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O RI E N T A L I A
Pamphlets and Magazine Excerpts
WHAT HOLDS CHINA Back
by
John Dewey

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- HE longer one stays in China, the more the ques-
| tion of what holds China back impresses itself, and
the more difficult it becomes to answer. There is
“if” in almost every answer which your Chinese friends
give to the question; and the “if” generally only restates
the difficulty. )
The remark heard most often is perhaps the most
superficial of all. “If we had a stable government we
could do this and that.” But why isn't there a Stāble
- but Wny isn't there a stapº
government? Its abse"º"... . .”.
a cause. The country is still divided, both north and
south having their own government, and each at logger-
heads with the other. Yet every Chinese friend tells you
the country is united although the government is divided,
and everything you can learn confirms the statement.
Why do not the people then enforce their feeling and
will? Japanese intrigue and interference is an obvious
answer. But again you are given an effect, a symptom,
instead of a cause. Others tell you that the source of the
difficulty is lack of ability and experience in organization.
This answer goes further below the surface. But it still
needs explanation. The Chinese have both experience
and ability in some kinds of organization, as the long his–
tory of the guilds and of village self-government shows.
Why should they not show at least as much capacity for
organization as the Japanese, who have only recently
emerged from feudalism with all the personal suspicions,
jealousies and class division that feudalism opposes to
organization? And no one who knows the Chinese can
believe that the difficulty is intellectual, that the people
have not the mental gifts required in successful organ-
ization.
To say (as is so often said) that the Chinese do not
progress more systematically and rapidly because they
are a conservative people is clearly repeating in other
words the thing that needs to be explained. Conserva-
tive they doubtless are. But nevertheless their history is
-
not a history of stagnation, of fixity, as we are falsely taught,
but of social as well as dynastic changes. They have tried
many experiments in their day. Centuries ago they had
a statesman who induced the emperor to commit the
kingdom to something as near to modern socialism as
was possible considering the absence of steam and elec-
tricity. China has undergone as many barbarian inva-
sions as any country in Europe. Its survival and its
absorption of its invaders do not argue conservatism
of the inert kind. No country whose conservatism
came from sheer routine, from lack of imagination, from
*#####".extended its
(Azia, */22)
VVHAT HOLDS CHINA BACK
By JOHN DEWEY
furnishing, of sitting and sleeping on mats, from China;
that China has changed several times, moving constantly
in the direction of practical utility, of ingenious adapta-
tion of means to needs. The Chinese cuisine is another ar-
gument. It is doubtless the most extensive in the world
in the variety of material employed for food, and also the
most varied in its combinations. Academic analysis may
despise arguments drawn from food, clothing, shelter and
furnishings. But when one notes the variety and inge-
nuity of the processes and appliances used in daily life
and in the crafts, one is certain that the Chinese mind is
naturally observant and adaptive. But it seems unnec-
essary to labor the question. Many charges have been
brought against the Chinese, but no one has ever ac-
cused them of stupidity. Their undoubted conservatism
is something to be explained rather than an explanation
of anything.
It may well be doubted whether this is any single key
to the mystery. Certainly the present observer has no
final solution to proffer. But there is one fact which I
am quite sure must be taken into the reckoning and



