ty uF 7 + tte Vawe Ld J Ht ee CHINA a —_—_>——_—- ——— Railroads in operation ++e-+e- Railroads under construction Seale 1:16,000,000 Statute Miles 50 =: 100 200 Kilometers 0 50 100 200 300 * COMPILED By'S W BOGGS COPYRIGHT 1924 BY THE MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT OF THE U S. AND CANADA 24 pi Ke. a A . / |SHENSI{ ee A Shanchay hengchor \ sy, ; -* ie ae Sion, H} O N ~\ Hwangho , 7 \ / f / ‘ ss pee ene 7 iitoy: ) > “a Nin f es } iS) - ga? T ae BE Dai ee i ys ~ li re, Dibrugarh + P aX Shiuchow | tl Irrawaddy HAINAN oP ie: PROVINCE M i ime Aivostok a i en Arthur Strait of Pechihls ’ . Lwancheng ). e Ne al ae. Weihaiwel 8r.) { u shimonosek} ‘ea # -. CHEKIANG “ “ “ ' onan ARy —s 6° (se I v- ENS), HONAN rs beste i tH, . \ \ \ \ ‘ CHWANPIEN SZECHWAN ¥ “ j \ eked } "7 ret | *arurin Prey? ( Genes ie: {qrancs? ¢ ae ie; Z, : ; j wey i wercows, |. 4 fe , . or an — CHINA dpe Seen ugh . } KWANGSI / = 20" ws a CE pear se Provinces, Special Administrative Districts, JY FRENCH £8 epniierine = and Outer Territories -——_ .__INDO- es Fsia 7) cHiwa QANanL | a 90° 100° 4 ; PHILIPPINE SD 7 ISLANDS 120° | GENERAL DRAFTING CONC. WY i LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PRINCETON, N. J. —~_ tae: ee PURCHASED BY THE HAMILL MISSIONARY FUND. r BViioePoie Pe Lea 2a Porter, bucius ‘Chapin: 1880. China's challenge to Christianity DR. CH’ENG CHING-YI Chairman of the National Christian Conference held in Shang- hai in May, 1922. One of the wise, far-seeing and creative leaders of the Church of Christ in China. ERSOVLVCMEONT _ CHINA’S CHALLENGE ‘TO CHRISTIANITY LUCIUS CHAPIN PORTER MISSIONARY ce a MOVEMENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA CONTENTS PAGE Foreword CHAPTER 1 CHINESE ATTITUDES TOWARD THE WEST . 1 1. Basis of Optimism. 2. What the Chinese Say. 3. Removing Un-Christlike Attitudes. Il Tue CHANGING ENVIRONMENT . . . 29 1. Contrasting Pictures. 2. Political Changes. 3. The Changing Economic Structure. 4. Christian Efforts toward Economic and Social Adjustment. III Tue Rurat Majority . 70 1. “Farmers of Forty Centuries.” 2. Village Life. 3. Agricultural Christianity. . TY Hsin CH AG THES NEW CIDE 5 os) einen eee 1. Older Tides in China’s Heritage. 2. The Lit- erary Revolution. 3. The Student Movement. 4, The Scientific Spirit. 5. Social Reconstruction. 6. Christianity and the New Tide. Vi SSPrerpivaAn (QUESTS!) (4 iio eta ee ee) eae 1. The Confucian Church. 2. Neo-Buddhism. 3. Taoism. 4. The Hsiao Chiao Men or Smaller Religious Sects. 5. Hsin Ch’ao and Scientific Re- ligion. 6. Christianity and the Spiritual Quest. Vi. CHRISTIANITY, CREATIVE 0k) Coen win) cee ee 1. Christian Achievement. 2. Facing the Present Situation. 3. The Church of Christ in China. 4. Creative Cooperation. 5. China’s Christian Con- tribution to the World. Liv] Contents Appendices I A Reapinec List . II A CHRONOLOGICAL SCAFFOLD FOR CHINESE HIstTorY III Frnpincs or A CONFERENCE ON THE RELATION OF THE CyurcuH To INDUSTRIAL AND Economic ConpiTIONs, SHANGHAI, December 1-2, 1922 . IV StratisticaL TABLEs . } 1. Area and Population i Chin d 2. Christian Workers in China 3. The Christian Church in China . 4 . Students in Christian Primary and Middle Schools Me ae A 5. Degree of Shires Muration Index ILLUSTRATIONS Dr. Cheng Ching-yi . . . . = Frontispiece FACING PAGE Rural China Cronies A New Buddhist ee In a Taoist Temple Peking University Students . National Christian Conference [v] 8 FOREWORD The problem of interracial relationships is the most per- plexing and most difficult of all the problems with which the human race is confronted today. This book is written in the faith that the solution of that problem is to be found only in a fearless application to practical affairs of the principles of love and righteousness taught and lived by Jesus Christ. To the world-wide Christian enterprise has been committed in a particular way the task of pre- senting the message of Jesus to men. If that enterprise is to be more rapidly and more adequately successful, it must become filled more than ever before with Jesus’ spirit of respect and love for men, a respect and love for nations as well as for individuals. “Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them” is a word to be applied to international as much as to per- sonal relationships. In relation to a people such as the Chinese, with a long cultural heritage of rich achievement, the Christian enter- prise should be conducted with respect and appreciation: respect for the unique and precious characteristics of the heritage, appreciation for the distinctive qualities of the Chinese temperament and point of view which the heritage has produced. The greater the respect and the deeper the appreciation, the more Christ-like will be the way of ap- proach, | It is the hope of the author that this book may contribute something to a clearer understanding of the Chinese point of view regarding some of the situations and movements [vi] Foreword that mark present conditions in China; that it may en- courage more sympathetic cooperation between Westerners and Chinese in the Christian task; and may help toward the recognition by Westerners of the primary place which Chinese churches and Chinese leaders must have in the future accomplishment of that task. A Christ-like Chris- tianity in China will bring inestimable iieihenasey to China, to the West, and to the world. The book has been written under the direction of a committee of the Missionary Education Movement. To the chairman of the Committee, Dr. T. H. P. Sailer, and to Mr. Franklin D. Cogswell, Educational Secretary of the Missionary Education Movement, the author is especially indebted for many suggestions drawn from a long experi- ence in the planning and teaching of mission study books. Friends like the Rev. Milton T. Stauffer, the Rev. Robert F, Fitch, and Professor Lewis Hodous, have willingly re- sponded to the call for help and have contributed im- portant suggestions and even paragraphs. Ideas, material, and criticisms have come from many others. To each and all the author acknowledges great indebtedness and offers sincere thanks. For the final arrangement of material and for the views set forth, the author alone is responsible. Special thanks should be given to Miss Julia Littlefield without whose efficient help the manuscript could not have been prepared. Bi @oihs New York City May 10, 1924 [vii] Simply as an intellectual spectacle, a scene for study and surmise, for investigation and specula- tion, there is nothing in the world today—not even Europe in the throes of reconstruction—that equals China. History records no parallel. Can an old, vast, peculiar, exclusive, self-sufficing civilization be born again? Made over it must be or it can- not endure. Yet it must accomplish the making over in face of facts and forces profoundly alien to it, physically, politically, industrially, intellec- tually, spiritually. All of the forces are strange, unprecedented. . . . History may be ransacked to furnish a situation that so stirs interest, that keeps the spectator so wavering between hope and fear, that presents so baffling a face to every attempt to find a solution. —John Dewey in Asta, May, 1921 | Chinese Attitudes Toward the West “China as a nation is in a desperate case. Opium is being grown and sold freely in almost every section of the country. Brigandage is rife. Public life is terribly corrupt. Militarism flourishes. Western industrialism threatens the very foundation of social well-being.” This picture of China today is drawn by Henry T. Hodgkin, M.D., a man who has lived in China for many years, who is a devoted friend of the Chinese, and highly regarded by them. It is a dark picture. We may not want to see it; but if it is a true picture, nothing will be gained by re- fusing to face the facts which it preserits. But is there not relief from such darkness? May we not turn to the democratic movement and hope that through parliamentary methods improvement in po- litical conditions may be attained? As to that, hear the report of another observer, Mr. F. W. Stevens, of J. P. Morgan and Company, who spent two years in China as representative of the American bankers interested in the China Consortium. He says, “The so-called Central or Peking Government is impotent in more than half of the territory of China. The so-called Parliament, lately con- vened at Peking after several years’ eclipse, is not rep- resentative, is not respected, is openly charged with being governed by selfish and corrupt motives and is largely powerless for good.” And yet, in spite of their frank and accurate portrayal [1] China’s Challenge to Christianity of China’s desperate condition, neither Mr. Hodgkin nor Mr. Stevens is hopeless for the future. Most of those who know the history of China and the characteristics of her people will agree with these observers in their. hope- fulness. Upon what, then, is that hopefulness based? 1. Basis of Optimism There are two major factors which give a real basis for such optimism. The first of these is the sound character of the Chinese people. “They are a good-natured people, a peaceable people, a temperate people, a law-abiding people, a people of wonderful patience and fortitude.” Although great masses are illiterate, they are intelligent to a degree and have often been named the most reasonable people in the world. Education has always been highly regarded. Their life for centuries has been marked by sturdy moral- ity in devotion to the high standards of the Confucian system. Their vitality as.a race is demonstrated in the long centuries of history during which their cultural life has passed through several cycles: splendid eras of cre- ative productivity in some of which China was the most cultivated nation in the world, making brilliant achieve- ments in philosophy, religion, statecraft, and the fine arts; and periods of less creative activity or of quies- cence; but these last have been in every case only the dormant condition preparatory to fresh bursts of fer- tility. The good qualities of the masses of the Chinese people inspire hope even in the face of the apparently [2] Chinese Attitudes Toward the West desperate situation of today. When we realize that twenty-four times in her history China has passed through the chaos and confusion incident to the transi- tion period between the overthrow of one dynasty and the firm establishment of the succeeding administration, and when we appreciate that these present decades are a period of similar transition, it is possible to reenforce our hopefulness for the future of the nation. The second encouraging factor lies in the Christian enterprise. Although at present the Christian community seems insignificant and negligible in comparison to the masses of China’s population, there are, nevertheless, abundant signs of a widespread influence. The tiny seedling at first transplanted from the West is taking such root in the nation’s life as to give promise of becom- ing within a short time thoroughly indigenous. The paragraph in which Dr. Hodgkin paints his dark picture of China’s present desperate case closes with these sentences: “Only a fearless application of the spirit of Christ and his revolutionary principles of love and social righteousness can save China. The Church holds the key. Its spirit is one of tremendous earnestness in regard to the application of Christianity to the common life.’ And our other witness to present conditions in China, Mr. Stevens, testifies to “the need-of moral re- generation which must precede any great political and industrial improvement.” He commends the Christian work in China and says, “In all China there is not a single organization on a scale of importance that aims at moral improvement or that is calculated to bring it about [3] Bae P aPC SSO Ua AMR Lr en ASS OND TUTE ORT ce China’s Challenge to Christianity SRS ANON Me Ooo aS OI eens that is not traceable in its origin to the Christian mis- sions.” So sweeping a claim as this would not be made by missionaries themselves. There are groups of Chinese not directly related to any Christian stimulus that are de- voted to moral and, especially, to social renewal. But practically all observers would agree to the primacy of the Christian movement in moral improvement. Non- Christian Chinese have also testified frequently to the need of China for the moral dynamic of Christianity. China continuing weak and helpless for the next hun- dred years will be an incentive to the ambitious greed of every imperialistic minded politician in Europe, Amer- ica, or Japan, and will be the occasion for international conflicts, due to such greedy rivalry. But a strong China, throwing off the “shame and darkness of moral defeat’ and rising through a revival of her moral and spiritual energies to a position of strength and honor in the family of nations, will not alone save herself. The old Chinese wisdom, reinvigorated and inspired by a spiritual dynamic derived from Jesus Christ and adapted by the use of the principles and methods of science to the modern world, will yet teach much to the Occident. 2. What the Chinese Say As China enters this period of growing interchange of influence with other peoples, what are the attitudes of her forward-looking men and women toward the West and toward those forces representing its civilization which have wrought such changes in the life of their country ? [4] Chinese Attitudes Toward the West In the midst of the interplay of cultures that is becoming one of the most significant features of our rapidly shrink- ing world, it is important that we try with all the in- genuity we can muster to understand what such a great people as the Chinese are thinking about us. Not until we are on a basis of sympathetic understanding of their attitudes can we hope to discuss intelligently the momen- tous questions that must be settled in these few coming years if China is to be our partner in the world-wide enterprise of Christ. In a sincere effort to gain that understanding, let us try to get inside the mind of a cultured, intelligent, and patriotic Chinese for a time as he tells us what he feels about the West and the relations of his people with it. Let us think of this man not as the “inscrutable Oriental” or “enigma” of the romances and “movies” about China ; rather let us take him for what he is—a world-citizen along with us, one whose fellowship we can win, if we will, for the great common tasks that face all men of good-will everywhere. If this educated and traveled gentleman should undertake to be perfectly frank with us, he would speak somewhat as follows: “Those of us who have given many years to a study of the literature, philosophy, and history of China, cannot fail to be convinced of its greatness. We are justly proud of our past. Take, for instance, the China of the Tang dynasty. We may justly claim that it was matched by no contemporary state in the world. Great statesmen ad- gah A.D. For a table of the Chinese dynasties, see pp. 232- [5] se overehlr bill Sea hes ea China’s Challenge to Christianity RIN BU Shasta. Gel ng dn EASA Oe aa UR a hea ministered in peace and order an enormous empire with- out the help of modern means of communication. The fine arts flourished. Chinese poets wrote under the in- fluence of an inspiration that has made their work im- mortal, so that Westerners today are attracted to its vital beauty, as thirsty travelers to the refreshment of an ever- flowing mountain spring. The craftsmen of China pro- duced works that are largely sought today by the lovers of art in every nation. This must be acknowledged by all to be a great and glorious age in the history of mankind. “We who have studied know that China can present to the world philosophers of deep insight, social reformers who experimented with almost all the schemes for social improvement devised by men in any age, imperial-minded statesmen, public-spirited administrators, masters of edu- cation, and a long line of scholars devoted to almost every phase of intellectual activity. Is it any wonder that those of us who have given long and patient study to this rich inheritance, feel resentful at its comparative neglect by other nations and their quiet assumption that in every- thing of value the Western world must be superior ? “We cheerfully admit that the Western world also has a rich inheritance from the past, and that in particular it has made wonderful advances in scientific development. Ignorance of these things is not our fault, but is rather to be attributed to our geographical barriers of great mountains and deserts on the west and the vast expanse of ocean on the east, that made intercourse with the rest of the world exceedingly difficult. “Foreigners often hold up the Great Wall as typical of [6] Chinese Attitudes Toward the West the self-satisfied exclusiveness of us Chinese and our na- tive desire to have no relations with Western people or nations whom we suppose to be inferior to ourselves in all respects. Let me remind you that the Great Wall, which was begun before the Christian era, was originally meant to be a protection against the savage and barbaric tribes that pressed on China from the extensive steppes to the north and west. These tribes were closely related to the hordes which swept down time and again on Europe from those same steppes, causing each time they appeared a serious setback to the progress of civilization. Had Europe been in a position to erect such a wall along her eastern frontier, she would gladly have done so. The reenforcement of our natural mountain defences by this wall has enabled us to retard the invasions of these bar- barous people, so that our civilization has never been com- pletely swamped. Our population in the north has fre- quently been diluted by the intrusion of illiterate and un- cultured barbarians, but the spirit of Chinese culture was always open to assimilate and civilize the foreign elements which were introduced. We can mention with pride that the barbarians never reduced us to the condition which Europe suffered during the so-called Dark Ages. “The Great Wall, then, was a defense against barbarian intrusions and never a barrier to China’s relations with contemporary civilized people. Even a casual study of our history will show early contacts with the Roman Em- pire, with Persia, with the Greco-Hindu states of West- ern and Central Asia, with India itself, with the nations lying to the south of China, with the Arabs from Bagdad, [7] Peer CONN aM MSLO ED Saga SUC cnet Ui Aw Sr ES China’s Challenge to Christianity NE ACE OR RUNGR MD RCRA URE RI gllNosmeesent cca TS and even with far-off Zanzibar in Africa. Our great rulers encouraged intercourse with other nations in the days before European peoples arrived at our doors. During the Mongol and Ming dynasties Western traders and the Jesuit scientists, who were the earliest mission- aries of the Roman Catholic Church, were well received. It is only in the Manchu, or Ching dynasty, and even then not until after the beginning of the eighteenth cen- tury, that an official attitude of exclusiveness toward Europeans was adopted. We must remember that a gov- ernment does not always represent the feeling and prac- tise of the people, who may be forced to submit to it. We can at least claim that China has not been unfriendly toward foreign peoples except for a few centuries in most recent times, while there have been notable periods when we have been eager to know as much as possible of all the foreign peoples with whom we came into contact. The Great Wall does not mean that we are honelessly exclusive. “You must remember that every civilization has certain points upon which it lays special stress. For us the form or manner, the etiquette of human relations, is a matter of vital and moral importance. Open-minded travelers and residents among us unite in praising the manners of the Far East. Of’all the world, we, with the Japanese, have laid most stress on good form, and therefore we would be called by unprejudiced judges the most cour- teous people in the world. We have learned our courtesy from the race habits which Confucius established. You [3] RURAL CHINA A farmhouse in the North. The famous rice terraces of the West. c ‘euIyD) YON JO , 4199013 IOUIOD,, YJ—OSNOY vd} ISPITIA B }e OSIOATUN OY} Surssnosip puev suivA SuiddemMs S1UIVyf SHINOWD Chinese Attitudes Toward the West Westerners are inclined to criticize us for an overem- phasis upon the superficial things in human relations, but at least you cannot deny that our modes of etiquette and habits of courtesy have given us something which enables us to meet with poise and equanimity almost every sort of experience in human contacts. “The first of your representatives to come to our shores were not selected on account of their polish and refine- ment. None but adventurous fortune seekers would un- dertake so long and difficult a journey. These men had for the most part little concern in the niceties and re- finements of manner, and it is not surprising that they impressed us as being rough and uncouth. To every nation, manners to which it is unaccustomed seem strange and inferior. We were not prepared to appreciate the aggressiveness and energy that marked most of your rep- resentatives. They in turn may have thought us dilatory and evasive. It was unfortunate that types of social habit so divergent should come into contact with each other with so little appreciation on either side of the need for understanding the best traits of the other. “These early ambassadors of the West were sent to get results. They were often exasperated at the treatment which seemed procrastinating and insincere. In conse- quence, they put on pressure and forced themselves upon us. While we can recognize today that some benefits have certainly come out of these contacts, we cannot forget the rudeness and force to which we were often subjected. “During the early decades of Western intercourse with [9] Pon EPEC FRE LGR DE NEN ead) UR a SOIT YT STV PnEsnOL OO a OP tec Sn STO Oe SON URRLSARTINA China’s Challenge to Christianity China, the morals of Westerners were at fault as well as their manners. It is now recognized and admitted by historians that the Opium War of 1838-42, while occa- sioned by technical violations of the code of international law to which Great Britain was accustomed, at the same time, like the American Civil War, had back of it a great moral issue. As far as this issue was concerned, the Chinese stood on the right side. Granted that the illegal trade could be carried on only with the connivance of corrupt Chinese officials, it remains true that the Manchu Government and its councilors realized the terrible men- ace of opium to the national health and were determined to take active steps against the evil. No appreciation by us modern Chinese today of the stimulus which has come to China through her contact with the West can altogether erase the rankling memory of the Opium War. The island of Hong Kong, the treaty ports with their foreign concessions, most of the rights enjoyed by foreigners in- cluding those under which missionary work is carried on, are a constant reminder to us of the aggressive insistence of the West that China should accept the Western de- mands which, along with many good things, forced on us also the subtle poison of the drug. It cannot be ex- pected that a people will always weigh these wrongs judicially and make full allowance for all their own mis- takes. The fact remains that national prejudices, whether justified or not, when once created are hard to forget. “Under the circumstances it was not strange that we were prejudiced against Western entrance and found it hard to feel cordial toward its representatives as a whole. [10] Chinese Attitudes Toward the West. It did not take us long to see, however, that the West had enormous advantages in modern mechanical science. The superiority of many of your products—needles, cloth, leather goods, tools, and machinery—we soon recognized. Many of us were at once impressed with the belief that the strength of the West lay in these ‘things’ and that if China could only make use of them and adopt Western implements, she would be ready for modern life. This was the first stage of our attitude, an interest in Western goods and a willingness to have them introduced into China. Back of all this lay the hope that by the adoption of the mechanisms of the West we would be able to meet Western powers more nearly on a basis of equality. We attempted to do what we saw Japan doing in such a notable fashion: to use in self-defense the mechanical in- struments of the West, her engines both of commerce and of war. “Before this process could be carried very far in such an enormous and slow-moving mass of people as our Chinese race, the Japanese, copying the forceful methods of Europe, had set upon China. It may be that they de- liberately attacked us to show their ability to use their new military toys, or because they were attempting to divert the Japanese people from internal constitutional problems by the excitement and thrills of an imperialistic policy. At any rate, the people we had looked down upon as a ‘pigmy’ race brought us to a speedy and disastrous defeat. Here we learned our second lesson. Out of the _ defeat there came the realization that manufactured goods [ir] China’s Challenge to Christianity and the machinery which produced them were not the only things to be received from the West in order to make China strong enough to enter into association with modern powers as an equal. We now saw that the Japanese had not only taken over Western goods; they had also absorbed. Western education and educational methods in order to give themselves the mental training and the in- formation necessary to undertake themselves. the produc- tion of such goods. Following this method, we entered the second stage in our attitude toward the West, in which we sought to strengthen ourselves by adopting Western education. This new purpose won adherents rapidly. As early as 1898, only three years after the war, the attempt was made by the Emperor himself to discard the old educational system, with its civil service examinations dating from ancient times, and to replace it by making history, mathematics, and science the sub- jects in which candidates should be prepared. This first attempt at reform by imperial edict failed, but the move- ment in behalf of modern education soon regained and rapidly increased its momentum. The very Empress Dowager, whose coup d’état had ended the young Em- peror’s reforms, became herself an advocate of the new system. Thousands of our students hurried to Japan to study Western science. Various types of colleges, uni- versities, and technical schools were established by the Central Government, by the provinces, and in some cases by private individuals. It was expected that the training of men qualified in modern learning to meet the scientific demand would save China. [12] Chinese Attitudes Toward the West “Although this interest in education was general and the support of it considerable, it was not possible to carry out a real education of the people rapidly enough to avoid the catastrophe which ignorance and superstitious pa- triotism brought upon China in 1900. During the years following the war with Japan and parallel to China’s effort to save herself, there was carried on by the foreign powers a wild game of grab, in which each of the Euro- pean nations sought to preempt for itself important sec- tions of China’s territory for its own special, selfish ex- ploitation. These nations anticipated the early partition of China, and the promoters of Western commercial de- velopment wished to establish themselves in the most favorable positions before that event. The ignorant mass of the Chinese population had begun to hear of things which took place in 1895, when the fruits of Japan’s victory over China were seized by Russia with the sup- port of France and Germany. In 1897 the murder of two German missionaries in Shantung Province led to the siege of Kiaochow by the German Kaiser, accom- panied by bombastic utterances about the ‘yellow peril.’ These and similar aggressions aroused frenzied fury, which were stimulated by the incantations of the Boxer leaders. Many who were in the highest posts of au- thority in the Manchu court connived at the excesses of the Boxer uprising. Enthusiastic resistance to such aggressions on the part of any sovereign state in the West would be called patriotism. Unfortunately, the hatred of foreigners and all connected with them manifested itself in many acts of savagery. The forces of the whole [13] China’s Challenge to Christianity world united in putting down the Boxer movement, and China again had a taste of the effective militarism of the West. “This catastrophe marked the beginning of a new period, in which we realized that more was needed to modernize China than education, on however general a scale it could be conducted. The leaders who now came to the front began to work for reform in the administration of government. The age-old system of bureaucratic autoc- racy was attacked. China was seeking to copy from the West the principles and methods of democratic and con- stitutional government. This movement culminated in the proclamation of the Chinese Republic in 1912. But we realize that the establishment of a so-called republic and a nominally constitutional form of government has not resulted in making real the dream of a strong, united, modernized China, which was the inspiration of our leaders. More and more we are being forced to appre- ciate the truth that moral and intellectual renovation must precede political and social reform. We are begin- ning to feel that only through an appreciation of the philosophy or faith that lies back of Western inventions, Western learning, and Western politics can we win from the West the secret of its power. To the winning of that secret our leaders of the present generation are devoted. “It must be recognized, of course, that at the begin- ning of each of these stages which I have mentioned only a small group of our forward-looking leaders recognized [14] Chinese Attitudes Toward the West the need to learn anything from the West. In addition to the official and anti-foreign attitude of the Manchu Government, there was naturally considerable reluctance on the part of the mass of the people, founded on easily understood prejudices, and at times organized opposition. All students of history should understand how easily hos- tility is aroused in one nation by dealings on the part of others which offend its interests or pride. No one whe understands the bitterness surviving over many years between nations, such as the United States and England, England and France, France and Germany, as a result of clashes in the past can fail to realize how natural it is for the Chinese to recall the most unattractive features of Western manners, even while they admit the incidental benefits from Western contacts. “Of course, you must understand that different groups of our people have had very different experiences with foreigners and may feel quite differently toward them. We have many communities which have never yet seen any foreign person, but there are now few in which for- eign goods are not known and used. These are adver- tised throughout inland China. Kerosene, for instance, is distributed practically everywhere within our provinces and outlying territories. It has won its way because it gives better and cheaper light at less cost than our native vegetable oils. Western cotton cloth, thread, tobacco, and many other articles have proved their superiority to our native product and may be found almost everywhere, a witness to the capacity of the West to produce useful [15] China’s Challenge to Christianity articles at low cost. Our country folk are not only will- ing, but eager to use what is most useful and least ex- pensive. There is certainly a general appreciation of Western efficiency. Our country people are generally in- clined to be friendly, so that in spite of the ignorance and superstition which we must admit still prevails, they are ready to welcome reasonable advances from the West and are not inclined to hostility unless there is provocation. “In spite of the prevailing illiteracy, there is in these days some knowledge of the great powers of the world even in inland districts, though the impressions are more or less distorted reflections of those held by better- informed communities and by our progressive leaders. Throughout considerable areas of inland China flood or famine relief has often been given in recent years. The people know that this relief of China’s suffering was made possible by generous contributions from the West. In almost all cases it has been necessary to make use of the staff of Christian mission stations for admin- istering the relief offered. This relief has added to the reputation of Western peoples generally for kindly help- fulness, and has given wider scope to the willing service with which your mission stations are credited. It is safe to say that most rural regions in China are inclined to meet the foreign stranger with curious friendliness if he approaches them in a kindly and courteous way. A polite form of address, a friendly smile, with perhaps the quotation of a Chinese proverb, will seldom fail to win a friendly response. “In recent years our leaders have made definite efforts [16] Chinese Attitudes Toward the West to give information to all our people about China’s con- dition in the world, her resources and possibilities, what democracy requires of her citizens, and the story of Western aggression toward China. The surprising suc- cess of the boycott against Japanese goods, which the Student Movement of 1919 organized throughout China, is an illustration of what may be expected when unfair- ness or aggression on the part of other nations in political or commercial relations is generally understood, and when their political relationships are represented or mis- represented as trickery in support of selfish gains. “Our rural folk have been ready to follow the lead of our young reformers who have organized lecture bands to go through the countryside, warning China against the encroachments of rival nations. The fanaticism of the Boxer outbreak can be explained as that panic of ‘fear which came over the Chinese when they felt that one strategic port after another was being seized by European powers and one after another of their coun- try’s wealthy regions designated as the ‘sphere of in- fluence’ of some political group of the West. If foreign powers are reasonable in their approach to China and restrained in their claims, there need be no fear of a similar outbreak. Even under present conditions when, as the result of poor harvests and unpaid soldiers, bandits and brigands appear, through many parts of China for- eign missionaries and business men still travel without risk. But we must warn the West to be prepared for the worst if, individually or as nations, their conduct forces the Chinese to change their peaceful ways and to [17] China’s Challenge to Christianity arm themselves in self-defense against unrighteous aggressions. “Our merchant class have a much greater understand- ing of the West than the rural communities could pos- sibly have. They have been in contact with the West for over a century, and the profits made from the han- dling of foreign goods incline them to a favorable atti- tude toward their Western business connections. The rapid development of Chinese business companies for both export and import trade and the percentage of that trade already in the hands of the Chinese prove the suc- cess they have won in rivalry with Western firms. There seems to be no distinct hostility, however, toward the Westerner as such, except where he becomes a direct or indirect agent for his government, or in cases where his interest becomes the occasion for an invasion of” Chinese rights. “You should note carefully the willingness of our merchant class to sacrifice their own profits when pa- triotism demands a protest against unrighteous treatment by foreign powers. We Chinese are masters in the use of the boycott. This method of protest has already been used with notable success against America and against Japan, and has been threatened against other nations. The China’trade of any foreign nation will be in danger whenever that nation pursues policies that seem derogatory to the honor of China, an infringement of her sovereign rights, an insult to her people, or a threat directed against her physical or moral well-being. [18] Chinese Attitudes Toward the West “Our literary men naturally have great pride in the achievements of our race. Especially we deprecate the insistence of Westerners on the completeness of mere Western culture. We believe that we have something of worth to contribute to the civilization of the world. We feel that in general we have a much clearer under- standing of Western culture and a better insight into its characteristic discoveries than Western scholars have of Eastern history or philosophy, of religious literature, art, or statecraft. “We are accused of prejudice and conservatism, but it seems to us that the Western scholar is often more firm in his prejudice for Western ideas and in his re- fusal to look beyond the limits of its history than scholars of the Orient in their adherence to national bias. Per- haps the greatest intellectual sin is unteachableness, and this our leading scholars have now overcome better than most Westerners. Can you find, for example, any ex- tensive provision in the curricula of your colleges and universities for studies connected with the culture of Eastern peoples? Do you not consider a man educated, although his knowledge is entirely limited to subjects relating to the stream of Western culture? Ignorance of the history, philosophy, and art of the Asiatic peoples is no disgrace to a Westerner. We feel that the scholars of all nations should approach each other in a spirit of mutual desire to learn and without airs of superiority or condescension. “One class you of the West should take into special account. I refer to the group of young reformers, both [19] China’s Challenge to Christianity those far-sighted earlier leaders who sought to direct their country into paths of progressive modern civilization and the more revolutionary leaders of today who have undertaken to overthrow the political administration, so- cial organization, and educational habits that formed the system of China for so many centuries. Note, in the first place, that these young men are well informed in almost everything that relates to the West. Many of them are ‘returned students,’ men who have spent years of study in the universities of Japan, America, or Europe in order to learn at first hand the methods of scientific study and to gain the knowledge in the varied fields of research that have given the West its advantage during the last century. These men know thoroughly the entire history of Western relations with China, they are all of them ardent patriots, they are eager for power to develop rapidly throughout wider areas of China a clear and vigorous national consciousness. Most of them have accepted democratic views regarding social and political organization, and are devoted to the task of studying the tendencies toward democratic organization which are native and indigenous to China—such tenden- cies, for example, as are seen in the control of family and clan, in the conduct of public affairs of rural com- munities, or in the gild system for merchants, artisans, and the general production of goods. They desire to bring these tendencies into closer relation with the urge toward democracy which they feel in Western life and indeed in all parts of the world today. “Varied attitudes are to be found in this group with [20] Chinese Attitudes Toward the West relation to spiritual and religious teachings. A large number are inclined to adopt the agnostic position which they feel many Western scientists hold. But some among them—with minds as brilliant and as scientific in attitude as those of any of the educated classes—are devoted to religion and to Christianity. The whole group is cer- tainly actuated by devotion to the public welfare and social reconstruction. “However much this circle of intellectual and social re- formers is willing to recognize its indebtedness to the West, as the teacher who has helped them into an en- riched life and into fascinating adventures after new truths, they are assuredly no uncritical or sentimental admirers of the West. Indeed, one result of the mastery of Western methods of study, together with an intimate knowledge of principles and practise that underlie West- ern social life and diplomacy, has been a tendency to examine and criticize the history of Western relations with China in the light of the moral standards which the West claims to hold. These men are publishing the results of their studies, in the English language, in vol- umes which give an intimate glimpse of the way in which the Westerner is regarded by the new generation in China. These volumes are not one-sided propaganda. They look at things, however, from a Chinese point of view and fail to find the justification which many West- ern writers have claimed for acts of aggression. No one can read the interpretation of this record from the Chinese point of view without realizing keenly the domi- nant acquisitive tendencies of Western nations. Official [21] China’s Challenge to Christianity professions of a friendly interest and a desire to support China against dangerous enemies are shown in many cases to have been only a disguise for the grabbing of concessions, rights, and spheres of influence. When the Japanese began to appear in the story, the acquisitive tendencies are magnified and greatly strengthened. Can you name an item in the recent aggressive policy of Japan toward China that does not follow a precedent set by one or another of the ‘great’ Western powers? She could claim, as they could not, the necessity of self-defense as the basis for her ‘right’ to preserve a dominant influence on the continent of Asia, but we can- not fail to note that Japan simply copied methods which she had learned from Western powers. “You Americans take satisfaction in the fact that your conduct toward China was less marked by aggres- sive selfishness. The inauguration of the open-door pol- icy is certainly to your credit; but it seems to us ‘that you have never been sufficiently convinced of the moral strength of the position which your great statesman, John Hay, took toward Far Eastern problems to give it firm and vigorous support. Our writers feel justified in pointing out the fact that American policy, even re- garding the open door, has mainly considered its own interest rather than China’s moral rights. “After the establishment of the Republic in 1912, a period of international cooperation and control takes the place of the struggle for concessions of the preceding decade. Even here we feel that the cooperation of the great powers is primarily for their own advantage rather [22] Chinese Attitudes Toward the West than for the welfare of China. Our leaders who estab- lished the Republic expected support in democratic gov- ernment from the supposedly more democratic powers of the West. Instead of that, those powers gave aid to the strong conservative monarchist, Yuan Shih-kai. This seemed to us inconsistent. “Some of these statements may seem to you hyper- critical, but they represent the attitude of our most in- telligent young leaders. Especially to be noted is the increasing emphasis they are giving to China’s need of developing her military strength. The love of peace is one of the great characteristics of the Chinese people, but i the minds of many Chinese today there is a con- viction that the methods of conference and arbitration are failing and that there is little hope for China in an appeal to the moral idealism of the West. We see Japan given a place of equality and honor in the council of the great powers of the world. We know that she has won this position because she adopted Western methods for her army and navy and reformed both along the lines of European efficiency. Japan is respected to- day because she is strong and well armed. But China’s tival claims are unheard, her interests are disregarded whenever consideration of them would prejudice those of some more powerful state. Surely you can under- stand and sympathize with the feeling of our delegates at Paris in 1919 and at Washington in 1921, who felt that the only resource left for their nation was to deny its traditional reasonableness and love of peace and de- liberately train itself in the ways of militarism. [23] China’s Challenge to Christianity “But surely, you will say, however just any of this prejudice may be against Western political force, there can be nothing but cordial appreciation of missionary effort which has been conducted with such genuine de- votion for the good of the Chinese people. Here you must remember how insidious and effective prejudices are. Is your nation always appreciative of the conscien- tious efforts of other peoples? We may acknowledge all we owe to Christian missions, and yet it is hard for many of us to dissociate them from the attitude that has been aroused toward the West in general. We feel that the Christian Church in America has not the deep and unselfish interest in China which its professions would lead us to expect. We find members of your churches who come to China not always considerate of our interests. There are features even of your mission- ary administration which seem to indicate an idea of superiority on your part and of failure to appreciate our best achievements. Frankly, with all its good intentions, Christianity approaches China with a certain amount of handicap. I have spoken to you with the utmost free- dom because I believe you honestly desire to remove any such handicap in your dealings with the Chinese.” 3. Removing Un-Christlike Attitudes Is there not a very direct challenge to Christianity in the Chinese attitudes we have observed? The writer of this book and the majority of his readers agree in the belief that the spirit of Christ alone can bring to [24] Chinese Attitudes Toward the West China power for individual moral renewal and creative energy for social transformation. With this conviction, the immediate, all-important, and pressing problem which faces the Christian enterprise in China is how to remove the obstacles which hinder the progress of the movement in order that the mass of Chinese people may be won as rapidly as possible to an acceptance of the principles which Jesus Christ taught, and for which he lived and worked and died. The future of China depends upon the outcome of a race to the finish between chaos and the real Christ spirit. There is a chance to win China for true Christianity. Can Christian churches meet the challenge? It is the purpose of this book to consider such a chal- lenge, to examine a few of the important facts in the present situation in China in relation to which Christian enterprise must be directed. The present opportunity cannot be of long duration. For the sake of China and for the sake of the world it is necessary to remove every hindrance to Christian effort and to increase immediately the effective energy of the entire Christian campaign. Christianity should bring only her good gifts of free- dom, personal worth, equality of men, liberation of body and spirit, joy and salvation, the vital energy of the “abundant life” in Christ. Against these there is no law and no opposition. For all that is Christlike China has an eager welcome. Perhaps some may feel that a study involving critical discussion of Christian aims and methods is the primary concern of those who determine mission policies,—the [25] China’s Challenge to Christianity administrative officers of missionary societies in China and the mission boards at the home base,—and that it is not therefore a proper study for the general church public. The urgency of the need in China justifies the attempt. Only as the entire Christian constituency of the countries supporting the missionary task is taken frankly into the confidence of those who are responsible for missionary policies can these problems be solved. We must face the situation in the field together, carefully scrutinizing missionary aims and methods. We must revise those that are wrong or weak, reenforcing those that have spiritual creativity, and add those that are needed for the future, if by any means China 1s to be won to Christ before the decay of her old moral and social controls is complete and the spread of Western jndustrialism has destroyed her. The churches need to understand the attitudes to be adopted toward the modern Chinese, both Christian and non-Christian. To prepare for that tomorrow which will be upon us all too soon, it is essential that there be full understanding of the direction which Chinese intellectual life is already taking, and an appreciation of the place which Chinese leader- ship must have, not only in China’s own political and social concerns, but in the Christian undertaking as well. We have considered in this chapter the fundamental matter of the attitude that young Chinese leaders of today hold toward the West and toward the Christian enterprise ; for convenience in our discussion each of the following five chapters will consider one of the principal factors that the Christian forces must take into account, [26] Chinese Attitudes Toward the West with the problems of Christian work which rise out of consideration of each one of them. ‘These factors are: (1) The political, economic, and social conditions which determine the immediate environment of the Chi- nese people in the important coast cities of China and in those inland centers where the transforming influence of contacts with the West has been felt for a consider- able time. (2) The great mass of agricultural folk, forming the bulk of China’s millions, who still live a simple lite, dominated for the most part by old traditions and super- stitions, even when there is some doubt regarding the correctness of habitual allegiance to the old standards. How best may we bring the liberalizing, energizing Christian message to these, who do not yet realize the inevitable result of the unequal contest between igno- rance and science, between traditional authority and the new spirit of inquiry? (3) The renaissance of intellectual life which is sweep- ing through the schools and universities of China today under the guidance of brilliant young men and women who are recovering for China the creative capacity which has marked her periods of finest bloom. (4) The religious movements which are seen in the signs of freshening life within the old faiths——Contu- cianism, Buddhism, Taoism, and the smaller religious groups—and in the yearning quest for spiritual power. How is Christ related to China’s own spiritual prophets? (5) The indigenous Christian church of China—the tiny lump of leaven in the great mass of her population; [27] OPA Ae PAO Ce a MINAS RODS MOO OOS cee EN Seen REINS SSS tar China’s Challenge to Christianity FEELERS NENA ONS en A ERO MS. Fc SS that little group to which is committed the stupendous task of inspiring, reinvigorating, and saving the whole people. If we gain some understanding of these factors and ‘catch the vision of what a Christian China will mean for the world, we shall see that to our fellow Christians in China is committed one of the greatest tasks in Christian adventure that any people in any century has been privileged to attempt. We shall be eager to become fellow workers with them, giving all the assistance in personnel and in funds they may ask for. We shall be- come ardent intercessors on their behalf, praying that they may grow in grace and in power to control and guide their own Church. Only a Chinese Christian Church can save China. Under divine guidance a Chinese Christian Church may also bring to the Church Universal new glimpses of the character of God and fresher and deeper understandings of the teaching and person of Christ. “What can measure the possible influence on Christian- ity in other lands of a truly Christlike Christianity in China ?” [28] ee ee ee a. eS aon ae = —“— II The Changing Environment For at least twenty or thirty years Americans have been told about the “Awakening” or “Opening of China.” Probably the average American feels that the process of arousing this ancient people has been unduly ex- tended; either the “Chinese giant” must have been des- perately sleepy or the process used to awaken him nota- bly faulty. Those who know China, however, see that changes have been coming so rapidly that it is difficult for any observer to keep track of them. Westerners can better appreciate the rapidity with which the environ- ment of Chinese life is being transformed if they realize that the process of modernization, which in the case of Europe and America has occupied the four centuries between the discoveries of Columbus and the present time, is being crowded into as many decades for China. If we consider, in addition, the enormous mass of the vast population of China and integrate this factor with the rapidity of the changes, it is evident that the mo- mentum which may be calculated for the whole process represents a human energy greater than any single force that has yet appeared in human history. An impression of the striking changes that have taken place can be most vividly presented in a few contrasting pictures taken from my own experience. Brought up as a boy in a country district in western Shantung, I was familiar with the conditions of the life of the rural folk [29] China’s Challenge to Christianity before they had been seriously affected by Western influ- ences. Almost every year we visited Tientsin and Peking. Let me present pictures of Tientsin and Peking as I remember them in 1897, and as I saw them on my return eleven years later. 