The facts are now being comprehended by all classes. From the coast cities, a growing number of young Chinese have been sent to study abroad, mainly in Japan--as many as fifteen thousand in 1907. Returning, these so-called “students” have become the leaders in the boycotts against the United States and Japan. They have engaged actively in propaganda of a patriotic nature, and, more constructively, have translated into their mother tongue hundreds of books on history, economics, and law, including the whole Japanese code, Herbert Spencer, Huxley, Voltaire, Montesquieu, the “Contrat Social” of Rousseau, the works of Henry George and Karl Marx, and many others of the same general nature. These movements show a widespread public opinion friendly to Chinese regeneration. Various administrative measures have been inaugurated which are yet more promising. The old method of dividing the Peking Bureau into provincial departments, and letting each of these care for every sort of business from its special province, has been altered. Instead of a bureau having general charge over the salt-tax, the customs, and the appointments of each province, there have been organized ten departments, dealing each with its specialty throughout the entire realm. The five recently-created bureaus--Agriculture, Works and Commerce, Police and Constabulary, Post-Office and Education--tell by their names the centralizing purpose of the new régime. Formerly five hundred clerks attended a department, with office-hours from eleven A.M. to two P.M. including lunch, smoking-time, and due intervals for examining peddlers’ wares. Now a much reduced force is employed, with actual working-hours generally from nine A.M. to four P.M. The foot-binding of children has been prohibited; pressure has been put upon the officials who smoke opium to abandon it, under penalty of dismissal from the service; classical essays as a civil-service examination subject are being given up, and the education of the Chinese youths abroad is being encouraged. A large number of Japanese officers have been engaged to train the khaki-clad and well-armed Chinese regulars, who have shown excellent aptitude. The Government has bought back practically all foreign railroad concessions, and all the valuable mining concessions except the Kai-ping coal-fields. Even representative government is well under way. The Dowager Empress’s edict of August 27, 1908, by which a nine-year period was set for the devolution of legislative powers to provincial assemblies and a national senate has been justified by remarkable success. The local legislatures, elected under carefully restricted suffrage qualifications, have grappled earnestly with the economic problems of the districts. The senate, of thirty-two members, selected by the Prince Regent from an elected body, has not yet had time to show results, but the calibre of the men in it is encouraging.