At Peking I met some great officials who all were favourable, but it was not till we got south that we encountered what can only be described as enthusiasm for Western education. One gentleman advised that such an institution should be started at once, and recommended the recall of all students studying in Western lands to fill its ranks. Another who was interpreting was not satisfied with the prudent official reply I received that the plan was good, but that I must make inquiries at Peking. He added: "Make inquiries at Peking; but if they refuse, go on with your scheme all the same." A body of young men who had been educated at Boone College sent a petition that the scheme should be forthwith undertaken, but perhaps the most remarkable experience was that which I had at Shanghai. I was entertained by thirteen of the gentry who had all received their education in the West. We discussed every aspect of the plan, and when I pressed upon them that one of the good results of the University would be that it would have a healthy moral environment, an old man turned to his companions and said: "We have ourselves had experience of this. The environment in which we lived when we were in the West was different from that in which we found ourselves when we returned {320} to Shanghai, and did not it largely affect our lives?" After we had talked some time the question was put plainly to them: "Would they support such a University?" One of them turned round and said: "Of course we should. It is obvious that if you will give us in China the same sort of University as there is in England, if only on the score of expense, we shall want to send our sons there; besides which no one likes parting from their children and leaving them in a distant land." I discussed the matter with a Chinese statesman in Peking. I asked whether Peking would not be a good centre, but he was very adverse to the idea, because he said that Peking had such a bad moral tone that boys would not be able to do any good work, and that he himself far preferred that Chinese boys should be sent at ten years old to England to receive their whole education in our country. When we pointed out to him how, except in the case of a few rich men, such a course would be quite impossible, he said: "Then put your University right away in the western hills out of reach of the immoral influences of a town." There can be few more eloquent testimonies to the necessity of another University; nothing but a Christian University could succeed in creating the moral atmosphere, which this wise man saw was the power of the West. In the same conversation he gave a further testimony to the power of Christianity, all the more striking that it was uttered by a man who was not a Christian. He said: "Yes, {321} I have no doubt that all that is good in the West comes from Christianity."