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The Open Court

Founded by Edward C. Hegeler

Editors:
GUSTAVE K. CARUS ELISABETH CARUS

SECOND MONOGRAPH SERIES OF

THE NEW ORIENT SOCIETY OF AMERICA

NUMBER FIVE

CHINA

EDITED BY

BERTHOLD LAUFER

Published

Monthly : January, June, September, December

Bi-monthly: February-March, April-May, July-August, October-November

THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY
149 EAST HURON STREET CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

Subscription rates : $3.00 a year, 35c a copy, monograph copies, 50c

Entered as Second-Class matter April 12, 1933, at the Post Office
at Chicago, Illinois, under Act of March 3, 1879.

COPYRIGHT
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING CO.

1933

COPYRIGHT

THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING CO.

1933

CONTENTS

Preface 409

Dr. Berthold Laufcr

The Ideals of the Chinese Republic 410

Dr. Chih Meng

Education and Scientific Research 423

Dr. Peng-chun Chang

Trends of Thought and Religion in China Today 433

Dr. Y. Y. Tsu

The New Drama and the Old Theater 453

Dr. Peng-chun Chang

Commerce and Industry 459

il/r. Jnlcan Arnold

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

L Sun Wen (Sun Yat-senL The Father of the Chinese Republic and of
the Nationalist Party Frontispiece

2. Sun Wen's Mausoleum at Nanking (Courtesy of White Brothers) ... 419

3. Bridge in the Old Summer Palace near Peking 442

4. Mci Lan-fang in tlic Role of "The Fairy Scattering Flowers'' 454

5. The .Actress Giin Shao-niei 457

SIN W !:.\ (SIX \ AT Si;.\)
The l-"atluT of the Chini'sc Kcpnlil'^' '"""' "f the Xationalist I'arly

/■ruiitispicii' lu J he Open Court

The Open Court

Volume XLVII (No. 7) October-November, 1933 Number 926

NEW ORIENT SOCIETY MONOGRAPH : SECOND SERllCS NUMBER FIVE

PREFACE

BY BERTHOLD LAUFER

THE contributors to this monograph, with a single exception, are
Chinese scholars of note. In interpreting for us the conditions
and aspirations of modern China, the Chinese are naturally placed
in a better position and are more competent than any of us, and
whether right or wrong are entitled to a fair hearing. The Decem-
ber issue of The Open Court will contain an essay on art tendencies
in present-day China by Teng Kwei, which was too long to be in-
serted in this number.

Greece and Rome are irrevocably dead, but China with a past of
five millenniums is still alive and looms in our eyes like a giant. In
the nineteenth century the western world was still dominated by the
ideal of classical humanism based on the study of Greek and Roman
civilizations and restricted to the IMediterranean. This is a thing of
the past. We now live in the better and bigger era of the Pacific
humanism that recognizes the Pacific ocean as the center of world
history and is more broad-minded in embracing the study of all great
Oriental civilizations.

The study of Chinese civilization is not merely a fad or a capri-
cious hobby or just one out of many hundred specialties in which the
modern scholar fondly indulges. We study the language, literature,
and art of China because such study has a paramount educational
and cultural value and is part and parcel of a truly humanistic edu-
cation. We are confident that the study of China will contribute much
to the renaissance of our own civilization and will mean an important
step forward into the era of a new humanism and philosophy that is
now in process of formation.

THE IDEALS OF THE CHINESE REPUBLIC

BY DR. CHIH MEXG
Associate Director of the China Institute in America, New York

CHINA'S political experience is as long as her history. Contrary
to the popular conception in the \\'est that China is changeless
and unchanging, the history of China is a fascinating story of a na-
tion which has been attempting under varying conditions to live con-
tentedly.

The legendary emperors Yao and Shun, and \\'en and Wu repre-
sent a very old political ideal ; that is, the ideal ruler does nothing,
and yet the nation becomes contented and peaceful. His influence
comes from what he is, not from what he does. Yao was the classi-
cal example of jen ("benevolence") personified. He was the parent-
ruler who loved his subjects and looked after them as his children.
He selected Shun from among the common people because of the
latter's honesty, ability, and well-known filial piety. Both Yao and
Shun regarded their rule as a responsibility entrusted to them by
Heaven, not as a personal or family aft'air. Both selected not their
sons, but natural leaders whom the people admired, to succeed them
as rulers.

Hence King Wen of the Chou dynasty was, according to Chinese
tradition, the perfect ruler because he did not seek to rule, but the
people made him their leader because of his benevolence and exem-
plary life. W'u, son of King Wen, used force to overthrow a des-
pot. K'ung-tse. commenting on the two rulers, said, ''The music of
Wen is perfect beauty and goodness, but that of Wu perfect beauty
and not perfect goodness." The name Wen also means "culture,"
or "civilian," and the name Wu means "force" or "military."

K'ung-tse, or Latinized Confucius (551-479 B.C.) and his disci-
ples might have created these legendary heroes in order to make their
political teachings vivid and impressive after the fashion of ancient
teachers. Their teachings might be characterized as enlightened po-
litical paternalism. The most brilliant expositor and advocate of this
school of thought was Meng-tse, Latinized Mencius (372-289 b.c.)
who molded philosophy into definite doctrines and concrete policies.

Meng-tse was traveling among the feudal rulers whom he at-
tempted to convert into his political disciples. Once he had an audi-

THE IDEALS OF THE CHINESE REPUBLIC 411

cnce with King Iliiei of Liang. King Huei asked, "Sir, what can
you teach me to obtain profit for my kingdom?" Meng-tse replied,
"Your ■Majesty, why profit? The only way to rule is according to
benevolence and righteousness." He went on to explain the differ-
ence between a rule by profit and force and one by benevolence and
righteousness. The profit-motive gave rise to mutual exploitation,
and force could only obtain involuntary and hence temporary obedi-
ence on the part of the people, while benevolence and righteousness
inspired voluntary loyalty and mutual confidence, which naturally
created a parent-child relationship between the ruler and the ruled
that led to lasting contentment. He was among the earliest philoso-
phers to make a distinction between the right to rule and the right
to be ruled. About such rights he said, "In a nation the people are
the most important, traditions and rituals next, and the ruler is the
least important." When asked whether he considered the overthrow
of a ruler by his subject as treason, he replied, "For a subject to
overthrow a good ruler is treason, but to remove a despot is a bene-
volent act to the nation." In asserting the rights of the people, he
was restating an existing doctrine of the mandate of Heaven, which
was, "Heaven sees as the people see, and Heaven hears as the people
hear." This means that as long as the ruler regarded the welfare of
the people he had a right to rule, but as soon as he disregarded the
welfare of the people, he lost his right to rule. This doctrine took
root at an early age of the nation. In their history the Chinese peo-
ple have exercised their right many times in changing their rulers
and dynasties that lost the mandate of Heaven.

The people had the right to be ruled benevolently, according to
Meng-tse, but not all of them had the right to rule because some
were created to exercise their intelligence, and some were created
to exercise their strength. "Let those who exercise their intelligence
be fed by those who exercise their strength." "The virtue of the
morally superior man is like the wind. The virtue of the common
man is like the grass. The grass leans towards the direction of the
wind."

The rulers should share with the people their pleasures and
amusements. Taxation should be flexible. Surplus grain should be
stored up in years of plenty for the relief of the people in time of
famine. They should protect agriculture so that the people could sow
and reap properly. They should regulate fishing and wood-cutting

412 THE OPEX COURT

SO that fish and wood would be ])lentiful for all time, and no one
would be hungry and cold, and old pcojile mi^ht be free from labor
and enjoy meat and silk.

From tb.e time of K'ung-tse to the time of ^leng-tse there de-
veloped two extreme schools of political thought — the "anarchy" of
Lao-tse and the "commrnism" of Mo-tse. Lao-tse condemned any
attempt at interfering w itli natural ])ursuit of happiness. According
to him. government causes rebellion, law causes crimes, and organ-
ization causes quarrels. His Utopia was one in which

Though between neighbors they hear
the harking of their dogs and the crowing
of their cocks, they should each live and
die and care not even to see one another.

( hi the other hand. .Mo-tse might be considered as the Chinese
Jesus Christ. He would have liked to transform the world into one
family, so all people would love one another, bear one another's bur-
dens, and become one another's keepers.

The K'ung-Meng school gained ascendency because it adhered to
the golden mean, also because it emljodied some of the most impor-
tant principles of the two extreme schools. On certain principles all
three schools were agreed. They all agreed that the development of
man was the most important, while the state was more or less of a
necessary evil. They all recognized that force w^as an undesirable in-
strument of national and international policy. Lao-tse was. of
course, opposed to all forms of coercion. In editing the Aiuials of
Spr'uui and Aiitiinni, K'ung-tse did not recognize a single righteous
war. Mo-tse advanced as one of his three great doctrines the aboli-
tion of soldiery. Meng-tse said. "In an ideal international order the
less virtuous nations vohuitarilv follow the more virtuous. Otherwise,
the less ])owcrful will l)e compelled to scr\e the more ]:)Owerful."

The result was that there ex'oKed during the centuries since
K'ung-Meng a ]:)olitical ])hilosophy and attitude on the part of
scholars and peo])le, that heljxul to bold together the largest empire
for the longest period, an empire of a ]x:»pulation which has grown
froni about fiftv millions at the beginning of the Christian era to
about four linndred and liflv millions at ])resent, and of an area
larger than the L'nited States or tlu' contiiUMit of l'"uroi)c. The actual
Chinese eniiMre is larger than the population and territory of China
proper. Long before the expansion of hjigland into the T.ritish lun-

THE IDEALS OF THE CHINESE REPUBLIC 413

pire, the Chinese hy peaceful penetration had spread to all parts of
the world. The cultural expansion of China has been even more far-
reaching. In fact, a great part of eastern Asia has been during va-
rious periods more or less Chinese in the sense of the ascendency
of the Chinese language, literature, and philosophy.

Curious enough, the political strength of China has become under
modern conditions political weakness. In the first place, the Chinese
political attitude is inclined to decentralization. Except for short
periods of great emergency and foreign dominance, the Central Gov-
ernment has always been a symbol of cultural unity rather than the
center of political power. E\en the appointees of the Central Gov-
ernment have not much to do with the life of the people. There are
a few highly organized bureaucratic municipal governments in China,
but by far the great majority of communities have retained the old
method of governing, though many of them have adopted new names
such as "boards," "councils." and "committees." Take, for example,
a community which I know best. It is a town of about 2,500 people,
an average rural community. It has a magistrate appointed by the
Central Government. He has four policemen in modern uniforms;
but thev have very little to do. They have practically nothing to do
with schools, shops, markets, and the maintenance of public build-
ings, the most important of which is the dyke. They very seldom are
called upon to enforce the law and to try lawsuits. The actual gov-
erning body is the gentry, a body of men who are not organized and
who have no legal status but who, by virtue of their learning and
prestige proven by the lapse of time, have been recognized as leaders
by the community. They serve without pay. It is they who assess
the people for funds to keep the schools (modern schools) going and
the dykes repaired. They are usually called upon to arbitrate dis-
putes over property, and sometimes to adjudicate criminal offenses.
Cases involving public morals are rare and violent crimes almost un-
known.

This leads to the question of social control. The source of con-
trol does not come from political power, but from ethical principles.
For example, the traditional inscription in the Hall of Justice facing
the Judge is :

Your living and maintenance

Are taken from the sweat and blood of the people,

You can easily oppress the masses.

But you cannot deceive Heaven.

414 THE OPEN COURT

The magistrate or judge is more or less a consultant on legal and
technical matters. The head of each family exercises control over its
members, and nsrally acts as envoy-plenipotentiarv to assume obli-
gations and to settle differences with other families. Improper
conduct is much more swiftly and effectively punished in the fam-
ily court than in an official court. The personal example of the ruler,
be he magistrate or the head of a family, is often more influential
than the power he wields. A recent example is Wn Pei-fu. Though
stripped of actual political power, he has exerted great political in-
fluence simply because he possesses the ethical attributes of a scholar.
Unlike modern nationalism, the Chinese nation has for its ob-
jective the contentment of the individual rather than the develop-
ment of sovereignty, or the destiny of the state. In fact, the doctrine
of sovereignty, or the state, is not in Chinese political thought. The
K'ung-Meng school proceeds from the perfection of the individual
to the ordered family, to the well-administered nation, and to a peace-
ful world through the five human relations and not through political
organization. The Chinese term for nation is kuo-chia which means
a territory of families. Hence the age old proverb of the Chinese
farmer :

When the sun rises, I toil ;
AMien the sun sets, I rest ;
I dig wells for water ;
I till the fields for food ;
\\'hat has the emperor's power
to do with me?

Contrary to the popular conception in the \\'est "war-lords" are
just as alien to the Chinese political background as modern national-
ism. To the individualistic or familistic Chinese people, militarism
is the worst form of oppression. The sages have always exalted
learning and learned men. The influence of Buddhistic pantheism
has created in the mind of the average man the sacredness of all life
and the horror of taking life. The classical examination system which
was in operation for almost two thousand years required almost no
knowledge of military tactics but a thorough-going intellectual train-
ing. .All these and other factors ha\e helped to mold the tempera-
ment of the Chinese people in such a way that they as individuals
are less pugilistic and as a group still less militaristic. In the place
of force, therefore, they have evolved an elaborate system in their

THE IDEALS OF THE CHINESE REPUBLIC 415

mores and traditions that tend to ease emotional outbursts between
persons and to lubricate social friction between groups. "Face-sav-
ing" is but one out of many such devices.

Before the nineteenth century the Chinese nation had been more
or less a confederation of self-contained and self-governed commu-
nities which had been held together, not so much by political machin-
ery, but by bonds of common literature, tradition, and a social struc-
ture of gilds and families. In the nineteenth century China was
brought suddenly into actual contact with the modern western po-
litical states. After a series of defeats at war, she was compelled
to seek the secret of power of the modern West. At first she thought
it was something in the modern army and navy. She put her soldiers
and sailors through the goose-step, put western uniforms on them,
and placed in their hands modern armament, and expected them to
put up a modern western fight in war. It did not work. Then she
thought it was something in modern industry. So railways and
steamships and factories were built on western models. But the pro-
gress was too slow to save the country. Then she thought it was the
form of government. Hence the movement for constitutional mon-
archy was followed by the movement for a republic. In 1911 the
New Republican Government decreed that cues should be done away
with, that frock coats should take the place of mandarin coats, and
that the nation should henceforth be governed by a republican form
of government based on a constitution that combined the merits of
those of France and the United States. Once more the leaders, as
well as the people, became disillusioned becavise so far the changes
had been changes of names and appearances, half-hearted at that,
while old China remained unwieldy and unchanged.

