Changing China Part 12

It must, however, be stated that several Chinese scholars, including a Christian, have indignantly denied that the kow-towing to the tablet of Confucius implies anything more than the respect due to the greatest thinker that China ever possessed. We had the privilege of being shown over Peking University by an extremely able and pleasant Chinese gentleman, a Christian. He showed us the tablet of Confucius and explained to us the ceremony. It must be owned that externally there was but little that one could a.s.sociate with the idea of divinity. The tablet was behind a gla.s.s case, and at first it suggested some sort of educational apparatus. The desks were placed at right angles to it, so that it did not actually occupy what could be regarded as the chief place in the room. The gentleman who showed us over strenuously denied that any of the pupils in Peking Government University could regard {301} Confucius as G.o.d. None were admitted to the University except those who were already well versed in the Chinese Cla.s.sics, and they knew perfectly well that in these Cla.s.sics Confucius said that he had no supernatural power; while the leading commentator on Confucius, the man whose teaching had more than any other influenced modern Confucianism, was avowedly an agnostic, and therefore, so far from regarding the tablet as divine, it would be nearer the truth to say that the greater bulk of the scholars disbelieve in the idea of G.o.d altogether, or at any rate hold an agnostic position with regard to it.

When I put these difficulties to an eminent missionary the answer was, yes, but by a late edict they have made Confucius equal to heaven and earth, and so whatever doubts there were before have been resolved, and the Chinese Government has decreed to Confucius divine honour. I put this criticism to an able civil servant in the employ of the Chinese Government, and he answered that that decree was really intended to have the opposite effect. The Chinese are aware that they are as a matter of fact relegating Confucius to a secondary place in education, and they are therefore most anxious to propitiate the Confucian scholars. They have compromised the matter much on the same system that we use in the West with regard to some politician whose services have been valuable, but who is actually a hindrance in the House of Commons. Confucius has been given divine honours {302} as the worn-out politician in England is given a peerage; it is a form of honourable retirement. A very intellectual Chinese, however, expressed himself quite otherwise, saying that anybody who understood Chinese views would have grasped the meaning of making Confucius equal to heaven and earth.

As heaven and earth induce the wealth of mankind, so has Confucius done by his teaching; as heaven and earth can change things and make things exist that were not, so with Confucius; but that Chinese theology regards heaven and earth as created by the one G.o.d, and therefore Confucius is put in the position of an exalted but a created being.

What impresses perhaps the Westerner more than this rather recondite Chinese reasoning is the simple fact that while by the Government edict it is decreed that the tablet of Confucius shall be honoured by three bowings and nine knockings, it is also ordained that the schoolmaster shall be honoured by one bowing or kow-tow and three times knocking the ground with the head. The similarity of the salute to the schoolmaster and to the tablet of Confucius rather disposes of the idea that the act of reverence to the tablet involves wors.h.i.+p. On the other hand, it is pointed out that this is the main ceremony that is observed in what are called the temples of Confucius; but when this was put to a Chinaman, his answer was that they were not temples, and if there had been any wors.h.i.+p in those temples, they would have been frequented {303} as much by the women and children as by the men, but as a matter of fact they were frequented only by literati. When it was suggested that on occasion, however, there were sacrifices in these temples, he did not deny this, but changed the subject.

But we must not say that the respect and reverence offered to Confucius, whether it involves idolatry or not, is the only reason why Christian pupils are advised not to go to the Government Universities.

There are two other great reasons. The first is an extremely practical one: the education in Government Universities is avowedly imperfect.

The fact that the Government have subscribed to the English University at Hong-Kong and to the German College in Shantung show that they are aware of their own shortcomings. The second reason is that the racial characteristics of Chinamen demand that they should act as a body. An acute observer a.s.serted that, as far as he was able to judge the matter, no Chinaman ever acted independently; and that therefore it is putting a burden greater than the race can bear to ask that Christians should maintain their Christianity when they are surrounded by an unbelieving and heathen atmosphere; and that, as a matter of fact, the result of sending students to Government Universities would, except in cases of men of very strong character, be to send them to unbelief.

