By REV. GEO. W. SMYTH, President of Fouchow College.
Among the many interesting places to be seen in the old and strange city
of Peking, that which must claim the chief attention of every visitor
intent on noting the changes which the last twenty-five years have
wrought in this ancient empire is the Túng Wên Kuan, or College of United
Literatures. It is an imperial college in which Chinese students are
taught the principal languages and literatures of modern Europe. Their
studies are in Chinese and in one or other of the western languages, and
hence doubtless its high-sounding but significant name. The students are
government cadets, paid from the public treasury, and preparing to enter
the consular and diplomatic service of their country in foreign lands.
A short account of the origin, purpose and methods of this school may
not be uninteresting, as showing how great a change has come over the
high official mind of this country in the last quarter of a century.
The change, indeed, was the result of necessity, but it is not on that
account any the less real, and the movement it inaugurated can not now be
stopped.
The war of 1860, which so nearly destroyed the present dynasty, and
showed the ruling classes at Peking the greatly superior power of the
West, necessitated a great change in the foreign policy of the empire.
Hitherto they had complacently looked upon foreigners, subjects and
sovereigns alike, as uncouth barbarians, who were to be excluded from
the capital, or allowed to enter it only on admitting their subjection
and vassalage to the Celestial ruler. But the war which came so near
overthrowing the dynasty and bringing down the whole fabric of government
crashing about their ears, convinced even the proudest of the mandarins
that further resistance would be destruction, and that China, whether
she would or not, must step out of her seclusion, and take an open place
among the nations of the world. She must henceforth enter into treaty
relations with the kingdoms of the West, treat them as equals, trade
with them on reasonable terms, receive their ambassadors, and submit
herself to the public laws of the civilized world. New methods had to be
devised to meet these unusual conditions, and the first thing done was
to establish the Tsungli Yamên, or office for the transaction of Foreign
Affairs. In the following year a school was opened for the training of
interpreters, and out of this grew in time the well equipped Imperial
College of to-day. In 1865 this school was raised to the rank of a
college by adding a scientific department. With this view new buildings
were erected, and steps taken toward engaging the services of a competent
corps of foreign professors. In a memorial to the throne presented
by Prince Kung in 1866, that enlightened statesman thus declares the
scope and motives of this undertaking: “What we desire,” he says, “is
that students shall go to the bottom of these subjects (that is, the
astronomical and mathematical sciences), for we are firmly convinced
that if we are able to master the mysteries of mathematical calculation,
physical investigation, astronomical observation, the construction of
engines, the engineering of water courses, this, and this only, will
assure the steady growth and power of the empire.” The prince had to meet
many objections, and after stating that the nations of the West learn
from each other, daily producing something new, and that even Japan has
recently sent men to England to acquire the language and science of that
country, he adds: “Now, when a small nation like Japan knows how to enter
on a career of progress, what could be a greater disgrace than for China
to adhere to her old traditions, and never think of waking up?”
It was some time before the college was thoroughly organized. W. A. P.
Martin, D.D., once a missionary of the American Presbyterian Church at
Ningpo, was appointed president. Other appointments followed as speedily
as the fitting men could be found, till the plan contemplated was
realized.
This, then, is the Imperial College at Peking. What does it do? What
is taught there, and what are the influences of its training? While in
Peking this summer I was fortunate enough to visit it, to see something
of its working, and to gain some familiarity with its purposes and
plans. The learned president, Dr. Martin, courteously showed me over
the buildings, and told me of the work they were doing. The college
buildings adjoin the foreign office or Tsungli Yamên. They are in no
sense imposing, being ordinary Chinese structures of one story, without
attempt at adornment or splendor of any sort whatever. The rooms are
small and plain, containing nothing that is not needed for the immediate
work of teaching. The room of the president is a very plain one for
so high an officer. The departments of chemistry and physics are well
supplied with the instruments and chemicals needed for their work. The
professor of astronomy, who is also professor of mathematics, showed me
a fine equatorial telescope just arrived from Grubb, one of the most
celebrated makers in Europe. The rooms of the language professors are
in keeping with the rest, small and bare, but sufficiently well adapted
for the purposes to which they are put. The languages taught are four,
English, French, German, and Russian, the English receiving far more
attention than the others. The full course extends over a period of eight
years, and in that time the students are led from “reading, writing
and speaking,” through all the intermediate departments to “astronomy,
geology and mineralogy, political economy and the translation of books.”