It was not until after the failure of the first republican revolution
of 1911 became apparent that some Chinese leaders actually saw
what must be done to change China. They started immediately to
destroy the intellectual obstacles to the process of modernization.
They attacked and demolished mercilessly the K'ung-Meng school
of thought and the thousand and one traditions, ethical patterns, and
social structures, resulting from that school and other stabilizing
but enslaving influences, such as the K'ung codes of ethics, the liter-
ary language, and the family system.

In the political sphere, the new nationalist movement aimed at an
equally fundamental revolution. Prior to 1911, Sun Wen (Sun Yat-

416 THE OPEN COURT

sen) had believed that the ]^Ianchu regime was the greatest obstacle
to political reform, and had directed all his efforts to overthrow the
Ch'ing dynasty. Events during the years following the revolution of
1911 proved that the Manchu regime was but one of the obstacles.
The people were not ready for a centralized republican form of gov-
ernment. A few military governors of the old regime, who com-
manded hired armies, assumed control of the provinces. They had
no understanding of the real meaning of the revolution- The over-
throw of the dynasty removed their object of political loyalty. So
the newly established and not too healthy infant republic had to bar-
gain with those military governors in order to survive. Yiian Shi-
k'ai, the first president, was more or less successful for a short while
in maintaining the authority of Central Government ; but he was
not a convert to modern democracy. The methods he employed in
extending his personal power showed that "president" and "republic"
were to him modern versions of emperor and dynasty. Between the
time of his death in 1915 and the nationalist revolution of 1926, a
few leaders of the old regime attempted to be president, while many
others controlled the provinces as their personal spheres of influence.
This j^eriod may be characterized as one of personal struggle among
military leaders of the old regime.

During the period of personal struggle. Sun Wen and his fol-
lowers saw more clearly than ljef(~)re that a more closely organized
state was not possible without the spirit and mechanism of national-
ism, lie now realized more clearly that the ])eople must be educated
to feel that they were one and should act as one. This political one-
ness was the secret of the power of a modern state which itself had
sovereignty, honor, and destiny even apart from any individual mem-
bers of that state. Modern nationalism was as potent as a cult or re-
ligion. It had acquired dogmas, symbols, and gods. Nationalists
would defend their state's sovereign rights, national flag, and strive
to add to it glory and ]:)ower.

.Sun W'en had not made this discovery accidentally. Nor did he
launch the nationalist mo\ement on an impulse. He had given the
movement serious ihongin and long study. In fact, he devoted a
great deal of his time to reading recognized western authorities on
law, government, and economics. He was eager to learn from the
radicals as well as the conservatives, the communists or socialists,
as well as the capitalists. His conclusions were profoundly influ-

THE IDEALS OF THE CHINESE REPUBLIC 417

enced by Chinese political philosophy and methods. He believed in
democracy, but he made a difiference between the right to be treated
equally and the right to govern. "The government of a nation," he
said, "must be built upon the rights of the people, but the adminis-
tration of public affairs must be entrusted to experts." He took a
deep interest in the improvement of the standard of living among
peasants and workers, but was opposed to class dictatorship. He
expanded on the traditional conception of cooperation between
classes of people. His famous illustration was that a modern build-
ing could not be erected without an architect who drew the plan,
a foreman who supervised the work, and a workman who did the
manual labor. Each of them was indispensable. So, for the sake of
erecting the building and for the benefit of all three they should co-
operate. He advocated state control and development of resources
and industries, but he found it impossible to accept Marxian social-
ism. It seemed apparent that while he was crystallizing his thinking
in formulating a philosophical basis and practical program for the
movement, he had constantly to deal with the Chinese background
and the requirements of the modern state, the Chinese situation, and
the inconclusive and limited experiences of western political science.
In attempting this he had to pioneer into new fields. Perhaps some
of the inconsistencies in his lectures could be thus explained. As a
whole, his philosophy and program constituted a modern restatement
of China's political aspirations and a modern plan to realize these
aspirations.

The nationalist movement, briefly, was to reconstruct a new un-
derstanding, a new physical environment, and social relationship.
The people were to be educated to learn how to exercise the powers
and privileges of a democracy. Their standard of living was to be
elevated so that none needed to live on the verge of starvation. The
new society was to be more organized, so that individual wishes
would be more subject to state well-being. All this involved the over-
coming of the tremendous inertia of the traditional Chinese political
individualism and }aissc::-faire attitude. The problem was made more
difficult because of the inadequacy of the physical basis for a modern
state, such as modern means of communication, also because of the
group of "war-lords" who were by-products of the recent disorgani-
zation and. who could not fit into the new scheme of things. There
fore, the movement was compelled to use certain stimuli strong

418 THE OPEN COURT

enough to shake to its foundation the pohtical inertia and to substi-
tute a new incentive for the new state.

Since the Opium War China had been repeatedly defeated by
foreign powers which had estabHshed concessions and settlements
in China and had deprived her of some of her territories, resources,
and sovereign rights. Because af their laisses-faire attitude, the
Chinese people as a whole had not been conscious of such foreign
aggression. The Nationalists began a campaign to create patriotism
by making the people conscious of the wrongs and humiliations
brought upon them by foreign powers. Second, there must be incul-
cated in the people a more aggressive and positive attitude toward
life. Thus, a deliberate attempt was made to overthrow the old re-
ligious and philosophical attitude of passiveness, moderation, and
toleration. The death of Sun Wen in 1925 resulted in the creation
of a most powerful symbol for the new national unity. Sun Wen
has justly become the national hero whose life exemplifies unselfish-
ness, courage, intelligent industry, and devotion to the cause of his
countrv and whose teachings became the adopted principles and sa-
cred testament of the nationalist movement and party.

In 1926 the Nationalist Party began to carry out the first step of
the national revolution ; that is, to unify China through military ex-
peditions. It achieved success quickly because of a number of con-
tributing factors. In the first place, the nationalist movement had
reached all parts of China. Second, the life and teachings of Sun
Wen had inspired a new hope and loyalty. Finally, the party util-
ized Russian experts in helping to organize a modern army and po-
litical machinery. The split within the party in 1927 caused a tem-
porary setback. Soon the conservative wing of the party consolidated
and succeeded in ousting their communist allies and established the
National Government at Nanking.

In 1917. when the first republican revolution succeeded. Sun
Wen went to the temple of Ming T'ai-tsu, founder of the Ming dy-
nasty and a nationalist hero, to pay respects to that great spirit in be-
half of the nation. In 1928, General Chiang Kai-shek represented
the Nationalists in reporting the successful conclusion of the mili-
tary revolution to the spirit of Sun Wen. This dramatic incident sig-
nified the beginning of a new era. The traditional political individ-
ualism and laisscz-fairc were no longer tenable. The Nationalists
were now obliged to turn their attention to the next two stages — po-

420 THE OPEN COURT

litical tutelage and constitutional government — in order to realize
fully the Three People's Principles — the People's Livelihood, the
People's Democracy, and the People's Xationalism.

Space does not permit me to go into details as to the history and
organization of the Nationalist Party (Kuo-min-tang) and the Na-
tional Government. Suffice it to state here that during the period of
political tutelage the party is the official organ for the political edu-
cation of the people. The people are taught gradually to understand
and to exercise their constitutional rights. Before they are able to
do so, the party assumes the direction and supervision of the govern-
ment. The National Government is divided into five Yiia)i — the ex-
ecutive, legislative, judicial, examination, and the control. The first
three correspond to the usual divisions of a western republic and
form of government. Civil service examination has always been re-
garded as a most important function of the government. The Na-
tionalists have modernized the procedure and made it one of the
five supreme divisions of the government in line with this tradition
and also with Sun W'en's principle of securing experts to adminis-
ter public affairs. In the traditional government of China there has
always been a board of censors whose duty has been to detect cor-
ruption and to criticize lack of duty by government officials. The
Central Yiiaii is intended to perform the same functions in a modern
government through its powers to impeach and to audit.

The National Government has not had an easy task in attempting
to reach the objectives of the nationalist movement and the party. In
some respects it is considered to have fallen short of its idealistic
declarations. For instance, the unequal treaties have not been en-
tirely abrogated. There are still disturbances in some parts of the
country, and the problems of the people's livelihood have not all
been solved. lUit no fair criticism can be made of any government
without taking into consideration the conditions under which it has
to operate. Considering, for example, the immensity of the territory
and population it has to deal with, as well as famines and floods,
foreign aggression, and other baffling difficulties, the National Gov-
ernment must be given due credit for many accom]:)lishments.

In the first ])lace, it has done much toward making itself a govern-
ment of the people. Since 1927 it has not borrowed a cent from
abroad, but has relied entireh upon donu'stic loans for government
financing. In spite of the economic (!e])rcssion it has been able to

THE IDEALS OF THE CHINESE REPUBLIC 421

balance its budget. This rnnsnal achievement has not only restored
the confidence of the ]ieople in the Government, but it has also made
possible cooperation between the Government and the people who
have become partners in governmental affairs.

Foundations have been laid for the realization of the Three Peo-
ple's Principles. Laws have been promulgated and courts established,
which have taken cognizance of the progressive legal and judicial
tendencies in the West. The monetary problem has been carefully
studied by experts, and gradual steps have been taken to stabilize
currency and exchange. This and the establishment of the Central
Bank have strengthened the Government's credit at home and abroad
despite adverse circumstances.

In foreign relations the achievements of the National Govern-
ment have been impressive. Tariff autonomy was recovered during
the first two years of its administration. In the meantime, steps were
taken to abolish extraterritoriality. Several treaties based on equality
and reciprocity have been concluded. A number of powers have re-
stored to China concessions and leased territories. The vitality of
the Government was formally recognized by the members of the
League of Nations which elected China to be a member of the Coun-
cil of the League in 193 L

True to its traditions, the Government has been actively inter-
ested in research and higher learning. The Academia Sinica was
founded in 1928 for the purpose of research in physics, chemistry,
engineering, geology, astronomy, meteorology, history and philology,
literature, archaeology, psychology, education, social science, zoo-
logy, and botany.

In conclusion it must be pointed out that on account of its pecu-
liar background the development of the Chinese nation has not been
so much influenced by or dependent upon political readjustments as
that of a modern western nation. In spite of disturbances in some
areas (which usually receive an undeserved share of attention in the
West), the Chinese people have been making steady progress in
material reconstruction. They have been rapidly developing civil
aviation and building motor roads, about 35.000 miles of which have
been built during this decade. In steamship transportation and in
manufacturing they are emerging from a period of complete foreign
control to a position of dominance.

The international situation has exerted and will continue to exert
influence which will mold the political future of China. So far Chi-

422 THE OPEX COURT

nese nationalism has been moderated by the traditional background
of the people. For instance, although their consciousness of nation-
ality is voung, it contains no element of narrow-mindedness, and al-
though militarists still sway great power, the people do not believe
in militarism or military dictatorship. They still believe in to live
and let live. Developments in the Far Fast during the last year and
a half are alarming to those who thought that the new order had ar-
rived. If the Chinese people are not left alone to work out freely
their political destiny and if the world's peace machinery proves im-
potent to guarantee to them this freedom, they may be compelled to
undergo a second childhood in reverting to the short-cut metliod of
dictatorship and militarism in their struggle for survival.

EDUCATION AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

BY PENG-CHUN CHANG
Professor at Nankai Middle School, Tientsin

IN discussing the present status of education in China it may be
well not to limit attention to the organized intricacies of the
educational system as such. Education is but one phase of the high-
ly significant and complex movement of China's adjustment to the
modern world. How has its aim been formulated in view of national
needs? What are the difficulties that hamper educational endeavor?
And what new tendencies are discernible in the problems of educa-
tion for the populace and of education for a new leadership?

It is well known that China before the nineteenth century was a
country that had a culture comparable to the culture of any nation
in the world before the coming of the modern scientific and indus-
trial era. Beginning with the second quarter of the nineteenth cen-
tury, the modern world by means of improved weapons of war came
to China with a threatening gesture. We shall not retrace all the un-
fortunate and regrettable happenings of the impact. By the begin-
ning of the twentieth century the Chinese, especially the intellectual
leaders among them, realized that, in order to exist as an indepen-
dent people in the modern world, they must take cognizance of the
achievements of modern industrial civilization, learn from abroad
methods of scientific mastery, and adopt new institutions for the
purpose of China's modernization.

Stimulated by the success of Japan's efforts at modernization
through the establishment of a modern school system, the Chinese
government appointed in 1904 a commission to draft a plan for a
system of national public schools. This plan was accepted and pro-
mulgated by decree in 1905. The old civil service examinations —
a practice for the selection of public officials inaugurated about two
thousand years ago — were abolished. A public school system of the
modern type with its provisions for different grades of education,
primary, secondary, and university, was put in force.

In the impatience of seeing China modernized, those responsible
for the change did not take time for a careful evaluation of the im-
ported formula. This hurried importation left many problems for

424 THE OPEN COURT

the decades that followed. Nevertheless, laboring under great dif-
ficulties, a modern school system has been in existence for the last
twenty-eight years, and thousands of schools and hundreds of thou-
sands of students show evidence of its operation.

A brief review of the different formulations of the aim of edu-
cation, as announced l)y the successive governments, will show us
the progressive steps in the realization as to how China was to be
modernized.

When the new school system was first introduced, the govern-
ment was under the old imperial regime. The aim of education was
stated as being fivefold : loyalty to the emperor, respect to Confucius,
public spirit, military bravery, and practicality. The first two were
traditional, and the last three showed conscious effort toward
modernization. I'ublic spirit was to be encouraged especially in
forms of patriotism in the modern nationalistic sense. ^Military brav-
ery was needed for the defence of the country. And practicality
implied the introduction of the sciences in the schools and the adop-
tion of modern industrial methods.

With the coming of the Rei)ublic after the revolution of 1911,
the educational aim was restated. The first formulation in 1912 em-
phasizing moral education, technical education, education for a mili-
tary citizenry, and esthetic education was soon felt to be not speci-
fically a]:)propriate for a republic. In 1918. at the National Educa-
tion Conference, a resolution was passed and adopted by the govern-
ment, to include in the educational aim the cultivation of the spirit
of democracy.

In 1*'22, after the infiuence of the American school system be-
came more explicitly felt, a reorganization was announced l)y presi-
dential order. The number of years in the dififerent grades of insti-
tutions was rearranged: from j)riniarv school seven years, middle
school five years, higher preparatory three years, and university three
to five years, to primary school six years, junior middle school throe
years, senior middle school three years, and universitv four to six
years. Seven controlling princii)les were enunciated: adjustment to
evolutionary changes in society, iiromotion of democratic sjiirit in
education, pr<)\ision for the growth (if indixidualitv. develoimient of
l)e'»i)Ie's productixe ability. em])hasis on life-situation in education, to

EDUCATION AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH 425

make education accessible to all people, and to allow elasticity for
the meeting of local needs. Those who are familiar with educational
thought in America a decade ago can easily and clearly discern
American influences in this reorganization.