Yet a greater and simpler objection is that these Government Universities for the most {304} part do not exist, and that it is impossible for small inst.i.tutions like that at Peking to take even a hundredth part of the students who are clamouring for Western education. But the mission schools have another and a newer difficulty, one which is causing the greatest heart-searching. This I must reserve for the next chapter.

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CHAPTER XXV

THE NEED OF A UNIVERSITY EXPLAINED

The great danger that threatens mission schools, a danger which is increasing every year, is that the best pupils of these schools have to go to Universities in search of Western knowledge where they are exposed to the insidious attacks of Western materialism.

The teachers have at present no alternative; they have to send the best and brightest of their pupils somewhere to complete their education.

It would be unfair on a boy to refuse to send him on, and if he is to receive a higher education, where can he get it but at some place where the atmosphere is distinctly anti-Christian.

There is in the East no place with a neutral atmosphere as there is in the West. In the West most people have had some Christian training, or at least they comprehend Christian ethics. So in a Western inst.i.tution, even if the education be wholly secular, a Christian does not find everything antipathetic to his faith. But in the East the vast majority are non-Christian, and consequently the moral and intellectual atmosphere is hostile and antipathetic to a Christian.

Here if an inst.i.tution is non-religious it is probably not hostile to religion. {306} In the East if an inst.i.tution is non-religious it is probably anti-Christian. At present the only University in action is that of Tokio, though we are promised others, and its ill effects have been so obvious that the Chinese Government have ordered a wholesale withdrawal of pupils from its unhealthy influence.

As we have already pointed out, Western civilisation is magnificent but it is destructive, and when taught without any constructive religious teaching it inevitably tends to destroy all spiritual ideas and too often also to pervert the moral ideals of the race. As the pupil goes through the mission school he learns within its walls to shake himself free from the haunting fear of demons which besets every Chinaman; he has slowly realised that G.o.d is holy, good and loving, and has either accepted Christianity or stands on the threshold of the formal acceptance; he has reached the end of the curriculum of the school or college and his brilliancy demands a higher education. Attracted by the reputation of Tokio, he goes to its University, and there he finds himself in an atmosphere where all the destructive thought of Europe grows rankly; the good G.o.d in whom he has learned to believe in the mission school follows in the track of the demons of his youth, and he is left believing in a world founded by blind chance, where ethics are things of service to restrain your neighbour but folly to follow yourself. "Eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," is the lesson which is not perhaps taught in so many words, but {307} which none the less is forced into his mind; his views become those of Falstaff; all that is fine, all that is n.o.ble, flees from his life; though he no longer believes in the G.o.d of Love, he does not return to the belief in the demons of his youth; there is nothing in his world beyond getting rich or gratifying the flesh and laughing at those people who believe in higher ideals. He has been acquainted with and has learnt to loathe from his youth up the philosophy of Yang Choo. He has, for instance, despised such a sentence as this: "The people of high antiquity knew both the shortness of life and how suddenly and completely it might be closed by death, and therefore they obeyed every suggestion of the movements of their hearts, refusing not what was natural for them to like, nor seeking to avoid any pleasure that occurred to them, they paid no heed to the incitement of fame; they enjoyed themselves according to their nature; they did not resist the common tendency of all things to self-enjoyment; they cared not to be famous after death.

They managed to keep clear of punishment; as to fame and praise, being first or last, long life or short life, these things did not come into their calculations." And now he finds that the philosophy of Yang Choo is as he supposes the newest thought of the great rich successful Western world; as he returns to his home and spreads abroad the poisonous doctrines that he has imbibed, the missionary wonders whether, after all, it would not have been better to have left the man to his primitive demonology.

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The American mission bodies saw this danger from the first, and have already set up great educational establishments which to a certain extent supply this need. That great inst.i.tution Bishop Graves' College at Jessfield, the Boone College at Wuchang, the British College at Weihsien, and Methodist Universities at Soochow and Peking, are all examples of good work. But they do not, any of them, bring the student up to what we call University standard, or what I understand is called in America the post-graduate course; what is felt is, that there is need of an inst.i.tution in which the highest knowledge shall be taught, where the true aspect of Western thought shall be shown--not that aspect which is bringing France to destruction, not that aspect which makes Belgium unconcerned at the Congo scandals, but the aspect which both in America and in England we have always admired at least in theory, and in practice when we have been strong. The fundamental truth on which our civilisation rests is that G.o.d is good, and that therefore truth and progress are right and possible, and that the highest expression of the goodness of G.o.d is in His incarnation as it is universally taught by Christians of various views and of many denominations. The West owes to the East, if there is any common duty of man to man, to set before it the real truth as to the greatness of Western civilisation, namely, that it is the result of Christianity.

