Education of women in China,

THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN

in china

MARGARET E. BURTON

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PRINCETON, N. J.

Purchased by the Hamill Missionary Fund.

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Section

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397

Miss Ilien Tang, a Young Christian Teacher,
a Graduate of the Rulison-Fish Memorial
School, Kiukiang

The Education of
Women in China

By y

MARGARET E. BURTON

ILLUSTRATED

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London and Edinburgh

Copyright, 1911, by

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PREFACE

Of all the remarkable changes which
have taken place in China within the last
decade, none is more significant than the
change of attitude toward the education of
women. Active interest and even enthusi-
asm have taken the place of the indifference or
disapproval of the past centuries. China is
coming to recognize that if she is to be gen-
uinely strong, in the new era of her history
upon which she is entering, her women must
be given such education as will purify and
elevate national life at its very source, the
home. The character of the great new China
will be determined in no small measure by the
women of the nation, and what these women
will be depends very largely upon whether
they receive education, and upon the type of
that education.

During a stay of six months in China in
1909 I was much interested in a study of the
present conditions in woman’s education, and
visited several of the schools for girls, both
those conducted by the Mission Boards and
5

6

Preface

those recently established by the Chinese.
Since my return to this country I have con-
tinued my study, seeking to learn from the
best available authorities the character of such
education for women as existed before the
entrance of Western influences, and to trace
the history of modern education, using, as far
as possible, original sources. Although these
studies have been by no means exhaustive,
I have put the results into their present
form in the belief that they may be of inter-
est to others as well as to myself. It is with
the earnest hope that it may help to a clearer
understanding of the power which the Chinese
women are capable of exerting, and of their
importance to the future of the oldest and
most populous of the nations of the world,
that this brief sketch of the history of the
education of Chinese women is sent forth.

M. E. B.

Contents

CHAPTER

I.

Woman’s Education before 1842 .

PAGE
I I

II.

The Day of Small Beginnings

34

III.

The Period of Gradual Growth

52

IV.

The Women Produced by the
Christian Schools

77

V.

The Pioneer Girls’ School Estab-
lished by the Chinese

100

VI.

The Development of Gentry
and Government Schools

112

VII.

The Character of the Gentry
and Government Schools

130

VIII.

The Present Popularity of
Woman’s Education .

149

IX.

The Relation of Woman’s Edu-
cation to the New China

1 66

X.

The Present Opportunity and
its Challenge ....

194

XI.

The Present Opportunity and
its Demands ....

213

Illustrations

Miss Ilien Tang, a Young Christian Teach-
er, a Graduate of the Rulison-Fish Me-
morial School, Kingkiang . . . Frontispiece

OPPOSITE PAGE

Little Girls of Old China 16

The Daughter of the First Pupil of a Mis-
sion School in East China 36

Little Chinese Foundling Girls Adopted by
the Methodist Mission 44

Mrs. Lai-sun, a Pupil in the First School
for Girls Established in China .... 50

The Class of 1909, Rulison-Fish Memorial
School, Kingkiang 56

Chinese Women Physicians, Graduates of a
Mission School 82

Government School for Girls — Canton . . 116

Government Kindergarten at Foochow in
Session 128

The Girls of the Baldwin Memorial School,
Nanchang 152

The Members of the Young Women’s
Christian Association — The Laura Hay-
good School, Soochow 164

9

10

Illustrations

OPPOSITE PAGE

Young Women’s Christian Association
Building, Shanghai .170

A Chinese Official and His Family . . . 196

A Chinese Kindergarten Teacher and Her
Pupils 210

Almost Ready For College 218

The Only School for Girls in a City of
Twenty Thousand. Its Building and
Pupils 228

I

WOMAN’S EDUCATION BEFORE 1842

PROBABLY no nation of the world has
ever reverenced education more pro-
foundly, or been more influenced by it,
than has China. “ Education is the highest
pursuit a man can follow ” is a favourite
maxim, and the genuineness of the people’s
belief in this statement is evidenced by the
respect everywhere accorded to the educated
man. During a visit to Canton, I one day
accompanied a medical missionary on a visit
to a patient in a small village some miles from
the city. It was an unattractive village, dirty,
squalid and isolated. But in that little village
were erected, in a prominent position, three
long slender poles, widening at the top, which
I was told were the pride of the village, the
visible evidence that three of its residents had
received the coveted literary degrees which
gave them a place among the “ literati,” the
only aristocrats in democratic China.

This aristocracy is itself very democratic in
character. The examinations for the literary
11

12 Education of Women in China

degrees have always been open to men of every
rank. And although the holders of degrees
may be of very humble families, it is they,
rather than the men who have merely wealth
or birth to recommend them, who are the in-
fluential members of a community. “ They
originate, shape and control public opinion. It
would be difficult to overstate the respect in
which they are held and the deference shown
them everywhere and by all classes. They are
the unofficial judges, the arbitrators in village
or family differences, the disseminators of pub-
lic news and commentators upon it, the au-
thority in matters of etiquette and propriety,
the leaders in feasts and amusements, the
censors of morals, the writers and readers of
letters for the illiterate, the teachers of the
village schools. They draw contracts, busi-
ness agreements of all sorts, and petitions to
the authorities. They are the leaders of
thought and action.” 1

In view of this universal reverence for edu-
cation in China, it may not seem surprising
that the earliest book on the subject of wom-
an’s education of which we have any knowl-
edge was written in China, and by a Chinese
woman, Lady Tsao. The subject has not been
an uncommon one among Chinese writers, for
1 Holcombe, The Real Chinese Question, p. 63.

Woman’s Education Before 1842 13

tHey have not failed to realize the mother’s
influence on her children, and thus on the life
of the nation, and with this in mind have
recommended that women be educated. For
example, Luhchau, one of the most distin-
guished Chinese essayists of the last century,
published a book some years ago called the
“ Female Instructor,” in the preface of which
he says :

“ The basis of the government of the Em-
pire lies in the habits of the people, and the
surety that their usages will be correct is in
the orderly management of families, which last
depends chiefly upon the females. In the good
old times of Chau, the virtuous women set
such an excellent example that it influenced
the customs of the Empire, an influence that
descended even to the times of the Ching and
Wei states. . . Females are doubtless the
source of good manners. From ancient times
to the present this has been the case. The in-
clination to virtue and vice in women differs
exceedingly; their dispositions incline contrary
ways and if it is wished to form them alike
there is nothing like education.”

But the ideas of what should constitute
woman’s education have been somewhat differ-
ent from those which we usually associate to-
day with the word education. Luhchau goes

14 Education of Women in China

on to expound his ideals in the matter by quot-
ing the ancient Ritual of Chau, according to
which “ the imperial wives regulated the law
for educating females in order to instruct the
ladies of the palace in morals, conversation,
manners and work.” After pointing out the
great dissimilarity which he felt should exist
between the education of men and that of
women he speaks of the subjects in which he
felt it was especially important that women
should be instructed.

“ First concerning her obedience to her hus-
band and to his parents, then in regard to her
complaisance to his brothers and sisters, and
kindness to her sisters-in-law. If unmarried
she has duties to her parents and to the wives
of her elder brothers; if a principal wife a
woman must bear no jealous feelings; if in
straitened circumstances she must be contented
with her lot; if rich and honourable she must
avoid extravagance and haughtiness. Then
teach her in times of trouble and days of ease
how to maintain her purity, how to give im-
portance to right principles, how to observe
widowhood, how to avenge the murder of a
relative. Is she a mother let her teach her
children; is she a stepmother let her love and
cherish her husband’s children; is her rank in
life high let her be condescending to her in-

Woman’s Education Before 1842 15

feriors. ... In conversation a female should
not be froward 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 reverenc-
ing 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 household and set-
ting in order the sacrifices, follow next, each
of which must be attended to. After them
study and learning can fill up the time.” 2
Another well-known book for women, called
the Nii-rh Yu, or “ Words for Women and
Girls,” written early in the last century by a
Manchu official, sets forth instructions for
women along much the same lines. It is writ-
ten in metrical form so as to be easily mem-
orized, and gives what are in the main sensible
suggestions as to behavior, neatness, household
management, the care of children and similar
2 Williams, The Middle Kingdom, VoJ. I, p. 574 f.

1 6 Education of Women in China

topics. A few extracts will show its general
purport.

"When wives and girls are still in youth
Much need they have of constant heed.

At morn their place is first to rise.

At evening last to seek their couch,

To strive that all the work be done
And yield till others’ meals are o’er. . . .

Are unused food or tea grounds left
She lays them by with careful thought
For those poor folk who come around
Compelled to live on chaff and earth. . . .

With filial duty serve the old

As if they were your household lords.

Help them in kindly patient acts
Without a word of grudging scorn. . . .

Serve great and small with equal zeal
And always let your will give way.

If lord or lady ask your help
First with your husband counsel take
For he to you must heaven be . . .

A wayward spouse with aims depraved
Can oft be urged to mend his way
By earnest words and constant talk,

And quickened thus to higher life. . . .

In all your care of tender babes

Mind lest they’re fed or warmed too much;

The childish liberty first granted

Must soon be checked by rule and rein. . . .

All flesh and fruits when ill with colds
Are noxious drugs to tender babes
Who need a careful oversight.

Yet want some license in their play.

Be strict in all you bid them do,

For this will guard from ill and woe.” *

* Williams, in The Chinese Recorder, Jan.-Feb., 1880.

Little Girls of Old China

Woman’s Education Before 1842 17

The Nii Kiai, or “ Rules for Women,” writ-
ten by Lady Tsao nearly seventeen centuries
before the two books just referred to, is very
similar to them in its general character. Lady
Tsao says : “ 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 what-
ever she does to be unassuming, and whenever
she moves or sits to be decorous. This is
female virtue.” 4

The headings of the seven chapters of Lady
Tsao’s book will show what were, in her opin-
ion, the most important features of a woman’s
education.

1. The state of subjection and weakness in

which women are born.

2. The duties of a woman when under the

power of a husband.

3. The unlimited respect due to a husband,

and constant self-examination and re-
straint.

4. The qualities which render a female lova-

ble, divided into those relating to her
virtue, her conversation, her dress and
occupations.

4 Williams, The Middle Kingdom , Vol. I, p. 574.

1 8 Education of Women in China

5. The lasting attachment due from a wife

to a husband.

6. The obedience due to a husband and to

his parents.

7. The cordial relations to be maintained

with her husband's brothers and sis-
ters.5

It will be seen from these glimpses at three
of the most important of the Chinese books on
the education of women that the emphasis was
laid almost exclusively on conduct, and that
instruction in the three Rs and kindred topics
was not considered at all an essential part of
a woman’s education. As Dr. Williams points
out, these books “ are rather to be compared
to works like Sprague’s ‘ Letters to a Daugh-
ter ’ or Hannah More’s ‘ Education of a
Princess,’ than to what we call school books;
for such branches as arithmetic, geography,
ancient or modem history, philosophy and
physics are not yet taught in any native school
in China.” 6

The opinion of Confucius in regard to
the education of women seems to have been
generally held by the Chinese people until
very recent times. Writing five hundred
years before Lady Tsao, he said: “Women

6 Williams, in The Chinese Recorder, Jan.-Feb., 1880.

# The Chinese Recorder, Jan.-Feb., 1880.

Woman’s Education Before 1842 19

are as different from men as earth is from
heaven. . . . Women indeed are human be-
ings, but they are of a lower state than men
and can never attain to full equality with them.
The aim of female education therefore is per-
fect submission, not cultivation and develop-
ment of the mind.” To us who are accus-
tomed to the ideals regarding the education of
women which are prevalent in Christian na-
tions to-day, such a standard may seem low
indeed, but if it be compared with the ideas
which have been held on the subject among
other non-Christian nations, it will appear in
a very different light, and we shall count it
greatly to China’s credit that she had any
ideals at all regarding the instruction of
women. Dr. Williams points out in the arti-
cle already referred to that “ the comparatively
high position among pagan nations which has
been accorded to women in China even from
its earliest history has been due in a great
measure to the conviction that they must be
properly taught.”

After all, however, the true status of wom-
an’s education in a nation cannot be determined
merely by studying the theories advanced on
the subject in the nation’s literature. Theory
and practice are not always perfectly in ac-
cord, and Dr. James S. Dennis has pointed out

20 Education of Women in China

that they are not so in China. “ There seems,”
he says, “to be an incongruity between the
theoretical ideal regarding women which is
found in the literature and philosophy of China,
and the every-day practice which has prevailed
for centuries in Chinese society. There are
famous books of instruction about woman, and
especially addressed to her, such as * The Four
Books for Girls/ * The Classics for Women,’
as well as 4 The Records of Illustrious Women
of Ancient Times,’ but these literary monitors
seem to wield only a feeble influence in real
life, either over the minds of men or in mould-
ing the lives of women.” 7

Doubtless the great reason why these books
of precepts have done so little in moulding the
lives of those to whom they were addressed is
that the vast majority could not read. Women
who could read have not been unknown in
China. Lady Tsao, to whom reference has al-
ready been made, is a striking example of the
extent to which the education of women has
sometimes been carried. Her book on woman’s
education has been one of China’s classics for
centuries; she completed the history of the
Han dynasty when her brother died, leaving it
unfinished; and when she herself died she was

T Dennis, Christian Missions and Social Progress,
Vol. II, p. 191.

Woman’s Education Before 1842 21

honoured by the Emperor, with a public burial,
in recognition of her attainments, and was
given the title by which she has ever since
been known, Great Lady Tsao. Dr. Williams
says that it was not unusual for literary men
to be desirous of having their daughters ac-
complished in music and poetry, as well as in
the classical lore, and cites the example of one
Yuen Yuen, the governor general of Canton,
who in 1820 published a book of poems written
by his daughter. He points out that the names
of women writers mentioned in Chinese lit-
erature would make a long list.8

In his book on “ Court Life in China,” Dr.
Headland of Peking says :

“ Dr. Martin, expressing the sentiments then
in vogue, said, as far back as 1877, 4 that not
one in ten thousand women could read/ In
1893 I began studying the subject and was led
at once to doubt the statement. The Chinese
in an offhand way will agree with Dr. Martin.
But I found that it was a Chinese woman who
wrote the first book that was ever written in
any language for the instruction of girls, and
that the Chinese for many years have had
4 Four Books for Girls/ corresponding to the
‘ Four Books 5 of the old regime, and that they
were printed in large editions and have been
8 Williams, The Middle Kingdom , Vol. I, p. 573.

22 Education of Women in China

read by the better class of people in almost
every family. In every company of women
that came to call on my wife from 1894 to
1900, there was at least one, if not more, who
had read these books, while the Empress
Dowager herself was a brilliant example of
what a woman of the old regime could do.
Where the desire for education was so great
among women that as soon as it became possi-
ble to do so she launched the first woman’s
daily newspaper that was published anywhere
in the world, with a woman as an editor, we
may be sure that there was more than one in
ten thousand during the old regime that could
read.” 9

The conclusion which Dr. Headland draws
is doubtless a correct one, but taking China as
a whole the consensus of opinion is to the effect
that educated women have been exceptional.

In one of the earliest books written on
China, published in 1859, by Mr. Dean, the
first American Baptist missionary to China, we
read : “ The Chinese classics say that among
the ancients, villages had their schools, dis-
tricts their academies, departments their col-
leges and principalities their universities.
These are for the benefit of the boys, for while
* Headland, Court Life in China, Chap. XXII, pp.

365 f-

Woman’s Education Before 1842 23

Chinese writers speak of the importance of
female education we never see their girls in
school, and have seldom seen a Chinese woman
who could read her own language. . . . The
very few Chinese women we have met who
could read have learned from a brother or fa-
ther at home. A few are instructed in music
and embroidery, but the great mass of women
in China are employed in the servile occupa-
tions of home or the toils of the field.” 10
Miss Adele Fielde, one of the earliest of
women missionaries to China, says : “ The at-
tainments of women in literature are much
lauded and respected. Practically such attain-
ments are uncommon; but historians refer with
pride to the scholarship of a few, and novelists
are fond of representing their heroines as
skilled in writing both poetry and prose. . . .
Native girls’ schools are almost unknown. . . .
Of women I have seen few outside Christian
mission schools who could read except those
despised little girls who act in theatres. In
the whole empire probably not more than one
woman in a thousand knows how to read.” 11
Mrs. Calvin Mateer’s estimate is even
smaller. “ With very rare exceptions women
are never educated. Of heathen women possi-

10 Dean, The China Mission , p. 22.

11 Fielde, Pagoda Shadows, p. 3.

24 Education of Women in China

bly one in two or three thousand can read.” 12
“ Among the thousands of women whom we
have met,” said Mrs. Arthur H. Smith at the
Shanghai Missionary Conference of 1890,
“ not more than ten had learned to read. The
daughters of the rich or of scholars, instructed
for mere amusement, and the trifling number
of those who have acquired a slight knowledge
of characters in order to study Buddhist books,
or for use in the minor sects; — these comprise
the fortunate few.”

Mrs. Ing, a missionary in Kiukiang, wrote
home in 1874, “ When we came to Kiukiang
three years since we could not by diligent in-
quiry find a woman who could read. There
was indeed a vague rumour of one thus distin-
guished, but where we could not learn.”13
Miss Howe, telling of her visits to the homes
of the same city, wrote, “ Having seated my-
self I open my book and remark, ‘ These are
Chinese characters. Can any of you read ? *
Some appear amused, others surprised at the
question, while one or two put on an air of
offended dignity, intended to very impressively
convey the impression, ‘ No, indeed; I am not
so strong-minded as that.’ ” 14

11 Quoted in Dennis, Christian Missions and Social
Progress , Vol. II, p. 190.

19 Heathen Woman’s Friend, May, 1874.

14 Heathen Wotnan’s Friend, April, 1881.

Woman’s Education Before 1842 25

The testimony of the Chinese themselves is
to the same effect, from the Chinese gardener
in San Jose, who when asked by his mistress
what seemed to him the most remarkable of
all the new things he had seen in America,
replied, “ The women leadee, litee ” 15 (the
women read and write) — to one of the gentle-
men of the Chinese commission to the Phila-
delphia Centennial in 1876, who lamented the
fact that the education of Chinese women had
“ fallen into disuse ” and attributed America’s
progress to the fact that the mothers were able
to train their sons and daughters intelligently.

One catches interesting glimpses of the sit-
uation in regard to woman’s education in rec-
ords of the missionary work of the early days.
For example, the account of the establishment
of the Anti-foot-binding society, which was
formed by the missionaries of Amoy in 1874,
states that those women who were willing to
promise not to bind their daughters’ feet “ put
their marks ” to a pledge to that effect.16

Mr. Dean tells of a little Chinese girl from
one of the villages near Hongkong, who had
been taught to read by Mrs. Johnson of the
Baptist mission, and had become a Christian

15 Woman's Work for Woman , Feb., 1880.

16 Dennis, Christian Missions and Social Progress,
Vol. II, p. 356.

26 Education of Women in China

under her influence. “ This youthful disci-
ple, on returning to her friends in the interior,
attracted great interest,” he writes, “ and it
was the wonder of all that region that here
was a girl who could read. And when they
came and listened to the doctrines which she
read and explained from the Bible, they were
awestricken and looked upon her as something
superhuman. It was at first feared that her
friends and kindred, when they came to learn
that she had forsaken the religion of her fa-
thers and adopted the creed of the foreigners,
might beat or abuse her ; but when they heard
the words which proceeded from her lips they
were afraid of her and treated her with the
greatest respect.” 17

In another place Mr. Dean speaks of a young
Chinese gentleman, named Ko A Bak, who had
made a trip to the United States, an almost
unheard of proceeding at that time. “ Soon
after the visit of Ko A Bak to the United
States,” writes Mr. Dean, “ he was fortunate
enough to find, on his return to China, a Chi-
nese woman who had learned from her father
how to read. This woman, thus distinguished
from the generality of her sex, was attracted
by curiosity to converse with one of her coun-
trymen who had travelled abroad, and he by
1TDean, The China Mission, p. 118.

Woman’s Education Before 1842 27

nearly an equal curiosity to converse with one
of his countrywomen who could read and write
her own language.” This acquaintance re-
sulted in marriage, and both became members
of the church of which Mr. Dean had charge.
Mrs. Ko A Bak at once asked permission to
form a school for Chinese girls under the direc-
tion of the mission. “ This request was joyfully
granted, but with the thought that it could not
be put into execution,” Mr. Dean says. “ The
Chinese girls had often been seen in servile
labour or idly wasting their time, and when
asked by the missionaries if they would come
to school, would answer, ‘ I am a girl,’ as much
as to say, ‘ You don’t expect a girl to learn to
read ! ’ We therefore had little expectation
that this Chinese woman would get up a
Chinese girls’ school. But she did — and so far
as we know it was the first of its kind in China.
Foreign ladies had taught schools of Chinese
girls, but for a Chinese woman to teach a
Chinese girls’ school was something new under
the sun. . . . The school went on and pros-
pered, and the example of this woman stimu-
lated the zeal of others.” 18

“ For all practical good,” says Dr. Williams,
“ it may be said that half of the Chinese know
nothing of books.” Surely when the percen-
18 Dean, The China Mission , p. 142.

28 Education of Women in China

tage of women who can read or write is esti-
mated at one in a thousand we may make the
general statement that at the time when China
was opened to foreigners, a little over a half
century ago, the women of the nation were
illiterate and wholly without the benefits of
any education beyond that which came in the
regular round of their household and field
duties.

At this time, moreover, the Chinese were not
simply indifferent, but often strenuously op-
posed to the education of their daughters.
Some of the literary men, it is true, consid-
ered it befitting their daughters’ station to have
some smattering of knowledge of music, poe-
try, the classics and the like, but they were a
very small proportion of the nation. What-
ever theories her literature might contain,
China as a whole saw no value in woman’s edu-
cation and was strongly suspicious that its ef-
fect on women would be undesirable.

Doubtless one of the main reasons for this
attitude is the relatively low position of woman
in China. Compared with the condition of
women in other non-Christian countries of the
world, the standing of the Chinese woman is
high, but in every non-Christian country
woman is regarded as distinctly inferior to
man. The Chinese woman has more influence

Woman’s Education Before 1842 29

than the woman of almost any other non-
Christian country, partly because of her native
force of character, and partly because of the
emphasis on the virtue of filial piety and its
accompanying exaltation of motherhood.

At a boy’s school in Chefoo some years ago
the subject of a debate was, “ Which has more
influence, father or mother?” and the boys
decided in favour of the mother on the ground
that she understood the children better and
was more patient than the father.19 Dr. Wil-
liams says, “ It is probably safe to say that
no country, not Christian, can show in its legis-
lation more care in guarding the sacredness of
family ties, defending the purity of the weaker
sex, and providing for the maintenance of
widows.” 20

At the same time Confucius, China’s great
seer, says that it is “ a law of nature that
woman should be kept under the control of
man and not allowed any will of her own,” and
that “ In the other world the condition of af-
fairs is exactly the same, for the same laws
govern there as here.” Such sentiments were
common enough among all nations in those
days, but the general immobility of China has
perpetuated their influence on the position of

19 Woman’s Work for Woman, Feb., 1886.

*° Chinese Recorder, Jan.-Feb., 1880.

30 Education of Women in China

the Chinese woman. “ Eighteen goddess-like
daughters are not equal to one son with a
limp ” is a common proverb. “ It is impossible
to be more malevolent than a woman,” “ Noth-
ing will frighten a wilful wife but a beat-
ing,” 21 and other similar sayings, show how
much less highly women are regarded than
men. Doubtless one of the chief reasons why
one half of the nation has been left uneducated
is because the other half placed so low an esti-
mate on the rights and value of the former.

Another reason, which is itself in part the
basis of the first, has been the low estimate of
woman’s mental ability. * Although the annals
of Chinese history have held more than one
record of women whose intellectual achieve-
ments have been of no mean order, the average
Chinese saw little connection between these
women of the misty past and those of his fam-
ily, if indeed he ever thought of the matter
at all. He probably regarded such ability on
the part of women much as most people of
to-day look on miracles, as something belong-
ing to a more or less remote past and not a
part of the world in which they live.

The story is told of a Chinese, who after
listening with imperturbable calm to the plea
of a missionary that he should send his daugh-

J o

° Beach, Daum on the Hills of Tang, p. 50.

Woman’s Education Before 1842 31

ter to school, pointed to a horse standing
near by, with the inquiry, “ Can you teach that
horse to read and write ? ” On receiving a
prompt reply in the negative he exclaimed with
an air of finality: “If you cannot teach an
intelligent horse what can you expect to do
with a woman ? ” One of the missionaries in
West China tells of visiting a Chinese family,
the head of which was a fine old man and a
Christian, but who said, when she proposed
teaching his granddaughter, “ Oh, but the
women — they can’t learn.” And she added,
“ He looked so full of pity at my ignorance in
thinking they could.”

This unflattering estimate of their intelli-
gence was so strong that the girls and women
themselves accepted it. “ When the women
are asked if they would like to learn to read,
the idea is so new that they think they could
not, and say, ‘ Men read, but women work,’ ”
says one of the Hainan missionaries.22 The
Mary Porter Gamewell School in Peking is
now one of the largest and finest schools for
girls in China, but when she whose name it
now bears opened it many years ago, she had
just three small pupils, and very tearful pupils
at that. When asked the reason for their

22 Mrs. Gilman, in Woman’s Work for Woman , Feb.,
1888.

32 Education of Women in China

distress they sobbed : “ We are crying because
we have a teacher so stupid as to think that
girls can learn anything out of books.” 2S

But even if a girl’s parents could be con-
vinced that girls could perhaps learn some-
thing out of books, it was doubtful whether
they would agree to her going to school. The
social system has had much to do with the
lack of education among Chinese women. A
girl marries while still in her teens, and there-
after becomes virtually the property of her hus-
band’s family. Beyond an occasional visit to
her parents, all connection writh her own fam-
ily ceases. The Chinese is nothing if not prac-
tical, and he feels that it would be a great
waste to have his daughter educated, since
another family than his own would reap the
benefits of her ability. He feels, as Dr. Ar-
thur Smith picturesquely puts it, that it would
be “ like putting a gold chain around the neck
of some one else’s puppy, which may at any
moment be whistled off, and then what will
have become of the chain.” 24 The Chinese
father has been stimulated to educate his boy
by the ambition to have him hold a govern-
ment position, which he could not do without

** MacGilvray, A Century of Protestant Missions in
China , p. 461.

*4 Smith, Village Life in China, p. 264.

Woman’s Education Before 1842 33

a literary degree, but the girl has had no such
argument as this to advance. And if her par-
ents were poor she would have to have Some
very strong reason to convince them that they
could spare her as a wage-earner, or a worker
in the field and kitchen.

There were practical difficulties, too, for it
is not in accordance with ideas of Chinese pro-
priety that girls should be seen going to and
fro on the streets, and therefore day schools
were impracticable. But equally great diffi-
culties presented themselves in connection with
boarding schools, for such schools for girls,
conducted and taught by men, were not to be
thought of, and there were practically no edu-
cated women in the empire to take charge of
them. The outlook for woman’s education
was not encouraging when, in 1842, the open-
ing of the treaty ports finally made it possible
for Western civilization to enter China.

II

THE DAY OF SMALL BEGINNINGS

THE opportunities of education, in the
sense in which education is imparted
by means of books and schools, were
first brought to the women of China by the
Christian missionaries. It is with their work,
therefore, that the story of the new era in
woman’s education in China must begin.

Those who attended the Morrison Centen-
nial Conference held in Shanghai in 1907 will
remember a dignified and venerable Chinese
woman, who on the day devoted to women’s
work stood upon the platform of Martyr
Memorial Hall and was presented to the great
audience there assembled. This was Mrs. Lai-
sun, the oldest living product of schools for
girls in China, and also, in all probability, the
oldest living representative of the educational
work done for Chinese girls in the years while
the missionaries were still waiting outside the
rigidly barred doors of China.

The first school for Chinese girls was opened
in Singapore in 1825 by Miss Grant, an Eng-
34

The Day of Small Beginnings 35

lish woman. Nine years later, in response to
an appeal made by the Rev. David Abeel for
work among the women of the Orient, a little
group of English women organized the first
society ever established for the express purpose
of work for Eastern women. This organiza-
tion was called “ The Society for Promoting
Female Education in the East.” In 1837, Miss
Aldersey, one of the first of the missionaries of
this society, landed in Sourabaya, on the island
of Java, and there established a school for
Chinese girls. It was in this school that Mrs.
Lai-sun received her earliest instruction. But
Miss Aldersey’s heart was set on work in China
proper, and when, after the treaty of 1842,
five ports were finally opened to foreigners,
she at once went to Ningpo, where for some
time she had the distinction of being the first
and only single woman missionary in China.
There in 1844 she established the first school
for girls in all China, and there Mrs. Lai-sun,
who had followed her teacher from Java, con-
tinued her education.