1. Contrasting Pictures The Chinese city of Tientsin had been a walled town lying some miles northwest of the French Concession, which practically all foreigners proceeded to reach by traveling over the famous “Taku Road,” a rough dirt highway flanked on either side by evil smelling ponds of stagnant water and refuse that filled the holes from which the earth had been taken for making brick and other building purposes. Within the city, one passed through narrow streets where the odors of decaying refuse from dump heaps and open sewers beside the road mingled with the fragrance of frying food irom the multitudinous food-shops, the scent of southern fruits and spices, the odors of expensive teas and of other perfumed luxuries that filled the great shops. This ride through Tientsin streets from the French Concession to a point on the Grand Canal where the family em-: barked for the river journey to an inland station was always one of the’ most fascinating adventures of my boyhood. Throughout the city there was no suggestion of a building in the foreign type of architecture. One saw only the environment of pure, unadulterated Chinese edie: [30] ee —_— Se oe ee The Changing Environment In 1908 on the day after my return to Tientsin I drove from the old American Board Compound in the French Concession, with its foreignized bungalows famil- iar to my boyhood, to Pei Yang University just north of the suburb village of Haiku. For the entire distance we traveled over a well-made macadam road which passed through the Japanese Concession and skirted the Chinese city on its east side on the great “East Wall Avenue.” The city walls had been torn down after 1900, and their site transformed into a fine macadamized avenue that made the circuit of the city. Over it ran tram- cars. Passing the city, we went on through the northern sub- urb. It was only at this point that I found familiar landmarks. The old bridge of boats still carried the traffic across the Grand Canal, opening occasionally when some fleet of junks from the south desired passage. The river smells, the yelling of the crews, the crowded streets of the northern suburb,—crowded still in spite of the macadam,—all were a part of the old experience and roused the delights of recall. But the road led one past the “tumult and the shouting” to a broad boulevard which ended at the fine campus of the Pei Yang Uni- versity. Here a chum of the old days, now head of the Engineering Department, was building a great “Main Hall” with provision for classrooms and for excellent laboratories. This was the new China—macadam roads, tram-cars, the conveniences of the telephone, Westernized buildings adapted to scientific educational use, planned, built, [31] China’s Challenge to Christianity owned, and administered by the Chinese. And when I drove through other parts of the city, the same impres- sion was intensified. In Hopei—north of the river sec- tion—the Viceroy of the province, Yuan Shih-kai, had laid out a modernized Chinese city, a fine piece of city planning, opening up what had been a waste district to modern development under complete Chinese control. The provincial Assembly Hall stood in a park, with a series of modern buildings for both exposition and recreational purposes. The main avenue led from the Viceroy’s residence and offices to the Central Tientsin station of the Peking-Moukden Railway. Here were the outlines of a fine modern city. - In the old days I had ridden to Peking many times on donkeyback, over a dusty road along the wall of the Northern city, to pass through the great Hatamen with its imposing arch and gate tower. A narrow elevated causeway carried the traffic past the dump holes and cesspools. Picturesque booths of many sorts of pedlers lined the roadway and filled the wide space between the stores on either side. This was originally one of the broad thoroughfares running from the main gateways of the city as laid out by Kublai Khan when he established his capital at Kambalac. My journey’s end brought me to the American Board Mission Compound at Teng Shih- Kou—Lamp Market Avenue. On the return trip in 1908 I rode by train in a few hours from Tientsin to Peking and passed in a railroad carriage through the wall of the Southern city, riding under the wall of the Northern city over the exact route [32] The Changing Environment taken so many times on donkeyback, through the semi- lune which guarded the Hatamen, to detrain at the really fine railroad station inside the Chien Men, the great “Front Gate” of the city, and to go on from there over broad macadamized avenues to the old Lamp Market site. The broad thoroughfares of the Mongol founder had been restored, the refuse and the pedlers had dis- appeared, and uniformed policemen directed the flow of traffic either way. Along the streets there arose now and then between the old style shops with fronts of gilt and vermilion, modern stores of two or three stories. It was all new, and yet it was all Chinese. When I left China in 1897, a few progressive Chinese leaders were trying to bring home to the people the lessons to be learned from the defeat by Japan in 1894. During the eleven years of my absence, China had re- ceived the additional shock of the Boxer movement and its suppression and of the Russo-Japanese War. Forced into far more intimate relations with the West than she had ever experienced before, the Chinese generally had come to see the necessity for modernizing changes in their life, and the progress had gone on apace. Throughout the coastal regions the people generally were eager to make use of the advantages of Western science and in- vention and were ready to establish schools, colleges, and universities in which knowledge of the modern world could be gained. Thousands of keen-minded students were studying in Japan, and the flow of students to America and Europe had begun. Of all foreigners the Japanese were the most sought after as teachers. This [33] China’s Challenge to Christianity was because they were themselves Asiatics. Their writ- ten symbols were the same as the Chinese, their language easier to learn than any Western speech, and their prog- ress in Westernized and modernized ways notable ex- amples of what might be accomplished. To be sure, the majority of the Chinese in inland dis- tricts and on farms were living in the old way. The people, however liberal and progressive in their ideas. and ideals, were still at heart thoroughly Chinese, but it was plain that the environment of their life was be- ing changed. The political, economic, and social con- ditions were being transformed. If we are to under- stand the China of today, we must consider in detail this changing environment. One is reminded of a transformation scene in Tann- héuser or Parsifal. While the hero continues his speech and his action, the entire background is changed. There is no convulsion; but by degrees, almost imper- ceptible at first, the change is effected until the hero finds himself in surroundings entirely different from those in which his action began. Just so, the Chinese, during those eleven years, and even more so in the past fifteen, have been carrying on their ways of life in relation to conditions that have been steadily modify- ing. Curiously enough, the human actors have been, to a large extent, the general agents in the process of transformation. It will be easier to understand and appreciate the twofold change—the inner intellectual and spiritual and the outer environmental—if we first con- sider them apart from each other. [34] The Changing Environment 2. Political Changes Americans, like other Westerners, are so distinctly politically minded that they seem to be more interested in the political changes in China than in any other phase of Chinese life today. Capacity in administration and organization, especially along political lines, marks all Western peoples, and it is difficult for any of them to understand a social life in which political organization is not the all-important thing. For this reason every political change in China is very fully written up by the Western journalists in China. This is especially true where sensational features can be played up. The names of rival political leaders—Chang Tso-lin, Tuchun of Manchuria; Wu Pei-fu, progressive militarist of North China; Ts’ao Kun, President of the Chinese Republic, newly elected by purchased votes; Sun Yat-sen, revolutionary hero and idealist ; Wang Chung-hui, China’s judge on the International Court—frequently appear in our newspapers and magazines. Biographical sketches are read eagerly. Every realignment of political par- ties in China is heralded abroad throughout the West- ern world. And news of prospective clashes between the leaders, or of general revolutionary movements, are eagerly anticipated. | China’s ambassadors abroad, often Western-trained men with a modern outlook—in particular such leaders as Wellington Koo at London and Paris, Alfred Sze at Washington, Yen Wei-ching (W. W. Yen), Ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs in Peking—have made a marked im- [35] China’s Challenge to Christianity pression upon Westerners. There is general surprise that men with the capacity of those named should not long ago have brought China to that state of orderly political organization which the West is so eager to see established in China. As a matter of fact, this interest in political leaders and political conditions is an evidence of the characteristic political interests of Western people. It does not represent eagerness to study the fundamental facts of China’s modern life; still less does it indicate an understanding of the conditions which underlie those facts. Probably most Westerners want an orderly China, not so much for the advancement of the public good of the Chinese people, as for the sake of the advantage which more stable conditions would give to Western trade. No “old China hand” would claim any complete un- derstanding of the present political situation in China, and not a single one would venture to prophesy the changes to be expected within the next few months or years. If this is so, what chance is there for the average Western reader of the news from China to appreciate conditions there? Like most foreigners in China, and particularly like every young Chinese, I am interested in the steady development of China towards a stable and well-developed, orderly and peaceful life in the modern world. But I am less interested in political conditions in China than in the other phases of Chinese life. However, since Americans cannot give up their characteristic habits, some attempt should be made to present an impression of the general tendencies. [36] The Changing Environment Two major influences are at work: (1) Foreign interference. No Western power has been willing or able to allow the Chinese people to work out for themselves either their own revolution or their own political development through modern constitutional forms of government. Even the least aggressively selfish of Western powers has been inclined to put its spoon into the broth that is brewing in China in the hope of securing more or less of special privileges for its own interests. Taken together, the Western powers have been more interested in a stabilized and an orderly China because of the advantages to them in carrying on trade and in developing concessions under such conditions, than in allowing the Chinese people time for quiet nat- ural adjustment to new conditions and for essential self- development. Charges can be laid against every one of the Western powers and against Japan for interfering in China’s internal affairs by urging some particular policy upon the Central Government; or by supporting some particular leader who gave promise of securing wide control in China; or by selling arms to revolution- ary groups; or by arranging with corrupt officials for loans that are a mortgage on the nation’s resources. It is impossible to estimate how much of the political confusion and anarchy in China today is due directly to foreign interference, open and secret, and how much is due to causes of an indigenous character and of Chi- nese origin only. Practically all of China’s friends agree that her development would be far better assured if the Western powers and Japan could agree among them- [37] China’s Challenge to Christianity selves upon a complete “hands-off” policy, and could allow her full freedom to work out her own salvation along lines of political organization true to her own traditional and native genius. Lao-tzu’s ideal “Develop- ment without Domination” has received no support from foreign governments. | (2) Personal rivalries. The confusion and conflict which seem so characteristic of Chinese political life find their root in most cases in personal rivalries between the more powerful groups and leaders rather than in any essential differences based on principles. These rivalries give to the transient visitor and superficial observer an appearance of chaos. But the long-time, friendly resi- dent of China knows that the life of the people really goes on steadily and without great confusion in spite of surface appearances to the contrary; he knows, too, that the people, north and south, east and west, are funda- mentally united; and that along. commercial, educational, and social lines, much constructive progress is being made. While regretting the extent to which partizanship and personal rivalries are manifest, such an observer is will- ing to appreciate the lessons of history and to recognize that confusion and anarchy are essential to development. He can refer to the history of several Western peoples to support his contention. Americans, in particular, should recall the many years of slow groping through which our states passed before the authority of the federal govern- ment was firmly established. Do not our best historians picture conditions in the [38] ‘ ee a ; : (i The Changing Environment early years of the life of the American Republic sur- prisingly similar to those existing in China to-day? Can we claim a real political union in America before the difficulties of the reconstruction period after the Civil War had been ended? Can any of us deny that without such a period, which must have seemed one of anarchy to the European observer, our people, North and South, could not have worked out together solutions of their problems that have led to the solid and firm United States of these days? Would we have allowed any other nation in either hemisphere to determine according to its knowledge and interests, and for its own advantage, the time when the period of anarchy and conflict for America ought to have an end? The present rivalries between military tuchuns in China may be illustrated for Americans by the squabbles between political “bosses” in either of our political parties. Confusion and anarchy may not be comfortable for the people that must pass through the process, but are they not, nevertheless, an essential part of a vital life process? China must work out her political salvation alone. No one can help her from without by any sort of direct influence or suggestion. The new political structure must be a real growth from within. But the friends of China can offer much help that will have indirect but sig- nificant bearing on the political situation. They can support every effort to reduce the enormous percentage of illiteracy and to develop a more intelligent public opinion. They can encourage the spirit of brotherhood and of social service in her youth. Some of the most [39] China’s Challenge to Christianity useful public leaders of today have been educated in missionary institutions. Carefully guarding against any direct interference in political matters, the friend of China can give essential help by supporting with friendliness and tact every move- ment toward constructive progress in democratic and social improvement." 3. The Changing Economic Structure Most foreigners accept the traditional view of a China opposed to innovation and change, reluctantly accepting the products of Western mechanical inventions, and only gradually appreciating the advantages which the quality and convenience of these articles furnish. It is un- doubtedly true that ignorance and superstition were fac- tors in Chinese life delaying the process of Westerniza- tion at various points. | Changes in the economic environment of the Chinese people during the last few decades have been of a most varied character, and have come with astonishing rapidity. For means of communication railroads have been built, roads have been improved, rivers have been straightened. The products of scientific inventions in vehicles, ma- chinery, and electric devices have been introduced; the telegraph and telephone are now a necessary part of 1 For the complete story of China’s political life since the estab- lishment of the Republic, see such books as Hodgkin, China in the Family of Nations, Chapter V; Cheng, Modern China—A Political Study, Part I; Simpson (Putnam Weale), The Fight for the Flowery Republic. [40] ~s . EE ee ee _ The Changing Environment the life of every large city in China. In agriculture, in mines, and in shipbuilding and foreign trade there have been amazing developments. Within recent years very much of the development has been in the hands of Chinese. These changes have been not only “intro- duced” to the Chinese, but they have been accepted by the Chinese very quickly. Adaptability, one of the out- standing qualities of the Chinese people, is shown in the adjustment that has been made to the new economic environment. China has packed into the limits of a single generation the process of modernizing the physical environment of daily life in home and street and office, which has occupied Europe through the last three hun- dred years. To be sure, China has had the advantage of the ex- ample given by the West in the making of these adjust- ments, but even with allowance made for this advantage, it seems possible to claim that the Chinese in this single generation have made their adjustment to ‘‘modernized” living with far less of serious dislocation in habits and standards of living than is to be found in the history of Western experience in such adjustment. It is, however, a mistake to think of the Chinese people as fundamentally hostile towards ideas or articles from abroad. I have already shown that up to the beginning of the eighteenth century the Chinese Government as well as the Chinese people maintained a friendly interest in other peoples, and were eager to trade with them. It was only at the close of the long and glorious reign [41] China’s Challenge to Christianity of the liberal-minded Emperor K’ang Hsi of the Ch’ing dynasty (A.D. 1662-1722) that the official attitude of the Manchu Government was markedly changed and became hostile to foreigners and to foreign influences. The Emperor Yung Cheng (a.p. 1722-1735) was a mature man when he came to the throne, and seems to have been desirous of introducing a number of new poli- cies. He introduced a hostile attitude towards all sorts of foreigners and foreign goods, an attitude which seems to have developed out of his desire to secure his throne against rivalry and possible attack from several of his brothers, some of whom had affiliations with foreigners. In particular he turned his attention against the band of European Christians who, during the reign of his father, had been given high position and dignity on account of their mathematical ability. They had used the increased opportunities for preaching their religious mes- sage in work which had been followed by marked success. Yung Cheng’s successor, the great Ch’ien Lung (A.D. 1736-1796) was more liberal toward foreigners, although he did not permit them to carry on religious work. Ch’ien Lung’s conquests in Central Asia gave him respect in the eyes of all the Orient and the European states. Had his successors been men able to catry on in his spirit, China might have been welcomed into the “family of nations” at the beginning of the eighteenth century with honor and respect if not as a full equal. But the later Manchu Emperors were weak men. They and the majority of their advisers were small- minded and reverted to the anti-foreign policies of Yung [42] The Changing Environment Cheng, which led to the wars with European states over trading privileges; and short-sighted and unreasonable hostility on the one side incited to equally short-sighted and unreasonable aggression on the other. But in spite of the official governmental attitude of hostility to foreigners and to foreign goods maintained by the Manchu Government and its officers, the Chinese people showed themselves not only ready to use foreign goods of proved value, but eager to secure the advantage and convenience which foreign articles of good quality gave to them. As long ago as my boyhood the village women could always find in the stock of the itinerant pedler—the dub, dub, dub, dub of whose hand-drum indicated that his stock was dry goods—yang pu, foreign, or literally, “ocean” cloth and British thread; and on every river trip we boys used to look for the blue Indian head and other trade-marks from British and American cotton-mills to be seen in the picturesque sails of Grand Canal junks. And neither official pro- scription nor taboos of superstition could prevent the millions of China, rural as well as urban, from discover- ing that cheaper and vastly improved illumination could be obtained by displacing vegetable oils with foreign kerosene. There was not only a popular acceptance of useful articles from the West in spite of official proscription, but also progressive Chinese leaders, some of them like Li Hung Chang, men of high standing in the Govern- ment, recognized China’s urgent need for improved com- munications, steamships, railways, and telegraphs. These [43] China’s Challenge to Christianity men realized that China needed these things for her own good, and drew up plans by which the improvements desired could be carried out. These plans were checked in two ways: on the one hand, it was not possible to secure the approval of a majority in the government; on the other, the leaders came to realize that their own plans would not be of value to China unless they could be carried out under complete Chinese control. As Mr. Tyler Dennett rightly says: “It is quite clear that the Chinese were actually far more frightened by the importunities and utterly unscrupulous dealings of the foreigners than by feng- shui. They saw that to permit the foreigner to control communications and modern industry was to invite the enemy within the walls and prepare for an abject surren- der. The foreigners were unyielding, and therefore the Chinese called an abrupt halt and determined to continue without the new conveniences until they could be estab- lished under exclusive Chinese control.” ? However, no obstacles of any sort could prevent the people from making use of many products of Western manufacture. It is unnecessary to give figures to show the surprising increase in the foreign trade of China during the last decade of the nineteenth century. We are more concerned with the development of manufac- turing in China, for the changes which have resulted from that development have not only made cheaper and better goods available for the Chinese market, but the new 1“The Industrial Invasion of China,’ The World Tomorrow, November, 1923. [44] The Changing Environment methods of manufacture introduced have created indus- trial problems which are beginning to affect the lives of thousands of Chinese workers. These latter changes, which have come in since 1900 and in particular since 1911, have created new living conditions for almost all Chinese. In relation to the mew environment, the Christian enterprise and all foreign enterprises in China must face new and serious responsibilities. The beginning of modern factory production in China came in 1870 when a Canton company started a factory for spinning, using steam-operated machinery. The pub- lic was not ready for the enterprise, however; “farmers would not trust their cotton to this wizard concern,” and the enterprise came to a failure. It was not until 1890 that another effort was made, this time successfully. A few years later, Western capital became interested in the possibility of establishing mills in China to make use of the enormous supply of cheap labor. These mills were at first operated without profit, because the supply of cotton was not equal to the demand. But a decade later the acreage devoted to cotton growing had so increased as to meet the demand of the mills for raw material, and from that time there has been a steady development of the cotton industry. The first attempt to start a silk filature by Chinese was made in 1882 and was again unsuccessful. By 1892 it was possible to start mills that soon became produc- tive, and in 1901 Shanghai had twenty-eight mills, and silk skeins were being exported to Lyons, France, and to New York. [45] China’s Challenge to Christianity The development of these two industries was somewhat dependent upon the building of railroads. An unsuccess- ful beginning in this line was made in 18/75 with the building of the well-known road from Shanghai to Woosung, against which a popular outbreak occurred, so that the tracks were torn up. In 1881 a few miles of railroad were being successfully operated between the T’ang Shan coal mines and the head of the canal that led to Tientsin. After 1895 foreign interests had come to realize that railroad concessions were the most valuable prizes to be secured in China, and “the powers” were competing with each other in a fierce struggle to obtain them. The Peking-Moukden Railroad was built in 1897. Popular hostility was still expressed against this railroad, which may have been one of the contributing aggrava- tions that led to the fanatic Boxer outbreak. The victory of the Allies at that time convinced the most conservative-minded Manchu officials, as well as the superstitious common folk, that China could save her life in the modern world only by adopting the improvements in communications and manufacture which Western science had made available. In the years after 1901 de- velopment of railroads was rapid. The dissatisfaction of the people with the foreign control of railroads, and their demand that railroads should be owned by Chinese and managed for their own good rather than for producing dividends to enrich foreign stockholders, inaugurated the Revolution of 1911 which resulted in the establishing of the Republic. With six thousand miles of railroad in operation and the emphasis on economic development [46] The Changing Environment given by the liberal leaders of the revolution, manufac- tures in China received a new impetus. In spite of politi- cal chaos and anarchy during the last decade, this develop- ment has gone steadily on. As an example of the rapid industrial growth that is possible in China, because of the two important favoring factors,—(1) abundant supply of raw material, and (2) abundant supply of cheap labor,—note theshair-net indus- try of Chefoo. In 1914 between three thousand and five thousand gross of hair-nets were exported. The next year the business increased one hundred per cent. In the year 1921 it developed threefold over the preceding year, and in 1922 two million gross, worth $7,500,000 (silver), were exported. Similar growth has been manifest in the last three or four years in almost every line of manufac- ture in China. In 1920, two years after the War, two hundred new enterprises in the cotton industry alone were started with $75,000,000 (silver) of Chinese capital. There were in Shanghai in 1922 thirty-three Chinese- owned mills with 1,200,000 spindles and 9,000 employees at work. For several years these mills have been de- claring a twenty per cent dividend annually. The China Year Book for 1923, edited by H. G. W. Woodhead, editor of the Peking and Tientsin Times, presents in Chapter XIX, under the title “Manufactures,” an impos- ing list of factories already established in practically every province of China. The industries that have been par- ticularly associated with China for centuries, such as porcelain and earthenware, lacquer, cloisonné, carpets [47] China’s Challenge to Christianity and rugs, fireworks, mats and matting, and palm-leaf fans, are not included in the list which is rather a presentation of the extent to which modern methods of manufacture have been adopted in order to meet the growing demands of the enormous Chinese population for convenient and serviceable manufactured goods, and to anticipate the possibilities of cheap production offered in China for developing export trade. This list names : Albumen factories Asbestos Arsenals Canneries and biscuit factories Cement and brick works Chemical and dye works Cotton spinning and weaving mills Distilleries, breweries, etc. Dockyards, shipbuilding, etc. Electric light and power works Flour mills Furniture factories Gas works Glass and porcelain works Grass-cloth factories Ice and cold-storage works Iron and steel works Lace and hair-net factories Leather factories and tanneries Match factories Oil mills and beancake factories Paper mills Piano and organ factories Printing and lithography Railway works Rice hulling and cleaning mills Rope factories Sawmills Silk filatures and weaving mills Smelting works Soap and candle factories Sugar refineries Tea factories Telephone installations Tobacco factories Tram-ways Woolen factories Wool-cleaning and press-pack- ing Shanghai is the greatest industrial center in China, and