The Tung wen Kwan is the only scholastic institution under government auspices for teaching foreign knowledge in Canton. It was established by order of the Tsung li Yamen about sixteen years ago. It is under the official control of the viceroy, the haikwan (superintendent of customs), the Tartar general, and two lieutenant Tartar generals, but the practical control is left almost entirely in the hands of the Tartar general, to whom it affords opportunities of patronage, for the staff is large, and the members thereof not only benefit by the salaries they receive but their official appointment as officers of the college (Tung wen Kwan) forms a stepping-stone to promotion in other branches of the public service. The staff consists of three superintendents, (the chief of whom holds rank about equivalent to that of a major general), three Chinese teachers, a foreign teacher with a Chinese assistant, two Chinese clerks, doorkeepers, cooks, and other servants. The number of students is fixed at thirty, of whom twenty are classed as students proper and ten as supernumerary students, the latter being intended to fill vacancies as they occur in the former; and when, from various causes, the total number falls to twenty or twenty-five, fresh supernumeraries are added to make up the number. The students proper receive a small pay of three taels a month, but the supernumeraries receive nothing except a free breakfast every day. It is difficult to define the raison d'être of the Tung wen Kwan College; in theory it is established to provide the Chinese government with a staff of interpreters and persons conversant with foreign literature and foreign habits of thought; but, so far as can be judged by patent facts, the patronage above referred to is the element most appreciated, and it may be well to notice the extent to which the theoretical object has been carried out, and how far the Chinese government has availed itself of the material for the production of which something like eight hundred dollars a month has been expended for the last sixteen years in the maintenance of the college.