per cent. is named as a liberal estimate, or 11,250,000 who are readers. The result is that out of 225,000,000 only 12,375,000 are able to read. Another estimate, by Dr. Martin, reduces the number of readers to about 6,000,000. The significance of these estimates is emphasized by a comparison which Mr. Gibson makes with the percentage of readers in twenty-one of the Northern States in America, which is ninety-five and five tenths per cent. of the entire population over ten years of age, leaving a percentage of illiteracy of only four and five tenths per cent. as compared with ninety per cent. men and ninety-nine per cent. women in the Chinese Empire.1 Miss Adele M. Fielde, in referring to the mistaken idea, which many entertain, that education is universal among the men of the Middle Kingdom, states it as her judgment that "not more than one Chinese man in a hundred, taking the empire through, knows how to read, and still fewer can write a letter. Of the women not more than one in a thousand can read."2 The Rev. Jonathan Lees, of the London Missionary Society, who has resided thirty-five years in China, coincides with these statements.3 The Rev. A. H. Smith, in his chapter on "Intellectual Turbidity," dwells with much emphasis upon the brooding ignorance which shadows the intellectual life of China.4 "The Western child of ten years of age," says a writer in The Chinese Recorder, "knows more about the earth, the universe, and the immutable laws of nature than the average Hanlin, or member of the Imperial Academy." 5

1

The effect of all this is sadly depressing, not only to the individual,

Report of Shanghai Conference, 1890,” pp. 67, 68.

2 Fielde, "A Corner of Cathay," p. 94. Cf. "Hanlin Papers," First Series,

pp. 97, 98.

3 "From literature it is natural to turn to the subject of popular education. Strange misconceptions prevail abroad as to the educational status of the population of China. Because there is a powerful literary class, and because the possession of Confucian scholarship is honorable, being at least nominally a pre-requisite to official position and emolument, it has been inferred that education is general, and even that there must exist something like a system of national schools. This is wholly a mistake. It is true that the knowledge of books is not confined to any class; it is true also that it is prized, though not often, perhaps, simply for its own sake; but there is absolutely no provision for general education. A whole half of the nation, the women and girls, is almost entirely untaught. It is nothing short of pathetic to visit a large village and find a congregation of fifty or sixty recent converts to Christianity, of whom not one can read at all. They can sing (from memory) and pray, but neither rulers nor religious teachers have put within their reach the key of knowledge."--Rev. Jonathan Lees (L. M. S.), Tientsin, China.

4 Smith, "Chinese Characteristics," p. 88.

The Chinese Recorder, January, 1896, p. 37.

but to the social, political, and industrial life of China. If we take into consideration the incompetency of such a powerful political factor in the empire as the Tsung-li Yamen, arising from The highly educated sheer ignorance, we can discover what an incalcula. ignorance of Chinese officials. ble injury it is to the political life of a great empire to be controlled by a body of men concerning whom a recent correspondent of The Times, who "had the honor of discussing with their Excellencies some of the burning questions of the day," remarked that "the strongest impression which I carried away with me was that the whole world of thought in which the Western mind is trained and lives seems to be as alien to the Chinese mind as the language which we speak."1 Then, as regards the incalculable damage done to the industrial interests of the empire by the crass ignorance and unconquerable prejudices of the people, much might be said. Western methods and facilities in all departments of industrial enterprise are regarded with inane suspicion and supercilious contempt. Political economy is quite unknown as a modern science, nor is there any general recognition of the advantages of international trade and the possibilities of industrial enterprise. The Rev. Timothy Richard, in an address before the Peking Missionary Association in October, 1895, expressed the opinion that "China loses a million taels a day by ignorance."2 A curious study in Chinese questions by the Rev. J. H. Horsburgh, missionary of the Church Missionary Society in Szechuan, is interesting as a revelation of their remarkable capabilities in that line, and also of the childish range of the information which they seek.3 In Korea substantially the same statements will hold true. It is a land of undeveloped, almost untouched resources, simply because of the intellectual slumber of the people and the inanity of what little education they can attain. In Formosa, where hardly any literature exists except such as has been provided by the missionaries, in the

1 Correspondence of the London Times, October 9, 1895. In this same connection the correspondent continues as follows: "The wisdom of their sages, which is the Alpha and Omega of their vaunted education, consists of unexceptionable aphorisms, which have about as much influence on their actions as the excellent commonplaces which in the days of our youth we have all copied out to improve our caligraphy, had in moulding our own characters. History, geography, the achievements of modern science, the lessons of political economy, the conditions which govern the policy of Western States, the influence of public opinion, of the Press, of Parliamentary institutions, are words which convey no real meaning to their ears."

2 The Chinese Recorder, January, 1896, p. 50.

3 The Church Missionary Intelligencer, July, 1895, p. 511.

▲ The Korean Repository, September, 1895, p. 349.

