able notice of the officials at Nanking. When, three years ago, therefore, the Viceroy and Sheng-Taotai decided to found a college at Shanghai, they offered him the presidency. He refused it, and the post was offered in succession to the wellknown American missionary, Dr. Young J. Allen, and to Mr. John Fryer, an Englishman, neither of whom would accept it. On this they turned again to Mr. Ferguson, and, with the consent of the authorities of his Church, he agreed to accept the position. Very liberal provision has been made for the support and growth of this College. When I met Mr. Ferguson at Shanghai two years ago, he was building a dormitory, at a cost of 71,000 taels, or about $57,000 gold, and several houses for foreign professors. The specialty of the College is to be the department of History and Political Science, the Professor of which, Mr. Clement Sites, is the son of a missionary, and a graduate of the PostGraduate School of Columbia University in New York.

Mr. Ferguson's influence with the Viceroy, one of the most progressive men and the truest

extension of its settlement more to Mr. Ferguson than to any other man.

The three institutions described above are the leading Government schools of foreign learning in China. There are a few church schools of high grade, whose principals are Americans, which are equally deserving of notice. Indeed, their success is more significant than that of those under Government auspices, for they have no rewards in the shape of official positions to offer any of their students on graduation. Their chief attraction must be the excellence of their work. These schools are the Peking University, the Nanking University, the Anglo-Chinese and St. John's Colleges

friend of foreigners in China, was strikingly shown two years ago when the Consuls-General of the Powers were trying to obtain an extension of the AngloAmerican settlement at Shanghai. For months these gentlemen had been engaged in fruitless negotiations with the Viceroy at Nanking, and, through the Ministers, with the Tsungli-Yamên at Peking. length they asked Mr. Ferguson to act as intermediary for them with the Viceroy. He did so, and an agreement was soon reached. One of the leading English papers at Shanghai declared editorially that the community owed the long-desired

At

at Shanghai, the "Christian College" at Canton, and our own American Board and AngloChinese Colleges here. In addition to these, in which English is taught, there is the Presby terian College at Tengchau, in Shantung, where all the work is done in Chinese.

The Peking University belongs to the American Methodists, and had, before the recent outbreak, about two hundred and fifty students. It had one of the finest college buildings in China, and was well equipped in the liberal arts and medical departments. Like the Government schools, it supports its students, though not on so liberal a scale, the money coming from the home Church. Its President, Dr. H. H. Lowry, has been in China for over thirty years, and is well and favorably known in the North. The Nanking University, also Methodist, is rather a high school than what its name indicates, and boards its students free. It has a large field for work, and has been favorably noticed by Lui-Kung-Yi, the

Viceroy of the Kiangsu Province. Anglo-Chinese College at Shanghai owes its existence to Dr. Young J. Allen, of the Southern Methodist Church, who twenty years ago saw the need of such a school at the great commercial emporium of China. A good deal of money was given to him by Chinese, and the enterprise was begun under the most favorable auspices. Owing, however, in part to the difficulty of keeping sufficiently long for thorough study students many of whom pay their way, in a city where even a little English brings a rich reward, it has had a checkered career, but it still has about three hundred students. A much more important school, St. John's College, belongs to the American Episcopalians, and has about two hundred students. It has beautiful grounds and fine buildings about five miles from the business center of the city,

and its President, the Rev. F. H Pott, of New York, is well and favor known to both Chinese and foreig He is an able man, a good Chinese sch and largely endowed with the good s and tact without which other gifts ar but little value in China. As at the o schools mentioned, many of the stud at St. John's are supported by the ho Church. The "Christian College" Canton was founded a few years ago the Rev. Dr. A. P. Happe, of the Ameri Presbyterian Mission, the dean of missionary body in China. I visited soon after its opening, and found over hundred students in attendance. T administration was planning on a la scale for its future. It has a great fi of operations, and may be trusted to effe desirable results in that most turbulent Chinese cities, Canton. The Americ

Board college here is the outgrowth of a school, and has made a favorable impression on the Chinese. One of its professors is a Cantonese who graduated a few years ago in the science course at Harvard. Its President, the Rev. Lyman P. Peet, is a son of one of the early American missionaries to Siam.

Our own Anglo-Chinese College (of which the writer has been President since 1883) belongs to the Methodist Episcopal Church, and is the largest college in the Empire. It is the only one which gives nothing to the support of its students. It is conducted in this respect precisely as a college in America; every student pays for what he gets. The first subscription toward its founding, in 1881, was one of ten thousand dollars from a Chinese merchant. It opened with only seventy students, and has now over three hundred, even though for the last five years it has been impossible, because of insufficient room, to receive more than sixty per cent. of the applicants. It has a faculty of seventeen professors and tutors. Its students come from widely separated places, some even from Singapore, two thousand miles away, and they represent nearly every class eligible for admission to the Government civil service examinations. The College has ample grounds and three large buildings, and is now erecting another. The grounds and all but one of the buildings it owes to Chinese gifts. Though not in any sense an official school, it is visited by the officials, who by speech and gifts have testified to their interest in its work.

In all these colleges the curriculum is very much the same. In addition to the regular Chinese studies, the aim is to give a good knowledge of English, and in some of them this language is used in the upper classes as the medium of instruction in all the Western branches.

As to the influence of these institutions under distinct but not oppressive Christian auspices, it is not necessary to enlarge. They are the most effective and attractive sources of instruction in the higher things of our civilization at work in China, and, under the new conditions which it is hoped may result from the settlement of the present troubles, their range and effectiveness will be immensely enlarged. It is to such colleges that the foreign friends of China may look with

most hope as the leaven of higher thinking and living in the future.

It is now time to bring this article to a close, but before doing so I desire to call attention to the following:

First, the large share taken by Americans in educational reform in China. They have taken far and away the leading part, whether under the auspices of Christian Churches or under the direction of the Imperial Government. The value of such an American representation to all the interests of this country can scarcely be estimated.

Second, the regularity with which the authorities have invited missionaries to their aid in this work. Mr. Henry Norman, an English traveler who took a flying leap over China a few years ago, who did not know a word of the language, and who met a few officials only in the most formal manner, declares in the book which records the sights and guesses of his journey that" the Chinese themselves bracket opium and missionaries together as the twin curses of the country." To what extent they make this classification let the above be the gauge. Missionaries, because of the very nature of their work, have given rise to antagonisms, but many of the leading men of China to-day have more confidence in them than in any other class of foreigners. Whatever their mistakes, it is well known to many that their only object is the welfare of the people. I have personally known many highly educated and very intelligent Chinese, some of them officials of the highest rank, and, while they spoke frankly of their dislike of the religious propaganda, they showed thorough appreciation of the work of missionaries as educators and philanthropists. It behooves Americans, then, to be fair to their countrymen abroad. Honorable criticism is goodthe more there is of it the better; but in face of such facts as I have given sweeping accusations are undeserving of consideration. Fairer and truer is the judgment of a recent correspondent of the London "Times," who, writing from Tientsin in North China, declared, as quoted by Archdeacon Moule in his delightful book "New China and Old:" "The good effected by missionaries is by no means to be measured by a list of conversions. They are the true pioneers of civilization."