China and the West

Letter from John Dewey to Dewey family
Teachers College April 24 [1920] Nanking
Dearest children,
You will see from the other side of this what sometimes happens when the Chinese get away from their own etiquette and dont succeed in getting over to ours. There are 60 or more returned American students here, about half of them in the T C; the guests were the American community here, at last as many as cane. Pres Kuo after a social occasion of cakes and tea delivered my obituary which I am getting reasonable hardedned to, but he interspersed the more painful parts with a few jokes. The Chinese have an enumerative mind; they like to cover the ground, from one, two, three, four up. Thusly, I am welcomed first because I am an American, secondly, because I am a philosopher, thridsly because I am a teacher, and so on till catagories and words are exhausted. There was also music, and some of the Chinese young men did stunts about like college boys at home, including a lesson in learning a new language by the modern motheod, which consisted in a dialogue of all the American slang they could remember, and the giving of various college yells.
The French are sending back some Chinese coolies now. The French lot moslty came from the river provinces, and the big boats come up the river to here, 1100 landing today, and everybody is investigating their door and window locks. Also cussing the French. They just unload them and turn them loose; they may be penniless and a hundred miles or more from home. They give them drafts on France for their back wages, payable not here but in Shanghai, and then only when the Shanghai bank has recd notification from Paris. Some of them have hung around two months, living ion charity or something else waiting for the bank to get authorization from France for the Bank to pay checks these men already have. They have to have identification papers too with thunm prints, and between losing them having them stolen, and gambling them away, everything is a mess. When the first lot landed here, there was no one to receive them, or give them advice. The Y M C A now have an organization that takes their checks sends them to Shanghai and collect. Everyone contrasts French management with the British; they sent part of the wages to the mans home here, registered every letter, followed them up, got several postofficers dismissed for dishonesty; send somebody to look after them when they come home, and open a good number of pay offices in the home country of the people. Also the British made it easy for their coolies to save money and the French offered them every facility for spending it as fast as they got it.
The students strike is on, indefinitely this time, altho they only struck for five days at first. The students here altho they were oppose[d] sent delegates out to other schools in Yangste towns and induced them to strike and now they cant quit because of these others. Also there is a good deal of disgust with Shanghai students, and I think there is some face-making at expense of Shanghai union; they want the leadership to centre here. Now they are trying to get the ineveitable middle man, the peacemaker to intervene. The provincial assembly has telegrapghed to the central govt in favor of the student demands—return of Japanese note andsking for negotiations over Shantung and cancelling of all secret pacts—and they are trying to get some Shanghai organizations to do the same. This will save the face of the students and they can go back to work, saying they struck only because others whose business it was did not take the responsibility and now that the latter have taken it, they will return to their proper business. But the paper says the Peking students have struck and that may complicate things. When mamma wrote about Sokolsky heading the Lamont student delegation I wondered of course whether he hasd anything to do with the strike. Yesterday I heard from a young Chinese here that a Russian Jew had had a lot of influence with a man who had influence with the students, and had been influential in starting the strike. He seemed to be of the opinion that the fiasco would reduce his future influence.
Yesterday I went to the a tea in the Cockcrow temple—the Buddisht temples often have tea houses in connection—given by the student editors of an educational bi-weekly, Youth and Society, they made four very good speeches in English explaining their purposes and work. The neatest one said that their object was to help produce a Social Youth and a Youthful Society—which is an elegant example of Chinese balance. While we were talking three policemen came in. As they made profound bows, I was much flattered thinking they had come especially to offer their section of honor to the distinguished foreign guest. But there is martial law here, and the priests had reported that a meeting was going on. Having made their bows they promptly went out, and when we left they were still drinking tea in the other room, so they evidently got a hoilday out of it. Some of the students talked some. It seems that some professor in Peking University has advocated public rearing of children, on the ground that parents were too ignorant to rear their children, and that the family system was a failure anyway, and family ought to be abolished. Id like to get a collection of the extreme proposals that are going the rounds. An interesting thing is that they are practically put forth by Chinese who have had no foreign education at all, but who have become disgusted with conditions. Apparently at different times there has been a good deal of radicalism in China in spite of their conservatism. Another problem is that this school has the reputation of turning out radicals educationally and when they get jobs to teach they at once come into conflict with the old line educators, and many of them have to quit—or some quit simply they are senstive as to their face. This society like the other one seemed to put a good deal of emphasis upon a fighting spirit however. When we were in Peking we had read to us a letter from the Governor of Chekiang province pitching into a school principal there, saying he taught the pupils free love, nationalization of women etc as well as other alleged Bolshevist eccentricities. It turns out that the governor got his information from some of the old teachers in anonymous letters, they disliking their principal because of some of his progressive educational tendencies The principal is a Chinese scholar of the old type, and his progressiveness is all a matter of the last two or three years. These things throw some light on the struggle to change things. These young editors asked me to suggest topics for their magazine, which has a circulation of 1200, and I suggested a critical discussion of the disadvantages of Face. One of them put the whole political dilemma of China in a sentence when he said considering that an immediate revolution would merely transfer power from one set of officials and militarists to another set, and an educati a revolution that depended upon the proper education of the people so as really to have a democratic government would be too slow and come too late, what where the students to do?
My program is finally made out. We are supposed to leave here May 16th and make six one or two day stands before reaching Shanghai on the 26th where we stay the rest of May. Then two weeks in three cities including Hangchow in the Shanghai region, then back up the Yangste for the last two weeks of June—not getting as far up the river as Hankow however. After the first of July we shall be on our own, I mean a vacation so if we want to go further up the river we can.
You better keep sending mail here till further notice. An empress steamer comes in Shanghai today, so shall hope for late news soon. Lots of love to everybody. Im going to adress to Sabino as a reminder we have missed of late his good letters.
Dad.