March 6, 1905.]
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
FEMALE EDUCATION IN CHINA,
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'to effectually dispose of the unworthy per- sons who are a standing menace to the peace and good order of that settlement, it is to be presumed that General BRAGG and his influential commercial friends and nationals will be prompted to take similar action here. Mr. DAVIDSON, at the Shanghai | occurs:-That female education [for Chi-men, as well as ST. PAUL and JoHN
tion as
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(Daily Press 1st March.) On the subject of female education in China, the North China Daily News has a long article, in which the following passage
meeting, a report of which we reproduce nese] is valued where it has beau tried, and elsewhere, pointed out that the number is understool, is evident from the success of of indigent Americans there was increas- the girls' schools in the British Colony of ing. He also admitted that the Ameri- Hongkong. These are numerous, well- cans (and other foreigners) who appealed attended, and successful. Therein the for charity were
not worthy,' but students are taught to read, write, and com- were generally professional beachcombers. pose, as well as to sew and embroider. The He further confirmed a fact previously dwelt girls who have passed through these schools upon by us that the foreign communities of will be quite different from their sisters on the China coast have gained a reputation the mainland," That is true so far as it (among the idle ne'er-do-wells and wastrels) goes, but the success of a school does not of being
susceptible." This reputation, necessarily imply the life success of a pupil, we need scarcely repeat, is strongly against nor the social success of a nation; and those all legislative or other action intended to are the points which the writer, who ap- keep undesirables away. Where the car. pears to have a warm ide for mission work, case is, there will the vultures foregather; and to believe that the future welfare of and the news of a lot of people who are China" depends on the advancement of readily imposed upon is as great an attrac-female education on a wider scale than
was the olden-time Pagoda tree. People often gave," he said, "because they were loath to refuse a man who might be in genuine distress." This is very true, but excusable as the sentiment appears, it is shockingly bad politics, and it only servet to increase the evil. Very often, the generous persons who are so susceptible, and who are described by some modern writer as the cadger's delight," are of the easy-going improvident sort who occasionally find is awkward to pay their own legal debts, Where the soft-hearted one is not open to such an aspersion, he is none the less mistaken in supposing be is likely to help some deserving case by such eleemosynary weakness. As a matter of fact, the philan- thropist has to seek out the really deserving cases: They are seldom found begging openly. The honest pauper shrinks from the public gaze. He is ashamed of his poverty. He will be more anxious to avoid public observation thau are bis more fortunate brethren anxious to avoid him. It does not need much ex perience to detect the professional solicitor from the beginner. Perhaps the dweller in the East bas fewer opportunities to compare them, because most. he sees are the case hardened oues, whose carefully acted as.
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sumption of shyness and reluctance should never deceive anybody who has encountered the real thing. Mr. DAVIDSON made a good point when he said that a properly organised society to help the truly unfortunate would save more money than it would spend. That the Americans in Hongkong have so far done nothing, to provide for their nationals may be explained by the fact that experience has taught them the deserving cases are so rare, and they may not have thought of the possibility of thus saving the less wise from being imposed upon. The Shanghai Americans have formed a society called the American Relief Society, and each case is to be sent to the Consulate for investigation. No money will be given. Help will take the shape of orders for bed and board. Nuisances will be shipped off. That is our existing nuisance. Manila ships off its nu'sances to Hongkong, in some cases bringing improper pressure to bear upon shipping companies to bring them here. One case is mentioned of a British firm which found it unprofitable to refuse, although it did not wish to bring any such characters to Hongkong, where it knew they were unwanted. If the Shanghai society selects Hongkong as a destination for any of its subjects, it is to be hoped our Govern- ment will more rigorously enforce the pro- visions of its Vagrancy ordinance.