It is impossible for us to-day to form any
real conception of the obstacles and opposition
which this brave woman had to meet in the
establishment of this pioneer school. Not only
must she combat the all-powerful custom which
decreed that women should be regarded as

36 Education of Women in China

brainless and be educated simply in manual
labour, but she must overcome the innumerable
fears and suspicions and prejudices which she
as “ a foreign barbarian ” inspired. “ Why
had she come ? ” was a natural question.
Surely she must have some ulterior motives.
One rumour was to the effect that she had mur-
dered all her own children, and now had de-
signs on those of other people. The mother
of one of her pupils came to the school in
great excitement one day, having been told
that her child had been killed. Even after she
had been shown the little girl, alive and well,
she was not convinced, but took her daughter
aside and asked her if she had not been killed
and then brought back to life again. Miss
Aldersey’s habit of carrying a bottle of smell-
ing salts with her when she took her daily
constitutional, which would seem a most nat-
ural and rational proceeding to any one ac-
quainted with Chinese streets, led to the belief
that she was letting evil spirits out of the
bottle to destroy her neighbours, and caused
such excitement that a procession of idols was
formed, to counteract the effect of the smell-
ing-salt demons.

But Miss Aldersey persisted in the face of
all difficulties, and by furnishing food and
clothing for the children, succeeded in per-

The Daughter of the First Pupil of a Mission
School in East China

The Day of Small Beginnings 37

suading some families, who felt the pinch of
poverty with especial keenness, to entrust their
daughters to her care. Dr. McCartee of the
Presbyterian Mission of Ningpo reported, a
year after her arrival there, that she had “a
fine school of fifteen girls,” and in 1852 Rev.
E. W. Syle, who was visiting Ningpo, recorded
in his diary : “ She has recently rented quite
an extensive house in the very heart of the
city and has now about 40 scholars under her
charge, and if some of our friends at home
could see how happy she is in the midst of
her large family they would understand that
missionary labours here are not all made up
of hardships.” 1

The girls were taught “ the common
branches of education, with plain needlework
and embroidery, with the endeavour to fit them
for the active duties of life.” 2 After thirteen
years of unceasing labour, Miss Aldersey’s
health gave out, and after arranging that her
school should be united with the Presbyterian
Girls’ School at Ningpo, she reluctantly left
China. But she left behind her a corps of
trained Christian women in whom she had
multiplied her life many fold. “ Several of
the wives of the older pastors of the Ningpo

1 Spirit of Missions, March, 1852.

2 Dean, The China Mission, p. 141.

38 Education of Women in China

Presbytery and others, now widows, were her
pupils.” 3 From as far away as Nanking a
missionary wrote of one of the pupils of this
school :

“ Often wThen I look at Mrs. Zia’s efficient
work I think the lady who laboured to make
her what she is might have felt repaid if she
had only one such pupil for all her years of
toil.”4

The great need of the Chinese girls and
women, and the necessity for trained native
women to work among them as pastors’ wives,
Bible women and teachers, were such strong
arguments for girls’ schools that many other
missionaries soon followed Miss Aldersey’s ex-
ample. With rare courage they undertook the
seemingly impossible task of persuading the
Chinese that they meant only good to their
daughters, and of convincing them that these
daughters were capable of education and well
worthy of it. It was a task which called for
limitless patience and perseverance. Even the
smallest of beginnings were made with great
difficulty. Sometimes the best plan seemed to
be to begin work among girls by opening a

* The Jubilee Papers of the Central China Mission
(Presbyterian).

4 Mrs. Leaman, in Woman's Work for Woman,
March, 1889.

The Day of Small Beginnings 39

day school for the children still so young as
to be permitted to go to and fro on the streets
from their homes to the school. A letter from
Mrs. Baldwin of Foochow gives some glimpses
of the obstacles which had to be met before
such a plan could be put into operation :

“ During my first year here I was exceed-
ingly anxious to have a day school for girls.
My home Sunday school promised me over
$70 a year towards the support of a school, so
I went to work to get scholars — every one
saying, ‘ You will not succeed in doing much
with a girls’ day school ; others have tried and
have always failed.’ I could but try. I could
not go into the street and visit house by house,
but Mr. Baldwin, with the help of a native
teacher, kindly did it for me. Still no one
would promise to send the girls to school —
boys they would gladly send, but girls — what
was the use of teaching them? Mr. Baldwin
came home feeling very much discouraged,
as he had not secured a single scholar. Then
I called the native teacher I expected to em-
ploy and told him that his having the place
depended upon his getting enough scholars to
open the school. He spent two or three days
trying to induce parents of this ward to send
their girls, but in vain. The usual stories were
circulated as to what use we would make of

40 Education of Women in China

the girls. The two most popular are — we want
to cut them open and make opium of them,
and another, send them to Peking and sell
them to make medicine. Finally the teacher
said if I would give them a few cash a day
he thought I should succeed. Now this is the
general custom, as the scholars usually do
something at home toward buying their rice;
but I thought I would see if I could not suc-
ceed in getting them without this fee. I found
there was no help, so I said I would give them
ten cash each day. I furnish books, pens, ink,
etc., and yet must pay them to come and learn.
We at home are most happy to pay for being
taught, but our antipodes of course do the
opposite.

“ The teacher, by the promise of the ten cash,
had the promise of two scholars and I thought
there would be no further trouble. I had the
school room put in order, and the Saturday
before the school was to open, purchased desks
and put them into the room, locking them up.
The first news that greeted me the next morn-
ing was that a thief had taken the lock off
the schoolhouse gate, and carried off all my
newly purchased furniture. All was replaced,
but the two scholars did not appear. Still I
was determined not to give up.

“ There is an old man who has done consid-

The Day of Small Beginnings 41

erable work for our mission. ... I heard
that he knew of two girls that wanted to be
put in school, so I sent for him, and he came
in a hurry, thinking we had some work for
him to do. I said, 4 Now, Ming Se, if you
don’t go right off and get me a sufficient num-
ber of girls to open my school and a teacher
that the parents know and will trust, I will
never give you any more work to do for me.’
He laughed heartily and said he would go and
get scholars and teacher, and in two hours he
brought me two nice-looking girls and a
teacher, and in less than another hour I had
the third, and so the number increased from
day to day until I now have in regular attend-
ance from fifteen to seventeen girls.” 5

In some respects there were even greater
difficulties in starting boarding schools.
Among the earliest of these was the Girls’
Boarding School of the Methodist Mission at
Foochow, formerly known as the Baltimore
Female Seminary, which was established by
the Misses Woolston in 1859. Dr. R. S.
Maclay, who was a witness of their untiring
efforts for the cause of woman’s education,
says :

“ The attempt to state all the difficulties,
trials and discouragements which the Misses
6 Heathen Woman’s Friend , June, 1869.

42 Education of Women in China

Woolston had to meet and overcome in their
efforts to found the Baltimore Female Sem-
inary would extend this recital beyond rea-
sonable limits; and yet to omit all allusion
to this part of our subject would be at once
inexcusable and unjust. It is impossible for
any one acquainted only with Christian civiliza-
tion to form an adequate conception of the
state of society in Foochow at the time now
under consideration; indeed the progress of
truth in Foochow since that period has
wrought such marked and beneficent changes,
that even the missionaries who have subse-
quently entered that field cannot fully appre-
ciate the severe struggles of these heroic
pioneers in the work of educating and uplift-
ing the women of China. . . .

“ The Misses Woolston soon found them-
selves in possession of suitable school buildings
and the appliances necessary for the prosecu-
tion of their enterprise. Thus far no formida-
ble obstacles had been confronted. But the
scene was totally changed the moment they
began in earnest to seek pupils for their school.
Then followed months of apparently fruit-
less efforts to remove the prejudice of the
people and induce them to patronize the
school.

“ In some instances the efforts encountered

The Day of Small Beginnings 43

only stolid indifference, in others contemptu-
ous indignation ; while in still others they were
met by a malignant hostility which found con-
genial employment in circulating the vilest
slanders concerning the school and every per-
son engaged in it. Against such an accumula-
tion of obstacles, such a combination of hostile
elements, it might to less courageous spirits
have seemed hopeless to continue the strug-
gle.” 6

Perseverance was finally rewarded by one
girl, “ only secured by allowing other mem-
bers of the family to come and remain with
her to watch over her and guard against her
having her eyes gouged out, or being spirited
away bodily while she slept, by the foreign
devils.” 7

This little girl was the sole attendant of the
school for eight days, and of the six who
within the next few weeks ventured to follow
her, only two remained. However, a year
later, after some fluctuations, the Misses
Woolston were able to report eight girls in
the school. Seven of these eight came from
the peasant class. “ They were all little
4 daughters-in-law,’ which means a child of no

6 Dr. R. S. Maclay, in Heathen Woman’s Friend ,
Nov., 1872.

7 Mrs. Plumb, in The Gospel in All Lands, Feb., 1898.

44 Education of Women in China

love or care, so what did it matter if she did
go to the despised Christians for a time.” 8

These conditions were not limited to one
part of the Empire. In 1873 Miss Gertrude
Howe and Miss Lucy Hoag arrived in Kiu-
kiang, a city of the Yangtze valley about 400
miles from the coast. Looking back to the
first months of their stay in China, Miss Howe
said :

“ In the year 1873 a Shanghai paper an-
nounced that two spinsters had opened a school
for girls at Kiukiang, adding also that in spite
of liberal offers of food and clothing no girls
were forthcoming for the institution. Speak-
ing the truth has been called one of the fine
arts, and the writer of the foregoing approx-
imated. It was January 1st, 1873, when the
Misses Hoag and Howe, representatives of
the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society of
the Methodist Episcopal Church, essayed the
opening of the school in question. They had
secured a teacher; he in turn, as excuse for
receiving the Mexicans for which his necessi-
ties clamoured, secured two little girls as pu-
pils. They ran away before night but raised
a fair-sized din for nearly all the forenoon.

. . . The accumulated wisdom of the cen-

8 Miss Bonafield, in Woman's Missionary Friend,
Feb., 1898.

Little Chinese Foundling Girls Adopted by the
Methodist Mission

The Day of Small Beginnings 45

turies in this section of China reiterated that
book learning would incapacitate girls in the
line of womanly accomplishments, such as
combing the hair and binding the feet.” 9

In North China, Miss Browne and Miss
Porter were meeting with similar trials in their
efforts to establish a school in Peking:
“ The new school grew slowly in its pioneer
days. The first small pupil who came ran
away as fast as her bound feet could carry her,
when she saw the queer-looking foreigners.
. . . The Chinese told hideous tales one to
another, tales of how the foreigners removed
the eyes of Chinese children and used them
for medicine. Mothers would hastily cover
the eyes of their children when they met the
so-called ‘ foreign devils ’ in the streets of Pe-
king, lest somehow they cast an evil spirit upon
them.” 10 During the year patient effort suc-
ceeded in enrolling fifteen girls in the school,
but at the close only six remained.

From Chef 00 came much the same story.
“ In my visits from home to home,” Miss
Downing wrote in March of 1872, “ I see
many girls growing up in sin and ignorance
whom I long to get, but their heathen relatives

9 Miss Howe, in Woman’s Work in the Far East,
June, 1903.

10 Hubbard, Under Marching Orders, p. 38.

46 Education of Women in China

would ‘ rather they would starve ’ than let them
come to us. Many times they reject our offers
to train their girls in our school, and sell them
for slaves or for worse than slaves. Poor
ignorant people. They will not believe we will
keep our word with them, but think we want
their girls 4 to take to foreign countries or to
make medicine of them/ ” 11

When once a school was started it was not
always easy to maintain it. The year after
Mrs. Baldwin had written of her final success
in starting a day school for girls she wrote
another letter, in which she said:

“ I am sorry to have to report that my school
exists no longer. . . . Many of the girls had
become large enough to pick over tea and thus
make from fifty to one hundred cash a day,
whereas I give but seven cash. Their parents
really did not value the instruction given, or
obtained, at any amount; they have not the
slightest interest in the education of their girls
and would not give a cash toward supporting
a girls’ school.” 12

The superstitious fears which made it hard
to get pupils at the outset sometimes died a
slow death, and would reappear to disturb the
peace of a school which had seemed to be pros-

11 Woman’s Work for Woman, Sept., 1872.

11 Heathen Woman’s Friend, Jan., 1870.

The Day of Small Beginnings 47

pering. Mrs. Nevius succeeded in establish-
ing a girls’ school in Tungchow in 1862, but
after carrying it on for a time found that the
Chinese were regarding it with great dis-
favour.

“ Teaching and supporting a school of girls
seemed to them a very dull, tiresome vocation
and as useless as it was dull,” she wrote. “At
last they found the clue to the mystery. We
were getting these girls together one by one
in a quiet, unostentatious way, and when a
large number had been collected and they had
been sufficiently improved by their good living,
a foreign ship was coming along and the ill-
starred maidens were all to be sent off to some
distant land — not to be made into opium but
to be used in the preparation of that mysteri-
ous 4 elixir of life ’ which religionists of the
Taoist sect believe has the effect to ensure per-
petual youth. The bodies were to be boiled
and from them would be expressed a kind of
oil which, when eaten, has marvellous effects.
I could never get from the natives a very clear
idea of what they did believe on this subject.
But they were really frightened and for a time
it was impossible to get more pupils.” 13

Needless to say, the pioneer school girls of
China were not such because they had a pe-
13 Nevius, Our Life in China, p. 441 f.

48 Education of Women in China

culiarly keen thirst for knowledge, nor because
they were preeminently able to assimilate intel-
lectual truths, but rather because they were
the only girls available. Where a little Chris-
tian community had been built up before the
school work was begun, the problem was not
so difficult, for the Christians had no fear of
the foreigners and were willing to entrust their
daughters to their care, even though they might
not see the advantage of having them edu-
cated. But the number of Christians was small
in those days, and girls’ schools must have
been indeed few and far between had they re-
lied solely upon the daughters of church mem-
bers for their pupils. In many places, if any-
thing at all was to be done toward educating
girls it was necessary to go out and scour the
highways and byways for possible pupils ; chil-
dren who had no homes, or those from homes
so poor that their parents were willing to run
the risk of sending them to the strange-looking
foreigners, since they would thus be relieved of
their support.

The Jubilee Papers of the Central China
Presbyterian Mission record the fact that in
the early days of the Shanghai Girls’ School,
“the children were all from poor families;
none others would allow their sons or daugh-
ters to come to us.” A letter from the Metho-

The Day of Small Beginnings 49

dist Girls’ School at Foochow, in 1872, stated
that “ twenty of the school girls were found-
lings.” 14 Many years later Miss Bonafield
wrote of the early days of that school, “ Only
the utterly destitute who came to us for the
food and clothing we furnished could be per-
suaded into our school.” 15 The Congrega-
tional School of the same city was built up in
the same way. “ Early marriages and the be-
lief that girls were not worth an education
formed a great barrier to the growth of the
school. Hence, in the beginning it was neces-
sary to give all food, clothing and books, as
well as incidental and travelling expenses of
the girls, free of cost.” 16

From Nanking Mrs. Leaman wrote of the
high ideals of self-supporting pupils with
which she began her work, and how one by one
she abandoned her ideals and was thankful
to take such children as she could get. “ The
fathers and mothers want their boys to learn
to read and write,” she wrote, “ but they say
it is not worth while to teach girls, so I am
obliged to say : 4 Let your little girl come to my
school and I will give her food to eat and a

14 Mrs. Sites, in Heathen Woman’s Friend , March,
1872.

16 Woman’s Missionary Friend , Jan., 1905.

16 Woman’s Work in the Far East, March, 1905.

50 Education of Women in China

place to live/ and they will let her come.” 17
A little farther up the Yangtze river, in Kiu-
kiang, Miss Howe reported, “ The homes of
most of the children are a short distance in
the country, the consideration which brings
them to us is the appreciation of rice/, 18
In Peking the parents who sent their girls
to Miss Porter’s school “ were mostly so poor
that they would accept any means to relieve
themselves of feeding and clothing one more
little body. Sometimes the girls were left in
school only long enough to receive new warm
clothing, when they were taken home.” 19
When in 1864 Airs. Bridgman established a
school for girls in Peking “a mother with
three bright daughters was found begging in
the streets and the children were brought to
Airs. Bridgman by a Scotch missionary, Rev.
Air. Burns.” 20 These three children with one
other formed the nucleus of the present Bridg-
man School.

In Chefoo Miss Downing wrote to a Alis-
sionary Band in Rock Island, which had under-
taken the support of a child in her school:
14 This little girl was a slave bought from a

17 Children's Work for Children, Feb., 1882.

18 Heathen Woman's Friend, Sept., 1873.

lf Hubbard, Under Marching Orders, p. 38.

*° Life and Light for Woman, Feb., 1880.

Mrs. Lai-sun, a Pupil in the First School for
Girls Established in China

The Day of Small Beginnings 51

bad woman who had become ill and sold this
child to get money to buy medicine. I do not
know, nor does she, what her father’s name
was. ... I have another little slave girl who
is very pretty. Of her parents we know
nothing.” 21

Such were the pioneer school girls of China ;
the children of the poorest of the poor, whose
parents had to be bribed to send them by prom-
ises of food and clothing; the homeless found-
lings whom no one but the missionaries
wanted; and despised little slave girls. This
was the material with which the believers in
Chinese womanhood must prove to custom-
bound, conservative China that her daughters
were as capable and worthy of education as
were her sons.

21 Woman’s Work for Woman, Jan., 1874.

Ill

THE PERIOD OF GRADUAL GROWTH

u /T ARY will not give up,” said the
I mother of Mary Lyon, in the days
when her daughter was making
the brave struggle which finally ended trium-
phantly in the establishment of Mount Hol-
yoke. “ She just walks the floor and says over
and over again, when all is so dark, 4 Commit
thy way unto the Lord, trust also in Him,
and He shall bring it to pass. Women must
be educated — they must be.’ ” 1

It was with the same high spirit, the same
determination, born of deep conviction, that
the pioneers in woman’s education in a coun-
try on the other side of the Pacific faced, a
few years later, even greater prejudice, even
more discouraging obstacles, than those which
Mary Lyon had to meet. Such a spirit ac-
knowledges no defeat. “ The women of China
must be educated — they must be,” said those
who had given their lives to the uplift-
ing of Chinese womanhood, and set themselves
to the accomplishment of their great task with

1 Gilchrist, Life of Mary Lyon, p. 235.

52

The Period of Gradual Growth 53

a faith which stood the test of months and
often years of apparently wasted effort. And
in due season, little by little, they were able to
see that their cause had progressed.

Gradually, as it became evident that the
small scholars in the girls’ schools were not
being used for medicinal purposes, nor borne
off to faraway countries, but were, on the con-
trary, very prosperous and well-fed persons,
the fears of the people subsided and it became
much less difficult to secure pupils. Moreover,
the girls who had finished their study and gone
back to their home villages to take a helpful
part in the life of the community, did much
to win favour for their Alma Maters. “ Our
sending girls out of school to go back to their
own homes has done a great deal to break down
native prejudice,” 3 Miss YVoolston wrote
home after eighteen years of work in Foo-
chow.

The Girls’ School of the Methodist Mission
in Foochow, which began with one much
frightened little girl, reported an attendance of
thirty in 1872, and proposed to increase its
capacity that more might be accommodated.
“ There is now no difficulty in procuring just
the kind of pupils we desire, and as many as
we can accommodate,” one of the missionaries
2 Heathen Woman’s Friend, July, 1877.

54 Education of Women in China

wrote.3 In 1887 the teachers reported: “We
must refuse about twenty applicants this term,
for we dare not put more than sixty girls into
our present building,” 4 and in 1898 Miss
Bonafield wrote, “ Last term one hundred and
eleven boarders and thirty-three day pupils
were enrolled. We no longer need to canvass
for students, but on the other hand are over-
whelmed with applicants.” 5 In the year 1897
fifty applicants had to be refused admission.

In Kiukiang similar growth was recorded.
In 1877, f°ur years after the work was begun,
not only did the boarding school number thirty-
one pupils, but a successful day school of
thirteen girls wTas opened in a village near
Kiukiang.6 Six years after that Miss Howe
wrote that she had fifty pupils and was daily
turning away applicants because she could not
accommodate more.7

In North China, too, fears and prejudices
were disappearing. In 1879 Miss Cushman, in
charge of the school founded by Miss Porter
and Miss Browne, wrote: “To-day a woman
came with a little girl who is very anxious to

* Dr. R. S. Maclay, in Heathen Woman’s Friend ,
Nov., 1872.

4 Heathen Woman’s Friend, Sept., 1887.

6 Woman’s Missionary Friend, Feb., 1898.

6 Heathen Woman’s Friend, Oct., 1884.

7 Heathen Woman’s Friend, July, 1883.

The Period of Gradual Growth 55

come to school. We hardly know what to do
about her. So many girls are anxious to
come that we have a chance for selection, and
she is rather younger than we care to take, at
least we prefer older girls. She is eight.
While we wish to get the most desirable girls
possible in our school, it is hard to say to
any little pleader, 4 We don’t want you.’ ” 8
In 1884 this school had forty-eight pupils,
and it was reported also that two day schools
for girls had been maintained during the year.9

From Chefoo came word in 1887: “ At the
last Chinese New Year a number of applicants
had to be refused for want of accommoda-
tion.” 10

As the schools increased in popularity, those
in charge of them dared to begin to wonder
whether it was not now time to require some
return for value received. The beginnings of
self-support were very small, but even the
smallest of beginnings was regarded as a great
step in advance over the days when “ the little
girls one by one were drawn into our boarding
schools with the bait of providing everything —
food, clothing, instruction, homes — all free,

8 Heathen Woman’s Friend , Dec., 1879.

9 Mrs. Jewell, in Heathen Woman’s Friend, Jan.,

1885.

10 Woman’s Work for Woman, Feb., 1887.

56 Education of Women in China

and we were thankful for every child rescued
in this way.” The missionaries had never
been unmindful of the disadvantages of this
system, but in the first years it seemed a neces-
sary evil. As soon as feasible, however, they
began to take steps in the opposite direction.
A letter received from the girls’ school of the
Presbyterian Mission at Ningpo in 1878 read:
“ Formerly every girl on graduating from the
school received twenty dollars outfit money.
Now they do not receive anything and all the
clothes are furnished by the parents except two
sets of underclothes for each girl.” 11

A few years later the school under the Bap-
tist Mission in the same city reported : “ A new
departure has been made in the regulation for
admitting girls. We have decided to require
the parents to pay something toward the sup-
port of their daughters. Let the amount be
ever so small something must be paid. Under
these regulations three girls entered last fall,
one paying a dollar a month, one fifty cents
and the third two and a half cents.” 12 Truly
this was the day of small beginnings in the
matter of self-support, but when a great prin-

11 Miss Ketchum, in Woman's Work for Woman,
July, 1878.

12 Miss Inveen, in Annual Report of Woman’s Baptist
Foreign Missionary Society of the West for 1889.

The Class of 1909, Rulison-Fish Memorial School, Kiukian,

The Period of Gradual Growth 57

ciple is involved even the sum of two and a
half cents a month assumes importance.

In Foochow, the parents of the pupils in
the school of the Methodist Mission were grad-
ually educated to the point of furnishing their
daughters’ clothing, “ later on books were
added, then a small tuition fee.” 13

“ Formerly their clothing as well as food
was provided by the school, but now the par-
ents give their clothing — a great advance,” 14
one of the Chef 00 missionaries wrote in 1888,
and ten years later it was reported that one
country school of seven girls supported itself
entirely.15

In Peking the Bridgman School made the
furnishing of clothes by the parents the first
of a series of entrance requirements, and Mrs.
Jewell, in charge of the Methodist School in
Peking, wrote in 1885, “ Our attention has
been especially called to the desirability of
annexing an industrial department to the
boarding school, desirable, we believe . . .
because it will be a step in the direction of self-
support.” 16

This plan commended itself to many schools,

13 Miss Bonafield, in Woman’s Missionary Friend,
Feb., 1898.

14 Woman’s Work for Woman, Feb., 1888.

10 Woman’s Work for Woman, Sept., 1898.

10 Heathen Woman’s Friend, Jan., 1885.

58 Education of Women in China

both because of the wholesome effect produced
on the girls by the consciousness that they were
giving as well as receiving, and because it
helped to counteract the feeling so common
among the Chinese, that manual labour was
beneath the dignity of a student. The Pres-
byterian School in Shanghai was one of the
first to adopt the plan. The pupils “ did all
their owrn work, such as cooking, washing,
taking care of the rooms, etc.,” and the girls
“ worked at spinning, weaving, making and
mending clothes, knitting, crocheting, embroid-
ering, etc., and at one time at silk culture.” 17
As early as 1876 Mrs. Capp of Tungchow
wrote, “ I have adopted a new plan with the
scholars of my school. They give me from
half-past one to three every day, w^hen I re-
quire them to wrork at something that will
add to the school treasury. They know how
to do some kinds of embroidery, and to make
tidies, etc. All but four can spin. ... If they
do not make much money they will at least
think they are giving something in return for
what they receive.” 18

In the Baptist School at Ningpo the older
girls gave half the day to studies, the other
half to torchon lace making. As a result of

17 Jubilee Papers of Central China Mission, p. 55.

11 Woman’s Work for Woman, Jan., 1877.

The Period of Gradual Growth 59

their work the teacher in charge was enabled
to report, “ They have been able to pay all their
own expenses and clothe themselves.” 19

Since so large a proportion of the pupils in
the girls’ schools of China, during the past
century, came from homes of very small
means, the efforts of the missionaries in the
direction of self-support were not undertaken
for the sake of adding to the school treasury.
Their aim was rather to awaken a spirit of
appreciation of benefits received, on the part
of parents and pupils, and a sturdy self-respect
which would be unwilling to receive those bene-
fits without any effort to give something in
payment for them. When this spirit was mani-
fested they were well content, however small
the payment.

In reporting a meeting of the native Baptist
Church of Swatow Dr. Ashmore wrote,
“ What interested me more than anything else
was the action taken by the church in favour
of schools. The moderator in a few well-
chosen words put before them the duty of be-
ginning, at least, to cooperate in the work so
often pressed upon their attention, and told
them the church should do something as a
church, not only for the education of their

19 Miss Corbin, in Annual Report of Woman’s Baptist
Foreign Missionary Society of the West for 1899.

60 Education of Women in China

boys, but of their girls as well; and further
that in the future there should be a school for
both boys and girls which they could say was
theirs. Accordingly, they voted to pay out of
their collection fund a part of the salary of
one teacher for boys and another for girls.

“ True, the amount given would not go far,
but getting a start with the wedge in this
crevice is a great gain. Mrs. Partridge had
already commenced a girls’ school and would
have continued it had they not taken such
action, . . . but she gladly welcomes the ex-
pression of interest in a girls’ school which
has never been given in the past, and which
we hope will lead to important results in the
future.” 20

Perhaps the genuine appreciation of the
students, and their desire to give practical ex-
pression to their gratitude for the opportuni-
ties which the schools afforded them, were even
more gratifying to their teachers than the
awakening interest of the parents. Soon after
the girls of the Ningpo Baptist School had be-
gun their lace making, their teacher wrote that
one girl had paid up her school dues for the
preceding year, which her father had failed
to pay, and that another, who had hitherto been
helped by a missionary society in America,
Baptist Missionary Magazine, Feb., 1875.

The Period of Gradual Growth 61

brought all her first earnings, except a few
cents, to the principal, saying that she wanted
to pay it back to the school, that it might be
used to help other girls.21

From the Methodist School in Foochow Miss
Jewell wrote of two of her older girls: “I
asked them to take the matron’s place in caring
for the little ones as far as they could. The
work involved some disagreeable duties and
would require considerable of their time. As
I stated what we wanted they said they were
willing to do it, and would help the best they
could. But when I offered a small remunera-
tion, feeling that they really needed the money,
and knowing that they would certainly earn
it, they answered,

“‘No, no! Don’t say anything about
money. We don’t want to hear such words;
we are in the school and we ought to do this
if we can help.’

“ ‘ Yes, but you are already doing as much
as any of the girls, and I fear you must have
your sewing done.’

“ ‘ Please just let us try to do it, and don’t
pay us for it.’

“ So seeing how much better satisfied they
would be to do the work for Christ’s sake, and

31 Miss Corbin, in Annual Report of Woman’s Baptist
Foreign Missionary Society of the West for 1899.

62 Education of Women in China

rejoicing at the spirit they displayed, I said
we would just let them try for a month and
then see.” 22

A teacher in one of the schools in Peking
wrote, “One girl spent much time and labour
over a piece of needlework. When completed
she wanted the money for it to help pay the
debt of a schoolmate who was too poor to pay
the debt herself.” This spirit was evidently
characteristic of the school. “ A former pupil
who had been married to a heathen came back
to us one day, dirty and penniless,” the writer
continued. “ The girls took her in, cleaned her
up and gave her clothes out of their own small
store. They sent her away, not only with
the clothes she was wearing, but with a bundle
besides.” 23

In St. Mary’s, a girls’ school in Shanghai
under the American Episcopal Mission, the
girls learned to be very skilful in embroider)'
and lace making, and devoted the proceeds of
their labour to the cause of education.
“ Early this morning,” a newly arrived mis-
sionary wrote, “ I started with Miss Dodson
and Mrs. Tsang to drive to the day school in
the native city, which the St. Mary’s girls are

** Heathen Woman’s Friend, Oct., 1887.

** Miss Young, in Woman’s Work in the Far East ,
Dec., 1902.

The Period of Gradual Growth 63

supporting by their embroideries, laces, etc.
They have another school of this kind in
Kiading which they support in this way and
which shows a beautiful spirit of loving and
faithful devotion and service, for they have to
work hard to meet the expenses of these little
mission schools.” 24

When the schools were first opened the work
done in them was inevitably very rudimentary.
Lack of textbooks was a very serious difficulty.
“ There was neither Testament nor primer,”
says a writer on the early days of the Bridg-
man School at Peking. English was not
taught in those days and the pupils had to
wait for textbooks to be written or translated,
before they could study much of anything
beyond reading and writing.