Pacific Islands, where a similar statement would hold, in Moslem lands, where education as conducted under native auspices is of practically little value, throughout the Continent of Af

of the Orient.

rica, in many sections of South America and the Intellectual slumber West Indies, there are deep needs arising from the lack of educational facilities. A large part of the

world, in fact, may be said to be still deeply wrapped in the slumber of ignorance, and, were it not for the educational efforts of foreign missions, there would be little hope of a speedy awakening.

The contribution of quackery to the world's misery.

2. QUACKERY.-Ignorance in some of its aspects may be regarded as only a negative evil, but when it undertakes to practise medicine and surgery it becomes a positive evil of an aggressive and deadly character. The agonies and sorrows which result from the stupid and cruel inflictions of quackery upon suffering humanity make an awful chapter in the daily experience of mankind. These miseries have been endured for centuries, and must continue indefinitely, unless scientific knowledge and competent skill take the place of the wretched incompetence which now does such harm to stricken victims. The vagaries of quackery would be only an interesting and curious study, were it not for the serious and shocking reality of the harm involved. After all, the thing to be lamented is not so much the resort to useless remedies as the ignorance and credulity which make them possible. It is natural for distressed humanity to seek relief from its sufferings, and this gives to ignorant assumption its opportunity, and opens the way for the adoption of those useless and dangerous expedients which have added such an untold increment to the world's misery.

It is amazing to note the ignorance of even practitioners of wide reputation in lands where no scientific medical instruction is known. In China the so-called doctors are "the merest

1

the Chinese doctor.

empirics, and, having no fear of medical colleges The charlatanism of or examination tests before their eyes, prey on the folly and ignorance of the people without let or hindrance." With no knowledge of physiology or anatomy, pathological diagnosis is the merest guesswork. Such a remedy as amputation is never, under any circumstances, thought of, since it is regarded as indicating disrespect to ancestors to mutilate the body. A Chinese doctor, entirely ignorant of the distinction between arteries and veins,

1 Douglas, "Society in China," p. 149.

will feel the pulses of both wrists, with an idea that the beating of the pulse of the left arm indicates the state of the heart, while that of the right represents the health of the lungs and liver. If these signs fail, the tongue will surely yield some mystic augury concerning the nature of the disease. As to remedies, they are composed of many vegetable, mineral, and animal substances, some of them of the most absurd irrelevance. They are referred to in some detail by Mr. Douglas in his chapter on medicine. A remedy of noted efficacy is the carcass of a tiger. It can be used in a variety of ways and is supposed to possess marvelous tonic qualities.2 There is a potent remedial power in dried scorpions, and as a remedy for Asiatic cholera nothing excels a needle thrust into the abdomen. In a recent report of one of the Chinese hospitals of the Methodist Episcopal Mission in Central China, an account is given of a woman who had been sick for a long time before she came for treatment, and "had eaten more than two hundred spiders, and a large number of snakes' eggs, without being helped." A native medical prescription in Northern China required a wife to take some

1 Douglas, "Society in China," pp. 149-159. Cf. also Graves, "Forty Years in China," pp. 226-237.

"Chinese doctors profess to be able to diagnose disease by the state of the pulse only. Their knowledge of anatomy and physiology is almost nil, yet in place of exact knowledge they substitute the most absurd theories. To a large extent drugs are unknown, and most wonderful healing properties are attributed to such substances as dragons' teeth, fossils, tiger bones, pearls, etc. Moreover, superstitious notions and practices control and pervert medicine. In almost every case of sickness, idols, astrologers, and fortune-tellers are consulted. It is not wonderful, therefore, that, medical science being in so unsatisfactory a state in China, the cures wrought by the foreign doctors seem to the people little short of miraculous."-Dr. John Kenneth Mackenzie (L. M. S.), quoted in "Great Missionaries of the Church," by Rev. C. C. Creegan, pp. 149, 150.

2 "Just the other day a tiger that had been killed in the mountains was brought into the city and sold for medicinal purposes at a sum equivalent to about fifteen hundred dollars, American money. The least bit of this animal is supposed to impart wonderful vitality and strength to a sick patient. Accordingly, not the least part of the tiger is wasted; even the bones are ground up and taken as medicine. Last summer a large snake was captured, sold for a fabulous sum, and served up in like manner. The result of this kind of theory and practice is the illness and death of thousands where a little medical skill would relieve suffering and prevent death."- Rev. G. E. Whitman (A. B. M. U.), Kayin, China, in The Baptist Missionary Magazine, August, 1893, p. 405.

"In China tigers' bones are given to the weak and debilitated as a strengthening medicine, and those who cannot afford such an expensive luxury may yet obtain some of the strength and courage of that ferocious beast by swallowing a decoction of the hairs of his moustache, which are retailed at the low price of a hundred cash cents) a hair."-Rev. A. W. Douthwaite, M.D. (C. I. M.), Chefoo, China.

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