y, it is all
marked with the stamp of infidelity and irreligion. It is rarely that a
man devotes himself to it with-out robbing himself of his faith, and
casting off the restraints of his religion; or, if they do not lose it utterly,
they so adulterate it with their philosophy that it is impossible to
separate the false from the true. The reading of philosophic writings,
so full of vain and delusive reasonings, should be forbidden to our
young folk, just as the slippery banks of a river are forbidden to one
who knows not how to swim. I will have none of them in our library,
nor will I allow their father to read them where his sons can see him.
The snake-charmer should not touch the serpents before his child's
eyes, knowing that the child will try to imitate him in all things.

It is "as pouring water in a frog's face" to talk to these, my children,
who think a man, with words upon his lips, a sage. I say a dog is not
a good dog because he is a good barker, nor should a man be
considered a good man because he is a good talker; but I see only
pity in their faces that their mother is so far behind the times. These
boys of ours are so much attracted by the glimpses they have had of
European civilisation, that they look down upon their own nationality.
They have been abroad only long enough to take on the veneer of
Western education; it is a half-and-half knowledge; and it is these
young men who become the discontented ones of China. When they
return they do not find employment immediately, since they have
grown out of touch with their country and their country's customs.
They feel that they should begin at the top of the ladder, instead of
working up slowly, rung by rung, as their fathers did before them.
They must be masters all at once, not realising that, even with their
tiny grains of foreign knowledge, they have not yet experience to
make them leaders of great enterprises or of men; yet they know too
much to think of going back into their father's shop.

I realise that the students who go abroad from China have many
difficulties to overcome. It is hard to receive their information and
instruction in a language not their mother tongue. They have small
chance to finish their education by practical work in bank or shop or
factory. They get a mass of book knowledge and little opportunity to
practise the theories which they learn, and they do not understand
that the text-book knowledge is nearly all foreign to their countr