Lack of teachers was another great prob-
lem. No foreigner could teach the children
to read and write the intricate characters of
which the Chinese language is composed.
Chinese teachers were, and are, necessary for
this branch of the work. In the beginning of
school work there were no Chinese who knew
how to teach in any other way than that which
had been used in China for centuries. Dr.
Arthur Smith describes this method:

“ The teacher reads over the line and the
24 Miss Mosher, in Spirit of Missions, Aug., 1897.

64 Education of Women in China

lad repeats the sounds, constantly corrected
until he can pronounce them properly. He
then learns to associate a particular sound
with a certain shape. A line or two is assigned
to each scholar, and after the pronunciation
of the characters has been ascertained his
4 study ’ consists in bellowing the words in as
high a key as possible. . . . When the scholar
can repeat the whole of his task without miss-
ing a single character, his lesson is 4 learned *
and he then stands with his back to the teacher
— to make sure he does not see the book —
and recites, or 4 backs ’ it, at railway speed.
. . . The attention of the scholar is fixed ex-
clusively upon two things, — the repetition of
the characters in the same order as they occur
in the book, and the repetition of them at the
highest attainable rate of speed. Sense and
expression are not merely ignored, for the
words represent ideas which have never once
dawned upon the Chinese pupil’s mind. His
sole thought is to make a recitation. . . . But
if the passage has been imperfectly committed,
and the pupil is brought to a standstill for the
lack of characters to repeat, he does not pause
to collect his thoughts, for he has no thoughts
to collect — has in fact no thoughts to speak
of. What he has is a dim recollection of cer-
tain sounds, and in order to recall those which

The Period of Gradual Growth 65

he has forgotten he keeps on repeating the
last word, or phrase, or sentence, or page,
until association regains the missing link.” 23
As teachers of such a method were the only
ones obtainable, it was necessarily imported
into the girls’ schools of the early days. “ For
several years after the school was established
very little teaching was done excepting by the
native master,” reads a report of the Bridgman
School at Peking. “ Nothing more could be
expected of him than that he would require
the girls to commit to memory such books as
were placed in their hands. They studied in
the usual Chinese way, aloud and all together,
so the school was a small Babel, and the prog-
ress in anything but ability to read the Chi-
nese character was very small.” 26

Inevitably the memory was developed to a
much greater extent than the reasoning pow-
ers. The school girls performed prodigious
feats of memory, but did little work of such
a character as to develop powers of inde-
pendent thought. An account of a semi-annual
examination of the Bridgman School, for ex-
ample, reads : “ One of the girls finished mem-
orizing the New Testament and I think now
could repeat almost any Chapter in it. She

25 Smith, Village Life in China, pp. 80 f.

20 Life and Light for Women, Feb., 1880.

66 Education of Women in China

has also learned the Psalms. All were exam-
ined on some portion of Scripture committed
to memory and some division of Scripture his-
tory studied by topics. Besides the Chinese
classics, arithmetic and geography and a sim-
ple manual of theology were studied by the
older girls. They write, too, the native char-
acter and Romanized colloquial.” 27

An examination was held in the Methodist
School of the same city a year later, at which
the girls were examined in Bible history, the
Harmony of the Gospels, arithmetic, Roman-
ized characters, the Chinese classics, and mem-
orized Scripture passages. “ The amount re-
cited in these books would be marvellous,”
said one of the audience, referring to the reci-
tation on the Chinese classics, “ but as it is
in accordance with the Chinese style of educa-
tion we suppose they inherit their great power
of memory. Twelve girls recited classics and
were marked as follows:

2 girls

100 each

5 g'rls .

99 each

1 girl .

... 98

1 girl .

... 96

3 girls •

95 each

*T Miss Porter, in Life and Light for Women, July,
1876.

The Period of Gradual Growth 67

“ Then sixteen girls recited Scripture, most
of them having the entire books of the Gospels
by heart, as was proved by the readiness with
which they struck in anywhere and recited on
and on until called upon to stop because of our
want of time. They were marked as follows :

“ 4 girls . . . . 100 each

10 girls .... 99 each

2 girls .... 97 each ” 28

These pupils are reported to have done very
well in their arithmetic examinations also, but
that subject was the only one in their curricu-
lum which tended to develop reasoning powers.

Very probably one of the main reasons why
the schools did not include among their courses
more of those which would develop ability to
reason, and thus counteract to some extent the
evil tendencies of the utter lack of this train-
ing on the part of Chinese teachers, was that
the aim of these schools was not so much to
train the intellectual powers as to produce
Christian character. It was self-evident that
the strength and beauty of such character
would be a supremely important element in the
usefulness of these girls in after life ; it was less
apparent that the ability to see clearly and
28 Heathen Woman's Friend , Sept., 1877.

68 Education of Women in China

think accurately would add greatly to their in-
fluence and power as Christian women.

“ My one desire in this school,” said one
earnest woman, “ is to impart instruction
which with God’s blessing will bring those
committed to my care to Christ. I will not
think of the higher education, so called. I
want them to know nature's God before they
learn nature and her laws, and I want them to
learn the language of Canaan before they learn
my mother tongue.” 29

The courses of study followed in other
schools indicate that similar views were held
by many others of the early educators. “ They
studied the 4 Three Character Classic ’ (a
Christian book) and ‘ The Two Friends ’ (also
a Christian book) for which was afterward ex-
changed a life of Joseph,” reads an account
of the opening years of the Ningpo Presby-
terian School. “ On Sunday they studied the
Lord’s Prayer, Ten Commandments and
Milne’s sermons. They also daily spent some
time in sewing and knitting.” 30

The little girls in the school at Shanghai
under the Episcopal Mission spent the first
hour of their school day in the study of the
Gospels in the local dialect. “ They then par-

* Woman's Work for Woman, Dec., 1884.
m Jubilee Papers of the Central China Mission.

The Period of Gradual Growth 69

take of their simple morning meal,” the ac-
count continues, “ and are employed in a va-
riety of household and domestic matters until
half-past eight, when they assemble for
prayers. From nine to twelve they are again
in school and during these hours find employ-
ment in learning to read and to write their
native language, both according to the written
colloquial style, and the study of a variety of
catechisms on Christian Doctrine and such ele-
mentary works on useful subjects as we have
been able to have prepared for them.” 31 The
afternoons were spent in sewing, embroidery,
etc.

Mrs. Sites wrote of the work in the Metho-
dist School at Foochow : “ Their school books
are the Bible and other Christian books, a very
nice geography with atlas unbound, a primary
arithmetic and a primary astronomy.” 32 Ele-
mentary astronomy seems to have been a fa-
vourite subject from the first, probably because
it helped to correct many superstitious beliefs.

Gradually the course of study became
broader. It is a very interesting fact that in
one of the most progressive of the schools, that
of the Methodist Mission in Foochow, the
broadening came as a result of a strong desire

31 Spirit of Missions, Jan., 1856.

82 Heathen Woman’s Friend, March, 1872.

70 Education of Women in China

on the part of the Chinese, and against the
judgment of the women in charge of the
school. At a meeting of the General Ex-
ecutive Committee of the Woman's Foreign
Missionary Society of the Methodist Church,
in the year 1883, “ a memorial asking for a
more liberal education for their girls was read,
written by the native pastors of the Foochow
conference. The paper urged a candid hear-
ing of both sides of this question. . . . This
letter was very strongly put and abounded in
Oriental figures.” 33 The majority of the mis-
sion in Foochow were in sympathy with this
desire of the Chinese, and the Board at home
decided that these changes, prominent among
which was the introduction of English and
music, should be made. The missionaries in
charge felt so strongly that this was a mistake
that, although they had established the school
and had conducted it successfully for twenty-
five years, they now resigned their positions.
The step in advance proved to have been a
wise one, however, and other schools soon
came to feel that Christianity could be taught,
and character developed, fully as well in a
school with a liberal course of study, as in one
with a restricted curriculum, and that the
broadly educated woman could do more for the

•* Heathen Woman* s Friend, Dec., 1883.

The Period of Gradual Growth 71

Kingdom of God than she whose knowledge
was confined to rigidly prescribed limits.

A noted Chinese pastor of Foochow, Rev.
Sia Sek Ong, traced the development of
woman’s education in Foochow, from its be-
ginnings until the close of the nineteenth cen-
tury, in characteristic Chinese figure. The fig-
ure is applicable not alone to the work in
Foochow but to the work throughout the Em-
pire. He says : “ When the missionaries first
came to Foochow the people were so nearly
dead with spiritual famine that they could not
help themselves in any way. The missionaries
had to cook the rice and feed them. After
they had gained a little strength they were
made to do their own cooking. This was in
the reign of colloquial books, when the ele-
mentary sciences were taught along with the
Bible. Later on, when fairly well and strong,
they were given rice seed and implements of
agriculture in order to raise their own food.”34
This was in the last days of the century, when
to the Christian teaching were added sciences
and the classics, taught, not in the colloquial,
but in the classical language.

“ Woman’s Work in the Far East ” for
May, 1900, gives the curricula of five repre-
sentative schools for girls under American
34 Woman’s Missionary Friend, Feb., 1898.

72 Education of Women in China

mission boards in southern, eastern, northern,
and central China. A study of them shows
something of the progress which woman’s edu-
cation in China had made in the days of grad-
ual growth since Miss Aldersey established her
pioneer school fifty-six years before. These
curricula, carefully planned to cover a term
averaging eight years, are in themselves prom-
inent evidences of growth.

These graded schools are proof also of
growth in stability. Pupils were not drop-
ping out by the way as in the old days. Par-
ents had come to value this education for
their daughters as they did not at first, and
were not so apt to take them out for early mar-
riages, or in order that they might take their
part in adding to the family income. Many of
the girls now came from Christian homes
where the parents sympathized with their de-
sire for education.

One step in advance which helped to keep
the girls throughout the entire course was the
giving of diplomas and the celebration of
graduation exercises when the work had been
completed. The Presbyterian School in
Shanghai was the first to do this, in 1896. At
that time three girls were presented with di-
plomas, and graduation exercises were held,
in which essays, songs and addresses were

The Period of Gradual Growth 73

given in the Chinese language, but according
to orthodox American custom on such occa-
sions.

The next year, 1897, the Methodist School
in Chinkiang graduated its first class of two
girls and four years later, another class of
seven was graduated “ and given beautiful
diplomas, the gift of Mr. Wan of the United
States Consulate.” 35 In 1899 the Methodist
School in Foochow held its first graduation ex-
ercises, and in the next five years granted sixty-
six diplomas. In 1900 St. Mary’s reported:
“ Miss Tsu Sing Lung has graduated with
honour to herself and credit to the school, and
holds the first diploma ever awarded from St.
Mary’s.” 36 The custom grew rapidly because
of its beneficial results. “ The girls insist that
the parents must allow them to remain in
school long enough to get a diploma,” 37 one
principal wrote.

A very interesting feature of these cur-
ricula, common to four of them, was that
physical culture was given throughout the en-
tire course. This was truly something new
under the sun for the bound- footed woman-

85 Miss Robinson, in Woman's Missionary Friend,
April, 1902.

38 Miss Dodson, in Spirit of Missions, May, 1900.

87 Miss Bonafisld, in Woman’s Missionary Friend,
Sept., 1904.

74 Education of Women in China

hood of China, but it proved to be of great
benefit and soon became very popular.

“ Since introducing physical exercise the
health of the girls has greatly improved,”
wrote the principal of St. Mary’s, and a
teacher in the Bridgman School at Peking tes-
tified : " Regular daily work in gymnasium im-
parts ease and grace of carriage and move-
ment to the heavy and awkward Chinese
girls.” 38

Physical culture for women found favour
even in the eyes of the Chinese men. One of
them watched the girls of St. Mary’s at their
drill with unqualified approval. “ This surely
will be a great good to them,” he said, “because
the Chinese women and girls are not strong.
After centuries of foot-binding, close confine-
ment indoors, and sitting constantly over their
embroidery frames and other sewing, they be-
come round shouldered and many of them go
into consumption for lack of good healthy out-
door exercise.” 39

Four of these curricula included music as
a regular part of the school work. All of
them offered some work in science, five of
them physical geography, four of them physi-
ology and astronomy, two of them physics and

*• Mission Studies, Aug., 1898.

•• Spirit of Missions, May, 1900.

The Period of Gradual Growth 75

chemistry, one zoology, one biology, one geol-
ogy, one political geography, and one hygiene.
In mathematics most of them did not offer any-
thing above arithmetic, but one included
courses in algebra, geometry and elementary
trigonometry. In all five, classes in the Bible
and other Christian books were given through-
out the course, and in all, the Chinese classics
were studied each year. Work in history was
very general, the work being classed as “ Uni-
versal/’ or “ General ” history. English was
an optional subject in two of the schools.
None of the outlined curricula included any
work in the nature of domestic science, but the
explanatory notes preceding them stated, “ It
is understood that the pupils are trained to
perform household duties, are taught cookery,
to make their own clothes, to spin, to weave,
and to embroider — in short, everything a Chi-
nese woman ought to know.” 40

The curricula of these five schools, which
were regarded as representative, give a fairly
accurate measure of the distance which wom-
an’s education had travelled up to the begin-
ning of the present century. They represent
the outposts ; probably no schools had gone far-
ther; many had not gone as far. Compared
with the work which the young women of
40 Woman’s Work in the Far East , May, 1900.

76 Education of Women in China

America were doing at that time, the work of
these schools may not seem to be far advanced.
But when it is compared with the work which
Chinese girls were doing a half century be-
fore, and when one recalls the obstacles against
which the cause of woman's education in China
had to contend, it is evident that the progress
from 1844, when the first school was estab-
lished, to 1900, though gradual, was very real.

IV

THE WOMEN PRODUCED BY THE
CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS

BY the close of the nineteenth century,
schools for girls in China had passed
the experimental stage. Suspicion and
prejudice against woman’s education no longer
existed, and the communities in which the
schools were located regarded them with
friendliness and approval. Doubtless many in-
fluences had contributed to this result, but the
final proof that the schools were a good, not
an evil, lay in their pupils. “ By their fruits
ye shall know them ” has ever been regarded
as the most trustworthy test, and the young
women who went out from the schools un-
doubtedly did more to win favour for the
cause of woman’s education than any other one
influence.

“Are women capable of education?” the
sceptical Chinese lords of creation had scorn-
fully exclaimed when the strange-looking for-
eign women urged them to send their daugh-
ters to the schools which they had opened. To
77

78 Education of Women in China

this question the girls themselves made an-
swer as soon as they were given the oppor-
tunity. The father of one little girl who had
been in the Methodist School at Foochow for
some years, came to take her out one spring,
for he said he needed her help in taking care
of the cows. “ I talked to him of the foolish-
ness of taking her away before she had studied
long enough for any real advantage,” the prin-
cipal wrote. “ But he was poor, the child was
a girl and girls could not learn. ... So I
quietly opened the school records and read her
examination marks for several terms, most of
them above ninety, and explained what they
meant. ‘And she can really learn ? ’ ‘Yes/
‘ Then she shall stay/ 99 1

Dr. Boone of Shanghai wrote of the work
done by the pupils of St. Mary’s : “ In the
classics and history, etc., the older girls do as
well as any (of the boys) in the college de-
partments, and that is no small praise, for the
industry of all our pupils of an age to appreci-
ate their advantages is more than fully satis-
factory to their teachers, whether native or
foreign. Could the patrons of our schools, and
especially of St. Mary’s, be present once, and
see, and hear with understanding ears, they

1 Mrs. Jewell, in Heathen W Oman's Friend, May,
1892.

Women of Christian Schools 79

would rejoice indeed.” 2 “ The thoroughness

with which each girl went through the entire
examination was remarkable,” said a lady who
was present at one of the semi-annual exam-
inations of this school. “ To fail was not in
their vocabulary.” 3

One of the examining committee of the
Methodist School in Peking gives an account
of the way in which the girls of that school
acquitted themselves in a similar ordeal. “ The
morning session opened with the singing of a
hymn followed by prayer by Mrs. Davis.
Then a class of seven little girls was called to
the floor. These were examined by Miss
Campbell, who had taught them Bible history.
During the half hour’s questioning not one
missed and the visitors had no difficulty in de-
ciding that the percentage of the class stood
at 100. The next class, with Mrs. Davis as
teacher, had mastered the Harmony of the
Gospels, and as not one question was missed it
was equally easy to say this class was also
perfect. An arithmetic class, Miss Campbell’s,
was called. Here let me explain that in this
branch of study the Chinese are accustomed to
appear as idiotic as it is possible to imagine
mortals to appear. The native methods of

2 Spirit of Missions, Feb., 1884.

8 Miss Stevens, in Spirit of Missions, May, 1882.

80 Education of Women in China

education develop great powers of memory but
no powers of reasoning. Therefore when the
girls of the class rose one after another and
went without hesitation through long examples
in mental arithmetic the surprise and admira-
tion of the visitors were equally great. But
one child (one of the smartest ones, too) for-
got to carry a figure on a blackboard exercise,
and one or two others made mistakes equally
trivial; so the visitors said the class was as
near perfect as it could be and not be perfect
and marked it 99.” 4 The account goes on to
tell of the other classes examined, none of
which were marked below 95, and of individual
recitations, the lowest grade for which was
also 95.

A former pupil of the True Light Seminary
brought pride to the hearts of her teachers
when she carried off the first prize offered by
the Chinese churches of Canton for the best
paper on the gospels of Matthew and Mark.
Many men were among her competitors, or-
dained ministers only being excluded, and one
of them, who received the second prize, was
heard to say that “ the men would have to
break a hole in the girls’ seminary wall to lis-
ten to the instruction given there.” 5

4 Heathen Woman's Friend, Sept., 1877.

6 Woman's Work for Woman, Feb., 1892.

Women of Christian Schools 81

The school girls of China have not been
what are technically known as “ grinds/’ how-
ever. Their alertness of mind and ability in
execution has been scarcely less evident on
the playground than in the classroom. A
teacher in Peking writes, “ The girls enjoy
fully all their playtimes and make the most
of the few holidays that come when they are
together. They have, in common with most
Chinese, a remarkable skill in acting, and on
the holidays sometimes entertain us with little
plays which they have thought out entirely by
themselves. Sometimes they represent people
of different countries ; sometimes they show a
burlesque on the old-fashioned Confucian
teacher, or play a joke on each other, as when
the younger girls solemnly presented to the
college girls a paper figure with a huge head,
intended to represent the ‘ big head ’ which
they get as their learning increases. Their
ability to plan these things and carry them out
is a constant source of wonder to us. It is
one of the Chinese talents to which we of the
West do not attain.” 6

Miss Bonafield of Foochow tells of an en-
tertainment given by the school girls there, at
which a gentleman just arrived from Canada

6 Miss Reed, in Life and Light for Women , Aug.,
1908.

82 Education of Women in China

was present. “ His face was a study during
the performances,” she writes. “ He said,
4 You astonish me! I never expected to see
such girls in China. Our Canadian girls can
do no better. What wonderful progress you
have made ! The people at home surely do not
know about it.’ ” 7

That the Chinese girls soon proved them-
selves able to pass examinations with honour,
write good papers, and plan and carry out
successful entertainments, proved indeed that
they were capable of education, fully as much
so as were the boys, but these facts alone were
not sufficient to prove the wisdom of educating
them. To answer the question whether or
not it was worth while to give them education,
it was necessary to prove that they were able
to make use of the opportunities which they
had had, that their studies had fitted them for
useful living. Some of the girls answered
this question as teachers.

“ She had been in the school a number of
years,” wrote the principal of a school in Foo-
chow. “ She had taken a three years’ course in
English, finished the Chinese course of study
and gone out from us the last of June, 1888.
In the fall at our request she came back to
teach in the school half of each day and pursue
7 Woman’s Missionary Friend, Sept., 1903.

Chinese Women Physicians, Graduates of a Mission School

Women of Christian Schools 83

advanced studies in Chinese the other half.
Soon her quiet dignity and the interest of the
little ones in their lessons, as well as their
affection for their teacher, proved the wisdom
of the experiment as far as the school was
concerned. During the winter our oldest
Chinese teacher came up to the house begging
that Fidelia be required to teach one or two
classes only, and be allowed the rest of her
time for her own studies. And when this
Chinese literary gentleman said, 4 Let her go
on with her Chinese studies for a few years
and then she will be fitted to take my place
and I’ll step down and out,’ we were proud of
our girl.” 8

Another girl from that school went out to
take charge of a day school for girls in long
Palk, a village some miles from Foochow. At
the end of a year the presiding elder of the
district reported: 44 Your school at long Palk
pays. The people there are asking for a
preacher and I hope to send them one.” The
preacher was sent, but soon after his arrival
sudden illness ended the teacher’s life. Three
days after her death a committee of four
waited upon the missionary in charge and
asked her to send another teacher to them.

8 Miss Jewell, in Heathen Woman’s Friend , June,
1890.

84 Education of Women in China

“ We need the school,” they said. “ We will
pay the rent for a room. We thank God that
for fifteen months we had a Christian woman
with our people. We know how Christians
live and how they die.”8

The Chinese principal put in charge of the
department for training teachers at the True
Light Seminary, Canton, was one of their own
graduates. One of her American fellow work-
ers said of her, “ It would be difficult to find
in any land a teacher better fitted for her posi-
tion.” Some years ago, when the Second Pres-
byterian Church of Canton was considering
the question whom it should call to its pulpit,
one of the elders said that he would rather
listen to this woman than to any one else.10

The principal of the Presbyterian Girls’
School in Nanking wrote of her Chinese as-
sistant, a graduate of the Ningpo School, “ I
find her everything I wanted and in every way
she has proved herself equal to the position.”
The same woman wrote of the matron of her
school, one of Miss Aldersey’s old pupils,
“ She married one of our Ningpo pastors.
When we were just starting in Nangking
we sent to Ningpo saying that we had little

• Miss Rouse, in W Oman's Missionary Friend , Sept,
1896.

10 Woman’s Work in the Far East, May, 1900.

Women of Christian Schools 85

money and our need of helpers was great,
and we asked who would come to help us.
This woman and her husband said : ‘ We
will go/ and they came for just two-thirds of
the salary he was getting in Ningpo. After
labouring faithfully six years his health failed
and they returned, but she said when leaving,
‘ If God calls my husband home before me I
am coming back to you.’ A few months after-
ward the good old man went to his reward
and she came back. She is a grand, good
woman, a splendid Christian character to have
over the girls and I hope will be spared to us
many years.” 11

A newly arrived missionary wrote home
from St. Mary’s, “ The chief work I am doing
is of course that of study. I have for the
present, Miss Wong (the young matron of
the school) as teacher. Just here let me sing
her praises for I know no one so well deserv-
ing. I cannot help rejoicing in the triumphs
of Christianity whenever I look at her, she is
so good, so very efficient. You ought to see
the extreme cleanliness of the school; the ten-
der care she gives the girls ; the unselfish devo-
tion to all matters of school or church, to ap-
preciate her.” 12

“Mrs. Leaman, in Woman’s Work for Woman , Sept.,
1898.

12 Miss Stevens, in Spirit of Missions, Feb., 1882.

86 Education of Women in China

A few years later word came from Shang-
hai : “ St. Mary’s entire school, the Orphanage,
and everything depend upon Miss Wong.” 13
A year after that the Bishop’s wife wrote
home, “ Last July I promised Miss Wong I
would add my plea to hers for St. Mary’s and
the Orphanage. The care of two institutions
is a heavy burden for one Chinese woman.” 14
But the annual report for that year read:
“ St. Mary’s Hall has done a very good year’s
work.”

It was of this woman who had proved capa-
ble of such large responsibility that one of
those sent to her relief wrote : “ I want many
to see this glorious woman. I feel every day
that if we had done no more in the past fifty
years than win her and educate her to do the
grand work she is doing for girls here, all our
money would have been well spent. She knows
every child and every one knows her. The
love they show for her is beautiful. If she
opens the door unexpectedly the little ones
flock about her, each telling her the pleasure
or trouble of the moment, and she hears and
helps all.” 15

Other young women have gone out from the

19 Mr. Partridge, in Spirit of Missions, May, 1887.

14 Mrs. Graves, in Spirit of Missions, May, 1888.

11 Miss Carter, in Spirit of Missions, March, 1890.

Women of Christian Schools 87

schools into the study of medicine, that they
might use their education to bring relief and
healing to the countless suffering women and
children of the great Chinese Empire. The
splendid work which is being done by Dr. Hii
King Eng, Dr. Mary Stone, Dr. Ida Kahn
and Dr. Li Bi Cu, all Chinese women, all grad-
uates of mission schools, is probably better
known than that of any other Chinese women
because these four received their medical train-
ing in America and became known to many
people during their stay there. But they are
by no means the only ones who are doing ef-
ficient work along this line.

“ In our Soochow woman’s hospital,” writes
Dr. Annie Walters Fearn, “ Miss Zah Foh-me
(a graduate of McTyeire School, Shanghai)
has stood by the hospital through every
change; for fifteen years she has been faithful
and no man can estimate the value of her
services to the work. ... In the Episcopal
hospital in Shanghai Miss Wong Ah Me (a
graduate of St. Mary’s Hall) has been a tower
of strength; often for- months at a time she
has been the resident physician in charge of
the hospital under the foreign supervision of
Dr. Boone, without any special training other
than practical work; this with her quick wits,
perseverance and natural ability she has used

88 Education of Women in China

to the utmost, with the result that she has
made herself indispensable to the work.

“ Our native patrons have shown almost
from the first a reliance upon their sisters
which has surprised me. Rarely will they in-
sist on seeing the foreigner when the native
physician is at hand. In the out calls they
occasionally send for the native doctor in pref-
erence to the foreign.”

Dr. Feam points out that the physicians edu-
cated in America are well known because of
the interest felt in the experiment of American
education for Chinese women, but goes on to
say:

“ But you do not know of the work of
Miss Zah Foh-me of the Soochow woman’s
hospital, of her courage, her unfailing faith-
fulness, her untiring care and watchfulness and
her ability which has made her the trusted co-
worker of the physicians who have been asso-
ciated with her, and who have felt that in Miss
Zah they had a competent helper, one who for
months has borne alone the burden of the hos-
pital, who was the first to return to the hos-
pital after the Boxer trouble, and who for two
months kept up the work alone and bravely
opened the door which we foreigners were not
then permitted to enter.

“ You do not know of Miss Wong, who for

Women of Christian Schools 89

years has been to the Episcopal hospital in
Shanghai all that Miss Zah has been to the
Soochow hospital, who has been faithful in all
things, equal to any emergency, and who has
so identified herself with the work that she
has become practically the spirit of the place.

“ You do not know of Miss Yong Ngoh-pau,
who three years ago graduated from the Soo-
chow Medical School and who for some time
was associated with Dr. Frances Cattell of the
Tooker Memorial Hospital, the American
Presbyterian Mission, Soochow. Her ability
was such as to enable Dr. Cattell to run the
hospital successfully and without other help,
when at one time it seemed, after the loss of
one of the two foreign physicians, that the
work must suffer great loss.

“ You do not know of Miss Yui Ling-tsii,
who six years ago received her certificate from
the Soochow Medical School, who with the
sweetest, brightest faith, the quickest mind,
readiest hand, and most willing heart, made the
days bright for many a suffering woman, and
who left a place hard to fill when circumstances
called her to Korea. There she did fine work
with her medicine until the influx of foreign
physicians and the rapidly growing work
brought her to realize that her work was most
needed along other lines, and this gifted Chi-

90 Education of Women in China

nese girl is now translating English school and
church books into Korean.

“ You do not know of these because their
training has been received at home. But can
we who know of such cases debate their capa-
bility ? We know them to be patient, persever-
ing, to have wonderful endurance, quickness
of perception, keen appreciation, and unex-
celled deftness of touch.” 16

Dr. Mary Brown of Wei Hsien found the
same fitness for this work in the Chinese
women to whom she gave medical training.
Her biographer says : “ So well were these
women trained that they have performed diffi-
cult operations which gave them such a reputa-
tion as skilful physicians that they have been
sent for far and near to attend the sick. . . .
After Dr. Brown left her work in China one
of her pupils, a strong, bright young woman,
took complete charge of the woman’s hospital
at Wei Hsien, and did a noble work.”

“ It pays to work for the women of China,”
declares another physician, Dr. Woodhull of
Foochow. “ They are as capable of culture as
any women in the world.” 17 A little paper,
“ The Fuhkien Witness,” published in Foo-
chow, pays a similar tribute. “ No women in

11 Woman's Work in the Far East, Sept., 1902.

,T Woman's Work in the Far East, June, 1902.

Women of Christian Schools 91

the world have ever responded more nobly to
what has been done for them than the women
and girls of China.” 18

But while many have distinguished them-
selves as teachers and physicians, the great ma-
jority of the graduates of the schools have
married, some as soon as they left school, many
of them after a few years of teaching. The
supreme ideal of the mission schools has been
to put educated, capable Christian women into
the centres of the homes.