After the establishment of the National Government in Nanking
in 1927, the principles of the Kuo-min-tang began to be applied to
education. In 1928, the Central Executive Committee of the party
recommended as the educational aim of the country the following:
Education of the Republic of China is to be based on the "Three
People's Principles" — to promote the spirit of nationalism, to hasten
the realization of political democracy, and to effect the betterment of
people's livelihood. These principles were formally announced by
the government in 1929.

Through the various formulations of the aim of education in the
past twenty-eight years, we can detect a general trend making China
into a modern nation. But transforming a nation of the size of China
with as old traditions is by no means a simple task. What are some
of the difificulties that disturb the smooth working of the educational
system ?

II

Let us inquire a little into the social setting that conditions edu-
cational effort. The more obvious factors in the social setting would
include threatening foreign invasions, disorder in the political ma-
chinery, changes in social institutions, and the breaking down of the
old economic structure. But for an appreciation of the essential
difficulties in educational work I should lay stress on the psycho-
logical factor in the social setting.

By the psychological factor I mean the traditional conception of
education deeply rooted in the mind of the people. To be brief, it
is the conception of education as the specific preparation for the
"scholar." The place of the scholar in Chinese society of the past
was uniciue. According to the time-honored classification, people
were supposed to belong to four vocational groups — the scholar, the
farmer, the artisan, and the merchant. Although this classification
was at no time strictly applicable and although there were always
other vocational occupations beside the four mentioned, the scholar
was respected by all and enjoyed the privileges and prestige of of-
ficial employment. Education for hundreds of years was considered

426 THE OPEX COURT

to be the exclusive and specific means for the preparation of the
scholar. The civil service examinations were instituted for the pin-
pose of selecting candidates for official positions, and the scholars
successful in the examinations were the acknowledged leaders in
political and social life and enjoyed the privileges of the leisure class.

This traditional conception is still potent in the minds of the
people, though often in a veiled form. Some effects of this concep-
tion on the new school system ma}" here be mentioned. First, the
conception of education as the specific preparation for the scholar
has tended to make the common people hesitate in sending their
children to the new schools. The farmers and artisans, especially
in the rural districts, are still very much of the opinion that send-
ing their children to the new schools for three or four years is some-
what a useless luxury, inasmuch as farmers and artisans, according
to their traditional outlook, require no "education."'

Second, the traditional conception has left behind an undue re-
spect for and reliance on book-knowledge and literary expression.
In the old days, the scholars knew their classics by heart and prac-
tised literary compositions of a special style required by the civil
service examinations. In the modern schools we find this undue re-
spect for book-learning one of the great impediments in inculcating
a realistic attitude of mind towards modern problems.

-Vnd third, the old "scholar-ideology" has seriously limited the
outlook of the students in the higher schools. In most people's
minds, the new school system has come to take the place of the old
civil service examinations. Those who attend the universities are
somehow expected to enter upon official careers. This explains the
fact that more than one-third of the students in the imiversities,
according to the statistics of 1930. are in colleges of law, which ac-
cording to the Chinese system include departments of political sci-
ence. And even those who take up other studies are often foimd
u])on graduation among the aspirants for positions in government
offices. Tims, laknt is di\erted from other pursuits that the nation
urgently rc(|uires for its economic reconstruction and social reor-
ganization.

With all the dilhcultics in the social setting, however, education-
al efi'orts in China, far from being discouraged, are pressing for-
ward in new directions in order to fulfill the mission of guiding the
extremely complex process of the nation's cultural transformation.

EDUCATION AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH 427

III
NEW DIRECTION IN THE EDUCATION FOR THE POPULACE

In the pre-indrstrial clays the skills involved in agriculture and
in craftsmanship were traditionally handed down from one genera-
tion to the next hy the apprenticeship system and by cooperative
work within the familw As to social conduct, oral traditions in the
form of precepts and personal prestige in natural social groupings
contributed to the cultivation of personal integrity and group co-
hesiveness. "Education," as already mentioned, was considered only
as the preparation for the intellectual leaders who served as admin-
istrators of public afi'airs and as upholders of social customs.

When the new school system came in, the general populace, ex-
cept the city-dwellers, could not appreciate education as given in the
primary schools. Even in cases where there are no economic im-
pediments, such as the inability to clothe the children properly and
the necessity of setting the children to work to assist in the dire
struggle for mere subsistence, the farmers and artisans in the coun-
try districts have hesitated to send their children to school. It is not
because they are not conscious of the value of education. It is rather
because they value "education" too highlv as being the specific prepa-
ration for the "scholar."

The government has announced a program for carrying out com-
pulsory education in the whole country. The Ministry of Education
plans to train 1,400,000 primary school teachers and to provide a mil-
lion class-rooms within the next twenty years. It is hoped that by
1951 forty million children will be enrolled in the primary schools.
These figures may give us an idea of the numbers of people that
must be taken into account. The problem is necessarily gigantic.

While provisions are being made for the extension of formal
school instruction, far-seeing educational workers have begun to re-
alize that due attention should be given to the psychological factor
involved. The traditional conception of education must be frankly
faced ; otherwise, organizational devices and government require-
ments such as the age at which children should be sent to school, the
number of years to stay there, the consolidation of village schools,
will, it is feared, only bring bewilderment to the populace. Based on
this realization, new experiments are being carried out in several
parts of the country. The chief contention motivating these experi-

428 THE OPEN COURT

ments is that education should he brought to the people, not only in
terms of formal school instruction, but also in terms of concrete as-
sistance to improve their livelihood. Effective means are worked out
for the relief of poverty of the people and for their enlightenment
as to national needs in the face of foreign invasions and of read-
justments in political, social, and economic life. This new direction
in general education, T am pleased to report, is gradually finding sup-
port in public opinion and government action. The Mass Education
Experiment in Ting-hien. TTopei, the Provincial Rural Reconstruction
Institute at Tso-ping, Shantung, and the rural extension work in
parts of Kiangsu, Chekiang, Shansi, Anhui. and Kwangtung, all
indicate the new interest in the betterment of the populace. Through
such means as the literacy campaign, the spread of information con-
cerning new agricultural methods and implements, and instruction in
health and citizenship, the educational workers with the new vision
are attacking bravely the tremendous problem of education in rural
districts, which contain approximately 85 per cent of the huge popu-
lation of the country.

NEW niRECTIOXS IX THE EDUCATION FOR I,E.\DERSniP

For the past quarter of a century, more than fifty universities
under government and private agencies have been established. This
phenomenon is unique in the history of education. It reflects the re-
spect for learning of the Chinese people, ^^'hile there may be much
to criticize concerning the quality of instruction and inadequacy of
equipment, it cannot be gainsaid that the people realize the supreme
need of supplying the nation with a new educated leadership. Here
also, the traditional conception has contributed difficulties that must
be faced as realities, ^^'hen the civil service examinations were dis-
continued, the newly established universities were supposed to take
their place in supplyiiig candidates for official positions. The fact that
most students in the universities are still looking forward to entering
the much coveted officialdom, as pointed out above, is a problem
challenging solution.

Attention is now being directed to the correction of this defect.
Public men in \arious parts of the country are declaring against the
unhealthy crowding of aj^plicants for official jobs. And there is a
general realization that productive pursuits should be encouraged
and that studies and research in engineering and the sciences should,

EDUCATION AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH 429

at the present juncture of China's need for economic reconstruction,
be emphatically promoted. The Ministry of Education has recently
ordered that no new Law and Liberal Arts Colleges will be recog-
nized by the government. In some of the newly founded provincial
universities, as, for instance, in the Provincial University of Kwang-
si, all students are encouraged to take engineering, agriculture, or the
sciences. They are also required to devote part of their time to ac-
tual productive labor. Some secondary schools have also undertaken
to try new experiments. For instance, at Nankai School, Tientsin,
a group of students is undergoing a new kind of training, devoting
half of their time to studies in class-rooms and the other half to pro-
ductive labor in shops.

We may say, then, that the new direction in leadership-education
aims to supply China, not with leaders who know nothing but books,
but with leaders who are well equipped in the solution of concrete
problems and who can think scientifically and work collectively for
the nation's good.

IV

We now proceed to a consideration of the new interest in scien-
tific studies and scientific research.

The intellectual reorientation involved in the introduction of
modern science is one of the most basic movements in the cultural
transformation of China. In regard to the introduction of foreign
intellectual products, the Chinese have never taken an attitude of
aversion. When the value of these products is clearly demonstrated,
they have been willing students and ably adapted the imported ideas
to the fertilization of the indigenous culture.

An example from an earlier period may be given here. Some
fifteen hundred years ago a foreign intellectual movement came into
China with the introduction of Buddhism. That was the most po-
tent intellectual stimulus from the outside world that the homogene-
ous culture had received up to that time. At first the Chinese in-
tellectuals learned from the Indian teachers who came to China.
Later, they went to India for more authentic knowledge. They car-
ried with them the Chinese habit of patient and tenacious applica-
tion in learning. They studied in India under the best teachers and
brought back to China manuscript upon manuscript which upon their
return they translated into Chinese. Some of the translations, no-

430 THE OPEN COURT

tably those by the famous Hiian Tsang. were so well done that they
are approved by modern scholarship as being both faithful and ex-
pressive. Incidentally, with their respect for written records, the
Chinese have saved many a P)uddhist document from destruction,
and much modern knowledge of early Buddhist literature has been
made possible on the basis of Sanskrit originals and Chinese trans-
lations.

The intellectual stimulus that came from India contributed much
to the flourishing culture in the T'ang and Sung dynasties. At
present we are in the midst oi another movement of intellectual
transmission — this time from the modern ^^>st. The core of this
movement is modern science, which came to China in the latter part
of the nineteenth century. The Chinese turned their attention to
it because they felt that science made western nations strong in war.
The earlv translators of scientific works were mostly those connected
with the Kiangnan Arsenal established in 1865 for the manufacture
of modern weapons of war. or with the new army and navy. Trans-
lations of Lyell's Principles of Geology and Tyndall's Physics, for
instance, were first published by the Kiangnan Arsenal. The trans-
lator of the Darwinian theory into Chinese. Yen Fu. was a student
sent to England to study naval science and later became interested
in the natural sciences.

The wide-spread promotion of the study of modern sciences came
with the new school system inaugtirated in 1905. ^Modern sciences,
such as are usually found in the curricula of western schools and
universities, have been introduced into all institutions established
tinder the new system. Students sent abroad have returned and car-
ried on scientific research with very promising results.

Societies for the encotiragement of scientific research are neces-
sarily of recent date. Prominent are the National Geological Sur-
vey, 1913. the Science Society of China. 1914 (its Biological Re-
search Laboratory in Nanking 1916), the Research Institutes of the
Academia Sinica, 1927 (nine institutes have so far l)ecn organized:
Institutes of Physics, Chemistr}-. Engineering. ("ieolog}\ .Astronomy.
Meteorolog\-. Ilistorv and Philology. Psycholog}-. and Social Sci-
ences), the I\-ui McuKirial I'iological Survey. 1*^28. and the Pciping
Research Institute with its de]iartmcnts of ])hvsical and biological
sciences. 1929.

It is but natural that the first results of research sIk^uUI come

EDUCATION AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH 431

from those studies that are more closely connected with natural
phenomena somewhat regional in character, such as geological
studies, research of fauna and flora, and studies in palaeontology
and archaeology.

Research contributions in geology have already gained recognition
in China and abroad. Geological mapping, stratigraphy, seismology,
and study of mineral resources have all been undertaken with very
significant results. They have been not only of importance to science
as a new intellectual discipline, but also of practical value to the na-
tion. For instance, in the study of mineral resources, about one hun-
dred and forty million tons of iron ore, 15 per cent of the grand total
of the nation's reserves, were discovered by the investigators of the
China Geological Survey. Of general interest is the discovery of the
so-called Peking Man (Sinanthropiis pckincnsis), a contribution to
the knowledge of earliest man. We shall not mention the scores of
technical papers in geology and palaeontology that have been con-
tributed by investigators. Suffice it to say that the results are now
acknowledged by more experienced fellow scientists outside of China,
and these should be qualified to judge.

In biological studies, contributions from Chinese scientists are
coming forth in increasing volume. Fauna and flora that have been
unknown to the scientific world are being collected, classified, and
described with indefatigable energy and scientific scrupulosity. Re-
searches in agricultural entomology and pharmacology of Chinese
drugs have already brought forth much useful knowledge for the
eradication of natural pests and for the relief of human sufifering.
Stimulated by the challenging opportunities in a still virgin field,
the workers in biological research are all filled with enthusiasm, and
are pressing forward to make new discoveries of importance to
science.

One of the departments of research that has recently claimed at-
tention is that of archaeology. Archaeological studies were highly
developed by the time of the Sung dynasty in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries. On account of their reverence for the past it is
natural that the Chinese should have always paid great attention to
ancient records and ancient objects. But systematic study with the
help of modern equipment was started only in recent years. It is
sponsored by the Research Institute of History and Philology in
Academia Sinica. The work undertaken in An-yang, Honan, has re-

432 THE OPEN COURT

vealed results that are of great significance to historians of China's
early age. The An-yang site was known to be the capital city of the
Shang dynasty, about 1500 b.c. The investigation has yielded much
information not to be found in written records. By means of careful
stratigraphical study the investigators have been able to find, to men-
tion one instance, that the people of the Shang dynasty had already
mastered the casting of bronze to an advanced degree and made
weapons, ceremonial vessels, and other ornaments. While some of
the interpretations may be still contended by experts, the fact that
the Chinese are making use of modern scientific methods to ascer-
tain facts concerning the life and culture of their early history is a
very significant development. And it is bound to promote thought
to a great extent.

It would be too much to expect that, with less than a generation's
effort, a great deal could have been produced. But there is no ques-
tion whatsoever that Chinese intellectuals have definitely taken a new
direction and have joined their fellow-workers in other parts of the
world in the advancement of scientific knowledge for the discovery
of truth and the masterv of nature.

TRENDS OF THOUGHT AND RELIGION
IN CHINA TODAY

BY DR. Y. Y. TSU
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

WE ARE in the midst of another period of intercultural con-
tact of China and the outside world. Once more her civiHza-
tion is in a state of flux. Thought patterns, modes of Hving, time-
honored traditions and institutions, all are undergoing far-reaching
transformation. Changes in form of government, momentous as they
may be, are accompanied by more fundamental changes in ideology,
in the outlook on life, and in intangible realities, such as tastes and
standards, beliefs and loyalties, which make up the spirit of a new
age.