has yet been done," ought to establish. The Western missionary or educational reformer, coming to China with a lot of preconceived notions as to what is the ideal s'atus of woman, and being apparently quite unwilling, if not unable, to see that the Eastern man has some right to a notion or two of his own, can cheerfully go about upse ting the established order of things. jo him, everything in the East that is no ust as he knew it in the West, is primat facie wrong, and needs altering. Not so the unbiassed sociologist, who knows that the world has more hubs" than Green. wich or Boston. Our contemporary, for instance, asserts that the education of the Celestial Empire, apart from the imperfec- tions inseparable from the system, has lamentably failed "because it has almost entirely overlooked one half the popula. tion." But these imperfections cannot be taken apart and ignored. If the education of China has failed, seeing that its energies have been spent on men, it cannot be because it neglected women. That concen- tration of attention to one section of the community only should have tended to success. That it has not, from the Western point of view, must be because of those imperfections, the difficulty and time in- volved in acquiring the rudiments, and the uselessness of much afterwards | taught. The idea that montal gym- nastics have any great value per se is out of date. Speaking of the two educational cults, the writer seems to agree that that is best for the masses which instructs the moral faculty. "Not only so, but the average education should tend to make us agreeable and pleasing in our intercourse with our fellows, and furnish us with a standard of right and wrong which may be conformed to under all conditions. Therefore that is the best education which is secured by familiarity with the poets, the historians, and the moralists." Without wasting time over the metaphysical postulate that othical maxims lose their value the moment they come to be debated, we may take the writer on his own ground, and deal with the necessity of being "agreeable and pleasing in our intercourse with our fellows." It cannot be alleged that the Oriental woman has been denied training and education in that respect. Thanks to Professor CHAMBERLAIN, the world realises fairly well the education given to Japanese women on those lines; and it appears that in the case of the Chinese woman similar virtues are carefully inculcated. Mr. DrER BALL tells us that "all her bringing up is with the aim of teaching her perfect submission to the
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paramount authority of man.' Were the missionaries indiscreet enough to quote ST. PAUL on woman, the Chinese would doubtless hail his wisdom, which was quite in keeping with Chinese opinion on the subject. The vast majority of the world's
CHINAMAN, seem agreed that it is woman's place to be" in subjec ion, not to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man; butto marry, bear children, and guide the house." Europe on this subject is in a startling minority, and with all due respect to its enlightened civilisation, it is an open ques- tion whether woman is any the happier for her rapidly extending suffrages. The nien are certainly not. The future of every race depends upon its mothers, and the "shriek ing sisterhood' seldom includes the ideal mother. Indeed, it seems to be motherhood that is most shrieked against. Reverting to the writer's point, then, that the ethical education is the best; and to his reference to "our fellows," we may ask whether the duty of the Chinawoman is to be "agreeable and pleasing" to the foreigner's reforming eye, or to her Chinese fellows. Remember- ing also that ethics depend strictly on locality for their cole, the meddler with female education in China does not seem to have a leg left on which to stan. Having, to meet him, neglected the point that the only universal morality is that which is intuitive, we are oblige to point out that what is moral in the West may be immoral in the East, and vice versa. The standard of right and wrong among the Inoits of the Arctic Circle permits the hunter to kill his feeble and useless father on the approach of winter and its scarcity of food. The old Inoit, past hunting, goes to his isolated tomb as acquiesci gly as evor Indian widow went to the funeral pyre of her deceased lord. In China, whatever threatens the bale and hearty son, morality demands that the feeble old sire be cherish- ed. This writer will not consider happiness as an object of education. That, he says, "need not be considered here." The ethical motive he is now robbed of, since he cites social intercourse as a basis of morality; and the social community of China consists,
not of missionaries and educational re- formers, but of Chinamen. For the rest, the Chinese mother-in-law is understood to
give the finishing education that makes a good wife and mother of the Chinawoman, and a happy man of the Chinaman. The same sentimentalism, over the supposed un- happiness of the Chinese woman, that prompted this advocacy of education for females, has led what His Excellency the GOVERNOR calls "rash reformers and reck- less enterprisers" to similar agitation in Japan. Even foreign observers there de- precate a Japan of New Women; and it may some day be seen that it would have been better to let well alone in China. His EXCELLENCY on another occasion quoted a poet who said " Men are God's trees, women God's flowers" A world all trees and no flowers would be a dreary place. writer whose observations we have just partly traversed says "Protestant missions, when the idea was unpopular, when there were many discouragements and few en- conragements, have always, both by example and precept, attempted to advance female education, and this will more and more redound to their credit. That, from the points of view we have tried to realise, is uot so certain. At least the Chinaman's gratitude for a wife who knows too much and argues about it will not be redundant.
The
Dr. A. F. Forster has been awarded the Belilios medal for rescuing two Chinese children from under an overturned sampan,