which counts for much. It is beyond question that many
traits of the Chinese mind are the products of an extra-
Iordinary and long-Continued density of populations.
Psychologists have discovered, or possibly invented, a
civilization as ina has done. And experience shows
that the Chinese are supple, pliant, accommodating and
adaptive Eneither Figid nor dull. Tº-
It may strike the western reader as simply funny, but
more than one Chinese friend has assured me that it is
the Japanese people who are really conservative. And
they back up their assertion by evidence other than the
Way in which Japan has clung, through all historic vicis-
situdes, to a primitive theocracy. They point out, for
example, that a thousand years ago the Japanese bor-
rowed their present style of clothing and of household
act in masses, as a mob at a lynching bee.
“psychology of the crowd” to account for the way men
not inquired as to the effect upon the mind of constant
living in close contact with large numbers, of continual
living in a crowd. Years ago an enthusiastic American
teacher of the Chinese in Honolulu told me that when
the Chinese acquired Anglo-Saxon initiative they would
be the greatest people in the world. I wonder whether
even the Anglo-Saxons would have developed or re-
tained initiative if they had lived for centuries under
conditions that gave them no room to stir about, no relief
from the unremitting surveillance of their fellows? Pos-
sibly they would then have acquired a habit of thinking
of their “face” before they thought of the thing to be
done. Perhaps when they thought of a new thing they
would have decided discretion and hesitation to be the
better part of invention. If solitude or loneliness exists in
China it is only among the monks who have retired into
the mountain fastnesses; and until I have ocular evidence
to the contrary I shall believe that even monks in China
are sociable, agglutinative beings. Until the recent intro-
duction of rapid transportation, very few Chinese ever
enjoyed even the possibility of solitude that comes from
being in a crowd of strangers. Imagine all elbow-room
done away with, imagine millions of men living day by
day, year by year, in the presence of the same persons (a
very close presence at that), and new light may be shed
upon the conservatism of the Chinese people.
An English author, long resident in China, wrote a
book which, aside from a wealth of picturesque incident,
gossip and rumor, was a long diatribe against Young
China—against, that is, the Chinese who favor the intro-
duction of western institutions, inventions, methods.
His way of arguing was sufficiently simple. China suffers
from an excess of population. Great masses live just on


l
--~
373
ſº
7, 7.
Dºº
Press Illustrating Service
FUNERAL OF THE EMPEROR WHOSE RADICALISM RESULTED IN THE BOXER UPRISING
Kuang Hsu Died a Prisoner of State Following Attempted Reforms Designated to Bring About the Regenera-
tion of China, but Which Eventuated in Conservative Reaction in 1900
the edge of subsistence. A flood, a disabling pestilence,
a season's bad weather, plunges millions over the edge.
Equilibrium is then restored. But a long succession of
Dr. r oduces an over-population which finds
vent in rebellion, civil war, a killing off of a very large
num d possibly the overthrow of a dynasty. Chi-
nese hist - ust be a succession, a cycle, of such
episodes. Meantime Confucian ideas, ancestor worship,
family and clan organization, transmit Chinese civiliza-
tion intact. This, Young China wou estroy, robbing
China of its moral foundations. Since it cannot alter the
basic facts of the struggle for existence, Young China
therefore offers nothing of value to the country.
The logic is not close-knit; mom sequiturs abound. But
it is a good example of the way in which foreigners become
infected with a belief that in China things must in the
future be about as they have been in the past, and that
efforts to make a change only result in making things
worse. In my experience, most foreigners who have been
long in China and who think at all, acquire this attitude
in some degree. You hear solemn warnings on every
hand that this and that cannot be done, although next
day you learn from some Chinese friend that it is being
done and the heavens have not fallen. Many are more
Confucianist—in a kind of vague belief that Confucius
contributed something without which China cannot en-
dure—than the younger generation of Chinese. After a
few years some foreigners find themselves hypnotized by
the thickness, the compactness, of a civilization forced
upon people living closely crowded together. They ac-
quire the fear that if one strand is touched, the whole
will unravel, and the belief that the safe thing is to leave
things alone.
Young American teachers and social work-
ers, recently over from America, tell me that the older
missionaries frequently admonish them against their in-
novating zeal, and tell them that as they grow older and
l wiser they will learn conservatism. Most of the older
374
British residents are reported to have no sympathy with
the Revolution, to mourn the departed days of monarchy,
and to point to many increased present evils as proofs
of their belief that as China has been, so she must be.
If China “gets” so many foreigners who come with
the opposed tradition of the initiative of Anglo-Saxons,
then what must be the case with those brought up from
infancy in thick, dense, inbred civilization? Live and
let live is the response to crowded conditions. If things
are fairly well off, then let well enough alone. If they
are evil, endure them rather than run the risk of making
them worse by interference. In western countries, the
doctrine of laissez faire has flourished because a policy of
hands off was thought to encourage individual energy
and enterprise. In China it flourishes because any unu-
sual energy or enterprise on the part of anybody may
work untoward results. Not to rock the boat is wisdom
the world over. In a crowded country, not organized
along the lines of utilization of natural-resources, any
innovation is likely to disturb the balance of the social
boat. -
The reformer does not even meet sharp, clear-cut re-
sistance. If he did, he might be stimulated to further
effort. He simply is smothered. Stalling has become
a fine art. At a recent national educational conference
a returned student holding an official position moved
that the public middle schools (corresponding to our

