favor with the Chinese by denouncing the things which they most favored. The moral part of the essay was finally eliminated.

It is safe to say that in recent years two-thirds of the time of most ministers and their staffs has been devoted to the presentation of railroad, telegraphic, and mining schemes. In this business our Government has taken slight part. It has been left to the poor minister, who can exercise a personal influence only. He does not invoke the aid of his own Government, though his colleagues do not hesitate to seek the help of theirs. Through the lips of the ministers of England, Germany, Russia, and France their Governments speak. There is no hesitation or modesty in making demands. Only recently England demanded, and received, the exclusive right to land a foreign cable in China. Russia demanded and received the right to build the Trans-Siberian road through Manchuria. Germany claims the right to control all railroad building and the operation of all mines in Shantung, and it is conceded to her. France insists that the Southern Provinces belong to her exclusive sphere, and she is pushing a railroad from Tonquin into the country bordered by the West River. All that the Americans have obtained from China, in the way of concessions, is the charter of a railroad from Hankow to Canton; but the Government took no part in securing this franchise.

The accusation of being biassed against China will hardly be brought against the writer of this article by any person who has read his articles published in various American magazines and newspapers. He has not hesitated to denounce the seizure of Chinese territory by Germany, Russia, England, and France. These spoliations were the salient causes of the riots of 1900. But with the kindest feelings toward the Chinese it is necessary that the truth should be told about them. When two men ride a horse one must ride behind. It is right and proper that foreign influences should dominate and control China. The necessities of international intercourse demand that they should.

A glamour is thrown over Chinese civilization, to which the successful prosecution of some of the arts adds a romantic interest. We must accord to China the credit for many things which ought to have made her a civilized state. She invented gunpowder and printing. She discovered the mariner's compass. She manufactures silks, satins, velvets, and porcelain. Long ago she built suspension bridges. She possesses natural gas, and uses it. In the thirteenth century she had five-masted ships with water-tight compartments. She has more books than any other country. She has had great philosophers who taught men to be

good rather than to be pious. Many societies devised for charitable purposes exist within her borders. Her people are not uncharitable. These and other good things may be said of her.

We have no friends

Slavery and polyg

On the other hand, her people, almost to a man, hate the foreigners. She would drive them all into the sea if she could. among the Chinese except the Christian converts. amy exist in China. Her judicial system is one of horrible torture. Her treatment of women is infamous. The binding of the feet of female children is of itself sufficient to condemn the nation. Female infants are murdered without compunction. Superstition pervades all the people. On the ridges of all the houses little clay dogs are put to catch the evil spirits as they fly. No two houses are on the same line; one being put either farther back or farther front than its neighbor. This is done because the evil spirits cannot turn a corner, and once started must keep on into space. Recently at Tientsin a water snake was worshipped in a public temple as being the water god. Under all the hills a dragon sleeps, and if he is disturbed by mines he will destroy the world. At eclipses the moon is being eaten up by a yellow dog, and the whole population turns out beating tin pans and gongs to scare him

away.

The recent disturbances are sufficient of themselves to show that real civilization is not known in China. It is not conceivable that in any civilized nation there could have been a well-organized attack made on the foreign representatives of other countries. The world over, the ambassadors of friendly peoples are treated as guests wherever they are stationed. Their persons are sacred, and all possible polite treatment is accorded to them. But in 1900 the whole of the Northern part of China rose in a tumultuous and violent attempt to kill and murder the entire diplomatic body, as well as all other foreigners. The two men who have done most for China, Sir Robert Hart and Dr. W. Å. P. Martin, were included in the attempted destruction. Their property was burned, just as other foreign property was. Absolute barbarism pervaded the people, and foreign men, women, and children were massacred wherever they were found. The Chinese Government participated in the attempt to destroy all the foreigners. Its soldiers went over to the Boxers. The forty guns which played on Tientsin were, unquestionably, aimed and fired by Chinese soldiers. Had the Chinese Government so desired, the mob at Peking could have been wiped out by the soldiers. There were always at Peking twenty-five thousand regularly enrolled troops, who policed the city. Every foreigner who

was at Peking during the riots asseverates that the Government was responsible for the attacks on the legations and the missionary. stations. If any statement can be proved by human testimony, the responsibility of the Chinese Government for the most terrible events which ever occurred is so proved.