“ While the girls are getting a good footing
intellectually, and their spiritual life is care-
fully watched, the practical side of their na-
ture is not forgotten,” one of the missionaries
wrote. “ Our greatest hope is that they may
be model homemakers.”

A worker in Amoy says, “ For over twenty
years the missions of the American Reformed
and English Presbyterian Churches, along
with the London Missionary Society, have
been carrying on girls’ schools in Amoy. The
result of the work has long been seen in the
many Christian homes scattered through the
southern districts of Fuhkien, in the intelligent
women who form not the least interesting part
of the Sabbath congregations, and in the pas-
tors’ and preachers’ wives who superintend in
18 Woman’s Work in the Far East, Dec., .1904.

92 Education of Women in China

many cases, most ably, the work amongst
women in their husbands’ churches.” 19

Miss Howe writes from Kiukiang: “Many
girls have married from the school and sev-
eral are now serving as teachers in various
places, or acting as Bible women, to say noth-
ing of those who are helping their preacher
husbands in the dark places in which the
itinerating wheel has placed them. Miss Stan-
ton a few weeks since visited the home of one
who was married last July to a young man
who was stationed at Kung-lung, fourteen
miles distant. She reports the cleanest native
house she has ever seen. Although small and
crowded, the taste in arrangement secured a
pleasing effect. The young wife was venturing
out among the most uncongenial women and
receiving them to her home for instruction in
the Christian way. The husband and wife,
both educated, refined and spiritual, found their
only true companionship in each other, and
strengthening each other’s hands were striving
with loving help to lift up the fallen ones about
them. . . . Miss Stanton observed the two
sitting together going through some accounts,
and noticed a gratified twitch of admiration
play about the young man’s face as the wife

” Miss Johnston, in Woman's Work in the Far East ,
May, 1898.

Women of Christian Schools 93

each time finished the long column in advance
of himself.20

Mrs. Gamewell told of another young wife,
a graduate of the Methodist School in Peking.
“ I spent the month of June in making a trip
to the coast with Mr. Gamewell,” she wrote.
“ The most cheering sight that met our eyes
was the face of Clara Wang. Her earnest
words of admonition as she taught her visitors
of God, were so well put that anybody Hearing
them must know that she had had school train-
ing. . . . Our girls' school has done nobly
to give one such as Clara Wang to the
work.” 21

From the Presbyterian School in Peking,
Miss Newton writes : “ Can we point to any
girls whom our schools have developed into the
kind of women we long to see, those who ‘ open
their mouths with wisdom and in whose
tongues is the law of kindness, who look well
to the ways of their households, and eat not
the bread of idleness.' I should like to take you
into a little home I know in Peking where the
young mother seems to me the very embodi-
ment of these words. I have watched care-
fully her treatment of her children and I have
never seen a foreigner who seemed to me more

20 Woman's Missionary Friend, Sept., 1896.

31 Heathen Woman's Friend, Jan., 1885.

94 Education of Women in China

conscientious, judicious and self-controlled.
When the children are cross or mischievous
she doesn’t shriek at them and threaten to
throw them into a pit of yellow earth. Why
not? That is the style of home training she
was accustomed to from her mother, a most
unreasonable termagant. Simply because sev-
eral years in a boarding school developed in
her refined and womanly qualities. Why is it
that the clothing, stockings and shoes of her
husband, herself and children are always neat
and well made? Her mother cannot sew at
all well, much less teach her daughters. Be-
cause she was taught in school to sew and
embroider until now she does exquisite needle-
work. Why, a few months ago, did she punish
her little boy of three and a half years, because
he had told a lie? Her mother, though a
Christian, tells lies herself. Because the teach-
ing about truthfulness that she had received
in the school had entered into the very bone
and sinew of her nature.” 22

The testimony of Dr. Madge Mateer, that
school life, instead of spoiling the Chinese girls
for home duties, has made them more helpful,
is one of the truest tributes which could have
been paid to the wisdom and skill of those
who have guided the course of woman’s educa-
a IV Oman’s Work in the Far East, May, 1899.

Women of Christian Schools 95

tion in China. “ I have heard no one com-
plain that her daughter was unwilling to take
up less congenial work at home,” Dr. Mateer
says.23

The educated Chinese women have not only
done notably good work, but they have shown
the capacity for a large amount of work. A
letter from a missionary of Wei Hien reads :

“ I wish you could see the teacher of the
school. She is the wife of the pastor of the
church there. She is a bright Christian woman
and her pupils are well trained both in manners
and books. They are taught to make their own
clothing and to cook their food. Mrs. San,
besides teaching and caring for her twenty pu-
pils who board with her, cares for her own
family and makes their clothes. She has four
children at home and two older girls in the
Tungchow High School. She is a very busy
woman and a very capable one. She and her
husband are doing a great deal for their peo-
ple and can reach them in a way that foreigners
cannot.” 24

Mrs. Teng of Peking led a life very like that
of Mrs. San. When Miss Newton, the princi-
pal of the Presbyterian Girls’ School of that

23 Woman's Work for Woman , Sept., 1898.

24 Miss Boughton, in Woman's Work for Woman ,
April, 1892.

96 Education of Women in China

city went to America on furlough some years
ago, she had no American assistant in whose
charge to leave the school, so she left it with
her first Chinese assistant, Mrs. Teng, of whom
she says:

“ Her family are all members of the Lon-
don Mission Church. She was educated in the
school of that society in Peking and considered
the prize scholar. When about twenty she was
married to our helper, Mr. Teng, and came
immediately to our compound, where she has
lived ever since, some thirteen years. As
teacher in our boarding school she has done
excellent work.

“ She has five children, never had robust
health, and used to make all the clothes, stock-
ings and shoes for the entire family. Now,
however, she occasionally hires some of her
sewing done. She and her husband and chil-
dren are as neat and trim as if she never had
anything to do but fuss over their clothes.
How she can do so much at home and spend
at least five hours a day in school, and never
appear to be hurried, is a mystery. She almost
never goes anywhere, is exceedingly sys-
tematic, and does not waste moments here and
there. While she is braiding the hair of one
child in the morning, two others stand on either
hand, each reciting a different lesson from the

Women of Christian Schools 97

classics, and at the same time; but Mrs. Teng
serenely keeps all in hand.

“ She has a good many visitors, but always
has time to sit down and listen to the most
garrulous old woman. She is ambitious in all
good ways, and reads and studies a great deal.
With all these other duties she finds time to
study English an hour a day! . . . She is a
sincere Christian whom we may be sure of
finding on the right side of a question, and a
most effective speaker in prayer meeting. Her
love for me and her really making my interests
her own during my six years in the school,
have been an unspeakable help and comfort. I
was so sure of her ability and loyalty that I
was quite willing to come away and leave the
school with her.” 25

Instances might be multiplied of Chinese
women whose education and training, added to
their native ability, have enabled them to
accomplish a surprisingly large amount of
work. A prominent example is Dr. Mary
Stone, the Chinese physician in full charge
of the large, well-kept Danforth Memorial
Hospital in Kiukiang. She has treated
as many as 2,743 patients a month in
her hospital, dispensary and out visits. Aided
only by the nurses, whom she has her-
25 Woman's Work for Woman, Feb., 1895.

98 Education of Women in China

self trained, she performs “ the largest opera-
tions known to surgery ” with marked success.
Part of her work is to conduct a nurses’ train-
ing school, and this means that she must trans-
late many of their textbooks from English
into Chinese. Her success in this department
is well attested by the fact that when forced
to be absent she is able to leave the hospital in
charge of her graduate nurses, and by the great
demand for her nurses in other hospitals and
for private cases. In the crevices of her time
Dr. Stone finds leisure to write useful booklets
on “ What to do till the doctor comes,” and
other kindred topics, or to deliver helpful and
stimulating addresses before graduating classes
of girls’ schools or conferences of her fellow-
workers. Withal she has the reputation of
being a most charming hostess and home-
maker.

“ It is no longer an experiment to send them
out into places of responsibility.” This state-
ment is true not alone of the graduates of the
one school to whom it referred, but of the edu-
cated women of China as a whole. They have
proved themselves capable of education, but
more than that they have proved themselves
worthy of it, for they have gone out from
their years of study to use the knowledge and
the training which they have received. As ef-

Women of Christian Schools 99

ficient teachers, as skilful physicians and
nurses, as companionable and helpful wives,
as intelligent mothers, as useful, uplifting
members of the communities in which they live,
the educated women of China are the supreme
answer to any question regarding the possi-
bility and wisdom of the education of Chinese

women.

V

THE PIONEER GIRLS’ SCHOOL ES-
TABLISHED BY THE CHINESE

FOR over fifty years after the establish-
ment of the first school for girls in
China, woman’s education was left en-
tirely to the missionaries. But just before the
close of the last century, it became evident that
the Chinese themselves were aware of the value
of educational work for women and were no
longer willing that the foreigners should do
everything for the uplifting of their daugh-
ters and they nothing. In the year 1897, a
number of wealthy merchants and officials in
Shanghai formed a society for the purpose of
establishing a school for girls in that city, all
the expenses of which were to be met by volun-
tary subscriptions. The provisional prospectus
of this school shows the spirit which actuated
the leaders of the project, the ideals which they
held for the school, and the care with which
they planned to attain them:

1. “ In opening schools for girls we are reverting to
the illustrious custom of the three dynasties. In order
100

Pioneer Girls’ School Established ioi

to open up the intelligence of the people, we must
certainly make the women free and afterwards customs
can be changed. That the reality may correspond to
the name all funds and plans for the school are to
be made under the control (supervision) of women,
and the teachers are to be women.

The above is the fundamental idea in the establish-
ment of the school.

2. Temporarily four teachers will be employed, two
for Chinese and two for English, all of whom are
to be Chinese ladies. In general each teacher will
have twenty pupils. This refers to the beginning of
the literary department. As funds and pupils increase
more teachers will be added.

3. There shall be one foreign and one Chinese super-
intendent who will live at the school and have general
oversight of the pupils and employees. They shall
receive salaries.

4. Eight directors shall be chosen from the number
of contributors who shall visit the school by turns, in-
spect the studies and assist those in charge. They shall
receive no salaries.

5. Twelve men shall be chosen from the families of
contributors to solicit and collect funds, appoint teachers
and principals, decide on courses of study and manage
the finances. They shall receive no salaries.

6. There shall be two treasurers chosen by the
twelve male directors, who shall be honest and econom-
ical men, and good accountants, to have charge of
receipts and disbursements. They shall receive salaries.

The above five rules appertain to the management.

7. The school will open with forty pupils and the
members shall increase as funds increase.

8. Pupils may enter between the ages of eight and
fifteen.

9. Pupils between the ages of eight and eleven must
be able to read a certain amount on entrance. Those

102 Education of Women in China

between twelve and fifteen must know something of
composition and be able to read letters. Teachers shall
decide upon the eligibility of candidates for admission.

10. Foot-binding is a very vile custom of the Chinese.
Persons of culture should not continue it. Since this
is only a beginning of the school and the customs are
not yet established, for the present pupils shall be
admitted without regard to whether their feet are
bound or not, but after a few years there will be a
limit and no one with small feet will be admitted.

11. It is the intention of this school to make no
distinctions of rank, but since in the future pupils
from the school will be leaders and teachers in other
schools, only daughters of reputable families will be
admitted.

The above are the five rules for the admission of
pupils.

12. The course of study will be half English and
half Chinese. First reading and composition shall be
learned, and later all elementary branches of learning;
afterward, history and science, handicrafts and pro-
fessions may be taken up.

13. There shall be three special courses of study;
mathematical, medical and law. Each pupil may choose
which she will pursue, but those who study medicine
and law must first have a good general knowledge of
mathematics.

14. Besides these courses of study there shall be a
kindergarten department, the teachers of which must
have a wide general knowledge.

15. The industrial department shall include spinning,
weaving and drawing, as soon as there are funds suffi-
cient to engage teachers in both foreign and native
methods, as these matters are of great importance to
women.

16. Monthly examinations shall be held by the
teachers, who shall give the markings. Quarterly ex-

Pioneer Girls’ School Established 103

animations shall be conducted by specialists who will
give the marks and award prizes.

The above are the five rules for studies.

17. All those in control from teachers and superin-
tendents to servants shall be women. Rigid discipline
shall be enforced. No men shall be allowed to enter
the doors. If the male directors have anything about
which to consult they shall meet in an outer building.

18. Little children whose homes are near may attend
the school without living in it, but must be regular in
attendance. When the homes are distant children may
live at the school. It is decided to build ten rooms for
their accommodation.

19. Fees shall be graduated similar to those paid by
foreigners (or expenses will be about the same as those
in Western schools). The rich shall pay liberally to
help the school, but if the family is in moderate circum-
stances the fees shall be less. In case of extreme pov-
erty the fees may be entirely remitted. A poor student
who has ability and application may not only have fees
remitted, but may be provided with board, clothing,
books, etc.

20. Clean, honest women servants shall be employed
to attend to all the wants of the pupils. Pupils may
be allowed to bring servants from home, but such serv-
ants shall be subject to the authorities of the school.

21. Whoever completes one of the three courses of
study, in the Kindergarten or Industrial course, shall
receive a diploma which empowers them to follow the
professions for which they have prepared.

22. Girls taken from Foundling Asylums cannot be
given in marriage as concubines; much more shall the
pupils of this school not be given as concubines, but
shall be more highly esteemed in the world and loved
by their parents and not by being given as concubines
tarnish the purity and disgrace the high standing of
the school.

104 Education of Women in China

23. All countries prohibit the slave trade. China
should gradually do away with the system of slavery.
Any pupils who have been in the school, however poor
they may be, may never be sold as slaves. Any one
violating this rule shall pay a fine of $500.

The above are the three rules for those who graduate
from this school.

24. Each contributor will please hand in the official
rank and residence of her husband or son, and her own
official rank, with her subscription, for the record.

25. Make the contributions payable by the month or
year, according to the custom of Western countries.
In order that the funds of the school may not run
short contributions should be regular. Our great hope
is that the ladies within the four seas will observe the
annual and monthly contributions.

26. All subscriptions whether from natives or for-
eigners, small or great, from a dollar upward, will
be alike received. We would not hinder cheerful
giving.

27. At the beginning, while funds are limited, it has
been decided to open a school in Shanghai, but it is
hoped that afterw-ard the work may be pushed forward
into every province and prefecture and township.

28. The teachers of Western branches first to be ap-
pointed are the learned women, from the Kiangsi prov-
ince .... and from the Hupeh province. . . . The
teachers of Chinese are yet to be sought out by the
superintendents.

29. The men and women directors shall be chosen
by ballot by those w'ho are instituting the enterprise.
Since the interested are widely scattered those institut-
ing the work will go forward and act temporarily until
such times as directors can be selected.

30. For the present all contributions may be sent to
the office of the Chinese Progress. Each issue will con-
tain names of contributors with amounts contributed.

Pioneer Girls’ School Established 105

also all disbursements. Everything being made public
will insure confidence in the enterprise.

31. This is an experimental schedule giving the gen-
eral scope of the enterprise. After the school opens
the teachers, superintendents and directors will formu-
late the details.” 1

True to their purpose the men who had orig-
inated the plan very soon turned over the ex-
ecution of it to their wives and daughters,
giving their own efforts to raising the neces-
sary funds. The committee of Chinese ladies,
thus confronted with the task of establishing
and determining the policy of this pioneer Chi-
nese school for girls, and feeling the lack of
such experience or training as would fit them
for an undertaking of this kind, at once turned
for cooperation and advice to those who were
more versed in the methods of woman’s educa-
tion. Dr. Young J. Allen and Dr. E. T. Wil-
liams were asked to furnish them a list of
the foreign ladies in Shanghai who would be
particularly interested in the plan. This was
done, and in December of 1897 about fifty for-
eign women, consuls’ wives, missionaries, and
others, were invited by the committee of Chi-
nese ladies to a banquet served in a large res-
taurant in one of the Chinese pleasure gardens

1 Miss Gertrude Howe, in Missionary Review of the
World , Jan., 1898. The “learned women” referred to
in 28 were two graduates of mission schools.

io6 Education of Women in China

of Shanghai. There prospectuses for the pro-
posed school were shown, and suggestions in-
vited.

From that time on the foreign women of
Shanghai sustained an unofficial but very help-
ful advisory relation to the new school. Soon
after the banquet to which they had been in-
vited, they entertained the school directresses
at the home of one of their number, for a fur-
ther discussion of plans; and when the school
was formally opened, the first of June, 1898,
ten foreign ladies were asked to be present.
Mrs. Timothy Richard, who was one of the
ten, wrote an account of this epoch-making
event.

“ By this time sixteen girls belonging to
higher class families had been enrolled as pu-
pils and boarders at the moderate fee of $3.10,
which included everything. We were taken
over the building and shown the waiting room,
dining rooms and dormitories. The arrange-
ments in these, as in the school, room, were
very much after the model of the mission
school for higher class Chinese girls, namely
that at McTyeire. Maps and charts of the
‘ Society for the Diffusion of Christian and
General Knowledge,’ and ‘ The Educational
Association,’ adorned the walls of the school
room. A Christian matron, a member of the

Pioneer Girls’ School Established 107

North Gate church, had been secured, and
also the services of a Christian Chinese girl
(a pupil of Miss Haygood’- ) to teach English
two hours daily. Chinese books were to be
taught by an educated Chinese lady. The
funds at first were not sufficient to meet the
salary of a foreign lady teacher. . . .

“ The gathering ended in a Chinese dinner
served in semi-foreign fashion. Suggestions
or remarks were again invited. Some of us
spoke of our entire satisfaction with the ar-
rangements— the cleanliness, good ventilation,
etc. — and I added the suggestion that the Chi-
nese lady directresses ought to attend the ap-
proaching closing exercises in the mission girls’
schools in Shanghai and judge for themselves
of the attainments of the girls attending these
schools.” 2

Mrs. Richard adds that “ this advice was
acted upon and furnished occacion for other in-
teresting meetings of Chinese and foreign la-
dies, more especially in the cases where school
exercises were accompanied by a ‘ Social,’ as
in the case of the McTyeire and Bridgman
Homes. The familiarity of the girls in these
schools with such varied subjects — with Eng-
lish in the McTyeire, with Chinese character,

2 Report of the Triennial Meeting of the Educational
Association of China, 1899.

108 Education of Women in China

classics and history in the Bridgman Home,
and with astronomy and mathematics at the
South Gate — astonished and pleased the ladies
immensely.” 3

The keenest interest was felt in the progress
of the school by all the friends of woman's ed-
ucation, and many of them freely gave it the
benefit not only of their suggestions but of
their time and strength as well. Mrs. Richard
says :

“ At the request of the directresses I, for
some time, visited the school once a week, ex-
amined them in their progress in English, gave
a lesson in geography and other subjects which
the then native staff could not give. Taking
with me Betel's Portable Globe, which shuts
up like an umbrella, it was easy to explain the
different motions of the earth, and the cause
of seasons and eclipses. That such explana-
tions were necessary not only for the girls,
but for the Chinese ladies always present on
these occasions, will be plain from the fact
that at the second lesson one of the otherwise
intelligent Chinese ladies, who reads and writes
Chinese well, gravely asked if in England we
had the same sun and moon that they have in
China, and when assured it was so, remarked

* Report of the Triennial Meeting of the Educational
Association of China, 1899.

Pioneer Girls’ School Established 109

that of course when it was new moon in China
it would be full moon in England and vice
versa.

“ When the school was closed for a month’s
summer vacation there were twenty pupils,
eight of whom had unbound feet.

“ Before the reopening of the school the
Chinese committee applied to the Rev. T.
Richard, Secretary of S. D. C. K. (Society
for the Diffusion of Christian and General
Knowledge) for an English lady teacher who
would superintend not only the boarding school
already established near the Arsenal, but the
day school for girls about to be opened in the
native city. (Fees in the day school $2.50 per
month for tuition and one meal a day.) Miss
Allen was recommended. She visits the
schools three days a week, Monday, Wednes-
day and Friday, teaching in the morning at the
boarding school and in the afternoon at the
day school. Since Chinese New Year holidays
she has besides been teaching foreign sewing
on Thursday morning at the boarding school.
She teaches English, arithmetic, geography and
drawing, and is ably assisted in the boarding
school by Miss Ting, who was educated in St.
Mary’s School, Jessfield, and is a devoted
Christian; and in the day school by Miss Zee,
a Christian from Miss Hay good’s school. . . .

iio Education of Women in China

The closing exercises before Chinese New
Year were largely attended by foreign ladies.
... We were much pleased with the prog-
ress made in English, reading and spelling,
writing, arithmetic and native drawing.
After the exercises Dr. Allen shortly ad-
dressed the school and visitors, the former in
Shanghai dialect, the latter in English. . . .
Mrs. N. P. Anderson then distributed the
prizes.” 4

In connection with the school a monthly
paper, known as “ The Chinese Girls’ Prog-
ress,” was published, the purpose of which
was to advance the cause of woman’s educa-
tion. The promoters of the school also organ-
ized a “ Society for the Diffusion of Knowl-
edge among Chinese Women.” Such interest
as this made the hopes of all run high. Miss
Melvin woke a responsive echo in the hearts of
many when she called the new school “ the
greatest wonder of the age,” and no friend of
Chinese women failed to understand the feel-
ing of the venerable Dr. Allen, who, as he
stood before the students and guests assem-
bled to celebrate the closing exercises of this
first school for girls, established by the Chi-
nese themselves, declared that he felt inclined

4 Report of the Triennial Meeting of the Educational
Association of China, 1899.

Pioneer Girls’ School Established in

to say, “ Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant
depart in peace.”

It was a crushing disappointment to the
friends and promoters of the school, when less
than two years after its opening, it was forced
to close its doors in obedience to the orders
of the Empress Dowager. In common with
many other progressive movements it was
swept away in the reaction which followed the
too sudden reform edicts of the young Em-
peror, Kuang Hsu. The school had been born
but to die, but the spirit which gave it birth
had become so deeply rooted in the hearts of
many earnest Chinese, that those who knew
were sure that that spirit could not die. They
knew that it would manifest itself when the
storm had passed, and were confident that the
school which had been both the fulfilment and
inspiration of so much faith and hope, was
but a forerunner of many other schools, which
the people of China would establish and carry
on for the education of their daughters.

VI

THE DEVELOPMENT OF GENTRY
AND GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS

THE storm of reaction against the new
order of progress was severe, but
short. At the beginning of 1901 the
clouds were rapidly disappearing and the spirit
of the new era had begun to reassert itself.
By the close of that year another school for
girls had been established in Shanghai, bearing
the name “ Wupun,” or “ Strive For Duty
School.” The following year another school
for girls, known as the “ I-Kwo,” or “ Patri-
otic School,” was established, followed in 1903
by the Chung-mang School, founded by a
wealthy Chinese widow, and in 1904 by the
Ch’Eng Tung School, established by a Mr.
and Mrs. Yang. The year 1905 marked the
founding of four more similar schools, one
of them under the management of the Anti-
Foot-binding Society. Four others followed in
1906, making at the beginning of 1907 a total
of twelve schools for girls in Shanghai alone,
supported and controlled wholly by the Chi-
112

Gentry and Government Schools 113

nese, and with a total enrollment of over eight
hundred students.1

Very significant of the new era were the
courses of study offered in these schools. In
addition to the preparatory and academic work,
many of them had normal departments for the
training of teachers, a few gave industrial
training, and one included a medical course
in its curriculum. In almost all, physical cul-
ture was a part of the regular work, and in five
of them unbound feet were made a condition
of entrance. It was indicative of a new era,
too, that in each school regular rates of board
and tuition were charged, and that whereas
some were partly supported by subscriptions
others claimed to be wholly self-supporting.
Three schools were established and carried on
by men and their wives, working jointly, this
in itself a proof that a new day had dawned
in China. Of the others, the majority were
founded by public-spirited Chinese men; the
remainder by progressive Chinese women. All,
of course, included women on the staff, and
as practically the only educated women in
China were those trained in Christian schools,
it followed that many of the teachers were
Christian women. In two of the schools part

1 Miss Julia Yen, in Woman’s Work in the Far East ,
June, 1907.

1 14 Education of Women in China

of the teaching was done by women mission-
aries.

If Robert Morrison could have had a
prophetic vision of Shanghai at the time of the
great Morrison Centennial held there in 1907
to commemorate his arrival in China, probably
nothing would have caused him greater aston-
ishment than the sight of this company of
people, men and women, Chinese and foreign,
Christian and non-Christian, working together
in harmonious unity created by their common
interest in that once despised and rejected
cause — the education of Chinese women.

To Shanghai belongs the honour of having
been the first city in which a modern school
for girls was established, and carried on by
the Chinese, but interest in woman’s education
had now become so general that such schools
were soon started in many parts of the Empire.

The Empress Dowager, who in 1900 had so
frowned upon the pioneer school in Shanghai
that it had been forced to close its doors, be-
came, a few years later, a warm advocate and
patron of woman’s education. Dr. Isaac Tay-
lor Headland of Peking University gives an
interesting account of a conversation with her
on the subject.

“ On one occasion while in the theatre she
called me to her side, and giving me a chair.

Gentry and Government Schools 115

inquired at length into the system of female
education in America.

“ ‘ I have heard/ she said, 4 that in your hon-
ourable country all the girls are taught to read/
“ ‘ Quite so, your Majesty/

“ ‘ And are they taught the same branches
of study as the boys?’

“ ‘ In the public schools they are/

“ ‘ I wish very much that the girls in China
might also be taught, but the people have great
difficulty in educating their boys/

“ I then explained in a few words our public
school system, to which she replied :

“ ‘ The taxes in China are so heavy at pres-
ent that it would be impossible to add another
expense such as this would be/

“ It was not long thereafter, however, before
an edict was issued commending female edu-
cation, and at the present time hundreds of
girls’ schools have been established by private
persons both in Peking and throughout the
Empire.” 2

At the orders of the Empress a large Lama
convent was transformed into a school for
girls 3 and it is reported also that she gave

2 Headland, Court Life in China, Chap. VII, pp.
102 f.

3 Hon. John Foster, in National Geographic Magazine ,
Dec., 1906.

1 1 6 Education of Women in China

ioo.ooo taels (about $65,000) to the cause of
woman’s education in Peking.4 Other women
of wealth and rank were quick to follow her
example, and girls' schools sprang up in many
parts of the Empire.

Mrs. Isaac Taylor Headland, who through
her skill as a physician had become acquainted
with many of the women of this class, tells of
a visit to the school conducted by Princess Su
in a building within her own palace grounds:

“ The school building was evidently de-
signed for that purpose, being light and airy
with the whole southern exposure made into
windows and covered with a thin white paper
which gives a soft, restful light and shuts out
the glare of the sun. The floor is covered with
a heavy rope matting, while the walls are hung
with botanical, zoological and other charts.
Besides the usual furniture for a well-equipped
school room it was heated with a foreign stove,
had glass cases for their embroidery and draw-
ing materials, and a good American organ to
direct them in singing, dancing and calis-
thenics.

“ I arrived at recess. The Princess took me
into the teacher’s den, which was cut off from
the main room by a beautifully caned screen.

* Notes and Queries, Woman's Work in the Far East ,
Dec., 1906.

Government School for Girls — Canton

Gentry and Government Schools 1 1 7

Here I was introduced to the Japanese lady
teacher and served with tea. She spoke no
English and but little Chinese and the embar-
rassment of our effort to converse was only
relieved by the ringing of the bell for school.
The pupils, consisting of the secondary wives
and daughters of the Prince, his son’s wife,
and the wives and daughters of his dead
brother who make their home with him, en-
tered in an orderly way and took their seats.

. . . “ ‘ How long has the school been in
session? ’ I asked the Princess.

“ ‘ Three and a half months,’ she replied.

“ ‘ And they have done all this embroidery
and painting in that time ? ’

“ ‘ They have, and in addition have pursued
their Western studies,’ she explained.

“ In arithmetic the teacher placed the exam-
ples on the board, the pupils worked them on
their slates, after which each was called upon
for an explanation, which she gave in Jap-
anese. While this class was reciting the Prince
came in and asked if we might not have calis-
thenics, evidently thinking that I would enjoy
the drill more than the mathematics. It was
interesting to see those Manchu ladies stand
and go through a thorough physical drill to
the tune of a lively march on a foreign or-
gan. . . .

1 1 8 Education of Women in China

“ ‘ The young ladies do not comb their hair
in the regular Manchu style/ I observed to
the Princess.

No/ she answered, ‘ we do not think that
best. It is not very convenient and so we have
them dress it in the small coil on the top of
the head, as you see. Neither do we allow
them to wear flowers in their hair, nor to paint
or powder, or wear shoes with centre eleva-
tions on the soles. We try to give them
the greatest possible convenience and com-
fort.’ . . .

“ 4 Of what does their course of study con-
sist ? ’ I asked the Princess.