twenty-nine of these industries are represented in the Shanghai factories. But there are sixty-two other cities in China which have one or more industries. [48] The Changing Environment The surprising development of these recent years is simply a little sign of what is to take place within the next decade. Try to think of the enormous population of China—four hundred millions—and consider what it will mean to any of the industries named when even a frac- tion of one per cent of that population has found for itself the need for a given manufactured article. This thought came to me very vividly. one day as I was cycling on a country road against a hot wind-and- dust storm on the North China plain on my way to a preaching service. I met a lad of twelve or thirteen wearing a pair of dark glass goggles. He had slung over his shoulder a basket of willow withes which might have been used by his ancestor three thousand years ago. He was of a very poor family, and was out to pick up grass and leaves and any sort of scraps that could be used for fuel, but he wore to protect his eyes from the raging, yellow loess-dust, a pair of goggles, cheaply made, to be sure, but still modeled after the style that has come into use in Europe and America with automobile driving. Parisian fashions adapted for the convenient use of the poorest families in China! The possibilities illustrated by such an incident lead sober observers of China’s present and future life to reflect that Shanghai, the port that ministers to a “hinter- land” more populated than that which lies behind any other of the world’s greatest cities, may be destined to become the largest city of the world. This prospect of China’s economic future renders only the more pathetic the widespread and bitter poverty of [49] China’s Challenge to Christianity great masses of the population and the frequency in dif- ferent sections of famine or flood or banditry—or of all three at once. With the undeveloped state of communi- cations, many of the above-mentioned manufactures have as yet only the most limited circulation. The visitor who expects to find China still stagnant will receive some severe mental jolts, as will the one who pictures the country as having generally abandoned its old ways. Earnestly as we welcome the development of natural resources, we must recognize the new problems that it raises. Social workers are already studying with anxious care changes in Chinese life produced by the vast industrial development which has been briefly indicated. Many features of Chinese life will be gravely affected by these changes, but it is not China alone that will feel their influence. It is more than time for social re- searchers throughout the world to give exact and pene- trating attention to the possible effects on world markets and world life of large scale production in China. It is necessary to consider carefully the international conse- quences to be expected ‘‘when China competes.” Upon those particularly interested in human values another set of problems press. What will it mean for the manhood and womanhood of China if thousands are to be caught in the machinery of factory production? Is there any possibility of saving China from the worst effects that have come to Western peoples with the “fac- tory system’? Can the most ardent optimist believe that [50] The Changing Environment aes the traditional humanism of the Chinese will prevail against the inhuman mechanism involved in the adoption of scientific inventions for manufacturing? Is it possible in any way to reenforce the traditional emphasis on human values, which Chinese sages in successive genera- tions have stressed, so that the good of man may not be lost sight of and overwhelmed in the rising tide of in- dustrial production? To be sure this industrialism has come to China as a gift from the West, but she cannot blame Westerners en- tirely for involving her in its toils. No nation can share in the life of this modern world without facing similar problems. The conveniences and comfort that come from the cheap and serviceable goods in our factories are demanded by every intelligent people. More earnest efforts are needed to insure that the larger use of the machine-made goods may bring to mankind not only con- venience, but enrichment of human life as well. The wonderful tools with which science has provided the race can be used to relieve men from drudgery. Have we not a right to expect that the Chinese, be- cause of their long heritage of humanism, may be able ‘to avoid the worst evils that befall Europe and America in their struggle with industrial mechanism? The Chinese may offer solutions of these evils that will have fresh significance and value for the Western peoples also. In a recent discussion of “Capitalism in China” shared by Chinese and Westerners, interesting suggestions were made regarding the possibility that China may develop a [51] China’s Challenge to Christianity distinctive order of social institutions through which the values of machine production may be held and the evils thereof avoided. Professor J. B. Tayler, Head of the Department of Economics in the Christian Peking Uni- versity (Yenching Ta Hsueh), reminds us that in China “institutions and influences from earlier stages of de- velopment persist with quite unusual strength into mod- ern times,” and suggests that the “joint family” and the “Chinese gild system” may be made use of to overcome the sharp division in the process of production between capital and the factory manager on the one hand and labor and the workmen on the other, a division which lies at the basis of almost all of our industrial difficulties in the West.* Unfortunately these indigenous constructive social forces in China have not been strong enough to head off the beginnings of serious conflict between the workmen and the factory operator. A “labor movement,” stimu- lated by the Russian Revolution and the Chinese Student Movement of 1919, is already in process of development. Progressive-minded students have been eager preachers of social and patriotic ideals to their fellow countrymen of every class, but in particular to those whose contact with new ideas must be made through the spoken rather than the written word. Already news of strikes and of labor unions is often seen in the newspapers, although it is “estimated that only one thirtieth of the total of one 1 The World Tomorrow. November, 1923. Special number on “Capitalism in China.” [52] —— The Changing Environment million workers in Shanghai are subject to the influence of agitators.” + There are already organized unions or “laborers’ clubs” for cooks, employees of vegetable shops, engravers, furni- ture laborers, wood polishers, printers, steamship labor- ers, sailors, engine-room laborers, mechanics, shipping coolies, girls’ hosiery makers, silk and crépe-dyeing labor- ers, gunny-bag makers, ricksha coolies, gold- and silver- smiths, weavers and spinners, sugar employers and em- ployees, blacksmiths, carpenters, and masons, Chinese re- turned laborers, electroplating laborers, Hongkong sea- men, wharf coolies, laundrymen, coppersmiths, barbers, shoemakers, foreign-furniture makers, builders, Pootung ? spinners and weavers, warehouse coolies. Such unions or clubs are not distinctly socialistic or radical, but aim at the education of the worker and seek to secure a wage scale that will fit the conditions of living in China. It would be very interesting to study the effect on the labor- | ing classes in China of the ideas brought back to them by the members of the “labor battalions” who served the French and British armies in France during the War. In a number of cases it is known that these men have been spreading the idea of organization for the sake of maintaining the rights of the laborer to a reasonably com- fortable life, emphasis on class consciousness, and, in some cases, radical social theories. 1 Paper on “Industrialization of China,” prepared by Miss Ruth Hoople of the Young Women’s Christian Association of China, for seminar on “Current Movements in China,” Department of Chinese, Columbia University, 1923. 2 The industrial section of Shanghai. [53] China’s Challenge to Christianity The steamfitters’ and engineers’ strike in April, 1920, conducted at Hongkong by the Chinese Engineers’ Union is an example of what may happen in industrial centers in China if labor is not treated more frankly and fairly. The strike was called in order to enforce a demand for a wage increase and resulted in securing an increase of thirty-two and one half per cent. People in China at the time were told by newspaper reporters, who had covered great strikes in other countries, that this Hong- kong strike was the most complete tie-up they had ever witnessed. This was because practically all laborers in the colony of Hongkong including the purveyors of food and household servants also went on strike in sympathy with the seamen The development of industrialism not only imperils some of the most precious elements of the social, ethical, and spiritual heritage of China, but already threatens the physical well-being of thousands of Chinese. If the evil tendencies of machine production, with the consequent exploitation of cheap laborers, are not checked, industrial- ism will lead to the dehumanizing of the lives of millions. Many Chinese see the twofold aspects of the problem — which the inevitable contact with modern scientific civili- zation has forced China to face. They realize also the critical character of the decision that is to be reached. Can the fine humanism which has characterized Chinese culture from its beginning maintain itself in spite of the fundamental changes which machine production is bring- ing about in the environment of the race that has trans- [54] Si Tass te Sas US 8 TSA US A EVR CS oO The Changing Environment Saree eterna tyr ty Ome ee eA. vi wether tO iy mitted that humanism? Can the spirit of Chinese culture show in these days power to receive stimulus from for- eign contacts? Can it choose the elements of value from the foreign culture and assimilate these elements in a quickened and refertilized life? Can it manifest again the creative power which it has shown so notably in its experience through the centuries, especially in its contact with Hindu culture as brought through the medium of Buddhism? The Chinese people appreciate the com- fort and convenience to be secured by the use of certain factory-made goods; they see clearly the extent to which the forces of nature, harnessed by means of mighty ma- chines, can be made to lift from the shoulders of men those heavy burdens of drudgery in physical toil under which their bodies have bowed for centuries; but they see with equal clearness the disaster that may be brought by these very machines, the sorrowful possibility that the Chinese may lose some of the finest characteristics which their own indigenous culture has brought them; the danger to the “family spirit” and the “clan system” ; the danger of losing the happy intimacy with nature that has been their solace in the past; the upsetting of those “relationships” on which has been based not only the political structure, but the social and moral life of the people as well. Will Chinese leaders arise who can show a way by which that which is good in the modern gifts which the West is bringing to China and which the Chinese themselves are eager to receive may be accepted and made use of for the public good, while at the same time the sinister and dangerous inhumanities so closely [55] China’s Challenge to Christianity associated with the good things in these very gifts may be checked and eliminated? The Chinese see, perhaps even better than Westerners, what enormous release of vital, human energy may be secured by laying upon machines as much as possible of the crushing drudgeries of life. Contrast the piers of some American port with the “Bund” of Shanghai or Tientsin. On the American shore of the Pacific Ocean great arms of steel with muscles of steam and nerves of electricity effectively and quickly load and unload the ships and handle the tons of goods to be transported and distributed; on the Chinese sea-front of the same ocean thousands of men and women with straining backs and arms haul and lift and carry the same heavy loads, re- ceiving a wage which is not comparable either in pur- chasing power or in the freedom and leisure that belong to it to the reward given the relatively few Westerners who guide the machines. On the streets the “man power cart”—jinrikisha—still does the work of Western trol- leys and subways. Western labor should surely bless the machines that have replaced aching muscles. But is there certainty that the release of the Chinese coolie from the frightful burden of hard labor that has been his for generations, if it must be secured by the use of all the Western factory methods of machine pro- duction, can promise to him the same cheerfulness ex- pressed in the chanties and rhythmic songs that have ac- companied his labor from of old? Will machines in- crease for the coolie that capacity to enjoy every moment [56] RE Bait t= Bis ee a ee ee The Changing Environment of leisure, which is such a distinctive characteristic? Or will it deaden by its monotony these older capacities ? Such questions as these perplex the minds of all Chinese who look intelligently on the processes manifested in Chinese life today. Can these perplexed questioners re- ceive guidance and hope from the Christian messengers ? Is it possible to assure the Chinese that the teachings of Jesus, if understood and accepted, will make it possible for them to receive the good of Western gifts and main- tain safely their own humanism? Can we prove that Christ’s gospel will come to them as “fulfilment” of all the best in their own traditional humanism? That the good news of a loving Father and of the human house- hold of brotherly men will mean only reenforcement of all the old values and creative inspiration toward a re- vitalized humanism through intimate fellowship with divine Love? Can we give evidence that the Christian spirit, if it is truly applied to modern life, does bring personal and social salvation, not only from drudgery, but from a narrow view of life as well? 4. Christian Efforts toward Economic and Social Adjustment Such questions as these present in an acute form China’s challenge to Christianity. At first Christian leaders could not give any but a general answer to the questions raised. Missions and churches had given little heed to the slow but irresistible oncoming of industrial- ism. As Tyler Dennett says, “There was little until [57] China’s Challenge to Christianity recently in the missionary enterprise designed specifically to prepare Chinese to discriminate and control their in- dustrial development with a view to humanitarian con- siderations.” But the response of the Chinese churches to the challenge, while feeble and disorganized at first, has become during very recent years one of its chief interests and means of expression. Several centuries of bitter experience with industrial expansion in the West had taught some of the churches the supreme importance ‘of bringing every possible humanitarian influence in the PSN cpa ng church to bear on conditions of labor as early as possible in the economic development of any people. In the West the churches had failed to anticipate the inhumanities of industrialism and had faltered in leadership at the social crisis. Should not Christians from the West living in China do something to warn the Chinese of the in- sidious and unhuman effects of the economic devices which are being copied from the West? Could not a Christian effort offset the worst evils of that other great Western influence, Industrialism ? To Christian women must be given the credit for the first definite and organized steps to meet the new danger.’ In the autumn of 1919 the Social Service section of the Federation of the Women’s Boards of Foreign Missions sent an industrial specialist to Japan and China to in- vestigate labor conditions. At a conference of women, Chinese and foreign, held in Shanghai,t a Commission on Social Service recommended the immediate appoint- 1 January, 1920. [58] The Changing Environment ment by the combined missions and churches in China of a National Social Service Committee on which two women specialists were to serve, one on child labor and one on women in industry. This was the first organized attempt of an interdenominational group to bring the Chinese churches face to face with a situation which promised to become more alarming each year. What matter if the recommendation of these women never was put into effect? A clear note of warning and of duty had been sounded. Before very long the men would be sure to fall in line. Then an industrial system based on Christian love and justice would become the common ideal of all. China has always had its trained workers in medicine, education, and evangelism. More recently it has had its specialists in agriculture. Soon it was to have specialists in social service and industrial welfare. As recently as 1920 the Chinese Church was still ill prepared in personnel and organization to meet the tre- mendous challenge which daily became more insistent. For several years before the Women’s Conference the National Young Men’s Christian Association maintained an industrial department. Social and industrial welfare work of various kinds was going on in the larger indus- trial cities such as Shanghai, Hankow, and Wuchang. The sociology departments of. such colleges as Shanghai College and Yenching University were promoting social service activities in industrial communities and main- taining settlements patterned after those in America. But with one exception local industrial secretaries did not [59] China’s Challenge to Christianity exist. In 1921 the Young Women’s Christian Associa- tion secured Miss Agatha Harrison, head of the depart- ment for the training of welfare workers in the London School of Economics, as its national industrial secretary. Associated with Miss Harrison was Miss Zung Wei Tsung. From now on both Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A. boasted of industrial departments. Rather than begin a program of recreational and other activities among em- ployed women, the Y.W.C.A. elected to “begin at once to make a direct and accurate study of industrial condi- tions in typical centers, to equip itself with the knowledge which will enable it to serve both employers and em- ployees in the most constructive ways, and to help create the public opinion that must precede legislation both within and without church constituencies.” Then came 1922, with two gatherings of epoch-making significance : the conference of the World’s Student Chris- tian Federation which met in Peking in April, and the National Christian Conference held in Shanghai in May. At the Peking conference, attended by students from thirty-seven nations and including six hundred delegates from the schools and colleges of China, the relation of Christianity to social and industrial problems came up for daily discussion. The significance of these discus- sions held at Peking—and in student groups all over China before and after the Peking Conference—cannot be overestimated when one contemplates how many of China’s future factory owners may have taken active ,part in them. | © Consider the creed of these Christian and non-Chris- [60] The Changing Environment tian students: “The construction of our ideal society is | based on the spirit and teaching of Jesus Christ. There- | fore, we believe in the absolute sacred value of the indi- i vidual, in love as the basis of human fellowship, and i inj mutual service as the means of human progress.” In accordance with the above three principles thesed students proposed among others that “cooperation should’ be the principle of all economic development, that eco- nomic efficiency should seek the good of society and not the selfish interests of individuals, and that neither pri- vate nor group ownership of capital is absolute, but that all possessions are a trust from the community.” In accordance with these principles it was agreed “that there should be the largest measure of industrial self- government with real freedom for the worker, that the community should be responsible for the regulation of conditions of labor, especially in the case of women and children, and in dangerous trades.” The wide publicity given to these conclusions of the Peking conference in- creased the interest of Chinese in industrial questions and opened still further the door of opportunity for the Church. The National Christian Conference held a month later and attended by over a thousand Christian Chinese and foreign missionaries from every province of China gave the second great impetus “to the Church’to face her re- sponsibility for the welfare of great hordes of men, women, and children now so swiftly being drawn into the new factory life of China.” More than a year was [61] China’s Challenge to Christianity spent in gathering information for a carefully prepared report on the “Relation of the Church to China’s Social and Industrial Problems.” Through corresponding mem- bers scattered all over China this material was collected under three classifications: Agriculture, Handicraft, and Modern Industry. So significant and timely a report quickly assumed the form of a challenge. Here was a matter on which the united Church of China should and could speak—a definite task in which all could unite at once. To fail now in answering so obvious a challenge was to forego the opportunity of a decade, to be un- patriotic—and un-Christian. The following words tell the answer: “Believing that the Church cannot but accept this challenge, your committee offers the following recom- mendations: (1) That the Church hasten to equip itself with all possible knowledge on the development of mod- ern industry in China and on the experience of the West . upon which we should draw for meeting the situation here. (2) That the Church, recognizing the need for a labor standard for China, endorse the setting, as a goal, of the standard adopted at the First International Con- ference of the League of Nations dealing with hours of © work, unemployment, employment of women before and after childbirth, night work for women and children, safeguarding the health of workers, and child labor. (3) That in view of the difficulty of immediate applica- tion of the League of Nations standard to the industrial situation in China the following standard be adopted and promoted by the Church for application now: (a) No [62] ee ee is Me The Changing Environment employment of children under twelve years of age. (b) One day’s rest in seven. (c) The safeguarding of the health of workers; e.g., limitation of working hours, 1m- provement of sanitary conditions, and installation of safety devices.” The threefold labor standard embedded in the above recommendations was passed by the 1,189 delegates with but one dissenting vote. It was further unanimously recommended that the newly organized National Chris- tian Council give these standards the widest publicity. Following the National Christian Conference, indus- trial conditions became one of the chief interests of the Chitiése Church. A national industrial commission was appointed. Groups of missionaries in a number of the larger cities met to consider ways and means of bringing Christ’s teachings and the threefold standards of the Church to bear on industrial relationships. Native church leaders in their attempt to humanize industry voted to apply the threefold standard to church and mission con- tracts. Synods, conferences, and individual churches, reviewing the actions at the National Christian Confer- ence, expressed hearty accord. At last the united Church of China was out on a magnificent social crusade. Stu- dents in mission schools volunteered their services as teachers in night schools which the Church was urged to start for poor children of the community. Young men gave themselves with enthusiasm to educational cam- paigns for the illiterate or social service for the poor. In Chefoo less than eight months after the National [63] China’s Challenge to Christianity Christian Conference forty-two Christian managers and employees met together in an earnest attempt to discover how they might put into effect these three resolutions on employment of children, one day’s rest in seven, and the safeguarding of the health of workers, The presiding officer, himself a factory manager, urged the necessity of Christian employers giving non-Christian industrial leaders an example of Christian love. The manager of the Chefoo Hair-net Factory was the chief speaker. He challenged his fellows to become pioneers in bringing in a more righteous industrial order. Lest the uninformed might accuse him of being more ready to speak than to act, he referred to a recent decision of the Hair-net Manufacturers’ Association to give Sunday free with full pay to eighteen thousand workers. The local churches were urged to push forward their industrial programs and told how powerful the preaching of the gospel in terms like these can really be. Dr. Sherwood Eddy’s visit to China, with his strong emphasis on the social implications of the gospel, added to the interest of the Church in social evangelism. At a two-day conference of those interested in social problems called by the National Christian Council in Shanghai, Dr. Eddy submitted the following questions for discussion: (1) How may we organize leaders of the Church in China and help them function? (2) How can we effectively coordinate the socially-minded groups in China, keeping each in touch with other local situations? Do we need in China a bureau of industrial research, or how can we get effective information pooled? (4) Do we need [64] LL welt TAUREN tie RO ARR OT STO OE The Changing Environment an annual conference on social work? (5) How can we relate our movement to non-Christian groups of socially minded people? The report of the Resolutions Commit- tee of this Conference is a significant document. Summarizing the activities within the Church at the present hour one is fairly amazed at the momentum of the movement. Letters offering help from national head- quarters have been sent to all cities where industrial committees are known to be at work. Study group ma- terial is being prepared. An advisory group is being formed to give assistance on the difficult matter of Chinese phraseology for industrial terms. Schemes are being discussed for the training of leaders. Cooperation with medical groups is being sought with reference to industrial hygiene. At the express invitation of the Na- tional Christian Council, Dame Adelaide Anderson, who has been an inspector of factories in England since 1894, is spending the winter and spring of 1924 visiting various industrial centers in China. She will take counsel with Christian leaders and others upon the most pressing needs of the situation. The Commission on Church and In- dustry hopes to arrange for a series of special conferences on this topic to be held in different parts of China, lead- ing up to a national convention on lines similar to those being followed by the Conference on Politics, Economics, and Citizenship in England and the Conference on the Christian Way of Life in America. These preliminary meetings are designed in the hope that they may focus 1 See Appendix. [65] China’s Challenge to Christianity attention and develop the thinking of Chinese to the point at which the Christian conscience in China can become articulate in regard to these grave issues. Part of a report from one such gathering follows: “A group of Nanking Christians, Chinese and for- eigners, interested in the relation of the Church to in- dustrial and economic conditions in China, met in two sessions of an informal