China and the West

Dewey, John ; Dewey, Alice Chipman. Letters from China and Japan.
Peking, July 17. [17.7.1919].
We are pleased to learn that the Japanese censor hasn't detained all our letters, though since you call them incoherent there must be some gaps. I'm sure we never write anything incoherent if you get it all. The course of events has been a trifle incoherent if you don't sit up and hold its hands all the time. Since China didn't sign the peace treaty things have quite settled down here, however, and the lack of excitement after living on aerated news for a couple of months is quite a letdown. However, we live in hopes of revolution or a coup d’état or some other little incident to liven up the dog days.
You will be pleased to know that the University Chancellor—see letters of early May—has finally announced that he will return to the University. It is supposed that the Government has assented to his conditions, among which is that the police won't interfere with the students, but will leave discipline to the University authorities. To resign and run away in order to be coaxed back is an art. It's too bad Wilson never studied it. The Chinese peace delegates reported back here that Lloyd George inquired what the twenty-one Demands were, as he had never heard of them. However, the Chinese hold Balfour as most responsible. In order to avoid any incoherence I will add that a Chinese servant informed a small boy in the household of one of our friends here that the Chinese are much more cleanly than the foreigners, for they have people come to them to clean their ears and said cleaners go way down in. This is an unanswerable argument.
I hear your mother downstairs engaged on the fascinating task of trying to make Chinese tones. I may tell you that there are only four hundred spoken words in Chinese, all monosyllables. But each one of these is spoken in a different tone, there being four tones in this part of the country and increasing as you go south till in Canton there are twelve or more. In writing there are only 214 radicals, which are then combined and mixed up in all sorts of ways. My last name here is Du, my given name is Wei. The Du is made up of two characters, one of which means tree and the other earth. They are written separately. Then Wei is made up of some more characters mixed up together, one character for woman and one for dart, and I don't know what else. Don’t ask me how they decided that earth and tree put together made Du, for I can't tell.

Dewey, John ; Dewey, Alice Chipman. Letters from China and Japan.
Peking, July 19. [19.7.1919].
I met the tutor, the English tutor, of the young Manchu Emperor, the other day—he has three Chinese tutors besides. He teaches him Math., Sciences, etc., besides English, which he has been doing for three months. It is characteristic of the Chinese that they not only didn't kill any of the royal family, but they left them one of the palaces in the Imperial City and an income of four million dollars Mex. a year, and within this palace the kid who is now thirteen is still Emperor, is called that, and is waited upon by the eunuch attendants who crawl before him on their hands and knees. At the same time he is, of course, practically a prisoner, being allowed to see his father and his younger brother once a month. Otherwise he has no children to play with at all. There is some romance left in China after all if you want to let your imagination play about this scene. The tutors don't kneel, although they address him as Your Majesty, or whatever it is in Chinese, and they walk in and he remains standing until the tutor is seated. This is the old custom, which shows the reverence in which even the old Tartars must have held education and learning. He has a Chinese garden in which to walk, but no place to ride or for sports. The tutor is trying to get the authorities to send him to the country, let him have playmates and sports, and also abolish the eunuch—but he seems to think they will more likely abolish him. The kid is quite bright, reads all the newspapers and is much interested in politics, keeps track of the Paris Conference, knows about the politicians in all the countries, and in short knows a good deal more about world politics than most boys of his age; also he is a good classical Chinese scholar. The Chinese don't seem to worry at all about the boy's becoming the center of intrigue and plots, but I imagine they sort of keep him in reserve with the idea that unless the people want monarchy back he never can do anything, while if they do let him back it will be the will of heaven.
I am afraid I haven't sufficiently impressed it upon you that this is the rainy season. It was impressed upon us yesterday afternoon, when the side street upon which we live was a flowing river a foot and a half deep. The main street on which the Y.M.C.A. building is situated was a solid lake from housewall to housewall, though not more than six inches or so. But the street is considerably wider than Broadway, so it was something of a sight. Peking has for many hundred years had sewers big enough for a man to stand up in, but they don't carry fast enough. Probably about this time you will be reading cables from some part of China about floods and the number of homeless. The Yellow River is known as the curse of China, so much damage is done. We were told that when the missionaries went down to do flood relief work a year or so ago, they were so busy that they didn't have time to preach, and they did so much good that when they were through they had to put up the bars to keep the Chinese from joining the churches en masse. We haven't heard, however, that they took the hint as to the best way of doing business. These floods go back largely if not wholly to the policy of the Chinese in stripping the forests. If you were to see the big coffins they are buried in and realize the large part of China's scant forests that must go into coffins you would favor a law that no man could die until he had planted a tree for his coffin and one extra.
One of our new friends here is quite an important politician, though quite out of it just now. He told a story last night which tickled the Chinese greatly. The Japanese minister here haunted the President and Prime Minister while the peace negotiations were on, and every day on the strength of what they told him cabled the Tokyo government that the Chinese delegates were surely going to sign. Now he is in a somewhat uncomfortable position making explanations to the home government. He sent a representative after they didn't sign to the above-mentioned friend to ask him whether the government had been fooling him all the time. He replied No, but that the Japanese should remember that there was one power greater than the government, namely, the people, and that the delegates had obeyed the people. The Japanese will never be able to make up their minds though whether they were being deliberately deceived or not. The worst of the whole thing, however, is that even intelligent Chinese are relying upon war between the United States and Japan, and when they find out that the United States won't go to war just on China's account, there will be some kind of a revulsion. But if the United States had used its power when the war closed to compel disarmament and get some kind of a just settlement, there would be no limit to its influence over here. As it is, they infer that the moral is that Might Controls, and that adds enormously to the moral power of Japan as against the United States. It is even plainer here than at home that if the United States wasn't going to see its 'ideals' through, it shouldn't have professed any, but if it did profess them it ought to have made good on 'em even if we had to fight the whole world. However, our financial pressure, and the threat of withholding food and raw materials would have enabled Wilson to put anything over.
Another little incident is connected with the Chancellor of the University. Although he is not a politician at all, the Militarist party holds him responsible for their recent trials and the student outbreaks. So, although it announced that the Chancellor is coming back, the Anfu Club, the parliamentary organization of the militarists, is still trying to keep him out. The other night they gave a banquet to some University students and bribed them to start something. At the end they gave each one dollar extra for 'ricksha hire the next day, so there would be no excuse for not going to the meeting at the University. Fifteen turned up, but the spies on the other side heard something was going on and they rang the bell, collected about a hundred and locked the bribees in. Then they kept them in till they confessed the whole story (and put their names to a written confession) and turned over their resolutions and mimeographed papers which had been prepared for them in which they said they were really the majority of the students and did not want the Chancellor back, and that a noisy minority had imposed on the public, etc. The next day the Anfu papers told about an awful riot at the University, and how a certain person had instigated and led it, although he hadn't been at the University at all that day.

