NOTE.--Those who wish to see an enlightened Chinaman's views on education may like to refer to Prince Kung's Memorial on the following page.
MEMORIAL OF PRINCE KUNG ON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A COLLEGE FOR THE CULTIVATION OF WESTERN SCIENCE (1887).
Your Majesty's servant and other Ministers of the Council for Foreign Affairs on their knees present this memorial in regard to regulations for teaching Astronomy and the selection of students.
The sciences being indispensable to the understanding of machinery and the manufacture of firearms, we have resolved on erecting for this purpose a special department in the Tung-wen College, to which scholars of a high grade may be admitted, and in which men from the West shall be invited to give instruction.
The scheme having met with your Majesty's approval, we beg to state that it did not originate in a fondness for novelties, or in admiration for the abstract subtleties of Western science, but solely from the consideration that the mechanical arts of the West all have their source in the science of Mathematics. Now, if the Chinese Government desires to introduce the building of steamers and construction of machinery, and yet declines to borrow instruction from the men of the West, there is danger lest, following our own ideas, we should squander funds to no purpose.
We have weighed the matter maturely before laying it before the Throne. But among persons who are unacquainted with the subject there are some who will regard this matter as unimportant; some who will censure us as wrong in abandoning the methods of China for those of the West; and some who will even denounce the proposal that Chinese should submit to be instructed by people of the West as shameful in the extreme. Those who urge such objections are ignorant of the demands of the times.
In the first place it is high time that some plan should be devised for infusing new elements of strength into the government of China. Those who understand the times are of opinion that the only way of effecting this is to introduce the learning and mechanical arts of Western nations. Provincial governors, such as Tso Tsung-tang and Li Hung-chang, are firm in this conviction, and constantly presenting it in their addresses to the Throne. The last-mentioned officer last year opened an arsenal for the manufacture of arms, and invited men and officers from the metropolitan garrison to go there for instruction; while the other established in Foochow a school for the study of foreign languages and arts, with a view to the instruction of young men in ship-building and the manufacture of engines. The urgency of such studies is, therefore, an opinion which is not confined to us, your servants.