conference last month. The thinking of the conference revolved around three ques- tions: (1) What is the relation of the local church to this problem? (2) What are local industrial conditions? (3) What form of organization is needed to promote this work? While considerable social activity on the part of the Church was reported, no concerted action with regard to industrial conditions has as yet been started. “Local industries were divided into three groups: (1) old style; (2) semi-modern, or those having rudi- ments of cooperation and an increase in the use of modern tools; and (3) the modern, or those industries characterized by cooperative control and the use of power machinery. It was evident that the local problem is almost entirely concerned with Chinese. It was pointed out that there is a group of young Chinese interested in — these problems who might be won to the Church if the Church had an aggressive program along these lines. The opinion was expressed that the study of particular in- dustries might well be put into school curricula. The need of a ‘Guide’ for such student study was also indi- cated. It was suggested that an effective way to promote interest is to have a sermon on this subject and then [66] ? The Changing Environment follow that with a distribution of suitable literature.” Very recently as a result of a conference in Peking on mission industrial work, the National Christian In- dustries Association was organized with the purpose of relating mission industries more closely to the solution of industrial problems in China. Mission industries have hitherto been quite independent of each other. fF re- quently the person in charge has been without any special training in social economics or business, and therefore has been unprepared for the responsibilities to workers which naturally arose out of such enterprises. In other parts of the country representatives of mission industries and mission industrial schools have come together with a like purpose. It is too early to appraise the full significance of the present interest in industrial conditions. That we are wit- nessing an event in the history of young Christian churches which, let it be said to our shame, has no parallel in the history of our Western Church is well beyond dis- ‘ pute. The Christian forces are in the forefront of the ' forces attacking the evils of the factory system and of | the exploitation of the laborer. The Church is actually | fighting the battle of the working classes. None can prophesy just where the present movement will lead the _ Church. None can anticipate what changes in its mes- - sages and influence will result. But all can rejoice that _ the Christian forces have taken up the challenge. Thronging questions come to mind. Can Christians — maintain such effective effort as to be worthy of the [67] China’s Challenge to Christianity leadership in social relief and social reconstruction for a long period? Will it be possible for Christian leaders to cooperate with all the forces at work against the com- mon enemy instead of alienating valuable allies? Will it be possible to stimulate into fresh vitality the tradi- tional humanism of the Chinese race and bring in native reenforcements against what are now such overwhelming odds? Might we not even hope for some solution in China of industrial problems that could be applied in the West as well? ¢ In the Chinese we see a practical minded people, a ' people who have made successful use of humanized social - habits for the ordering of their life, a people of amazing common sense, and one whose ideal is the “Way of the _ Mean,” or golden mean, between extremes. Is there not _a chance that this gifted people if it wins for itself the ‘ vision of Christ may rescue Christianity from thé divi- sive and fine-spun theologies with which the Greeks and Europeans encrusted the teaching of Jesus, and recover the practical Way of life that He lived, the way of loving, devoted service to men based on complete trust in the love of God? The future cannot be foretold. But in the present, Christians everywhere can support the Chinese Church in its struggle with industrialism by maintaining their own efforts against the same enemy at home. China’s problems would be more easily solved if she had to meet only her own Chinese factory owners and managers, and to convert them alone to humane and kindly ways. The Western industrialist complicates the situation. He is [68] The Changing Environment not always unsocial. But he is less amenable to Chinese pressure. His nationality complicates the situation. His person and his property have the potentialities of be- coming international complications. He ought to be an example in the righteousness of business. There is a real challenge to Western Christianity to bring influence to bear upon Western industry in China that will make easier the task of the young Church of China in following its program for social service. Those efforts will be far more effective when reenforced by the example of a greater Christianizing and humanizing of industry in the West. The world must be saved as a whole, not by na- tions or hemispheres. If Christianity in the West has not been adequate to save Western life from the worst evils of the new eco- nomic order, what message can it offer to China? Is not the situation in China and the need there a fresh challenge to Christianity the world over? [69] II] The Rural Majority “China is dominantly, overwhelmingly rural. Out of a population estimated at four hundred millions not over twelve per cent live in communities having a population of ten thousand or more. It is probably conservative to state that three fourths of the population are farmers. While the United States has thirty million farmers— men, women, and children—China has ten times as many. This stupendous fact of itself challenges the Christian Church. If there is to be a Christian occupation in China, it cannot be confined to Peking and Shanghai and Canton, nor even to the smaller walled cities. It must reach, at least measurably, these great rural hosts.” + This is the statement of an American expert in agri- cultural matters, President Kenyon L. Butterfield of the Massachusetts College of Agriculture. We need such a statement to remind ourselves that however impressive the changes to be noted in the coast area resulting from contact with the West and the introduction of Western | goods and methods, and however thorough-going the in- tellectual changes to be found among the intelligentsia of the nation, no sketch of modern China is true to the life that does not picture the central importance of the agricultural hosts of the nation. They form today, as they have formed through the centuries, not only the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people, but the 1 International Review of et April, 1923. 7O Sy eS oe ee ee The Rural Majority social group that is of fundamental importance in the culture and life of the nation. And on what foundations have the culture and life of the nation been built? The products of the farms of China feed the nation. The moral ideas of the rural majority have been a bulwark for righteousness through centuries, a bulwark not even yet completely broken down by either inner decay or attack from without. The spirit of courtesy and good manners learned long ago from Confucius, who discovered for his people the funda- mental value of social habits by which all the people could be supplied with rules for conduct in every rela- tionship their life presented, still marks the speech and actions of the simplest peasant and most unskilled laborer as well as the scholar and gentleman. The social soli- darity produced by these same Confucian “social habits” based on the “family system” as the unit of human organi- zation still persists, and the strength of its bonds has enabled the Chinese people to “carry on” through the periods of political anarchy and chaos that have marked the twenty-four transitions from one dynasty to another. It is this element of strength that has made it possible for their daily life to go on through the latest transition from monarchy to nominal republicanism with compara- tive indifference to the rivalries of partisan tuchuns and their warfare. The fundamental democracy of the village communities and the associations in which it is expressed are not only vigorous for the control of local affairs, but furnish an experience as well as a vitality that give promise in these days when improving communications [71] China’s Challenge to Christianity give wider scope to the neighborhood spirit in provincial and even national groups. Village life in China is the typical Chinese life. For good as well as for evil this village life is fundamental. Let us turn from the beaten paths of sightseeing, commerce, and diplomacy to follow country roads beside the farms and into the hamlets and homes of the fine country folk of China. 1. “Farmers of Forty Centuries’ Nowhere in the world is it easier than in China to turn back the pages of history and plunge from the steam-driven, electrically controlled, international life of our twentieth century into the quiet rusticity of two thou- sand years ago. Come with me into the courtyard of an inland Chinese farm home. The adobe brick of the buildings is tamped into molds similar to those pictured on the walls of Egyptian tombs in the days of Tut-ankh-amen. The main building faces the south and is usually flanked by side buildings which, with the wall surrounding the court, make a good windbreak against storms of rain and dust, and form a veritable trap in which to hold the winter sunshine. With a matting awning or covered with a green roof of gourd leaves, this same court in summer affords unusual coolness. Under the narrow eaves will be found corn and grain hung for drying; on some of the roofs, which have but little pitch, may be seen the bright colors of yellow maize or dark red dates or brown nuts, and perhaps rose leaves to be “sun-kissed” and dried. [72] The Rural Majority Simple courtyards such as these were invented when men first began to turn from hunting and herding with flocks to settled agricultural life. Within the home is the kuo, a shallow fire-pot on which practically all the family cooking is done. The kuo itself is made of iron in a simple fashion that per- sists from the time of its invention, unknown centuries ago. Set about on this kitchen range are pots made of the same material, many of them in the same form as those recently discovered in a “kitchen midden” at Yang- shao in Honan, which dates from Neolithic times. Then, as now, all cooking utensils were made very thin in order to make every possible economy of fuel, and often they were constructed so as to bring the fluids they contained as close as possible to the fire for quick and economical heating. Around the room hang dippers and food con- tainers made of gourds that might have grown on Jonah’s vine. A further saving of fuel and of heat is found in the construction of the flues which run from the kitchen fire into the next room and under the kang, or brick dais, on which the family finds a warm bed for sleeping. Here, too, the women of the household sit and do the family sewing during the cold days of winter. Even though eventually the flues end in a chimney, it is evident that such flues cannot give a very vigorous draft. Not all the smoke warms the kang or escapes through the chimney; a good deal of it fills the house, warming the air, to be sure, but smarting the eyes as well. The outer walls of the buildings are practically windowless, in order to 173] China’s Challenge to Christianity give protection—at least in North China—against the prevailing northwest winds that rush down over the plains from the cold Mongolian and Tibetan highland plateaus. But on the court side of the rooms there is only a half-wall, above which are placed the paper-covered lattices of wood through which the rooms are lighted, for paper is not only far less expensive than glass, but it pro- tects better against radiation. At a few places tiny panes of glass replace the paper in order to give outlooks into the court, and curious “wind-ears” of paper, placed on the outside just under the eaves, give some ventilation which is supplemented by a neat contrivance of extreme sim- plicity by which at certain points the paper can be rolled up on warm days. Of course, in the summer the paper of the lattices can be removed, and the family gets all the advantages of our modern sleeping-porch. For the most part the family will eat the products of its own land. In one of the side houses flanking the main court will be found the stores of grain—wheat, Indian corn, and various kinds of millet in Northern China, and rice for the most part in Southern China; while in the “root-house,” which will be found in the court of every well-conducted household, are kept supplies of vegetables. There will be carrots, turnips, and sweet po- tatoes, and great quantities of delicious pai tsat or cab- bage—this latter a regular part of the dietary of all Northern Chinese peasants and already known to many Americans by its Anglicized name, or as Chinese lettuce- cabbage. [74] F f . f ‘t The Rural Majority In addition to these home products the family will purchase on the village “market days,’ which come at regular intervals of from five to two days according to the size of the hamlet, the turnips pickled in salt, vinegar, various sauces, and other “store goods,” which are used to make the savory soupy dish eaten with bread-cakes and rice, or cereal porridge. On special festival days Father will bring home a pound or two of pork or mutton to give the family a feast. Now and then he prepares for guests a chicken from the little flock that wanders about the courtyard. These fowls are not the barnyard aristocrats of America, fed on specially pre- pared food, but they must make their own living from the “crumbs” that fall from the householder’s table and from the grain spilled in the barnyard where the family ox and ass are kept. A few ducks may also help the chickens, taking particular advantage of what is to be found in farmyard puddles or the village pond. A well- to-do farmer will have in one corner of his barnyard a pigsty, and he will fatten his own pork on the refuse from the family table. Only in recent years has Western science demonstrated by elaborate experiments the actual amount of saving that lies back of this ancient system of economy in food values practised by Chinese farmers. It is now known that the prevailing vegetable diet of the Chinese is a saving, because direct consumption of grain and vegetables by human beings gives greater food values at less cost than is obtained by turning the vegetables into meat [75] ) China’s Challenge to Christianity through feeding them to animals. The saving secured in the eating of meat by using pork and mutton in place of beef has been also demonstrated; this saving receives additional value because the pig is a scavenger and will eat what oxen and sheep refuse. Chickens also are scavengers, eating what oxen and sheep reject, while they can add to their menu tidbits like insects and worms. By breeding ducks wherever water abounds, the Chinese make use of the vegetable growth in the bottoms of shal- low ponds which escape the attention of chickens. The cycle of economies is fully completed by breeding fish wherever watercourses and ponds are found. In some regions this is done with as much care as that which is taken in the breeding of chickens and ducks. Sometimes an extra crop is secured by flooding the land while it is at rest during the autumn and winter and breeding fish in the waters thereof. Surely the Chinese farmer profits by his experience of forty centuries.? By means of fertilization, irrigation, and a system of crop rotation that is now known to be scientifically sound, the cultivated land in China is able to produce between two and three crops in each year. For example, winter wheat, which is seeded in rows that show a beautiful green at the first promise of spring and yield a harvest 1 The above paragraph is a condensation of the paragraph on “Relative Cost and Value of Animal Foods,” in Chapter I, China, an Interpretation, by Bishop Bashford. The evidence on which Bishop Bashford based his statement is taken from C. G. Hopkins (Soil Fertility and Permanent Agriculture), who gives the result of experiments carried on by Cambridge University at Rotham- sted, England. The results of these experiments support the claims made in Professor F, H. King’s Farmers of Forty Centuries. ee ee ae en a ee ‘ ers, The Rural Majority early in June, may be followed by a crop of millet which ripens before the hot season is entirely passed, and this may be replaced by cabbages or other garden vegetables where irrigation can be arranged for. The value of crops of beans or clover for maintaining the enduring fertility of the soil has been known for centuries to Far Eastern farmers, although it is only recently that Western science has shown that the value consists in the maintenance of soil nitrogen through the process of transformation car- ried on by lower organisms living on the roots of these leguminous plants. Not only are the legumes grown in rotation with other crops for the express purpose of fer- tilizing the soil, but in many cases these crops are planted in rows between the corn or millet and the two grow to- gether, the latter ripening first; leaving all the soil and all the sunshine to the former for the remainder of the season. In addition to the value as a maintainer of fer- tility the leguminous plants frequently yield a crop that ripens after the corn crop has been harvested. By sow- ing seed in drills or hills the Chinese farmers have econo- mized fertilizer by applying it directly to the soil in which the seeds are sown, at the same time making possible a saving in the labor of cultivation. The Chinese long ago developed excellent systems of irrigation, having discov- ered the supreme importance of water in crop production. One has only to see the extraordinary terraces along the hill slopes of Southern China and in many places in the North to realize how provision is made to use to the very limit every available bit of water-supply. An instance of the superiority of the methods worked. [77] China’s Challenge to Christianity out by the Chinese, in centuries of experience in agri- culture and animal husbandry, over the best equipment and methods Western science can devise is to be found in the incubation of hens’ eggs. The simple Chinese method consists of little more apparatus than the family kang, or warm sleeping platform. For wholesale use special buildings are equipped for the purpose, and thou- sands of eggs incubated at the same time. Expert West- ern investigators state that the percentage of success which the average Chinese incubators secure surpasses by several points the best results that have been gained by the use of elaborate Western equipment. I can give personal testimony, for on one occasion I happened upon a great incubating establishment on the very day and moment when twelve thousand chicks were appearing. Pedlers with baskets were waiting to carry off the chicks as soon as they were dried off and steady on their pins to peddle them through the countryside. To these discoveries through long experience there must be added as a favorable factor in Chinese agricul- ture the extraordinary patience and industry of the people. And it is significant to note that with all their industry they maintain a cheerfulness that has been remarked by every traveler as well as by those who live among them. Professor F. H. King, of the University of Wisconsin, in whose book, Farmers of Forty Centuries, the whole fascinating story of Far Eastern agriculture is to be studied, gives these figures to indicate the results which [78] a | : The Rural Majority the Chinese secure from the land they till in comparison with the results that are normal in American agriculture: “In Shantung Province we talked with a farmer having twelve in his family and who kept one donkey, one cow, both exclusively laboring animals, and two pigs on two and a half acres of cultivated land, where he grew wheat, millet, sweet potatoes, and beans. Here is a density of population equal to 3,072 people, 256 donkeys, 256 cattle, and 512 swine per square mile. In another instance where the holding was one and two thirds acres, the farmer had ten in his family and was maintaining one donkey and one pig, giving to this farm land a mainte- nance capacity of 3,840 people, 384 donkeys, and 384 pigs to the square mile, or 240 people, 24 donkeys, and 24 pigs to one of our forty-acre farms which our farmers regard as too small for a single family. The average of seven Chinese holdings which we visited and where we obtained similar data indicates a maintenance capacity for those lands of 1,783 people, 212 cattle or donkeys, and 399 swine—1,995 consumers and 399 rough food transformers per square mile of farm land. These statements for China represent strictly rural populations. The rural population of the United States in 1900 was placed at the rate of sixty-one per square mile of improved farm land and there were thirty horses and mules.” May not consideration of these matters lead some Westerners to realize that in the matter of agriculture China may have some points of information that are of value? Should we not admit that the highly developed farming communities of China are carrying on a tradi- [79] China’s Challenge to Christianity tion that represents successful methods selected out of a long experience of experiments by “trial and error,” and that when this tradition is better understood and more carefully analyzed, it may be discovered that there is much of value which it may contribute for the help of brother farmers in other parts of the world? As proof that this possibility is being already realized, attention may be drawn to the interesting work done by the Bureau of Plants of the United States Department of Agriculture which has found much of value in the material on Chinese farming and the botany of China stored in the great imperial encyclopedias. In the matter of agriculture, as in other vital human interests, there should be anticipated a helpful exchange between East and West of those things in which each is respectively superior. The West needs to realize that the simple Chinese peasant, whom it has tended to look down upon if not to despise, has qualities and a practical science that may in many points yet teach the West. 2. Village Life A few concrete pictures of community life may make it possible to see more clearly the central place which rural life has in Chinese experience and to appreciate the problems of rural life in relation to which the Christian enterprise must be conducted. It must be understood that conditions vary in different parts of China. In many regions, the rural population lives in villages from which they go to their near-by fields for work. Some- [80] The Rural Majority times one finds, as President Butterfield noted, larger central villages with a number of satellite hamlets “which form essentially social units, true local communities.” Conditions of climate and topography create other varia- tions. The variety of organization that is to be found is well presented in a brief paragraph by the Reverend Albert Lutley, Superintendent of the China Inland Mis- sion in Shansi: “In many parts of Szechwan, as well as some other provinces, the farmers do not live together in villages but have their homesteads scattered all over the countryside, built on their own bit of land. In the provinces of Chihli, Shansi, Shensi, and Kansu, the people, on the contrary, congregate for mutual protection into villages, many of which have high walls and gates. In the province of Shansi, each of these villages forms a social, religious, and governmental unit, electing its own elders and edu- cational committee, appointing its own public servants, and levying local taxes for religious and social purposes. In this province the individual village is the unit, not the group. Conditions, however, vary in every province and are seldom uniform throughout the province.” The great “clan families” found in some parts of South- ern China, where scores of members of one clan are housed together in a single group of courts or clan center and often under the control of a single patriarch, are a unique form of organization that should be noted also. Many of the differences in rural organization and in the character of the crops are easily noted by the traveler who passes through China by rail or by river. Fields [81] China’s Challenge to Christianity of millet, which fill the fields of the Yellow River plain, give place to occasional rice paddies as one crosses the low divide into the Yangtze River valley. These in- crease as one goes south, and soon the region is reached in which rice is altogether prevalent. The ox and ass, which are the work animals of the North, are replaced by the picturesque water-buffalo, whose almost amphibi- ous habits make him the proper “horse-power” for burden bearing and for cultivation in regions where fields are inundated part of every season. The type of dwelling changes also; adobe houses and flat, mud-plastered roofs of kaoliang stalks give place to peaked roofs of thatch. There are corresponding changes in the tools used. But for all the differences, I believe it is still true that the general temper or spirit of Chinese rural life is the same north or south, east or west. Seasonal festivals and ceremonies certainly have general similarity, and, not- withstanding the variations in organization, the “family system” and the Confucian social habits based on it pre- vail everywhere. The cultural heritage on which rural life is based is the same for all China. The country folk form a united homogeneous whole. But the descriptions here given are limited to the village life of North China, in the midst of which I was brought up. It would be a pleasant task to give a complete and detailed picture of the simple, contented, cheerful, wholesome village life, but I can touch only a few of the “high” days. In all except tiny hamlets that consist of only two or three families there is a “Market Day,” the frequency of [82] The Rural Majority which varies directly with the importance of the village. It is held every other day in the larger villages—either < on the odd or even numbers; for the days are counted, not by weeks, but by number—one to twenty-nine, or thirty for each moon. In smaller places it may be held on each “seven,”—seven, seventeen, twenty-seven,—or, more commonly, each “five’—multiples of five. In some of the larger county seats there will be a fair every day, brought about by a combination of the odd and even series. But whenever it comes and whether it be more or less frequent, Market Day, with its excited je-nao —literally, “heated confusion,’ or “hot time’—is the great day in the village life. The main street of the hamlet is crowded with the lay- out of every genus of pedler, and with country folk who have brought all sorts of things for sale or barter. Here is the cloth man with his bits of bright-colored, foreign fabric, his glass beads for ornament, his gay threads for embroidery. Over there the “grain market” forms a section of the midway, with beans,—green and yellow, white and black,—yellow corn, and red kaoliang. Brown wheat and yellow millet show clean and hearty in the, , mouths of sacks that might contain Joseph’s cup, for they “ are similar to those carried on the backs of the asses that bore away from Egypt the grain that saved the lives of Jacob’s family. Yonder is the ironmonger’s stall, where home-made nails and tools can be secured—note particularly his farming tools made with real skill and science, particu- larly the great ch’u or