Hsi-shan, of Shansi, as to their opinion of the wisdom of his assuming a dictatorship to restore confidence. To-day he assumed office with much pomp and ceremony, without waiting for the opinions of those who did not answer promptly.

TIENTSIN, Seventh Month 1, '27 The thermometer registers 109 in the shade. The officials continue to walk through the dusty streets twice daily, carrying burning tapers, to the Temple of the Supreme God, to petition for rain.

Chinese friends caution Westerners against venturing away from the protection of their armies and gunboats, warning them that the voice of conservative China is gagged in all political councils; and at the same time they evince alarm that Westerners are closing their affairs and returning to their native lands by every steamer, and cry that this exodus will push progress back hundreds of years both materially and spiritually.

I have seen figures compiled by a young Chinese economist which show that the Chinese small farmer is migrating north in unprecedented numbers and taking with him his chattels and his family. This man has returned from Manchuria, where he says the roads are filled with homestead seekers from Shantung and the Yangtze valley who sleep under the stars by night and trek by day, carrying their possessions as best they can. A large percentage of the women trudge on bound feet and have never been ten miles from home before. He reports a similar exodus from South China into the Philippines, Indo-China, and the Malay Peninsula. He shows that more than 900,000 Chinese have left their native land in the past four months.

Rumor is current that the coming election in the United States will make

politic the withdrawal of at least a number of the marines from China as a vote-securing measure.

Murmurs that the English taxpayer is not in favor of his country continuing to stand sponsor for and thereby incur the expense of policing those strips of land placed under her jurisdiction, as places of segregation for Westerners, and into which peoples of all nations, including Chinese, have crowded, have been given substance by the alacrity with which the British Concession at Hankow was relinquished and the readiness with which negotiations for the return of the Tientsin Concession were undertaken.

I wrote you last on the day Marshal Chang Tso-lin assumed office as Dictator. His first move was a declaration of adherence to the San Min principles, a statement of lifelong friendship with Dr. Sun Yat-sen, and the inauguration of a campaign to clear out Communism. Seventy-five students have been arrested for radicalism, suspected of distributing Soviet propaganda. The chief of police has pasted placards cautioning women and girls to appear in public in modest attire - bobbed hair is forbidden, sleeves and trousers must reach to wrist and ankle. Amah has just read with excitement the news that the police have arrested a girl today in Central Park who wore elbow sleeves.

The street sellers now confine their cries to the advertisement of their wares. A hot-cake man below my study window is shouting, 'Freshbaked dough for henpecked husbands.' There has been no lessening in taxes, but there is a general lessening in apprehension on the part of the people. Dictator Chang Tso-lin has announced that he will use his salary to relieve the poor. Wu, the fan-maker, tells me that he has bought six months' supplies and is again employing his

full staff of workers. He is confident of six months of peace. He says the future beyond is 'a mirror with the face to the wall.'

The Chinese press is to-day filled with conjecture as to the next move of Tupan Yen Hsi-shan, of Shansi, who failed to respond to Marshal Chang Tso-lin's telegram of query regarding the wisdom of assuming the dictatorship. A man who has just come from Tianyuanfu says that delegates from Feng Yu-hsiang, Chiang Kai-shek, two American publicists attached to the Hankow government, and a representative from Chang Tso-lin are all at the Shansi hotel hoping each to influence him to throw his strength with his particular party. The blue-andwhite flags of the South float peacefully with the five-barred flags of the North on the Shansi border, while the soldiers fraternize with each other and with the villagers.

I visited at the home of Yen Hsishan, in Shansi, seven years ago. He is a native of the province, born there in 1882, and attended college in Japan. He raised a local army and was a leader in the revolution of 1911, distinguishing himself by being the first general to propose the disbandment of troops to curtail expenses. He set an example by sending 30,000 of his men back to their farms and workshops. He has been tupan since 1916.

I remember thinking him very like many thrifty Quaker farmers we know. He had a solid, substantial appearance and carried himself with an unassuming self-respect. He talked principally of building barns, the breeding of draft. horses, and the rotation of crops. He seemed to regret the presence of neighboring war lords who made necessary the maintenance of a standing army to protect his province, and had a project for the distribution of imported seed wheat to the farmers.

