ABSTRACT
A work on education is no place to describe the origins or the conduct of the First China War, though one is at liberty to remark that it was scarcely more an "Opium War" than the Indian Mutiny was a "Greased-cartridge Mutiny". This war, however, was the signal for the break up of the old system. Enough knowledge of the Chinese classics was inculcated to command the respect of the educated. The conviction became so prevalent that many of the literary men, some of whom were quite advanced in age, sought Western learning by attending missionary schools and colleges, by employing private tutors, by forming reform clubs, and by reading such translations of Western books as were available. The principles of Western natural science are said to be stated in the Doctrine of the Mean by Confucius, and the principle of what is known as scientific agriculture was to be found in the Ceremonial Rites of Chou.