hoe-plow, the remarkable man- > [83] China’s Challenge to Christianity power cultivator, a universal tool for the farmers of northern Chinese plains. Beyond him is the “candy- man” with little stands carried on either end of a long pole on his shoulder as he goes from place to place, laden with malt candies made in various forms and colored lozenges and sticks to delight the eye of children —even grown-up children. Who would not speak from experience of the joy of choosing how best to spend one’s copper, square-holed cash, using a few for brine- pickled peanuts and the rest for bits of malt-candy balls of wondrous flavor! ‘These latter the expert doctors of the great Rockefeller hospital in Peking now tell us are the perfect candy, so wholesome, if uncontaminated with dust and germs, that no child can eat too much of it. Of course there is a bargain-counter for the women who come, with their baskets, from neighboring villages, to select the sauces, flavors, and tidbits for that part of the family menu that cannot be home grown. They must also take advantage of Fair Day to lay in their stock of cloth and thread for home sewing, bright-colored hair strings for the braids of their daughters, and the charm- ing gay little hair ornaments with which the women of the household are all adorned on festival days, particu- larly at New Year’s time when the whole family goes calling, Of course there are queer odors as well as interesting sights. By no means are all of these distasteful to the Western olfactories. The itinerant pharmacist has all sorts of sweet-smelling herbs and concoctions as well as dangerous-looking compounds and unguents. [84] The Rural Majority There are traveling food shops where the hungry crowd may stop for a quick lunch of hot soup or nice little meat dumplings, or sesame-covered unleavened cakes, with the all-pervading tea. Note that tea; it is always drunk hot, and undoubtedly the habit of drinking’, it so has guarded the Chinese through the centuries from many pernicious germs. Not all the excitement of market day is concerned with shopping. Amusements are also in order. In the open space before the village temple there is sure to be set up a traveling Punch-and-Judy show. The chil- dren watch the process of setting up the little stage just as eagerly as American boys and girls turn out to watch the circus tent being set up. Students of history will | recognize how far back up the stream of Western cul- ture we must go to find just the same sort of show; the traveling showman working the strings behind the blue curtains underneath the cunning little stage where his figures present the thrilling stories of “Chu-ke”’ and “Tsao Tsao,” the hero and villain of the “Three King- doms,” the most romantic period of Chinese history, which has furnished material for much of Chinese drama. The simplicity of the apparatus and the marvelously lifelike movements of the figures astonish the Western observer as much as they delight the native audiences. Not all the country life is work. Great play days come with some of the festivals. ‘These may be of several sorts. There are the Calerdar Holidays, “Breaths of the Year,” twenty-four of them, which mark the seasons for the [85] China’s Challenge to Christianity farmer. Their importance as dates for the farmer can be seen when one remembers that the traditional calendar in China was the lunar, which has such variations that every few years a thirteenth moon is added to main- tain a correct relationship with the solar dates—equinox and solstice. These twenty-four “breaths of the year” or solar periods are indicated for the farmer on the printed Lunar Calendar which everybody secures at the beginning of the new year in order to know how to man- age the work in the fields. It gives a time-table for the farm work as well as for all other business and play of life. The series starts with Li chun, the “establishment of spring,” on or about February 5, and goes on through “the rains,” “arouse from hibernation,” “vernal equinox,” “clear and bright,” “beginning of summer,” “grain in the ear,” “slight heat,” “great heat,” “beginning of autumn,” and so on until “hoar frost falls’ and “early snow ar- tives” just before the “winter solstice’ and “slight cold” and “great cold” end the year. Foreign observers often speak with astonishment of the regularity with which the Chinese weather man brings rain or snow, heat or cold, according to the standard calendar date. While all of these dates are significant for the farmer’s life and work, not all of them can be counted as rural holidays. “Clear and bright” (first week in April) is a great festival, when throughout China each family ceases regular work to put in order the private cemetery, to present offerings to the dead, and to have a family party. Ina very happy way the family on earth reminds itself of those who have passed on, and feels a closer [86] Eee — ee oe The Rural Majority connection with them through the solemn offering of food. The first and fifteenth of each moon receive special » attention in almost every family, if not every month, at least with a fair degree of frequency, for these are dates on which special offerings may be made to the tablets of the departed in the home or the temples visited. All over China the greatest holidays of the year are three: | the time of the Lunar New Year at the end of January ; the Dragon Boat Festival early in June; and the Feast of Lanterns or “harvest moon” in August or September. In addition to special feasting and leisure, these times have a pleasant or unpleasant financial significance, as one is paid or pays his debts, for these are the dates for official closing of accounts. The New Year is the most important of all, and the holiday fortnight which the nation takes at that time seems to make up in part for the lack of regular rest-days throughout the year. One other type of holiday which is of social and finan- cial importance in the rural life is found in the great Temple Fairs. Confucian temples are found in the “county towns.” Services in these come regularly and are a part of official life. But throughout the country- side, sometimes near the larger towns, sometimes in build- ings quite independent of any other group, are found the Buddhist or Taoist temples. Each temple has its own special holiday at some time during each year, for which two to five days are set apart. The temple courts and buildings are cleaned and furnished for the occasion in [87] China’s Challenge to Christianity special fashion, and the authorities prepare piles of fresh incense to be sold to worshipers. The close connection of the drama with religion is seen in the fact that a theater platform in most cases stands opposite the main entrance of the temple. Outside the temple on the days of festivity the crowd would remind you of the market- day crowds. Much of barter and business is carried on, but there is a feature of gayety that distinguishes the Temple Fair, and many of the pedlers offer toys and trinkets instead of useful wares. These are the days when the women and girls of the entire neighborhood come out of the seclusion of the home courtyard and are loaded into the big farm cart, which has been especially cleaned for the occasion and padded with a quilt or two, and are driven by father and the boys to see and share in the excitement of the throng of thousands that so enjoy seeing and being seen. They gather for these occasions to burn incense, attend the theater, see the sights,—which include in these modern days a makeshift portable moving picture apparatus, litho- graphs showing the world’s great rulers and scenes from Western life,—to mingle with the crowd, and to purchase the trinkets which every holiday crowd the world over insists on having to take home as souvenirs. One would like to know what these women and chil- dren think and say as they look out on a world so much larger than the home courtyard, and as they exchange with relatives and friends from distant villages news and gossip. On one of these days you can see the whole com- [88] Bd The Rural Majority munity and note the variety of its life. The abbot of the monastery that furnishes the occasion for the Fair may be giving a dinner to the literati of the neighbor- hood. Among his guests there may be the gentleman whose ancestral estates are in a near-by village, and whose family resides there while he himself may be off in gov- ernment service as a high official in some distant province. Very often one finds the homes of distinguished scholars near or in the simplest sort of rural village. In addition to the scholars of the neighborhood, the abbot’s party will include the chief business men of “Main Street,” members of the Chamber of Commerce of the county seat, and officers of the “association” which guards and controls so much of the village and small-town life. In these modern times the local police officer, appointed by the provincial governor, may also be present. It is very difficult to unravel the relationships between the local officials so as to determine the exact boundaries be- tween village and county, province and national authority. For the most part the various officials do not conflict seriously with each other. Certainly one gets the im- pression as one meets these men, as I have done on oc- casion when a friendly abbot included me in his invitation list, that democracy very largely prevails, a simple modifi- cation of the system of control by the “elders” of the hamlet, village, or neighborhood, which may be called the unit of Chinese political life. In not a few com-. munities the Christian preacher might often be included in the group of “substantial” men of the region. Cer- tainly in his outlook on national and world affairs and his [89] China’s Challenge to Christianity general information he surpasses most of his neighbors. The dignitaries who. pass through the crowd into the temple courts for their meal rub shoulders with “all sorts and conditions of men” who make up the throng. There is a fine democracy about these crowds; no sycophancy is to be seen in their attitude toward those who are wealth- ier or better educated. Good, upstanding folk, self-re- specting, self-reliant. In the theater there may be a few boxes for special guests, but most of the crowd simply takes standing room, because seats are never provided, and the beggar may be next to the merchant or scholar. The great throngs are always eager to listen to almost any sort of speaker. Since the establishment of the Chinese Republic, organized bands of student lecturers have made use of these ready-made audiences for present- ing lectures on almost every phase of China’s modern life. Some of the topics discussed on such occasions have been: What democracy means; The duties of a citizen in a republic; The need for popular education; The libera- tion of women; China’s economic need; Public morals; Sanitation; China’s foreign problems. The devotion and energy of the young, social, patriotic preachers has been admirable, many of them denying themselves the leisure of vacation days in order to do this service to their people and their country. The students won support for their anti-Japanese boycott in 1919 by appealing to the country folk, as well as by their street lecturing in towns. You will often find among the shows on “Midway” at a temple fair a large tent in which Christian preachers present their message. Generally it will be crowded with [90] The Rural Majority an all-day audience where a band of invited speakers from a distance will assist the local pastor and his staff in giving the message to all who come. Generally there will be a separate tent or a special courtyard set aside for preaching to women. In the missionary experience of China there is repeated evidence of the rich fruitage that has come from the sowing carried on by preaching and conversation at these Temple Fairs. Well! what do you think of the country folk of China? You are told, and rightly, that most of them cannot read and write. But as you look into the faces of the great crowds on Market Day or at Temple Fairs, you will certainly feel that in spite of their ignorance they are intelligent and have sound common sense. The cheer- fulness of the crowd will impress you too, and its reason- ableness, for it practically manages itself without any great amount of police supervision. There is no serious jostling or crowding, and good nature characterizes all of its moods. The fair breaks up and the people stream home, some of them, to be sure, on donkeys or in carts, but the great majority on foot, walking miles along the narrow paths beside the rutted roads which many passing feet have worn smooth and hard. In friendly fashion these pedestrians chat and visit as they walk. Now and again you will hear snatches of the “opera” which has just been heard at the fair, sung in the characteristic high falsetto, but with real zest and good cheer. Home they go, a folk reasonable in spirit, orderly and law abiding by habit, [or] Pea SPL eA Uae RNNRN WATS MEU ARNGD RPA NUON AON PC Nill YU, China’s Challenge to Christianity eS cheerful, contented. Back to the fields they go, for months before another holiday will come around, to take up with astonishing industry the enormous toil of tilling with their own labor, and that of a few beasts, small plots of land that yield a bare living to the family. And yet from sunrise, when the men of the household go off to the fields with hoe or beasts and plow and the women tum to home tasks with spinning wheel and needle or at the kitchen range, until the late return of the husbandman as the shadows fall and the evening meal at home, there is a general cheerfulness throughout the working day. Songs and genial cries mark much of the labor. Surely there is in the vast farm population of China a reservoir of sound human energy. An American observer qualified to speak with authority has said of the Chinese that they are a people marked by industry, cheerfulness, reasonable- ness, and love of peace. He said further, “These are great qualities. The race that has them is a great race. No one need be discouraged about the future of the Chinese people.” In the past the Chinese have drawn steadily from the rural store of human energy for much of their leader- ship. Just as every American boy may dream of the possibility of becoming president of the United States, so every Chinese lad has dreamed of being gazetted as “Optimus” of the Hanlin group. Whether he come from a home of refinement or culture with a long heritage bequeathed by scholarly ancestors or whether he lives in a humble courtyard with no family history outside the “Annals of the Poor,” he could dream [92] The Rural Majority of the possibility of proving his merit in the literary examinations of the civil service system. From a modern point of view there may be much to criticize in this old literary examination system, established in the T’ang Dynasty in 763 a.D.; but it is certain that however defec- tive it was in some respects, it really made literary culture the only passport to officialdom, so that on the whole China was selecting her ablest thinkers to be her rulers, The Chinese boy in his earliest school-days learned story after story of lads from the poorest homes in the most isolated places who made good use of limited oppor- tunities for study, overcoming all sorts of obstacles, proving their brilliant ability by successful examination, and becoming eventually important governors or prime ministers. And it is certain that Chinese culture and statecraft have been enriched through all the generations by the social democracy fostered by the examination system, through which ability could more easily than in most societies find its way to recognition and influence. Another interesting social device that Chinese genius worked out was one which guarded against tendencies toward class distinctions and aristocracy. The man of distinguished ability who received recognition and honor from the state would usually be given one of five grades of noble rank, his immediate ancestors frequently re- ceiving at the same time posthumous honors. A pro- vision was made, however, by which the son of an en- nobled father could inherit only the rank one step below that won by his father’s ability, and each succeeding gen- eration would be demoted one stage in rank, so that in [93] China’s Challenge to Christianity five generations the descendants of a distinguished man would have become commoners again. Of course, any scion of the family, who by his own ability performed unusual service to the state, might be lifted to the original rank or even higher. This provision, coupled with the absence of any recognition of primogeniture, has given to China’s society a democratic character that has saved it from the evils of caste and of a hereditary aristocracy. To be sure, the literati—the scholars and thinkers—of China have constituted an aristocracy of intellect, but theirs has never been an exclusive group. Their mem- bership has always been recruited from every class in society, wherever and whenever ability was revealed. Westerners make much of the high percentage of illiteracy in China, but it is well to remember that even in the most ignorant homes there is appreciation of intel- lectual ability and a perennial hope that some member of the family will show talent and enter upon the path- way to advancement. It is fair to ask, is this, after all, a true picture of China’s country life? Can one disregard the dark shadows? Certainly the shadows are there, dark and dismal shadows. ‘The pathetic poverty of millions of homes, the heavy bondage of crass ignorance, fearsome superstitions, and unreasonable customs. ‘There are the horrible probabilities of flood and famine in countless regions of China, There is the burden of lifeless reli- gious leadership. Individuality cannot be generally encouraged, because it would upset too many of the [94] The Rural Majority conditions which are necessary for the existence of the whole group. Perhaps the worst condition of all is found in the crowdedness of Chinese life. Overpopulation creates much of the strain of toil and poverty under which the Chinese masses labor. The struggle for mere existence is bitter. In many large areas the increase of the family by one child might mean intolerable poverty and suffering. No race in history has had such a colossal struggle with Nature as have the Chinese. The dykes of the Zuyder Zee are as nothing compared with the dykes of China for holding back the floods. Even today, in the gorges of the Yangtze the water will rise a vertical height of over a hundred feet in three days. Farmers are often the victims of grain purchasers to whom they mortgage their future crops. For such loans they may have to pay from forty to fifty per cent. Mil- lions of country children, in spite of thrift and the pres- ence of food on the farm, are undernourished and show a considerable and rapid improvement when brought to mission schools where they are given a simple but ade- quate diet. It is true that in spite of considerable practical knowl- edge of farming and of simple social habits, the Chinese farmer is otherwise densely ignorant. His mental con- tent is practically the same as it was three thousand years ago. Contrast this with the advance in farm life in America made in one generation, and it is easy to see that the American farmer has an outlook upon life incomparably superior to that of the Chinese farmer. [95] China’s Challenge to Christianity For months after the Republic was set up in China, millions of farmers did not know there was a Republic, and millions of them today could not distinguish between a monarchy and a republic, even in theory. Their con- tentment is partly based upon the conviction that “thus it has always been and thus it always will be.’ Remarkably informed as to their local tasks, they are ignorant of county, provincial, and national issues, with the result that their morale is unable to affect the political life of the nation. They are not concerned with what kind of government there is so long as it is just. But when it is unjust, they are unable to perceive the reason or to aid in removing political injustice. Unless goaded to desperation, they do not resist, and it is this larger margin of safety for the grafter that aids corruption in government. The life of the farmer is also filled with superstitious fears. He retains much of the animism of ancient times. All material objects have within them a presiding spirit. The whole universe has been peopled by spirits and demons, and one must exercise himself to buy charms and prayers that may have the power to offset the dangers that constantly portend. While theoretically the farmer in China is placed second only to the scholar, in practise the plums of exist- ence belong to the official, the scholar, and to the mer- chant, the poor farmer getting the tail end of mental and economic existence. There are many large areas where constant thrift and economy will maintain but a meager existence with little or no hope of improvement. There [96] The Rural Majority are also parts of China where, by thrift and economy, the farmer can improve his condition and the condition of his family in a single generation. But without cor- responding influences to elevate his lot, a mere improve- ment of his economic condition does not improve him otherwise, but may even degrade him. I know of one small area not far from Shanghai where the soil is un- usually productive. The lot of the farmer here is much easier than that of farmers elsewhere in the province. The result is that in this area there is much more than the usual amount of drinking, gambling, and loose living. The social condition of the women in rural China de- mands consideration. They have, as a matter of fact, a higher status than is ordinarily credited to them. When newly wed, the mother-in-law is supreme over the wife and her husband. Often the wife suffers more from the exactions of her mother-in-law than from her husband. A number of medical missionaries in China have testified to the fact that they have been called far more often to administer emetics to young wives who took opium to escape from their mothers-in-law rather than from their husbands. Their lot is definitely fixed for them, they may accept it stoically and even cheerfully, but the experiences of life are hard on them. But it is possible for the bride to dcpimiieene her quali- ties and gradually to show her worth. When this demon- stration has been made, she is often accorded recognition. The demonstration is two-fold. There must be faithful and efficient service in the home, and there should also be L97] China’s Challenge to Christianity motherhood. Chinese literature is full of references to the love and affection of a son for his mother. Sons will wait night and day on a sick and aged mother and reverence and comfort her in her failing years. There is a widespread belief among Chinese women, for which Taoism is responsible, that if a woman dies in childbirth, the spirits are angry with her and perhaps are punishing her for some former misdeed. Her spirit is then plunged into a dark portion of hell specially re- served for her kind, there to suffer until prayers are said for her release. Her hair is cut off, her shoes are re- moved and together set up with some paper dummy clothing under a temple bell while the bell is being tolled and incense is burned for her release from the tortures of the lower world. Of all these things many writers have told you. There as a dark side to Chinese country life, but I still believe that my own childhood impressions are true to fact, and that in spite of the shadows, the spirit of China’s rural life is comparatively bright, cheerful, and wholesome. Is this store of human energy being released from the bondage of ignorance and superstition for use in the larger and enriched life that will mean a greater develop- ment of all the resources of the Chinese people and the | real reenforcement of human values among Westerners and throughout world-life as well? Or are the majority of Chinese to be handed over to newer types of drudgery which in addition to a burden of toil add cares that steal [98] The Rural Majority oe away the good cheer and outstanding manliness that have stood out successfully against the moral strain and physi- cal weariness of centuries of hard work? China’s place in the world life of tomorrow depends on the answer. This, then, constitutes a great challenge to Christendom. If the economic lot of the farmer and the social condi-’ tion of women is to be improved, their mental and spir- itual horizon must be extended; otherwise, particularly in the case of the farmer, there may result a serious deterioration of the race. How often this has been in evidence in our own country! There are communities and families where we have a larger measure of freedom, better economic conditions, and more license and de- terioration of family stock,—all because we have lost the moral and religious convictions that give fiber to the race. Can Buddhism save the farmers of China when they get more freedom and better economic conditions? It assumes that the ideal life is that of an ascetic, and it discounts normal human relationships. The life of a farmer is that of normal relationships. His kind of life being at a discount, he cannot maintain the highest self- respect and personal development. The Taoism of today puts him in a world of spirits to be placated, and when he is released from his fear of them, he is likely to lose his self-restraint. Confucianism is a lofty political and social system which has been successful in guiding the Chinese people through centuries of continuous life. But it has glorified the past and made life too static. It looks upon life as a [99] China’s Challenge to Christianity great and sacred stream into which we are born. The justification of our existence is determined by the con- tribution we make to that sacred stream. This concep- tion gives to social and political relationships a sanctity. The individual takes his proper place and as such is subordinated to the larger whole. Confucianism is op- posed to our cheap American ideas of individualism. But in China it has hitherto tried to maintain unsullied and unchanged the traditions of the past. It has not looked to a future of expanding ideas. Where the rural life of China, the men and women at their daily toil, has responded to the story of Jesus of Nazareth and the impact of His personality, a new species is created, more radiant and inspiring than anything seen in the rural products of the past. Christianity may in all due respects conserve the good there is in China’s past and on these foundations build up personalities more radiant, intelligent, and creative. This fact is easily evi- denced to those who can take the time to travel in the rural districts of China, visiting Christian homes in Christian communities. There one will see individual initiative, happy homes, and happy faces such as are not commonly found elsewhere. Not long ago a high official in Peking, noticing that some of his friends had exceptionally happy homes, decided to study the cause. He was an agnostic. He found that the homes that com- pelled his admiration were without exception the homes of Christian men and women, and for this reason alone he himself became a Christian. [100] A IIS RON Ala ERNE A A GG OS BEN RM The Rural Majority 2 BES STA 9 2022), PA A RD TORE AD NN I Ra 3. Agricultural Christianity President Butterfield is right when he stresses the stu- pendous fact that China has three hundred million farmers, and notes the challenge which this fact presents to the Christian Church. Christian forces from the beginning of Roman Catholic missions to the present time have been conscious of this challenge and have endeavored to meet it. It