PROPOSAL OF MY EDUCATIONAL SCHEME
Having scored in a small way this educational victory, by inducing the
Viceroy to establish a mechanical training school as a corollary to the
arsenal, I felt quite worked up and encouraged concerning my educational
scheme which had been lying dormant in my mind for the past fifteen
years, awaiting an opportunity to be brought forward.
Besides Viceroy Tsang Kwoh Fan, whom I counted upon to back me in
furthering the scheme, Ting Yih Chang, an old friend of mine, had become
an important factor to be reckoned with in Chinese politics. He was a
man of progressive tendencies and was alive to all practical measures of
reform. He had been appointed governor of Kiangsu province, and after
his accession to his new office, I had many interviews with him
regarding my educational scheme, in which he was intensely interested.
He told me that he was in correspondence with Wen Seang, the prime
minister of China, who was a Manchu, and that if I were to put my scheme
in writing, he would forward it to Peking, and ask Wen Seang to use his
influence to memorialize the government for its adoption. Such an
unexpected piece of information came like a clap of thunder and fairly
lifted me off my feet. I immediately left Suchau for Shanghai. With the
help of my Nanking friend, who had helped me in the work of translating
“Parsons on Contracts,” I drew up four proposals to be presented to
Governor Ting, to be forwarded by him to Minister Wen Seang, at Peking.
They were as follows:
FIRST PROPOSAL
The first proposal contemplated the organization of a Steamship Company
on a joint stock basis. No foreigner was to be allowed to be a
stockholder in the company. It was to be a purely Chinese company,
managed and worked by Chinese exclusively.
To insure its stability and success, an annual government subsidy was to
be made in the shape of a certain percentage of the tribute rice carried
to Peking from Shanghai and Chinkiang, and elsewhere, where tribute
rice is paid over to the government in lieu of taxes in money. This
tribute rice heretofore had been taken to Peking by flat-bottom boats,
via the Grand Canal. Thousands of these boats were built expressly for
this rice transportation, which supported a large population all along
the whole route of the Grand Canal.
On account of the great evils arising from this mode of transportation,
such as the great length of time it took to take the rice to Peking, the
great percentage of loss from theft, and from fermentation, which made
the rice unfit for food, part of the tribute rice was carried by sea in
Ningpo junks as far as Tiensin, and from thence transhipped again in
flat-bottom boats to Peking. But even the Ningpo junk system was
attended with great loss of time and much damage, almost as great as by
flat-bottom scows. My proposition was to use steam to do the work,
supplanting both the flat-bottomed scows and the Ningpo junk system, so
that the millions who were dependent on rice for subsistence might find
it possible to get good and sound rice. This is one of the great
benefits and blessings which the China Merchant Steamship Co. has
conferred upon China.
SECOND PROPOSAL
The second proposition was for the government to send picked Chinese
youths abroad to be thoroughly educated for the public service. The
scheme contemplated the education of one hundred and twenty students as
an experiment. These one hundred and twenty students were to be divided
into four installments of thirty students each, one installment to be
sent out each year. They were to have fifteen years to finish their
education. Their average age was to be from twelve to fourteen years. If
the first and second installments proved to be a success, the scheme was
to be continued indefinitely. Chinese teachers were to be provided to
keep up their knowledge of Chinese while in the United States. Over the
whole enterprise two commissioners were to be appointed, and the
government was to appropriate a certain percentage of the Shanghai
customs to maintain the mission.
THIRD PROPOSAL
The third proposition was to induce the government to open the mineral
resources of the country and thus in an indirect way lead to the
necessity of introducing railroads to transport the mineral products
from the interior to the ports.
I did not expect this proposition to be adopted and carried out, because
China at that time had no mining engineers who could be depended upon to
develop the mines, nor were the people free from the Fung Shui
superstition.[A] I had no faith whatever in the success of this
proposition, but simply put it in writing to show how ambitious I was to
have the government wake up to the possibilities of the development of
its vast resources.
[A] The doctrine held by the Chinese in relation to the spirits or
genii that rule over winds and waters, especially running streams
and subterranean waters. This doctrine is universal and inveterate
among the Chinese, and in a great measure prompts their hostility to
railroads and telegraphs, since they believe that such structures
anger the spirits of the air and waters and consequently cause floods
and typhoons.--_Standard Dictionary_.
FOURTH PROPOSAL
The encroachment of foreign powers upon the independent sovereignty of
China has always been watched by me with the most intense interest. No
one who is at all acquainted with Roman Catholicism can fail to be
impressed with the unwarranted pretensions and assumptions of the Romish
church in China. She claims civil jurisdiction over her proselytes, and
takes civil and criminal cases out of Chinese courts. In order to put a
stop to such insidious and crafty workings to gain temporal power in
China, I put forth this proposition: to prohibit missionaries of any
religious sect or denomination from exercising any kind of jurisdiction
over their converts, in either civil or criminal cases. These four
propositions were carefully drawn up, and were presented to Governor
Ting for transmission to Peking.
