The viceroy filled the gap incontinently, but found himself no better.  He then sent for English and American doctors—­dismissing them in turn to make way for a Japanese who had him in charge when I left Wuchang.  For a paragon of intelligence and courage, how pitiful this relapse into superstition!  Did not China after a trial of European methods also relapse during the Boxer craze into her old superstitions?  And is she not at this moment taking the medicine of Japan?  To Japan she looks for guidance in the conduct of her public schools as well as for the training of her army and navy.  To Japan she is sending her sons and daughters in growing numbers.  No fewer than eight thousand of her young men, and, what is more significant, one or two hundred of her young women from the best families are now in those islands inhaling the breath of a new life.

[Page 234] Some writers have sounded a note of alarm in consequence of this wholesale surrender on the part of China.  But for my part I have no fear of any sinister tendency in the teachings of Japan, whether political or educational.  On a memorable occasion twelve years ago, when Marquis Ito was entertained at a banquet in Peking by the governor of the city and the chancellor of the Imperial University, I congratulated him on the fact that “Japan exerts a stronger influence on China than any Western power—­just as the moon raises a higher tide than the more distant sun”—­implying, what the Japanese are ready enough to admit, that their country shines by borrowed light.

After all, the renovating effect, for which I look to them, will not come so much from their teaching as from their example.  “What is to hinder us from doing what those islanders have done?” is an argument oft reiterated by Viceroy Chang in his appeals to his drowsy countrymen.  It was, as I have said, largely under his influence that the Emperor was led to adopt a new educational programme twelve years ago.  Nor can there be a doubt that by his influence more than that of any other man, the Empress Dowager was induced to reenact and to enlarge that programme.

To show what is going on in this very decade:  On September 3, 1905, an edict was issued “abolishing the literary competitive examinations of the old style,” and ordering that “hereafter exclusive attention shall be given to the establishment of schools of modern learning throughout the Empire in lieu thereof.”  The next day a supplementary decree ordained that [Page 235] the provincial chancellors or examiners who, like Othello, found their occupation gone, should have the duty of examining and inspecting the schools in their several provinces; and, to give the new arrangement greater weight, it was required that they “discharge this duty in conjunction with the viceroy or governor of the province.”