The present period of intercultural contact began in the middle
of last century. The leading industrial nations of the West were
then looking for foreign markets to absorb the output of their fac-
tories ; and as Asiatic countries were vmindustrialized, both diplo-
matic and forceful means were used to open up these countries to
foreign trade. Because of lack of modern scientific and technical
knowledge, the Chinese were placed at a disadvantage in these po-
litical and economic relations, and to remedy the situation, the
government took steps to encourage the study of foreign languages,
translation of scientific books, sending of students abroad, and em-
ployment of foreign experts. The Tung Wen Kwan was opened in
1880 at Shanghai for the study of European languages and sciences.
A translation department was maintained by the newly established
Arsenal at Shanghai for the translation of scientific and technical
books. The eminent scholar Yen Fu translated Huxley's Essays on
Evolution, Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, Mill's Logic, and
Spencer's Principles of Sociology. Another scholar. Ling Shu, ren-
dered into Chinese masterpieces of western fiction, such as the
works of Scott, Hugo, Dumas, Balzac, Ibsen, Cervantes, Tolstoi,
and others. These introduced our students to a new world of thought
and life. Some time in the nineties, Liang Chi-ch'ao was able to list
three hundred European works then available in Chinese as the re-
sult of twenty years of translation. In the preface of his compilation

434 THE OPEN COURT

he wrote, "Knowledge is power, ^^'hen we compare the Westerners'
knowledge of sound, light, chemistry, electricity, agriculture, mining,
industry, with our own learning in historical criticism, literature,
and ethics, we realize how little we do know ; and yet we still slum-
ber on dreaming of our own greatness ! Therefore to make our
country strong, it is our first duty to translate more western books.
If students wish to become accomplished, the most efit'ective way is
to read more western books. I hear that the national library in
London has more than three hundred thousand diliferent works.
What we have translated is like a piece of hair in a herd of oxen."

Liang Chi-ch'ao's distinguished teacher was K'ang Yu-wei, the
father and leader of the first Reform Movement of 1898. An ad-
vanced thinker and accomplished writer, his memorials to the throne
on the necessity of political reform and the adoption of western
methods and institutions in government, education, industry, and
agriculture were literary models, which provoked admiration even
in conservative circles, though his ideas were too radical for accep-
tance. His chance for putting his ideas into concrete form, at least
on paper, came in the summer of 1898 when he was made adviser
to the emperor Krang-su, who under his guidance sought to trans-
form the country overnight by edict. This episode, known as "One
Hundred Days of Reform," ended disastrously for the reformers.

K'ang Yu-wei's political ideas are found in his essay Ta t'liiig
shii ("The Utopia of Great Harmony"). The inspiration came
froiu a passage in the Book of Rites (Li ki) which describes the
Ijeautiful Confucian conception of the ideal state:

When the Great Teaching prevails, the world will he a
commonwealth. The wise and able will be selected ( for
office) ; people will be bound by universal ties so that none
will claim only his own kin as kin, or have regard only for
his own children ; the aged will be looked after ; those in full
manhood will find useful employment ; the young will be
l)roperlv nurtured ; the widowed, orphaned, and disabled will
be taken care of ; the men will have their pro]ier duties, and
the women will be suitably married. As for property, while
di.sliking to have it go to waste, none will keep it as private
possession ; as for men's talents, while not refusing to de-
velop them, none will utilize them iov selfish purposes. In
this way. rebellion will not raise its banner, robbers and
thieves will not pursue their misdeeds, and house-doors need
not be locked at night. Such a state we call Ta T'lmg.

TRENDS OF THOUGHT AND RELIGION IN CHINA 435

K'ang Yu-wei elaborated this ideal into a socialistic world state
or league of nations, with such features as state responsibility for
the upbringing of children, equality of educational and vocational
opportunities, abolition of private property, a universal language,
uniform weights and measures, state enterprises in industry, sanita-
tion, and medicine. The aim of such a state would be the abolition
of human nusery. He wrote, "The causation of misery assumes
manv forms, natural, srch as floods, epidemics, earthquakes ; social,
such as the dependent state of widows and or])hans, lack of medical
care, and jioverty : biological, such as still-birth, infant mortality,
congenital deformities ; political, such as heavy taxation, war, op-
pression ; ciuotiotial, such as hatred, passion, stupidity. The com-
mon causes of conflict among men are the artificial distinctions of
class, nationality, and sex. Hence the cure lies in their abolition."

As an historical document, the essay is valuable in mirroring the
social conditions of the time which turned men's thoughts to the
building of Utopian castles in the air.

A close colleague of K'ang Yu-wei in his reform movement was
Tang Tse-tung, who at the age of thirty-three forfeited his life as
one of "the Six Martyrs of 1898." It is generally lielieved that he
was the actual writer of the edicts of the Hundred Days of Reform
and, when the movement collapsed, he refused to flee because he
believed that "only by the flow of blood could the cause be ad-
vanced." His book Je>i Hsi'ich ("The Philosophy of Benevolence")
is an exposition of his political and economic views, but it is also
illustrative of the spirit of revolt against the thraldom of tradition
and political corruption. He wrote, "In this vast universe I am like
a minute drop of water in the ocean ; how can one describe the
miserable feeling of futility! Under the manifold oppressions (of
the social order), one must in silence drink the cup to its dregs. If
one attempted to protest against the ignorance, poverty, and weak-
ness in the land, one would be scofTed at as a demented person. But
should one not describe a thousandth part, like a cry in the wilder-
ness, fighting against odds, to hasten the destruction of the net of
ignorance and bequeath his words as medicine for an evil time? The
net is heavy, ubiquitous, and manifold, but we must destroy it piece
by piece — political ambition, literary formalism, social tradition, re-
ligious fatalism. Only by breaking through can the net be destroyed ;
only by destroying it can we hope for freedom."

436 THE OPEN COURT

He held advanced ideas about the use of machinery for produc-
tion and the exploitation of natural resources, and urged men of
wealth to use their means to build up industries. "The whole secret
is in utilizing natural resources through human ability, and by aim-
ing at benefiting the many one also benefits oneself. It is like try-
ing to keep a small sprinkler on one's land during a drought. It will
never last. The thing to do is for all to work together on some large
irrigation project. \\'e need machinery for large-scale production.
One machine can duplicate the work of a hundred men. Thus labor
is saved for other needed work, while the people will have an ade-
quate supply of goods. Further, machiuery will relieve our people
from much of their hard toil. Our people sometimes sell themselves
into slavery, and are driven like oxen : so low has human life fallen
because of poverty. On the other hand, see what has hai)pened to
the nations that use machinery. Their wealth has increased, and the
general plane of living is raised. ■Machinery has done it."

Liang Chi-ch'ao was the most brilliant of K'ang Yu-wei's pupils
and the Erasmus of the Reform Movement. Encyclopedic in his
scope of knowledge, well informed in modern intellectual and po-
litical trends, wielding a pen that is lucid, forceful, and scholarly,
he more than any one else must be given credit for the national
awakening of China in the beginning of this century. For forty
years the productivity of his pen was like torrential rain on a thirsty
land. His collected writings now fill eighty volumes. We shall have
occasion to refer to his scholarship below.

In recent times, the most representative scholar is unquestion-
ably Professor Hu Shih of the Peking National University, popu-
larly known as the father of the Renaissance Movement of 1917.
The chief features of this movement are emphasis on the scientific
method, critical revaluation of China's cultural heritage, and the
use of the vernacular style as literary medium. The last feature is
epoch-making, being known as the Literary Revolution. Not that
the use of the vernacular was a new idea ; it had been widely used
by novelists, dramatists, and Buddhist writers for centuries, but
Hu Shih, Chen Tu-siu, and their colleagues were instrumental in
overcoming the opposition of the scholarly tradition and making the
vernacular the accepted medium of formal writing. Hu Shih's argu-
ments in favor of the vernacular { f^ai Jiua), first published in 1^M5
in La Jcitiicssc, organ of the Renaissance Movement, were that the
vernacular was the living language of the ])e(i])le. in dailv use l)y

TRENDS OF THOUGHT AND RELIGION IN CHINA 437

them, and thus a more accrrate medium of expression than the clas-
sical style (icen li), which was highly artificial, unintelligible to
any except a minority, and as far as the common people were con-
cerned, a dead language.

Hu Shih is an ardent advocate of modernization. He is impa-
tient with those who with false pride esteem eastern civilization as
more spiritual and deprecate western civilization as more material-
istic. On the contrary, he claims that eastern civilization is more
materialistic in the sense that we are helplessly handicapped by our
material environment because of lack of knowledge and enterprise
for making use of natural resources. In his essay, "Conflict of Cul-
tures" (China Christian Year Book, 1929), he wrote, "I regard as
truly spiritual that civilization which makes the fullest possible use
of human intelligence and effort in a search for truth and in the mul-
tiplication of instrumentalities in order to control nature and trans-
form matter for the service of man and to reform social and politi-
cal institutions for the greatest happiness of the greatest number."
Using the evil custom of foot-binding to drive home his point, he
continued, "Foot-binding is not an isolated fact ; it represents the
most cruel form of human suffering of a whole sex for a period of
ten centuries. And when we realize that religion and philosophy and
morals have conspired to l^lind and deaden the Chinese conscience
for a proper recognition of its inhumanity and that poets wrote en-
thusiastic eulogies and novelists produced lengthy descriptions of the
small feet of women, we must conclude that something must be
fundamentally wrong in a civilization in which the moral and esthetic
senses have been so grotesquely distorted."

A younger man among modern scholars is Professor Ku Chih-
kang of Yenching University. Espousing the historical realism of
Tai Tung-yiian, Tsui Tung-pi, and others of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, Ku is devoting himself to a reconstruction of
Chinese history according to the scientific method, and when the
first volume of Ku shih picn, embodying the fruits of his research,
was. published, Hu Shih declared it to be the most epoch-making
work in a century on ancient Chinese history. In the author's in-
troduction to the first volume, an autobiographical document of in-
tense human interest, he refers to his early fondness for philosophy.
His failure to arrive at a satisfactory philosophy of life by way of
abstraction led him to see the necessity of the study of facts as the
basis of philosophizing. "I recognize now the mystery of the uni-

438 THE OPEN COURT

\-erse : the ultimate truth lies hidden in the 'box of the gods", and not
published abroad for all to see. Man has the desire for knowledge,
but not the ability, hence we try to do the impossible. \\'e really
do not penetrate the mystery of the universe: we just scra]:)e the
surface of things. Theologians and metaphysicians may say to the
scientists, 'You deal with the phenomenal, we walk with the gods.'
This sounds well, but is it not a delusion? Preferable is the slow,
painstaking labor of scientists to learn about the truth of things.
If we are after knowledge, we had better begin with details. It is
like piling up earth; if we want to p\\e high, we must l)roaden the
base. We may not strike the stars, but the pile will get higher day
by day. Xow my ambition is more subdued. I realize that ultimate
truth need not be vainly sought : only like a farmer, T till the soil
bit bv bit, and sow the seed grain by grain. With this realization I
see that past philosophies were built on speculation. The new phi-
losophy of science is just beginning; we cannot tell of its final
achievement. This much, however, may be said: if we want true
philosophy, we must begin with scientific research. Let each adopt
a specific field of knowledge and till it. When the difi^erent fields
have been developed, there will come men who will synthesize them
and form the new philosophy." The author's introduction has been
translated by Dr. Arthur \\\ Hummel under the title "The Auto-
biogra]:)hy of a Chinese Historian."

PHILO.SOPHY, SCIENCE, RELIGION

The preceding sketch indicates that the main trend of thought
in China today is realistic, scientific, and humanistic, with emphasis
on the social objective, "the greatest happiness of the greatest num-
ber." As to i)hilosoi)hy in the proper sense of the word, sufficient
time has not elapsed for any new system to aj^pear. Principal at-
tention is given to a reinterjiretation of the traditional schools of
thought — Confrcianist, Taoist, P>uddhist — in the light of the new
knowledge that has come from the west. Among systematic trea-
tises of this kind, the earliest to api:)ear was the History of Chinese
lithics (l^^OS) ])v T'sai \'i.ian-])ei, formerly Chancellor of the Peking
National rni\ersit}', while the best known work is 1 In .^bill's History
of Chinese fhilosophy (1919), a ]jart of which was also i)ublished
in luiglish under the title, Pei-elof^nieiil of the Lo(/ieal Method in
.■Indent China." Liang Chi-ch'ao's Chinese Politieal 'Jlioityht before
the Tsin Dynasty ( 1923) and h'eng Yti-lan's IHstory of Chinese

TRENDS OF THOUGHT AND RELIGION IN CHINA 439

Philosophy (1931), like Hu Shih's work, cover only the ancient
period, down to the unification of the country under the first empire-
builder of the third century p..c. In Japan, several works covering
the whole of Chinese philosophy have been published, the latest of
which is Watanabe's Brief Introduction to the History of Chinese
Philosophy (1922).

Between the traditional schools of thought and the infiltration of
western philosophical ideas, certain significant tendencies may be
noted. Reference has been made to the emphasis on the scientific
method, or the emphasis on what is factual, which means first-hand
knowledge as contrasted with book learning or mere speculation.
This note is not entirely new: Yen Shi-chai (1635-1704) long ago
had sounded it. He wrote, "It is like learning to play the violin.
Merely to read music books and learn the laws of harmony does
not bring you within ten thousand miles of the art. Practise with
your hands, handle the violin, try the strings, and get the correct
tones ; in this way. the mind and the hands become unconsciously
habituated. It is like studying to be a medical practitioner. Now
students merely read medical books and despise clinical experience
and the actual manipulation of instruments and herbs. You may be
as learned as you want, but diseases will grow rampant, men will
die of them, and you will never be able to help them."

Confidence in science has become an all-absorbing faith. Science
is looked upon as the magic key that will ultimately open all doors
of knowledge, solve all mysteries of the universe, and eliminate all
the ills of life. William James somewhere in his writings referred
to the dogmatic attitude of undergraduates about the omnipotence
of science, so that to stop an argument all that was necessary was
to call a man unscientific. Such an attitude prevails in China at
present. An eminent thinker once publicly stated that philosophy
was poor science, and theology, poor philosophy — a statement remin-
iscent of Auguste Comte's three stages of intellectual progress.

The assumed supremacy of science raised the question of the
relative position of science and philosophy in the business of living.
In 1923 a heated public debate was launched in the press ; a dozen
well-known writers and thinkers took part in it. It started with a
lecture on the philosophy of life by Carson Chang, professor of
philosophy at Yenching University, who maintained that, as science
dealt with the objective world and with uniformities and averages,
whereas a man's philosophy of life was subjective, volitional, and

440 THE OPEN COURT

individralistic, it was a sphere in which science could play but a
small part, in which, however, personal influence and choice counted
most. China's philosophers, from Confucius and Mencius down to
the rationalists of the Sung, Yiian, and Ming dynasties, had empha-
sized this discipline of the inner life, and the result was a spiritual
civilization. Europe, during the past three hundred years, had em-
phasized man's control of nature ; the result was a materialistic
civilization, which culminated in the catastrophic World \\^ar. China
was at the fork in the road ; she would have to choose which way to
go : the key to the situation was an adequate philosophy of life.

