of Chinese students as they read this proclamation, discussed it in undertone, and then turned to ask the foreigner if it could be true. Was it to be taken literally? Would it be countermanded? Why should the Dowager Empress now issue similar decrees to these, for which in 1898 the Emperor Kwang Hsu was dethroned?

Her Majesty, Tsu Hsi, has pronounced special honors upon Chinese who should be sent abroad "to study any branch of Western science or art, best suited to their abilities and tastes; so that they may return in time to China and place the fruits of their knowledge at the service of the empire." "The various expenses of the education abroad of the students shall be paid by the viceroys and governors of the young men's native provinces, on account of the imperial exchequer."

These proclamations were in general terms, and the native journals were busy discussing the ways and means for their practical execution when the way was unexpectedly cleared by vermilion decrees of much definiteness. The hand of Dr. William Hayes could be seen as one traced out the new scheme of education. He resigned the presidency of the Presbyterian college at Tung. chow-fu, in Shantung, a few months ago, to accept the presidency of the new government university at Chinan-fu, the capital of Shangtung. As there were no preparatory schools to act as feeders for this institution, or for any modern college in China, Dr. Hayes drew up a working plan of grammar and high schools for the whole province, and submitted it to His Excellency Yuan Shi-kai, who recognized that the scheme was the work of an experienced educator, and embodied it in a memorial to the throne. Empress Dowager consulted with the Cheng Wa Ch'u (board of government affairs at Peking), and then sent copies of the Shangtung school programme to all the governors and viceroys.

The

Yuan Shi-kai's (Dr. Hayes') recommendations were shortly declared to be the law of the land, and all viceroys, governors, and literary chancellors of the provinces are therefore to obey the regulations above suggested." This plan provides for grammar schools and high schools in each province, who should pass their students up into the Provincial University, the graduates of which are to be entitled "students of superior class," or B.A's. These Bachelors may then go up to Peking to study in the Central University; and upon attaining proficiency, by imperial decree, they shall receive the Chu jen, or M. A.

Those Masters who pursue further studies at Peking, and who are recommended by the Board of Rites, will be granted the Chinshih, or Litt. D. Those Doctors who desire to carry their work

further, after the preparation, shall be examined "in one of the throne halls, after which the successful candidates are to be introduced to the throne, when either the grade of Hanlin Bachelor, or secretary of the Six Boards, or secre taries to the cabinet ministers will be bestowed upon them."

This broadside of reform edicts fired into the camp of the conservatives by order of the supposed chief reactionary has certainly upset the calculations of the wise men. None are more surprised than those who have argued that the occupation of China by the foreign military and the missionaries had permanently alienated the Chinese from all things Western. The exact opposite is true. Missionaries are being besieged for help and instruction by the upper class of Chinese. A gentleman who has recently settled in the north of Anhui province writes me that he is burdened by the kindness of the literati, one hundred and fifty or more of them having called on him,-some of them three times in succession,-before he was able to return their calis. Requests for the opening of Young Men's Christian Associations for the literary classes have come from several great student centers. In Shanghai, through the work of this association, sixteen of the student class are ready for bap tism, and thirteen others are preparing them. selves by special Bible study. The governors of five different provinces have officially turned to missionaries to seek guidance for their new school system. But missionaries are precluded, at present, by a strange fatuity, from rendering assistance. Into the system outlined by Dr. Hayes for Shangtung, and applied to the whole empire by the throne, there was introduced by the Chinese a regulation which requires that the Chinese professors shall, on the first and fifteenth of each month, conduct the classes in reverential sacrifice to the Most Holy Teacher Confucius, and to all the former worthies and scholars of the provinces." This regulation makes it impossible for Christian students to remain in government colleges. It is not only plainly contrary to the religious liberty guaranteed by the treaty of Tien-tsin, but is especially short-sighted, in view of the fact that practically all the ablest students and teachers connected with government colleges are Christians. The whole Christian student body has refused to conform, for by conforming it would return to heathenism. The non-conformists have the sympathy of many enlightened mandarins; and if they and the missionary educators who are needed by the government to man its colleges remain firm, the question of religious liberty in educational circles in China will be settled for all the future.

TOWA

OWARD the close of the year 1880, when the great orator Gambetta was president of the French Chamber, there appeared, one afternoon, in the tribune a young deputy from Brittany, phlegmatic of countenance and slender of figure, with an appearance of aristocratic elegance not usual among the representatives of the democracy. All that was known of him was that he was a lawyer of a certain reputation in his district, and that he was one of the favorite disciples of Gambetta, at that time the leader of the Opportunist party. As he began his address, it could be remarked that the presiding officer leaned forward in his chair, in a manner not merely curious but almost paternal, as if to miss no detail of this first parliamentary effort, in which he had so perHis fears, if he had any, were soon dispelled. The young Breton lawyer spoke with the ease, the confidence, and the finish that He had not prodistinguish the born orator. Iceeded far before Gambetta was seen to settle back in his chair, reassured and beaming, while the Chamber abandoned itself to the rare pleasure of listening to a real master of eloquence.

sonal an interest.

