Another noticeable feature of the city is the open-air evening school, the sign of which is a blackboard on a wall, sheltered by a little roof which may be seen in many an open space. When the day’s work is over benches are produced from a neighbouring house and school begins. The General has established over forty night schools dotted along the five miles of the city on the river-bank, besides the industrial schools open during the daytime. We visited one large training school for girls and women, which he has established and supports in order to promote industry, and to which workers from the country districts are welcomed. They have six months’ training and one meal a day gratis, and they are taught weaving, stocking-making (on machines), dressmaking and tailoring, etc., and the goods turned out find a ready market. The instructors are all very well paid, and the work done is thoroughly good, despite the disparaging remarks of an elderly overseer who evidently had the conventional contempt for the Chinese woman’s intelligence. General Feng is a firm believer in women’s education, and has established a school for the wives of his officers, to which they come not altogether willingly, I fear. The unwonted routine and discipline are naturally a trial, especially to women no longer in their _première jeunesse_; and despite the fact that he succeeded in persuading a highly-trained and charming woman to come from the north to take charge of it, there have been many difficulties to surmount. She lunched with us one day and told us an instance of this which makes one realize the situation: a certain lady resented the fact of her teacher being the wife of a veterinary surgeon (lower in rank than her husband), and disregarded her continual efforts to curb her feminine loquacity and make her attend to her studies. Finally there was a complete rupture between the ladies, and the unwilling pupil indignantly left the school. The teacher pondered over this and could not bear the thought of having quarrelled with a fellow Christian. She determined to try and make it up, so she called upon the lady, who refused to see her. Nothing daunted, she tried a second time, and again the lady was “not at home,” but sent her husband to speak to her. The teacher explained to him all she felt—he was so moved by her appeal that he fetched his wife, a complete reconciliation took place, and she returned to school. The General has a short religious service in his own house every Sunday morning for these ladies, at which he, his wife and some officers are present, and at which he invited me to speak.