This deprecation of science was strongly objected to by Dr. V.
K. Ting, eminent geologist, who regarded Chang's thesis as a re-
vival of medieval metaphysics. He considered the pursuit of science
an excellent means of self-discipline ; according to him, it would
not only break down prejudices, but also create a love of truth; it
would inculcate a calm and balanced attitude, and develop one's in-
tellectual powers. Only by understanding biology and psychology
could a man really know the meaning of life. Such appreciation of
life could be acquired only by those who had looked through the
telescope and realized the vastness of the universe, and through the
miscroscope and realized the minuteness of life, but is denied to
those who merely indulge in vacuous contemplation. Chang coun-
tered by saying that science is only one of several avenues leading
to truth and that there are spheres into which it is incompetent to
enter ; a scientific analysis would be meaningless in an experience
of the beauty of a sunset. Liang Chi-ch'ao showed that the truth of
the matter probably lay somewhere between the two opposing views
by pointing out that "a large part of the problem of life should be
and can be solved by science, but that a small portion and a more
important one is beyond science. Human life cannot separate itself
from the intellect, but the intellect cannot embrace the whole of
life."

\\'hen these discussions were collected in one volume, Hu Shih
was asked to write an introduction. As was to be expected of one
who considered Huxley and Dewey his best teachers, he threw his
weight on the side of the scientists and expounded his "naturalistic
view of life." In the concluding paragraph he writes, "Living in the
natural universe, in infinite space and eternal time,, this human be-
ing, five to six feet tall, endowed with two hands, enjoying a life
span of not more than a hundred years, seems a pitiable creature,

TRENDS OF THOUGHT AND RELIGION IN CHINA 441

circumscribed and subject to nature's rigid laws. But it has its own
place and value. With his two hands and a big brain, man has suc-
ceeded in making tools creating civilization, taming beasts, under-
standing nature's laws, and in making electricity to run his cars and
ether to convey his messages. In increasing his knowledge, he not
only increases his powers, but also elevates his mind. He casts away
his fears and finds his own freedom. The very expanse of space
which used to oppress him helps to develop his esthetic powers, and
even the law of struggle for existence helps him to appreciate the
value of cooperation and to strive to diminish nature's ruthlessness
and wastefulness. In short, the naturalistic view of life is not with-
out beauty and poetry, moral value, and creative wisdom."

In this naturalistic scheme of life, with its doctrine of spontan-
eous evolution, religion as supernaturalism has no permanent place.
At best it is a passing phase in man's arduous upward climb ; at
worst, it is a positive hindrance to progress. This does not mean
that Chinese scholars find no interest in the study of religion as a
phenomenon in social evolution ; in fact, recent archaeological and
ethnological studies have greatly increased our knowledge of the
religious ideas and practices of past generations, as, for instance,
the discovery of the oracle bones at An-yang left by the people of
Yin. But as a factor in social progress, religion has outlived its use-
fulness to most Chinese thinkers, a view quite in keeping with the
humanistic tendency in Confucianism.

T'sai Yiian-pei once proposed to substitute esthetics for religion
as a means for the enrichment of life. He thought that esthetics
had all the advantages of religion in adding to the zest, color, and
sweetness of life, without any of the drawbacks, such as the de-
ceptive notion of a deity and the spirit of intolerance which re-
ligion generally fosters. According to him "beauty is universal ; it
cannot be privately appropriated ; it can be shared by all without
being denied to any one. It brings people together instead of di-
viding them. Its influence is not only cultural, but also ethical ; it
cultivates tolerance and cures selfish acquisitiveness." This position
is challenged by others who, granting that there is much in common
between religion and art, maintain that there is a fundamental dif-
ference between the two in that religion deals with the ethical life
and carries an imperative "Thou shalt," whereas art involves no
ethical necessitv and is a matter of individual taste which varies with

TRENDS OF THOUGHT AND RELIGION IN CHINA 443

the degree of intelligence. To put it briefly, art aims at expression,
but religion aims at salvation.

In place of religious faith, there is among our people a sense of
collective responsibility which almost amounts to a social religion.
Its basis is to be found in the cult of ancestor worship. While re-
ligious creeds teach the immortality of the individual soul, ancestor
worship emphasizes the immortality of the group. The individual
perishes, but the group continues ; and yet every individual leaves a
permanent impress upon the collective life of the group, like drops
of water merged in a vast stream flowing continuously onward. This
is a popular idea among our people. Hu Shih, in connection with
his naturalistic view of life, said, "The self, microcosm, is mortal,
but humanity, the macrocosm or our larger self, is immortal. To
live for the humanity of all ages is the highest religion." Liang Chi-
ch'ao in an essay, "My View of Life and Death," wrote in the same
vein, "We all die and we do not die; what dies is our individual
self ; what does not die is our social or collective self." This social
religion has driven scholars like Chen Tu-siu and others from the
seclusion and detachment of the school-room to turn to the turbulent
life of active politics and even radical agitation for social justice.
Not a few despairing of the present social order have embraced
more radical schemes such as offering a way of securing not only
consistency in individual living, but also w^elfare for the masses.
This social passion is a distinct note in modern Chinese literature.
The name "proletarian literature" has been coined, not to indicate
its origin, but to describe its championship of the cause of the so-
cially oppressed. Hu Shih's poem, "The Autocrat" is a good illus-
tration :

High on the hill-top sat the autocrat,
Sending his slaves in irons to the mines.
"Which of you can disobey my word?
I wish you to be slaves, and slaves you are."

Ten thousand years the slave gangs toiled.
Till bit by bit the iron chains wore out.
"When these old shackles snap, revolt !"
They cheered each other in the mines.

Hard did they toil beneath the hill
Spadeful by spadeful digging, till
The whole was hollowed out and fell,
And with it crashed the autocrat and died.

444 THE OPEN COURT

The best known writer in this field was Tsiang Kwang-se, whose
impassioned outpourings, in verse and prose, in novel and short
story, voicing the suffering of child-laborers and the wail of wronged
women, speaking for peasants toiling in the fields and soldiers bleed-
ing to death in battle, serve to awaken tiur social conscience. The
following two pieces are taken from his volume Cliaii kii ("Rattle
Drum" 1929). One. "Last Night T dreamt of Heaven," pictures
an ideal society, and the other, written on Christmas Day, bitterly
assails the present economic order :

Last night I dreamt of the Kingdom of Heaven,
Away in the mountains of time to come.
It has given me a deep-graven lovely image,
Which though awake I can never forget.

Men, women, young, old. neither high nor low ;
You and I, we and they, all are one ;
All sorrow, hatred, struggle ....
Not even a shadow of these is seen.

No cities, no hamlets, all is a garden :

Men dwell in the spaces of Nature's beautiful house.

For lovers of music, the concert hall stands by the workshop ;

For those who dance, the dancing place neighbors the home.

Birds are singing in praise of the radiance of spring ;
In me they awaken answering chords of joy.
These people truly enjoy a happy life :
They mingle their voices with the songs of birds.

The flowers are fragrant, the grass is green ;
Men are alive to the poem and rhythm of life.
Joy is life, and life is joy;
Who remembers toil, misery, death any more!

Yes, that land is in heaven, not among men ;
When will the Kingdom of Heaven come among men ?
My soul is scarred by the wounds of pain :
Would I might stay in that land and never depart.

Christmas!

Resistance is sin ;

The slave must obey his master ;

The slave must have no divided heart ;

The master can do no wrong.

Docs this, Testis, sfiuarc with vour law?

TRENDS OF THOUGHT AND RELIGION IN CHINA 445

Poverty and wealth are foreordained ;
The poor must not hate the rich ;
The rich daily enjoy good meat ;
The poor starve unheeded.
Is this, Jesus, your boundless love?

Patience is a virtue ;

After death you go to heaven ;

Joy in heaven is real ;

What matters suffering on earth?

Is this, Jesus, your gift of peace?

Blood-stains are everywhere ;

The powerful squander the lives of the weak ;

The world has become a slaughter-yard ;

Darkness has overcome light.

Is this, Jesus, your power divine?

Having given a cross-section of how men think and feel about
life and its problems, from which true philosophy and religion
spring, it remains for us to review briefly the present status of the
ethico-religious systems that have come down from the past under
the title of "Three Religions of China."

CONFUCIANISM

With the passing of the monarchy in 1911, Confucianism as a
state cult became a thing of the past. Its central tenet, the divine
commission of kings, dramatized in the worship of Heaven con-
ducted each spring and autumn by the sovereign on the altar of
Heaven, became an anachrgnism in a republican regime. An at-
tempt was made to revive Cofucianism by legislation in 1915 and
make it the established religion of the country, as Shinto is in Japan,
but popular opinion was strongly opposed to it, and the proposed
legislation was defeated. In those years, the Confucian Society,
sometimes known as the Church of Confucius, was very active:
funds were raised, and the foundations laid for the erection of a
national Confucian cathedral in Peking. Local societies were or-
ganized for ethical culture, with membership initiation, Sunday
services, and hours of meditation patterned after the usage of Chris-
tian churches, but the movement was short-lived. Its failure was
attributed to the fact that Confucianism was not a religion in the
true sense of the word, and the intere.st aroused by political con-
siderations evaporated with the passing of the specific occasion.

446 THE OPEN COURT

Some Confucianists still look upon Confucianism as the mani-
festation of Chinese national culture, and hemoan the tendency of
the younger generation to discredit it as an antiquated system.
They attribute the political and social turmoil of the day to the
break-up of the Confucian tradition with its central doctrines of
filial piety and political loyalty. They fear that the nation is in dan-
ger of losing its soul, and believe that anarchy prevails because
we are drifting away from the anchorage of our spiritual life. In
a lecture on "Confucius, Confucianism. China, and the ^^'orld To-
day" (1927). Professor Wu ]\Ii said,

The world is now in a sea of trouble, and men suffer from
spiritual rather than economic causes. Culture is in a process
of extinction. Above all we suiter from the tyrannical ex-
cess of naturalism born of the power of science which has
run wild and has been much abused ; also from all kinds of
emotional sophistry, of which Rousseau's romanticism is but
one form of expression. ^l:\n is overruled by nature, and
has listened to the voice of false prophets. Both right reason-
ing and experiences of past ages tell us that our hope lies in
a humanistic movement, primarily in the field of education,
and that the much-needed medicine for us in the essence of
the truths of humanism that could be drawn from sources of
the world's humanistic traditions. Here is obviously the value
of Confucianism and its meaning for the world of today.

^fodern Confucianists, or Xeo-Confucianists as they call them-
selves, would like to go a step farther and build around the time-
honored reverence for Confucius a popular religion for the edifi-
cation of the masses. For this purpose' they would develop a ritual
of worship and even erect an altar to the deity. They recall the
concept of "God" or "Supreme Being" (Shang Ti) of the ancients,
and although they themselves cannot accept it as meaning more
than the personification of moral law or "first cause," they would
revive it for the l)enefit of the ]:)eo])le who still need religion as a
prop to the moral life. Rather than let Buddhists and Taoists mon-
opolize the business of catering to the spiritual needs of the people,
Neo-Confucianists propose to erect U])on the humanistic founda-
tion of Confucianism a religious su]X'rstructiu'c and with the hel])
of art. liturgy, and ritual to build up a new modern failh.

Few, however, entertain such a fantastic dream, while with the
majority of scholars the question as to whether Confucianism is
to maintain its doniinanl position in ( hinese life or not is not one

TRENDS OF THOUGHT AND RELIGION IN CHINA 447

of policy or artificial manipulation, brt one of inherent merit and
historical evolution. This detached view was well stated by Feng
Yii-lan in his essay "The Place of Confucius in Chinese History/'

Historically Confucius was ])rimarily a teacher; but soon
after his death, in the fourth and the third centuries B.C., he
was gradually considered the Teacher. In the second century
r..c., he was considered even more than the Teacher. Accord-
ing to many Confucianists of that time, Confucius was ac-
tually appointed by Heaven to start ideally a new dynasty to
succeed that of Chou. Ideally, though without a crown, he
was a king ; ideally, though without a government, he ruled
the empire. In the first century R.c. he was considered greater
than a king. According to many people of that time, Con-
fucius was a god among men ; but this did not last very long.
Confucianists of the more rationalistic type soon got the up-
per hand. After the first century a.d. Confucius was again
considered the Teacher. Only at the end of the nineteenth
century, a little over three decades ago, the theory that Con-
fucius was actually appointed by Heaven to be a king was re-
vived. But soon after he was considered less than that, even
less than the Teacher. At present we say that historically he
was primarily a teacher.

TAOISM

In the religious historv of the world, no religion can probably
exhibit a record as rich as that of Taoism in ecclesiastical fabrica-
tion, political manipulation, fictitious creation of deities, and whole-
sale borrowing, whereby a religious system was erected upon slender
and fortuitous foundations. Taoism arose as a rival to Buddhism,
a home product against an importation from abroad. Buddhism had
a pantheon, and Taoism created one of its own and a richer one to
match. It appropriated the then current Lao-tse myth and elevated
him to the highest place in the pantheon with the title of Ta Shang
Lao Chiin ("the ]Most High Old Ruler"). Buddhism had a great
library of sacred scriptures, and so Taoism proceeded to manufac-
ture one equally voluminous, starting with the little understood es-
say, the Tao te clung, supposed to have been left by Lao-tse before
he disappeared from the public eye. The evolution of ecclesiastical
Taoism took five centuries to complete. In time a Taoist papacy
was established, tracing an unbroken apostolic succession through
eighteen hundred years. The so-called popes resided on their heredi-
tary domain in the province of Kiang-si, enjoyed extraterritorial
privileges, collected taxes, married, and raised families ; thus they

448 THE OPEN COURT

handed down their office from generation to generation as a family
heritage. The papacy came to an ignominions end in 1927 when as
a part of an agrarian movement dissatisfied peasants in the papal
domain rose in revolt and expelled the pope.

This histor)^ of Taoism as an ecclesiastical institution has nothing
to do with Taoism as a philosophical school which began in the
fourth century B.C. and with which the writings of Lao-tse, Chuang-
tse, Lieh-tse. and others are identified. The alliance of philosophical
Taoism and its ecclesiastical name-sake is more or less accidental.
Philosophical Taoism has exerted a great influence upon Chinese
thought and culture, especially in painting and poetry, where its ro-
mantic naturalism is far more stimulating than the unimaginative,
disciplinarian orthodoxy of Confucianism. The Taoist philosophy
of life with its protest against the artificiality of our social and ethi-
cal standards and its plea for the natural as against the conventional
and for individual freedom as against group authority has much
to justify itself. In all ages, men weary of the strife and turmoil
of life have found refuge and solace in its doctrine of wu wei (lais-
scc-foircisjii) . Confucianism has always stood for the opposite prin-
ciple of yii wci, human effort, for law and order in government as
contrasted with the anarchistic tendency of Taoism. Whatever the
merits of Taoism, it seems unsuited to the temper of the modern
age with its doctrine of strenuosity and its requirement of a highly
disciplined habit of collective eft'ort.