“ She went to the wall and took down a gilt
frame which contained their curriculum and
which she asked her eldest daughter to copy for
me. They had five studies each day, six days
of the week, Sunday being a holiday. They
began with arithmetic, followed it up with
Japanese language, needlework, music and
calisthenics, then took Chinese language, draw-
ing, and Chinese history, with the writing of
the ideographs of their own language, which
was one of the most difficult tasks they had
to perform.” 5

The sister of Prince Su, who had married

* Headland, Court Life in Chino, Chap. XIV, pp.
214-217.

Gentry and Government Schools 119

a Mongol prince, was eager to start a school
for girls in her Mongolian home, and during
a visit to Peking went with Mrs. Headland to
visit the girls’ school of the Methodist Mis-
sion. When she left for her home she took
with her a Japanese woman teacher, and soon
had a school for girls in full operation. Sev-
enteen of her pupils came with her on her
next visit to Peking, both to see the capital
and to visit the schools for girls which had
been established there. On their return they
were accompanied by an educated young Chi-
nese woman, who was to teach the Chinese
classics in the school.

Still another sister of Prince Su organized
a school in Peking, in which she soon had
eighty or more girls taken from various grades
of society. A Japanese teacher had charge
of the physical culture and gave instruction in
the rudiments of Western mathematics, but
the Princess, who had learned to read in child-
hood by bribing some of the palace eunuchs to
teach her, conducted much of the work in the
Chinese classics herself.6

The relation between these “ gentry
schools,” as they are commonly termed, and
the mission schools in the city has been a very

6 Headland, Court Life in China, Chap. XIV, pp.
218-222.

120 Education of Women in China

cordial one. Those interested in the mission
schools rejoiced in the new-born interest in
the education of women, and were eager to be
of any possible service to the Chinese women
who were so courageously giving themselves
to this cause.

“ Once a week I give a half hour of work
to an outside school kept by a Chinese lady
of great learning in Confucian lines,” wrote
Miss Reed of the North China Union College.
“ These little maidens are expected to keep in
perfect order along the stiff old lines, and their
stiffness hardly accords with modern exer-
cises, so between that and the mummifying
effect of their voluminous winter clothing I
am rather in despair over them. But we
keep working away the best we can, and
in the meantime the friendship between the
teacher and our ladies here continues and
grows.” 7

At another time she wrote : “ In the early
spring we were asked to attend an annual
exhibition at a large school in the west city,
an hour’s trip from here. We were also asked
to send an exhibit, and, as we do not do any
of the knitting and embroider}’ which they
make much of, we sent sets of examination pa-
pers, specimens of writing, and so on. It
T Life and Light for Woman, Aug., 1908.

Gentry and Government Schools 121

seemed to be one of the ways to show our
very friendly feeling, and to show, too, our
idea of school work. . . . We tried another
plan at the time of our final examinations.
The mornings we gave to quiet written exam-
inations, but in the afternoon we invited people
in and the girls gave little talks on the dif-
ferent subjects, with illustrations, all pre-
pared beforehand. This in zoology, physiol-
ogy, geography, physics and chemistry could
be made especially interesting. We had a sur-
prising number of guests, teachers from dif-
ferent schools and women of education in the
city, and we considered the plan a great suc-
cess for them, as well as a training for our
own girls in speaking before others.” 8

Miss Porter of Peking wrote of Miss Chi,
a Chinese woman, the only child of an official
who had educated her as if she had been a
son, “ She has established a private school for
girls and of all the teachers we meet is the
one whose methods and aims seem most com-
mendable. Several of her pupils attend many
of our services, and there is a feeling of gen-
uine friendliness growing between us.” 9
Encouraging as were the evidences of inter-

8 Miss Reed, in Life and Light for Woman , Dec.,
1908.

9 Life and Light for Woman , Aug., 1907.

122 Education of Women in China

est in the education of women shown by the
founding of gentry schools by individuals or
groups of individuals, the establishment of a
system of woman’s education by the govern-
ment was an even greater step in advance. In
the preface to “ The Awakening of China,*'
written October 30th, 1906, Dr. W. A. P. Mar-
tin says, “ Still more surprising are the steps
taken toward the intellectual emancipation of
women in China. One of the leading ministers
of education assured me the other day that he
was pushing the establishment of schools for
girls.”

When the Imperial Commission of 1906 was
sent out the commissioners were instructed to
study woman's education in other countries.
His Excellency, Tuan Fang, who was a member
of the commission, returned to China full of
enthusiasm on the subject, and it is said that
his report of his observations led the Board of
Education to decide to push woman's educa-
tion without further delay. “ Tuan Fang’s
idea is that graduates of female high and nor-
mal schools may be put in charge of primary
schools, and with a constantly growing num-
ber of educated women, children will have in
the near future, the valuable privilege of a
mother s teaching at home, the real school for
patriots. None, he says, are greater patriots

Gentry and Government Schools 123

and more loyal to a government than
women.” 10

In this same year a missionary in North
China wrote : “ The Chinese now have under
consideration schemes for establishing schools
for girls to be under government control, and
a system of land tax is to be instituted to sup-
port them. These schools will be for the bene-
fit of girls of the wealthy class, for the
board and tuition will be free as in the govern-
ment schools for young men, yet there are so
many other expenses connected with the school
that none but the well-to-do can take advan-
tage of them.” 11

Two years later the Peking correspondent
of the “Shanghai Times” reported: “The
Ministry of Education has submitted to the
Throne regulations for establishing girls’
schools, normal and primary, throughout the
empire. The regulations have received the Im-
perial sanction and were published in full in
the ‘ Peking Gazette.’ Normal schools are to
be founded first in the provincial capitals,
afterwards in the prefectural cities, and later
in the country cities; the primary schools are

10 Hon. John Foster, in National Geographic Maga-'
zine, Dec., 1906.

11 Dr. Terry, in Woman's Missionary Friend Oct.,
1906.

124 Education of Women in China

to be established everywhere. The schools are
to be government schools mainly, but private
enterprise is also encouraged, private founda-
tions being subject to official inspection. Per-
mission is given for the employment of for-
eign as well as native lady teachers.” 12

The following year (1909) the “North
China Daily Herald ” published a brief para-
graph stating that “ Her Highness the Prin-
cess Consort to the Prince Regent has pro-
posed that a National Education Association
should be founded, of which she will be the
president.” 13 A note in “ Woman’s Work in
the Far East ” for December of the same year
reported : “ Schools for women are being
opened in every direction by the Chinese, and
the Throne has recently decided to require Chi-
nese lady students educated abroad to come
to Peking for examination in order that their
help may be secured and applied to the best
advantage in the education of Chinese women
at home.” 14

The government has not confined itself to
considering suggestions and drawing up regu-
lations, however. While the Board of Educa-

** Woman's Work in the Far East, Sept.. 1908.

11 North China Daily Herald, Aug. 7, 1909.

14 Notes and Queries, Woman's Work in the Far East ,
Dec., 1909.

Gentry and Government Schools 125

tion has been discussing methods and perfect-
ing plans, the viceroys have been busy estab-
lishing schools for girls in their respective
provinces. Yuan Shih Kai, the progressive
viceroy of the province of Chihli, pushed
schools for girls in his territory with great
energy. Peking was reported to have twenty
schools for girls, outside of the mission schools,
in 1908, and between 1905 and 1908 twenty
such schools were opened by the Board of
Education in Tientsin and its suburbs, the ex-
penses being met partly by the Board of Edu-
cation and partly by outside subscriptions.15

Modern education even found its way into
the districts beyond the cities. As early as
1906 a Tientsin missionary who had been mak-
ing a study of the Chinese schools for girls
in and about Tientsin wrote:

“ But the most astounding discovery in girls’
schools was not made in the City of the Heav-
enly Ford (Tientsin) but on a missionary
country trip one hundred li from the city. We
had previously travelled through the mud vil-
lage of Pei-yeng-chiao and had mentally
dubbed it ‘ The White Pig Village,’ since the
pigs were not of the usual Chinese variety. A
native pastor in a neighbouring village in-

13 Mrs. G. T. Candlin, in Woman’s Work in the Far
East , March, 1908.

126 Education of Women in China

formed us that there was actually a modern
girls’ school in this forlorn hamlet. We se-
cured a letter of introduction to the teacher,
taking care that it should declare that our
purpose was not ‘ to preach the doctrine ’ but
simply to pay our respects to this honourable
school. The letter was sent in doubt about
missionaries being admitted, but at once a
polite invitation to enter was sent — an invita-
tion which included the 4 Mu Shih ’ as well as
his harmless wife. In the inner court the
teacher herself met us and offered her hand
in foreign style. As we entered the school
room the pupils arose. They were evidently
frightened at the appearance of two outlandish
foreigners and much relieved when we were
conducted into the teacher’s own sanctum — a
tastefully fitted up inner room.

“ Over the usual teacups we said, * We have
visited the government schools in Tientsin and
wish to see if this admirable school is similarly
arranged.’ To this she replied, 1 This is a
miserable hamlet and cannot be compared with
a city school.’ ‘ What is your honourable
school’s schedule of studies ? ’ * Only a few

ordinary lessons,’ and thereupon she placed
before us an elaborate program for every
day, much like that of a Western school. The
‘ few ordinary lessons ’ included etiquette, Chi-

Gentry and Government Schools 127

nese language, arithmetic, geography, elemen-
ary science, sewing, drawing, calisthenics and
music.” 16

Reports for the year 1907 show that there
were at that time outside of Peking 12 1 gov-
ernment and gentry schools for girls in Chihli,
with 2,523 students.

In 1906 the United States consul at Nan-
king wrote : “ The viceroy of the Liang-Kiang
province, Choufu, one of the most progressive
of the higher Chinese officials, has recently
founded a school for girls in Nanking. At
the opening, which was largely attended, the
viceroy delivered an address which impressed
the people that this girls’ school was no ordi-
nary institution. It is supported by subscrip-
tions from a number of the leading tao-tais of
Nanking, who have raised $4,296, and the
viceroy has subscribed $1,432, annually. The
school is located in a quiet place, with spacious
buildings. Six women teachers have been en-
gaged, three to teach English, and three to
teach Chinese. The opening of the school is an
important event in Nanking, as it is really the
birth of female education in that ancient city.
The interest taken in the school by the leading
officials of Nanking indicates the dawning of

18 Mrs. M. L. Taft, in Woman’s Work in the Far
East , Sept., 1906.

128 Education of Women in China

freedom for China’s women and girls. For the
last few years the missionary girls’ schools
have been doing good work, but this is the
first school established under the patronage
of the viceroy. China is awakening to realize
that a nation’s strength and prosperity lie in
the education of her daughters.” 17

A statistical report of the educational work
in Nanking, published in 1909, shows that
there were in that year, exclusive of the mis-
sion schools, nine government schools for girls,
and three gentry schools, with a total of 598
pupils in the government schools, 154 in the
gentry schools.

In the year 1909 alone thirteen girls’ schools
were opened by the government in Nanchang,
the capital of Kiangsi province. In 1905 an
imperial edict in Foochow, the capital of Fuh-
kien province, announced that a normal school
for women and girls would be opened by the
government. The viceroy and provincial of-
ficials were the patrons of the school, and no
expense was spared to make it successful. Far-
ther south, in Canton, twenty-five government
and gentry schools for girls were reported in
1908. Over two hundred young women are
now enrolled in the normal school alone. In
the spring of 1906 the viceroy of Shantung
17 Missionary Review of the World, Feb., 1907.

Government Kindergarten at Foochow in Session

Gentry and Government Schools 129

province sent an envoy to Tengchow, the
capital, with orders “ to arrange for the open-
ing of girls’ schools not only in Tengchow but
wherever possible in neighbouring cities.” 18
Even from conservative Hunan came news of
a government school for girls in Changsha,
with a primary and normal department, where
200 students were “ studying English, arith-
metic, Chinese, and domestic science ” 19 In
far Szechuan, 49 government and gentry
schools for girls, with a total number of 1,897
students, were reported in 1908, in addition to
297 elementary schools in which both boys
and girls were pupils.

18 Mrs. Calvin Wight, in Woman's Work in the Far
East , June, 1907.

19 Rev. Brownell Gage, in Chinese Recorder , Dec.,
1907.

VII

THE CHARACTER OF THE GENTRY
AND GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS

WHEN the Chinese had once awakened
to the importance of woman’s edu-
cation, they did not hesitate to ex-
pend large sums of money in the establishment
of girls’ schools. Among the prominent char-
acteristics of these schools are the comfortable
and attractive buildings in which many of them
are housed.

“ These schools have been opened by the
government,” writes a visitor to the Foochow
Woman’s Normal School and Kindergarten,
“ and are in a magnificent house, the best in
the city and probably in the province. There
are seven blocks, very wide, and several up-
stairs rooms, beautiful stone work and carved
woodwork. The normal school is in the first
two blocks, the kindergarten in the fourth and
fifth. These are separated from the rest of
the house by gardens with ponds and rookeries,
some higher than the surrounding houses and
affording a good view of the city and neigh-
130

Gentry and Government Schools 13 1

bouring hills, especially ‘ Black Rock Hill/ . .
We were admitted to the kindergarten school
through the play room; there were rocking-
horses, dumb-bells, pails, carts on wheels in
abundance, gaily painted floors, plenty of light
and air.” 1

A missionary from Tientsin writes, “ A visit
to the Kaodung reveals many things most
gratifying to the friends of China. The new
school building was constructed for this very
purpose and the rooms are large, high and airy.
There are several good-sized recitation rooms,
an inviting guest room, a large room combin-
ing library and worship hall, a dining room,
pleasant teachers’ rooms and commodious
dormitories. Each student room will accom-
modate three or four students. These are fur-
nished with simple single beds and the beds
are tastefully draped with curtains, usually of
light blue. Each student has decorated her
corner with pictures and trinkets so dear to
the girl heart in every land, and the sight is
very delightful. In connection with the dor-
mitories are bath rooms provided with foreign
tubs. The dining room has an ingenious
barrel-like opening into the kitchen. As it
revolves it permits food to be passed in and

1 Miss M. J. Shire, in India's Women and China's
Daughters , Feb., 1908.

132 Education of Women in China

out, but prevents either the cook from seeing
the students, or the students from seeing the
cook. We were present at the time of the
midday meal and noted the white rice and
abundant variety of vegetables.” 2

Neither was expense spared in providing the
schools with apparatus of various kinds. “ The
schools seemed well supplied with physical and
chemical apparatus,” 3 wrote a visitor to Pe-
king and Tientsin who had been inspecting
the schools established there. Even the school
in the “ White Pig Village ” boasted “ bio-
logical, zoological and physical culture charts,
also maps and blackboards ” and an organ
from Japan.

The salaries paid the teachers are usually
very large as salaries go in China, sometimes
extravagantly so. “ The matron told us that
the teachers’ salaries vary from ‘ over ten to
forty dollars a month,’ ” said a missionary,
after a visit to the Foochow Woman’s Normal
School. “ We consider ten dollars a month
an enormous salary.” 4 “ The teacher has very

2 Mrs. M. L. Taft, in Woman's Work in the Far East,
Sept., 1906.

3 Dr. Mary Carleton, in Missionary Review of the
World, Feb., 1908.

4 Miss M. J. Shire, in India's Women and China's
Daughters, Feb., 1908.

Gentry and Government Schools 133

light work, teaching arithmetic, geography
and physical culture for three hours a day, and
the salary is nearly five times what we offer
our teachers,” 5 reads the letter of another, who
had been talking with a teacher in a govern-
ment school in Peking. Another, after visiting
a government normal school, wrote of one of
the pupil teachers, “ She is a very clever girl
of nineteen or twenty and gets thirty dollars a
month while in training. (This is eight times
the salary of my day school teacher.) ” 6

A letter from Dr. Carleton of Foochow
tells of an interesting case. “ We visited
Emily Hsu, and with her visited two schools
in which she teaches. Emily is also tutoring
in a private family. If I remember correctly
she teaches two hours in each of the two
schools, and tutors one or two hours. For this
service she receives $140 (Mexican) per
month. To appreciate what this munificent
income means one must compare it with the
salary of other teachers. A first degree man,
purely a native teacher, may be employed for
from four to six dollars a month. Young
men with a small knowledge of English com-
mand from ten to twenty dollars a month.

0 Miss Mary Andrews, in Life and Light for Women,
Nov., 1907.

6 Woman’s Work in the Far East, March, 1906.

134 Education of Women in China

Young men, graduates from our Anglo-
Chinese College, start in at the post office or
customs, clerking, with twenty dollars a
month.

“ Emily Hsu was educated in our girls’
boarding school and later in Foochow Confer-
ence Seminar\\, where she learned English, and
I believe she also learned a little Mandarin.
She quietly goes off up to Tientsin and walks
into this post with a salary each month as
great, or nearly so, as her father, a presiding
elder in our conference, receives in a year.” 7

Even more remarkable was the salary re-
cently offered a native kindergarten teacher,
$100 gold, not Mexican, a month,8 a salary
much larger than that which single mission-
aries receive, although living expenses are nec-
essarily much higher for a foreigner than for
a Chinese.

The courses of study pursued in the gov-
ernment and gentry schools van' largely in
detail, but on the whole show much similarity.
Sometimes the curriculum is extremely sim-
ple. “ The studies at present are Chinese,
arithmetic and needlework,” 9 wrote a cor-

T Dr. Mary Carleton, in Missionary Review of the
World, Feb., 1908.

• Mrs. J. W. Bashford, in Life and Light for Women,
Jan.. 1908.

* North China Daily Herald, Sept. 25, 1909.

Gentry and Government Schools 135

respondent of the “ North China Daily Her-
ald,” of a newly established school in the in-
terior. Somewhat more elaborate is the course
of the Woman’s Normal School of Foochow,
where “ classics, Mandarin, arithmetic and
geography, needlework, embroidery, artificial
flower making, crochet in cotton and wool, are
taught,” 10 although the greater length of the
curriculum is caused chiefly by the addition of
the courses in handwork.

The more elaborate course of study in the
Public School for Girls, of Tientsin, is proba-
bly fairly representative of the work offered
by the larger schools. “ The Handbook Guide
to Tientsin ” reports that the students of the
Public School for Girls “ are taught Chinese
classics, history, arithmetic, geography, natural
history, Japanese, English, music, drawing and
calisthenics.” Another writer on the govern-
ment schools of Tientsin says, “The curricu-
lum in every school is about the same.” 11 Not
very different from this curriculum is that of
the government school for girls in Hangchow,
where Chinese reading and writing, arithmetic,
geography, drawing, singing and handwork

10 Miss M. J. Shire, in India’s Women and China’s
Daughters, Feb., 1908.

11 Mrs. G. T. Candlin, in Woman’s Work in the Far
East, March, 1908.

136 Education of Women in China

(embroider}’ or crocheting) are offered in the
primary department, with an addition of his-
tory, algebra, and simple psychology in the
higher course. A large gentry school for girls
in the same city publishes a very similar cur-
riculum, in which Chinese, arithmetic, geog-
raphy, handwork, algebra and a course which
aims to give instruction in methods of teach-
ing are the principal features.

Probably the most serious defect in these
curricula is the almost total absence of any
study of physical and biological sciences. The
presence of biological and zoological charts,
and physical and chemical apparatus has been
mentioned, but the curricula show that the
work done in science has either been very ele-
mentary, or wholly absent. The same writer
who spoke of the presence of physical and
chemical apparatus in the schools in Peking
and Tientsin adds that they “ were quietly rest-
ing on the shelves, and though well labelled
seemed never to have been used.” 12 The lack
of this kind of study would be a serious one
in any country, but is especially so in China,
whose old educational system has trained the
memory rather than the reasoning faculties,
and has taught the student to ask, “ What did

11 Dr. Mary Carleton, in Missionary Review of the
World, Feb., 1908.

Gentry and Government Schools 137

our fathers say?” rather than “What is
truth? ” China needs to acquire the scientific
spirit, and the schools should be doing all that
they can to develop it, by giving their students
the training of the scientific laboratory.

A less serious criticism has been made of
the prominence given to embroidery, crochet-
ing, etc., in their curricula. Manual training
of one kind or another is being given increasing
prominence in American schools and probably
no thoughtful student of the educational prob-
lems of China would fail to recommend that
it be given a place in the curricula of Chinese
schools. Apart from its universal value, it
has a peculiar service to perform in China,
where long finger nails have for centuries pro-
claimed the scholar’s scorn of manual labour.
The criticism has not been of the presence of
handwork, but of the disproportionate amount
of time spent on it in many schools, and of the
kind of handwork in which training has been
given.

The Chinese are noted for their skill in em-
broidery, and it seems scarcely necessary to
give the teaching of this art a large place on
the school calendar. Time spent in artificial
flower making could doubtless be spent to bet-
ter purpose, and judging from the reports of
those who have seen the exhibits of crocheted

138 Education of Women in China

and knitted articles, the same thing could be
said of the hours spent in their manufacture.
“ Fancy work, principally crocheting, was
taught in all the schools,” wrote Dr. Carleton.
“ Some of this was on inspection under glass
cases, and I must confess it was supremely
ugly.” “ All manner of useless crocheted arti-
cles of many hues,” is another visitor’s verdict,
and a third declares that the colour combina-
tions make one weary.

Other criticisms of the curricula might be
made, but after all the final judgment of a
school cannot be made on the basis of the out-
line of its course of study. It is comparatively
easy to strike out some subject of the cur-
riculum and substitute another in its place.
The test of a school is not so much the excel-
lence of its plan of work, important as that is,
as the excellence and thoroughness of the work
itself. An examination of their practice will
give us a better basis of judgment of the
strength of the government and gentry schools,
than any study of their theory.

Dr. Carleton’s verdict, given after her visit
to the government girls’ schools of Peking,
Tientsin and Hankow, is suggestive. “ Splen-
did as are these schools by comparison with
an old style native school, yet we could but
feel how poor it all was.” The government

Gentry and Government Schools 139

schools have not lacked good buildings or
equipment or anything else that money could
supply, and while the financial support of the
gentry schools has varied according to the
wealth of the backers, their weaknesses are
not attributable to lack of funds. The weak-
nesses of both classes of schools are due to
the fact that they have not been able to supply
themselves with that without which no school
can be successful, whatever else it may pos-
sess, namely, a strong teaching force. The
desire for Western education has swept over
China so suddenly that the demand for men
and women who have themselves received this
education and are trained to impart it has far
exceeded the supply. This is true to an even
greater extent in the case of the women than
in that of the men. While the education of
boys has always been approved in China, the
general popularity of woman’s education is as
recent as that of Western education, and the
Chinese women able to teach in these modern
schools are an even smaller number than the
men. Clause 17 of the rules of the govern-
ment girls’ schools of Tientsin is very sug-
gestive of this dearth of women teachers, in
its simple statement, “If any educated ladies
care to offer their services as teachers they
will be accepted.”

140 Education of Women in China

At first the employment of Japanese teach-
ers seemed to afford at least a partial solution
of the problem, and Japanese women were
members of the faculty of almost every gov-
ernment or gentry school for girls, often being
in charge of the work. But this proved to be
far from satisf acton*. The schools felt that
they could not wait for the Japanese teachers
to acquire the language, and the work done
either through an interpreter, or with a super-
ficial knowledge of Chinese on the part of the
teacher, or of Japanese on the part of the pu-
pils, was of necessity far from thorough.
Moreover, the Japanese teachers were often
not at all competent to teach the courses as-
signed them. As early as 1907 a missionary
in North China wrote, “ The Chinese are com-
ing to feel more and more dissatisfied with
the teaching done by many of the Japanese
teachers/’ 13

The majority of the Chinese women em-
ployed have proved to be little more satisfac-
tory. A missionary in Shensi gives an ex-
treme case of the incompetence of some of
these teachers. “ A few weeks ago we were
visited by a small school of ten pupils in
charge of two ladies. All were dressed in long

u Miss Mary Andrews, in Life and Light for IV omen,
Nov., 1907.

Gentry and Government Schools 141

gowns of black sateen trimmed with gold
braid, wearing peaked caps and high boots
like boys. They filed in in order and saluted
at the word of command, but when we of-
fered them books they were unable to read,
even the ladies in charge being quite ig-
norant.” 14

Another wrote of a visit to the practice
school of a government normal school for
women, the music mistress of which had mas-
tered but two pages of music, “ the most elab-
orate tune being a variation of ‘ There is a
happy land.’ It was played slowly with one
finger of each hand.” 15

While there are probably few cases of in-
competence quite so glaring as these, really
good teachers of the new education are rarely
found in these schools. Men trained in the
Chinese classics are not hard to find and they
have been employed to teach the girls to read
and write their own language. Nor has it
been difficult to find women to give instruction
in embroidery, etc. But other subjects are usu-
ally poorly taught. A letter from a friend
teaching in a mission school in Hangchow tells
of a pupil who has come to her from one of

14 Miss Beckingsale, in Woman’s Work in the Far
East, June, 1907.

18 Woman’s Work in the Far East, March, 1906.

142 Education of Women in China

the gentry schools. “ She is very bright and
is doing nicely. She shows, however, a poor
foundation in mathematics, geography, etc.
She can commit beautifully, but not reason so
well. It was quite a new thing for her to
have to explain her problems.” The same let-
ter states that “ Most of the work (in the
government and gentry schools of Hangchow)
is done by the lecture rather than the recita-
tion method/’ which is certainly not a wise plan
to use in such elementary work.

That the educators of China have realized
this fundamental weakness in these schools
is shown both by the very large inducements
which they offer to trained women, and by
the efforts they have made to train teachers.
Many normal schools have been established
in various parts of the Empire. Before the
opening of the Government Normal School
of Tientsin it was announced that “ In order
that properly prepared women may be able to
relinquish other occupations and take this
training, the viceroy offers each student ten
dollars a month, and also promises positions
as teachers when the course of study is satis-
factorily completed.”

But this very effort to meet the demand for
teachers has been another source of weakness
in the government and gentry schools. Eager-

Gentry and Government Schools 143

ness to push the pupils out into teaching has
made the requirements for a teaching position
very low, and has led to rapid and superficial
study. After a study of the government and
gentry schools in Hangchow, Miss Nourse of
the Baptist Mission in that city writes, “ You
notice in all or nearly all the schools the desire
for usefulness — the normal training idea.
They have not the teachers to give the needed
drill either in studies or in normal training.
And so far they do not appreciate the fact that
it takes say sixteen years, instead of seven
or eight, to put a girl where she is capable
of teaching. I believe the girls would stay
in school much longer if anything was offered
them.”

Mrs. Taft of Tientsin, in an article on
“ Some Public Schools in Chihli,” calls at-
tention to the same thing. “ These glimpses
show clearly the widespread eagerness for edu-
cation. They also show that the spell of the
old classics is broken and that what is wanted
is a modern Western education. But there
seem to be at least two dangers, — a strong de-
mand for showy accomplishments, and for
quick methods. One asks, ‘ Will the Chinese
girl be willing to scorn delights and live labori-
ous days for the sake of a solid, thorough
training? ’ We think she will. We must not

144 Education of Women in China

forget that there is a present emergency and
an imperative demand for Chinese women
teachers which palliates this cry for lightning
methods. So great is the need for women
teachers that the viceroy is about to open a
woman's normal school in this city, the avowed
purpose of this school, as stated in the elaborate
‘ chang ch’eng,’ being ‘ quickly made teach-
ers/ ” 16

“ Some teachers have been sent out to
teach,” writes Miss Russell of Peking, “ after
having had but six months in the study of
Western sciences.” 17

That practically none of the government and
gentry schools are giving their pupils such
training as would enable them to go out and
do strong work as teachers, is evidenced by the
replies made to one of a set of questions sent
out in the winter of 1909 to the principals of
the leading mission schools for girls in China.
The object of the questions was to determine
whether or not there was need of a woman’s
college or colleges in China, and one of them
read, “ Do you think the government and gen-
try schools of your territory would be willing,
and prepared in point of scholarship, to send

** Woman's Work in the Far East, Sept., 1906.

,T Miss Russell, in Woman's Work in the Far East,
June, 1908.

Gentry and Government Schools 145

students to such an institution?” The an-
swers received were substantially unanimous
in their verdict that the government and gentry
schools, although some of them are termed
normal schools and others colleges, are as yet
far from doing the equivalent of high school or
academy work.

“ It will be many years before they can
send students into any grade above the high
school,” wrote a teacher from Peking. From
central China, the missionary in charge of a
large school in Hankow, wrote, “ I know of
no government school for girls that could pos-
sibly prepare students for a college entrance
examination.” “ Willing, but poorly pre-
pared,” was the verdict of the principal of a
Shanghai school. From Hangchow another
wrote, “ They might be willing, but I fear
they would not be prepared in point of scholar-
ship,” and added, “ In the first place they do
not comprehend what entrance to college (of
real college grade) means, and then they have
not the teachers to carry it through if they
did.” Word came from Foochow, “ Our gen-
try and government schools are not yet ready
to send students, but they will be willing to
do so when they are ready.” Still farther
south, in Canton, another wrote, “ The govern-
ment schools and the gentry schools of South

146 Education of Women in China

China have no girls ready in point of scholar -
ship for a college training. And I don't see
how they can have any in three or four years’
time as long as they have no properly trained
teachers to prepare them for college.”