Dewey, John ; Dewey, Alice Chipman. Letters from China and Japan.
Peking, July 24. [24.7.1919].
We expect to go to Manchuria, probably in September, and in October to Shansi, which is quite celebrated now because they have a civil governor who properly devotes himself to his job, and they are said to have sixty per cent or more of the children in school and to be prepared for compulsory education in 1920. It is the ease with which the Chinese do these things without any foreign assistance which makes you feel so hopeful for China on the one hand, and so disgusted on the other that they put up so patiently with inefficiency and graft most of the time. There seems to be a general impression that the present situation cannot continue indefinitely, but must take a turn one way or another. The student agitation has died down as an active political thing but continues intellectually. In Tientsin, for example, they publish several daily newspapers which sell for a copper apiece. A number of students have been arrested in Shantung lately by the Japanese, so I suppose the students are actively busy there. I fancy that when vacation began there was quite an exodus in that direction.
I am told that X——, our Japanese friend, is much disgusted with the Chinese about the Shantung business—that Japan has promised to return Shantung, etc., and that Japan can’t do it until China gets a stable government to take care of things, because their present governments are so weak that China would simply give away her territory to some other power, and that the Chinese instead of attacking the Japanese ought to mind their own business and set their own house in order. There is enough truth in this so that it isn't surprising that so intelligent and liberal a person as X—— is taken in by it. But what such Japanese as he cannot realize, because the truth is never told to them, is how responsible the Japanese government is for fostering a weak and unrepresentative government here, and what a temptation to it a weak and divided China will continue to be, for it will serve indefinitely as an excuse for postponing the return of Shantung—as well as for interfering elsewhere. Anyone who knows the least thing about not only general disturbances in China but special causes of friction between China and Japan, can foresee that there will continue to be a series of plausible excuses for postponing the return promised—and anyway, as a matter of fact, what she has actually promised to return compared with the rights she would keep in her possession amount to little or nothing. Just this last week there was a clash in Manchuria and fifteen or twenty Japanese soldiers are reported killed by Chinese—there will always be incidents of that kind which will have to be settled first. If the other countries would only surrender their special concessions to the keeping of an international guarantee, they could force the hand of Japan, but I can't see Great Britain giving up Hong Kong. On the whole, however, Great Britain, next to us, and barring the opium business, has been the most decent of all the great powers in dealing with China. I started out with a prejudice to the contrary, and have been surprised to learn how little grabbing England has actually done here. Of course, India is the only thing she really cares about and her whole policy here is controlled by that consideration, with such incidental trade advantages as she can pick up.

John Dewey attended an educational conference in Beijing.

