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Show CHAPTER FOUR jTuture JLeaners of Christian Cimta China is awakening to her need for greater emphasis on good lower schools. The educational program begun some years T - , vago by the establishment of large universities OPPORTUJN1 -s gjv;ng way t0 greater emphasis on the WRIT LARGE j o w e r schools. But here she again fails for lack of competent teachers. Taxes raised avowedly for school purposes often find their way into other channels. A greater recognition of the value of mission schools seems to be the program everywhere. The magistrate of the district in which PANGK1ACHWANG is situated, after a visit to our schools, spoke most appreciatively of the work we were doing in a lecture -j-ivcn by him to a government school of his city. In this same station, the government has made direct grants in aid to schools avowedly Christian. The government primary schools are free to the boys in the cities. In Techow. we have had a primary school which at present, from the Chinese point of view, is charging an excessively high rate of tuition. Last year some of the non-Christian boys left to attend the government school, but now they are back again! In PAOTINGFU, new dormitories are already crowded to the full, and the same condition also occurs in the year and a halt old dormitories of the Precious Dew Memorial School for girls TAIKUHSIEN. PEKING reports a remarkable growth in numbers, through the coming of the children of educated parents, who trust the mission schools to train their children best. Most of these make an objection to the religious teaching which is a part of the work in all classes. In one county of the TAIKUHSIEN field, there are possibly twenty or thirty girls in the government school, out of the hundreds of girls of school age, and this condition is repeated monotonously wherever you go. In another centre, there is a room waiting, with chairs, benches and tables in it, ami other necessary furnishings promised by a well-to-do patron, if the mission will furnish the teacher. A similar situation holds in many places in FENCHOW, where teachers are too few to supply the demand. The Taikuhsien magistrate has said that in the future government educational committees must expect to work hand-in-hand with the church committees, and of the remarkable offer made by the eight |
