Five of these and three naval stations are
to be equipped with the wireless telegraph.
Not less significant than this rehabilitation of army and navy is
the fact that a few days ago a number of students, who had completed
their studies at foreign universities, were admitted to the third
degree (or
[Page vii]
D. C. L.) in the scale of literary honours, which means appointment
to some important post in the active mandarinate. If the booming
of cannon at the grand review proclaimed that the age of bows and
arrows is past, does not this other fact announce that, in the
field of education, rhyming and caligraphy have given place to
science and languages? Henceforth thousands of ambitious youth
will flock to the universities of Japan, and growing multitudes
will seek knowledge at its fountain-head beyond the seas.
Still more surprising are the steps taken toward the intellectual
emancipation of woman in China. One of the leading ministers of
education assured me the other day that he was pushing the establishment
of schools for girls. The shaded hemisphere of Chinese life will thus
be brought into the sunshine, and in years to come the education
of Chinese youth will begin at the mother's knee.
The daily deliberations of the Council of State prove that the
reform proposals of the High Commission are not to be consigned to
the limbo of abortions. Tuan Fang, one of the leaders, has just been
appointed to the viceroyalty of Nanking, with _carte blanche_
to carry out his progressive ideas; and the metropolitan viceroy,
Yuan, on taking leave of the Empress Dowager before proceeding to
the manoeuvres, besought her not to listen to reactionary counsels
such as those which had produced the disasters of 1900.
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