Dewey, John ; Dewey, Alice Chipman. Letters from China and Japan.
(Later) July 27. [27.7.1919].
I think I wrote a while back about a little kid five years old or so who walked up the middle aisle at one of my lectures and stood for about fifteen minutes quite close to me, gazing at me most seriously and also wholly unembarrassed. Night before last we went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner, under the guardianship of a friend here. A little boy came into our coop and began most earnestly addressing me in Chinese. Out friend found out that he was asking me if I knew his third uncle. He was the kid of the lecture who had recognized me as the lecturer, and whose third uncle is now studying at Columbia. If you meet Mr. T—— congratulate him for me on his third nephew. The boy made us several calls during the evening, all equally serious and unconstrained. At one he asked me for my card, which he carefully wrapped up in ceremonial paper. The restaurant is near a lotus pond and they are now in their fullest bloom. I won't describe them beyond saying that the lotus is the lotus and advising you to come out next summer and see them.

Dewey, John. Militarism in China [ID D28471].
"The effect of the decision of the Allies at the Peace Conference to guarantee the claims of Japan strengthens the hold of the militarist party upon the Chinese government and also increases the hold which a neighboring militarist country has upon the determination of Chinese policies." This sentence, with slight verbal changes, can be found over and over again in every liberal paper in China. It comes with a shock to an American who has learned to identify China with inveterate pacifism, and who, under the tutelage of Mr. Roosevelt, believes that Chinafication and supine pacifism are synonymous. China a militarist country? Impossible!
A few statistics may be cited. At the present time, the Chinese government is supporting an army of a million and three hundred thousand at the lowest estimate. And China does not have conscription. This is a paid, standing, professional army. And China sent no troops to Europe and trained no troops to go there. The nearest approach to the war zone was connected with the propaganda for intervention in Siberia after the Russian debacle. Nor is the civil war in China anything more than nominal at present, and in any case the great mass of soldiers never had part in it. From the standpoint of the size of its standing army, then, China is not "Chinafied."
The budget of China tells the same story. The central government spent for ordinary military purposes last year two hundred and ten millions of dollars and for 'extraordinary' purposes thirty millions more. Percentages are even more eloquent. This amount is fifty per cent of the entire annual expenditures of the government. And since the total income of the nation, barring loans, is but three hundred and seventy millions, this means that sixty-five per cent of the total state income goes to the army. Figuring still another way, leaving payments for interest on the national debt out of account, China spent almost twice as much for military purposes as for all other ends put together, fifty times as much as she spent, from the side of the central government, for schools and six times as much as the central government and all the provinces together spent for public education. Moreover China is now spending, in the eighth year of the republic, much more than twice as much on the army as was spent in the last year of the Manchu dynasty. These facts do not point to undue addiction to pacifism.
Still, something more than large military expenses are needed to justify calling a government militaristic. For the term implies a subordination of civil to military control in political affairs generally. This is a matter which cannot be settled by statistics; but it is this matter even more than the size and expense of the army which is referred to in the sentence quoted at the beginning of the article. This militarism goes back to the earlier days of the republic, especially to the ambitions of Yuan Shih-kai. It is hardly a coincidence that the leaders in present Chinese policies are former lieutenants and disciples of the 'strong man' who attempted to convert the fruits of the revolution into a family perquisite of a new imperial dynasty. But in its present form it dates actively from two years ago, and particularly from conditions connected with China's declaration of war against Germany. Quite likely the full history of this episode cannot as yet be written by any one. But even a tyro in Chinese history like the present writer may report certain facts which could not be stated and which were not stated in the West—and in the Far East only under the breath—when the war was still on. And the outstanding fact with respect to the growth of militarism is that its present swollen fortunes date from the circumstances under which China entered the war on the side of the Allies. And if this fact is not brought out in books dealing with the recent years of Chinese history it is partly because the writers were so interested in the righteous cause of the Allies that they hardly allowed themselves to perceive the fact, and partly because to have dwelt upon this fact while the war was still going on would have been pro-German in effect, to say nothing of subjecting writers to the charge of promoting German intrigue.
One does not have to go far to find explanations for the opposition in China to entering the war. There existed every reason that operated to bring about the delay on the part of the United States—except the presence of a large population of German descent—and there was in addition a genuine fear of German victory and subsequent German reprisals of whose nature China had already had sufficient warning. Moreover the German nationals in China were upon the whole more popular personally than those of any other country unless perhaps those of the United States. For however arrogant Germany was as a nation, Germans taken individually were sufficiently bent on successful business to be unassuming, friendly, and attentive to native wishes and customs. Against all the reasons for not declaring war against Germany there were in fact but two intrinsic reasons for so doing. A portion of the genuinely liberal and republican sentiment of China was truly convinced after the United States entered the war that the war was between democracy and autocracy; between a new, just, international order which would guarantee the rights of weak nations, and the old, rapacious, nationalistic imperialism. Thus the historic humanitarian idealism of China actually urged liberal China into the war. Self-interest pointed in the same direction, for participation in the war would give China representation at the peace board, permit her to present her claims for the restoration of Shantung, and in general enable her to start even as a partner in the new international ordering of diplomacy which so many, besides the Chinese, ardently believed in, only two years ago. Immediately after the United States broke off diplomatic relations with Germany, China followed, the Cabinet and Parliament acting in unison. This was done in direct response to the invitation of President Wilson and China was the first nation to make a favorable response.
