The Pioche weekly record. [volume] (Pioche, Nev.) 1877-1900, 1891-04-02
CHINESE AT SCHOOL.
Work of the Missions on the Pa
ciflc Coast.
Johns Instinct for Material Gain Renders
Him an Apt scholar, But He Is
Deplorably Deficient In Rea-
soning Power.

The Chinese whom we see in this
country as immigrants are, almost to
man, from the province of Canton, and T
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 a 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 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, elothe and
feed themselves on four dollars a
month; where the common peoples
food consists of poor rice at cent and
a half pound, now and then veg
etable which they are able to raise
themselves, and perhaps once week a
little fish; where they must work in
freezing weather out of doors clad in
cotton garments; from such a region
ic pa iG
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.
Ii 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 We're drawn
by the hand of an inexorable fate.
What / 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 Can
tonese. His work may be taken, if To-
cal opinion is 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 a 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
day lives trile easier. They can find
a 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 a hole to
crawl into at night. What can be eX.
pected of the effect of such sordid infiu
ences upon the thought and character
of the present generation? ~
Impelled by the instinct of materia
gain, the Chinaman seeks the schoo
and begins his studies. His progress il
phenomenally rapid up to the poin
where mere memorizing ceases and the
exercise of the reasoning faculty be
gins. Here he makes his first stumbles
Not that he does not get along, for hi
shrewdness at devising expedients il
marvellous. He will surlnount Difficult
ties in his own fashion most cleverly i
they lie directly in the path he has fixet
his resolve to travel. In by far tn
largest number of cases, where they lii
outside of that straight line, he has n
desire to carry his research further.