high schools) be made co-educational. He was inspired
by sound consideration. China suffers from lack of edu-
cated women. Funds are short. The effective thing is
to admit girls to the schools already existing. But the
proposition was a radical innovation. Yet it was not
opposed. A resolution in favor was duly passed. But at
the same time it was made subtly understood that this
was done out of courtesy to the mover, and that no steps
to carry the resolution into effect need be expected. This
is the fate of many proposed social reforms. They are not
fought, they are only swallowed. China does not stag-
nate, it absorbs. It takes up all the slack till there is no
rope left with which to pull.
The weak points of a people, like those of an individual,
are the defects of their qualities. Vices are not far re-
moved from virtues; they are their reverse side. The
Chinese believe themselves the politest people on earth.
They are probably right in their belief. In comparison
even the best of western manners often appear either
crude or else overdone, affected. Nothing can exceed
the amenity of the Japanese in personal intercourse.
But they learned their etiquette as well as so much else
from China, and it remains somewhat formal, a culti-
vated art. In China the ages have toned down and mel-
lowed the forms of intercourse till they no longer seem
forms. High and low are so easy and unconstrained in
their bearing toward one another, that one is tempted, in
spite of scientific authority, to believe in the inheritance
by later generations of the manners acquired by previous
generations. Cheerfulness and contentment amid the
most trying conditions are a
part of good manners. Yet
there is none of that rigidity, to
say nothing of glumness and
fanaticism, which we ordinarily
associate with stoicism or fatal-
ism. There is no flourish of self-
control which betrays that the
self-control is maintained with
difficulty. Fate is welcomed
with a smile, perhaps a jest, not
with a frown, nor yet with
heroics. Such courtesy and
cheerfulness are un doubted
products of long-continued close
face-to-face crowded existence.
The unremitting impact of a
thick civilization has impressed
the folly of adding to the bur-
dens of life by friction or repin-
ing. Politeness and cheerfulness
are the lubricants by which the
closeness and constancy of per-
sonal contacts are made endur-
able. Circumstances admit of
but two alternatives: either
ruthless competition, war to the
bone, or an easygoing peace.
Having chosen the latter way
out, the Chinese have carried
it to its logical conclusion.
Yet personal consideration
for others in direct face-to-
face intercourse is quite com-
patible with what in the sistence.
-
W H A T H O L D S C H IN A B A C K
western world would be regarded as unfeeling cruelty
and lack of active aid to others. The other day in Peking
a passing carriage knocked down a man in the street, and
rolled by unheeding. The man was so badly injured that
he was unable to rise. No passer-by made a move; all
literally passed by on the other side, until some foreign-
ers came to the rescue. A few months ago Mr. Baillie
was set upon by bandits in Manchuria. The other per-
sons present not only offered no aid, but they ran aside
and shut their eyes so that they could not be called
upon to testify. The further point of this incident lies
in the fact that Mr. Baillie had taken poor and miserable
persons from the more crowded parts of China to Man-
churia where there was plenty of land, and by colonizing
them had greatly improved their conditions. These men
who closed their eyes that they might not know what was
going on were men whom he had aided; they were per-
sonal friends. -
This does not mean that Chinese habitual politeness is
insincere. I have never heard the Chinese accused of
hypocrisy, though I have heard of many bitter complaints
of their unwillingness to carry things through. I have
never seen anyone who did not regard genuine friendli-
ness as one of the chief Chinese traits. But where there
is a complete manifestation of the Malthusian theory of
population, friendliness develops with great difficulty to
the point of active effort to relieve suffering. Where fur-
ther increase in population means increase in severity of
the struggle for subsistence, aggressive benevolence is
not likely to assume large proportions. On the contrary,
L. S. Rose
A FAVORITE RENDEZVOUS, THE PUBLIC PUMP AT HONG KONG
Great Masses of the Chinese Population Live on the Edge of Sub-
A Flood or an Epidemic Plunges Millions over the Edge

