The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1891-01-15
CHINESE AT SCHOOL.
Work Of the Missions on the Pa
cif1c Coast.
Johns Instinct for Material Gain Renders
Him an Apt Scholar, But He Is
Deplorably Deficient in Eea-
soning Power.

Johns Instinct for Material Gain Renders
Him an Apt Scholar, But Ho Is
Deplorably Deficient in Eea-
soning Power.
The Chinese whom we see in this
country as immigrants are, almost to a
man, from the province of Canton, and
the Cantonese are at once the most en-
terprising, the bravest and the
toughest" subjects of the Emperor.
From their ranks are drawn the
cleverest merchants in all parts of
China, the most daring navigat-
ors, the finest soldiers and the
most efficient police. They push out
into other countries, says writer
in Kate Fields Washington, when they
can no longer endure the overpopula-
ton, poverty and squalor at home. Pos
sibly'one in twenty can read and write
in very limited way. The rest have
neither the time nor the opportunity to
learn.
There are no public schools in China,
and life there is SO wholly a struggle
for the barest needs of existence that
the means would be lacking to attend
them if there were. Where family Of
from four to six persons jointly earn
and are expected to house, clothe and
feed themselves on four dollars
month; where the common peoples
food consists of poor rice at a cent and
half pound, now and then veg
etable which they are able to raise
themselves, and perhaps once a week
little fish; where they must work In
freezing weather out of doors clad in
cotton garments; from such region
any escape is welcome, any refuge Is
Heaven as compared with it. The Can
tonese knows nothing as danger, priva-
tion or hardship after what he has left
behind him at home. Fighting comes as
natural to him as freezing or starving.
1t is only one of the incidents, after all,
of an existence whose highest aim was
the procuring of means to sustain it
self and whose boundaries were drawn
by the hand of an memorable fate.
What I have said here will account
for the slow progress which seems to be
made by the various charitable agencies
established by the white people for the
benefit of the Chinese. -Four religious
societies, for instance, have opened mis-
sion schools for them in the city of
Portland These institutions are all
doing earnest work, but only one has Sc
cured the services of an American in
structor who can talk to his pupils in
the Chinese language; the rest have
white persons at their head, with Chi
nese interpreters, preachers and teach
ers. The exception is the Presbyterian
school, presided over by Rev. William s.
Holt, who lived ten years in China and
became an expert in speaking and writ
ing the language of the country, and
more especially the dialect of the Cam
tonese. His work may be taken, If To-
cal opinion II to be trusted, as about
the best gauge Of the success Of such
/. efforts. During the four years he has
been here he has had some two hundred
! pupils. OF these only about dozen
have shown desire to carry their edu-
cation any distance past the rudimenta-
ry stage. This is not because the rest
are lazy or stupid, for they are the very
reverse. The pupils are mostly house,
hold servants and clerks in stores. They
make no matter Of coming to school in
the evening after hard days work and
spending two or three hours at their
books, and the Chinaman has yet to be
found who can not learn his English al
phabet in one day and be ready the next
to read words OF single syllable.
The whole trouble is that they are apa-
thetic about every thing beyond what
they see is going to bring them in some
immediate profit, or make their work-a-
day lives trifle easier They can find
wider market for their labor and COM
mand better wages If they can speak,
read and write English, therefore they
seek such knowledge. The idea Of
learning for learning's own sake, of
getting an education for the fund of in
ternal resources and refined enjo yment
it will bring with it, is furthest from
their minds. For centuries their an
cestors have had no higher ambition
than the satisfaction Of the bodily wants
Of the day and the provision Of hole to
crawl into at night What can be ex-
pected of the effect of such sordid influ-
ences upon the thought and character
Of the present generation?
Impelled by the instinct of material
gain, the Chinaman seeks the school
and begins his studies. His progress is
phenomenally rapid up to the point
where mere memorizing ceases and tho
exercise Of the reasoning faculty be-
gins. Here he makes his first stumbles.
Not that he does not get along, for his
shrewdness at devising expedients is
marvellous. He will surmount difficult
ties in his own fashion most cleverly if
they lie directly in the path he has fixed
his resolve to travel. In by far the
largest number Of cases, where they lie
outside of that straight line, he has no
desire to carry his research further.
Pacific Island Cannibals.
A recent writer in the Asiatic Quar-
terly Review saws that SO far as actuol-