The young orator of 1880 was M. WaldeckRousseau, the man who, under conditions unique in French history, at the very moment when his work had been endorsed by the voters of the nation, has resigned the prime ministry of France. His policy,-or, rather, his personality,

Dur

orators.

In the Chamber of Deputies, of which he was elected a member in 1879, he did not long remain inactive. Gambetta, who was assiduous in attracting young men to his standard, had detected in M. Waldeck-Rousseau a promising recruit. Moreover, the great orator from the Midi, warm-hearted, exuberant, and fervidly eloquent, was strongly attracted by the cold and elegant young Breton, so different in every way from himself. He accordingly enlisted him in the ranks of his followers; and when, in 1881, he formed his first ministry (popularly known as the "Great Ministry "), he chose this Interior. deputy of thirty-five to be his Minister of the The Great Ministry" did not remain long in power, but it lasted long enough for M. Waldeck-Rousseau to make himself remembered. In a circular letter to the prefects of the departments, dated November 24, 1881, he vigorously attacked the French patronage system, which transformed the legislators into perpetual solicitors of places for themselves and for their friends. He declared that he would refuse to receive letters addressed to him by deputies to recommend applicants for places. This act of energetic independence was resented

by the deputies, and contributed to the early fall of the Gambetta cabinet on January 26, 1882.

But this incident had sufficed to make M. Waldeck-Rousseau known as a man fitted to govern, and endowed with courage as well as energy. Consequently, in 1883, when Jules Ferry, another good judge of men, formed his ministry, one of the longest in power and most important in the history of the third Republic, Waldeck-Rousseau was again chosen for the portfolio of the interior. During the two years in which the Ferry ministry was compelled to endure the continual attack of the reactionaryradical coalition, Waldeck-Rousseau assisted Ferry in defending the principles of republicanism, bringing to the support of his chief's vigorous and almost brutal eloquence the re. sources of a formidable dialectic, whose chilling politeness was only the mask of the keenest sarcasm and epigram.

When, in March, 1885, as the result of an incident in the Tongking war, the Ferry ministry fell from power, M. Waldeck-Rousseau withdrew almost completely from active participation in politics. For four years he retained his seat in the Chamber, but almost never took part in the discussions, except on one or two occasions, when he aided the Moderate Republicans in their attacks upon the Radical ministry of Floquet. He returned to the bar, where his great name and his unrivaled oratorical talents assured him one of the first places in his profession. In 1889 he did not appear as a candidate. Instead, he utilized the experience he had acquired in public affairs in mastering the difficulties which presented themselves to him in his legal practice. There was no great financial case, no great industrial litigation or important civil process, in which he did not play a part. His intellect,-logical, clear, and penetrat ing,—was not baffled by the most difficult complications of finance or jurisprudence. Moreover, he relieved the dryness inherent in such subjects by observations and applications drawn from his political experience and his knowledge of men and affairs, and by that delicate irony which illuminates all his utterances, and which, added to the charm of an impeccable style, makes each of his arguments in court a work of art delightful both to the ear and to the intelligence. He acted as counsel for the government and for the Bank of France; he defended the interests of Coquelin in the suit brought against him by the Comédie Française; he defended the millionaire spendthrift Lebaudy against his family, who sought to have the courts appoint a trustee for his estate. In December, 1898, as lawyer for one of the creditors of the now world-famous Madame Humbert, he was the first person to declare in

court his conviction that the Humbert-Crawford litigation was fraudulent. On one occasion I heard him make an argument in a financial case in reply to his recent colleague, himself a brilliant lawyer, M. Millerand. The two speeches, so unlike in tone but so equal in ability, were characteristic of the two adversaries,-the one speech calm, measured, and courteous; the other sharp, aggressive, and bitter. But his great case, -the one which did the most to spread his name, and in which he is said to have received a fee of $25,000.00,―was the Panama case, in which he defended the famous engineer Eiffel, the designer of the Eiffel Tower, against the charge of having swindled the Panama Company by false estimates of the amount of work performed by the contractors. His argument, which was delivered before a crowded court room, occupied several sessions. Amid the intricacies and technicalities of the points at issue he seemed to be a master of engineering as well as of finance. And at the conclusion of that long effort, he delivered a peroration, received with great applause by his listeners, but often quoted against him since, in which he called upon the court not to make an example of men who, like De Lesseps and Eiffel, had contributed by their achievements to the fame and influence of their country, and who (to use his own words) "avaient fait a la grande humiliée de 1870 l'aumône d'un peu de gloire,""who had given of their fame to France as one gives alms to the unfortunate." I can still recall the picture of M. Waldeck Rousseau, after that great speech, passing through the corridors of the Palais de Justice, followed by his admirers.