How then are these people to be treated by the rest of the world? Either the Chinese Government is too weak to protect the foreigner, or it is unwilling to do so. In either event the foreigner must protect himself. The civilized world must combine against the Yellow Peril, as it is soon to do against anarchy. I criticise the conduct of the foreign representatives in that they have failed to provide any sure method. of protecting our people in China. That was the first and main thing to do. The Chinese always minimize the acts of foreigners after a little time has passed. They take little account of the capture of Peking by the allies in 1861. It is often denied that the foreigners were ever at Peking at all. Sometimes it is said that the foreigners wanted some money, and that China gave them some and sent them away. It cannot be doubted that in a short time the Chinese will claim that they were victorious over the foreigners in 1900, and that they were blameless in the troubles. It must be remembered that at most there are only twenty-five thousand foreigners in China, while there are four hundred millions of natives. It is idle to imagine that this generation will forget or forgive the humiliation which has overtaken it. At any moment other rioting may break out, and other horrors be perpetrated.

I am not prepared to advise what definite action should be taken to secure protection to the foreigners. All along since the riots I have insisted that this, and not the mere money tribute, was the important question before the civilized world. China has agreed to pay an enormous sum of money. This much, at least, is well; but the chief problem remains unsolved the protection of the foreigner. Why in the conclave of nations nothing was said or done about it gives rise to the suspicion that the partition of China is ordained, and that only a decent pretext is waited for to accomplish it. The European nations do not want peace and tranquillity. Russia wants a pretext for annexing Manchuria outright; Germany wants Shantung; England wants the Yangtze valley; and France wants Kwangsu and Kwangsi. The occurrence of another riot would furnish all the excuse necessary for this wholesale partition. Even partition is better than murder. It is better to take our chances for trade among provinces held in the claws of European countries than to see our people tortured and murdered every year or two.

The Chinese Government, looked at from a foreign standpoint, has proved to be utterly inefficient and worthless. It has conspicuously failed to comply with the treaties into which it has entered with the principal powers. It has no statesmen. China might be a prosperous country if it would cast away ancient superstitions and prejudices and take up the work of reform. Puffed up with vanity, still claiming that all nations are its vassals and absolutely ignorant of foreign affairs, it has never learned anything from defeat, and, after each reverse, has become more arrogant than before. By all means let the Chinese Exclusion CHARLES DENBY.

Act be continued in force.

THE TRUE FUNCTIONS OF A GREAT UNIVERSITY.

THE magnificent expenditure of wealth at the present time upon institutions of the so-called "higher education" in this country emphasizes anew the question of their usefulness. This question is still further emphasized by the fact that other institutions designed for the benefit and elevation of the people are receiving, relatively to their needs, a much smaller expenditure. But the higher, and especially the highest, education must always remain unattainable by a large proportion of the nation; so that the benefits which the nation at large receives from the institutions which give such an education must be, for the most part, indirect. Are the greater colleges and universities of the United States worth, as measured by any sane and appropriate standard of values, the immense sums of money which are now being invested in them?

A satisfactory answer to this question cannot be given in terms of vague and general remarks about the value of education or about the necessity which our democratic institutions put upon us to maintain a high standard of public instruction; for such an answer leaves untouched the really important factors of the whole problem. These factors have to do with a certain kind of education; and they include expert opinions about the ideals which this kind of education endeavors to realize, and about the most effective means for realizing them. Moreover, at the best, as has already been said, the inquiry does not concern a culture or training which can be imparted to a numerically large proportion of the entire public. Our problem really is whether it is worth while to spend so much on the few who receive a certain kind of education.

I venture to affirm- disregarding for the moment the surprise and perhaps indignation which the affirmation will awaken that if this question were taken before the officers and principal patrons of these same institutions of the so-called higher education, a very considerable proportion of them, through their professors, trustees, and even presidents, could not give to it a satisfactory answer. But that those who are in