But missions are not anxious merely for a University {309} as a means of defence against the materialistic onslaught which threatens their work--they need it for many other reasons; for instance, the University would make it possible for all denominations to have highly educated native ministers. No student of missions can ever be content to regard them as an ideal arrangement. The conception of a race being ministered to spiritually by another race is obviously inadequate; it is open to many criticisms; there must be a confusion in the mind of the convert between what is national and what is Christian; one Chinese regarded Christianity with doubt because he had heard that the German Emperor is a Christian, and to his mind he is the embodiment of the fierce piratical Western races. The word which the Chinese use for robbers means red-bearded men, so a.s.sociated, alas, is the Western race in China with war and rapine; it is easy for a member of the Western races to be misunderstood when he is talking about the religion of love. Would any English parish like as its Rector a Chinaman, even if he were saintly and went so far as to cut off his queue?

Setting aside the a.s.sociations of the Western race, the Western race has great difficulty in speaking Chinese without making ridiculous mistakes. Who among us has not smiled when the Chinaman's inability to say the letter "r" has caused him to offer us "lice" to eat, but what must it be to the Chinaman when he hears the Western preacher lost amidst those mysterious Chinese intonations, and {310} therefore making some wonderful statement. A Chinese gentleman a.s.sured me that he had listened to a missionary extolling the virtues of a wild pig.

Reverence forbids explaining what was really meant. If the ministers of religion are to be Chinese, it is obvious that they must be highly educated Chinese; to have religion taught by ignorant men in a country like China where learning is reverenced so profoundly, must be to condemn it as the religion of the coolie. The Chinese minister must be able to maintain his position, not only against the Confucian scholar, but against the Western materialist, and must therefore have an equally good education. Without saying that it is reasonable to expect that the Western missionary should be withdrawn within the next few years, I think it is wisdom for every mission body to aim at founding a body of educated native clergy who can free Christianity from the taunt of being a foreign religion, and who can, when the foreigner leaves China, take his place and uphold the faith.

If to have an educated native ministry is one great object of the University, another great and only less important object is the creation of an intellectual Christian laity who shall form and direct Christian public opinion. The school teacher, the writer, are only one degree less important, if indeed they are so, than the Christian minister; and if as China a.s.similates Western civilisation, she finds in her midst a body of men conversant {311} with the best side of that civilisation, able to interpret its mysteries to her, so that it does not become subversive to all spiritual religion and morality, it is more than probable that she will take those men and put them in high positions, and the grain of mustard seed will by their means grow into a plant which shall overshadow the whole of China. The other day I was reading how St. Grimaldi and St. Neots founded the University of Oxford in 886. Theology, grammar and rhetoric, music and arithmetic, geometry and astronomy, were the subjects taught. After a thousand years we are in a position to judge of the success of the experiment. Surely every one will wish to have a hand in founding a similar undertaking.

The foundation of this University cannot for two or three reasons be left to one body. In the first place, no one communion will be rich enough to undertake such a work; secondly, it might cause a certain narrowness of atmosphere; thirdly and chiefly, co-operation among Christians would afford an object-lesson to the Chinese of the real unity there is between them. We are constantly twitted with the fact that we confuse the heathen by professing the religion of love and then setting before them a ma.s.s of warring sects. If we can unite in the founding of such a University, we shall show that though we see the Christian truth in different aspects we have agreed that truth is one, and have in spite of our divisions a fundamental unity. When {312} this matter was referred to at the Shanghai Conference, considerable difficulty was felt among missionaries as to the terms on which such a University should be founded. It was agreed to refer it to the Committee on Education, and that Committee of Education has in the year 1909 welcomed the formation of such a University. Dr. Hawks Pott, who of all men in China can best speak as an authority on education, since he has organised and maintained that wonderful inst.i.tution at Jessfield, warmly advocated its formation.