375
. S. Rose
SLIPPER BOATS, THE HOMES OF THOUSANDS OF CHINESE
A Long Succession of Prosperous Years Produces an Over Population Which Often
Finds Vent in Rebellion, Civil War, and Possibly the Collapse of a Dynasty

-
Sequences.
sequences upon outer facts. It is contrary to the proprie-
when the cutting off of thousands by plague or flood or
famine means more air to breathe and more land to cul-
tivate for those who remain, stoic apathy is not hard to
attain. A foreigner interested in the prevention of cruelty
to animals after many discouragements approached with
some hopefulness a Buddhist monk. He thought that
the doctrine of universal pity would have prepared the
way for sympathetic reception. But his message was
coldly greeted. He was told that the animals, when they
were abused, were justly suffering for the sins of some
ancestor and that it was not for man to interfere. Such
Buddhism only formulates the fatalism which is a general
natural response to surroundings.
Most of the oriental traits of lack of active sympathy
and relief which missionaries have cited as due to heath-
enism seem to have a simpler explanation. On the other
hand, western philanthropy makes a great appeal. Mis-
sionaries and Y. M. C. A. workers took a large part of
the burden of recent flood-relief work. The Chinese in
the devastated region who had remained calmly imper-
evious to prior preaching, were so impressed with the exhibi—
tion of kindness that was gratuitous that they flocked
into the churches. The latter had to sift and choose very
carefully to keep from being themselves flooded. And
this result was not a “lively expectation of favors to
come”.
unprecedented display of sympathy and help. I was
told on good authority that the Governor of Shansi, the
most respected provincial governor in China, said that
up to the time of the outbreak of bubonic plague, he had
thought that western civilization was good only for
battleships and machinery. But the unpaid devotion of
physicians, teachers and missionaries, at the risk of their
own lives, had convinced him that there was another side
to western civilization.
The incidents of personal disregard of others have the
same spring as the absence of organized relief. To do
anything is to assume a responsibility. To have helped the
man knocked down would have done more than involve
a loss of time. Those helping would have implicated
themselves with the authorities. They might be accused
of complicity. Mind your own business, don’t interfere,
leave things to those whose express business it is to look
after them, is the rule of living. Don’t make a nuisance
of yourself by meddlesomeness, to say nothing of getting
yourself into incalculable trouble by leaving the beaten
track. Practical indifference in matters that do not
directly concern one is but the obverse side of exquisite
consideration in immediate personal relations. Where the
latter are concerned everything suggests the superior
claims of an immediate smoothing over of things rather
than an adjustment on the basis of actual objective con-
Effect on “face” is more significant than con-
-
ties, for instance, for a government school to accept pri-
vate gifts. It reflects upon the government, which then
"-
loses “face”. The head of a Peking school recently said he
would accept gifts, that he was willing to sacrifice his
"face” to the good of his school and the country. This
Was a more genuine sacrifice than westerners might believe.
When people live close together and cannot get away
from one another, appearances, th the im-
pression made upon others, become as important as the
realities, if not more so. The ulterior consequences of,
let us say, a diplomatic transaction with a foreign nation
The population had been deeply touched by the .
W H A T H O L D S C H IN A B A C K
seem of less consequence than the immediate conduct of
negotiations in such a way as to avoid present trouble
and graciously to observe all the proprieties. When
evasion and delay no longer suffice, it is better to sur-
render and to permit the other side to be rude and brusque
than to lose “face” one's self. The Japanese knowledge of
this trait.accounts very considerably for their diplomatic
methods with China. It is known as the policy of the
strong hand. Concede anything to the Chinese and they
think you are afraid of them, and they at once become
presumptuous and demand more—this is a commonplace
in Japanese newspaper discussion of Chinese affairs. So
far as immediate dealings with officials are concerned, the
Japanese seem to have decided wisely as to the methods
which give results. What they failed to count upon was
the immense backwash of resentment among the people
at large.
In fine, the crowded population has bred those habits
#.
tive and collectively so exasperating to the outsider. In-
novatio » - - ge(I,
not from lack of intelligence, but because intelligence is
too keenly aware of the mistakes that may result, the
trouble In a V a. & 4 out of trouble” comes to
be the guiding principle. In an evening pleasantly spent
º;'."y. he set forth his theory
as to the slow change of China as compared with the
rapid advance of Japan. It seems some old Chinese sage
once said, “To know is easy; to act is difficult.” The