M. Waldeck-Rousseau's successes and increasing reputation caused his friends in the Republican party to regret keenly his retirement from politics. His absence was felt all the more because the former leaders of the moderate wing were by this time either dead, like Jules Ferry, or discredited and without prestige. In 1894, the Republicans of the department of La Loire took advantage of a vacancy in the Senate to elect M. Waldeck-Rousseau, without his solicitation and almost in the face of his opposition. But he was too faithful to his party to avoid what was represented to him as his duty. He took his seat in the Senate, but abstained from speaking and took little part in actual politics except when practically forced to do so by the members of his party, who called upon him for stump speeches during the campaigns. It was thus also that, in 1895, he consented to the use of his name as a candidate for the Presidency of the Republic. He was defeated, however, by Félix Faure, whose mediocrity appealed more strongly to the Electoral College. But M. Waldeck-Rous

seau's real period of activity began with the crisis of the Dreyfus affair,-that disturbance which upset all parties, and seemed for the moment to be endangering the Republic itself. M. WaldeckRousseau, like the majority of sensible and liberal French statesmen, was in favor of the only normal and logical solution of the difficulties which the case presented, an immediate and fair revision. When the Dupuy ministry proposed to take the case out of the hands of the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation, M. WaldeckRousseau delivered his first great address in the Senate, and produced a profound impression. From that moment on he threw himself into the struggle, and took a foremost part in it, no longer with that air of skeptical indifference which had sometimes been attributed to him, but with the conviction and the energy of the patriot and the statesman. It was in June, 1899, at the very crisis of the affair; the nation was divided into two hostile factions; the long-cherished animosi ties threatened to break out in open violence ; the army seemed to be hesitating, and the destiny of the Republic seemed to depend upon the chance of some general's momentary wavering from discipline or of some excited agitator's hazard of fortunes. The Dupuy ministry had just collapsed, and no one seemed disposed to accept the responsibilities of power at that critical period, when Dreyfus was just about to return and his case to be retried. M. Loubet appealed to the devotion and spirit of self-sacrifice of M. Waldeck-Rousseau. If the latter had listened only to his personal interests, to his fondness for studious retirement, and to his disdain of political ambitions, he would have refused. But he saw a difficult task to be performed and a great responsibility to be undertaken. He ac cepted. He decided to appeal to all parties, even the most extreme, to come to the defence of the Republic. He brought together in the same cabinet a general of whom he was sure, from reasons of friendship and obligation, and a Socialist whose ability and worth he had seen tested in the tribunals of justice. He formed that minis. try of June 22, 1899, in which were united men as different as General de Galliffet, the Deputy Millerand, the Moderate Republican Decrais, and the young Socialist Baudin.

The Opportunist party, in which up to that time Waldeck-Rousseau's friends were all to be found, split into two parts; one, the smaller, endorsed this bold stroke, which seemed to them warranted by the situation; the other, led by M. Méline, to whom was soon added M. Ribot, refused to follow him in this seemingly precarious venture. The Radical party, for the most part, and the more judicious element of the

Socialist party, rallied to the defense of the new ministry, which came to be known as the "Ministry of Defense and of Republican Action." With this heterogeneous majority, to which the "advanced" parties made the largest contribution, Waldeck-Rousseau, the former Conservative Republican, only yesterday the best authorized spokesman of the Opportunist party, succeeded in governing France for the last three years.

That he has been compelled to sacrifice to that majority some of the features of his own programme; that he has been obliged to comply with the exigencies of the advanced party, instead of carrying out the wishes of the moderates; that he has been forced to move in the direction of radicalism, and to accept certain measures of an almost socialistic character, this cannot be denied. But his work, as a whole, has been of the most fruitful character, and is worth summarizing.

In the first place, he has reëstablished peace,— in the material and in the moral sense,-in the thoroughfares of Paris and in the hearts of most Frenchmen. The time is past when President Loubet could be insulted by ruffianly Nationalists in Paris, or assaulted at Auteuil by aristocratic Royalists or Bonapartists. The Dreyfus affair has been closed by a compromise, the only means which could have been peaceably employed; Dreyfus has been pardoned. The amnesty has been voted after a splendid speech of the prime minister, which the Senate caused to be posted in all the communes of France.

Further, he has succeeded in passing a certain number of measures which had, for a long time, been only unrealized projects. In the first place, he has created a colonial army, the need of which had been felt for twenty years.

