Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 68.djvu/120

Just now we are passing through a crisis fraught with difficulties, and the country is most urgently in need of men of talents and abilities (of the modern sort). Owing to the fact that of late modern methods of education have been daily on the increase among us, we issued repeated commands to all our viceroys and governors of provinces to lose no time in establishing modern schools of learning in such number that every member of this empire may have the means of going there to study and learn something substantial in order to prepare himself to be of use to his country. We have indeed thought deeply on this subject.

The decree then states that the ministers of education have suggested the gradual abolition of the examinations, but Yuan Shih-kai, whose experience and knowledge are admitted, 'asserts that unless these old-style examinations are abolished once for all, the people of this empire will continue to show apathy and hesitate to join the modern schools of learning.' Yet it would seem that the demand for the change had really come from the people.

Hence if we desire to see the spread of modern education by the establishment of a number of schools, we must first abolish the old style of studying for the examinations. . . . We therefore hereby command that, beginning from the Ping-wu, Cycle (1906), all competitive examinations for the literary degrees of Chü Jên and Chin Shih (Master of Arts and Doctor) after the old style shall be henceforth abolished, while the annual competitions in the cities of the various provinces for the Hsiu Ts'ai (Bachelor of Arts) or licentiate degree are also to be abolished at once. Those possessors of literary grades of the old-style Chü Jên and Hsiu Ts'ai who obtained their degrees prior to the issuance of this decree shall be given opportunities to take up official rank according to their respective grades and abilities.

So that literati who already hold Chinese degrees are not entirely neglected, but will have to buy text-books and attain a smattering at least of western knowledge if they wish to keep up. The rest of the decree urges all officials from viceroys to district magistrates to see that schools of all the necessary grades are established, and the ministers of education to distribute text-books at once to all the provinces, 'so that we may have a uniform system of teaching in all our schools.' A word of encouragement is added to soothe the country and induce it to meet freely the expense of these radical changes: 'The government being thus enabled to obtain men of talents and abilities, it follows that the cities and towns producing such bright lights of learning will also enjoy a reflected honor therefrom.'

Subsequent decrees (September 4 and 7) give the literary chancellors of the various provinces the duty of holding examinations and inspecting the schools of modern learning in the province to which each had been appointed in the old regime, and command each to act in conjunction with the viceroy or governor of his province, the control of the whole being removed from the Board of Rites into the hands of the ministers of education. The establishment of a special board for