* * * * *
Of the four proposals, the first, third and fourth were put in to
chaperone the second, in which my whole heart was enlisted, and which
above all others was the one I wanted to be taken up; but not to give it
too prominent a place, at the suggestion of my Chinese teacher, it was
assigned a second place in the order of the arrangement. Governor Ting
recognized this, and accordingly wrote to Prime Minister Wen Seang and
forwarded the proposals to Peking. Two months later, a letter from Ting,
at Suchau, his headquarters, gave me to understand that news from Peking
had reached him that Wen Seang’s mother had died, and he was obliged,
according to Chinese laws and customs, to retire from office and go
into mourning for a period of twenty-seven months, equivalent to three
years, and to abstain altogether from public affairs of all kinds. This
news threw a cold blanket over my educational scheme for the time being.
No sooner had one misfortune happened than another took its place, worst
than the first--Wen Seang himself, three months afterwards, was
overtaken by death during his retirement. This announcement appeared in
the Peking “Gazette,” which I saw, besides being officially informed of
it by Governor Ting. No one who had a pet scheme to promote or a hobby
to ride could feel more blue than I did, when the cup of joy held so
near to his lips was dashed from him. I was not entirely disheartened by
such circumstances, but had an abiding faith that my educational scheme
would in the end come out all right. There was an interval of at least
three years of suspense and waiting between 1868 and 1870. I kept
pegging at Governor Ting, urging him to keep the subject constantly
before Viceroy Tsang’s mind. But like the fate of all measures of
reform, it had to abide its time and opportunity.
The time and the opportunity for my educational scheme to materialize
finally came. Contrary to all human expectations, the opportunity
appeared in the guise of the Tientsin Massacre. No more did Samson, when
he slew the Timnath lion, expect to extract honey from its carcass than
did I expect to extract from the slaughter of the French nuns and
Sisters of Charity the educational scheme that was destined to make a
new China of the old, and to work out an Oriental civilization on an
Occidental basis.
The Tientsin Massacre took place early in 1870. It arose from the gross
ignorance and superstition of the Tientsin populace regarding the work
of the nuns and Sisters of Charity, part of whose religious duty it was
to rescue foundlings and castaway orphans, who were gathered into
hospitals, cared for and educated for the services of the Roman Catholic
church. This beneficent work was misunderstood and misconstrued by the
ignorant masses, who really believed in the rumors and stories that the
infants and children thus gathered in were taken into the hospitals and
churches to have their eyes gouged out for medical and religious
purposes. Such diabolical reports soon spread like wild-fire till
popular excitement was worked up to its highest pitch of frenzy, and the
infuriated mob, regardless of death and fearless of law, plunged
headlong into the Tientsin Massacre. In that massacre a Protestant
church was burned and destroyed, as was also a Roman Catholic church and
hospital; several nuns or Sisters of Charity were killed.
At the time of this occurrence, Chung Hou was viceroy of the
Metropolitan province. He had been ambassador to Russia previously, but
in this unfortunate affair, according to Chinese law, he was held
responsible, was degraded from office and banished. The whole imbroglio
was finally settled and patched up by the payment of an indemnity to the
relatives and friends of the victims of the massacre and the rebuilding
of the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches, another Catholic
hospital, besides a suitable official apology made by the government for
the incident. Had the French government not been handicapped by the
impending German War which threatened her at the time, France would
certainly have made the Tientsin Massacre a _casus belli_, and another
slice of the Chinese Empire would have been annexed to the French
possessions in Asia. As it was, Tonquin, a tributary state of China, was
afterwards unscrupulously wrenched from her.
In the settlement of the massacre, the Imperial commissioners appointed
were: Viceroy Tsang Kwoh Fan, Mow Chung Hsi, Liu * * * and Ting Yih
Chang, Governor of Kiang Su. Li Hung Chang was still in the field
finishing up the Nienfi rebellion, otherwise he, too, would have been
appointed to take part in the proceedings of the settlement. I was
telegraphed for by my friend, Ting Yih Chang, to be present to act as
interpreter on the occasion, but the telegram did not reach me in time
for me to accompany him to Tientsin; but I reached Tientsin in time to
witness the last proceedings. The High Commissioners, after the
settlement with the French, for some reason or other, did not disband,
but remained in Tientsin for several days. They evidently had other
matters of State connected with Chung Hou’s degradation and banishment
to consider.