shown a marked strength of character, and evidently, as Mrs. Poyser so
truly remarked, “God made ’em to match the men.” That the men did not
approve of this is equally plain, for, looking back some thousands of
years, we find the great Confucius teaching the best way of counteracting
this inborn self-will and strength of character.
“It is a law of nature,” he says, “that woman should be kept under the
control of man and not allowed any will of her own. In the other world
the condition of affairs is exactly the same, for the same laws govern
there as here.”
“Women are as different from men as earth is from heaven.... Women are
indeed human beings, but they are of a lower state than men, and can
never attain to a full equality with them. The aim of female education
therefore is perfect submission, not cultivation and development of the
mind.”
Not only Confucius spoke thus strongly about the education of women, but
all through the centuries Chinese writers of note refer to the subject
of woman’s duty and education, and her attitude towards man. This is
graphically set out in the important work, _The Ritual of Chau_—What a
revelation of Chinese home life it is!
“In conversation a woman should not be forward and garrulous, but observe
strictly what is correct, whether in suggesting advice to her husband,
in remonstrating with him, in teaching her children, in maintaining
etiquette, in humbly imparting her experience and in averting misfortune.
The deportment of females should be strictly grave and sober, and yet
adapted to the occasion; whether in waiting on her parents, receiving
or reverencing her husband, rising up or sitting down, in times of
mourning or fleeing in war, she should be perfectly decorous. Rearing
the silkworm and working cloth are the most important of the employments
of a female; preparing and serving up the food for her husband and
setting in order the sacrifices follow next, each of which must be
attended to. After them _study_ and _learning_ can fill up the time.”
This last detail shows clearly that it was no unusual thing for the women
to have a knowledge of literature, and there is no mean list of women
writers in the field of belles-lettres, while one even wrote on the
sacrosanct subject of dynastic history in the fifth century. The first
treatise on the education of women was written by a Chinese woman some
eighteen centuries ago, and it is rather interesting to see what her
ideal for womanhood was, and to compare it with the present-day ideal.
“The virtue of a female does not consist altogether in extraordinary
abilities or intelligence, but in being modestly grave and inviolably
chaste, observing the requirements of virtuous widowhood, and in being
tidy in her person and everything about her; in whatever she does to be
unassuming, and whenever she moves or sits to be decorous. This is female
virtue.” In the _Rules for Women_, written by Lady Tsao, the heading
of no less than five out of the seven chapters refers to the attitude
of woman towards her menfolk, which shows that she was wise in her
generation: and this work naturally became a classic and has been studied
by all succeeding generations down to the present day!
[Illustration: A Chinese Leader of Thought.
_Page 174_]
After this reference to the past, we come to a consideration of the
present-day Chinese woman, and it has been my good fortune to meet some
of the finest of the new school. They are taking a high place and winning
the respect and consideration not only of their own countrymen, but of
British, French and Americans by their ability, their singleness of
purpose and undaunted determination. In the law school in Paris lately
a Chinese girl took her degree; doctors who have studied in America and
England have attained great distinction in their homeland after their
return, and have overcome all the opposition aroused, in early days last
century, by their foreign training and innovations.
Chinese women have evinced a keen patriotic spirit, sometimes shown in
strange ways. When we were at Changteh they had demonstrated against the
Japanese aggression by cutting their hair short! This did not meet the
approval of the civil authorities, and they sent round the town crier,
beating his drum, to prohibit women from doing this, under pain of
receiving six hundred stripes! If the girls’ action was ill judged, it
meant at all events a great sacrifice, so the penalty seems severe.
