THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, JULY 21, 1906.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8189, 21 July 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, JULY 21, 1906.

The Pekin correspondent of the London Morning Jfost, in an interesting letter, dwells upon the been desire for education which he has observed among the' better class Chinese. Except for a few instances of disorder, all over the oountry, he (says, temples have been turned into schools with surprising alaority, often with malicious glee. Superstitious emblems have been torn down and idols destroyed. At Canton, for instance, an image of the patron god of the old learning was burned before a large crowd. Even the old soholars, the "literati," the strongest conservative force in China, have caught the infection, and students of 30 and 40 years of age are found patiently starting their education again.?s The new schools are eagerly attended, and everywhere there is a demand for more schools, and for teachers With Western knowledge. Chinese gentry are forming societies to secure capable instructors: students are being sent to Japan

at the family's expense; girls' schools are being started by private enterprise, and there are 150 girls studying In Tokio. There is a dangerous tendency in China at present to rash education, and maoh of the teaobing is of the poorest quality, but the desire to learn is very impressive. In .other directions, too, the people are leaving the grooves of centuries. iGren in the interior, foreign ways and ideas are aubjeots of eager inquiry. Newspapers are spreading everywhere. A new line, like the Pekin-Han-kau railway, is meeting with ready approval, and the country people are quick to bring their produce to the stations. One hears of farmers being anxious to use American agricultural machines; of townspeople joining to import Japanese looms. Missionaries find the Chinese anxious to learn from them, to make use of them. Mission schools,

even those requiring a fee, are crowded. A traveller Dassing through Sze-chuan province, on the Upper Yang-tee, notices that a hospital for women, which a few years ago would have been regarded with suspioion, now has its wards full. In another town the gentry ask for the use of the mission hall for a discussion on publio affairs, and a district offioial asKs for advice on an essay on "Con stitutional v. Absolute Monarchy." Returned students everywhere exercise a great influence in spreading new ideas and a knowledge of foreign countries. In Yun-nan provinoe there was a case lately of a student preaching a crusade against opium-smoking and foottindini? with such suooess that numbers pledged themselves to give up the practices. In all directions there is a strong movement against footbinding.and in favour of raising the condition of women.