good family applied to enter
the foreign university at Peking, and in some of the provincial towns
the Chinese themselves subscribed towards the opening of foreign
schools. Reform societies, which not infrequently enjoyed official
countenance, sprang up in many of the large towns, and found numerous
adherents amongst the younger _literati_. Early in 1898 the emperor, who
had gradually emancipated himself from the dowager-empress's control,
summoned several of the reform leaders to Peking, and requested their
advice with regard to the progressive measures which should be
introduced into the government of the empire. Chief amongst these
reformers was Kang Yu-wei, a Cantonese, whose scholarly attainments,
combined with novel teachings, earned for him from his followers the
title of the "Modern Sage." Of his more or less active sympathizers who
had subsequently to suffer with him in the cause of reform, the most
prominent were Chang Yin-huan, a member of the grand council and of the
Tsung-Li-Yamen, who had represented his sovereign at Queen Victoria's
jubilee in 1897; Chin Pao-chen, governor of Hu-nan; Liang Chichao, the
editor of the reformers' organ, _Chinese Progress_; Su Chiching, a
reader of the Hanlin College, the educational stronghold of Chinese
conservatism; and his son Su In-chi, also a Hanlin man, and provincial
chancellor of public instruction in Hu-nan.

It soon became evident, that there was no more enthusiastic advocate of
the new ideas than the emperor himself. Within a few months the
vermilion pencil gave the imperial sanction to a succession of edicts
which, had they been carried into effect, would have amounted to a
revolution as far-reaching as that which had transformed Japan thirty
years previously. The fossilized system of examinations for the public
service was to be altogether superseded by a new schedule based on
foreign learning, for the better promotion of which a number of temples
were to be converted into schools for Western education; a state
department was to be created for the translation and dissemination of
the standard works of Western literature and science; even the scions of
the ruling Manchu race were to be compelled to study foreign languages
and travel abroad; and last, but not least, all useless offices both in
Peking and in the provinces were to be abolished. A further edict was
even reported to be in contemplation, doing away with the _queue_ or
pigtail, which, originally impose