Chinese had taken this adage to heart, so Mr. Sun ex-
plained. They did not act because they were afraid of mak-
ing mistakes; they wanted to be guaranteed in advance
against any failure or serious trouble. The Japanese, on

"the other hand, realized that action was much easier than
knowing; they went ahead and did things without mind-
ing mistakes and failures, trusting to a net balance on
the side of achievement. I am inclined to think the old
sage was influential because his teaching was reinforced
by effects of the ever-close and ever-thick environment.
Only the superficial think that to give the causes of an
unfortunate state of affairs is to excuse them. Any state
of affairs has to be judged on the basis of the consequences

it produces, not on the basis of the causes that explain its
existence. But if the causes are those described, they
cannot be remedied by expostulation, exhortation and
preaching. A change of conditions, an alteration of the
environment, is needed. This cannot take place by re-
ducing the population, although part of Young China is
now shocking archaic China by preaching birth-control.
An introduction of modern industrial methods is the only
thing that will profoundly affect the environment. Util-
izing energy and resources now untouched will produce
an effect that will be the same as an enlargement of the
environment. Mining, railways and manufacturing based
upon China's wealth of unused resources will give a new
outlet for energies that now cannot be used without the
risk of causing “trouble”. The impersonal and indirect
effects of modern production and commerce will create
habits that will lessen the importance of appearances and
“face”, and increase the importance of objective conse-
quences of facts. A way will be discovered with the in-
crease of wealth and of constructive appliances to turn
personal friendliness, unfailing amiability and good-humor
into general channels of social service.

377
FºxN-ZW
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THE STONECUTTER AND THE MOUSE
By BERNARD SEXTON
\ M ſ HEN Brahmadatta was reigning at Benares, the
Bodhisattva was born as a stonecutter's son, and
he grew up well versed in his father's craft. He
was cutting stone in a certain village that had fallen into
ruin and been abandoned. The lastinhabitant had moved
away long since and the jungle was already in the streets.
A rich merchant had once lived in the village. He had
died without telling anyone of the hiding place of his
treasure. The merchant's wife alone knew, and she
lived on after him guarding the treasure until she became
a miser. After she died she was reborn as a mouse and
lived in the cellar where the treasure was hidden.
The Bodhisattva knew nothing of this. He was a
happy stonecutter and he worked alone in the village
cutting up stones that he carted off to town once a month.
As he worked near the treasure-cellar the little mouse
used to watch him, and when she found that he killed no
living thing she ran about fearlessly under his feet.
One day the mouse thought, “What a pity I shall die
and no one then will know where the treasure is. I will
share it with this good man.” She went down into the
cellar and putting a coin in her mouth, returned to the
corner where the Bodhisattva was at work. “What do
you wish, little mouse?” he asked. “Take this coin, sir,
and buy meat for us both,” answered the mouse.
From that time the Bodhisattva bought meat for him-
self and the mouse, sharing it with her, half and half.
Suddenly a cat appeared and captured the mouse. “Oh,
sir,” cried the mouse from the cat's mouth, “do not eat
me.” -
“Why not?” asked the cat. “Am I not hungry? Are
you not a mouse?”
“Because, if you spare my life I will give you meat
every day. But if you eat me, you’ll have me only once.”
“Very well,” answered the cat, “we’ll try it. But do
not miss one day!” And he gave the mouse a terrible
look.
Now the mouse shared her meat with the cat, and all
went well until a second cat appeared. He, too, caught

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