New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-06-25
Three Chinese Maids Petition
American Women for School Fund
Girls from the Chuan Yen Institution in Shanghai Finding
Their Treasury Empty and Their Work Only Half
Done Appeal for Support Here
b. ADACHI KINNOSUKE

reasons. This petition was printed in
the May 3, 1917, issue of THE North
China Herald" The gentlemen OF
China have had ample time and oppor..
tunity TO deliver il 20 you women OF
America. Why they have not done so
is a real Chinese puzzle | am not
Chinese. The writer belongs 70 that
refarious race who are ever and per
sistently accused right on the front
pages Of American papers O. goooHng
up China through intrigues. sly as a
weasel and wicked as a wolf and OF
holding down the children of the Celes-
tial Land in ignorance and abJect
slavery. All this, naturally, makes me
proudei than ever TO play the role. In
deed. | am proud over this opportunity
of telling all the world that the petit
tion of the wee Chinese ladies, in all its
quaint habiliment Of not exactly the
Kings English. is quite as epochal a
document as any of the countless notes
of President Wilson to Germany.
Where is my sense Of proportion? Am
| exaCgerating?
/ pray you 70 ask yourself the ques-
ton. ladies Of America: when did
three or one American girl out OF
primary school feel the all-consumng
hunger and thirst for knowledge and
the all-compc enthusiasm for IL 20
compose a petition? And write Il, too,
in a foreign language. Has 1t ever
been known in the history of American
education that the children of the pri-
mary grade worried over the financial
condition Of the school they attended
and the continual existence Of il? And
if there were such children, would not
their parents have taken them 70 their
family physician?
Try Chinese Composition
Our American friends are so un-
reasonably vainglorious Of their sense
OF humor that even the comic artists
on the metropolitan dallies think well
Of the Sunday supplement sometimes.
And some of them may be tempted TO
smile over "the expenditure too big 20
cover the amount Of tutiOns received"
All that | would like 70 ask of the most
erudite lady in the whole Of the United
States and there were 44,639,9S9 fe-
males according 10 the census of 1910
is to please try her hand at a Chinese
composition, just once. IL an Ameri-
can lady. whether "A schoolgirl Of a
primary grade or a professor in high
IS specialized university, has ever
achieved a Chinese composition which
comes within measurable distance Of
the above quoted petition of the Chi
nese maidens. the fact has been kept
a greater secret than any of the war
plans Of Germany.
But 10 come back 70 the main theme
the petition. BY bringing it 10 your
attention, ladies of America, | believe
have mcrited the gratitude Of az least
100000 women of the United States
For there must be at least that num-
Der who would he grateful for an op-
portunity of doing something for the
uplift of the women of China. And II
every one of them were TO contribute
81, then il does not take a great mathe-
matician 20 discover that the Chuan
Yen Girl School will be the most rich
- endowed girls school throughout the
eighteen provinces Of China.
And the Chuan Yen school so en-
dowed would prove more important 70
the democracy i'm China than the great
Root mission 10 republican Russia.
For tho most efficient family physician
20 democratic state Is its common
school system, the world over. Here,
then, is indeed n princely-a prrcessly
opportunity for ySur humble dollar
and your noble generosity really Amer
lean And what is your answer, women
. 81 America?