It goes without saying that such “ quickly
made ” teachers have failed to meet the need
for teachers adequately. A friend has re-
cently written me of the experience of a gentry
school graduate, which is probably typical of
many :

“ A little day school supported by the gov-
ernment has just been opened across from us.
There are over thirty pupils. The teacher is
a graduate of Kong Nii Yah Dong. . . . Poor
thing, she is discouraged already, for she can’t
do anything with them. She says if she could
have an older person to govern she could do
the teaching. It’s just, you see, a matter of
not being prepared for what she is attempt-
ing. She says she promised to try a month,
but says she can't stand it any longer than that.
She is teaching them Chinese (national reader)
and arithmetic.”

The Chinese themselves realize the defects
of these schools. Many of the most prominent
men of the official and gentry class who, now
that they are fully awake to the desirability
of education for women, are determined that

Gentry and Government Schools 147

their daughters shall receive the best educa-
tional privileges available, are sending them to
the mission schools in preference to those es-
tablished by the government. A few years ago
a number of Chinese officials in Hankow ap-
pealed to Bishop Roots of the American Epis-
copal Mission there, to establish a school for
girls to which they could send their daughters,
as they were much dissatisfied with the gov-
ernment school which the girls had been at-
tending. The expense of the school was to
be borne by them, but they asked that some
woman of the mission staff be assigned to take
charge of it.18

Yet in spite of all their present weakness
no one doubts that the government and gentry
schools have come to stay. China has resolved
that she will give education to her daughters,
and she is not to be balked by any difficulties,
however discouraging they may be. These
schools are stronger now than they were four
or five years ago. In a recently published
letter from Miss Russell of Peking we read :
“ The first two years there were many students
who were practically ‘tramps,’ going about
from school to school. The Board of Educa-
tion has gradually brought this element un-
der control, and is making rules for more
18 Spirit of Missions , June, 1906.

1 48 Education of Women in China

stringently governing the pupils.” 19 In the
same letter she says that some of the schools
“ are slowly developing into schools that call
for respect and praise.”

“ Primary, superficial, insufficiently in-
structed they may be,” writes another, “ but
here and there from the number of institu-
tions planted is growing a school destined to
live and become a power in China.” 20 What-
ever therefore may be the present weaknesses
of the government and gentry schools for girls,
the energy with which the Chinese are seeking
to strengthen them, supported by the wise and
sympathetic cooperation of those more experi-
enced in modem educational methods, gives
hope that they will eventually become a real
and vital factor in the moulding of the new
China.

1# Life and Light for Women , Feb., 1910.

*• Chinese Recorder, Feb., 1910.

VIII

THE PRESENT POPULARITY OF
WOMAN’S EDUCATION

THE past decade has witnessed in China
what is probably the greatest educa-
tional renaissance the world has ever
seen. And no feature of this awakening has
been more interesting or significant than the
universal interest felt in the education of
women. The establishment of government and
gentry schools for girls is convincing evidence
that the interest is a real and vital thing. For
years the mission schools for girls had been
breaking down the prejudices against woman’s
education, and winning their way into favour
in the communities in which they were situ-
ated, but even the most optimistic advocates
of education for women were unprepared for
the suddenness with which their cause leaped
into universal favour. During the last few
years woman’s education has enjoyed not only
local approbation but national popularity. En-
thusiasm for the education of women is in the
very air of China to-day.

149

150 Education of Women in China

The principal of a school in Nanking writes,
“ One of our little girls recently asked to go
home to have her picture taken. She proudly
showed me the result, which was a feminine
family group, with grandmother, mother, three
or more aunts, and about six cousins. All had
assumed an intellectual expression and were
posing before open books. I suppose our little
one was the only member of the group who
could read ! The others only wanted to. But
that picture stands for China's women to-day.
Every woman in the empire, I believe, wants
to read.” 1

The experience of a lady of wealth and
position in Peking is suggestive of the new
vista which is opening before the Chinese
women :

“ I have always prided myself on my beau-
tiful clothes and jewels,” she said. “ A few
months ago I saw a very beautiful new silk,
and as I was going soon to an entertainment I
decided to buy it and be the envy of all my
friends. When the time came I was the best
dressed lady there, but every one was inter-
ested in a quietly dressed little lady who was
educated and could talk about a great world
we had never seen and only knew of dimly.

* Miss White, in Woman’s Missionary Friend, Oct,
1908.

Popularity of Woman’s Education 1 5 1

No one paid any attention to my rich dress, or
was envious of me, and as for myself, I hated
it and longed to know what she knew and
talk as she talked/’2

Mrs. Isaac T. Headland says that in
Peking there is not a prince’s palace or a
Manchu official’s home where the girls are not
all studying; that now a woman is ashamed if
she cannot read, whereas formerly it was held
to be a matter of little moment.3

“ It was only last week,” Miss Honzinger of
Nanchang writes, “ that I was a guest at a
feast and numbered among the guests was the
wife of the magistrate of Nanchang. She in-
quired into the details of our school and then
asked if we would take her as a pupil. We
had to say no, for experienced missionaries
say that we must not put the women and girls
together. Many a married woman has come
to seek entrance to our school ; many put their
hair in a braid as is the custom with school
girls, because they wish to study.” 4

In very practical ways Chinese women are
manifesting their interest in woman’s educa-
tion.

2 Miss Russell, in Woman's Work in the Far East,
June, 1908.

3 Woman's Missionary Friend, Aug., 1906.

4 Miss Honsinger, in Woman’s Missionary Friend,
March, 1910.

152 Education of Women in China

“ Some time ago the daughter of an official
in the province of Leu-chuan died, and before
her death she asked her father to allow her
to give all her property for the opening of
a school for girls. Later a Mrs. Wu, a very
well educated lady of a fine old family, came
into a large property on the death of her
mother, and this she turned over entirely for
girls’ schools. Then the wife of an official
in Peking died, and at her request her hus-
band gave about $25,000 to help start some
girls’ schools in Peking.” 5

The women of China, who have lived in such
seclusion for centuries, are even going to
other countries in pursuit of education. As
early as 1902 “ The Diary of Events in
the Far East ” contained this surprising
note:

" June 7. — Departure for Japan of eight
young Chinese lady students under the chap-
eronage of Madame Wu, the wife of a Chinese
M.A., Mr. Wu-chih-hu, a native of Weisien,
who also accompanies the party. These eight
young ladies are to undergo a course of three
or four years’ education in Japan. This is
a decided step in advance for China; all the
young ladies belong to distinguished families

• Miss Russell, in Woman's Work in the Far East,
June, 1908.

The Girls of the Baldwin Memorial School, Nanchang

Popularity of Woman’s Education 153

amongst the gentry and literati of the prov-
ince.” 6

The young men of China are strengthening
the cause of woman’s education by their de-
mand for educated wives. They have awak-
ened to hitherto unrealized possibilities of mu-
tual helpfulness and enjoyment in married life,
and are seeking wives whose education and
training will make them congenial compan-
ions. Miss Bonafield of Foochow tells of a
young man of that city who had been without
his knowledge betrothed by a member of his
family to an uneducated girl. A betrothal in
China is very nearly as binding as marriage,
but this y :>ung man declared, “ The girl
must go o school or I will not marry
her,” and it was not until he had suc-
ceeded in obtaining entrance for her into
a girls’ school of the city that he would
promise to carry out his side of the agree-
ment.7

One educated Chinese man, Mr. Wang, pub-
lished a “ Girls’ Reader ” a few years ago, in
the preface of which he made a very emphatic
statement in regard to the value of woman’s
education. “ We should all realize that the
education of the women of a country is really

6 Chinese Recorder, Aug., 1902.

7 Woman’s Missionary Friend, April, 1907.

154 Education of Women in China

of more importance than the education of
her men,” he wrote, “ for as has been said
by one of our sages, ‘ A good girl makes a
good wife; a good wife makes a good mother;
a good mother makes a good son/ If the
mothers have not been trained from childhood
where are we to have the strong men for our
nation. If then we say, as China has said for
so long, ‘ Let the men be educated, let the
women remain in ignorance/ one-half at least
of the nation cannot be as useful as it should.
It is as if one-half of a man's body were para-
lyzed; these members not only being helpless
but proving a weight and hindrance to those
not affected.”

As the cause of woman’s education thus
leaped into favour, the mission schools for
girls became correspondingly popular. It was
a well-deserved popularity, for it was largely
to their years of patient, persevering work, in
the face of prejudice and obstacles well-nigh
insurmountable, that the present interest in
woman’s education owed its existence. The
interest felt in woman's education by the Chi-
nese to-day is a part of a general and wide-
spread national awakening, but it is to a great
extent based on, and sustained by, the fact
that Chinese women have proved themselves
able to receive and wisely use education, and

Popularity of Woman’s Education 155

this fact has been demonstrated by the mis-
sion schools.

“ In the schools which have already been
opened at some of the ports and by the mis-
sionaries in the principal towns,” said Dr. Liu
Ming-tse of Hangchow in a plea for schools
for girls, “ we find our Chinese sisters making
rapid progress in English, literature and con-
versation, astronomy, geography, medicine,
mathematics, music, etc. ... It is not that
by nature they are dull, for this has
been proved not to be the case. . . . Seeing
where our weakness lies the missionaries, who
know us more thoroughly than other foreign-
ers, have opened girls’ schools in different cities
and towns all over the Empire. They spend
money and time thereon to an incalculable ex-
tent. The benefits we receive thereby cannot
be overestimated. Such philanthropists can-
not bear to stand by and see their Chinese sis-
ters relegated to positions of absolute useless-
ness.” 8

Lady Pao, who started a school in Peking a
few years ago, said, as she was taking some
American friends through it one day, “ Had it
not been for the example and efforts of you
foreign ladies all these years, this school would
not have existed. . . . Your schools and influ-
8 Woman's Work in the Far East , Nov., 1901.

156 Education of Women in China

ence have made this day possible and you have
opened the way for us. I thank you foreign
ladies for what you have done in thus open-
ing the doors of education for the women of
China.” 9

The attitude of the educated young men is
indicated by a letter written by the president of
the World's Chinese Student Federation to one
of the missionaries, in which he said :

“ I highly appreciate your deep interest in
the welfare of our young women in China,
and the noble work you and other missionary
friends are doing in the education of our
young women. The field for such work at
present is certainly very great, but the workers
very few. As a nation we owe you a heavy
debt for your noble endeavour on behalf of
our women.” 10

No longer are placards denouncing girls’
schools and all concerned in them, posted in
public places as formerly. Instead, such no-
tices as this appear in the daily newspapers :

“ In this city (Nanchang) outside the 4 Vir-
tue Conquering Gate,’ there has been estab-
lished a school for girls called ‘ The Baldwin
Memorial.’ It is under the principalship of

• Miss Russell, in Woman's Work in the Far East ,
June, 1908.

*• Woman's Missionary Friend, Oct, 1906.

Popularity of Woman’s Education 157

Miss Kate Ogborn. Her love for others and
her patient labour to provide for teaching girls
has, since the beginning of the school until
now, been constant and untiring. Two of my
daughters have the privilege of being in the
school and they are receiving most faithful in-
struction under Miss Ogborn. It is with pleas-
ure that I take this means of announcing the
work and privileges of the school, feeling sure
that others will wish to send their daughters.
The methods of instruction are good; the char-
acter of the school is of the very best. It is
very highly spoken of by the many visitors who
go to see it.” 11

Eager interest in these schools has taken the
place of the indifference on the part of Chi-
nese parents which was almost as hard to bear
as active opposition.

“ At a recent commencement exercise in the
Nanking Christian Girls’ School the church
was crowded to the doors. The windows were
open and masses of heads looked into the room
from outside. Missionaries and Christians did
not make up the bulk of that audience, but
the rich and influential men and women of
that great city eagerly responded to the invi-
tations to be present on this occasion when
four girls were to be graduated. These lead-
11 Woman's Missionary Friend, Feb., 1905.

1 58 Education of Women in China

ers for the first time in their history were
struggling with the problem of education for
the despised half of China’s race. . . . With
the coming of the new era in China the leaders
are now undergoing a change of attitude to-
ward their womanhood. . . . Even the cus-
tom of the girls’ names is changing. Hereto-
fore such names were given as ‘ Want a boy,’
4 Too many girls,’ 4 Come a boy,’ 1 Little
Trouble ’ ; now we hear of 4 Little Love,’ 4 Lit-
tle Precious ’ and 4 Little Joy.’ ” 12

44 The schools are overwhelmed with ap-
plications,” writes a teacher in the same
city. 44 The demand for the education of
girls is far beyond the capacity not only
of mission schools but also of government
schools, that new, strange thing in Chinese
history.” 13

The head of the Southern Presbyterian
School for girls in Hangchow wrote in 1909,
44 Last autumn we refused thirty-four appli-
cants and I have not kept a full account of
those turned away, but I have no doubt we
could as easily have two hundred pupils as
one hundred.”

In Shanghai another teacher writes, 44 God’s

11 Rev. E. Osgood, in Missionary Review of the
World, Nov., 1907.

u Woman’s Missionary Friend, Nov., 1906.

Popularity of Woman’s Education 159

people have prayed and hoped that China
would awake to the imperative need of educa-
tion for her daughters, but now the first signs
of awakening have so overwhelmed us and so
nearly exhausted our visible resources that
wise workers are considering carefully the very
best use of these same resources. Though
dormitory, classroom and dining room are all
crowded, it needs a firm heart to refuse to take
in the ‘ one more ’ eager applicant and the
‘ one more ’ again; but now it has come to the
point of being obliged to refuse applicants
who come early in the spring to ask for ad-
mission in the fall term, because they have
heard that three or four pupils are to be grad-
uated in July. One Chinese gentleman made
such an application a year before his daughter
was old enough to come to school.” 14

The days when the schools were composed
of the little outcasts of society, slave girls,
foundlings, or the children of the poorest of
the poor, have long since passed.

“We have not sought the higher classes
and filled our dormitories with the daughters
of the rich,” wrote a teacher at St. Mary’s Hall
in 1901. “As the result of what we have done,
the higher classes are now knocking for en-

14 Miss Cogdal, in Woman’s Work in the Far East ,
Sept., 1908.

160 Education of Women in China

trance. Already within the last year eighteen
entirely self-supporting girls have been re-
ceived from the rich merchant class of the
Yang-tze valley.” 15

From the Baldwin Memorial School in
Nanchang, the teacher in charge wrote, “ The
school girls are all from good families, some
of them from very good homes. They give
a character to the school which is not to be
despised. The time has come in China when
the labours of the pioneers are bearing fruit,
in the way of giving a taste for education
among women. Hence it is that we are able
to require a fee from every pupil who comes
in.” 14

From the north Miss Reed writes, “ Another
means of extension is presented in the appli-
cation of girls from non-Christian families in
Peking, girls of rich families, who would pay
their own expenses. . . . Before this such
families have held aloof from the church
schools, but now the interest in the education
of girls is so great that they are ready to come
here for the sake of study.” 17

“ Appeals are being made to the mission-

“ Miss Dodson, in Spirit of Missions, Dec., 1901.

” Miss Ogbom, in Woman's Missionary Friend,
March, 1904.

Life and Light for Women, April, 1908.

Popularity of Woman’s Education 1 6 1

aries for teachers and the opening of schools
for girls,” writes another worker. “ Wherever
they are opened these (the upper) classes read-
ily send their girls and loyally support the
schools both financially and morally.” 18

Perhaps nothing gives clearer evidence of
the attitude of parents in the matter of the
education of their daughters than the willing-
ness to pay for that education which they now
show.

“Fifteen years ago we did not have a self-
supporting pupil,” reads the annual report of
the Methodist Boarding School, for 1909.
“ Now we have sixty who are self-support-
ing.” 19 The same year’s report of the College
Preparatory and Normal School for girls of
the same mission, lays similar emphasis upon
the changed conditions in this matter.

“We have had during the year thirty-six
students, only one-third of whom have received
any financial help from the school, and some
of these only partial assistance. The girls pay
their board, regular tuition, rental for books,
and for organ or piano instruction. It is an
encouragement to the missionaries who are
working and striving toward self-support in

18 Rev. E. Osgood, in Missionary Review of the
World , Nov., 1907.

10 The Foochow Woman’s Conference Reportj 1909.

1 62 Education of Women in China

our schools, to know that it would have been
impossible a few years ago to persuade the
fathers and brothers of our girls to maintain
them in school as they are now doing.

“ A few years ago a lovely, cultured young
woman was graduated from the Conference
Seminary, which was the predecessor of the
present one. During her school course she was
obliged to depend almost entirely on her own
efforts or the support given by the mission-
aries. Now, without any added wealth hav-
ing come to the family, the younger sister,
who is in no wise superior to the elder o* any
better beloved in the family, receives willing
support from her home. All her expenses are
paid by the family, including six dollars a
year for piano lessons.” 20

Instead of permitting his daughter to attend
school only on condition that he shall be wholly
relieved of her support, the Chinese father
now writes such letters as this, with check
enclosed :

“Dear Mrs. Jewell: —

Dr. Tsao has kindly informed me the amount for my
daughter’s board while attending your school. Allow
me to thank you profoundly for your extreme kindness
to my little girl, who is anxious to rejoin the school
w’hen the next term commences. You are doing a most

** The Foochow Woman's Conference Report , 1909.

Popularity of Woman’s Education 163

noble work and I shall be most happy to render any
assistance in my power. Thanking you again for what
you have done for my little one, I remain, dear Madame,
Yours most respectfully,

C. W. Tsung ” 21

When Miss June Nicholson, acting head of
McTyeire School, Shanghai, felt the need of
rather extensive repairs on the school build-
ing and grounds, she decided to ask the fa-
thers of her school girls, many of whom
were men of wealth, to furnish the money
needed. A subscription book was procured,
and sent around to the school’s patrons with
most gratifying results. Miss Nicholson
wrote :

“ The father of one of the girls gave one
hundred and fifty dollars, and interested him-
self in securing subscriptions from his friends
which altogether amounted to four hundred
and forty dollars. An expectant Tao-tai (of-
ficial), the father of one of our girls, tele-
graphed from Tientsin that he wished to sub-
scribe two hundred taels (about two hundred
and seventy dollars). A little girl about thir-
teen years old, a daughter of one of the
wealthiest families in Shanghai, came into the
study one morning and said, ‘ I have told my
father I did not want him to give any little
21 Woman's Missionary Friend , Dec., 1907.

164 Education of Women in China

money (small amount).’ Several days after,
on Monday morning, she came into the study,
her face shining with joy, and with something
in her hand so heavy she could hardly carry
it. Upon inquiry as to what she was carrying
she said, 4 Oh, it is money,’ and it was three
hundred silver dollars tied up in a bandanna
handkerchief. Three families gave a thousand
dollars. The remainder came in smaller sums
of one hundred, fifty, thirty and twenty dol-
lars. By the time school closed we had enough
in hand to embolden us to give out the con-
tract for the work.” 22

The fact that this was the first time a sub-
scription had ever been asked, and that the
American boycott was just than being vio-
lently agitated, made these generous gifts to
the school a peculiarly strong testimony to
the value which the Chinese placed upon the
work there being done.

After inspecting the work of the Methodist
Girls’ School in Nanking, a Chinese visitor of
high rank gave fifty dollars to be used in its
work, with the remark, " I have been over
many government schools but never have I seen
such excellent work as in your school.” Then
turning to a friend who was with him, he
added, “ After all, it is the missionaries who
** W Oman’s Work in the Far East , March, 1906.

The Members of the Young Women’s Christian Association
— The Laura Haygood School, Soochow

Popularity of Woman’s Education 165

are doing the real educational work in
China.” 23

The day of opposition and derision passed
away long since, and we rejoiced in the hard
won gains of the period of gradual growth,
when little by little the schools for girls won
their way into favour among the people of
the communities in which they worked. But
the sun of a new day has risen, the day when
interest in schools for girls is not local but uni-
versal, the day when woman’s education is
looked upon with approval so strong as to merit
the term enthusiasm.

28 Woman’s Missionary Friend, Sept., 1908.

IX

THE RELATION OF WOMAN’S EDU-
CATION TO THE NEW CHINA

FULLY to appreciate what the new move-
ment for the education of women in
China means, one must take account of
the place which woman has formerly occupied
in Chinese society and the consequent sig-
nificance of any change in her general position.
In the great social transition through which
China is passing, no feature is more marked
than the emergence into prominence of the
women who have for centuries been kept in
relative seclusion, and to this new-born prom-
inence the education of women is related, both
as cause and effect.

The women of China possess native strength
of character. Mrs. Isabella Bird Bishop once
said, “Of all Oriental women I love the Chi-
nese women best; they have so much character
and are so womanly.” On their return to
America, the members of a deputation sent to
China by the American Board a few years ago,
expressed much the same opinion. “ The mod-
166

Woman’s Education and New China 167

esty, reserve and strength of the Chinese
women have impressed us profoundly in all
parts of the country,” they reported. These
impressions are shared by those whose life in
China has given them opportunities for even
greater observation and knowledge of the
women of the country. Dr. MacGowan, for
over fifty years a resident of South China, says,
“ Chinese women are acknowledged to be capa-
ble, and possessed of natural dignity of char-
acter.” “ Morally,” says Dr. W. A. P. Mar-
tin, one of North China’s veteran missionaries,
“ they are China’s better half — modest, grace-
ful and attractive.” 1 Mr. Swanson of Amoy
declares : “ I am in the habit of saying that
there is some backbone in Chinese men, and if
I were to go on to say what I think of the
women I should say that there were several
backbones in Chinese women. They have been
the great force which has preserved the coun-
try. I say this without fear of contradic-
tion.” 2

They have shown also a native keenness of
mind, glimmering through the dulness which
has been the result of disuse, and responding

1 Quoted in Dennis, Christian Missions and Social
Progress, Vol. II, p. 189.

2 Report of the London Missionary Conference of
1888.

1 68 Education of Women in China

to cultivation with amazing freshness and vig-
our. “ Intellectually they are not stupid but
ignorant, left to grow up in a kind of twilight
without the benefit of schools/’ says Dr. Mar-
tin. “ Some of the brightest minds I ever met
in China were those of girls in our mission
schools.” 3 Mrs. S. L. Baldwin, whose years
of residence in Foochow gave her opportunity
for intimate knowledge of the Chinese women,
averred, “ There are no brainier women any-
where than the Chinese.” “ Let none think
Chinese women inferior to those of any other
land. There is no line of study or of effort
in which they do not excel, and no height
of character to which they do not attain,” is
the emphatic statement of the women of the
National Committee of the Young Women's
Christian Association of China, in a letter to
the World’s Conference of that organization
held in Berlin, May, 1910.

With such native strength of mind and char-
acter it is not surprising that even while these
powers were left undeveloped, or at best only
slightly cultivated, Chinese women have never-
theless exercised a greater influence than has
been supposed. “Of all heathen countries
there is none where the woman has the same

* Quoted in Dennis. Christian Missions and Social
Progress, Vol. II, p. 190.

Woman’s Education and New China 169

power as she has in China,” said Mr. Swan-
son of Amoy at the London Missionary Con-
ference in 1888. He went on to speak of the
degradation to which the Chinese woman has
been subjected, but added, “ But whilst you
have this degradation in China, woman has a
remarkable place of power. . . . They have
been important factors in its political history
and they are important factors in its social
life. I remember once speaking to one of
our Chinese Christians as to why he did not
do a certain thing for me. ‘Well/ said he,
‘ my wife was not at home and I never do any-
thing of that kind without consulting her.’
I said, £ How is that? ’ ‘ Well,’ said he, ‘ If

you had married one of that kind you would
not have asked the question.’ ” 4

A teacher of a girls’ school in Kalgan, wrote
some years ago, “ We lost a promising pupil
by forgetting that woman has her say and
way sometimes in China. One of the men of
the station class directed his daughter’s feet
to be unbound without asking his wife’s con-
sent. When she heard the news she would
have killed herself had not the man promised
to bring the girl home.” 5 6

4 Report of the London Missionary Conference of

1888.

6 Mission Studies, Nov., 1895.

170 Education of Women in China

“ It has been my privilege,” writes Dr. Annie
Walters Fearn, “ to know intimately several
families in Soochow where the wife and
mother is decidedly the head of the house,
including the husband. In one case, after the
death of a wealthy man, the management of
his estate was put into the hands of his small
wife. She kept the books and received in per-
son the accounts of her stewards who had
charge under her of the grain and produce
brought in from the estate. In one family of
great wealth and influence not one cent is
spent without the consent of the Madam. To
her are submitted the husband's accounts: no
business transaction is completed without her
sanction ; hers is the ruling spirit. In another
family the eighteen-year-old daughter wields
undisputed power. At the recent marriage of
the oldest son the daughter, in person, deliv-
ered the invitations; she was mistress of cere-
monies; no question was answered without
reference to her, and deference was paid to
her slightest wish. These are only three cases
out of hundreds which might be enumerated.” 6

Failure to recognize the importance of the
influence exerted by the Chinese woman has
always led to blunders. “ In the early days of
mission work in a certain field attention was
* W Oman’s Work in the Far East, Sept., 1902.

Young Women’s Christian Association Building, Shanghai

Woman’s Education and New China 171

given only to the instruction of the men, with
what for a time were supposed to be satisfac-
tory results; but in a few years it was found
that the next generation, following the teach-
ing of their heathen mothers, fell back to the
plane from which the fathers had been ele-
vated, showing conclusively the mistake which
had been made.” 7

The Chinese women of the past, hampered
by crippling foot bandages and the even more
rigid bonds of the old social customs, have
known no horizon beyond the four walls of
their houses. They have received so little edu-
cation, if any at all, that even in thought they
have been practically limited to the area within
those walls. That they, in spite of these lim-
itations, have exercised such undeniable influ-
ence, is significant of the power which will be
exercised by the Chinese women of the future,
who, with unbound feet and minds, are to-day
facing a new and dazzling era in the history
of Chinese womanhood. The shackles of the
old social customs are breaking rapidly, and
they are entering into a broader life than their
grandmothers, or even their mothers, ever
dreamed of.

Conspicuous among the outward symbols of

7 Miss Noyes, in Report of Shanghai Conference,
1890.

172 Education of Women in China

this new life are the unbound feet. When in
1872, Miss Porter and Miss Brown, who were
in charge of the Methodist School for Girls in
Peking, determined to make the unbinding of
the feet a condition of entrance, it proved so
serious a stumbling block that many of their
fellow- workers seriously doubted the wisdom
of the step. Parents said that they could never
“ get a mother-in-law ” for their daughter if
she did not have the “ lily feet.” Only the
church members, and not all of them, or the
very poor who were not able to support their
daughters, could be induced to send girls to
a school with such a requirement.

To-day many schools, not only those under
the missions, but the government and gentry
schools as well, refuse to receive any girl with
bound feet unless she will unbind them at once.
Few if any objections are offered. The tide
of public sentiment has turned against the cen-
tury-old custom of foot-binding, which for
years seemed so impregnable that the continued
protest of missionary workers appeared to
have no effect at all. To-day women are taking
the bandages from their own feet and letting
their daughters grow up with natural feet.
Men are making speeches and writing articles
on the evils of foot-binding. The younger
generation of men are demanding that their

Woman’s Education and New China 173

wives shall have natural feet. I remember
hearing one teacher in East China say that the
father of one of her students had come to
her with the request that she would help him
find a husband for his daughter, for he said
that the girl had bound feet and the young
men did not want to marry her on that account.
So strong is the sentiment for natural feet
that in some places it has even led to official
action being taken. The “ North China Daily
Herald ” of September 25, 1909, contains this
notice :

“ The Viceroy in Nanking has recently drawn up and
issued copies of regulations to check foot-binding
among the people. According to the regulations anti-
foot-binding proclamations and literature will be dis-
tributed when the local officials take a census of the
people. The officials will instruct them in the dis-
advantages of foot-binding and the necessity of unbind-
ing the feet of the women and girls within the space
of one year. Fines will be inflicted or rewards given
according to violation or observance of the prohibition
against foot-binding. From the first year of Hsiian
Tung, girls under ten years of age are not allowed to
have their feet bound on pain of fines of one to four
dollars according to the standing of the family that
violates the rule. An inquiry will be held yearly, when
fines for violation, or rewards of observance of the
rule, will be meted out accordingly.

“ Anti-foot-binding societies should be extensively
established throughout the Liang Kiang, and where
success has been achieved memorial tablets will be
awarded to parties concerned, for their services in dis-

174 Education of Women in China

couraging the practice of foot-binding. The Shanghai
Magistrate has issued proclamations embodying these
regulations for general information.”

But the change of attitude toward bound
feet is only one evidence of the deeper and
broader change of attitude toward woman and
her place in life. “ In the past women have
been a negligible factor in Chinese social life
apart from the family. To-day not a few ap-
pear as equals in miscellaneous gatherings and
find voice in public meetings. The democratic
tendencies of the race, the age-long reverence
for learning, the brilliant achievements of
exceptional women in Chinese history, lit-
erature and politics, their native ease and flu-
ency in public speech, all tend — now that the
ancient barriers are broken — to open to women
every avenue of influence and power.” 8

One of the most striking signs of the times
is a daily newspaper for women edited by
Mrs. Chang, a woman of Peking. This news-
paper has been a power in Peking ever
since it was started in 1906. “ The arti-

cles are written in colloquial Mandarin, easy
for the women to understand, and are very en-
tertaining. Sarcasm and ridicule are freely
used, but so evident is the love of country and

•Letter to World’s Conference of Y. W. C. A.,
Berlin, 1910.

