I find the temples and
monasteries either deserted or turned into schools or barracks. This one
is deserted. It is like a series of lumber-rooms, full of dusty idols.
The idols were once gaudy, brightly painted "to look like life," with
beards and whiskers of real hair. But now their splendour is dimmed. The
demons scowl to no purpose. To no purpose the dragons coil. No
trespasser threatens the god behind his dingy curtains. In one chamber
only a priest kneels before the shrine and chants out of a book while he
taps a bronze vessel with a little hammer. Else, solitude, vacuity, and
silence. Is he Buddhist or Taoist? I have no language in which to ask. I
can only accept with mute gestures the dusty seat he offers and the cup
of lukewarm tea. What has happened to religion? So far as I can make
out, something like the "disestablishment of the Church." The Republic
has been at work; and in the next village I see what it has been doing.
For there the temple is converted into a school. Delightedly the
scholars show me round. On the outside wall, for him who runs to read,
are scored up long addition sums in our Western figures. Inside, the
walls are hung with drawings of birds and beasts, of the human skeleton
and organs, even of bacteria! There are maps of China and of the world.
The children even produce in triumph an English reading-book, though I
must confess they do not seem to have profited by it much. Still, they
can say "cat" when you show them a picture of the creature; which is
more than I could do in Chinese. And China does not change? Wait a
generation! This, remember, is a tiny village in the heart of the
country, more than 1000 miles from the coast. And this is happening all
over the Celestial Empire, I suppose. I start to return to my boat, but
have not gone a quarter of a mile before I hear a shout, and looking
back find half the school following me and escorting their teacher, who
speaks English. He regrets to have missed my visit; will I not return
and let him show me the school? I excuse myself, and he walks with me to
the boat, making what conversation he can. One remark I remember--"China
a good place now; China a republic." And I thought, as we exchanged
cards, that he represented the Republic more essentially than the
politicians whom foreigners so severely criticise. Anyhow, Republic or
no, China is being transformed. And there is something other than
steamboats to attest it.

Which brings me back to m