After completing the course, those so disposed may remain in the college
or be sent abroad, at the option of the government, for the pursuit of
special studies, with a view to professional use. Many so remain. Last
year one man left who had been in attendance for eighteen years.
The work done is as thorough as it can be. It can not be said that the
students make as much progress as foreign students would make in much
less time, but the slowness is due not more to the difficulties of a
foreign language than to the utter strangeness of the subjects pursued.
I was fortunate in being there on Wednesday, when the students of the
higher English classes read essays of their own before the president
and the English professor. Some of those I heard were very creditable,
especially one on the subject of currency. He seemed to have thought for
himself, to have a fair understanding of the subject, and would have
delighted the fiscal reformers of America by the soundness of his hard
money principles. He expressed great dissatisfaction with the currency
of China, and hoped for a speedy and thorough reform. So does every man
who travels in this strange country. Inside the walls of Peking there is
one way of reckoning money, outside there is another; a few miles off one
may find a third, and so on, _ad infinitum_. The currency of China is
the most bewildering subject on the face of the earth. The rest of the
essays did not impress me so much by the thoughts they expressed (indeed,
there was little originality in any of them), as by their fair command of
English style. The writers had evidently some mastery of the intricacies
of the English idiom. I confess some of the themes disappointed me. They
were taken from somewhere or other in the ancient classics, instead of
being characteristic of the subjects they were studying. But it is hard
to avoid this. The students know very little of the literature of the
languages they are studying, and it is almost impossible, I am told, to
induce them to take the great foreign works from the library and attempt
to read them for themselves. They have not yet reached the state of
intelligent enthusiasm which refuses to think a language known before a
fair acquaintance is made with its literature. But this, too, will come
in time. As to the students personally, a few of them impressed me as
intelligent men, and as anxious to do their work well. The great trouble
with them, the one which must seriously interfere with their studies,
since it can not but narrow and distort their intellectual sympathies,
is their seemingly invincible pride. I was told that scarce any but the
Cantonese students care to take the slightest notice of their professors
when they meet them on the street. Think of the difficulties of teaching
such men! They probably look upon their instructors as far beneath
themselves, and possibly think of the languages they are studying as the
speech of barbarians. With such material, and with such dull and sullen
prejudices to fight against, the professors must be regarded as having
accomplished much. They could do more were their students men of liberal
minds, eager to acquire knowledge for its own sake, and pursuing it with
a generous enthusiasm. It is not easy to do your best work where you fail
to rouse the sympathies of the student and make him feel something of the
ardor which a liberal mind ever feels in the acquisition of knowledge.
The Chinese are not an enthusiastic people, and except in a very few
cases, it is impossible to make them such in learning of foreign things.
They like to know as much as suits their imperative needs, and but few
care enough about more to study with eager diligence. This struck me as
being true of many of the students of this Peking college.
Beside teaching there is here another department of the first
importance—that of translating and publishing foreign books. Several
important works have already been translated by the professors of
the college, or by the students under their supervision. Wheaton’s
“Elements of International Law,” Woolsey’s “International Law,” Faucett’s
“Political Economy,” Bluntschli’s “Droit International Codifié,” the
“Code Napoleon,” Kerl’s “English Grammar,” and Tytler’s “Universal
History;” these are the chief works hitherto translated. In addition,
several compilations have been made, such as “Natural Philosophy,”
“Chemical Analysis,” “Mathematical Exercises,” and “Mathematical
Physics.”