Perhaps the best way of showing the new trend of thought is to give a
sketch of one of the most remarkable of the new generation, and who may
be known to some of my readers, as she spent five years in England and
took a London degree in science, with honours in botany, in 1917. Miss
Pao Swen Tseng belongs to one of the great families whose genealogies
have been carefully kept for the last twenty-five hundred years or so,
and whose notable men have left their mark on the page of history. In the
sixth century B.C. a philosopher of the family was one of the exponents
of Confucian teaching, another was a great general at the time of the
Taiping Rebellion and was largely instrumental in putting an end to
it. For these services he received a beautiful estate with buildings,
temple, lake and gardens in it from the Emperor, and also gifts from
the guilds of Changsha, in Hunan, where the estate is situated. Here
his descendant the Marquis Tseng lived, who became a well-known figure
at the court of St. James, being Chinese minister here and afterwards
at the Russian court. Even before he left Hunan—the most foreign-hating
province of China—he was an ardent student of the English language,
although he had no teacher and was obliged to study it only from most
inadequate books. The family library was housed in a larger building than
the family, which indicates the family tradition; but as may be supposed,
it was no easy task that the Marquis had undertaken. When he lived in
Peking he defied all precedent, and allied himself with the foreign
British community; although his English was naturally most difficult to
understand he persevered, and continually entertained Englishmen at his
house and received their hospitality in return. This was done contrary to
the strong feeling of opposition then existing at the court of Peking,
where no Chinaman, even in a subordinate position, would be seen in
company with a European or entering his house. I mention these facts
because they reappear so vividly in the history of his granddaughter, Pao
Tseng.
Miss Tseng’s education began at an early age: she had a tutor when she
was three years old and two tutors by the time she was five. No wonder
that she rebelled, and history relates that one day she took refuge in a
tree, from which she was finally cajoled by one of her Chinese teachers
to come down by promises which he forthwith ignored. It may be a source
of surprise that she was able to climb a tree, but happily for Pao Tseng
she had an enlightened grandmother, who, at a time when such a thing was
unheard of, had the strength of mind to save the girls of her family from
the torture and disablement of bound feet, knowing in her own person the
cost of such disablement.
At ten years old Pao Tseng was a keen student of Chinese history, and
the seed was sown, which later sprang up into an ardent patriotism and
desire for the ancient glory of her race to be restored. She injured her
eyesight by too close study, and two years later had become a Chinese
classical scholar, a feat of which it would be impossible for anyone to
realize the magnitude unless they knew something of the classics. She
then begged leave to go and study Western knowledge, and was sent to one
of the new Government schools at Hangchow, some thousand miles distant,
to reach which there was no railway in those days. The tone of the school
was so displeasing to her, that she soon left it and went to the (C.M.S.)
Mary Vaughan High School for girls, where she found a sympathetic friend
as well as teacher in the head mistress, Miss Barnes. In the turmoil
and distress of mind caused by the condition of her country she found
comfort in the study of the Christian faith and wrote to her father that
she wished to become a Christian. He was evidently a man of rare wisdom,
and stipulated that before taking so important a step she should study
the writings of its European opponents. It is strange to think of such a
child being set down to a course of Herbert Spencer, Frederick Harrison,
and other leading non-Christian writers: her views were not changed by
it. She again wrote to her father to this effect, and he gave his consent
to her open profession of Christianity, coupled with the wise advice
that she should become the best possible type of Christian. She decided
to join no particular sect, looking forward to the time when China would
have a church suitable to her needs and character.
In 1912 Pao Tseng obtained the family’s consent that she should go to
England for further training. She had accepted as her vocation the
call of her country to a life of educational work in China. Her family
would not allow her to go abroad without a guardian, and Miss Barnes
undertook the post, relinquishing the head mistress-ship of the High
School in order to do this. Pao Tseng entered the Blackheath High School,
and from there passed to Westfield College. It was at this time that I
had the pleasure of making her acquaintance, having already heard of
the impression she had made at the college. No one could be with her
without being aware of the deep seriousness of her nature, and she was
greatly liked by her fellow-students. Chinese girls always seem to get
on well in England, and to fit in easily with our idiosyncrasies. There
is nothing like the gulf between them and us which seems to separate
us in our ways of thinking and of looking on life from our Indian
fellow-subjects.
