China's new day : a study of events that have led to its coming /

Foreword

The Central Committee believes that it has been led providentially to the study of China at a great crisis in her history. Until November the Committee confidently expected to publish a book on another subject; but the serious illness of the author compelled a sudden change. The Committee was led to write to Dr. Headland who responded to the request that he write a book on present conditions in China with a time limit of six weeks. He has completed the task and the Committee issues this unique book on China on the date intended. Dr. Headland from his long residence in Peking has had the advantage of observing at close range the remarkable events and characters of the past decade, while Mrs. Headland, in her position of physician to the princesses, had unusual opportunities to study the women of the highest class. And now China has this day, February 12th, been declared a Republic. With the study of our book begins a new era. Sun Yat Sen, who has done so much to free China, is a rare man, the highest type of Christian patriot. The future of China now depends largely on the attitude of the Christian Church and her response to the needs of the Chinese. How marvellously “ God is working His purpose out.” He has opened the doors and waits for us to say whether the earth shall be filled with His knowledge.

May the study of this book lead us all to a new understanding of His plan and power and to a new devotion to His cause.

Mrs. Henry W. Peabody.

Miss E. Harriet Stanwood.

Mrs. Decatur M. Sawyer.

Mrs. Frank Mason North.

Miss Grace T. Colburn.

Miss Rachel Lowrie.

Mrs. A. V. Pohlman.

Miss Olivia H. Lawrence.

Students, Canton Christian College

Presbyterian Board

The Queue Line, Getting Ready for Church, Academy, Nanking

Presbyterian Board

■HU

Chapter I

The China which is so rapidly emerging could never have been developed by orderly evolution from the old China so swiftly passing away. There had to be a definite break with the past, a frank abandonment of certain outgrown ideals, and an adoption of certain new principles and methods from without.

One of the most powerful factors in the creation of the New China has been and is the process of dissociation with the past and a deliberate change of attitude. For millenniums China’s face has been toward the past. Pier literature, her government, her social life have all deified the past and subordinated the present.

It is the aim of the present chapter to trace Gf some of the influences which have contributed to Chapter, bring about this most remarkable intellectual revolution of a whole people (for it is nothing less) that the world has ever seen.

Some such survey is necessary if we are to Necessary to measure the factors which to-day are making a Correct Unnew China. Without this revolution in view- ^erstan^in^ point and polity all the other factors would be impotent to bring about in a decade changes which intelligent observers had expected to

Chino-Japanese War.

Battle of Assam.

take at least a century or two. The first I shall mention is the Chino-Japanese War.

In June, 1894, I started from Peking for a trip to Korea. When I boarded the steamer at Tientsin, I had heard no murmurings of war. When I landed at Chefoo three days later, 1 went on shore amidst companies of Japanese soldiers, horses, provisions, ammunition, and all the equipments of an army. The bluff was covered with Koreans, clothed in white smocks and horsehair hats, sitting smoking long-stemmed pipes, as unconcerned as though nothing was happening, with no regard for the fact that by their inviting the Chinese to come over and put down a rebellion, they had involved the two greatest nations of the Orient in a war which was to establish the reputation of the one as a fighter, and to awaken the other to a realization of her weakness.

A few nights later I was called by Dr. George . Heber Jones, with whom I was staying, to see before our door a company of Japanese soldiers stacking arms, and then a half hour later to see them take up their arms, fall into line, and march away as silently as the proverbial Arab. The next morning it was reported that the battle of Assam had been fought, the Chinese had been defeated, and the gun had been fired which was to awaken China, subjugate Korea, and make Japan, for a time at least, a leader in the progress of the Orient.

For several years previously the Japanese had been preparing for this struggle. They had their students in our colleges and universities, their business men in all the Oriental ports, and their army officers studying all the languages of Europe and gathering up all the information about China that might be of interest or assistance in the coming struggle. I myself taught the major, who afterwards sounded the harbors of the Gulf of Pechelee, distinguished himself during the war, and returned as general to take charge of the troops in China when it was over.

There was another factor which contributed, though in a more quiet way, to the awakening of China. This was the sending of the New Testament as a birthday present to the Empress Dowager.

In 1894 the Christian women in China — European, American and Chinese — decided to pay their respects to the Empress Dowager. This year she celebrated with great pomp her sixtieth birthday. Never perhaps since the days of K’ang Hsi and Ch’ien Lung had preparations been made on so large a scale. A stone road had been built from Peking to the summer palace, fifteen miles west of the capital. Silver was sent in from all the provinces in great quantities, and presents began to pour in from all parts of the empire. The Christian women from England and America, and the Christian Chinese ladies.