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Another law has been passed making the inheritance tax less burdensome on small estates. Still another law has reduced the excise taxes upon wine, beer, and cider (what are called in France hygienic beverages "), and increased that upon distilled liquors, a measure which aims at both the welfare and the morality of the masses, inasmuch as it makes cheaper the wine upon the workingman's table and at the same time tends to decrease the consumption of the really dangerous alcoholic drinks.

The law which, beyond all others, has occupied the attention of M. Waldeck-Rousseau's government, and which has been the most exhaustively and passionately debated, is the law dealing with the associations, which received the President's signature on July 1, 1901. This law establishes and regulates the right of association, hitherto refused by the law, to groups consisting of more

than twenty persons. The feature which gives

this law a peculiarly aggressive character, and which has called forth the protests of the Roman Catholics and of a great number of Liberals, is that it makes the existence of the religious associations dependent upon the good will or the caprice of the government, which has utililized it to prohibit the existence of societies accused of taking part in politics, such as the Jesuits and the Assumptionists. It must be admitted that the very existence of a ministry supported by the Radicals was conditioned upon its adoption of a policy, if not hostile, at least defiant with regard to Catholicism. In the law of associations, M. WaldeckRousseau has made this concession to anti-clerical sentiment. In return he was not expected to carry out certain further articles of the Radical programme, which he always opposed, such as the income tax, the abolition of the Senate, and the separation of Church and State.

To the bitter complaints of the conservative opposition, which reproached his administration with making dangerous concessions to the anticlericals, with being only a tool in the hands of the collectivists, with endangering national safe. ty and national credit, M. Waldeck-Rousseau can reply by citing the social and political reforms which he has brought to pass, by pointing to the peace and order reëstablished in the country, and to France's worthy maintenance of her rank as a great power in the European concert. The elections of April 27 and May 11 have shown that the country at large indorsed this policy.

But the great source of M. Waldeck-Rousseau's power, during his three years of office, was the influence and magnetism of his personality; this, more than anything else, enabled him to maintain discipline and loyalty in the ranks of his majority. M. Waldeck-Rousseau is cold in temperament ; in the most turbulent of parliamentary storms he is always collected, always master of himself. He has often been called haughty and contemptuous. He is, indeed, reserved and somewhat distant; he has not the vulgar familiarity of the ordinary politician, for he has a species of dignity due as much to timidity as to good taste. In fact, his haughtiness is timidity in disguise. On one occasion, when a lady of his acquaintance went to hear him make an argument at the Palais de Justice, he confessed to being greatly disturbed, and said to her, at their next meeting, "You came near ruining my logic; I do not like to speak before my friends." This great orator is also a great master of silence, who wastes words neither in public nor in private. He has no weakness for notoriety or display. He is as eager to escape from celebrations, receptions, and banquets as some are to participate in them.

I

have said that it was necessary to place him in

the Senate almost by force, after his temporary retirement from politics. Since he has been prime minister, he has declined all invitations,— except in cases where he felt it his duty to encourage some charitable or humane enterprise. Beneath his cold and unsympathetic exterior he conceals the warmest and most generous of hearts. His colleagues in the cabinet dearly loved him. When they met for the last time, after three years of unbroken union and friendship, there were tears in all their eyes.

For relaxation from his work, in which he expends his energy without stint, he turns to painting in water colors, being reckoned an amateur of distinction, and to angling, which he once declared to be the one thing for which he felt himself best fitted. Highly cultivated and well read, he is also fond of travel; the Italian cities, espe cially Venice, have a strong attraction for him, whenever his duties do not keep him in Paris. Sometimes, in vacation, he spends long periods at sea, on board the yacht of one of his friends. He was on one of these cruises when, in the summer of 1901, the arrival in France of the Czar was announced. While the other ministers were rushing about in feverish excitement, and lavishing themselves upon preparations and arrangements, the prime minister tranquilly continued his voyage until it was time to return to the shore; then he returned, and received his imperial guest with his accustomed quiet ease.

His engaging manners impress all who come into contact with him. His charm and perfect distinction have won the admiration of the entire diplomatic corps. The German ambassador once said to him: "What a pity that my master cannot make your acquaintance."

M. Waldeck-Rousseau's chief means of in. fluence and his supreme fascination is his eloquence. I have often heard him speak, upon the most widely differing subjects, and always, however dry the question under discussion, the charm and the pleasure have been the same. His eloquence is, above all, modern, discarding idle ornament and antiquated rhetoric. There are no tall phrases or showy metaphors, but there is precision, clarity, and logic. His reasoning is clothed in a language so pure and a style so harmonious; he coins such felicitous phrases and such telling formulas; he introduces into his discourse so many striking observations and so many flashes of wit; his irony is so keen and polished; he speaks with such conviction, such ease, and such art, that each of his addresses is a delight to his auditors, whether supporters or opponents.

A half-dozen of his speeches as prime minister have been posted in all the communes of France, an