is another reason why
industrial development must probably precede any complete scheme of
education.

For the present, even if the funds existed, there would not be
sufficient teachers to provide a schoolmaster in every village. There
is, however, such an enthusiasm for education in China that teachers are
being trained as fast as is possible with such limited resources; indeed
a great deal of devotion and public spirit is being shown by Chinese
educators, whose salaries are usually many months in arrears.

Chinese control is, to my mind, as important in the matter of education
as in the matter of industry. For the present, it is still necessary to
have foreign instructors in some subjects, though this necessity will
soon cease. Foreign instructors, however, provided they are not too
numerous, do no harm, any more than foreign experts in railways and
mines. What does harm is foreign management. Chinese educated in mission
schools, or in lay establishments controlled by foreigners, tend to
become de-nationalized, and to have a slavish attitude towards Western
civilization. This unfits them for taking a useful part in the national
life, and tends to undermine their morals. Also, oddly enough, it makes
them more conservative in purely Chinese matters than the young men and
women who have had a modern education under Chinese auspices. Europeans
in general are more conservative about China than the modern Chinese
are, and they tend to convey their conservatism to their pupils. And of
course their whole influence, unavoidably if involuntarily, militates
against national self-respect in those whom they teach.

Those who desire to do research in some academic subject will, for some
time to come, need a period of residence in some European or American
university. But for the great majority of university students it is far
better, if possible, to acquire their education in China. Returned
students have, to a remarkable extent, the stamp of the country from
which they have returned, particularly when that country is America. A
society such as was foreshadowed earlier in this chapter, in which all
really progressive Chinese should combine, would encounter difficulties,
as things stand, from the divergencies in national bias between students
returned from (say) Japan, America and Germany. Given time, this
difficulty can be overcome by the increase in purely Chinese university
education, but at present the difficulty would be serio