This unfits them for taking a useful part in the national
life, and tends to undermine their morals. Also, oddly enough, it makes
them more conservative in purely Chinese matters than the young men and
women who have had a modern education under Chinese auspices. Europeans
in general are more conservative about China than the modern Chinese
are, and they tend to convey their conservatism to their pupils. And of
course their whole influence, unavoidably if involuntarily, militates
against national self-respect in those whom they teach.
Those who desire to do research in some academic subject will, for some
time to come, need a period of residence in some European or American
university. But for the great majority of university students it is far
better, if possible, to acquire their education in China. Returned
students have, to a remarkable extent, the stamp of the country from
which they have returned, particularly when that country is America. A
society such as was foreshadowed earlier in this chapter, in which all
really progressive Chinese should combine, would encounter difficulties,
as things stand, from the divergencies in national bias between students
returned from (say) Japan, America and Germany. Given time, this
difficulty can be overcome by the increase in purely Chinese university
education, but at present the difficulty would be serious.
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