BUDDHISM

In a recent article on Buddhism in Asia I wrote, ''The response
of a religion to the impact of a new age usually takes the course of
internal reformation, the development of a new apologetic, and the
formulation of a social creed, in the order given. Self-preservation
requires that it first spend its energy in adjusting its own organized
life to the new social environment in which it finds itself and from
which it derives its sustenance. Then comes the intellectual task of
restating or justifying its doctrines (or else modifying them) in the
light of new ideas that sway the thinking of the age, and finally it
develops a social gospel ; that is to say, it becomes conscious of its
social mission." Buddhism in Jaj)an has made considerable head-
way along these lines in adjusting itself to modern conditions. Bud-
dhism in China, while alive to the necessity of modernization, is
severely handicapped by lack of leadership and inertia of conserva-
tism.

TRENDS OF THOUGHT AND RELIGION IN CHINA 449

The first wave of reform was almost entirely political in motiv-
ation. The principle of religions freedom in the new republican
constitution of 1912 acted like a stimulant upon the traditional re-
ligions which had until then led a moribund existence. There en-
sued a period of missionary enthusiasm and propagation. A National
Buddhist Federation was created at that time for promoting the
common interest of Buddhists throughout the country and for bet-
ter representation in public afifairs. The real awakening of Bud-
dhism came about ten years later as a consequence of the Renais-
sance Movement of 1917. The latter was su1)jecting everything —
historical facts, traditions, customs, ethical standards, religious be-
liefs— to a rigid examination in the light of modern scientific method
and social needs, a sort of cultural house-cleaning with a strong
iconoclastic tendency. In the face of this, internal reformation was
absolutely necessary if Buddhism was to survive. Tai Hsii, then a
young monk from the famous sacred island of P'u-t'o, and his col-
leagues sensed the signs of the time and began organizing lay groups
for a revival. They started the Bodhi Society (Chiieh She), the ob-
ject of which was "to propagate the essence of Mahayana Buddhism,
so that the wicked might be led into loving kindness, the selfish into
righteousness, the wise to rejoice in truth, the strong to love of vir-
tue ; and to transform this war-torn, suffering world into a place of
peace and happiness."

In the course of time membership grew, and to meet the need
for a literary organ both to propagate their ideals and to consolidate
their movement, Tai Hsii was asked to organize and edit the journal
Hai Chao Yin ("Voice of the Sea-waves"). In the first number of
this monthly, in 1918, he published his now famous essay on ''The
Reformation of the Sangha," which pointed out the necessity of in-
ternal reform and the abuses in the monastic order, such as its com-
mercialism and illiteracy, and outlined a plan of reform. It was the
first voice lifted publicly in the Buddhist ranks. As was to be ex-
pected, there was opposition from vested interests ; that is, the
powerful monasteries with great establishments and vast estates
which had lived on the fat of the land and did not want any change.
But liberal forces gathered around Tai Hsii ; they were generally
lay people who saw with him that an illiterate priesthood sunk deep
in monastic indolence might continue to cater to the credulity of
equally ignorant women-folk, but would surely discredit the religion
in the eyes of a generation imbued with modern ideas. Besides rais-

450 THE OPEN COURT

ing the educational standard of the monks and requiring them to
be engaged in physical labor, Tai Hsii advocated simplifying tem-
ple worship, making the temples what they should be, houses of
prayer, or meditation and study. He would erect in the capital city
a National Center of Buddhist Learning and throughout the country
a net-work of Buddhist institutes. At the National Center, there
would be a museum for the preservation of Buddhist objects of art
and a library of Buddhist literary treasures. This grandiose project
exists for the present on paper only, and its realization seems far off.
The new apologetic which Buddhists are attempting to develop
has two sides — intellectual and ethical. Intellectually, it is to recon-
cile Buddhism with science. The argument is advanced that not only
is Buddhism essentially scientific, but that it has gone ahead of sci-
ence. In a volume of essays entitled Lit shan Jisiicli, Tai Hsii writes
on "Buddhism and Science" thus:

Those who criticize science say that science is responsible
for the weapons of w^arfare and therefore is harmful. Those
who praise science point to the great material achievements
of modern civilization which benefit mankind. We need not
join the controversy, although those who have gone through
the World War cannot be blind to some truth underlying this
criticism. We should note, however, that the criticism refers
to the fruits of science. Science itself is a method which is
beyond criticism. Science is always open-minded, ready to
discard what is disproved and to adopt what is verified, in
order to reach the truth of reality. However, there is one ob-
stinate superstition among scientists, and that is, they believe
this scientific method is the only road for arriving at truth,
and fail to realize that the ultimate reality of this universe
cannot be penetrated by it.

In general, what is a gain to science is a loss to religion.
Those religions with doctrines of gods and souls fundamen-
tally lack the stability of truth and are easily shaken. But
Buddhism l)enefits by the discoveries of science. The more
science progresses, the clearer Buddhism becomes, for Bud-
dhism explains the truth concerning the universe. Take an il-
lustration from the development of astronomy. In ancient
times, men thought of heaven as above and earth below ; then
came Copernicus who taught that the sun was the center of
our system. Now w^e have arrived at the idea that there is
no one center anywhere in the astral uni\ersc. This supports
the B)uddhist conception of the great unlimited void, embrac-
ing numberless worlds, all interwoven like a spider web. Sci-
ence helps us to understand Buddhism by offering suitable

TRENDS OF THOUGHT AND RELIGION IN CHINA 451

analogies. But the core of Buddhism science cannot reach, for
it has to do with inward illumination, the direct insight into
the reality of the universe, an intuitive experience only ac-
quired by oneself, where all logic, analogy, or scientific hy-
pothesis are of no avail. When scientists insist that theirs is
the only method of arriving at truth, they remind one of blind
men trying to understand an elephant by the sense of touch.
They will get partial impressions of the different i)arts of the
animal and what strange impressions as compared with a liv-
ing elephant as seen by a man with normal e}esight.

The ethical argument in fa\or of liuddhism is more convincing.
Buddhists claim that their religion alone is aderpiate to satisfy the
spiritual and moral needs of the people. According to them, "at the
bottom of the stress and storm, the discontent and unhappiness of
this restless modern world as of all ages is a mistaken view of the
nature of life." Buddhists call it the delusion of self and the de-
lusion of things. Out of this double delusion have sprung all greed
and quarrelsomeness of man. The cruelty of the competitive eco-
nomic system on the one hand and the brutality of international war-
fare and interracial conflict on the other are but the inevitable con-
sequences of a mistaken philosophy of living. Buddhism alone con-
sistently teaches and practises the doctrine of human brotherhood
and universal peace by pointing to the truth that all share the Bud-
dha-nature, which is in all of us waiting to be realized and which
therefore makes us one. It preaches the doctrine of collective karma ;
that is to say, we live interdependently, what is the accumulated re-
sult of the interaction of cotuitless lives and generations, and only
by cooperative effort may we realize a better world order.

Research in Buddhism is going on both within and without Bud-
dhist circles in China. The Nanking Buddhist Institute (N^ei Hsiieh
Yiian) is engaged in the editing and publishing of Buddhist texts
in polyglot. A Shanghai publishing house recently brought out a
"Library of Studies in Buddhism," which included such volumes as
A Guide to the Study of Buddhism by Lii Chen (1926) and A His-
tory of Buddhisiu in Cliiua by Tsiang Wei-chiao (1929).

Some people feel that there is but little prospect of success for
a revival of Buddhism in China, for not onlv have times changed,
but also Buddhism is essentially uncongenial to the mentality and
social philosophy of the Chinese people. The Chinese are a practi-
cal-minded people and have never really assimilated the Indian meta-
physics and mysticism of Buddhism. Further they are firm believers

452 THE OPEN COURT

in the type of social organization which has the family as its center,
while the Buddhist practice of celibacy and the renunciation of the
life of a householder have never been popular, ^^'hen the Taoists
were imitating the Buddhists in a wholesale manner, they were wise
enough not to require celibacy of their priests, though they adopted
the Buddhist monastic institution. In Japan where the Confucian
doctrine of the family as the foundation of society has exerted a
strong influence, the law of celibacy was not rigidly adhered to, and
some Buddhist sects permit their priests to marry. In China no such
compromise was ever made. In the past. Buddhism contributed
largely to the intellectual and cultural life of the nation and was a
powerful factor in the inculcation of the spirit of philanthropy. Is
its day of social benefaction ended? In every Buddhist temple, the
light in front of the central image may burn low. but never goes
out. Is this symbolic ? And will the religion of the Enlightened One
that now flickers behind the walls of lonely cloisters and monkish
cells flame forth again as the Light of Asia? Not only Buddhists are
anxiously asking this question, but also those who are keehly alive
to the spiritual needs of our time.

THE NEW DRAMA AND THE OLD THEATER

BY PENG-CHUN CHANG
Professor at Naiikai ]\[iddle School, Tientsin

CHINESE drama and theater, together with other forms of cul-
tural expression, have heen afifected hy the impact of the
modern West. New influences have been brought in from abroad,
and old traditions are being re-examined from a new point of view.
Out of the complex situation, two movements are clearly discernible :
the experimentation with new forms of dramatic composition and
the re-evaluation of the technique of the traditional theater.

The Chinese became acquainted with Western drama in the be-
ginning of the twentieth century. Amateur groups began to take
interest in the production of Western plays. One of the better known
groups, calling itself "The Spring Willow Society," about 190S.
gathered enough courage to stage a Chinese translation of La
Dame aux Cainclias. The manner of presentation, judged by records
in photographs and written descriptions, must have been very crude
indeed.

After 1917, when the new literary movement began, knowledge
of Western drama gradually increased. As one of the declared ob-
jectives of the movement was the introduction of new literary forms
from the outside world ; drama, especially modern prose drama with
a social-problem content, attracted special interest. Plays of Ibsen
were quickly translated, widel}' read, and much discussed. The crav-
ing for knowledge of Western dramas, thus engendered, gave an im-
petus to a wide searching of playwrights to be translated. At this
time I find in my collection of translated plays, which is by no means
complete, more than forty authors represented. They range from
Shakespeare, Moliere, Goethe, Schiller, Sheridan, Hugo, to the
more recent writers such as Ibsen, Strindberg, Hauptmann, Wilde,
Shaw. Galsworthy, Rostand, Brieux, Tolstoi, Chekov, Andreyev,
Lunacharsky, and Pirandello. While there is much unevenness in
the merit of the translations attempted,, there can be no doubt that
Western drama has definitely made its entry into the intellectual
horizon of the younger generation.

The tendency is also clear that some writers have taken upon
themselves to experiment in writing in the new prose drama form.

?.:i".i I ANi'AXc, i\ iiii-. KOI. I-: oi- -nil-; i aikv scattkrixc, ilowp'-RS'

THE NEW DRAMA AND THE OLD THEATER 455

They feel that, with all the social changes around, new experiences
demand of plays a new content and a new philosophy of life. Plays
of the old type are the embodiments of ideas of traditional morality
and of traditional values which are undergoing unavoidable trans-
formation. New prose plays are being written, reflecting on life in
the present-day complex social situation. For instance, pieces have
been composed taking as themes the experiences of the new indus-
trial proletariat, the revolt of youth against family and social re-
strictions, the exultations and disappointments of romantic love, and
the indignation and resolute courage in facing the invading foes.
New life experiences demand new forms of expression.

As the interest in the new drama has come as a phase of the new
literary movement, it is but natural that students in the schools and
universities should form the main force that appreciates and sup-
ports the new plays, translated and original. This explains why the
production of new plays is still mostly done by students as amateur
adventures, though sometimes with consummate skill and scrupulous
attention to technique. It is just a matter of a few years, I believe,
before professional groups giving performances of the new plays
will emerge and attain both artistic and financial success, because
students who have left the schools and universities in the past fifteen
years are gradually assuming positions of influence in society, and
their number is increasing with the graduates of each year.

I relate here, in passing, an experience I had in producing Ibsen's
An Enemy of the People, some five years ago, to serve as an illus-
tration of the suspicion toward the new drama on the part of the old
conservative elements, which I am happy to say is no longer existent
at present. This play of Ibsen, though much colored by his individ-
ualistic bias, I thought, might give instructive warning against cer-
tain democratic practices. During the dress-rehearsal, after the
second act, I was informed that a telephone message from the mili-
tary governor's ofiice ordered that the performances as announced
should be canceled. We could do nothing but obey. Evidently, the
title A)i Enerny of the People gave the military authorities much un-
easiness and cause for suspicion that the play might be directed
against them. The following spring I wanted to try again the pre-
sentation of the play. This time I was cautious. I changed the title
to TJie Stubborn Doctor — a change, necessarily, without the consent
of the author, but not altogether too outrageouslv inappropriate.
Under this new name, with the same military authorities in the city.

456 THE OPEN COURT

we got by safely. I learned from that experience that there was a
great deal in a name.

While the new drama form is being acclimatized and while ex-
periments are being made in the direction of giving the imported
formula some distinctively Chinese flavor, what is the attitude
toward the old theater? How is the indigenous theater that has had
a continuous tradition of more than seven hundred years being re-
examined and re-evaluated?

During the first flush of the new literary movement it was not un-
commonly asserted that the traditional theater contained nothing of
lasting worth and was destined to extinction in the evolutionary
struggle. More recently, however, attention has been directed in
looking into the art of the old theater to find if there may not be in
the perfected acting technique some things that deserve analysis and
re-evaluation. While the old plays may contain points of view that
are no longer suitable for the present era, in the consummate art of
presentation on the stage are found elements both instructive and
suggestive, not only for the emerging new theater of China, but
also for modern experimentation in other parts of the world. I was
most happily surprised two years ago. when I visited the Meyerhold
theater in Moscow, in learning something of its method of training
actors. In a conversation which I was privileged to have with
Meyerhold. he told me that he was influenced by his observations
of the technicjue of plastic body control and coordination of Chinese
and Japanese actors of the traditional school. He worked on the
suggestion thus derived and evolved his system of actor-training
which he called bio-mechanics. Every morning he had his actors go
through a series of exercise-patterns that were intended to render
the bodily parts plastic and agile and to effect an organic coordina-
tion of muscle and mind.

According to the tradition of the Chinese theater, actors must
go through long strenuous training, usually beginning at the age of
twelve or thirteen and lasting for seven years or more. The train-
ing was \ery severe, and patterns of dancing — in the broad sense of
the term, including all bodily movements — and of singing were
taught and practised with the minutest attention to detail. The rhythm
and grace of Chinese actors of the old school were the result of an
intensive training. And it is in this emphasis on bodily plasticity that
we find one of the glorious achievements of the old theater.