is true that most mission sta- tions and church centers are found in the cities, large or small, but this is because the cities are “usually the most convenient centers from which to work the sur- rounding country.” In the regions which I know per- sonally the majority of the Protestant Christians come from the country. I believe my own observation is typical of most Christian centers in China. Superintend- ent Lutley of the China Inland Mission of Shansi, writes: “In the province of Shansi, considerably less than one tenth of the church membership is to be found in the cities, and there are at least five places of worship in the towns and villages for every one in a city.” Only in recent years has it been possible to develop a real city work in which not only are the buildings located on city streets, but those who come to use the buildings are really city folk. Chinese Christian workers and Westerners alike are beginning to realize clearly that there can be no chance for Christianity in China unless the gospel is presented so as to win the country folk. The Chinese people gen- erally will not be led into the richer and more abundant [ror] China’s Challenge to Christianity life of discipleship with Jesus by means of urban work merely or by a presentation of the Christian message adapted to the specific needs of student groups and modern intelligentsia. Only as centers of Christian life and grace and truth are multiplied throughout the coun- tryside and methods are adjusted to the definite needs of country life will the masses of China find salvation in Christ. The call for service for “China’s miilions” is as strong today as it was when Hudson Taylor started the China Inland Mission and organized bands of workers to penetrate into the most isolated interior regions of the country. But Christian service for rural China must be much more than the visitation of itinerant preachers. Mes- sengers must be sent to live with the country folk, to understand their life, to establish schools, to enter into the problems of husbandry and farming, to inspire re- generated individuality, and to organize social life for richer experience and expanding development. The schools must not be merely a means by which to select the most capable boys and girls, and to guide them into an advanced training in school or college that will prepare for service in the cities. A Christian training is needed for school children, and adults as well, that will both open their minds to the rich world of new ideas and new methods and prepare them also for the specific tasks of country community life. The Christian preacher needs to minister to the farmer, not only spiritually, but agricul- turally also. President Butterfield has proposed that foreign mis- [102] ali CTL 9 SSA ce li ACU a CREDA The Rural Majority sionaries for rural work should have as part of their regular preparation some training in agriculture, “gain- ing at least a broad view of the main considerations — underlying the problem of better farming, better farm business, and better farm life.” The mission boards are already beginning to realize that “agricultural mis- | sions” form a division of the foreign service equal in | importance, in the necessity for the special training of © candidates for its service, to the educational, medical, literary, and preaching ministries which have been rec- ognized for many years. There is already an association © | of agricultural missions that meets annually, at which | Christian leaders consider the relation of Christianity to rural problems the world over. Westerners may well be chary, as Superintendent Lutley suggests, of giving advice to the hard-headed farmers of the highly developed agricultural communi- ties.in China, but there is no question that much help can be conveyed from agricultural experts, “who have made a special study of the climate, soils, possible local fertilizers, insect pests, and other conditions prevailing in different parts of China, and who could render valuable help to the Christian farmers and the people generally by the dissemination of reliable information, and by train- ing a number of Chinese Christians in scientific methods of agriculture, who would be able and willing to pass on their knowledge to others, and could demonstrate to the farmers of their district the practical superiority and benefits of the methods they taught.” It may well be questioned whether many such experts — [103] China’s Challenge to Christianity peHe be SR Christian universities of China were among the first to make provision for scientific : Poay of agricultural problems in China and for the _ training of Chinese to carry to the farmers the help which _ science can give them. The School of Agriculture and _ Forestry of the University of Nanking and the work done in the same line by Canton Christian College have had notable success already in these lines. Everyone should read the fascinating story of the service rendered to the Kwangtung silk industry by the scientists of Canton Christian Colleget The college authorities by patient demonstration have convinced the country folk that the sheets of healthy silk-worm eggs which they sell at a cost five times that of the unselected eggs sold in the old-fashioned way produce worms from which more silk of better quality can be secured. The entire silk industry in the province is being revivified by these ef- forts. Of course, the economic effect upon the country population as well as upon the silk business at the port of export is significant. The home industries of the Chinese countryside pre- sent a fascinating field for scientific study and invention. For example, in the region of Kao I in Chihli Province, the cloth gild in a recent year reported a business in cotton cloth of twenty million silver dollars. This dis- trict grew the cotton and wove the cloth. The work was 1“The Sericulture Industry of South China,” by C. W. How- ard. Canton Christian College, 18 East 41st ‘Street, New York City. 25 cents. [104] A NEW BUDDHIST TEMPLE This temple is under construction at Soochow. While Bud- dhism itself has lost much of its original vitality, a real revival seems to be going on within it. In many of the large cities old temples are being repaired and new ones built. reso BEC ERS moth Pirgherge RAS ATA Pe ‘ aye 5 : eee SAS SAM. Ptah TS oatutarene is: * path : FRAT AN * aN ‘€ hich ies Ww oO > a Se ae See etn: A CEREMONY IN A TAOIST TEMPLE ler that the deceased may be properly provided with servants in Back of the head priest, in the center, are the paper effi VETTE Nine e burned ) Someone has died. ire to | the world of spirits. e c The Rural Majority done on the countless hand-looms of a modern type which are to be found in almost every home in that region. But the whole process of production could not be carried on in China; for although the Chinese can comb and spin their cotton, they cannot produce cotton yarn fast enough or of a quality suitable for use in modern-type looms. As a consequence, the whole cotton crop of the district is exported to Japan where it is spun into thread by machinery and re-imported to China to be used for weav- ing. I have friends—probably others, too, are at work— who are now trying to invent machinery that will be suit- able for cotton making and carding and for spinning, and that can be worked by hand, foot, or animal power in the homes of the people. This is in order that all the processes involved in cotton industries may be carried on in the region where cotton is grown and in the homes of the people. The invention of such machines would reserve for this district the value that is lost by trans- portation of their product to Japan and back, would im- prove their economic position, and, by making it possible to keep cotton spinning and weaving a home industry, would guard against the necessity and danger of introduc- ing a factory system of production. For centuries the Chinese have known the value of vegetable oils. By means of crude processes they have produced great quantities of these oils from a variety of sources: beans, sesamum, peanuts, cotton-seed, etc. These oils are fundamental to the Chinese dietary in country and city alike. The invention of cheap oil presses, based on scientific principles, and the introduc- [105 ] China’s Challenge to Christianity tion of methods of refinement that could be used in the homes would make possible the development of a great industry in this field, the result of which would be eco- nomic improvement, a possibility of a higher standard of living, and an opportunity for larger export. These suggestions indicate the possibilities. Has Chris- tianity no responsibility in the matter? Up to the present time Christian foreigners and Christian Chinese are more concerned about these problems in Chinese life than any other group in the country. The centers for Christian work in the Chinese countryside have already undertaken tasks in education for the children, lectures and other methods for adult education, the support of measures for public health, experiments in introducing new fruits and grains, in seed selection, and the general advancement of public welfare. Reenforcement of the efforts already taken in these lines, making use of the experiments in rural improvement being carried on in England, Amer- / ica, and elsewhere in the West, would make it possible _ greatly to increase the effect of the gospel of individual \ regeneration and social salvation which it is the task of | '\Christian missions to present. The writer has had visits from prominent Chinese gentry offering expensive ancestral halls if only he could furnish some men who might be suited to undertake the task of school and community work under Christian auspices. Plants for community work developed along Chinese lines and modeled somewhat after their ancestral . homes and temple groups would make the country folk feel at home and would win the financial support of the [106 | The Rural Majority well-to-do people. The equipment would demonstrate the two great principles of religion stated by Christ, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” and “Thou ‘shalt love the Lord thy God.” On these two principles the church can take a bold stand and count on happy cooperation from the local community. It would be a magnificent project if individuals, church groups, and agricultural and industrial schools in North America were to cooperate in initiating a definite local program in some Chinese community and perform it in such a thorough, whole-hearted manner and with such a spirit of devotion and of faith that the work itself should become indigenous and the community be uplifted. Chris- tian homes would be established, economic effort would become reasonable, the people would become more intelli- gent in the things that concern their community life, and the spirit of faith, hope, and charity would prevail. Neighboring communities would feel the influence and everywhere it would be recognized that the motive power that inspired these new conditions was the person of Jesus, who taught men thus to love one another. | & The chance for Christianity in China depends very largely on whether or not Christian imagination and de- ' votion can focus upon the problems of China’s rural life and offer definite, concrete, and practical plans for the } solution of them. [107] IV Hsin Ch’ao—The New Tide For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, Seem here no painful inch to gain, Far back, through creeks and inlets making, Comes silent, flooding in, the main. These lines of Arthur Hugh Clough have doubtless brought to every one of us a thrill of remembrance as they revive some seaside experience when the first signs of an incoming tide, stimulated into action by cosmic forces, reveal the promise of irresistible energy fed by the resources of an inexhaustible ocean. To those who read the ideograms seme , Hsin Ch’ao brings just such a thrill, for the character ch’ao is formed from water and dawn, and carries the notion of the waters that return early every morning from the sea, while Asin reenforces the idea of freshness ot new- ness. Instead of Matthew Arnold’s “melancholy long withdrawing roar” of an outgoing tide, you get the pic- ture of the sea about to flood in again upon the land. It is a scene at the seashore; beyond the emptied beach the headlands stand veiled in morning mists; from afar there come the first ripples of inflowing tides; you know nothing can stop that flow until it becomes full flood- tide, until it shall have accomplished its cosmic purpose. The intellectual leaders of China today, who have given the name Hsin Ch’ao to their movement, have seen such a vision, They believe that they can see the signs of a [ 108} Hsin Ch’ao—The New Tide new flood tide in the creative spirit of their race, a “new tide” that brings the “promise and potency” of a fresh fertility to revive and enrich, not only the intellectual and spiritual forces of their own people—forces which for so long a time have seemed to be at the ebb—but to offer enrichment to other peoples and the world as well. Whether the leaders of the Hsin Ch’ao are justified in their ardent hopes or not, the movement is clearly the most significant among the various currents and cross- currents that mark China’s intellectual life at the present day. It will be our task in the present chapter to study the outstanding tendencies that mark these movements in China today, to examine the new tide and to estimate its significance for the future as well as for the present. In particular, we must consider the relation of the Chris- tian enterprise in China to these intellectual movements, For it is clear that no presentation of Christianity can be as effective as it should be unless its leaders understand the point of view, and the temper, the plans, and pur- poses of China’s intellectual leaders today. 1. Older Tides in China’s Heritage In order to understand present intellectual currents in China it is necessary to remind ourselves briefly of the characteristics that have marked the older tides in their ebb and flow throughout the cultural history of the Chinese. Most Westerners have a notion that the current of Chinese cultural life reached its high point centuries ago [109] China’s Challenge to Christianity and since then has ebbed steadily. Many go so far as to believe that a process of real degeneration has already set in. Some Westerners at the present time endeavor to support their theory of the supremacy of the white, and in particular the “Nordic” race, by showing how static, fixed, or diminishing are the powers and capacities of other races, in particular those of darker pigment in the Orient and Africa. An exact study of Chinese cul- tural heritage presents clear and convincing disproof of any such theory. One has only to visit the museum in the splendid imperial halls of the once “Forbidden Pal- ace” in Peking to be disabused of all such notions. Ina palace that is itself an expression of the artistic spirit of the culture which its collections represent are gathered examples of old bronzes, porcelains, paintings, and other productions of Chinese art. Undoubtedly the museum would be very much richer in treasures had it not been for the punitive expeditions and destructive vandalism of Western nations. The cupidity and corruption of mod- ern Chinese officials of State has further impoverished the collections. But enough remnants are exhibited to present in chronological arrangement a vivid story of Chinese creative and artistic life. A recent writer says: “Great artistic impulses which rose to magnificent ex- pression in one dynasty die down and disappear only to break forth again with still richer power two or three centuries afterwards. These resurrections and incre- ments of power, with results in some forms such as the ‘Nordic’ race has never produced, are due to one or the [110] Hsin Ch’ao—The New Tide other of two causes, both of which disprove the theory of racial immobility. Either they are due to the dying down and then the awakening again of latent racial ca- pacity or they come from the impulse of some race amal- gamation.” + Professor F. W. Williams of Yale adds an illuminating comment : “As to decadence, no nation in history appears at its best in art or learning for many generations at a time. When we recall the fact that Greece was great for only two centuries and Rome for never more than two cen- turies at a time, with spasms of degeneracy between, China’s record does not appear to be peculiar. One finds sudden culmination followed by imitation and loss of Originality everywhere in recorded history. The details of this process are interesting and would be worth fol- lowing ; e.g., why does architecture always precede sculp- ture and painting in a revival of the arts—to give place usually to poetry and criticism and philosophy? But this inquiry leads us away from our main thesis. I believe one will discover in any great museum in the world evi- dence that ‘race capacity and achievement does not neces- sarily move along a slow and orderly gradient, either down or up, but is liable to great convulsions, to sudden collapses, or to equally sudden resurrections.’ ” ? A graph prepared to show the fluctuations of the crea- tive impulse of the Chinese as expressed in literature and 1 Robert E. Speer, Race and Race Relations. 2 Quoted by Robert E. ont in ag and Race Relations. III China’s Challenge to Christianity philosophy, would show as clearly as the evidence in the Peking museum that there has been great fluctuation in these lines also. This is not the place in which to tell the whole story of the rise and fall of creative activity in China. It will be enough to name the dynasties that have been marked by great achievement. The Chou Dynasty (B.c. 1122-255) is the period of beginnings. The sixth century B.c. in China, as well as in Greece, is marked by a galaxy of great thinkers—Lao-Tzu, K’ung- Tzu (Confucius), and Moh-Tzu. The three streams of thinking which these masters originated were developed by disciples during the next centuries, schools were de- veloped that contended with each other for the principles and philosophies they believed in as earnestly as did the princes and dukes of that feudal period in the wars of “The Contending States.” The first seasons of bud and bloom—the earliest spring and summer of Chinese life—were followed by autumnal quiet in the days of Han (3.c. 206-a.p. 221) and a darker winter of hibernation thereafter. A fresh burst of crea- tive ability appears in the spacious days of T’ang (AD. 618-906), a time at which Chinese energies seem at the peak in almost every line of development. As H. G. Wells says: “Millions of people were leading orderly, graceful, and kindly lives in China during these centuries (seventh, eighth, and ninth) when the attenuated populations of Europe and Western Asia were living in either hovels, small walled cities, or grim robber fortresses. While the mind of the West was black with theological obses- [x12] Hsin Ch’ao—The New Tide sions, the mind of China was open and tolerant and inquiring.” + Without question, the China of those days was the most cultivated and powerful nation of the world. The poetry and painting of T’ang are unsurpassed. Indeed, Japan received her art, literature, and religion from the T’ang China. T’ang culture was a source of inspiration for the whole of Far Eastern Asia and still is such. And today Westerners who have discovered it, have just begun to draw from T’ang China creative inspiration for modern work. It is not well to press the metaphor too far, but one may note that the new springtime of Chinese life in the days of T’ang was again followed by an “autumn” period of quiet development and perhaps by a winter’s sleep in which the life force of the nation has been, not dying, but recuperating for the fresh burst of creative achieve- ment which seems already to be burgeoning. Certainly the creative achievements in philosophy and art, which have expressed the characteristic spirit of Chinese cul- — ture, have produced a people of a strong character in which industry, cheerfulness, reasonableness, and love of peace—qualities envied by all mankind—are dominant elements. As will be noted later, one of the outstanding char- acteristics of the New Tide today is a renewed study of the old culture in an effort to recover the essential roots of its vitality. Through all this long history of culture, the supreme 1 Wells, A Short History of the World. [113] China’s Challenge to Christianity place has been given to education and literary ability. The phrase Shih Nung Kung Shang—scholar, farmer, artisan, merchant—represents the proverbial, popular classification of the professions and is a phrase often quoted by Western writers. The long-established Civil Service examinations based on literary ability helped the government to secure for the lower as well as the higher posts men of intellectual and literary ability. It has been truly said that China has been governed by her thinkers. The literary and philosophical ability of the long line of scholar-statesmen and administrators of China is matched only infrequently in Western history. There is no debate in China regarding the importance of education. Every class of people is convinced of the need for it, and is ready and eager to take advantage of educational opportunities wherever financial difficulties in the way of making use of them can be overcome. The new systems of education which have been instituted by successive governments—Manchu and Republican—since 1906, when the old system of civil service examinations was abolished, have been welcomed by the people every- where, At the present time county and provincial boards of education are active. The meetings of the National Education Association have continued during all the years of confusion since the establishment of the Re- public and have been attended by representatives from every province, even during the periods when China has seemed to Western observers to be divided between rival governments in the North and in the South. The Board of Education of the Central Government, while it has [114] Hsin Ch’ao—The New Tide suffered from the chaotic conditions that prevailed dur- ing the tenure of office of successive ministries, has never- theless maintained itself, and has fostered a considerable amount of educational reform. Perhaps the most significant evidence that China’s devotion to education is as vital today as in the past is to be found in the Chinese National Association for the Advancement of Education. This association is not officially connected with the Government, and is thus secure from the fluctuations of political success or politi- cal favor. It includes in its membership all the note- worthy educational leaders in China today. Many of these men are scholars who won distinction in the old examinations and combine a thorough mastery of Chinese literature and Chinese educational traditions with pro- gressive ideas and an eager, receptive attitude to new concepts for educational and intellectual progress from the West. The most influential officials connected with the official Board of Education are also members of this association, and it has authority by reason of these semi- official connections as well as through its own creative intellectual leadership. It is true that the mass of the Chinese are still illiterate and that the task of furnishing even four years of ele- mentary education for all these millions is a staggering one, especially in view of the present depleted resources of the Republic. Anything that can be called universal education for China seems a distant goal. But every student of the history of education knows that universal education even in the West is a comparatively modern [115] China’s Challenge to Christianity ideal. The prevailing illiteracy and ignorance in China is a challenge to all who desire the welfare of the na- tion. There is strong encouragement to be found in the fact that the supremacy of the trained mind is rec- ognized today quite as fully as ever before in Chinese history. 