ecause
of their effort to prevent freedom of speech, Kuang Hsu issued another
edict explaining why he had invited sealed memorials, and censuring
them for explaining to him what was narrow-minded and wild, as if he
lacked the intelligence to grasp that feature of the paper. He then
turned them all over to the Board of Civil Office ordering that body to
decide upon a suitable punishment for their offense, and assuring them
that if they made it too mild, his righteous wrath would fall upon
them. The latter decided that they be degraded three steps and removed
to posts befitting their lowered rank, but the Emperor revised the
sentence and dismissed them all from office, and this was the beginning
of his downfall.

The Empress Dowager had been spending the hot season at the Summer
Palace, and during the two months and more that the Emperor had been
struggling with his reform measures, she gave no indication, either by
word or deed, that she was opposed to anything that he had done. And I
think that all her acts, from that time till the close of the Boxer
insurrection, can be explained without placing her in opposition to his
theories of progress and reform.

So long as the Emperor devoted himself to the creation of new offices
he found little active opposition on the part of the conservatives,
while the reformers did everything in their power to encourage him. The
extent of the movement it is not easy to estimate. It opened up the
intensely anti-foreign province of Hupeh, and transformed it into a
section where railroads were to be built connecting the north with the
south. It opened up the great mining province of Shansi and the lumber
regions of Manchuria. It started railroads which are now lines of trade
for the whole empire.

When he issued the fifth edict substituting Western science for the
literary essay in the great examinations, letters and telegrams began
to pour in upon us at the Peking University from all parts of the
empire, asking us to reserve room for the senders in the school. Their
tuition was enclosed in their letters, and among those who came were
the grandson of the Emperor's tutor, graduates of various degrees, men
of rank, and the sons of wealthy gentlemen who had not yet obtained
degrees. Numerous requests came to our graduates to teach English in
official families, one being employed to teach the grandson of Li
Hung-chang, and another the sons of a relative of the royal family.

But when his re