After taking her degree and studying educational methods and training
at St. Mary’s College, Paddington, she returned to China at the age of
twenty to begin her life work at her old home in Changsha, the capital of
Hunan.
When the monarchy was overthrown in 1911, the new republic confiscated
the property of many of the gentry, amongst others that of the Tseng
family, using the buildings as barracks for the troops: they caused great
havoc in them. It was only after much difficulty and many delays that the
family succeeded in getting the property restored to them, though a part
of it is still requisitioned for the soldiers, and a flimsy partition put
up to screen it from the rest. This might prove a danger to the school,
but so far, Miss Tseng told me, they had behaved extremely well, their
only misdeed being to cut down two trees. It was necessary to rebuild the
house for a school. The garden is really charming, in true Chinese style,
with carved bridges over the winding stretch of water, shady paths and
quaint rockery; dazzling golden orioles and kingfishers make their home
in the classic willow trees that overhang the lake, and the stillness
which broods over all makes it an ideal spot for study.
But study is not the only thing in education, and Miss Tseng has adopted
English ideals with regard to the value of sport in a girl’s education
as well as in a boy’s. Since my visit the stillness of the tiny lake
is joyously broken by girls learning the art of boating, under the
coaching of Mr. and Miss Tseng, and they have two boats. They also study
American games, and were recently challenged by a boys’ school to a
match at lacrosse. They had only been learning a very short time and
knew themselves too weak for their opponents, but a sporting instinct
prevented their declining the challenge. As may be supposed, they
sustained a severe beating, but bore it so gallantly that the onlookers
said that they were like the British: they had learnt to take defeat
smiling!
It is difficult to believe that some of these girls did not know their
alphabet two years ago; that discipline, as we understand it, was unknown
to them. They all learn English and some had got on amazingly well with
it. They have a “Round Table,” at which meetings all must take a share in
whatever is the subject under discussion: this is to teach them how to
take part in public meetings and how to express themselves.
The spirit of service is strongly developed. In a three days’ public
holiday the girls set themselves to collect money from their friends for
the famine relief in the north. Their aim was five hundred dollars, but
they collected double the amount. Christianity is taught as the basis of
social service, as it is at the root of this fine piece of educational
work. The whole staff is united in this bond, and they have already
succeeded in setting a new standard among the schools at Changsha.
In 1918 Miss Tseng opened her school, under the guardianship (if one
may so call it) of Miss Barnes, and splendidly helped by two of her men
cousins, whom I knew as fine students in London, and both of whom are
honorary workers. All the élite of Changsha were present, including the
Minister of Education, the British consul and the missionary community.
This was the planting of the mustard seed destined one day to grow into
a tree. There were but eight pupils, varying in age from fourteen to
twenty-two, a number which was increased fivefold in two years. As befits
a Chinese school, it has a poetic name, I-Fang—“The Garden of Fragrance,”
and the school motto is “Loyalty and Sympathy,” the two words by which
the philosopher Tseng had summed up the teaching of Confucius some two
thousand five hundred years ago.
It was at a garden party in honour of the King’s birthday held at the
British Consulate that we met Miss Tseng last summer, and she most kindly
bade us to lunch next day, and asked me to speak to her students. I
had no idea at the time of what she had done since we parted in London,
or even that she lived at Changsha. It was with a shock of delighted
surprise that we passed from the hot, busy, dusty street into the cool
loveliness of the garden. Our time was woefully limited, and I should
like to have sketched all day as well as talked, but there was so much
to see and hear that it is impossible to do justice to it in this brief
account. If the Tseng family can leave their impress on the charming bevy
of girls we saw, they will have rendered the greatest possible service
to their country, and I feel confident that such will be the case. When
I reflect on the state of unrest which existed during the birth of this
school and the masterly way in which Miss Tseng has overcome all the
difficulties of the situation, I find no words adequate to express my
admiration.