Preparing for War.

Sending New Testament into Palace.

Printed with New Type.

Chinese Love Ceremony decided to give the Empress Dowager a birthday present.

After discussing the matter in several meetings, a committee was appointed, and the New Testament was selected as the most appropriate present to be given on that occasion. New type was at once cast; it was printed on the best of foreign paper, was bound in silver, embossed bamboo pattern, inclosed in a silver box, which was placed in a red plush box, which in turn was inclosed in a beautifully carved teakwood box, and the whole put in an ordinary pine box, and sent to the British and American ministers, who sent it to the foreign office, whence it was carried to the palace to Her Majesty. These ladies put all the ceremony they co.ild into the preparation and transmission of their present, knowing that ceremony would play as large a part in its acceptance as would the gift itself.

The Chinese love ceremony. We do not. We meet a man on the street, and with a wave of the hand and a 4 4 how do you do,” we rush on as though to overtake the flight of time. The Chinese are never in a hurry. They have gone quietly and restfully on for so many centuries that it never occurs to them that there is any need for hurry. A man meets another on the street, makes a polite bow, says a fewT words, makes another polite bow and says a few words more, then another polite bow, and, with “I’ll see you again,” passes quietly and slowly on and it seems restful to see him do it.

TIIE BREAK WITH THE PAST 5

The Empress Dowager had the pine box opened, as all presents to Her Majesty had to be opened, in her presence. There was the beautifully carved teakwood box, carved like the frame of her portrait which is now in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

Next appeared the red plush box. Red is the sign of happiness in China. The bride’s dress is red; the chair in which she rides is red; New Year’s gifts are wrapped in red and tied with a red string, — everything that signifies happiness is red, — and so these ladies silently wished the Empress Dowager happiness on her sixtieth birthday, and she understood the wish.

Next appeared a silver box suggestive of the silver basis of China’s monetary system. Within that was the Word of God bound in silver.

We do not know what influence the New Testament had upon that great woman — and she was a great woman. She was born in a humble home. She was taken into the palace at sixteen years of age and made the concubine of the Emperor, a condition which no member of the Manchu race covets for his daughter. She studied until she could read the classical language as well as the officials could read it; and she so approved herself to the ladies of the court that she was elevated to the position of Kuei fei or first concubine. She became the mother of the Emperor’s only son, and was raised to the position of wife. Her husband died when her son

Red the Sign of Happiness.

Silver Box.

Greatness of the Dowager.

Puts Kuang Hsu on Throne.

was only three years of age, and she contrived to have him placed upon the throne, with herself as regent during his minority. In order to do this it was necessary for her to sweep from the board seven princes who were anxious to take control of affairs.

During these years of regency she found time, among other duties, to make matches for her sisters and brothers. She had her younger sister married to her husband’s younger brother, thus making her the mother of the present line of rulers. Her son died as soon as he reached his majority, and that same night she went out to her sister’s home, and brought in her three-and-ahalf-year-old boy. The next morning, when she announced the death of her son, she proclaimed this child as his successor under the dynastic title of Kuang Hsu, or brilliant succession, with herself as regent again during his minority. When he failed to rule according to the ideas of his people, she was compelled to dethrone him; and, when she was about to die, she selected her sister’s grandson, little Pu Yi, and placed him upon the throne. Here we have the spectacle of a little girl, born in a humble home, being made the concubine of an emperor, the wife of an emperor, the mother of an emperor, the maker of two emperors, the regent for two emperors, the dethroner of an emperor, and the ruler of four hundred millions of people for forty-seven years, in a country where women are supposed to have no power, — a great woman in the nineteenth century.

It was this great woman to whom these Christian women decided to give a birthday present, and they selected the New Testament. Whether Her Majesty read it or not we do not know, but it may have been its inspiration that led her to decide to blot out the opium traffic, and to give a constitution to her people; two decisions that are worthy of the greatest ruler that has ever sat upon the Dragon Throne.

Whatever its influence upon the Empress Dowager, we know what the result was on the mind of Kuang Hsu, for the next morning after it was taken into the palace, he sent out to the American Bible Society and bought an Old and New Testament, such as were being sold to the common people.

A few days later a gardener, who furnished flowers and vegetables to the palace, came to me and said: “Mr. Headland, something unusual is taking place in the palace.”

“Why do you think so?” I asked.