Then followed weeks and months of intrigue before China on August 14th finally declared war against Germany. What took place during those months was, first, the displacement of the American auspices evident in a severance of relations early in February by Japanese auspices; and, secondly, the struggle between the Premier, Tuan Chi-jui, and Parliament—a struggle ending in the forced dissolution of Parliament and in the outbreak of the still unhealed civil strife between the North and the South. The extent of the diplomatic defeat of the United States by Japan is seen in the fact that on June 7th a warning was communicated to China from the United States that the entrance of China into war was a 'secondary consideration' compared with the reestablishment of a tranquil and united China, while on June 12th a mandate was issued at the dictation of military leaders and with the approval of the Japanese legal adviser dissolving Parliament. The immediate outcome was the farcical restoration for ten days of the Manchu boy Emperor. The final outcome was the ousting of President Li, and the defeat, through the coerced dissolution of Parliament, of Constitutionalism, and the beginnings of a civil war which in turn played into the hands of the militaristic cliques.
For the Premier was then, as he is still though now out of political office, the head of the militarist, anti-constitutional and anti-parliamentary faction. The liberal Parliament, which, whatever its defects, was still devoted to republican constitutionalism, grew more and more lukewarm in the cause of breaking irreparably with Germany. Ready to follow promptly in the wake of the United States when American and democratic prestige seemed to be uppermost, it hesitated when diplomatic leadership went over to the Japanese, and when it came to believe that the Cabinet was not thinking so much of the defeat of Germany as of an excuse for building up an army and a military regime which would insure their own continued power.
By one of the ironies of fate, the militarist and anti-democratic factions became the professed spokesmen of the Allies, and a constitutionally inclined Parliament was put in the position of being pro-German. The wheat and the tares were so mixed that even the liberally minded foreign press, tired of the delay and intriguing, welcomed the 'strong' action of Tuan Chi-jui in dissolving Parliament simply because it hastened the day when China was officially arrayed with the Allies and when German commercial interests would get a hard if not fatal blow in the Far East. When one sees how wrong was foreign liberal sentiment— with a few notable exceptions—in the case of the Yuan Shih-kai adventure in imperialism and again how wrong it was in the inception of the regime they are now all cursing, in spite in both cases of the warnings of liberal native Chinese thought, one receives a marked lesson in the extent to which Chinese events have been interpreted to the world in the light of supposed foreign interests, and how little consideration has been given to the actual effect of the events in question upon the development and destiny of China itself. One sometimes wonders that the Chinese have retained any faith in the political intelligence of the foreign interpreter of her contemporary history.
At present the militaristic faction whose power was confirmed by the happenings of the summer of 1917 is still in control of the government. There is no doubt that all its members are patriotic enough to have welcomed the restoration of Shantung. But still human nature is human nature, and they have also welcomed the demonstration offered at Paris that might still makes right in the case of weak nations, so that in a strange and subtle way the diplomatic victory of Japan in particular and of imperialism in general has been a vindication of their own anti-democratic and militaristic policy. If the humanitarian international and democratic ideals profusely proclaimed in the war had been realized at Paris, no observer in China doubts that a vast domestic political realignment would already have taken place. The demonstration that national self-interest was on the side of the democracies of the world would have had an irresistible reflex effect upon domestic policies. And few doubt that the realization of this fact was, in addition to the concrete economic advantages at stake in Shantung, one of the reasons why Japan was so insistent at Paris. While her newspapers exaggerated in saying that her national existence was involved in securing a diplomatic victory, the exaggeration covered the fact that her diplomatic defeat, following upon the collapse of autocratic Germany, would have ended for the time being the prestige of militarism in the Far East, and compelled a reconsideration of home policies in China and of foreign policy in Japan. This moral reverberation seems to have been completely ignored at Paris and it may be doubted whether it is receiving the attention it deserves in Washington.
The specific signs of the continuance of the militarist regime in China are many. In the provinces the Tuchuns, military governors, still override civil governors and interests and sacrifice the crying need for education and better transportation to the pelf and power that go with command of a large number of troops. In remote provinces they encourage the growth of opium either for direct revenue or for levying hardly disguised blackmail. They discourage the development of natural resources in mines and manufacturing because their cohorts give them an effective power to demand a large interest in the business. In spite of the universal desire for reconciliation between the North and South, the militarists on both sides (and it would be a great mistake to think they are confined to the North) block all final settlement. The last few weeks have seen the beginnings of a mysterious adventure in Mongolia and an attempt of a Tuchun to obtain a virtual dictatorship of the three Manchurian provinces. But, especially, it is militarist control which keeps China in a condition that invites and rewards foreign intrigue and secret unacknowledged interventions.
No observer thinks that the present condition can last a great while longer. The equilibrium is too uncertain. No sensible person attempts to prophesy what the nature of the change will be when it comes. But if the reader will return to the statistics given early in the article he will note that at present the expenses of China exceed its available income by one hundred and ten millions a year. This means, of course, borrowing money—and when China borrows money she borrows it from some foreign nation by pledging some definite asset. In other words, cut down the army one-half and China's accounts balance. Continue the present army, and the responsibility lies with some foreign nation or group of nations through the loans it—or they—are willing to make for an army which is not and will not be a source of strength to China abroad, and which is eating up China at home. In the case of the continuation of China's militarism, the economic interpretation of history is more than ordinarily obvious. Hence it is hardly prophecy to say that what happens next in China will be determined by financial considerations, and that the decision is in the hands of those who have the power to control the making of loans. As long, however, as some one nation can serve its own interests by making loans, the situation cannot be adequately met on the part of other nations by merely a laissez-faire policy of declining to make loans. Something positive is needed. 