The printing office is a commodious building, with several presses,
several fonts of movable Chinese, and one of English type. When I was
there one great book had just been finished, and another was just
being printed. No more remarkable books have ever been issued from the
government press, and if they are prophetic of the near future we may
look for its coming with no little hope.
The book just published is a report on education in the West, by Dr.
Martin. It is the result of a recent examination of the chief schools
of learning in America and Europe. The report is quite full, giving an
account of the principal classes of schools, elementary and professional,
of the two continents, and closing with an exhibit of the present state
of our own Michigan University. I wish there were space to speak of it at
length, but the mere catalogue of some of the titles of its chapters will
show its scope and purpose as well as the most elaborate description.
Among the principal headings are such as these: “Elements Common to the
Education of all Western Nations;” “Classification of Schools;” “Primary
Schools;” “Education of Women;” “Education of the Blind and Deaf;”
“Literary and Scientific Associations;” “The Nations Learning from Each
Other;” “Rise and Progress of Science;” “Educational Statistics.” Beside
these there is an account of professional schools of all classes. These
will give some conception of the character of this most significant work.
It is published with a preface by one of the ministers, by order of the
Council for Foreign Affairs.
Who may estimate the influence of such a work as this, published and
sanctioned by such high authority? The educational system of the West
could have no more favorable introduction, as no foreigner in the empire
is more highly esteemed than the learned author. It was fitting that such
a book should come from the pen of Dr. Martin. In his translations of
Woolsey’s and Wheaton’s treatises on international law, he had already
shown the Chinese the public law of the nations of the West, and in this
he describes the educational system on which their intellectual life is
based. Others, it is true, have already taught the Chinese much, but it
is scarcely injustice to say that from no one could this work come with
such weighty authority as from the president of their own highest western
school. It may be regarded as destined to play no unimportant part in
shaping the intellectual life of the China of the future.
The other book, a much larger one, is an exhaustive treatise on anatomy,
in ten volumes, by Dr. Dudgeon, a professor in the college, and a member
of the London Missionary Society in Peking. He has been in charge for
many years of the London Mission Hospital, and has long been engaged in
the preparation of this great work. One of the conditions on which it was
published was that the authorities should retain one hundred and fifty
copies for their own use. How great a change this indicates, and how
eloquently it speaks for the future of medical science in China, none
but the older missionaries can adequately appreciate. Twenty years ago,
few even of the most sanguine, could have believed that in the ancient
capital itself, almost under the very shadow of the Imperial Palace, the
work of an English medical missionary would be printed at the public
expense, and official sanction be given to this recent innovation of
the once universally feared and detested foreigner. Yet so it is. It is
needless to speculate on what its influence must be on the future of
medical education in this ancient empire.
Such is some of the work done in this most interesting school. It
would be a pleasing task to note the changes which its very existence
indicates, and speak of what its influence must be on the future. But
this paper, being too long already, with a single further remark I will
bring it to a close. The president of this great school is a Christian
man, once a missionary of the Presbyterian Board, and still interested in
all missionary work. In accepting his new position he gave up neither
his faith nor his interest in the evangelization of the land. This is a
matter of great moment, and it can not but be a theme for rejoicing that
the highest foreign school in the empire is under the presidency of such
a man. Of course he is not permitted to teach Christianity directly,
but his influence and life are on the side of Christian principles, and
Christianity will suffer no injustice at his hands. China is slowly
opening her doors to the introduction of Western learning. She cares
nothing as yet for our religion, but our science she will have. Is it
not then important that it should be given her by Christian men, and
not by such as him who, in the Japanese University at Tokio once told
his students, that in the West Christianity was the religion of only
women and babes? If Christian educators can take a leading part in this
movement now, they may be able to hold it when it becomes more general,
and thus the Chinese, in receiving science may the more readily accept
that best of all gifts, a pure and undefiled Christianity. This must be
the hope of all men interested in the future of China, and patiently
waiting for the time when the religion of Christ shall cover the whole
earth.