“Well,” he answered, “the eunuchs won’t talk about anything but Christianity. They kept me talking until dinner time, ,and when I wanted to leave they would not let me go. They continued to ply me with questions until I was so hungry that I said, ‘I must go home and get my dinner. ’ ”

The Biggest Thing in the World.

Emperor Buys Bible.

Friend Visits Palace.

Emperor Studies Gospel of Luke.

Development of Kuang Hsii.

Eunuchs Buy- Toys for Em-

‘Don’t be in a hurry, we are just about to have a feast brought in, and you must stay and eat with us;’ and they kept me there till dark, trying to find out all they could about the Christian religion. Something unusual is taking place. ” A few days later they invited him to bring the assistant pastor into the palace to dine with them, to teach them more about Christianity; and during the conversation they told my friends that the Emperor had a portion of the Gospel of Luke copied in large characters each day, which he spread out on the table before him, “and, ” said the eunuch who stood behind his chair while he studied,* “I can look over his shoulder, and see what he is doing, he is studying Luchia fu yin, — the Gospel of Luke. ”

We can never understand the awakening of China without understanding something of the character and development of Kuang Hsii. Remember that he was taken out of the world, where he was free to learn everything, into the palace, where he was expected to follow in the footsteps of his ancestors whose faces were always turned toward the past; and where he did not have a single child to play with, and only eunuchs, serving girls, court ladies and the two Dowagers as his associates, with every wish gratified.

The eunuchs went out into the city and bought him toys — Chinese toys. He did not like them. They finally found a foreign store on Legation Street, where they bought him some of those peror.

foreign mechanical toys which he wound up and set going, and that was what he wanted — something that would go. He played until, like Budge and Toddy, he wanted to know “what made the wheels go wound, ” and he broke his toy and found a spring within.

The eunuchs bought him other toys including Watches Swiss- watches and cuckoo clocks. I went through and Clocks, his palace in 1901 with a pass from the American soldiers who were guarding the front gate while he was away at Sianfu. There was a long window along the south side of the room which was filled with clocks from one end to the other, all ticking a different time. There were tables about the room, and clocks on the tables. There was a beautiful curly maple desk with a clock upon it. I sat down upon a French chair upholstered in red plush, and a music box began to play in the seat of the chair. This was attached to an electric fan upon the wall which kept me cool on that hot August day. It was the Emperor’s reading chair, the eunuchs told me. He could sit and read, and listen to the music, and be kept cool by the electric fan. This boy, taken out of the world at three and a half years of age, had all these toys of modern times in the palace.

Then he heard of the huo lun che — the fire- Railroad in wheel cart, and he wanted one. He thereupon Palace, had a railroad built along the west shore of the Lotus Lake in the palace grounds, and two little cars and an engine made in Europe large enough

Steam Launches in Lotus Lake.

Telegraph.

Telephone.

Phonograph.

to take the court . for a ride on this newly constructed merry-go-round.

He then heard of the huo lun ch'uan — the firewheel boat, and he had small steam launches brought into the palace and put into the Lotus Lake and in the lake at the summer palace, and these he could attach to the Empress Dowager’s barge and take the court for a ride about the lake.

Later he heard of a method of sending messages by a flash of lightning. He got the telegraph into the palace, and now the most distant part of the empire is tied up to the palace by the electric wire.

Then he heard of a method by which one could talk for a distance of fifty or a hundred miles, and ready to believe anything he heard about these foreigners he brought the telephone into the palace, and now Peking and most of the other Chinese coast cities are cobwebbed with telephones.

Finally he heard about the talk-box. We happened to have a phonograph in our physical laboratory; the officials came and bought it, and took it into the Emperor, and we had a cinematograph for him about the time he was dethroned. He brought the great inventions of modern times into the palace, including sleighs, carriages, automobiles, electric lights, and everything that would add to his intelligent understanding of the foreigner. Then he had the New

Testament, — and this gave him an inspiration, and opened up to him a new line of investigation.

As soon as Kuang Hsii began to study his New Testament it was commonly reported about Peking that he had become a Christian. It was said that he catechised the eunuchs, and would not allow them to pass until they confessed that they worshiped Jesus Christ; that when he went to the temples he did not worship the idols, but that he worshiped Tien Chu , the Lord of Heaven.

After Kuang Hsii had studied his New Testament for some weeks, a eunuch came to me from the palace, saying: “The Emperor has heard that there are a great many books translated from your honorable Western language into our miserable Chinese language, and he would like to have some.” Many of the stories, moreover, that were currently reported about Peking were confirmed by this eunuch.

