Thirdly, there is no serious effort made to get good teachers. At one time, I understand, they had in their service a very remarkable body of men--men like Professor Martin of Peking--whose knowledge was only equalled by the sincerity of their purpose. Lately they have been getting rid of these men as fast as they could, the cry of "China for the Chinese" being perhaps responsible for this movement; and they have endeavoured to replace them by Chinese subjects with but little success. They have therefore fallen back again on foreigners, largely on Japanese. These men are some of them very able and qualified teachers; some, on the other hand, have had little or no experience of teaching, and their inefficiency tends {297} to bring all foreign teachers into disrepute. Not only must the teacher have a special knowledge of the art of teaching, but a teacher of a race like the Chinese, with different traditions to our own, must well understand those traditions. We can best realise the enormous difficulty a Chinese student has of learning from a Western teacher by remembering how impossible it is for any of us to understand something that is put from a Chinese point of view. If the Chinese Government want efficient foreign teachers, they must not pick up anybody, but they must hold out inducements to young men to come as teachers, and must give them security of tenure. If, for instance, the Chinese Government had in their service such an efficient body of men as could be found in the mission schools, they would have no difficulty. Another difficulty which stands in the way of the Chinese schools is their want of discipline. One of the most remarkable developments in China is the school strike. They have undoubtedly extraordinary powers of united action, but the school strike originates as much in the weakness of the teachers as it does in the remarkable power the Chinese race has of united action; you hear of it all over China, and it is sometimes ludicrous, sometimes serious. One school struck because the foreign teachers required the pupils to pass an examination of efficiency before they would give them a testimonial. This was deemed most incorrect by the {298} scholars, who held a doctrine which would be very attractive to our own undergraduates, that residence alone was a sufficient qualification for a degree. Many of the strikes take place for most occult reasons.