memorial, was later given an audience with the Emperor, and
finally called into the palace to assist him in the reforms he
had already undertaken. And if Kang Yu-wei had been as great a
statesman as he was reformer, Kuang Hsu might never have been
deposed.

The crisis came during the summer of 1898. I had taken my family
to the seashore to spend our summer vacation. A young Chinese
scholar--a Hanlin--who had been studying in the university for
some years, and with whom I was translating a work on psychology,
had gone with me. He took the Peking Gazette, which he read
daily, and commented upon with more or less interest, until June
23d, when an edict was issued abolishing the literary essay of
the old regime as a part of the government examination, and
substituting therefor various branches of the new learning. "We
have been compelled to issue this decree," said the Emperor,
"because our examinations have reached the lowest ebb, and we see
no remedy for these matters except to change entirely the old
methods for a new course of competition."

"What do you think of that?" I asked the Hanlin.

"The greatest step that has ever yet been taken," he replied.

This Hanlin was not a radical reformer, but one of a long line of
officials who were deeply interested in the preservation of their
country which had weathered the storms of so many
centuries,--storms which had wrecked Assyria, Babylonia, Media,
Egypt, Greece and Rome, while China, though growing but little,
had still lived. He was one of those progressive statesmen who