I was in charge of two tract societies and the college text-books, and I sent him some books. The following day the eunuch came again and said, “The Emperor wants more books.” I sent him more books. The next day he came with the same request, and I complied in a like manner. Every day for six weeks that eunuch came to buy more books for the Emperor, until he had bought every book that had been translated out of the European languages into Chinese. Some-

Report of Emperor Becoming Christian.

Emperor

Buys

Books.

Sent Bicycle Into Palace.

Young Scholars Follow Emperor's Example.

times I had nothing but a Christian sheet tract. Finally I had to go into my wife’s private library and send him her Chinese medical books.

One day the eunuch saw my wife’s bicycle standing on the veranda, and he asked, “ Che shih shen mo che? What kind of a cart is this?”

11 Na shih ke tze hsing che. That is a selfmoving cart,” I answered.

“ Tsen ?no chi ? How do you ride it?” he continued.

I took it down, and rode a few times around the compound.

“This is queer,” he exclaimed, “why doesn’t it fall down? It only has two wheels.”

“When a thing is moving, it can’t fall down,” I assured him.

The next day when he came he said, “The Emperor wants this bicycle.” And so I sent my wife’s bicycle in to Kuang Hsu, and it was reported a short time afterwards that in trying to ride, his queue had become entangled in the back wheel and he had had a fall, and then he gave up trying to ride the bicycle as many another person has done.

When the progressive officials and young scholars throughout the empire heard that the boy Emperor was so deeply interested in all kinds of foreign inventions and foreign learning, they rummaged the world to get them for him, certain that if they succeeded in securing anything new or unique, they would have better prospects of securing an official position.

These same young progressives secured permission to establish reading clubs, and one of them asked me to send in their subscription for all the leading American, English, German, French and Russian magazines, and some of the leading newspapers ; not simply that they might have some place to go to spend an evening, but that they might keep up with the news and progress of the world.

Newspapers and magazines similar to those conducted by such missionaries as Drs. Young J. Allen and Timothy Richard were started all over the empire, and began to have a perceptible influence on the development of a political as well as religious sentiment among the people, for newspapers up to that time were practically unknown. Artists and caricaturists soon arose, and it was not long before it began to be a question whether the pilot had complete control of the ship of state. English, German and French newspapers in all the open ports were freely discussing the spheres of influence of their respective governments. They spoke daily, freely, impertinently, insultingly, of dividing China up among the Powers, until every schoolboy in every essay, 'oration or debate, discussed the best methods of reforming their government, and making China strong and able to withstand the incursions of Europe.

All this time Kuang Hsii was studying his books, — devouring them with a passion which

Reading

Clubs.

Newspapers and Magazines.

Dividing

China.

“ China's Only Hope.

only those can understand who know the Chinese character. Chang Chih-tung, the Viceroy of Hunan and Hupeh, was writing his epochmaking book, “China’s Only Hope,” in which he was urging the people to study Japan, and the scholars to translate books from all the European languages into Chinese, but especially those books which had contributed to make Japan strong. Japan had whipped China; now let Japan teach China how she did it. This book was sent to Kuang Hsu. He wrote an introduction or approved of it, and ordered that it be published in large editions and scattered broadcast over the empire. Yellow posters advertised it on every wall in all the provincial capitals, and millions were published and read, often by readers on the street corners.

Kang Yu-wei in the south was writing books which were causing him to be called the young Confucius, and which finally won for him a position on the Board of Rites, and as counselor of the Emperor himself, one of the largest opportunities that was offered to any man during the nineteenth century.

After Kuang Hsii had taken a three years’ course of study in his books and 'had become acquainted with all kinds of modern invention, he decided to take a trip to Japan. This was changed to a trip to Tientsin, and finally given up altogether. He began to issue his reform edicts, and geldojn perhaps, if ever, in the history of the world were so many people aroused to so high a pitch of excitement over the prospects of a peaceful reform as were the Chinese.

Among the most important edicts issued was one in which he ordered that a Board of Education be established, with a university in Peking and a college in the capital of each of the provinces. The effect of this edict upon the empire has been tremendous. Twenty-one years ago there was but one school teaching foreign learning established by the government. Now there are reported to be more than forty thousand schools, colleges and universities engaged in propagating the kind of learning in which Kuang Hsii was interested. China has entirely overturned her old system of education, — admitted to be the greatest that was ever developed by a non- Christian people; a system which dominated and developed them for fifteen hundred years, — and has definitely committed herself to the system of the West.

