The educational conquest of the Far East

Front matter

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PRINCETON, N. J.

Purchased by the Hamill Missionary Fund.

Preface

IN these pages a conscientious attempt is made to exhibit the growth and present status of education in the Far East, and to draw attention to its problems and possibilities. The educational conquest described began about the middle of the nineteenth century, and is as yet far from completed. The methods of campaign employed by the West against the East may be briefly described as conquest by arms, by machines, by church and by school. It is with the conquest of ideas, of mind over mind that we have to do. The chief sources of information have been personal investigations at the leading Japanese seats of learning, visitation of the fifty high schools and colleges in China and interviews with over two hundred government and missionary educators, native and foreign.

At the invitation of the American Minister to Japan the facts contained in a portion of this volume were first prepared for the State Department in Washington, and having been translated into Chinese, are now being circulated for the information of the officials of China.

The time has not yet arrived for an adequate discussion of the problems and forces involved in the educational conquest of the Philippines. ii

Preface

My sincere appreciation is due to Dr. Arthur H. Smith of China, to Mr. Ransford S. Miller of the American Legation, Tokio, and to President K. Ibuka of the Meiji Gakuin, Tokio, for examining the manuscript, and for their most helpful suggestions. My indebtedness is gratefully acknowledged to educators in many parts of Japan and China who have helped me to verify facts and trace out sources.

I have been able in many cases to settle convictions and buttress statements by reference to general works and current literature, and it is hoped that the accompanying bibliography may guide others to an extended reading upon eastern educational subjects. Several Chinese and Japanese publications of the greatest importance have been specially translated for use in the preparation of this volume, but the quotations from the Chinese classics have been taken from the standard renderings of Drs. James Legge, H. A. Giles and E. Faber, while the North China Daily News has been freely drawn on for copies of Imperial Edicts. Wade’s standard system has been followed in converting Chinese words into English, with the exception of a few geographical and biographical names which have been fixed in other forms by long usage.

Shanghai, China.

R. E. L.

Eastern Educational Conditions .