Page:My life in China and America.djvu/125

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MY VISIT TO THE TAIPINGS
109

gested several things to me, which I thought might be of interest to him. They were as follows:

  1. To organize an army on scientific principles.
  2. To establish a military school for the training of competent military officers.
  3. To establish a naval school for a navy.
  4. To organize a civil government with able and experienced men to act as advisers in the different departments of administration.
  5. To establish a banking system, and to determine on a standard of weight and measure.
  6. To establish an educational system of graded schools for the people, making the Bible one of the text books.
  7. To organize a system of industrial schools.

These were the topics that suggested themselves to me during the journey. If the Taiping government would be willing, I said, to adopt these measures and set to work to make suitable appropriations for them, I would be perfectly willing to offer my services to help carry them out. It was in that capacity that I felt I could