Woman’s Education and New China 175

love for the women themselves throbbing un-
derneath, no sting is ever felt. The news is
divided into four sections : general news, news
from Peking, news from the provinces, and
news concerning women. The general news
contains all important telegrams from foreign
countries. The running comments, sometimes
condensed into a single word by this keen-
minded woman, jealous for China with a wom-
an’s jealousy, are often exceedingly interest-
ing. Besides stories and fables, a section is
given to topics like arithmetic, physics, do-
mestic science or hygiene.” 9

Significant also of the new era are the
“ newspaper lectures,” conducted by Miss Rus-
sell, a missionary of the American Board in
Peking. On certain days of the month, one
of the street chapels of the mission is open to
all women who care to come in and hear the
woman’s newspaper read. Besides the read-
ing of the paper, lectures are given, chiefly by
educated Chinese women or the older pupils
of the Bridgman School, on such subjects as
Hygiene, Domestic Science, Geography, Gam-
' bling, Opium, Love bf Country, Foot-binding,
etc. Women of all classes have attended.
Miss Russell writes, “ Women come and go
as they please, sit and drink tea which we pro-
8 Missionary Review of the World , April, 1907.

176 Education of Women in China

vide, smoke cigarettes, which we certainly do
not provide, now and then call to each other
some interesting bit of news. Once and again,
when something has been said that especially
pleases or hits some one, it is very evident
from audible remarks.” 10

Miss Russell has also inaugurated another
series of lectures, which are largely attended
by women, many of whom would probably not
have been permitted to appear in public audi-
ences of this kind a few years ago. Special
invitations to these lectures are sent out to
women of influence, and the subjects are
chosen with a view to being popular and at the
same time helpful. Among them are such
topics as “ Kindergarten in All Lands,” “ The
Proper Care and Food for the Sick,” etc.
During one winter such subjects were chosen
as would be interesting and helpful to the
teachers of the government and gentry schools
of the city. On one occasion, Miss Russell
asked Sir Robert Hart's famous Chinese Band
to give a concert for her women. “ There
were between nine hundred and a thousand
women present, representing every class of so-
ciety from a Mongolian princess to the most
decrepit member of the Old Ladies’ Home.”
Mass meetings of Chinese women are now

10 Mission Studies, Nov., 1908.

Woman’s Education and New China 177

of such common occurrence as almost to have
lost their novelty. Some months before the
opening of the National Industrial Exposition
recently held in Nanking, a public meeting for
women was called in Kiukiang. The purpose
of this meeting was to urge the women to
send specimens of their work to the coming
exposition, “ and so widen their interests and
at the same time promote a worthy national
enterprise.” A large hall was handsomely
decorated for the occasion with banners and
silk drapery, and at the appointed time it was
filled with representatives of the gentry class,
and of the girls’ schools of the city. It was
noticeable that the women chosen as speakers
were all trained in mission schools, doubtless
because they were the only women in the city
who had received sufficient training to enable
them to address a large audience.

Not long ago the girls of the Methodist
School in Foochow were the hostesses at a
meeting for the women and girls of that city.
Chinese ladies of the best families of the city,
pupils from the government school, as well as
those from other mission schools were present.
“ The meeting was called to share in a popular
protest against a British loan for the building
of a railroad in the Chekiang province. All
desired the railroad but wished it to be built

1 78 Education of Women in China

and owned by the Chinese. They are unneces-
sarily fearful of foreign capital, but this is
not strange in view of past exploitation of
China by the great powers. At the meeting
a foreign lady was invited to preside, but the
discussion was conducted entirely by native
women. The speeches and motions made and
the resolutions adopted were creditable alike
to their patriotism and their ability. The peti-
tion was forwarded to the Throne.” 11

The Association Monthly for April, 1911,
contains a letter from Miss Edith Wells of
Peking, in which she tells of women’s meet-
ings held in that city:

“ Quite recently I met a Chinese woman who told
me that a group of women, most of them wives of
prominent officials, was meeting each month to discuss
the deliberations of the Assembly as they affect the
standing of women in China. Whatever else has been
accomplished, this Assembly has aroused an interest
among both men and women in public affairs and has
sought to prepare the way for constitutional govern-
ment.

“ Just nowT there is a strong interest in the anti-opium
movement, expressed in mass meetings and in the cir-
culation of various petitions. Such meetings for
women have brought together larger numbers of women
than have ever assembled before, except perhaps for
religious services. Two such meetings I have attended.
The first wTas composed of six hundred. There were
women representing twenty-two schools in Peking. The

11 Woman’s Missionary Friend, Oct., 1908.

Woman’s Education and New China 179

second, called by the principal of a private school for
girls (herself not a Christian), included over three hun-
dred women, among them several princesses and wives
of Government officials. At these meetings, a letter was
addressed to the secretary of the Anti-Opium Society
of England and signed by large numbers of Chinese
women. This is significant in itself, for it has not been
the custom of Chinese women to sign public documents
of any kind. The women of China are not being left
behind in the great changes now going on.”

Societies of Chinese women have been or-
ganized with various objects. Lilavati Singh,
that splendid example of the possibilities of the
women of India, on her return to Lucknow
from a visit to China and Japan in 1907, gave
an address to the students of Isabella Thoburn
College on the present conditions of the women
of those countries. “ The mother-in-law in
China is evidently as much of a tyrant as the
mother-in-law in India,” she said. “ So the
women of China in different places have
formed a society for getting rid of the undue
authority usurped by the mother-in-law. One
bright, attractive Chinese lady told me this,
and shyly added, 4 In most cases our husbands
have become honorary members of this so-
ciety.’ ”

Another society with an aim more compre-
hensive if no more difficult of achievement,
was the “ Chinese Woman’s Enlightenment

180 Education of Women in China

Society.” The large and very successful
“ Anti-Foot-binding Society,” though begun
by foreign women, is now almost entirely car-
ried on by Chinese women. The chairman of
the Board of Directors of the Young Women's
Christian Association of Shanghai is a Chinese
woman, as are the great majority of the mem-
bers of the Board. A society of women was
organized in that city a few years ago for
“ reforming the affairs of the home.” These
women have been courageously combatting
such evils as “ opium, foot-binding, foolish and
idolatrous ceremonies, certain customs con-
nected with betrothals, weddings and funerals
that they begin to question as unwise, extrava-
gant or unnecessary, and numerous other mat-
ters.” At a recent public meeting at which both
ladies and gentlemen were present a Chinese
lady was in the chair. In speaking of this a
conservative Chinese Christian gentleman re-
marked, “ A number of our influential Chinese
men have wives who are as well informed
upon public matters as themselves. They live
in full sympathy and intimate companionship
with their husbands, so it is not strange that
such women should come into prominence in
public meetings.” 12

11 Editorial Note, Woman's Work in the Far East,
Dec., 1907.

Woman’s Education and New China 1 8 1

An interesting instance of the changed atti-
tude toward women on the part of Chinese
men occurred at the Jubilee celebration of the
establishment of the Methodist School for
Girls in Foochow. A series of anniversary
gatherings was held at this time, the first of
them for the officials, gentry and business men
who were interested in the school. This oc-
curred while the Fuhkien Provincial Assem-
bly was in session, and the General Executive
Committee and the officers of the Assembly
were invited to be present. That every one
of them was present was itself indicative of a
new interest in the progress of woman. But
the most significant event of the afternoon was
one of the speeches, given by a young man of
wealth and influence, who said, among other
things :

“ Some time ago, in company with others
I was interested in establishing a school for
girls in a neighbouring city. Then the ques-
tion came up where we should obtain teachers.
One man said, ‘ We must send to the Methodist
Girls’ School in Foochow.’ That was the first
time I had ever heard of this school. You
ladies in charge sent us Miss Ung Peh Ha and
Miss Ling Nguk Chai, and they proved to be
such efficient teachers that I hope every mem-
ber of the Assembly present here to-day will

1 82 Education of Women in China

go home and establish a girls’ school and send
to this school for teachers.”

“ Now when the young man gave the names
of the teachers we had sent to them my heart
seemed to stand still,” wrote the principal of
the school afterward, 44 for he had committed
a terrible breach of Chinese etiquette. His
address was given in the Mandarin dialect and
was interpreted into the Foochow dialect by
Mr. Wong Nai Siong, also a member of the
Assembly, the very man who, fifteen or twenty
years ago, had taught the new missionaries that
we should never speak the name of a Chinese
woman or girl in public but should rather
refer to her as 4 a certain sister ’ or * such a
man's daughter, wife or sister/ I thought to
myself, ‘ Mr. Wong in interpreting will not
speak the names of the girls/ but he did, not
only once but tuice and with emphasis. — and
then it dawned upon me that in the new China,
girls and women were to have names and in-
dividualities.” ia

The principal of McTyeire School can
scarcely have been less surprised when an in-
telligent and wealthy gentleman of Shanghai,
of influential family, inquired, as he was about
to enroll his two daughters in the school, 44 Do

** Miss Bonafield, in Woman's Missionary Fritnd,
March, 1910.

Woman’s Education and New China 183

you teach your pupils to ride the bicycle ? ”
On being answered in the negative, he ex-
claimed disappointedly, “ Oh, I think you ought
to teach that.”

Truly a new day has dawned for the hith-
erto secluded and uneducated women of China,
and no friend of China can fail to rejoice at
the change. But at the same time none can
doubt that the time of transition from the old
to the as yet dimly defined new is a time of
danger. “ The times are fraught with peril
because of the rapid changes in what was for
ages a stagnant nation — old traditions are be-
ing overturned, new standards are not yet set
up. What wonder if there is anxiety on the
part of the conservative and unrest among the
newly emancipated ? ” 14

“ If ever China needed a sympathetic friend
it is now, in the efforts she is making to get
in line with the rest of the world,” Miss Rus-
sell writes from Peking. “ This is especially
true in the social conditions. The past six
years have seen great changes in Peking. The
present pace of those who are from the ‘ Smart
Set ’ or the ‘ Four Hundred 5 of Peking is
quite in line with the same classes in New
York or London. Foreign carriages, wine

14 Letter to World’s Conference of Y. W. C. A.,
Berlin, 1910.

184 Education of Women in China

suppers, cigarettes, poker, anything that sa-
vours of the West — these are the latest fash-
ion. Foreign jewelry is quite the rage.

“ Recently one of the ladies belonging to
one of the first families in the city said, 4 Many
of our set want to adopt foreign dress.’ She
added, 4 It costs ten times as much to live now
as it did ten years ago. Every one wants for-
eign furniture, clothing, food. You are not
in it if you do not have your own carriage,
telephone, and entertain parties at the foreign
hotel.’ ” 15

The National Committee of the Young
Women’s Christian Association of China,
which is eagerly striving to be of sendee at this
critical time, wrote in the letter already re-
ferred to : 44 Already we hear in large cities of
women in families of wealth who are bur-
dened with social engagements — feasting, gam-
bling and theatre going. The pleasure-seeking
young man of China is a pitiable object. We
tremble to think of the pleasure-seeking young
woman with education enough to make her a
menace to society.”

One of the secretaries of the Young Wom-
en’s Christian Association tells of being pres-
ent at a reception at which a Chinese lady,
eager to entertain her friends in foreign
11 Life and Light for Women, Feb., 191a

Woman’s Education and New China 185

fashion, decided that she would sing a foreign
song to them. She accordingly arose and re-
galed her audience with the strains of “ Waltz
Me Around Again, Willie.” The mental
vision of a dignified Chinese lady, solemnly
singing that ridiculous ragtime to a roomful
of equally dignified and ceremonious guests,
would be irresistibly funny if it were not so
pathetic.

Not only in the cities of the north does one
see this eagerness to imitate foreign customs.
In the first home of wealth in which I ever
visited in China, the home of an official of
Foochow, there were three young daughters,
who proudly exhibited to us what were proba-
bly their first calling cards. They were not the
long strips of red paper with the name painted
on in black Chinese characters, which have for
centuries been the proper thing in the Heav-
enly Empire, but small white pasteboard cards
like our own. There were no Chinese names
or Chinese characters on these cards, but the
most fanciful of English names, neatly printed
in the letters of the English alphabet. A far
more important change of styles among Chi-
nese women was shown by their unbound feet.

In Shanghai the sight of wealthy Chinese
driving through the streets in handsome car-
riages, with gorgeously apparelled coachman

1 86 Education of Women in China

and footman in attendance, is so frequent as to
excite little attention except from newcomers.
Whizzing forty-horse-power automobiles are
common enough to make ’ricksha riding on the
Shanghai Bund a nerve-racking process.
Handsome houses, of foreign architecture, are
quite likely to belong to Chinese. Even in
houses built in purely Chinese style, I have
sat on an American sofa, partaking of refresh-
ments in the shape of tea and Huntley &
Palmer’s wafers, listening to a stirring Sousa
march issuing from the mouth of a Victor
phonograph. In one official home in Hang-
chow the official showed us with great pride
his private sitting room, furnished entirely
with foreign furniture. His wife displayed
equal pride in exhibiting the handsome brass
bed which filled her bedroom to repletion.

The spirit of the times manifests itself in
somewhat different form in the schools. In
the far west, in Chengtu, the capital of Sze-
chuan province, the students have adopted a
semi- foreign uniform, with a dragon embroid-
ered on the left sleeve, and the character de-
noting the class of school the wearer attends,
embroidered on the upturned collar. A visitor
to the city writes of his amazement at seeing
a number of students with the character for
“ woman ” on their collars. “ When I went

Woman’s Education and New China 187

to some of the missionaries there, and asked
what it meant,” he wrote, “ I was told that the
young women of the well-to-do families were
now attending girls’ schools, and taking the
same studies as their brothers, but that with
their girls’ attire they could not go out on
the street to attend the classes, and so to avoid
this they now dress in almost the same clothes
as the men. Miss Dodson of the Friends’
Mission rather amused us by telling of her
efforts to get one of these same Amazons to
go round to the boys’ entrance of the school
— she herself deceived by the appearance of her
visitor. The fashionable small feet had of
course disappeared and the fair student wore
top boots, and, I suppose, had drill exercises.
What a wonderful change for China ! ” 16
One finds occasional references to similar
costumes worn by school girls in other parts of
the country, but the custom is probably com-
paratively rare. It must be remembered also
that the dress of a Chinese man, with its long
flowing robes, is as modest as that of the
woman. Such things as this are, however, suf-
ficient evidence of the new spirit of freedom
among Chinese girls which is manifesting itself
in many ways. The days of seclusion are over.

18 Rev. John Parker, quoted in Missionary Review of
the World, Nov., 1907.

1 88 Education of Women in China

When fifty boys’ schools of Hankow took part
in an athletic meet about two years ago, six
girls’ schools were allowed to attend. That
appearance of Chinese girls in public was even
more of an innovation than the acrobatic per-
formances of the young scholars of China, so
contrary to the dignified deportment which
Confucius deemed suitable for learned men.
In the same city a few years ago a concert
was given by the Hankow College alumni for
the benefit of the famine relief fund. The
girls of one of the mission schools were invited
to assist by singing, and accepted the invita-
tion. This was probably one of the first oc-
casions at which Chinese girls ever appeared
before a public audience, except at school grad-
uation exercises.17

The border line between liberty and license
is never hard to cross. It is perhaps not to
be wondered at, that the sudden access of
hitherto unknown freedom has sometimes gone
to the heads of the girls, and led them to
regrettably high-handed methods of express-
ing themselves. For example, the “ North
China Daily Herald” for June 12, 1909,
reports :

“ Not to be behind other educational centres,
two of our larger schools (in Paotingfu) have
,T Missionary Rci’iew of the World, Aug., 1908.

Woman’s Education and New China 189

been having student rebellions. The Girls’
High School was invited to attend the field
day exercises of the graduating class of the
large military school. The young ladies were
willing to put aside their studies for the day
and attend. The proctor was willing to
chaperon them. But the lady director with-
held her consent. Nevertheless part of the
school, led by the proctor, did attend. This
insubordination rapidly led to the resignation
of the proctor and to a school strike by the
students who had attended. The strike is prob-
ably dying out, but it was in force for about
half a month.”

The official who recently examined the pu-
pils of one of the girls’ schools of Hangchow,
did not give them as high grades as they de-
sired. When at the graduation exercises the
time came for them to go to the platform to
receive their diplomas from his hand, they re-
fused to leave their seats, thus openly insulting
the official.

One of the most difficult problems of the
changing China is the readjustment of the
relation between men and women. In the old
China there was no such thing as social inter-
course between unmarried men and women.
The century old custom has been, and still is,
to arrange marriages by go-betweens. Court-

190 Education of Women in China

ship was an unknown term, and the young peo-
ple might never see each other until they were
man and wife. Childhood betrothals arranged
by the parents were not infrequent. This cus-
tom still prevails, but educated young people
are beginning to protest against it, and surely
none can blame them for desiring opportunities
for mutual acquaintance before marriage.
The solution of this problem is not the easy
thing it may appear to those who have always
lived in a Christian civilization, and have
known nothing of the seclusion in which the
Oriental woman has been kept. The young
people of China know something of the rela-
tions which exist between men and women of
foreign countries, and in the new spirit of
liberty which has swept over them they are
eager to imitate them. And in this tendency
lie grave perils, for it is an over-imitation of
the imperfectly known external features of
this relationship, without an understanding of
the fundamental principles underlying it. “ In
these new times we hear of social indiscretions
that are alarming. For example, a group of
young men from a government school have a
feast and invite several girls from a neighbour-
ing school. Without chaperoning, feasting and
jollity continue far into the night. The young
people think they are following foreign style

Woman’s Education and New China 191

and do not realize that Western freedom with-
out Western safeguards is the height of im-
propriety.” 18

The desire of the Young Women’s Christian
Association of China to erect “ student hos-
tels ” or dormitories, to provide homes for
girls who are attending government and gentry
schools in the large cities, is in recognition of
the perils surrounding many of these students.
In an article on the need of such homes, the
writer says, “ In Peking we know of scores
of young women in attendance on government
schools of the capital, living not in the schools,
nor yet in the home of friends, but in the
provincial 4 official residence,’ because there
they hear their own dialect and can claim a
hostel. The danger of such a life is obvious.

. . . Chinese parents with great reluctance
allow their daughters to reside outside the
home walls and they will not be indifferent to
a home that promises them protection,” 19

It is inevitable that the old social system
of China should, to a large extent, pass away,
and none would wish it otherwise, but it is
imperative that during the transition period
China should have the wise and sympathetic

18 Letter to World’s Conference of Y. W. C. A.,
Berlin, 1910.

19 Chinese Recorder, Feb., 1910.

192 Education of Women in China

guidance of those who will help her to found
her new social principles upon the pillars of
righteousness and truth. A very important
part of this guidance must be given by those
to whom the education of the girls of China is
entrusted. “One of the most important fea-
tures of educational work for girls at the pres-
ent crisis is the privilege it gives us of helping
them to adjust themselves to their new condi-
tion. Their present condition is very uncer-
tain and we should do all we can to help them
find themselves,” 20 said the principal of a girls’
school in West China, at a conference of mis-
sionaries in 1908. Another, the head of a
school in East China, gave as one of her strong-
est reasons for desiring a college for Chinese
women, that it might “ train Christian young
women who will be prepared to be leaders
among their sisters in the new China, and who
can stand as bulwarks against the many threat-
ened evils of the new social life which is so
rapidly developing.”

“ The emancipation of woman is one of the
watchwords of the advanced movement in
China,” the American Board Deputation re-
ported on their return. “ But here also the
sudden access of freedom and vagueness of
the ideals which the leaders sometimes set be-
*# Miss Page, in West China Conference Report, 1908.

Woman’s Education and New China 193

fore themselves constitute an element of real
danger. These facts create the conditions and
emphasize the need of an intelligent and sym-
pathetic guidance of the woman’s movement
in China, for a brief time at least, on the
part of tactful and devoted Christian women
from the West.” 21 It would be difficult to
state whether the need or the opportunity of
the present conditions makes the greater ap-
peal.

21 Life and Light for Women , March, 1908.

X

THE PRESENT OPPORTUNITY AND
ITS CHALLENGE

TRUE success always results in enlarged
opportunity and responsibility. The
new life and light which have come to
the women of China are due largely to the
work of the Christian schools, and the guid-
ance so imperatively needed during these days
of the moulding of the new China must still
be largely given by Christian educators. Won-
derful as is the enthusiasm with which the
government and gentry school education has
been established, and encouraging as is the
vigour with which it is being carried on, there
are as yet comparatively few Chinese men or
women who are capable of conducting schools
in Western education, without assistance.
That the Chinese government has undertaken
educational work for women does not mean
that the work of the Christian schools is
ended. On the contrary, there has never been
a time when Christian education was more
needed in China. After years of patient over-

194

Present Opportunity and Challenge 195

coming of prejudice and obstacles, the Chris-
tian schools for women are to-day facing op-
portunities of a magnitude of which even a
few years ago the most optimistic would hardly
have dared to dream.

One of the greatest opportunities lies in the
fact that to them is entrusted the task of train-
ing many of those who are to be the wives and
mothers of the future. One of the greatest
weaknesses of ancient China has been its lack
of home life. The patriarchal form of fam-
ily, the loveless marriages, the practise of con-
cubinage, the relatively low position of woman,
her lack of education, have all tended to make
homes, in any true sense of the word, impos-
sible. One of China’s leading men, who was
educated in America, was asked not long ago,
what he considered the best age for a Chinese
boy to go to America to study. He unhesi-
tatingly replied, “ While he is still a young
boy; in order that he may avoid the blighting
atmosphere of a Chinese home, and may re-
ceive what to me was the greatest blessing of
my American education, the influences of
Christian home life.”

For genuine home life mutual sympathy be-
tween husband and wife is necessary. The
mission schools for girls have already done
much to make this possible by giving their pu-

196 Education of Women in China

pils such training as has made them real com-
panions of their husbands and has enabled
them to take an intelligent and helpful interest
in their husbands’ work. Not long ago a
student in Peking University went to one of
the missionaries and asked her to suggest an
English name for his wife, a young woman
from the girls’ school of the Methodist Mis-
sion. He was given a list of English names
for girls with their meanings, and after study-
ing over it for some time announced, “ I have
chosen the name Dorothy. I do not like the
sound of it as well as that of some of the
others, but I have chosen it because of its
meaning, for my wife is indeed a 4 gift of
God ’ to me.”

It is an old unwritten rule in China that it
is a breach of etiquette even to ask a man
concerning his wife’s health. It is a rare trib-
ute to a wife, therefore, to have her husband
publicly speak of her assistance to him in his
work, in terms of highest praise, as did a Chi-
nese pastor in Shaowu not long ago.1

The Christmas present recently sent by a
wealthy student in a mission college to his
young wife in their distant home is significant
of the influence which Christian ideals are ex-

1 Miss Florence Fensham, in Mission Studies, Feb.,
1908.

A Chinese Official and His Family

Present Opportunity and Challenge 197

erting upon the marriage relationship. Neither
the young man nor his wife are Christians,
but both read the Bible and are open minded
to new truth. The gift was a gold bracelet, on
the inner side of which was engraved, Ephe-
sians 5:25 (“ Husbands, love your wives, even
as Christ also loved the church and gave him-
self up for it”). “ My wife will be pleased

with that sentiment,” the young husband said,
and well she might be.

However much the Chinese wife and daugh-
ter may have lacked of respect and honour, the
mother, in that land where filial piety has ever
been regarded as one of the supreme virtues,
has been reverenced. “ A woman when she
comes to be a mother and a grandmother is
a power in the family and a power in the vil-
lage or the town that it is almost impossible
to overestimate,” 2 said Mr. Swanson of Amoy
at the London Missionary Conference of 1888.
Dr. Kupfer of Kiukiang calls attention to the
fact that “ although the women of China oc-
cupy a very inferior position in social life, the
bringing up of the children is indisputably en-
trusted to their care.” It is a strong tribute
to the inherent strength of Chinese character,
that the race possesses so many good qualities,
in spite of the ignorance of the mothers.

2 Report of the London Missionary Conference, 1888.

198 Education of Women in China

“ Why do the Chinese in mature life give
way so easily to passion and self-will?” wrote
a contributor to the “ Chinese Recorder ” some
twenty years ago. “ Why do they show little
power of self-government in places of tempta-
tion and trial? Is it not largely because their
childhood has been spent in the hands of moth-
ers who were but grown-up, passionate, self-
willed children?”3

Mrs. Wong, a Chinese woman, whose edu-
cation has given her an insight into the high
duties of motherhood, has recently written:
“ The Chinese mother is ignorant, without
knowledge of the methods of unfolding her
children’s nature. She is ignorant of the na-
ture of the emotions of the child, or their order
of evolution, or their functions, or where use
ends and abuse begins. Many an action which
is quite normal and beneficial she continually
thwarts, thus diminishing the child’s happiness
and profit, injuring its temper and lessening her
own power and influence, and too often de-
stroying a confidence which otherwise would
have been a protection and guidance for the
young mind. Lacking knowledge of mental
phenomena with their causes and consequences,
her interference often does more harm than
absolute passivity would have done.”

• Chinese Recorder, June, 1890.

Present Opportunity and Challenge 199

“ They (the Chinese women) do not rant nor
clamour for power to vote,” Mrs. Wong says
in another part of her article, “ but a longing,
hungering for knowledge, fills their hearts.
They now realize what grandeur of the world
is hidden from them, that the intellectual dark-
ness of their own minds hinders them from
filling satisfactorily the highest position given
to mortals in this world, that of a parent —
the mother. She pleads to-day for education
that will qualify her to be truly a helpmeet for
her educated husband and an intelligent mother
for her child.” 4

That the Chinese girls who graduate from
the mission schools make good wives and
mothers has been proved in a multitude of
cases. The teachers of these schools have
never failed to realize their responsibility to
train their pupils to be good home-makers.
Nor, in these days when life is so rapidly
broadening for Chinese women, are the edu-
cators losing sight of the fact that for the
great majority of their girls the home will
ever be the sphere of greatest usefulness.
“ While we should be satisfied with nothing
but the best and highest training possible for
our girls,” says Miss Page of Suifu, “yet
we must constantly bear in mind that we are
4 Chinese Students' Monthly , Dec., 1909.

200 Education of Women in China

training the future mothers of China, and that
a large percentage of our pupils will sometime
have homes of their own. For this reason we
should carefully avoid appealing to any am-
bition that in any way deprecates the home.” 5
In this era of widespread popularity of
woman’s education the mission schools have an
opportunity to exert a far wider influence over
Chinese home life than ever before. The pu-
pils in these schools come from every rank and
grade of society. Not a few are the daughters
of officials and will become the wives of of-
ficials, and the mothers of men of rank. The
principal of a school in South China writes of
a visit to Tientsin, where one of her former
pupils was “ the wife of a rising young of-
ficial,” and to Peking, where the husband of
another was “ Secretary and Physician to His

Excellency .” The young official's wife

was giving private lessons to the wife and
daughter of His Excellency, and was in every
way occupying a position of great influence.
Many come from homes of wealth, and will
in all probability marry men of wealth and
be the mothers of the wealthy men of the new
China. Many students from these mission
schools for girls will marry graduates of the
Christian schools for boys, becoming the wives
• Report of West China Conference, 1908.

Present Opportunity and Challenge 201

of business men, engineers, lawyers, physicians,
teachers, and ministers. All over the Empire
these girls will be the centres of homes of
influence.

All Christian schools for girls beyond the
very elementary day school are boarding
schools, because according to Chinese custom
it is not seemly for young women to be seen
going to and fro on the streets. Thus, at
the most receptive period of their lives, these
girls are day by day and year after year under
the influence of earnest Christian women,
whose lives as well as their teachings, serve
to plant Christian principles in the hearts of
their pupils. It is little wonder that many a
teacher in China has been able to say that
practically no girl had ever completed the
course of study in her school without becom-
ing a Christian. Even when the girls come
from homes where the opposition of their par-
ents has made it impossible for them to make
any outward expression of their belief in
Christian truths, those truths are cherished in
their hearts and make them worthy wives and
mothers. Their children will meet with no op-
position from them, if when they have learned
of Christianity they wish to become open fol-
lowers of Christ.

A member of the American consular force,

202 Education of Women in China

long resident in China, said not long ago : “ I
regard the Christian training of Chinese girls
as the most effective method of the spread of
Christianity. The most optimistic imagina-
tion cannot take too favourable a view in con-
templating the future of China when a Chris-
tian wife shall be at the centre of even a small
proportion of its homes.” Is it possible to
overstate the opportunity before the mission
schools of China to-day, in the privilege that is
open to them of giving strong Christian train-
ing to this great army of girls? From every
part of the Empire, and from homes of every
rank, multitudes are coming who, after spend-
ing the most plastic period of their lives
under Christian influences, will go forth to
be the centres of influential homes in every
part of the great new China.

Many of these students will be teachers.
A large proportion of them will teach for a
few years before marriage, many will find it
possible to give a portion of their time to teach-
ing after marriage, and a few will give their
whole lives to this work. Many of them will
find their place of greatest usefulness in the
mission schools, passing on to other girls the
blessings which they have received there.
There is ahvays a demand for capable, well-
trained Chinese women teachers in the mission

Present Opportunity and Challenge 203

schools, and as long as Christian schools exist
this demand will continue to offer opportunity
of large service to the graduates.

