime, and adopt in an exaggerated form all that is bad from the
West. In the First Year Primary books practically no reading matter
is introduced, only a few Chinese characters to explain the text. The
little ones scan them attentively, absorbing knowledge without being
conscious of the fact. How different is this from the old way, when
children were shut all day long in dark, close rooms, shouting aloud
unmeaning phrases from the Chinese classics, while the teacher dozed in
his chair!
The newest addition to the plant is the installation of three “off-set”
presses, the first in the Far East. An expert came out from America
with them to set them up and instruct the Chinese workmen in their use.
They are often kept busy through the twenty-four hours in turning out
bonds and bank-notes by the millions for the Government.
Too much praise can not be given to the work of the editorial
department. The entire second floor and part of the third of a quiet,
three-story building is devoted to it. At long, unpainted wooden
tables, littered with books and papers, sit the hundred and fifty
scholars, bending over their work. Above four thousand original books
have already gone out from their busy workshop, besides countless
others that have been translated and edited. Eight monthly magazines
are published by the editorial staff, a general one, an educational,
a political, student’s, child’s, short story, a woman’s magazine, and
one entitled “The English Student,” of which twenty thousand copies
are issued monthly. The newest publication is a magazine called “The
English Weekly.” The aim of the last two is to help Chinese students in
the study of English. The Woman’s Magazine is one of the most popular.
A bright girl who has studied in America was speaking about it one
day to a group of foreign friends. “Just think,” she said, “the last
number contains recipes for cooking eggs in twelve different ways.” “Is
that so unusual?” asked an interested listener. “Why, they were not
for making foreign dishes, but cooking Chinese food! I never before
heard of a printed Chinese food recipe. If Chinese women begin to learn
about food values it will mean everything in their lives.” The Woman’s
Magazine started its life two years ago with a man as editor-in-chief.
This fall a young woman will take over that position. She is a recent
graduate of Wellesley College and married to a Harvard alumnus. Modest
and lovable, she graciously answered the questions of her foreign
callers. “Yes,” she admitted, with a little apologetic laugh, “I am
going to try to edit the magazine.” “There will be assistant editors
of course?” “Oh, yes.” “Women?” “No, I believe they are all men.” This
young wife is a beautiful housekeeper, and it is safe to assume her
home and family will not be neglected on account of the outside work
she is about to take up. Indeed, it is worthy of comment that no one is
more pleased about it than the young husband himself.
An interesting fact in connection with the editorial department of the
Commercial Press is that most Western books are translated through the
medium of the Japanese language, instead of directly from the English.
This is because the present system of education in China is based on
that of Japan, and scientific terms are more easily adapted from the
Japanese. But Chinese students returning from abroad are strong in
their feeling that this second-hand method of acquiring knowledge must
soon give way to the more direct.
Glancing about the editorial room with its scores of hard-working men,
pouring out the best that is in them for the uplift and enlightenment
of their country, it is impossible not to feel a strange stirring of
the heart, and one is also thrilled when looking through the warehouses
where room after room is filled with books stacked to the ceiling or
packed in boxes to be shipped away. Some of the largest orders come
from the most distant provinces. The aim of the publishing house is not
to issue many handsome, expensive books, but to flood the land with
cheap editions that shall be within the reach of all.
Tiptoeing out of the editorial department, the visitor passes on
to the English and Chinese composing rooms, which present a very
different scene. There is a sort of mystery about Chinese type. That a
“character” made up of a score or more of tiny individual strokes can
be reproduced perfectly in a clean-cut piece of lead, seems nothing
short of marvellous. Chinese type-setting is exceedingly complex. The
cases are set on slanting frames, placed to form a triangle, within
which stands the compositor. About six thousand characters are in
ordinary use and a font of type weighs fifteen hundred pounds. An
American woman is chief proof-reader for English text, assisted by a
Portuguese and many Chinese. Behind the printing department is the
foundry. Type-casting is a specialty and is done on a large scale.
Indeed the market for a long time was so generally supplied from the
Commercial Press that their sizes became the standard for all China.
The matrices, kept in a fire-proof safe, are among the Company’s most
valuable assets. A few modern automatic type-casters from Chicago
are used, but they are far outnumbered by the old-style, hand-worked
machines. The type cast from the old-style machines must be assorted,
trimmed, and polished, all of which is done by women. “We are not
always keen in making use of the latest machines,” explains the staff,
“since labour is so cheap in China, and it is a blessing to the poor
people to give work to as many as possible.”
Nearly all of the smaller machinery used in the Commercial Press Works
is made in their own foundry and carpentry shop, besides physical,
physiological, and chemical apparatus for schools, tools for industrial
work, and small reed organs. The job-printing department is strictly
up to date and large returns are realized from it. Recently one of the
heads of the company made a trip around the world in order to study the
best and latest processes of printing. The two hundred copies of the
English edition of “China’s Young Men,” the organ of the Young Men’s
Christian Association, are sent out monthly from this press.