John Dewey attends a conference of heads of higher schools to consider reopening schools in Tianjin.

John Dewey : Talk with the Education and Industry Observation Group in Guizhou. = Duwei bo shi yu Guizhou jiao yu shi ye can guan tuan tan hua ji lue. Hu Shi interpreter ; Han Lu, Tian Feng recorder. In : Xue deng ; July 29 (1919).

Letter from John Dewey to Wendell T. Bush
Care Y M C A Peking China Aug 1 '19
Dear Mr Bush,
Your letter of early June came two or three days ago. Mails are uncertain here, especially as the technique of the Bank in Tokyo is of a primitively casual type. I am glad to have a permanent address here, for while we cannot stay where we are longer than a few weeks more (we are with a Princeton man, a Y M C A secy, whose family has gone to the seashore) mails will be recd. You are owed many apologies rega[r]ding all the troubles you had about our staying over. Yet it wouldnt be easy to tell from whom the apologies should come, unless it was the young Chinese men who saw us in Tokyo and said they would see Dean Woodbridge. They would have explained that it was not expected that Columbia would bear any expense unless a regular exchange was arranged. Other wise the difficulties were due to the upset in the university, and we had no idea till your last cablegram to Suh Hu [Hu Shi] came that there was any trouble except in the delay of the cables, as we didnt know that any return inquiry [in ink w. caret] had been recd. But there is no reason in the world why the cablegram should have come out of your pocket, and if you will only allow a reimbursement Im asking Evelyn to pay you for it. I wrote an article on the Students Movement for the N R which you may [in ink w. caret] have seen if they published it. It couldnt give the color of the thing however nor what it meant to the boys and girls, or even to the people of China . An after echo took place the other day. The militarists in present control of things here form what they call the Anfu Club, which has a majority in Parliament. They hate the Chancellor of the University whom they regard as morally responsible for the students taking an interest in politics—altho he himself is no politician—in fact is own interest is in esthetics and literature—Paris educated. So last week they bribed a few students, some ex-students and a few more who were just applying for admission to demonstrate agt the Chancellor. They got together about fifteen, when the other students heard of it and to the number of about a hundred attacked them, locked them up, and made them sign a written confession. Then a few days ago, some of the attacking students were arrested charged with assualt and battery. Now the interesting thing about the matter from our standpoint is that public opinion is entirely against this "interference" by the police. The matter is wholly one between students, not one for the courts. It wasnt at all sporty for the beaten (quite literally I think) party to appeal to the law. So some of the students who were dismissed by the trial judge as quite innovent decline to leave jail. They are staying there as a protest! [ink exclamation mark] This place [in ink w. caret] is really upside down on the globe as you can see, and it makes life very amusing not to say interesting. The other strange thing is the number of foreigners who get converted to the Chinese standpoint. Except in Shanghai and some of the other outports where many foreigners especially British pride themselves on having been in China twenty five years and never set foot in Chinese town—tho I cant quite see what good it does them as eighty to ninety percent of the population in the foreign settlements is Chinese. To go back to the student strike. I was invited last the first of the week to a conference of heads of higher schools in this province to consider the reopening of schools. The great majority of heads are very conservative and strongly opposed to the strike and to the students having any part in politics. So as the students have been saving the country all summer, and are probably somewaht cocky and unruly, there is much nervousness about what will happen when the schools reopen. The action of the peace conference as regards Shantung has done ^one^ thing that probably wasnt intended—it has stimulated in one summer [w. caret] the development of national consciousness in China as more than otherwise might have happened in ten years. Nationalistic consciousness in its early stages is apt to be rather blind, but tho the Japanese have tried to make out on one hand that the movement isnt national but instigated by American traders money, [ink comma] and on the other hand have tried to change it into a general anti-foreign movement, it has so far been quite restrained. Except that the illiterate and common people have got it in their heads that the Japanese are carrying on a food poisoning campaign, and when you recal how many Americans believed in the groundglass stores etc, it is easy to see that there may still be violent outbreaks, if the rumors keep up.
It still isnt certain under just what auspices my lectures will be given, some of them under certain Chinese Societies for promoting modern learning, as they have guaranteed me a salary in case the University situation doesnt stay cleared up. We shall be here into March and then move southwards, to Nanking etc. It is very hard to get living accommodations; the Rockefeller Foundation which is putting in the big medical plant has had to build over thirty houses for its staff already. We are on the trail of the flat, almost the only one in Peking which is given up in Sept by a bank man ordered to the Phillipines, but have had to cable to the U S to the man from whom he subleases and are still waiting for a reply as cables are reported ten days behind. Lucy came a week ago, after a very pleasant month in Japan and we are living in earnest hopes that Evelyn will condescend to join us during the year.
She brougt over with her the mss. of my University lectures there, which I had left for translation into Japanese. Im glad you liked the outline, and I hope you will like the lectures when they come out. I am going over the copy again and shall then send it on to Holt. I cant afford to waste so much good typewriting. I think it has one merit; it is reasonably free from philosophic partisanship, being an attempt to evaluate the modern spirit in general in contrast with that of classic philosophies. I am changing the order of some of the earlier lectures.
Suh Hu is very influential here; the weekly magazine he edits has a circulation of five thousand which is large for this country, and would be in ours for an intellectual organ. The vernacular speech movement which he and some others started is taking widely. The students started twnety or thirty journals this summer, all printed in the spoken language, and there are now many other less ephemeral organs that use it. His history of Chinese philosophy is the first written on modern historic lines. He chafes under the conditions which divert so much of his time tofrom scholarship; he wants to study and write more. If Columbia wanted to offer him the Chinese professorship—if it still vacant—I think he would take it at least for a specified time. I dont see how China can spare him, but it is rather pathetic to see how many of the old students here long for life in the U S. It is a hard proposition they are up against. Many of the things that make it interesting to a mere visitor make it trying for them. I was glad to get a little gossip about university matters. Did [Roberts Bishop] Owen come back? I had heard Coss was not to, and waam glad to know he did. I hope you will have a good time in France. Do you spend the whole year there? We also hope you and Mrs Bush are having a good summer. Please accept the best regards of both of us to both of you. Two years is making a large hole in our New York life and at times we get quite homesick, but after all it is a wonderful experience, and we wish you were here to share it and talk it over with us. It was some comfort to know that some of our friends miss us. When I recal the pace at which New York moves I sometimes wonder whether anybody will remember us when we get back. We get the New York papaers in the Club reading room after they are a month old, and in that respect can follow matters better than we did formerly. Again with affectionate regards,
Sincerely yours, John Dewey