But there is another great field of oppor-
tunity for young Chinese women teachers, in
the government and gentry schools, whose
need of trained teachers is well-nigh desperate.
The principal of a large mission school in
Nanking told me that, even before her girls
had graduated, they were sought as teachers
by those in charge of government or gentry
schools, and were offered what were to them
fabulous salaries, three times the size of their
fathers’ earnings. The daughters of those in
charge of these institutions were themselves
sent to her school, in order, she thought, that
they might receive such training as would en-
able them to be teachers in the schools of which
their parents had charge.

These government and gentry schools are
far more than merely willing to take graduates
of Christian schools as teachers ; they are eager
for them, for they know that they are better
qualified teachers than any other women avail-
able. In fact, there are practically no other
women in the Empire who are able to teach
the modern education which is so important a
part of the curricula of these schools.

In an article in “ The Student World ” of

204 Education of Women in China

July, 1910, Miss Paddock, national secretary
of the Young Women’s Christian Association
of China, writes : “ There is not a Christian
young woman, graduate of a Christian school,
who could not find immediate employment in
these institutions. One of the most progressive
viceroys of the Empire, calling for women to
take examination and be sent abroad to become
fitted to lead the education of the provinces
under his control, sent three Christian young
women to America for such preparation, they
being the ones who could best pass the ex-
aminations.”

“ It seemed rather incongruous,” Mrs. Taft
wrote from Tientsin, “ to sit in the room which
contained the tablet in honour of Confucius,
incense, candles and all the other parapher-
nalia for worship, and listen as the young
Christian teacher sang, ‘ Jesus, lover of my
soul.’ Though the principal is a strict Con-
fucianist she employs this girl trained in a
mission school in Shanghai, and a Christian,
such is the demand for Western accomplish-
ments.” 6

Far north in Manchuria some of the gentry
wished to open a school for girls about four
years ago, and selected a young graduate of a
mission school as their first choice for teacher.

* Woman's Work in the Far East, Sept., 1906.

Present Opportunity and Challenge 205

“ She was approached by the gentlemen in
charge and tendered the school with a good
salary. She replied, ‘ Yes, I will teach in the
school if I may teach for one hour each day
from the Bible.’ ‘ We could not permit that,’
said they, and took their leave. Search for a
teacher went on elsewhere but to no avail.
Again the young woman was approached with
a still better offer, which was as firmly refused
unless her conditions be met. The search for
a teacher proved to be of no avail, and at last
the officials came to her with permission to
teach the school, free to teach the Gospel that
had become to her more than meat and drink,
more than money and influence.” 7

In Foochow another young Christian Chi-
nese woman was recently invited by some of
the leading officials of the city to open a kin-
dergarten for their children. She firmly de-
clined to accept the position if she were to
be required to teach on Sunday, and won her
point, so great was their desire for her
services.8

The fact that these schools do not insist on
making requirements of their teachers to which
Christian young women could not conscien-

7 Miss Paddock, in Woman's Work in the Far East ,
Dec., 1907.

8 Life and Light for Women , Feb., 1908.

206 Education of Women in China

tiously conform, removes objections which
would otherwise be felt to their teaching in
them. “ No wrong worship is required of
her,” a missionary writes of a teacher in a
government school of Peking, “ and as the Sab-
bath is a holiday she is able to attend Sabbath
services at the Presbyterian Mission which is
not far from the school.” 9 Dr. Carleton spoke
of the Confucian tablets in the government
schools of the north, at which “ students are
expected to worship at least twice a month,”
but noted that “ the teachers are exempt from
this.” 10 “ There is in them no heathen wor-
ship and Sunday is observed as a day of
rest,” 11 Mrs. Bashford, wife of the Methodist
Episcopal Missionary Bishop for China, wrote
of the government and gentry schools with
which she was acquainted.

It is a matter for congratulation that the
students from Christian schools are thus free
to accept positions in the government and gen-
try schools, for the opportunity of service thus
presented to them is no slight one. A teacher
may exert a great influence in any country,
but the reverence with which China has for

* Miss Mary Andrews, in Life and Light for Women,
Nov., 1907.

10 Missionary Review of the World, Feb., 1908.

11 Life and Light for Women, Jan., 1908.

Present Opportunity and Challenge 207

centuries regarded her teachers and learned
men probably makes the position of teacher
there, one of even greater potential power than
in other nations. “ We inherit the respect for
centuries accorded teachers,” a young Amer-
ican teacher in China once told me. The edu-
cated young Chinese women inherit it also,
for China has proved consistent in her rever-
ence for learning and honours it in women to-
day as she has ever honoured it in man. A
striking example of this was recently given
when a man employed as a teacher in two
government schools proposed to take an edu-
cated woman of the city for a secondary wife.
“ His students rose in revolt, not against
polygamy, as we might suppose, but against
dishonour to learning, which all Chinese rev-
erence. The wrong was averted and the
teacher lost both his positions.” 12

The mission school graduates who accept
positions as teachers in the government and
gentry schools are thus entering positions of
great influence. To them is given the privilege
not only of using their education and training
to build the new, struggling schools into strong
institutions, but also of giving to their eager
and receptive pupils a vision of the true and

12 Mrs. J. W. Bashford, in Life and Light for Women ,
Jan., 1908.

208 Education of Women in China

beautiful womanhood which is their birthright.
This alone will enable the women of China
to face their responsibilities at this critical era
in their nation’s history, and help them to
mould the new China into lines of strength
and righteousness.

“ Tempting doors are opening for our girls
in the new schools which are being started by
Chinese, where high salaries are paid and
where there is no interest in Christianity,” said
Miss Rollestone of Ningpo at a conference of
workers in girls’ schools, held at Mohkanshan.
“ In many cases there are and will be splendid
opportunities where spirit-taught girls can be
greatly used in being witnesses for Christ in
places where foreigners are neither wanted nor
admitted. This side of the matter ought to be
kept before our girls. One girl said to me,

‘ Sometimes when I think of these things my
heart bums.’ ” 13

The position of these Christian young
women teaching in government or gentry
schools, as respects religion, is much the same
as that of a Christian teaching in the public
schools of Chicago or New York. In so far
as their own conduct and character are expres-
sive of Christian ideals, they inevitably exert
on their pupils an elevating and healthful in-

*• Woman's Work in the Far East , Sept., 1906.

Present Opportunity and Challenge 209

fluence, and as inevitably commend to them the
religion which has shaped their own lives. Di-
rect Christian teaching is rarely permitted in
these schools and it would be a difficult matter
to reach many of the students by religious
services. But in some of them there is a very
tolerant attitude toward religious matters.
For example, at the formal opening of the
Tengchow Girls’ School, established by order
of the Governor of Shantung, the young
Christian teacher who had been engaged to
take charge of the school asked the prefect’s
mother, who was conducting the exercises, if
the programme “ might not be begun by
prayer.” Permission was willingly given, and
all stood while the young teacher offered an
opening prayer. One of the guests remarked,
“ We try to teach reverence and obedience to
teachers. If pupils learn to obey the Supreme
Ruler they will certainly obey their teach-
ers.” 14

In the government schools especially there
are strict rules forbidding the teachers to talk
of Christianity in their classes, but outside of
the school, they are of course private individ-
uals, free to speak as they please. The oppor-
tunities afforded by friendly intercourse with

14 Mrs. Calvin Wight, in Woman's Work in the Far
East, June, 1907.

210 Education of Women in China

their students, together with the constant and
natural influence of their lives, are probably
more effective than the forbidden classroom
teaching would be.

A young Chinese woman who has been
studying in America during the past year, but
was before she came teaching in a gentry school
under these conditions, says, “ Not a word of
Christian teaching was permitted to be taught.
However, in spite of such restriction, never
in my life have I felt the power of Christianity
so vital as when I was there. Here one could
preach by life only, not by words, not on Sun-
day alone but every day. . . . The change in
the attitude of the girls toward Christianity
was wonderful. There was no school on Sun-
day and every one was free to do whatever
she pleased. As they were indefatigable work-
ers, most of them spent the seventh day in
studying, working, or in other activity. One
Sunday, leaving for church, I was waylaid by
a group of girls who wanted to know where
I was going. Upon being told of the place
they instantly said, ‘ May we go with you ? ’
With great joy I took them with me. How
eagerly they listened to the sermon. This was
only a start. The next Sunday the number
of those who attended the service was doubled,
over forty. From this time on they showed

A Chinese Kindergarten Teacher and Her Pupils

Present Opportunity and Challenge 21 1

real interest in the Christian religion. It was
a great regret for me not to have been able
to work with them longer.” 15

In view of the eagerness with which the
government and gentry schools are seeking the
students from Christian schools as teachers,
and of the valuable services which these able
young women may thus render this most an-
cient and most populous of the world’s na-
tions at a great turning point in its history,
it would be supremely worth while to give
generous support to Christian schools, were
they doing nothing more than to put capable
young women teachers into the non-Christian
schools.

But there is another important service which
the mission schools may render the government
and gentry schools in these days of their in-
fancy. A letter to the Association of Col-
legiate Alumnae, written by Mrs. Bashford,
reads : “ Scores of American college women
engaged in mission work in China are doing
much to give wise direction to this wonderful
new national government movement for the
uplift of women. They are supplying the
standard and their schools furnish the object
lessons according to which the new govern-

15 Vong Pau Sze, in The Association Monthly , Feb.,
1910.

212 Education of Women in China

ment education is being largely fashioned.”
Miss Wykoff of North China writes that two
ladies of rank in Soochow asked that they
might spend two weeks in one of the mission
schools in order that they might see how it was
conducted, as they were planning to start a
girls’ boarding school in their home, a large
city of Eastern China. The principal of a
mission school in Nanking told me that al-
though her school was not fitted, in building
or equipment, to sen e as a model, it was al-
most daily used as such, so frequent were the
visits she received from government officials
or private individuals who were about to estab-
lish schools for girls.

These things mean that it is now within the
power of Christian educators, not only to fur-
nish many of the teachers for the government
and gentry schools, but to serve as models for
them and thus to permeate the whole system
of education for women with the elevating in-
fluence of Christianity. In view of the fact
that there are two hundred million women in
China, and that education has from time im-
memorial been the dominant influence in the
life of the nation, the significance of the sit-
uation can scarcely be overemphasized. But
if this opportunity is not to be lost, it must be
seized promptly.

XI

THE PRESENT OPPORTUNITY AND
ITS DEMANDS

THERE can be no question as to the large
service which the Christian schools
for girls have the opportunity to ren-
der China at this time. Nor can there be any
question of the inestimable value of the service
which they have rendered in the almost sev-
enty years since Miss Aldersey established the
first of them, to the present time when girls’
schools dot the entire Empire. “ The woman
missionary,” says Mr. Denby, for many years
United States minister to China, “ takes in her
arms the poor, neglected, despised girl and
transforms her into an intelligent, educated
woman. If the missionaries had done noth-
ing else for China, the amelioration of the
condition of the women would be glory
enough.” 1

How large a part these schools have played
in the present wonderful awakening in China
it is impossible to estimate, but certain it is

1 Denby, China and Her People , Vol. I, p. 228.

213

214 Education of Women in China

that it is no small one. Nor will any one ac-
quainted with conditions at the present time
question the great work which these schools
are now doing. But in view of the magnitude
of the opportunity, the question of the extent
to which the Christian schools are fitted to
meet it, and of how their work may be ren-
dered even more effective, is certainly a per-
tinent one. Are we equipping our mission
schools in such a way as to enable them to
meet the demands of the hour?

I have seen more than one mission school
in China housed in a substantial and comforta-
ble home, built for the purpose, and well
adapted to it. But I have seen more, whose
work was carried on in crowded and uncom-
fortable quarters, which were a constant dis-
advantage. Sometimes the school building is
one which was built years ago, when woman's
education in China was still a comparatively
small and struggling thing, when pupils had to
be sought for, and the work given was ele-
mentary. These buildings, not too good to
begin with and showing the effects of long use,
are wholly inadequate to the present situation.
Eager pupils have to be turned away constantly
because there is not one corner of the dormi-
tories where another bed could be placed, nor
another bit of floor space in the classrooms on

Present Opportunity and Demands 215

which to set a chair. Moreover, those who
are fortunate enough to succeed in getting in,
live in crowded conditions in which the strong-
est development of body, mind and spirit is
well-nigh impossible.

Sometimes the work of a Christian school
is carried on in a Chinese house, frequently
a very unattractive one. It is apt to be even
less adapted to the needs of a modern school
than the outgrown mission building, and the
disadvantages of crowding are even greater.
I well remember one such school in a city of
great opportunity, where families of wealth
and influence were eager to have their daugh-
ters educated, and were willing to send them
to the Christian schools. But as I went
through the tiny yard which was the only
place for play and exercise, into the dark,
dingy classrooms, one of which also served as
dining room, and up the narrow, shaky stairs
to the crowded, unattractive dormitories, I
could not wonder that an official of that city
had told the principal that he would send his
daughter to her school if she had a better
building.

In that city, which is one of the largest and
most prominent of the Empire, there were
three other mission schools for girls. One of
them, an English school, had just built a good

216 Education of Women in China

new building, one of the others had quarters in
a Chinese house fully as ding}', dark and un-
attractive as the one just mentioned, and the
fourth had crowded a building, erected many
years ago, to the utmost limit reluctantly per-
mitted by the physician of the mission.

“ A woman physician who visited one of
the finest equipped girls’ schools of Shanghai
remonstrated with the missionaries in charge
on account of the crowded condition of the
dormitories,” Miss Cogdal of Shanghai wrote
a short time ago. “ But there are other mis-
sion schools more crowded as to dormitories,
and with a poorer equipment generally than
this one. God's people have prayed and hoped
that China would awake to the imperative need
of education for her daughters, but now the
first signs of awakening have so overwhelmed
us and so nearly exhausted our visible re-
sources that wise workers are considering
carefully the very best use of these same re-
sources. ... A wealthy Christian gentleman
from the United States who attended the con-
ference in Shanghai last year and who has
given liberally to the mission cause, asked a
teacher in one of the Christian girls’ schools
if she was not ashamed to teach in such poor
buildings and with such unlovely surround-
ings. But the teachers in that same school

Present Opportunity and Demands 217

feel that inasmuch as it has been said that
Mark Hopkins and a pupil with naught but
a log between them would be a university, it
is just as true that when a missionary with a
heart full of Christ’s love and sympathy for
her poor, downtrodden, ignorant sisters comes
in contact with Chinese girls eager for the
advantages of a Christian education, there is
bound to be a school, log or no log, equipment
or no equipment.” 2

No criticism can be made of the mission-
aries, for carrying on their work in such de-
plorable surroundings as they often do. In
the face of the present need and opportunity
they cannot refuse to teach the eager girls
pressing on them from all sides, in whatever
surroundings are the best obtainable. We must
rather criticise ourselves, who have given them
such tiny sums with which to carry on their
work of equipping the women of the great new
China for their large responsibilities, that they
must do that work under conditions which are
a constant source of shame to them, and all
who believe in the work they are doing.

The disadvantages of work under such con-
ditions are manifold. Not the least of them
is the fact that the poor equipment of many of
the schools causes them to lose some fine girls
2 Woman’s Work in the Far East , Sept., 1908.

218 Education of Women in China

from the most influential families. These girls
would have come if the school had had “ a
better building,” and they would have gone out
equipped with Christian education and train-
ing, to be powers for good in their positions
of influence. So long as schools are housed in
such buildings as many of them now are, we
cannot blame the official who does not wish
to send his daughter to live in their crowded
discomfort.

From the standpoint of the pupils who do
come, the disadvantages are also serious.
They cannot be or do their best in such sur-
roundings. It is impossible in these crowded
rooms to teach them the lessons in neatness,
and cleanliness about a house, which their
homes often fail to give them, and which
would make them far better home-makers than
they could otherwise be. They lack the ob-
ject lesson which light and well-ventilated
rooms would be, nor do they receive the cul-
ture given by well-chosen and well-arranged
furniture and decorations.

In equipment other than classrooms and
dormitories many mission schools are weak
also. In schools for Chinese the sciences
should be among the strongest and most thor-
oughly studied subjects in the curriculum, but
in too many cases this work is deplorably weak,

Almost Ready for College

Present Opportunity and Demands 219

because the appropriation for the school is not
large enough to provide the apparatus with-
out which no laboratory work can be done.

Every year the presses in Shanghai and
other cities are adding to the number of strong,
stimulating books which have been written in
Chinese, or translated into it, and every year
more and more girls are becoming able to read
English. But the name of the schools without
libraries is legion. Even libraries for the use
of the teachers are few indeed, and lessons
have to be prepared and recited without the aid
of any collateral reading by teacher or pupil.
Even a dictionary is sometimes too expensive
an article to be owned by a mission school.

If ever girls needed the benefit of proper
exercise, the Chinese girls, descended from
generations of bound-footed women, need it.
But when the only gymnasium is the yard,
and exercise is therefore dependent on dry
weather of moderate temperature, and when
only the simplest sort of gymnastic apparatus
can be afforded, — if indeed there is any at
all, — physical culture can be by no means
thorough.

Perhaps the most serious economy which
the mission schools have been forced to prac-
tice is in the matter of teachers. Only a few
months ago a letter from the principal of one

220 Education of Women in China

of these schools told me of the loss of one of
her most promising pupils, the daughter of
one of the best official families in the city. Her
father had sent her to a school in a city sev-
eral hundred miles away, because the appro-
priation for teachers in that mission school
was not sufficient to permit the employment
of a good instructor in the Chinese classics.
Yet a very small sum would have secured the
services of an excellent Chinese teacher.

The salaries of missionaries are never high,
yet the schools with an adequate foreign teach-
ing force are very few in number. The inevi-
table result is to weaken the quality of the
work which is given, and to limit the amount
which can be offered. Opportunities long and
patiently waited for are pressing upon the
school from every side. With a vision of the
needs and the possibilities of this critical period
in China’s history, the teacher who has given
her life for these girls of China longs to give
them all that she possibly can, of that which
will enrich their lives and add to their useful-
ness. She does not, cannot, spare herself, and
although the hours of rest in an Oriental cli-
mate should be more frequent than at home,
she reduces them to a minimum and over-
works most of the time. Very probably she
realizes that she is almost always too tired to

Present Opportunity and Demands 221

do her best work, but the work must be done,
every one else is as overburdened as she is,
and countless opportunities are being unmet.
Can any one blame her, since by her utmost
effort she can do little more than what seems
absolutely necessary, if she works too hard,
even to the point sometimes of breaking down
and having to go back to America to recover,
making it necessary either that her work be
done by already overburdened fellow-workers,
or left undone?

It is easy to find fault because newly
arrived workers are often immediately given
so many tasks which can be performed
without the knowledge of the language, that
their language study is seriously interfered
with, so much so sometimes as to cripple
them in after years. But it is also easy to
understand that this is done because we at
home have made it necessary. That the teach-
ing done in the Christian schools, while usually
far better than that of the government and
gentry schools, is nevertheless not always the
strong and vigorous work which the situation
demands, is not in most cases because the
teachers are not capable of doing this work,
but is rather due to the fact that they are too
overworked to do that of which they are
capable.

222 Education of Women in China

Crowded buildings, lack of equipment, over-
worked teachers, are certainly sufficiently un-
desirable in themselves. But when we remem-
ber that many of the schools in which these
conditions exist are to-day visited by the Chi-
nese in search of methods and suggestions for
the government and gentry schools, the situa-
tion is seen to be even more serious than it
otherwise would be. If Christian schools are
to serve as models, they must be worthy to be
copied. They ought to be the best schools in
China, from every point of view. It dis-
credits Christianity in the eyes of the Chinese,
if they are not.

“We are out here in China for the avowed
purpose of bringing China to Christ,’’ says a
writer in the “ Educational Review of China.”
“ But that does not prevent us from establish-
ing and conducting efficiently the best schools
in China, and by best we mean the best from
an educational standpoint. Our buildings
ought to be the best, not necessarily the most
expensive or the most showy, but the best
adapted to educational purposes. Our teachers
ought to be the best — not only the best morally
and religiously, but also the best-equipped in-
tellectually and the most skilful in the art of
teaching. We believe it is of prime importance
to have good Christian men and women as

Present Opportunity and Demands 223

teachers in our schools, but it is more inex-
cusable to have an incompetent teacher of
mathematics or science or any other subject,
however spiritually minded he may be, than
to have a teacher with less religious fervour,
but who is a thoroughly competent instructor
in his line. A religious incompetent as a
teacher can do as much harm as a non-Chris-
tian. We need in our schools teachers who
combine religious fervour and pedagogic skill
and we should be satisfied with nothing
less.” 3

Christian education for women in China
needs better buildings, better equipment, and
a more adequate teaching force, and it also
needs to be able to offer more advanced work
than was necessary in the past. There are,
and always will be, many girls in China who
cannot take more than the equivalent of a
grammar school education, and too much em-
phasis cannot be laid on the importance of
good girls’ schools of grammar grade. But
there are many who desire, and whose par-
ents desire for them, a more thorough educa-
tion, and who will be more useful and influ-
ential women if they are given it. It is much
to give a child a good primary education, but
the girl who leaves the influence of the Chris-
3 Editorial in Educational Review , Feb., 1909.

224 Education of Women in China

tian school at that point is still very plastic
and other influences may undo much of that
which has been wrought in her. But the girl
who remains for high school work is almost
a woman when she completes that course. In
addition to the greater power for usefulness
and influence which her further study and
training have given her, her ideals and pur-
poses are too firmly fixed to be easily changed.
A few years ago it was difficult to keep girls
through a high school course. The desire for
their services in the home, and early mar-
riages, had much to do with this. But to-day
many parents are eager to have their daugh-
ters remain through the entire course, and
the desire of educated young men for well-
educated wives has militated against early mar-
riages.

The need for more academic education than
has been given in previous years has been
recognized by missionary educators, and the
curricula of many of the schools have been
much extended in the past few years. Many
of them have included a normal training
course. The teachers and equipment necessary
to carry out the work thus outlined in the cur-
ricula should be supplied at once, for young
women thus trained are urgently needed in
China.

Present Opportunity and Demands 225

Attention has already been called to the
great dearth of trained teachers in the gov-
ernment and gentry schools. Part of the work
in them could be done successfully by girls with
a good high school education, including some
training in methods of teaching. Young
women with such training are needed also in
the mission schools, the work of which has
always been hampered in the past for lack of
good Chinese women teachers. One of the
most prominent workers in woman’s education
in China told me that the entire system was
crippled by the poor work done at the very
beginning, in the elementary day school, by
untrained teachers. Children thus hampered
by poor foundation work were at a disadvan-
tage throughout the entire course. In one
school which I visited, the American teacher
was taking a class of girls through precisely
the same work in arithmetic which they had
gone over with a Chinese teacher the preced-
ing year, having found in the attempted review
that the class knew no more about the sub-
ject than if they had never studied it. Well-
trained elementary teachers will strengthen
the educational system at its very roots, and
will solve the dilemma which many mission
schools have to face, of giving the work of
their lower grades into incompetent hands, or

226 Education of Women in China

of having much of it done by their college
trained American women, who are so well
equipped and so much needed for the more
advanced work. Good high schools for girls
and many of them, are one of the most im-
perative needs in China to-day, and will meet
many of the most urgent demands in woman’s
education in that country.

But high schools only will not be sufficient.
The replies to a questionnaire sent to the prin-
cipals of the leading Christian girls’ schools
in China were almost unanimous in the
strongly expressed belief that college education
for women was a present need. Chief among
the reasons given for this belief was the great
dearth of trained Chinese teachers. While
high school graduates can do much in the pri-
mary grades, it is felt that college trained
teachers are necessary for the work in the
high schools.

It is felt also that the best work in the
government and gentry schools can be done
only by college trained women. The posi-
tion of teacher in these schools is a more re-
sponsible and difficult one than that of teacher
in a Christian school, and the average girl
fresh from high school is rather too im-
mature to undertake such large responsibility,
especially if she is the only representative of

Present Opportunity and Demands 227

Christian education on the teaching staff. The
very magnitude of the opportunity, which
would be so stimulating to an older and more
thoroughly equipped girl, may prove over-
whelming to her, and the fact that she must
often stand alone, without sympathetic co-
operation from her fellow-workers, may cause
her to lose courage. There seems to be no
reason why the more elementary work in these
schools might not be done by high school grad-
uates, associated with a college graduate. But
few will question that the more thoroughly
trained are the teachers furnished these
schools, the greater the service that can be
rendered.

The replies to the questionnaire referred to
indicate also that there is not only a theoretical
need for college education among the Chinese
women, but that there are already several
young women who are prepared and eager for
it, and that they are steadily increasing in
number. Several of these young women have
gone to Japan, or even to America, to study,
but the number who can afford foreign educa-
tion is necessarily small. Those who would
gladly avail themselves of the opportunity for
a college education could such education be
given them in China, are a much large number
than those who are at present able to obtain

228 Education of Women in China

it. Moreover, there are necessarily some dis-
advantages of life in a foreign country, for
young women of a nation so recently apart
from the rest of the world as was China.
While foreign education will probably for
many years to come be of benefit to a few ex-
ceptional women, the great majority of Chinese
girls ought not to be forced to seek college
training outside of their own country.

A few centrally located colleges, with
courses carefully adapted to meet present needs
in China, would do much to strengthen all
the educational work for women. They would
furnish well-trained teachers for the Christian
and also for the government and gentry
schools; would tend to unify the curricula of
the schools of lower grade; would afford op-
portunity for studies in special lines such as
music, domestic science, medicine, etc., and
would give broad, general culture to women
looking forward to positions of influence in
home life. It is the practically unanimous
opinion of women educators in China that each
of these colleges should be a union college,
either controlled by a union of the Protestant
forces of the territory in which it is established,
as is the one which has already been started
in North China, or else representing some
American or English college or colleges, as

The Only School for Girls in a City of Twenty Thousand

Present Opportunity and Demands 229

does the college for men established by Yale
University in Changsha. The need of such
a college as this in some centrally located city
of East China is already so evident, that it is
earnestly to be hoped that the money necessary
to establish a strong, thoroughly well-equipped
institution will not long be lacking. Before
the earliest date at which plans for a college
could be executed the need will be even more
urgent than it is now.

No one interested in the welfare of China
can visit that nation to-day, and study the
needs and opportunities of this time of start-
lingly rapid changes, without becoming con-
vinced that there are possibilities of service of
eternal value in China to-day, of a magnitude
such as Christian people have not faced since
the days of the Reformation, or even since the
first century of the Christian era. But with
that conviction there comes to many also a
second conviction, which is that China has no
greater need than that Christian people of other
lands should realize her present crisis and rise
to meet the opportunities of service which it
affords, before they are gone not to return.
The China of to-day is plastic, the China of
a very few years hence will be far less so.
No one sentence could have better expressed
the present situation and its significance, than

230 Education of Women in China

the few words cabled to the Student Volun-
teer Convention held in Rochester from De-
cember 29, 1909, to January 3, 1910, “ God
has melted ancient China ; who will mould the
new?”

Christian education for women in China to-
day has an opportunity to render that nation
an invaluable service. All the strong Chris-
tian schools which can be established will be
filled to overflowing with young women, who
because of their education will go out to be
powers all through the Empire. Moreover, it
is to these schools that the government and
gentry schools must look for their teachers
and methods. To give Christian training di-
rectly to many, and through them indirectly to
many more, of the young women who are to
be the mothers and teachers of the great new
China, is to invest life or money in a way
that will yield the richest of returns.

But the present opportunity cannot be met
unless the Christian schools are strengthened.
It is now in the power of Christian education
to exert a kind and degree of influence which
will be wholly for the good of the educational
system of China, and to win for itself a place
akin to that held by the Christian schools of
America. But the Chinese are exerting great
energy in remedying the weaknesses in their

Present Opportunity and Demands 231

schools. Unless the weaknesses in the Chris-
tian schools are promptly corrected we shall
some day awake to find that Christian educa-
tion has lost its position of leadership, and
that thus one of the greatest means of helping
the Chinese to build their new nation into
lines of strength and righteousness has gone
beyond recall.

If Christian education is to keep its place
of great influence it must be so supported that
it can be housed in substantial, well-planned
buildings, and supplied with the apparatus nec-
essary to thorough work. The schools must
have funds at their command sufficient to en-
able them to carry their courses of study to
whatever point of advancement the situation
makes necessary. Most important of all, there
must be adequate teaching forces of thoroughly
trained women, who will have such opportuni-
ties for refreshment of body, mind and spirit
that they will be strong and clear visioned to
carry out the magnificent task assigned them.
More schools are needed. In one city of
twenty thousand inhabitants there is but one
Christian school for girls. In other cities there
are none. More schools are needed, but greater
than this need is that of better and stronger
schools. Without them one of the greatest
opportunities for large service of eternal value

232 Education of Women in China

which life ever offers will be lost. With them,
every class of society will be reached, edu-
cated Christian women will be centres of in-
fluential homes all over the Empire, the
mothers and the teachers of the new China will
be women worthy of their high office, and the
educational work for the women of the new
nation will be permeated with the influence
and the spirit of Christ

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