No doubt one of the reasons why the missionaries now see their way to the acceptance of this University is because a neutral body has come forward to initiate the undertaking. Committees of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge have been sitting for many months considering the question with all the skill and ability which their great learning and technical knowledge enable them to bring to bear on this subject.

Though of course they have a thorough knowledge of education in all its aspects, they were aware that they lacked knowledge of China and the Chinese, so for many months they heard and examined the evidence of any one who was thoroughly acquainted with China and with the conditions of missionary work. They devised a scheme which they thought would at once satisfy the workers in the mission field and be acceptable to the Chinese. The mere outline of the scheme is that this University should encourage the formation of denominational hostels, which shall {313} be under the control of individual missionary bodies, and which shall form colleges at the University; and while the University alone would concern itself with giving secular teaching from a neutral standpoint, the colleges would give Christian teaching to their pupils. In this way all conflict between missions would be avoided; each mission would continue to care for the pupils which it had hitherto sheltered and educated. To the University would accrue the great gain of having a supply of properly prepared pupils coming into it from the mission schools, one of the causes of disappointment of ill-considered University schemes being that there is no proper provision for a supply of pupils. In the West there are numerous secondary schools, and any University can easily find a sufficient number of pupils properly grounded in knowledge. In the East to erect a University without feeding schools is like building a house in the Chinese fas.h.i.+on roof first. The Yale University Mission found itself compelled to set up elementary schools to teach the elementary Western knowledge which was necessary before even the lowest grade of college work could be attempted. Western teachers are, as we have before explained, few and far between outside the mission schools, and therefore mission schools would both help and be helped by a University. The University completes the work they have begun, and returns the men to the mission to carry on its work with honour and efficiency. On the other hand, the mission supplies the {314} University with pupils, which after all are the prime necessity of education.

Another great feature of the Oxford and Cambridge scheme was that the University should aim to be a native University, and this no doubt was the side which attracted the Chinese. Instead of using knowledge, the common heritage of all men, as the means of imposing the domination of the alien on China, knowledge is offered by this University as essentially the thing which belongs to China as well as to any other race. If in the commencement the majority of the professors must belong to the Western race, it is to be hoped that many of its professors will soon come from China, and that when the University is well begun, and Christianity has become as national a religion as it is in our land, and Western civilisation has lost the right to describe itself by that epithet, and has become the civilisation of the East as of the West, then the University whose foundation is now being laid may be the great light of the future China.

Perhaps the most important part of the scheme is that which suggests denominational hostels as the proper solution of the difficulties that beset union and interdenominational work in the mission field.

There are obvious difficulties in arranging for a common religious teaching, and, on the other hand, it is very advantageous for the many mission bodies at work in China to show a united front against the new materialism and the ancient superst.i.tion. {315} Nothing so shows the power of Christian love as a union work of this nature.

We Christians are often taunted with our differences, and we are a.s.sured that many will support any scheme that makes for union and peace between the different elements of the Christian world. Here is a scheme which will tend to bring Christians together, and to induce that mutual respect and toleration which must be the foundation of a closer union. The baby must walk before he runs, and if the Christians of China can maintain such a University, their daily intercourse will greatly a.s.sist any further scheme for unity.

But there is another use in the hostel system which should not be overlooked. At all times one of the great hindrances to the education of young men is the tendency that they have to waste their strength in riot and wantonness. The Chinaman is perhaps more subject to these temptations than the Westerner. A student said: "We cannot work; we are too profligate." A Chinese statesman advised against certain towns as possible sites for a University because of their tendency to entice men into vicious courses. Far the most efficient way of opposing this evil is to make some one responsible for the moral welfare of the young men, and this is done in the hostel system.

Every hostel would be governed by some person who would make the moral welfare of the young men his peculiar care and study. The head of the hostel might or might not be on the teaching staff of the {316} University; but whether he taught or not, his first duty would be the care of the moral and spiritual welfare of those committed to his charge. He would give all his energy to reproduce the highest moral tone of a Western University.

