And so with the Chinese now. First, they must get the essential, original, and natural foundations--of liberty and justice. To plant in China ideas and manners and customs and things, however, which for centuries have held good in the West will not make in China for the best the people are capable of. They will be alien. To give to the Chinese an education only along lines laid down in the West as the best for men in the West would not guarantee the best being drawn out of the Chinese. There must be a commingling of the best the West has to offer with that which has been proved best for China unquestioned through the centuries of her wonderful history. It may or may not be a mistake of modern educationists to pound away only with Western subjects in educating the Chinese, not only not giving any heed to the preservation of the good in Chinese education, but openly dissuading its continuance. This I consider to be one of the weak points in the Republican propaganda--the excessive out-reaching for Western education at the {287} expense of all that really matters in the Chinese national life. The Republican outlook is everywhere filled with all things foreign. Every Revolutionist had shown that he must have a foreign outlook--and that, perhaps, in time to come may develop to be an outlook totally unsuited to China's teeming millions. So far as the leaders have gone, however, they have made no great mistakes. The reformers, at all events, are now given the chance to show what they can do. If they are earnest in the declaration in favour of a Republic, the United States would seem the proper model, _mutatis mutandis_, to be copied. As the Emperor has been proved powerless to hold in subjection the provinces of the Empire, there is a similarity between them and the American colonies when the latter separated from the British Government to establish one of their own. But whatever their pattern, it will be no easy matter practically to work out immediate reforms in this country--that they will be able to keep to any one plan, however, seems hardly possible. {288} CHAPTER XX THE OUTLOOK FOR REFORM And in the political whirl at present it is impossible to foretell what will be the aim of the Republican party. As it stands now, however, their aim is not merely to overthrow the despised Manchu Dynasty and to restore China's former glory. It may be said, in a word, that the republican ideal of China is the right of world citizenship for the nation. Dr. Wu Ting Fang, in his masterly address to foreigners, said: "We are fighting to be men in the world; we are fighting to pass off an oppressive, officious, and tyrannous rule that has beggared and disgraced China, obstructed and defied the foreign nations, and set back the hands of the clock of the world."