His household was old-fashioned, clean, and without display.

Seventh Month 22, '27

A Chinese friend has warned me against the use of names, even in letters. She gave me the sad instance of one of her relatives who wrote of conditions in his city and has died in prison for the offense. A member of the American consular service told me that they now employ naval couriers, in all territory under the Nationalists, because of the censorship.

I have seen a Chinese girl, one of the blithest members of the Kuomintang when I was in Canton, who has just come away from Hankow a broken nervous wreck. She says that all the young idealists followed the movement to Hankow, by special invitation. She worked at the designing of colored posters, as she had done in Canton, and was not much interested in the subject so long as she could use plenty of color. In the beginning she was happy, because she was young and able to use her talent and at the same time further a national cause. She liked to see her posters pasted on the walls and think of them spread through many villages. One day she was distressed by continued cries of pain and asked aloud what it could be. Her friend, who worked near her, stopped her queries by popping a hand over her mouth and making a funny joke. When they were in private she explained that she feared the cries were the screams of victims tortured in prison. Day after day the cries continued, and young Chinese men and women began to talk quietly among themselves. The rumor spread that the adviser Petroff, assisted by a pock-marked Chinese, Chien, had instituted a house of torture to force merchants to give up their money to the government.

A much-liked Chinese disappeared

and word leaked out that he had been dropped into the river with stones tied about him. Groups of idealists huddled together and discussed the situation. Young Chinese men formed a secret society to assassinate Mr. Borodin and free the Kuomintang from Russian influence. Foreigners were gone, and with them their restraining influence. A reign of terror set in. Coolies out of work roamed the streets, looting and behaving in frightening ways.

The girl became ill and friends got her away. She still believes that the right must eventually conquer, and young China must find her leadership among her own nationals—not turn again to advisers from another land.

General Nan Kuei-hsin arrived in Peking on Saturday afternoon to lay before Chang Tso-lin proposals from Tupan Yen Hsi-shan for a national truce between all Chinese military factions, to rid the country of Russian interference and Communism. The following day Ho Cheng, a personal friend of General Chiang Kai-shek, arrived and was closeted with them. At the end it was given out that a grave menace is 'eating at the stomach of China' and that all men must unite to exterminate it.

On Monday, General Sun Chuanfang hurried up from Shantung and announced his opposition to a cessation of the Southern drive just when he has made arrangements to pay a quarter of a million dollars monthly to a 'White' Russian general for competent soldiers with whom to recapture Nanking and Shanghai. He cautioned Chang Tsolin against trusting Chiang Kai-shek, who he says is in league with General Feng Yu-shiang, whose confederacy with the Russians was exposed by the documents seized in the raid in Peking. Dictator Chang has expressed himself as strongly against the buying of 'White' Russian soldiers, which can only complicate an already complicated situation.

In the meantime General Feng has been shouting, 'Down with the Reds!' Mr. Borodin and his party have gone into retirement at Kuling, and are living uninvited in the houses of Westerners.

The Chinese press is filled with the record of innumerable suicides, who leave statements that they die because of sorrow for their country.

The Lama priests have begun a sixty-day period of prayer to Heaven for peace.

ANSWER ONE TO TEN

I AM an introvert. I am not altogether sure that it is wise for me to publish the fact; perhaps it would be as well to keep it within the family circle. It sounds as if it were a condition demanding six months' rest and the ministrations of a trained psychiatrist. But I have been reading up the subject, and I find that it is really nothing to be ashamed of. I find that some quite eminent persons have also been introverts. It appears that we must all of us be either introverts, extroverts, or ambiverts, and there is apparently little to choose. An ambivert would seem to be a rather characterless individual, neither one thing nor the other. An introvert is slightly more intellectual than an extrovert, but an extrovert usually makes more money. On the whole, I am quite content to be an introvert.

I did not know until yesterday that I was an introvert. In fact, I did not know that I had to be any one of the three. I found out my condition by means of what the psychologist terms an emotional hygiene test. I found it out by placing forty-eight crosses in carefully thought-out positions, by translating, with the aid of an ingenious table, the crosses into yes's and no's, and finally by adding the resultant affirmatives. Since I had twenty yes's to my credit, and since I am a female, I am an introvert.

