Show G CHINESE AT SCHOOL work of tho missions on tho the pa clulo coast 1 john it instinct for material 11 aan renders I 1 an apt scholar hr holar hut lie ite is I 1 Devir deplorably ably deficient in iam acea putting rower power the chinese whom we see sec in this count country ry as immigrants are almost to a nian man from the province of canton and the C I 1 I 1 are arc at once the aliu most en s 1 ng tho the bravest arid and tile to tough ugliest cht subjects of tin the emperor irom from their ranks are drawn tile the el cleverest everest merchants in all parts of china tho the most daring navigators the finest soldiers and the most efficient police they push out into other countries says a writer in kate fields washington when alien they can no longer endure tho the overpopulation poverty and squalor tit at home V aos 0 bibly one in twenty can road read arid and write in a very limited way tho the rest have neither the time nor the opportunity to learn there aro are no public schools in china and life there is so bo wholly a struggle forthe for the barest needs of existence that the means would be lacking to attend them it if there were where a family of from four to six persons jointly ea earn rn and are expected to house clotho clothe and feed themselves on tour four dollars a month where t the ie common peoples food consists of poor rice at a cent and it a half a pound now and then it vegetable which they are able to raise the themselves m ives and perhaps once a week it a little litti e belsh fish where they must work in fix freezing weather out of doors clad I 1 arf d cotton garments from such a region any escape is ia welcome any refuge is heaven as compared with it the cantonese knows nothing not liing as danger privation or hardship after what lie he has left beland him at home fighting comes as natural to him as freezing or starving it is only one of the incidents after all of an existence whose highest aim was the procuring of means to sustain itself and whose boundaries were drawn by the liand hand of an inexorable fate what I 1 leavo lave said here will account for the slow progress which seems to b be e made by the various charitable agencies s established by the white people for the benefit of the chinese four rel religious ivious societies for instance have opened in mission I 1 s schools for them in the el city ty of 11 portland ortland these institutions are all doing earnest work but only one lias has secured the services of an american instructor tor who can talk to his pupils in the chinese language the rest have white persons at their head with chinese interpreters preachers and teachers the exception is the presbyterian school presided over by rev william S holt who lived ten years in china and became an expert in speaking and writing the language of the country and more especially the dialect of the cantonese 1 his 1 is work may be taken it if 1 local kopini opinion 0 n is to be trusted as about the best gauge of the success of such efforts during the four years he hb lias has been here lie has had some tw two 0 hi indred hundred pupils of these only about it dozen leave lave shown a desire to carry their education any distance past the rudimentary stage this is not because the rest are arc lazy or stupid for they are the very reverse the pupils arc are mostly household use servants and clerks in stores they make no matter of coming to school in ili the evening after a hard days work and spending two or three hours at their hooks books and the chinaman has yet to be found who can not learn his english at alphabet in one day and be ready the next to read words of a single syllable the whole trouble Is that they are apathetic about every thing beyond what they tee hee is going to bring them in some borne immediate profit or make their work a lay day lives a trifle easier they can find a wider market for their labor and command better wages if they can speak read and write english therefore they seek such knowledge the idea of I 1 learning earning for own sake of getting an education for the fund of internal resources and refined enjoyment it will bring with it is furthest from their minds for centuries their ancestors ee s tors have had no higher ambit ambition jot than tho the satisfaction of tile the bodily wants of tho the day and tile the provision of a hole to er crawl awl I 1 into to at night what can be expected of of the effect of such sordid influences upon the thought and character of the present generation impelled by the instinct of material gain tho the chinaman seeks the school and begins his studies ilia his progress is phenomenally rapid up to the point where mere merd memorizing ceases and the exercise ex erciso of the reasoning faculty begins here he makes hs his first tumbles stumbles not that ha does docs norget not get along foghis for liis shrewdness at devising expedients is marvelous mar relous he will surmount difficulties in his own fashion tas lilon most cleverly it if they lie directly in the path he has fixed his resolve tt to travel in by far the largest number of cases where they lie outside of that straight line lie he has no desire to carry his research further |