The political awakening of the East; studies of political progress in Egypt, India, China, Japan, and the Philippines

Contents

Sia a as eet ; it oe N= ped ence y) 5 i

Introduction

GEORGE SLocuM BENNETT, a graduate of Wesleyan University in the class of 1864, showed his lifelong interest in the training of youth for the privileges and duties of citizenship by long periods of service as a member of the board of education of his home city, and as member of the boards of trustees of Wyoming Seminary and Wesleyan University.

It was fitting, therefore, that, when the gifts made by himself and family to Wesleyan University were combined to form a fund whose income should be used “‘in defraying the expenses of providing for visiting lecturers, preachers, and other speakers supplemental to the college faculty,” it should have been decided that the primary purpose should be to provide each year a course of lectures, by a distinguished speaker, “for the promotion of a better understanding of national problems and of a more perfect realization of the responsibilities of citizenship,’ and to provide for the publication of such lectures so that they might reach a larger public than the audience to which they should, in the first instance, be addressed.

In arranging for the fifth course of lectures on this foundation, the committee made a radical departure from their usual procedure in selecting as the lecturer a member of the faculty of Wesleyan University, George Matthew Dutcher, Hedding Professor of History. During the academic year 1921-22 Professor Dutcher was granted leave of absence by the trustees of the University in order that he might make a first-hand study of political and social conditions in various eastern countries. In the course of his travels, which extended over a period of fifteen months, Professor Dutcher made the circuit of the globe, lecturing at a large number of foreign schools, colleges, and universities, where he enjoyed exceptional opportunities for the study of educational problems, and for making the acquain-

6 INTRODUCTION tance of persons of distinction in all walks of life in many different countries. During the period of his absence important political changes were taking place in the various countries of the East, which were bound to have far-reaching effects. In particular, the question of the relations between the East and the West had begun to assume a greater importance, perhaps, than at any other time in history, and Professor Dutcher became especially interested in studying the growth and influence of western political ideas in eastern lands.

The committee on the Bennett Lectures were glad to make available to a Wesleyan audience the result of these timely investigations, undertaken by a scholar whose training and experience admirably fitted him for his task, and they now take pleasure in presenting the lectures in printed form.