It is worthy of note also, that the new system is almost entirely the result of foreign influence. Almost all the schools and colleges opened in China up to that time were by American missionaries, and after the American plan. The first six colleges and universities established by the government were opened for them by five men who went to China as missionaries, four of whom were Americans. These were Drs. W. A. P. Martin, C. D. Tenney, W. M. Hayes,

Edicts — Board of Education.

American Influence in Education.

Missionary- Influence in Chinese Education.

Edict — Board of Railroads.

John C. Fergusson and Timothy Richard. The first public school system prepared for the government was drawn up by Dr. W. M. Hayes for Yuan Shi ki, then Governor of Shantung Province. This was submitted to the Empress Dowager, received her approval, and, after Governor Yuan was made Viceroy of Chihli, was put into operation in that province, with some modifications by Dr. C. D. Tenney. At the present time many of these schools have been closed for lack of funds and competent teachers, and we are told that the government is willing to allow the missionaries to put a Christian teacher into any one of these schools if they will add ten to twenty dollars annually toward his support. This is one of the greatest opportunities before the church to-day.

A second important edict issued by Kuang Hsii was the establishment of a Board of Railroads. He had had his little railroad in the palace for years. He had vision enough to see from behind his great brick walls the effect that the building of railroads would have upon the development of the country, and upon his darling project of reform. Twenty-one years ago there were but one hundred miles of railroad in the whole empire. Another had been built at Wu Sung in the region of Shanghai, but the Chinese bought it, and then tore it up and threw it into the river. At the present time there are about seven thousand miles built, five thousand miles projected,

Track Team, University of Nanking Presbyterian Board and the Chinese have just borrowed fifty millions of dollars from Europe and America to build another thousand miles of road from Hankow to Szechuan.

A third important edict ordered the establish- Board of ment of a Board of Mines. There is probably Mines, no country in the world richer in mineral deposits than China and the countries around her border.

Coal, both anthracite and bituminous, iron, gold, silver, quicksilver, tin, copper and precious stones — especially jade — are found in rich deposits. And yet I have seen an old blind woman sitting on the bare ground in the cornfield on a cold winter day, feeling about her if by chance she might find a few weeds or cornstalks to light a fire under her brick bed and cook her morsel of food, oblivious of the fact that just beneath her were great veins of coal, if only they dared open the earth and take it out. This they did not dare to do. Do you ask why? There were spirits in the earth, in the hills, in the rivers, in the mountains— spirits everywhere. They did not dare to open mines for fear of disturbing the Feng shua, and destroying the luck of the neighborhood.

The only mines they opened were those where the veins of coal appeared in the side of the hill.

(I have heated my house in Peking with as good anthracite coal as can be found in my native state of Pennsylvania* And yet every bushel of coal I have burned during all these years was brought into the city from the hills twenty-five or thirty

Women’s Influence in China's Reform.

Dismisses

Officials.

Emperor Sends for Yuan Shi ki.

miles distant, on the backs of camels, donkeys or mules.) Now the mines are being properly opened and a railroad connects them with the capital and with a system of roads that go east, west, north and south from Peking.

Kuang Hsii issued twenty-seven such great edicts in about twice as many days. Why? Was this because the Christian women from England and America, with their Christian Chinese sisters, sent the Gospel of Jesus Christ into the palace? It was the sending of the New Testament that led the Emperor to buy books, and it was the study of these books that gave him his vision of a great progressive government.

By one of these edicts Kuang Hsii dismissed six presidents and vice presidents of the Board of Rites, because they refused the people the privilege of sending sealed memorials into the palace. These six men, with other disaffected officials, went to the summer palace, where the Empress Dowager had been quietly spending the hot months of the summer of 1898, taking no hand in his reforms, and begged her to come into the city and teach him how to guide the ship of state. She listened to them, dismissed them, but gave no indication of what she would do.

When Kuang Hsii heard what they had done, he sent for Yuan Shi ki, who was in charge of 12,500 troops at Tientsin, summoned him to an interview, ordered him to return to Tientsin, massacre Jung Lu, the Governor General of the province, bring his troops, and imprison the Empress Dowager in the summer palace, and not allow her to interfere with his reforms. At this time Kang Yu-wei was the chief adviser of the Emperor.

Yuan knew that to carry out this order with so small a number of troops at his command would bring on a revolution. Jung Lu was his superior officer. Both of them and the Emperor also had received their positions at the hands of the Empress Dowager, and to assassinate the one and imprison the other on the order of the boy Emperor would bring calamity. He therefore went to Jung Lu, showed him the order, and consulted as to what it would be best to do.