John Dewey : Lecture 'The aims of science education'. = Li ke jiao yu zhi mu di. Jiang Qi yi. In : Xin jiao yu ; vol. 1, no 5 (Aug. 1919). Translation of a speech delivered at Tokyo Imperial University].

Dewey, John ; Dewey, Alice Chipman. Letters from China and Japan.
Peking, August 4. [4.8.1919].
I went to Tientsin to an educational conference for two days last week. It was called by the Commissioner of this Province for all the principals of the higher schools to discuss the questions connected with the opening of the schools in the fall. Most of the heads of schools are very conservative and were much opposed to the students’ strikes, and also to the students’ participation in politics. They are very nervous and timorous about the opening of the schools, for they think that the students after engaging in politics all summer won't lend themselves readily to school discipline—their high schools, etc., are all boarding schools—and will want to run the schools after having run the government for several months. The liberal minority, while they want the students to settle down to school work, think that the students’ experiences will have been of great educational value and that they will come back with a new social viewpoint, and the teaching ought to be changed—and also the methods of school discipline—to meet the new situation.
I had a wonderful Chinese lunch at a private high school one day there. The school was started about fifteen years ago in a private house with six pupils; now they have twenty acres of land, eleven hundred pupils, and are putting up a first college building to open a freshman class of a hundred this fall—it's of high school grade now, all Chinese support and management, and non-missionary or Christian, although the principal is an active Christian and thinks Christ's teachings the only salvation for China. The chief patron is a non-English speaking, non-Christian scholar of the old type—but with modern ideas. The principal said that when three of them two years ago went around the world on an educational trip, this old scholar among them, the United States Government gave them a special secret service detective from New York to San Francisco, and this man was so impressed with the old Chinese gentleman that he said: 'What kind of education can produce such a man as that, the finest gentleman I ever saw. You western educated gentlemen are spoiled in comparison with him'. They certainly have the world beat in courtesy of manners—as much politeness as the Japanese but with much less manner, so it seems more natural. However, this type is not very common. I asked the principal what the effect of the missionary teaching was on the Chinese passivity and non-resistance. He said it differed very much as between Americans and English and among Americans between the older and the younger lot. The latter, especially the Y.M.C.A., have given up the non-interventionalist point of view and take the ground that Christianity ought to change social conditions. The Y.M.C.A. is, he says, a group of social workers rather than of missionaries in the old-fashioned sense—all of which is quite encouraging. Perhaps the Chinese will be the ones to rejuvenate Christianity by dropping its rot, wet and dry, and changing it into a social religion. The principal is a Teachers College man and one of the most influential educators in China. He speaks largely in picturesque metaphor, and I'm sorry I can't remember what he said. Among other things, in speaking of the energy of the Japanese and the inertia of the Chinese, he said the former were mercury, affected by every change about them, and the latter cotton wool that the heat didn’t warm and cold didn't freeze. He confirmed my growing idea, however, that the conservatism of the Chinese was much more intellectual and deliberate, and less mere routine clinging to custom, than I used to suppose. Consequently, when their ideas do change, the people will change more thoroughly, more all the way through, than the Japanese.
It seems that the present acting Minister of Education was allowed to take office under three conditions—that he should dissolve the University, prevent the Chancellor from returning, and dismiss all the present heads of the higher schools here. He hasn't been able, of course, to accomplish one, and the Anfu Club is correspondingly sore. He is said to be a slick politician, and when he has been at dinner with our liberal friends he tells them how even he is calumniated—people say that he is a member of the Anfu Club.
I struck another side of China on my way home from Tientsin. I was introduced to an ex-Minister of Finance as my traveling companion. He is a Ph.D. in higher math. from America, and is a most intelligent man. But his theme of conversation was the need of a scientific investigation of spirits and spirit possession and divination, etc., in order to decide scientifically the existence of the soul and an overruling mind. Incidentally he told a fine lot of Chinese ghost stories. Aside from the coloring of the tales I don't know that there was anything especially Chinese about them. He certainly is much more intelligent about it than some of our American spiritualists. But the ghosts were certainly Chinese all right—spirit possession mostly. I suppose you know that the walls that stand in front of the better-to-do Chinese houses are there to keep spirits out—the spirits can't turn a corner, so when the wall is squarely in front of the location of the front door the house is safe. Otherwise they come in and take possession of somebody—if they aren't comfortable as they are. It seems there is quite a group of ex-politicians in Tientsin who are much interested in psychical research. Considering that China is the aboriginal home of ghosts, I can't see why the western investigators don't start their research here. These educated Chinese aren't credulous, so there is nothing crude about their ghost stories.