In another chapter I have dealt with the student movement, which produced
strikes all over the Chinese empire: not a school or university escaped
its influence. Miss Tseng explained to her students her feelings with
regard to the movement, and told them to reflect on the subject, and
discuss it among themselves before deciding whether they would strike.
She brought no pressure to bear on them, while very strong pressure was
brought to bear on them from outside, but their unanimous decision was to
“carry on,” and this school alone out of thirty-six in the city continued
its work steadily and continuously, while the others—both boys and
girls—were on strike. Miss Tseng wrote a letter to the _Central Chinese
Post_, a paper published in English, which won widespread admiration. The
editor of the paper wrote to her: “Allow me to congratulate you on the
sane and patriotic views which you hold, and on your splendid mastery
of the English language. Your letter is by far the best thing which has
appeared on the subject of the students’ boycott.” When it is considered
that it is written by one so young it is indeed remarkable, and I
make no apology for quoting part of it, with the explanation that the
mistress-ship to which she refers was one that she had been persuaded to
accept by strong governmental pressure—that of the first Normal School
for Girls: she soon found herself obliged to resign the post.
To the Editor, _Central China Post_.
DEAR SIR,—You would have known by this time the details of the
extraordinary developments of the student activities in Hunan.
Perhaps you would allow me the use of your valuable columns to
make a few criticisms and an appeal in connexion therewith.
The frank opinion, in Hunan at any rate, of every unbiased
observer is that the primary wrong rested with the Provincial
Government. As I have just sent in my resignation of the
Principalship of the first Provincial Normal School for Girls—a
post I was invited to fill by the educationists here only a few
months ago—I feel I can speak more freely and with a certain
amount of authority. The Government has neglected education
so much that all the schools dependent on Government funds
have been confronted with starvation and bankruptcy in growing
proportions for the last two or three months. This absolute
poverty has reduced the none too perfect education in Hunan to
the mere shadow of a name. Satan always finds evil work for
every idle hand, so no wonder discontents will foment.
The actual thunderbolt came on the 3rd inst., when the
Government interfered in the burning of Japanese goods by
students. There in front of hundreds of students and thousands
of onlookers, Chang Chingtang, the Governor’s brother, forbade
the destruction at the eleventh hour. He struck with his own
fist the secretary of the Chang Chun Middle School, who had
dared to show impatience at the abusive language that was
being poured out. At the same time his soldiers welcomed the
students with the butt-ends of their rifles. Then of course the
glove was down and the students took it up. All the pent-up
hatred against the Government broke out with redoubled force.
A secret meeting was held on the 5th among the students, and
by Sunday, the 7th, all the schools excepting one or two began
to disperse, declaring that they would never return till Chang
Ching-yao is driven out of Hunan. To-day only the Fang Siang
School and our School are in regular work. Even the Yale and
Hunan Yale medical colleges are given official “holidays.”
The Government has succeeded in wrecking the entire fabric of
education in the most masterly fashion, that even surprised its
ardent admirers.
In view of the foregoing one cannot but deeply sympathize
with the motive of the students, but their method of making a
protest will, I am afraid, have certain undesirable effects.
Etc. etc.
I was much struck with the frank, pleasant tone of the girls: some were
able to talk English. In connexion with the student strike a master of
one of the other schools said to one of the girls:
“Your Principal has managed splendidly to keep her students from
striking.”
“Yes, indeed,” she replied, “but our Principal did not _force_ us, we all
agreed unanimously with her not to strike.”
This detail is characteristic of both teacher and taught—Liberty and
Frankness. The Christian temper of “sweet reasonableness” irradiates
the place, but no one will be urged to become Christian. Brightness,
cleanliness and gaiety rule everywhere, and the dormitories and
classrooms are thoroughly attractive. What a pleasant sphere for any
English girl who goes as teacher there, and the growing needs of the
school demand such help at once; a B.Sc. is required, and none but highly
qualified teachers are suitable for such educational posts in China.