This scheme is being tried in Chentu, where a union University is being started. And I believe it is in every way proving successful. Those who have not realised the size of China will be perhaps inclined to ask why not unite the two schemes? The simple answer to those who have travelled is that the distances are too vast. You might as well talk of uniting Oxford and Harvard, for those two Universities are about as far from one another in time as Hankow is from Chentu. Even when the railway is built the distances will be immense. The enormous distances of China are also a reason why it was impossible to amalgamate the Hong-Kong scheme and the Oxford and Cambridge scheme. Hong-Kong is now ten days to a fortnight away from Hankow, and such a different language is spoken there that the dwellers in Northern and Central China are often forced to use English to understand one another.

The University of Hong-Kong will be very beneficial to the colony, and is an example of the generosity of the merchants and citizens of that town; but as a means of naturalising the higher side of our civilisation it labours under the great disadvantage of not being either in China nor under the Chinese flag, nor of speaking the prevailing language.

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CHAPTER XXVI

THE NEED OF A UNIVERSITY EXPLAINED (_continued_)

The Committees at Oxford and Cambridge had not been without hope that the missionary world would accept the scheme readily once it was well understood.

They had had the advantage of many interviews with missionaries and others in London at their joint meetings so as to make it a matter of some certainty that a large portion of the Western educators of China would agree with them. But they were rather doubtful whether the scheme would be welcomed by the Chinese official world.

The commercial world in London that had dealings with China was rather pessimistic. They held the view that you only had to mention the word Christian or missionary to a Chinese official and it would have the same effect that the word rats has on a terrier. But as I have before related, we were agreeably surprised to find at the very outset that the Chinese official world were far from hostile, and that we were given, unasked, letters of introduction, whose contents I did not know except that they procured for us a welcome in China which was as surprising as it was delightful. I learnt in China that knowledge {318} and learning is so loved and respected that those whose object is its dissemination will ever find a ready welcome, and I learnt also that whatever may have been their sentiments in the past, in the present the Chinese have no hatred towards Christianity, but they regard it as one of the least odious parts of the Western civilisation which has become for them a necessity. I had also the privilege of seeing His Excellency Tong-Shao-Yi in London, and he did not discourage the plan.

When we arrived at Harbin we found an official ready to receive us who had been sent to welcome the scheme to China. His instructions were to accompany us to Kw.a.n.gchangtzu and to watch over our comfort. As he only spoke Chinese, conversation was difficult; but with the aid of a member of the Imperial Customs we gathered the object of his mission.

At Mukden we met with a similar civility. I was invited to dine at the Yamen. I shall always remember my drive to that dinner. At Mukden no carrying chairs are used, but a springless cart, in which the traveller, or more accurately the sufferer, reclines. I was late for dinner, so the order was given to the charioteer to drive quick, and as we bounded over the unpaved streets of a Manchurian town I had an opportunity of realising one of the minor discomforts of Chinese missionary life. At the Yamen the same civility was shown to the scheme, and next day Dr. Ross, my kindly host, took me to see a Manchu n.o.ble of high rank. He was more than encouraging. He first sounded the note {319} that I found vibrating through the whole of China. He asked why did not the West concern itself with such things as education, which benefit man, rather than with war, which produces such endless suffering and misery.

At Peking I met some great officials who all were favourable, but it was not till we got south that we encountered what can only be described as enthusiasm for Western education. One gentleman advised that such an inst.i.tution should be started at once, and recommended the recall of all students studying in Western lands to fill its ranks.

Another who was interpreting was not satisfied with the prudent official reply I received that the plan was good, but that I must make inquiries at Peking. He added: "Make inquiries at Peking; but if they refuse, go on with your scheme all the same." A body of young men who had been educated at Boone College sent a pet.i.tion that the scheme should be forthwith undertaken, but perhaps the most remarkable experience was that which I had at Shanghai. I was entertained by thirteen of the gentry who had all received their education in the West. We discussed every aspect of the plan, and when I pressed upon them that one of the good results of the University would be that it would have a healthy moral environment, an old man turned to his companions and said: "We have ourselves had experience of this. The environment in which we lived when we were in the West was different from that in which we found ourselves when we returned {320} to Shanghai, and did not it largely affect our lives?" After we had talked some time the question was put plainly to them: "Would they support such a University?" One of them turned round and said: "Of course we should. It is obvious that if you will give us in China the same sort of University as there is in England, if only on the score of expense, we shall want to send our sons there; besides which no one likes parting from their children and leaving them in a distant land."