John Dewey attended the Educators's meeting in Tianjin.

John Dewey : Lecture 'New problems of knowledge' at the New Learning Association in Beijing. = Xue wen di xin wen ti. Hu Shi interpreter, Zhi Xi, Wu Wang recorder. In : Jue wu ; Aug. 14, 15, 21, 22 (1919).

Letter from Alice Chipman Dewey to Jane Dewey
Peking, August 21st. [1919]
Dearest Jane.
... Butter costs $1.20 a pound and it is bad, in a can. Every one Chinese carries home the cutest little round gobs of meat and things done up in a lotus leaf hanging by the stem which makes an eccelent handle. When there are no more leaves for wrapping things they will go back to little sheets of brown paper still made up nto little round gobs and the paper hand made.
We have seen them making paper, each sheet handled and spread on a board to dry and it is of course precious, They use all the old news papers for wrapping and people live by going about the streets to pick up the tine bits either to burn on the temple alters or to sell them for rags to make more paper. No wood is available for paper.
Begging is so common here as to make life very uncomfortable. But people get to know one in this city very quickly and the beggars hang on less than they did when we were strangers to them for now they know we shall give them nothing. The Cinese do not believe in it, it is against the law and the beggars are fat with nursing children hanging to them if they are women, but, in spite, the Chinese will finally give them the minutest cash. It takes twenty cash, at the least, to make a penny. Counting money here is an occupation for a banker. If you change big money in a shop you are sure to get small money back. In the foreign shops I mean for the Chinese are more honest. It takes 138 coppers in small money to make a big dollar. Some day I am going to make the reckless experient which is so easy to work here. Take a dollar and go from one place to another changing it till I have nothing left. What fun, lacking the movies...... We have one afternoon dissipation her and it is going to the Y.M.C.A. buildi[n]g next to us to eat icecream. We might go to the club for tea instead and to day I think I shall do that, to day or tomorrow. As yet I have not put foot inside the club. Mrs Smith brings me books from there. It is not hot at night any more but by day it still is. At night I sleep comfortably under a sheet and even feel a slight chill from the breeze towards morning, There is nothing one longs for more than that chill. The heat is really fierce you just ooze all the time and bath as many times a day as you have time for. It is wonderful how the the coolies stand it. Once I asked my ricsha man why he did not wear a hat and he said it was too hot. If we had any thing active to do we should not s[t]and it long in the sun. At the club they say the mercury has been 108 on the piazza, and it stay pretty even, juntil this last week when the evenisg have lewered some what. No sun strokes amo[n]g the Chinese…
Love, Mother.

