Professor Reinsch was born in Milwaukee in 1869. He received his A. B. from the University of Wisconsin in 1892 and his doctorate in 1898. He had the advantage of studying at the University of Berlin and at Rome and Paris. He was assistant professor of political science at his Alma Mater from 1899 to 1901, and full professor from 1901 to 1913, except for two years, 1911 and 1912, when he held the Roosevelt professorship at the Universities of Berlin and Leipzig. Since 1913, he has been Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to China. His present address is the American Legation, Peking, China.

Few men have had the advantages both in study and experience that have come to Dr. Reinsch, and few have met these advantages with keener love for truth and desire for knowledge. He is a member of several learned societies of law and political science, and is the author of many books on these and related subjects. Some of these books have been translated into Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, and German. The selection given here is taken from "Intellectual Currents in the Far East," and well illustrates the fact that deep learning and perfect clearness of expression may well go together in a literary production.

THE NEW EDUCATION OF CHINA

From "INTELLECTUAL AND POLITICAL CURRENTS IN THE FAR EAST." Chapter V. By Paul S. Reinsch.
Copyright, 1911, by the author.

... The zeal of the older teachers in trying to catch up with the foreign-trained men is at times almost pathetic. In most towns a "teachers' discussion class" has been organized. These classes were established by the initiative of the teachers themselves, in order that they might acquire the knowledge necessary for elementary instruction in the new branches. With great eagerness these men, varying in age from thirty-five to fifty-five years, will follow the instruction given by some youngster in the early twenties who has been fortunate enough to have had a course in Japan or the West. While the necessary superficiality of such a system must be deplored, the mere fact of this instruction being so eagerly sought by the teachers is the best proof that the old order, recognizing its inevitable fate, has abandoned the hope of regaining its former supremacy and is hurrying to adapt itself to the new conditions.

This enthusiasm also finds expression in great individual sacrifices, and even in martyrdom. Private gifts are made in large numbers, even without the solicitation of officials or the hope of rewards. Within the last few years, it has frequently happened that some person desirous of founding a school, and lacking the means to do so, has in truly Oriental fashion appealed to his or her townsmen by committing suicide, after writing out a touching request for aid in the new cause. A Tartar lady at Hankow who had founded a school for girls was unable to secure sufficient money for carrying on the work of the institution. In order to secure her object, she determined to commit suicide. In her farewell letter, she stated that she felt the need of the school so much that she would sacrifice her own life and thus impress the need upon those who were able to give money. Her act had the result desired, as after her death money came flowing in from many sources. In most cases, fortunately, the appeals for assistance are successful without going to such extremes. Thus, the wife of a district magistrate in Honan, having decided to establish a school for girls, wrote a circular setting forth that a girl, if uneducated, brings six kinds of injury to herself and three kinds to her children. The subtlety of her arguments fascinated the city folk, and sufficient funds for her purpose were soon provided.

The introduction of female education, which militates against the most deep-seated prejudices of the Chinese race, has called for greater personal sacrifices than any other part of educational reform. Some powerful patrons have indeed arisen. H. E. Tuan Fang urged the importance of this reform upon the Empress herself, with the result that, before her death, the great lady established a school for female education in the capital. Educated women are making a strong plea for the education of their sisters. Doctor King Ya-mei, herself educated in the West, points out that those who lament the superficial nature of the present reforms forget that "half the nation, whose special function it is to put into practice the ideas governing the world in which she lives, has not yet been touched; that the strong impressions of childhood are the lasting ones, and that man is but an embodiment of the ideas of the mother." But in the case of female education, it is not primarily the provision of funds that causes difficulties. The desire of women to share in the advantages of education is of itself looked upon by the majority of the Chinese as scandalous and not at all to be encouraged. Many heartrending tragedies have been brought about by insoluble conflicts of duty toward the old and the new. A short time ago, in an interior village in Kiang Su, a woman, ambitious to become educated, killed herself after bad treatment from her husband's relatives. Her farewell letter was everywhere copied by the Chinese press. It has become a national document, and almost a charter of the new movement. In it occur the following sentences: "I am about to die today because my husband's parents, having found great fault with me for having unbound my feet, and declaring that I have been diffusing such an evil influence as to have injured the reputations of my ancestors, have determined to put me to death. Maintaining that they will be severely censured by their relatives, once I enter a school and receive instruction, they have been trying hard to deprive me of life, in order, as they say, to stop beforehand all the troubles that I may cause. At first they intended to starve me, but now they compel me to commit suicide by taking poison. I do not fear death at all, but how can I part from my children who are so young? Indeed, there should be no sympathy for me, but the mere thought of the destruction of my ideals and of my young children, who will without doubt be compelled to live in the old way, makes my heart almost break."

The blood of such martyrs is beginning to make its impression upon the Chinese people, and is turning them to favor more liberal popular customs. A nation in which a spirit of such ruthless self-sacrifice is still so common may bring forth things that will astonish the world. It has been said that "China contains materials for a revolution, if she should start one, to which the horrors of the French revolution would be a mere squib;" but if turned into different channels, this spirit of self-sacrifice may, as it did in the case of Japan, bring about a quick regeneration of national life and national prestige, through the establishment of new institutions, that correspond to the currents of life thus striving to assert themselves.