I discussed the matter with a Chinese statesman in Peking. I asked whether Peking would not be a good centre, but he was very adverse to the idea, because he said that Peking had such a bad moral tone that boys would not be able to do any good work, and that he himself far preferred that Chinese boys should be sent at ten years old to England to receive their whole education in our country. When we pointed out to him how, except in the case of a few rich men, such a course would be quite impossible, he said: "Then put your University right away in the western hills out of reach of the immoral influences of a town."

There can be few more eloquent testimonies to the necessity of another University; nothing but a Christian University could succeed in creating the moral atmosphere, which this wise man saw was the power of the West. In the same conversation he gave a further testimony to the power of Christianity, all the more striking that it was uttered by a man who was not a Christian. He said: "Yes, {321} I have no doubt that all that is good in the West comes from Christianity."

All the officials we interviewed always ended their encomiums on the suggested scheme by a saving clause to the effect that, before we did anything, we must ask his Excellency Chang-Chih-Tung. When we pa.s.sed through Peking the first time we failed to see him, and it was therefore with some anxiety I sought an interview with him on our return journey.

Chang was a figure in the politics of China whose importance it would be hard to over-estimate. Not that he had the reputation for being a peculiarly able man; in fact, some of the Europeans spoke slightingly of his mentality. His force and influence came rather from his moral qualities. He was the perfect type of Confucian scholar.

Wonderfully well versed in all the knowledge of the literati of China, he was far from despising any form of knowledge; in fact, he was one of the first of the statesmen of China to recognise the importance of Western education. When we were discussing with some leading merchants the want of integrity of many of the officials, they claimed Chang as an exception with enthusiasm. He had held the highest offices and still remained comparatively poor. His reputation for clean-handedness was enhanced by his age. In China the old are greatly reverenced, and an old, honest, and learned statesman combined three of the qualities most admired in China.

It was therefore with some trepidation that I {322} found myself going to see a man whose moral authority was so great that he could with a word mar or make the University scheme as far as the power of the Chinese officials extended, and in his case this was very far. I was alone, for owing to the rather heated debates that divided the British and Chinese Governments over the Canton-Wuchang Railway, it was thought advisable that no member of the Legation should come with me. I drove down to the north end of the city, and turning down a by-lane, scarcely wide enough for the carriage to pa.s.s, we drew up opposite a very modest dwelling. I was received by His Excellency's nephew, a man of extremely courtly manners; and as he conducted me across the yard I was struck by the simplicity of the house. The room, for instance, into which I was ushered had a brick floor, and was separated from the courtyard only by a paper and wood screen. Imagine what the intense cold must be in a Peking winter when the thermometer is somewhere below zero! The furniture of the room was equally simple. Two Chinese chairs of the Chinese guest-room pattern, standing on each side of the usual Chinese table, were supported on the other side of the room by a token of the ever-encroaching West in the shape of a common round table and some mongrel-looking stools, which looked as if they were productions of j.a.pan palmed off as European.

As we sat and talked (for I was too early for my interview) my host told me all about his uncle's {323} family, and the while I wondered at the austerity of the dwelling of the greatest man in China after those of royal blood.

His Excellency was then ready to receive me, and we adjourned to another equally simple room where the usual table with tea, sweetmeats, and wine was laid out. Chang during the whole interview smoked a long pipe, which required all the efforts of what I took to be two boys, but who really were slave-girls, to keep alight. He wanted to know where the money was to come from. I a.s.sured him that there are many generous people in England and America who, desiring to leave a good name behind them, and convinced that education confers on humanity incalculable benefits, are willing to give largely to such a cause.

Then he inquired what line we should take with regard to Confucian learning; I said Christianity and Confucianism need not be opposed, and we should respect and encourage the teaching of the sage. He clearly approved, and gave me advice as to the course of study to be followed--first, Chinese letters, then foreign languages; and he advised as the site for the University some place near Wuchang and not Peking.