Peking to Lhasa : vol.1 / Page 358 (Color Image)

0358	Peking to Lhasa : vol.1

274 PEKING TO LHASA

Some of the students sent abroad have done

great things, such as T'ang Shao-yi, who went

with one of the first batches sent abroad to

America ; others sent to our Navy have signalised

themselves and done good work in the Chinese

Navy, but unluckily they have not had the chance

of proving their worth in a more extended field

of action.

The chief failure, however, has been among

those educated in China, especially among those

under foreign instructors in Chinese universities.

Here the unfortunate foreign teacher finds he has

no real authority, he himself is under Chinese

officials, who are afraid of the students and cringe

to them.

This is one of the extraordinary anomalies of

China, where respect for ancestors and elders has

been one of the chief characteristics of the middle

kingdom, so called because it is supposed to be

the centre of the universe. Perhaps it is because

the older official, educated in the old system of

education, at last recognises the superiority of

foreign teaching and gives the student credit for

being a superior being.

The result is that the student finds himself

pampered, and the more he asserts himself the

more the higher authorities knuckle under to

him, and the more he becomes a popular idol

and leads public opinion.

Affairs have reached such a pitch that he

finds that he can assert himself with impunity.

Under the autocratic rule of the old Dowager

Empress, the first ebullition of unruly students

would have been put down with a vigorous use

National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books