I answered the questions very slowly and carefully; 'with thought,' as the directions bade. I did not look ahead to see to what my answers were committing me; I tried to answer with

the utmost honesty. It was a difficult test.

Each of the forty-eight questions had to be answered by placing a cross against a number from one to ten inclusive. The first question read: 'How steadily have you worked at the ordinary task of the day? Answer one to ten.' I considered carefully and finally gave myself a rating of five. I went on: 'How well have you remembered most of the errands and details of your daily routine? Answer one to ten.' I was just about to put a large cross under ten when conscience whispered, 'Ought you to call it remembering when you write everything down?' and added, 'What about your blue silk umbrella?' and I put a small cross under four. 'How have you acted and felt at social affairs? Answer one to ten.' But 'acted' and 'felt' are two different things. And just what do you mean by social affairs? 'How high a value have you placed on yourself and your abilities?' Oh, come, that's hardly fair. 'Do you like to argue?' That's an easy one. 'How have you met the obligations of your conscience?' Answer 'with thought.' 'Do you make friends with the opposite sex? Answer one to ten.' And so on for forty-eight questions.

The psychologist has the most abiding faith in the inherent value of questions and answers. He has the most touching confidence in the infallibility of figures. And if he can translate answers into figures, and especially if he can then translate the figures into graphs, he feels himself competent to compute and weigh the imponderable, to measure the immeasurable, almost

to unscrew the inscrutable. He remembers that in the days of his childhood he was told that 'figures don't lie,' but he forgets that he was also told that 'you cannot add apples and pears.' The psychologist knows that figures don't lie. He has found a way to add apples and pears. He not only adds apples and pears, but he adds plums as well, and he divides the result by cherries and he produces his final answer in terms of tomatoes. In that emotional hygiene test the psychologist adds physical facts and mental states, and he brings out an answer in terms of occupations. For that emotional hygiene test is an aptitude test. The answers to those forty-eight questions tell you whether or not you are properly fitted to your job. An introvert, it appears, needs one type of job; an extrovert, another; an ambivert, a third.

And I am an introvert. For I am a female, and I have twenty yes's to my credit. For some strange reason, a male needs but fifteen yes's to be an introvert. In my case the decision was close. Had I but nineteen yes's to my credit, I, being still a female, should be an ambivert. How much depends on how little! My fitness for my position, my happiness in my life's work, all dependent upon the answer to one single question! Now I answered those questions thoughtfully and honestly. It may, however, be wise for me to go over them again. I may find that there was room for reasonable doubt. 'Do you keep a diary?' Since the answer was no, I allowed myself but one on that. But I used to keep a diary. I kept a diary for five consecutive years once. They were formative years, too; and five years is a long time. Ought I not to give myself some credit for that? Suppose I change that cross from one to three. Then my conscience bothers me a bit about question number thirty-one:

'How have you been at selling things? Answer one to ten.' Yesterday I rated myself seven on that, though I could n't remember that I'd ever sold much of anything except tickets to church suppers. I gave myself that seven because I remembered the reputation I once acquired of being the only person in town who'd ever thought of selling tickets to a sleigh ride. Since that action turned our customary deficit into a substantial balance, I felt that I had, along the line of salesmanship, latent ability which ought to be recognized. So I put my cross under seven. I feel a little guilty about that; perhaps the estimate was too generous. A careful revision of that questionnaire may show that I am not an introvert after all.

Of course I should have seen that questionnaire years ago. It is rather late now. When one is already trained and established in a job, it is not wise to begin wondering whether or not it is the right job, whether or not one would be happier or more successful somewhere else. And yet, that emotional hygiene test sets me to thinking. I am sure that five years ago I should not have answered those forty-eight questions as I answered them yesterday. If my job fitted me then, does it fit me now? And five years from now? Who can say? Aptitude is only a combination of inherited factors acted upon by environment. Environment is a shifting thing. And the centre of one's interests surely changes with the years. Will the job I chose at twenty be the job I shall have the most aptitude for at forty? Can a man always choose wisely for his future? Must he content himself with being at times a square peg? Shall he change his job every few years? Such questions as these challenge thought.

The psychologist assumes that all questions can be answered either