THE NEW DRAMA AND THE OLD THEATER

457

We may wonder
and ask, if all actors
receive training in
the execution of the
same patterns o f
dancing, singing,
walking, and talk-
ing, what is the
chance for individ-
uality and progress?
If all learn the same
manners of acting,
how can a great ac-
tor be distinguished
from a n unaccom-
plished one? Rough-
ly speaking, there
are three ways by
which a great actor
may be recognized
and acknowledged.
First, a great actor
executes his p a t-
terns with more fin-
ish than an average
one. He does not do
things mechanically,
but coordinates his

muscles with his mind. And his attention is strained for the per-
fect production of significant details. Second, a great actor in his
execution of the continuous sequence of patterns, produces what
we might call an aroma of unity. He gives you no chance of de-
tecting where one pattern ends and another begins. And third,
a great actor, after having achieved distinction in the execution of
patterns that belong to the common stock of tradition, earns for
himself the right of creating new patterns and of contributing his
share to the heritage of the stage. Here is where progress comes in.
Not any willful innovator, but only the accomplished virtuoso can
claim the prerogative of creating and of leaving his mark on history.

THE ACTRESS CHIN SHAO-MEI

458 THE OPEN COURT

The traditional technique is obviously not motivated by photo-
graphic realism. The Chinese theater cannot take pride in the min-
ute and accurate imitation of actuality. In our theater stage walk is
frankly different from ordinary walk, stage talk from ordinary talk,
stage costume from ordinary clothes, and stage make-up from or-
dinary facial appearance. Yet, the process of extracting, for the
purpose of the stage, "essence" from actuality is by no means arbi-
trary or fantastic. There is a method in its madness. The distinc-
tions between art and actuality have been formulated and patterned
gradually and cooperatively. The process of separating art from ac-
tuality is not of the assertive type as evidenced in certain of the
modern art movements, ^^'hen a modern artist tells you that he
sees the world only in terms of certain shapes and of certain prim-
ary colors which are strange, to say the least, to the common mortal
eye, he is following a well-reasoned point of view, to be sure, but
that point of view happens to be recent and somewhat sudden in
origin. The Chinese, however, have evolved the distinctions l^etween
art and actuality in a slow and gradual manner.

For illustration, let us see how a certain part of the Chinese
stage costume gradually attained its present seemingly extraor-
dinary aj^pearance. People who have attended Chinese stage per-
formances must have noticed the flowing pieces of white silk, some-
times over two feet in length, attached to the sleeves of certain cos-
tumes on actors playing female parts. These pieces of material are
there not exactly because of the requirements dictated bv historical
authenticity. They gradually grew from the short originals attached
to ordinary clothes for practical purposes to the flowing and flutter-
ing lengths now seen on stage costumes. And the motivating princi-
ple has been tlie artistic need of making these pieces longer and
longer for their function in assisting expression. The movements
of hands and arms are emphasized greatly and most meaningfully
by these long appendages. They add to gestures a certain extended
expressiveness.

Re-evaluated from the viewpoint of artistic tcchni(|ue, the old
Chinese theater has much of suggestive and instructive value. Is
not the modern theater in the \\'est reacting against the photographic
realism that i:)redominated a generation ns^ol' .\nd are not modern
experiments being directed toward siui])lilicati(ni, synthetization, and
suggestiveness?

COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY

BY JULEAN ARNOLD
Commercial Attache, American Legation, Pciping

DURING the past two decades the word "China" has ahnost be-
come synonyiiious with civil wars and international complica-
tions. Such an overwhelming flood of material has gone forth from
China to the press of the world, descriptive of China's internal squab-
bles and, more recently, its controversy with Japan, that very little
is known outside of China aljout the progress of trade and industry
in the country during this period. "Red Armies March onto Nan-
chang" — "Szechuan War Lord Collects Revenue from Opium" —
"Pirates Hold Steamer Passengers for Ransom" — "Japanese Air-
planes Bomb North China City" — "Nineteenth Route Army to Fight
Japan"- — ^"Concubines in Rebellion Against Ex-war Lord" — such
headlines aj^parently make far more interesting scare heads for the
American newspaj^ers than the following: "National Economic
Council Completes Plans for 15,000 Miles of Roads" — "Wusi Cotton
Spinning ]\Iills ^^'orking Full Capacity" — "1932 Registers Banner
Year Cotton Imports from America" — "American Airplanes Lead
in China's Aviation Progress" — "America Tops List in China's For-
eign Trade for 1932."

In January of this year, the office of the American Commercial
Attache in Shanghai compiled a review of the trade and industry of
China for 1932. Copies of this report were furnished to several hun-
dred individuals and concerns in the United States particularly in-
terested in Sino-American commerce. Some of the recipients of
this annual trade summary have written back, expressing their sur-
prise over the fact that so much constructive work is in progress in
China, as evidenced by the material embraced in this report, and yet
information of this character does not seem to be available else-
where. Several suggested that something should be done to give
more publicity in the I'nited States to constructive developments in
China.

It is verv difficult to present to the intelligent reader in the United
States a balanced picture of present-day China because the more
unfavorable aspects of the situation have been relatively over-em-

460 THE OPEN COURT

phasized. Entirely too little is known in the United States about
those forces which are operating toward creating a new China. It
is probably not amiss to state that the majority of the intelligent pub-
lic in Shanghai, the first trading and industrial center of all China,
knows very little about the constructive developments in progress in
other parts of the country. Probably in no other land are there poorer
domestic news communication services than in China.

It is only by traveling through the interior that one is able to se-
cure the information essential to a proper appreciation of China in
reconstruction. Naturally, considerable scraps of information regard-
ing constructive developments of varied sorts from different parts
of the country do filter into Shanghai, but as yet there has not been
developed any coordinating agency to assemble these data. When the
Szechuan war lords are staging a battle, the chances are that Shang-
hai and the foreign news correspondents stationed there will secure
this information in time. On the other hand, when a motor road
was recently completed between Chungking, the commercial metro-
polis, and Chengtu, capital city of Szechuan, a province of upwards
of fifty million inhabitants, this bit of information reached Shanghai
by some roundabout method and then belated. The opening of this
strategic motor road of about three hundred miles means volumes in
connection with future transportation developments in this West
China empire which still can claim the distinction of being the only
section on the face of the globe without a mile of railway despite a
population of four or five tens of millions. No press dispatches
have, to my knowledge, even mentioned this bit of truly interesting
news.

It is unfortunate for China that it must undergo its economic,
political, social, and intellectual transitions concurrently. The fact
that our American educated public has so little knowledge of the ba-
sic background of Chinese civilization adds materially to the difficul-
ty in trying to understand China in transition. Kenneth S. Latourette
of Yale University, in a recently juibHshed article, made the follow-
ing statement : "In at least one respect our .American universities are
strangely provincial and antiquated in their outlook. We act as
though the only civilizations in existence or at least the only ones
worth studying were those which contributed to our own, from the
Egyptian and the Alesopotamian to that, of modern Europe. Often
we completely ignore everything east of Persia. With occasional ex-

COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY 461

ceptions, our curriculum makers are not even as far advanced as was
Columbus. He knew of, and sought, Cathay and the Indies. They
have not yet discovered nearly a half of the human race." Mr. La-
tourette further states that in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eigh-
teenth centuries the Chinese empire was much more populous than,
and was fully as civilized as any of the vast empires which European
states were then building and that the most powerful monarch of the
end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century
was not Louis XIV but K'ang-hi, and the latter was probably much
abler and better educated than was the former.

Dr. Lewis Hodous of the Hartford Seminary Foundation makes
the interesting comment that it has been stated on good authority
that before the year a.d. 1750 more books were published in the
Chinese language than in all other languages combined and that even
so late as 1850 more books were being published in China than in
any other country. Since history credits China with this wonderfully
rich cultural civilization, many Americans will probably be inspired
to inquire : Why is it then that present-day China is so backward
commercially and industrially?

Its failure to have tuned in earlier in its national life with the
scientific discoveries, inventions, and developments which have so
patently characterized the nineteenth-century history of the West is
due to its geographic isolation and to a self-sufficiency precluding a
receptivity to influences from without. A thousand-year old stereo-
typed system of education, based upon the teachings of the ancient
sages and perpetuated with no material changes down to the begin-
ning of the twentieth century, stifled the nation's outlook. L'ntil a
few decades ago there was no real necessity of China's parting from
its course of centuries. In fact, contact with the \\^est or, better yet.
Western contact with China forced the battering down of its walls of
isolation and necessitated new political, social, and economic concepts.

The two most striking developments in the China of the past few-
decades are, first, a receptivity to the teachings of the Occident and,
second, a growing nationalism. But China's contact with modern
science and invention has been so belated that its suddenly enforced
transition from a medieval to a modern economic society is fraught
with stupendous difficulties deeply accentuated by the pressure of
foreign aggression. On the other hand, its people are so richly en-
dowed with the heritage of a splendid culture and are by nature so

462 THE OPEX COURT

industrious that with the store of latent resources at their command
they should be able to make a very creditable transformation. In
spending a day cruising about in the heavily congested canals and
waterways of the very populous lower Yangtse region, one could
not but be deeply impressed by the sterling qualities of these hard-
working, industrious people. One could only conclude from observa-
tion that under proper leadership China might easily become one of
the more advanced and more powerful nations.

What evidence have we that this great conglomerate mass, con-
stituting the most populous of all nations, with this remarkably rich
historical background, is now launched u]M)n a course destined to
progressive modernization?' R. 11. Tawney, in a recent article on
the future of China in TJic Manchester (Hiardiaii. states, "Xo sane
\iew can be formed of the future of China which ignores a ])ositive
achievement, not only of the present government but of dififerent
groujis of reformers during the past twenty years." In the scope of
this article I shall, however, in the main, confine my ol)servations to
economic progress.

Several vears ago I had the pleasure of meeting in San Francisco
Mr. Eli T. Sheppard. who had served in the early nineties as Ameri-
can consul at Tientsin. He had had no direct contact with that coun-
try since his return to the I'nited States in 1896. Tn describing to
him some of the evidences of material progress which characterized
the new China, he exclaimed that they were positively incredible in
the light of the knowledge he had of the Chinese people of his day.
He recalled tliat the great Mceroy, Li Tlung-chang, who was the
dominant figure of his time, professed an interest in the implements
of a modern economic society, but he, as well as other foreign ob-
servers, were very definitely of the opinion that these expressions
were distinct evidences of Oriental politeness not to be taken seri-
ously. Probably without exception, foreigners in China of his day
considered that the Chinese were so definitely set in their ways and
so rigidly regulated by the customs and traditions of the past, it
would be impossil)le for them to make any substantial alterations in
their modes of thinking or changes in their society.

As for the construction of railways or roads, the one factor
irrevocably militating against any ]irogrcss in this direction was, in
the opinion of foreigners of lliat time, the dee])ly embedded sacred
regard for the gra^■cs of the dead, scattered ox-er the length and

COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY 463

breadth of the entire country. It was contended that these would
effectually stand in the way of the development of economic modern
means of communications in a continental country such as China.

However, in spite of this formidal^le obstacle the Chinese people
have within the few succeeding decades so far departed from these
superstitious ideas as reinforced by centuries and millenniums of
rigid adherence to ancestor worship, as to serve no longer as an ob-
stacle to progress. In fact, one of the most striking manifestations
of a change of mental attitude is the almost ruthless manner in which
roads are now being carved through what for centuries may have
been considered sacred burial grounds. It is no longer necessary to
carry on campaigns of education to convince the thinking masses of
the value of good roads. The problem now is rather one of methods
of financing these important accessories to a system of internal eco-
nomic communication.

A few years ago it may have been said that provincial predilec-
tions stood in the way of the construction of national trunk railways
or trunk highways. These are rapidly fading into the past, as evi-
denced by the fact that the provincial or district political units are
no longer satisfied with improving transportation facilities within
their own areas, but now recognize the value of extending railways
and highways to adjoining regions. For instance, last year, at an
interprovincial conference at Hankow in the mid-central Yangtse re-
gion, plans were drafted and adopted for trunk highways embracing
a number of the central provinces. Later, this plan was adopted by
the National Economic Council of Nanking with the proviso that
the National Government defray a portion of the construction ex-
penses for fifteen thousand miles of interprovincial arteries.

Kwangsi, in southern China, was. until six years ago, considered
one of the poorer and more backward of provinces. Since that time,
the provincial authorities have constructed upwards of a thousand
miles of roads for motor transportation, and are now busy perfect-
ing plans for connecting this area with the adjoining provinces,
which in turn are working on similar highway projects.

Hunan, in mid-central China, long described as the hermit prov-
ince, at present may boast of having completed more than seven hun-
dred miles of better constructed highways than probably exist in any
other province. Its present highway program calls for an additional
five hundred miles, involving connections with roads in all adjoin-

464 THE OPEN COURT

ing provinces. The grading, draining, and construction of these
roads as -well as building bridges, have been done under the super-
vision of Chinese engineers the majority of whom were educated in
the United States. It is true that the American Red Cross some
vears ago in one of its famine relief programs gave a considerable
impetus to road construction in China as a famine relief measure
and laid out a stretch in Tlunan Province, as also in certain sections
in northern China, which has undoubtedly done much to encourage
the whole good roads movement.

In the adjoining province of Kiangsi, which has for some years
past been the center of communist activity, remarkable headway has
been made in road work. The Kiangsi authorities, who must combat
destructive labors of the red armies, have, in spite of these great
difficulties, been able to proceed with a splendid program of pro-
vincial highways.

Progressive Chekiang built upwards of a thousand miles of high-
ways last year and completed the construction of a two-hundred-
mile light railway which promises eventually to be part of a trunk
line joining Shanghai with Canton. This railway was constructed
without the assistance of National Government funds or foreign
loans. Thus, it is a distinctly provincial project. Its completion, at
a very economical cost, is encouraging the idea of building light rail-
ways of standard gauge in other sections of the country.

Szechuan is what is commonly known as the Far West of China,
and may be described as the Texas of China. Because of lack of
communications, Szechran has been almost completely cut off, all
these centuries, from economic contact with the rest of China, hence
with the outside world. In spite of civil wars and political disrup-
tion generally, this isolated empire province has, within the past few
years, embarked upon a very ambitious road program which will
probably be a prclimin,ary to the introduction of railways. Estimates
of the population of Szechuan range from forty to seventy millions.
It will ])robaby not be many years before power-propelled vehicles
will replace the sedan chair, the wheelbarrow, and the carrying coolie.
For those who hnxc lived in an en\'ironment where the railway
and the motor car have become coiumonjilace, it is difficult to im-
agine the transformation which modern methods of transportation
mean to these provinces in the great Yangtse basin and in southern
China.

COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY 465

Although northern China has been habituated to roads for
wheeled and pack animals, yet it is slower in providing highways
for motor transportation than are the rice-producing regions of cen-
tral and southern China. Progressive ideas took their inception in
the south, gradually working northward. This is probably due to the
fact that the southern Chinese, especially the Cantonese, have had
contact with the outside world several centuries earlier than did those
in the north. However, considerable evidence of progress in high-
way construction in northern China may be recorded. The camel,
the mule, and the donkey, which figure so prominently on the roads
there, are destined within the comparatively near future to be re-
placed by motor cars.

In line with improved internal communications, the most surpris-
ing developments during the past five years have been the inaugu-
ration of air passenger and mail lines. For the most part their in-
stallation and operation are under Sino-American auspices. In fact,
aviation is being developed chiefly with American equipment and
American personnel. By steamer it requires about two weeks to
make the sixteen hundred mile trip from Shanghai to Chungking.
By an air line which runs on regular schedule this trip can now be
made in two days. By June first, 1933, this line will be extended
from Chungking to Chengtu, capital of Szechuan — doing in two
days what formerly required from three to four weeks.

Air lines on regular schedule are also operating between Shang-
hai and Peiping, via Tsingtao and Tientsin. A. Euro-Asian line, un-
der Sino-German auspices, is operating from Nanking to Sianfu
with plans for a continuation westward across Central Asia to Ber-
lin. It is anticipated that the Sino-American lines will be extended
after July first from Shanghai to Hongkong and Canton, making
possible connections with British and French lines extending into
Europe. Thus, by July first of this year, it is anticipated that there
will be three thousand miles of air lines on regular operating sched-
ules in China, as compared with eighteen thousand miles in the
United States. There is now being operated at Hangchow a Chinese
aviation school with fifteen Americans on its stafT. A second school
is being developed at Canton on a somewhat less ambitious basis.
Plans are also under way for the installation of several plants for
the manufacturing and assembling of airplanes. Considering the
fact that China has but twelve thousand miles of railways and about

466 THE OPEN COURT

forty thousand miles of roads for motor transportation and has in
operation only about forty thousand motor vehicles, it is patent that
in a country larger in area and population than the United States a
fertile field is oitered for the development of aviation.

Although there is a larger floating population in China than in
any other country and no other nation depends upon its waterways
for transportation to such an extent, yet Chinese are very slow in
building a modern merchant marine. Aside from the ships under
the Chinese flag sailing between Chinese ports and the South Seas,
where there are considerable Chinese populations, we see no evidence
of a Chinese merchant marine in world commerce. Moreover, con-
siderable inland water navigation and coasting trade in China are
under foreign flags. Before any progress can be made in this im-
portant field of communication, the Chinese Government will be ob-
liged to install schools for training of officers and devise ways and
means of encouraging private capital to embark in a large way upon
the development of a modern mercantile marine. China's backward-
ness in overseas navigation is in a large measure due to the fact that
the Government has not been in a position to extend financial assist-
ance as have the other large trading nations interested in overseas
transportation.

Railwa\' construction progress has been delayed by a number of
causes. First, conditions in the interior have discouraged invest-
ments of foreign capital in railroad construction enterprises. Second,
foreign nations have not now the capital available for overseas in-
vestments and, third, the Chinese Government itself is obliged to
expend such funds as are available, to rehabilitate existing lines. In
spite of these conditions certain funds from the British Boxer in-
demnity reimbursements have been set aside to serve as credits for
the completion of the Canton-Hankow line and for the purchase of
certain rolling stock. As stated above, a growing interest is being
manifested in light railways of standard gauge construction.

For bulk cargo and long distance hauls China requires a con-
sidcral)lc expansion of its present twelve thousand miles of railways.
Tt is estimated that she will need about one hundred thousand miles
of the "iron road" to take care of its trunk line rc(|uircmcnts. Dur-
ing the past few years some new construction work was carried on.
Prior to September, 1931, several new railways were completed un-
der Chinese auspices in Manchuria, and a rather extensive program

COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY 467

for frrther lines was planned. The taking over of the railways in
Manchuria hy the Japanese has altered that situation materially.

( )verland transportation in the interior, as dependent upon ani-
mal or man power, is very uneconomical, costing three to six fold
more than rates which should ohtain on well-managed railways and
even more costly than well-operated motor trucks. Thus, industry
and commerce suffer hadly hecause of a deplorable lack of adequate
means of economic overland transportation.

Following the construction of roads, it has become necessary to
widen the main thoroughfares of many cities and towns, especially
those in central and southern China. This response is astonishingly
extensive. We may truly say that there are more cities under recon-
struction at present than ever before in any other country in all of
the world's history. The widening of city streets is encouraging
other civic improvements, including the installation of water-works,
modern lighting systems, telephones, parks, playgrounds, and pub-
lic health facilities. There is also involved the construction of higher
buildings. Thus, in many of these cities, three, four, and five story
modern structures are replacing the old one and tw^o story, drab,
tiled roof buildings.

Probably no other city has witnessed such a marvelous trans-
formation as has Amoy on the South China coast. Ten years ago,
Amoy was one of the dirtiest, most congested, and the most sordid
of Chinese cities. At present it is completely transformed with wide,
well-paved, well-drained, well-lighted streets. The city is supplied
with pure water taken from reservoirs in hills some distance away.
Neon lights are being used for advertising purposes. The city has
been provided with a beautiful public park with the additional at-
traction of athletic fields, play grounds, and recreation facilities.
Roads radiate out from the city to all sections of Amoy Island with
regular bus service. Amoy City boasts of three excellent sound mo-
tion picture theaters. Amoy University, several miles distant from
the city, is a very creditable institution, affording facilities for
modern education for about two thousand students.

Canton, the great commercial metropolis of South China, has ex-
perienced even more extensive improvements, involving a construc-
tion of sixty miles of Avell-paved, well-drained streets, over which
are now operating upwards of a thousand motor vehicles, in pleasing
contrast to the sedan chairs. Avheelbarrows, push-carts, and carrving

468 THE OPEN COURT

coolies of two decades ago. Scores of other cities in South China
have, during the past few years, undergone ahnost complete trans-
formation. This work will probably continue at an accelerated pace
as conditions otherwise improve.

\\'hile transportation is probably the most important element in
the future expansion of commerce and industry, the opening-up, on
the other hand, of resources in the baser metals, especially coal and
iron, is essential to any large industrial program. But little progress
has been made in this direction during the past ten years on account
of the unfa\orable political conditions and because of inadequate
railway transportation facilities. Thus, it is not lack of apprecia-
tion of the necessity of applying modern methods to utilizing the
country's mineral resources, but a set of conditions which in course
of time may so improve as to lend encouragement to the investment
of capital and technical skill in big mining projects.

Factors operating against success in industrial enterprises are
first, instability and uncertainty in the political outlook ; second,
speculative tendencies of operators who are loath to base their profits
on market values for raw materials and manufacturing costs ; third,
a reluctance to Iniild u]) cash reserves against the pressure to pay
dividends ( in fact, dividends are often paid from capital before
plants are on an operating basis) ; fourth, abnormally high rates of
interest for loan accommodations ; fifth, embarrassing and expen-
sive complications in securing raw material fit for manufacture ;
sixth, nepotism, arising from the traditional ramifications of the
family system which often involves the padding of pay rolls with in-
competent relatives or friends. Last, there is lack of application of
the ordinary principles of scientific management in assembling raw
materials, manufacturing operations, and marketing of finished prod-
ucts. Against these unfavorable aspects the following factors lend
encouragement to industrial advancement: first, vast potentialities
for the ])roduction of raw material ; second, a plentiful su]-)ply of
cheap and industrious labor, easily capable of being trained : third.
large resources of capital, becoming increasingly more available as
conditions otherwise improve : fourth, an almost inexhaustible do-
mestic market for finished jjroducts : fifth, through the recent
achievement of tariff autononi}', the assurance of protection and
encouragement to domestic industry; sixth, no old machinery or
ideas of a modern economic society to scrap. Hence China is in the

COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY 469

advantageous position of being able to take from the West the latest
in improved equipment and ideas.

A leading Chinese industrialist, who has been very successful in
connection with various manufacturing enterprises with which he
has been associated, contends that any industrial plant in China can
be made profitable, provided it is well managed. Most of the for-
eigners associated with manufacturing projects in China comment
in eloquent terms on the high state of efficiency of Chinese labor,
when properly supervised.

In manufacturing, China is gradually emerging from a domestic
handicraft to a modern industrialized society. More progress has
been made in installing cotton spinning and weaving mills than in
any other line of manufacturing industry. At one time cotton yarn
headed the list of China's imports. It is now so extensively manu-
factured that it has been relegated to the position of comparative in-
significance in the import trade. On the other hand, raw cotton in
the 1931-32 season topped the list in the country's imports. As time
goes on, we may expect that China will be an exporter rather than
an importer of cotton yarn and manufactured goods. As for raw
cotton, while the country produces between three and four million
bales, progress in improving the length of staple and the quantity
produced is distressingly slow. In fact, it appears that China will
continue for many years to come to be a heavy importer of raw
cotton.

The electric light and power plant expansion in China is grad-
ually curtailing the consumption of kerosene, although the high im-
port tariff and expensive interior transportation costs are factors of
serious concern to the further increase of the consumption of kero-
sene oil. China is rich in hydro-electric potentialities, but practical-
ly no progress has as yet been made in utilizing its water power for
this purpose.

In connection with the impetus which is being given to the de-
velopment of manufacturing, foreign interests find it increasingly
necessary to exercise vigilance in the protection of their trade marks
and patents. It is only natural that a country like China, when em-
barking in an initial sense upon modern manufacturing, should tend
to move along the line of least resistance and copy the trade marks
of commodities which have achieved a recognized position in the
Chinese market through judicious advertising and enterprising sales-

470 THE OPEN COURT

manship. This is especially true as long as the quality of manufac-
tured products remains on comparatively low levels. The Chinese
Trade ^larks' Bureau has been exhibiting very commendable impar-
tiality in its attitude toward the protection of Chinese and foreign
trade marks, but considerable pressure is being exerted by certain
Chinese organizations on false pleas of patriotism to extend special
consideration to Chinese factories which not only make products in
imitation of imported commodities, but also copy the trade marks
of these articles.

Along certain lines. China offers a promising field for foreign
capital in the installation of l)ranch factories. While there are ob-
stacles in the wav of the establishment of foreign factories in China,
yet there is a very noticeable tendency on the part of enlightened
Chinese to encourage foreign capital and technical skill in the pro-
gram for the industrialization of the country. It is difficult to con-
ceive of a more practical method of encouraging in China education
in the manual arts than through facilities accorded by the branch
factories of successful foreign manufacturing plants.

The intelligent Chinese public is becoming increasingly apprecia-
tive of the benefits which the country will derive from a campaign
calculated to conserve and expand domestic industries in the village,
which is in reality the basic unit in the social life of China. The fact
that China is essentially agricultural and the great mass of the popu-
lation depends u])on the simI for sustenance has led to the organi-
zation quite recently of a large and representative commission on
rural rehabilitati'^n. Much interest is being displayed throughout the
countrx" in ])lans for improving conditions among the agricultural
population. A mass education movement, as inaugurated by James
Yen. devoted its first years of experimental work to activities among
the citv ]iopulations. but within recent years it has transferred its
labors to the country and is now working on i)lans concerned almost
entirely with, rural imi)rovemcnts.

The food-stufl:' ])ni])k'ni has l)ecome serious in that imports have
in recent decades mounted very considerably, amounting now on the
average of from three to four himdred million dollars Chinese cur-
rency annually. At present ITunan Province is carrying a heavy sur-
plus from a bumjier rice crop of last year and finds itself unable to
n-arket it ])rofital)lv, in spite of the fact that Canton is a heavy im-
porter of foreign rice and ."^hanj^hai of foreign wheat. This is not a

COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY 471

healthy situation. In this connection it is interesting to note that
China's flour mills appear to be depending in an increasingly large
way upon imports of foreign wheat. They are now consuming be-
tween fifteen and twenty million bushels a year. Gradually the
Chinese people are becoming heavier consumers of wheat products
and eating less rice. As for domestic grain, Shanghai mills can bet-
ter aft'ord to buy Argentine or Australian wheat at the present rul-
ing market prices and deliver it cheaper in Shanghai mills than could
wheat be delivered from many parts of the interior of China, even
though the farmers were to make the Shanghai mills a present of
this wheat, provided they would transport it to their mills. This
fact emphasizes the great need in China for economic transporta-
tion, improved conditions in the interior tax situation, and more
efficient methods in collecting good-quality raw materials.

A perusal of the long and varied lists of imports and exports
at the present time, as compared with the very few items which fig-
ured in its foreign trade fifty years ago, is the most eloquent testi-
monial to the country's economic progress. Not only have imports
increased manifold in volume and value during this period, but of
still greater significance to the future is the increasingly larger im-
port of such items as mechanical equipment, lubricating oil, scien-
tific instruments, laboratory apparatus, newsprint, raw cotton, and
other articles. If a person had had no previous intellectual contact
with China and were presented with a set of China's Returns of
Foreign Trade, he could, after a careful perusal of the statistical
tables, write a very comprehensive and dispassionate dissertation on
wonderful progress during the past half century.

Commercially, the modern corporate company is gradually as-
suming a position of importance in the economic life. Banking and
retail merchandizing have made further strides in this direction than
have other lines of commercial activity. It is a remarkable tribute
to the sane and sound methods of the modern-type Chinese bankers
that, during this past decade, in the midst of turbulence, turmoil,
and a world economic depression, the numbers of failures among
modern type banks have been almost negligible. The Ministry of
Finance last year achieved the remarkable record of balancing the
budget of the National Government for the year 1932, in so far as
having to do with finances under the direction of the Ministry.
In other words, this statement indicates that the Government is meet-

472 THE OPEN COURT

ing its expenses from its revenues without having to resort to fur-
ther borrowing.

Up to the present, comparatively few Chinese concerns feature
among the import and export houses of this country. This business
is for the most part in the hands of foreign concerns and will prob-
ablv continue so for some }ears to come. Reasons for this are ob-
vious. However, any vers- considerable further expansion in China's
foreign commerce is dependent upon improvements in domestic trade
and industry. In the process of raising the economic levels of the
masses, vast opportunities for world-trade expansion must follow.
Concerted action by western nations in an intelligently devised pro-
gram for the encouragement of China's transition into a modern
economic society will go a long way toward relieving the present de-
plorable world depression. What any one nation may do toward en-
hancing China's trade will, if predicated upon the principle of the
open door of equal opportunity, redound to the advantage of all
other trading peoples.

-♦

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