“The true statesman is he who brings order out of disorder; who first organizes and then administers the government of his own country; and having made a nation, seeks to reconcile the national interest with those of Europe and of mankind. He is not a mere theorist, nor yet a dealer in expedients; the whole and the parts grow together in his mind; while the head is conceiving, the hand is executing. Although obliged to descend to the world, he is not of the world. His thoughts are fixed not on power, or riches, or extension of territory, but on an ideal state, in which all the citizens have an equal chance of health and life, and the highest education is within the reach of all, and the moral and intellectual qualities of every individual are freely developed, and ‘the idea of good’ is the animating principle of the whole. Not the attainment of freedom alone, or of order alone, but how to unite freedom with order is the problem which he has to solve. “The statesman who places before himself these lofty aims has undertaken a task which will call forth all his powers.”—BENJAMIN JOWETT. _Chapter II_[11] _The Model Governor—Yen Hsi-Shan_ [Illustration] The province of Shansi boasts having the best governor in the Chinese Empire, and he has accomplished in the last ten years a remarkable change in the entire province—a province which is considerably larger than Great Britain. The city of Taiyuanfu is perhaps the most striking evidence of this change. The whole place is unrecognizable since the days when I first knew it in 1893. The streets are wide and well kept; at night they are lighted by electricity, and an efficient police force keeps order and regulates the traffic, whereas in old days the crowd used to fight their quarrels out in their own sweet way. The horrible pariah dogs which infested the streets without let or hindrance have entirely disappeared; for a dog, licence has now to be obtained, and any unlicensed dogs are promptly destroyed. The Governor Yen Hsi-Shan is the promoter of education in all its manifold aspects; though not a Christian, he realizes that there must be a radical change in morals, as well as in education, if China is to become a strong nation, capable of taking her place among the Great Powers.