2. The Literary Revolution Perhaps the most notable achievement of the New Tide spirit is found in the literary revolution which it has supported. Toa foreigner stepping into a Chinese book- store without a guide and interpreter there would be little to indicate any change, The ideograms of the book titles would seem to him precisely the same as those in which the Classics are printed, and he would be inclined to find support for his Western surprise that an able people should continue to feature their thinking by the use of such archaic, written symbols, but to one able to read Chinese and familiar with the older written style, a glance through the books and magazines displayed would bring amazement. ‘Titles such as these would be noticed: Com- plete Works of John Dewey, The Social Theories of Ber- trand Russell, The Principles of the Soviet Government, The Scientific Development of Chinese Resources, His- tory of Chinese Philosophy, The Chinese Classics Written im Common Speech, The Significance of Ibsen in Modern Culture. And when the surprised visitor looked into these books, he would find himself reading characters [116] alt ikl ch ta ig ane CIC Mise th le Wo UN aaa Hsin Ch’ao—The New Tide ee eect OAs “RET. Ok ccamateuamnaelst dwelt MA beau Bille natin ating ete eae expressing the speech forms of every-day life instead of the antiquated formal and allusive style of the wen-li,— the “Chinese Latin,”’—which has been the only acknowl- edged vehicle for literary expression since the beginning of the Christian era. The Wu Ching—five classics—which were edited by Confucius were written with a bamboo pen on slips of bamboo. The difficulties of this method of writing en- couraged brevity and a concise style. A break in the continuity of Chinese culture was caused by the First Emperor of the Ch’in Dynasty (z.c. 213) when, by the burning of books and the execution of hundreds of literati, he tried to wipe out completely the troublesome scholarship which had constantly checked his plans by an appeal to tradition and to historical precedents as recorded in ancient books. There was an interval of one hundred and fifty years before intellectual activity re- covered from the shock of this bitter experience. Mean- while the common speech of the people had developed into new forms of expression. Han scholarship was devoted to the task of discovering the hiding places where the bamboo books that contained the Confucian legends were preserved, and in reconstructing the documents. A knowledge of the ancient style and its pronunciation be- came the distinctive mark of the scholar class or literati. The ancient books were committed to memory, and there- after every form of literary composition was marked by phrases and allusions taken from the ancient books. From the days of Han (s.c. 206-a.p. 221) the philolo- [117] China’s Challenge to Christianity gists, grammarians, and literary men of China devoted themselves to the cultivation and refinement of this style. Literary scholarship concentrated on the classical literary forms. Meanwhile, the common speech was left free to follow its own course of independent development. Probably no modern language has had such freedom to follow the lead of its own instinctive needs and interests unrestricted by the attention of grammarians as the kuan-hua—stand- ard speech, or so-called Mandarin—of China. Although himself using kuan-hua for all spoken purposes, the Chinese literatus had no thought of using it for composi- tion. Instead, his writing would be in the concise, classi- cal style, with skilful use of neat phrases to show his wide reading and his mastery of the old literature, sug- gesting by his delicate allusions ideas and feelings that did not need to be expressed, but that would be a part of the cultural heritage of all his readers. A parallel for this sort of writing is found in the compositions of European scholars before the fourteenth century, who did not use for writing the spoken language of their own or any other region, but always put serious com- position into Latin. The new reformers have overthrown the old system. They have succeeded in doing for China the work which Dante, Wycliffe, Luther, and others performed in Europe, making the vulgate, or vernacular, the vehicle for literary expression, liberating thought for free expression, break- ing the caste system of scholarship, and making it pos- [118] Hsin Ch’ao—The New Tide sible to spread ideas more rapidly through the nation. The recent phase of the literary revolution began only a few years ago in discussions among Chinese students in America, as to the possibility of expressing ideas in the living language of today. A particular leader among them was Hu Shih-chih (Dr. Suh Hu) who maintained that vernacular forms could be used for every sort of literary composition including poetry, and proceeded to demonstrate his convictions. Upon his return to China in 1917 he became the acknowledged leader of “‘a conscious movement among the educated class of China to recog- nize and proclaim the plain speech of the majority of the people as a real national language and the fit instru- ment of a living literature in all its forms.” The Pai Hua Yun Tung, or movement to establish the plain speech for literary use, spread with astonishing rapidity. It soon won a complete victory over the ancient tradition. Now let us go back to the bookstore, where we have already found evidence for this successful revolution, and look more carefully at what is to be found on the shelves. Here is a set of “readers” for all the grades of the primary schools. As you turn the pages, you find just such pictures as can be seen in our American text- books to help the child into a quick and interesting mas- tery of reading and writing. In the text which accom- panies the pictures are the familiar forms of everyday speech which the child uses at home. Over there is a pile of magazines. It is said that more than four hun- dred magazines in the national language were begun in the year 1919 alone. Some of these were short-lived, [119] China’s Challenge to Christianity Her. aR CREM EN Ua aens alideas but their places have been taken by others, and the eager flow of ideas through the new medium continues. If we turn to the textbooks and reference works to be used for university work, we find the same condition. Scientific treatises, translations of Western books, or original com- positions are all in the new form. No longer do you meet with such curiosities as a translation of Jevons’ Primer of Logie written by a distinguished scholar in a style so abstruse that the able Chinese scholar who assisted me in my early years found on every page sev- eral characters with which he was himself unfamiliar. Think of it! A primer to explain the ways of logical thinking written with symbols full of allusions that could be explained only by a knowledge of the literature of 500 B.c.! Just as in the case of the Renaissance in Europe, there is a revival of thinking going on all over China, an eagerness for ideas and for expressing them such as is paralleled only in the early stages of great creative periods of human development. To be sure, not all of this flood — of new composition is of the highest value; some West- erners who have read translations of selected articles criticise the paucity of new ideas which they find and the naive repetition of platitudes, but one should remem- ber that it is necessary to have “exercises” in new words and new forms of style before great productions appear. It is a mistake to conclude that there is no fruitful think- ing appearing in the new form. The work of Doctor Hu, estimated by any standard, is work of a high quality [120] PEKING UNIVERSITY STUDENTS Social freedom and scientific method stimulated by Christian enterprise. A college girls’ holiday in the grounds of the Temple of Heaven, and men studying seed selection in the De- partment of Agriculture. ‘pavoy Ajieajo sem odoos ur [euoljeu pue ‘asatsuayaidwos “pajiun ‘YInyd ssoury) ® JO dI0A dy} WOYM YSNO1Y} IsaulyD IIA Sojyesajap Peipuny Udddgja oy} Jo Ayoleu Vy 7261 ‘AVW ‘IVHONVHS “AONFAFANOD NVILSINHO IVNOILVN AHL , as Hsin Ch’ao—The New Tide in historical and philosophical studies. Mr. V. K. Ting, the head of the geological survey of China, has produced several papers of the very first value. Professor L. K. Yao is making valuable studies in Chinese sociology and economics, a field that offers fascinating opportunity for unlimited development. Essays and poetry of distinc- tion are to be found in the new style. It is hardly neces- sary to pile up the evidence. Certainly the Western world should watch with keen interest and enthusiastic support the growth of this movement in China which gives promise of making contributions to world culture. To these influences it is fair to add that of the Chris- tian enterprise in China, which from its inception devoted itself to the task of translating the Christian Scriptures into kuan-hua, the common speech, in spite of the tradi- tional Chinese disapproval and the classical objections te such procedure, Protestant Christianity in China, just as in England, Germany, and elsewhere, could not be satisfied until it had made available in the common speech its Scriptures and explanations of its doctrines. It may be difficult to claim a direct relationship between the “Movement for Using Common Speech” and Christianity, but there can be no question that the Christian practise suggested a proper course of procedure. * More than they realize the modern leaders are following the Christian example, Moreover Christian workers everywhere have been eager supporters of the literary revolution in its modern phase. No account of the literary revolution would be com- plete that did not mention the interesting work of the [121] China’s Challenge to Christianity group of reformers who, under the inspiration of K’ang Yu-wei and with the support for a few brief days of the unfortunate Emperor, Kuang Hst, inaugurated in 1898 a wholesale reform movement. Although the famous Empress Dowager, Tzu Hsi, escaped from the plans of the reformers to eliminate her from control of the government and returned to power to place her im- perial nephew in captivity and to execute or punish his reforming advisers, she was wise enough to see the value of many of the reforms proposed and became herself later an advocate of most of them. One should add finally that the eager “returned stu- dents” and modern literary radicals have had the support of a notable group of men whose training was received in the classical system through the very examination system which is now discarded. These men received from that training such real capacity and cultural breadth as to recognize the need in China for a new intellectual vitality, and they were able to give vigorous reenforce- ment through the strength of their reputation and ability. The reformers have the eagerness and courage of youth, but they have still to prove themselves able to produce sound scholarship worthy to rank with the best work of the intellectual leaders of the Ch’ing period. The literary revolution in China, which is too little known to Westerners in its true significance, is of far more importance than the political revolution of 1911 of which the West has heard so much. Is it not plain that in relation to the revolution in thinking and in literature which is taking place before our eyes today there must [122] St a Hsin Ch’ao—The New Tide be careful scrutiny of the methods used in presenting the Christian message in China? Most foreigners know that there was a Boxer Rebellion in 1900 and that all Chinese life has been modified since then, but few realize that in these most recent years, 1917-23, changes in the thought life of China have been begun which will more seriously modify that life than anything that has happened in Chinese history since the period of the Sung Dynasty in the tenth to thirteenth centuries. 3. The Student Movement The West is generally familiar with the story of the anti-Japanese boycott which developed in 1919. This movement was China’s protest against the victory of Japan at the Peace Conference in Paris, when the great powers allowed her to retain control of Shantung as her reward for the assistance given in the World War. Within a few weeks of the announcement of that Paris decision, the boycott had assumed such proportions that its effects were seriously felt in Japanese export to China, and the Japanese Government, through the usual diplo- matic channels, was protesting to China against the un- friendliness of the movement. The effectiveness of the boycott was made possible by the support of powerful Chambers of Commerce in which the merchants of China are organized in every province and every great city throughout the land. Not only did merchants agree not to handle Japanese goods, but people everywhere through- out the country gave their assistance by refusing, on [123] China’s Challenge to Christianity patriotic grounds, to make any further use of Japanese, goods. In many cities such goods were publicly burned. The organization and rapid spread of this successful movement and the effective coordination of all patriotic Chinese in the use of economic force, which was their only weapon against Japan and against the decision which the diplomats of the world had endorsed, was due en- tirely to the efforts of the students of the country. The incident is the most striking illustration in modern times of the leadership which educated classes can give to their country in a crisis. The part which the university under- graduates and high school boys and girls of China played in influencing the political policies of their own govern- ment has become an example already copied by student classes in other countries in efforts to criticise policies and to force political leaders to give higher regard to the public welfare. The moment the news reached China that the Shantung question had been adjusted at the Paris Peace Conference in a fashion entirely unjust to China, progressive Chinese leaders expected some sort of a protest from the Chinese Government, but the cabinet at that time was so fully under the control of the Anfu Club—a pro-Japanese group which was making personal profit out of the loans made by Japanese finan- ciers, for which the resources of China were being of- fered as security,—that no sign of action on the part of Chinese official representatives appeared. On May 4, 1919, the students of the capital under the leadership of the undergraduates of the National Uni- versity of Peking made a solemn procession of protest in [124] Hsin Ch’ao—The New Tide order to call to the attention of the diplomats of foreign nations, the injustice registered at Paris, and to warn their own people as well. When refused admission into the Legation Quarter of Peking, the procession made its way to the home of Ts’ao Ju-lin, one of the most hated pro-Japanese politicians, where students broke into his residence and drove into ignominious flight the arch- traitor and two of his chief partners. These men even- tually found refuge in a hospital! The Government tried to use forceful measures of repression. The students responded by organizing a “strike,” to demand release of those arrested for the rumpus of May 4, and to inform the public at large regarding the injustice of the Paris award as well as to mark the weakness and treachery of the Peking Government. A committee of college and university administrators supported the efforts of the students. The students and officers of Christian institu- tions joined heartily in the movement. Women shared equally with the men in promoting the undertaking. With astonishing ability they effectually organized the students of other centers so that within two weeks the entire stu- dent body of China was actively engaged in well- coordinated efforts to rouse the public by street lecturing, newspaper articles, processions, and mass meetings. Pub- lic opinion rallied to the cause. The powerful merchant gilds and Chambers of Commerce gave active support. Under the pressure of this popular protest, the Gov- ernment was forced to accept the resignation of the three chief pro-Japanese traitors. The entire population com- mitted itself to the support of the anti-Japanese boycott. [125] China’s Challenge to Christianity This vigorous popular protest modified the policies of the Chinese Government and gave support to the Chinese delegates at Paris in their refusal to sign the vicious treaty of Versailles. The determined protest of that refusal gave China greater respect in the eyes of other nations, and set in motion forces which, when reenforced by the powerful American people, resulted in a course of events that led eventually to the calling of the Washington Dis- armament Conference at which the unjust Paris decision was reversed, and Shantung was restored to China. Undergraduate students of China have influenced world affairs today. It may seem strange that I should have broken off the story of the Hsin Ch’ao and its literary revolution to insert this story of the activities of Chinese students in relation to political policies. Let me explain by showing the close connection between the student movement and that same literary revolution. The spoken word was the effective instrument by which the students made known to the populace of China the desperate situation in which their country had been placed. Earnest and ardent speaking was supplemented by handbills, posters, and pamphlets, by newspapers and magazine articles which necessarily made use of the simplest idioms. The students up to the moment of their first procession and strike had been interested partici- pants in the debate about the need for a literary revolu- tion in China. For the most part, they had accepted the arguments of Mr. Chen Tu-hsiu and Doctor Hu. The [126] Hsin Ch’ao—The New Tide war-cry of the reformers used in the debate was, “No dead language can produce a living literature. If China wants a living literature, it must be in the living lan- guage.’ Perhaps this sentiment stimulated in the stu- dents a new sense of national responsibility as leaders of their people. Certain it is that the immediate crisis re- quired a medium through which modern education and modern ideas could be transmitted at once to the common folk. Whatever final explanation may be discovered for the connection between the student movement and the literary revolution, it is certain that each stimulated, sup- plemented, and sustained the other. When the immediate activities of the anti-Japanese boycott were over, there was no further discussion about the Pai Hua, or “plain language” question. Newspapers and magazines, which had made use of the new medium in their devotion to the national cause during the anti-Japanese crises, found it easy to continue the use of the freer forms of expres- sion. The whole situation stimulated the National Edu- cation Association in its meeting of October, 1919, to decree that the spoken language alone should be taught in the primary schools and used in textbooks. Kuo-Yu— the national speech, with a standard pronunciation—was adopted for the use of the whole country, and it is now the recognized standard for Chinese, South as well as North. The debate is over. The old vehicle of literary expression maintained by the literary caste, supported by the civil service examination system, and receiving of- ficial governmental sanction through a millennium has [127] China’s Challenge to Christianity gone from general use, never to return. Study of the Classics and of the classical style in China will continue, just as there is still a study of Latin in our own and in European universities. But the Chinese mind has freed itself from the necessity for carrying on exhaust- ing and confining studies in that special field in order to recognize itself as educated. A heavy burden has been lifted from the shoulders of all who seek an education. The mind of China has been set free to flow on into fresh achievement. 4. The Scientific Spirit In addition to the literary revolution, Hsin Ch’ao is responsible for a variety of other activities in Chinese intellectual life. While the purpose and aim of the particular phases of the movement differ somewhat, these activities are all devoted to the scientific spirit, and represent an endeavor to make use of that spirit and of the methods in which it has expressed itself for the critical examination of traditional knowledge and in fresh adventures in the discovery of truth. China’s ink tellectual leaders today agree with the great Hindu prophet, Rabindranath Tagore, in recognizing the value of the scientific method which it has been the privilege of Western culture to perfect and apply to almost every phase of human life. Like him, they realize that the East must learn from the West how to use this great new tool of thinking. Whatever the defects which Orientals see in our Western life, they all appreciate [128] Hsin Ch’ao—The New Tide that the Occident has a great gift for world life in this wonderful tool of science. It is interesting to note that the Chinese have passed through several stages in their relation to the culture of the West and the result which that has produced. The Reverend T. T. Lew, Ph.D., Dean of the School of Theology, Peking University, notes four stages in these relationships.* The first stage came when the Chinese were rudely awakened by the commercial and political aggression of the Western powers to realize that the Western nations possessed some things which they themselves did not have. There followed a movement for the introduction of the goods produced by modern mechanical science. A. second change began its operation after the war with Japan, when the Chinese “began to realize that it was not merely guns and battleships and such mechanical de- vices that represent the sources of Western power.” At- tention was shifted to the personnel behind the ma- chinery, away from the outward scientific mechanisms and toward the training of men in modern scientific education. | Following the Boxer struggle, the third change was brought about with the realization that there could be little progress in education without a new system of government. An attempt was made to replace the tradi- tional, dynastic form of government with democratic and constitutional forms again copied from the West. 1 China Today Through pia ah Chapter II. (129 China’s Challenge to Christianity Since 1911 the fourth stage appears, in which the Chinese begin to see that the source of Western power is not to be found in the political and social institutions that have resulted from scientific and democratic methods any more than it is to be found in material machinery and convenient goods produced by machines. An en- deavor is now being made to understand the real secret of Western strength and to search for the scienttfic phi- losophy, the principles as well as the tools of thinking, that have made the West great. One wonders if the Chinese in this last phase of their search are not show- ing more of insight and discernment than any other Oriental, or backward people of the present time. At any rate, the determination to learn scientific principles for themselves and to master the use of scientific methods is the most distinctive characteristic of China’s intellectual life today. Hsin Ch’ao inspires and focuses this effort to master and apply the spirit of science to all of China’s problems. This endeavor is seen in the marked critical spirit of the Hsin Cl’ao movement. No sort of tradition—lit- erary, political, social, ethical or religious—is allowed to pass unchallenged. Every form of authority is attacked, every accepted standard or idea must give account of itself and present a sound rational argument for its con- tinuance. Nothing is to be accepted unless it can stand the exact scrutiny demanded by scientific method and the test of facing facts. The urge of this new spirit has sent some of the leaders back to a study of China’s old heritage. Dr. Hu [130] Hsin Ch’ao—The New Tide has already been mentioned. His History of Chinese Philosophy (in Chinese) appeared in 1918, and has been one of the “best sellers” since that time. It presents an entirely new picture of the creative period of Chinese culture, when the great philosophers, Lao-tzu, Kung-tzu, and Moh-tzu, lived and wrote, and their followers carried on eager contentions over the developing systems of thought. The effect of this book was to renew interest in the old classical period. A variety of schools of inter- pretation are developing from this interest. Under in- tense and careful scientific study, new vitality and truth are sought for from those ancient books. Mr. Liang Ch’i-Ch’ao is another who is carrying methods of scien- tific study into the historical field. His studies of some of the older philosophers, his book on the application of scientific methods to the historical study of China, as well as his history of the thought of particular periods, are all eagerly read, and they provoke much discussion. In other lines, such men as Mr. V. K. Ting in geology, Professor L. K. T’ao in sociology, and a number of younger writers are carrying on similar scientific work with eager enthusiasm. One interesting discovery already resulting from these studies is the fact that China has not been altogether without scientific thinkers in the past. For example, a geographer is known in the sixteenth century whose writings show a capacity for exact ob- servation that is rarely equalled even by the leaders of scientific expeditions today. As Dr. Hu notes, the new scientific spirit in China will not be able to have perma- nent value for Chinese life except as it discovers roots in [131] China’s Challenge to Christianity the old heritage to which the new shoots can be grafted. The variety of Chinese thinking, invention, and discovery in the past is so great that it does not seem difficult to believe that there will be found Chinese antecedents to which each sort of modern research, be it in natural science, sociology, economics, ethics, religion, or philoso- phy, can be intimately related. Among the younger leaders of Hsin Ch’ao and particu- — larly in undergraduate circles, there is, as one would expect, a more evident tendency towards radical and ex- treme positions than among the older leaders. Everything in modern Western thinking is translated and made avail- able for the Chinese student. Ibsen and Shaw and Nietz- sche, French essayists, Italian romanticists, German pessi- mists, and Russian radicals are all available and have their advocates in larger or smaller groups. The “anti” clubs are numerous—anti-capital, anti-religion, anti-family tra- © dition, anti-old-fashioned ethics. In the effort to know the very latest Western thinking, an association has been formed to invite to China the world’s most notable intellectual leaders. John Dewey spent two years lecturing to eager throngs in many centers. Bertrand Russell spent a year explain- ing and illustrating some of his social and psychological beliefs. Hans Driesch, the German psychologist, spent a year in China. Rabindranath Tagore has brought India’s latest message. China today is surely “proving all things.” May she know how to hold to “that which is good.”’ [132] Hsin Ch’ao—The New Tide 5. Social Reconstruction Kai Tsao—reconstruction—is one of the watch words of Hsin Chao, and the spirit of such effort is manifested, | not only in literary revolution or systematic scientific re- search, but in the field of social improvement as well. Mention has already been made of the “neighborhood schools” established by undergraduate students all. over China for the poor children who have, as yet, no other opportunity for education. In almost every school and college in China, the students have themselves formed an association for teaching the children in the neighbor- hood of their institution. Hundreds of boys and girls and men and women have devoted a large part of their free time to the simple teaching of the three ‘‘R’s” to their younger fellow countrymen. Not only in instruc- tion, but also in the guidance of playground activities, a spontaneous social service is being carried out. The same spirit is shown in the work done by students during the calamities of flood and famine. No one who saw it will forget “tag day” in Peking in 1921, when several thou- sand students from all the schools of the city spent a day —in the face of the famous blustering, dusty, north-west wind of Peking—stopping every passer-by on the street, and winning from each some contribution to famine re- lief. The huge piles of coppers received made a fund of over four thousand dollars, and the whole city had a les- son in giving for others. In many institutions, student groups have been formed under the leadership of pro- fessors of economics and sociology, to make careful [133] China’s Challenge to Christianity studies of the conditions of living of the poor in the region, and on the basis of their investigations they have administered relief that was at once scientific and helpful. Such activities are not confined to students. The habit of being dissatished with existing conditions has de- veloped among other groups of the population as well. Provision for public lectures is made in all the cities and many of the larger towns where present-day problems can be discussed, and community associations have been estab- lished in many places. A few of such groups are: “So- ciety to Discuss Family Reconstruction”; “Society for Promoting New Education”; “Philosophical Society” ; “Marxian Society”; ‘Educational Service Society”; “Labor Societies.’ These indicate the variety of interests which the movement has already covered. That encouragement of attention to sanitation and pub- lic hygiene had been begun before what can properly be called the Hsin Ch’ao was evident. Various Christian or- ganizations, the Young Men’s Christian Association in particular, had begun to organize “health campaigns,” and by means of posters, lectures, lantern slides, etc., had presented the menace of germs, the need to “swat the fly,” and to guard food supplies from various sorts of contamination. But these endeavors received new im- petus when Hsin Chao leaders sent their followers. out as crusaders for every sort of social reconstruction in- cluding public hygiene. Wet Sheng—sanitation—is a phrase known now by the common people everywhere. To be sure, many have queer ideas of what real sanitation [134] Hsin Ch’ao—The New Tide is, but the phrase represents an ideal; and month by month there are truer conceptions of the wider scientific and social significance of the term. If you pass through the streets of Peking in the summer, you will see that grocery men and food venders are very careful to place netting screens over their wares as protection against flies. There are, to be sure, cases where the screen is not a complete covering, but surely it is an advantage to have the cover- ing on four sides even if a fifth is open to attack. The advancing phalanx of these screens is a sign of the grow- ing understanding of sanitation and public hygiene. Many studies are being made to determine, if possible, what social standards and social devices from the old tradition have enough value to be continued. Questions of this type are being studied: How about the family code? How may individual rights be adjusted to family control? How can a fresh social consciousness be de- veloped for the social groups wider than the family circle? Here also radical tendencies are to be found. Due to proximity to Russia, the Soviet experiments are being closely watched.