It seemed passing strange to realize that Changsha was the storm-centre
of fighting between Northern and Southern troops, and the very next day
the latter were expected to invade the city.
[Illustration:
“Girls,
Knowledge is now no more a fountain seal’d:
Drink deep.”
_Page 184_]
[Illustration:
“Nor soul helps body more
Than body soul.”
_Page 184_]
It may be thought that educational work is specially suitable for Chinese
women, and perhaps something of it is already known in England, while
other forms of activity are less known and less approved, but from the
time of the opening of China’s doors to Western influence they have been
eager to seize the new opportunities, and have become an important factor
in the national life. “While not yet numerous, modern Chinese women,”
says Dr. Rawlinson, “are beginning to exert a tremendous influence”
(_China in Contemporaneous Literature_). The first woman’s newspaper
in the world was written and edited by Chinese women, and in Peking
the ladies of the gentry some nine or ten years ago organized a club
under the leadership of Princess Kalachin, called the “Women’s Mutual
Improvement Club,” and this is entirely unconnected with foreigners. The
special object of this club is discussion, and Chinese women have proved
themselves already to be excellent speakers, having very pleasant voices
and a good self-possessed manner, which inspires respectful attention.
They have appeared on platforms where such a thing would have been
scouted with horror not twenty years ago.
As doctors, Chinese women have already proved their efficiency, and
the names of Dr. Ida Kahn and Dr. Mary Stone are everywhere held in
high respect.[26] In the new Rockefeller Medical School at Peking women
students are admitted, and girls as soon as it was announced entered
their names. In various parts of China women are training for the medical
profession, as well as in Great Britain and America. I was greatly
impressed by the nurses also in various hospitals, especially those in
the Women’s Hospital at Swatow. There had been over a hundred and thirty
midwifery cases in the previous six months, and Dr. Heyworth told me she
had been able to leave nearly all of them to her Chinese assistants and
nurses. They are often sent for to visit outlying villages and they are
doing splendid work. What is everywhere the one essential is to have
thoroughly competent foreigners to train Chinese girls till such time as
native training schools in Western methods have been established.
_Chapter IX_
_The Youth of China_
“Crabbèd Age and Youth
Cannot live together:
Youth is full of pleasance,
Age is full of care;
Youth like summer morn,
Age like winter weather;
Youth like summer brave,
Age like winter bare.
Youth is full of sport,
Age’s breath is short;
Youth is nimble, Age is lame;
Youth is hot and bold,
Age is weak and cold;
Youth is wild, and Age is tame.
Age, I do abhor thee;
Youth, I do adore thee.”
—_The Passionate Pilgrim._
_Chapter IX_
_The Youth of China_
[Illustration: GRASS RAINCOAT.]
The Spirit of Youth is one of the most marvellous possessions of
humanity. It is not possessed by young people in all countries, nor
indeed by all the young in any country, or at any given time. We heard
a good deal about Young Turkey and Young Egypt, but neither of those
countries have the Spirit of Youth, nor had China until quite recently.
Of all the poets Shakespeare speaks most of this Spirit of Youth, for he
lived in a time when it shone forth resplendent, spelling high endeavour,
the joy of life, ardour, courage, chivalry, beauty, faith. It has its
drawbacks, of course—conceit, wilfulness, turbulence, impatience of
control, of law, of order. But it is a splendid thing, and the salvation
of a weary world.
“There are four seasons in the mind of man:
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
He has his Summer, when luxuriously
Spring’s honey’d cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
Is nearest unto heaven.”
This spirit of youth has taken possession of the student world of China
to-day, and is mainly responsible for the rapidly changing mettle of the
whole race. It is frequently in sharp antagonism to the traditions of the
past, as for instance with regard to age itself. The reverence due to
age is a great quality and has been of untold value to the Chinese, but
carried to the extreme of veneration it has arrested progress and has won
a false value.