Letter from John Dewey to Dewey children
Y M C A Peking Aug 25 [1919]
Dearest children,
… Lucy didnt want to go to a hotel, not that any of us did, and Im sure that the bother of a house would have been an irritating burden to mamma, as the housekeeping would have come on her and the conveniences arent exactly modern. It was amusing to see a notice of Miss LaMotte's book in an American magazine in which it told how cheap houses were in Peking—we pay 80, aside from furniture, for this five small romm apt. Another one with six large rooms rents for 200 a month. Equally amusing w[a]s her account of the fear of robbers here, and the walls with broken glass and the fierce Mongolian dogs. Peking is one of the best policed cities in the world; Id much rather take my chances here than in Harlem. She wrote in the hotel I think with a Japanese curier for authority. We have to leave here Sept fourth and the Deerings leave Sept fourth, so it seems quite providential. Mr [Paul S.] Reinsch as you have probably seen is leaving. Nobody knows the reason here, if there is any aside from his wanting to go back. He isnt very popular, or Mrs R with the foreign community here, but is very well liked by the Chinese which speaks well for his official performanes Judging from what we hear a man of the type of Morris in Tokyo, with more business experience and ,ore executive pep will be useful from now on anyway. There ought to be about a half dozen of the ablest men in the country here to handle thes situation. It is the growing opinion th[a]t if the U S backs down on either the Shantung issue or the Japanese consortium for reservation of Manchuria and Mongolia, it means the going back to the old policy of the partition of China, as China cant hold its own alone. People here cant understand why the U S doesnt use its financial power and the Europena need of American assitance to compel GT Britain and France to side with us rather than with Japan in handling the whole Eastern question. Maybe it isnt neceasry but there is a feeling here that deals for further concessions and spheres are concerned going on, besides behind the scenes, in case the U S policy fails, and that the [o]ther countries arent giving any active aid to the U S in making it succeed. If so, its a suicidal policy in the end; for the European countries. Japan will get the concessions and spheres in the end; their only way is to help China get on her own feet, which is the obviously policy of the U S, and which is the only thing Japan is afraid of.
We havent a word from Sabino for almost a month, soon after he went to Kuai; we shall be relieved when we hear something. Its rather late to be giving Jane advice ur her year, but I hope she is doing what she wants to do and not what she [t]hinks she ought to do or what she thinks some one else thinks she ought to do. If she wants to give up college entirely and go to sculping or something, she ought to do it, if she can get a good sculp to teach her. We were glad to hear that Evelyns services were getting better peuniary recognition, but hope it doesnt mean that she is going to kept at it so long over there she wont get away to make us a visit, us includes China incidentally.
We are wondering whether there will be a ruction again. Over thrity students including four girls, tried to call on the president about Shantung and especially to ask for the removal of the military governor who torured and killed some merchants and bambooed some students for anto-Japnanese agitation and who (the delegation) instead of seeing the president were arrested by the police. If there isnt another students strike etc. it will probably prove not that they have laid down on the job but they are waiting till they get things better organized, and next time expect to make a thorough job of it. On the surface the militarists have had their own way the last month even more than before the success of the students movement—but something must be going on behind the scenes, and I think it is the effort ot organize the guilds which are powerful but whch have never taken any hand in politics. They got in thru the boycott and will probably have to go further now they are in.
P M Visiting hours are from noon to seven After I had written I began to be afraid that maybe Id been too hopeful but Luc[y]'s temp got to normal last night and was only 99 at ten oclock and also the doctor grins broadly and says the patient is a credit. The Club has a library and we're giving Lucy a course in O Henry. I have just done a foolish thing. The curio dealers tie up some miscellaneous pieces in two blue calico bundles that balance and then invade the house, if they are allowed. We had one entertain us at lunch We had a painting on silk that he asked ten dollars for. If I had a friend I wanted to cure of gambling Id set him to buying curiois in China; there's no difference—which is the true principle of all cures. You always want to see how much they'll come down. So I offered him two, as the picture isnt actaully offensive, and before he left the house I had bought it for three. Now I appeal to Evelyn to know what am I going to do with it? His smile was so ingratiating when he said "Lose money. How much?" that it cost me a dollar. "Very old. Ming. Number one".
Love Dad

Letter from John Macrae to Alice Chipman Dewey
August 26, 1919.
Mrs. John Dewey, c/o Y. M. C. A., Pekin, China.
My dear Mrs. Dewey,
I have just been informed by Prof. Tilly, of Columbia University, that you are interesting yourself in the introduction in China of the phonetic method of teaching English, and I am at once sending you, with our compliments, a copy of Rippmann's "The Sounds of Spoken English and Specimens of English", and Daniel Jones' "English Pronouncing Dictionary", both of which Prof. Tilly informs me you will find useful. It is my understanding that Miss Evelyn Dewey communicated with Prof. Tilly before he consulted with us.
It is a matter of great interest, and, to my mind, of wide importance, that you are taking up this problem during your stay in China. I recently read an editorial in the "World's Work" magazine which, without attempting to analyse the situation technically, dwelt significantly upon the tremendous and world wide importance of introducing some efficient system of phonetics to the Chinese people. Under your leadership and far-seeing initiative, I feel that much may develop from your personal attention to this work. And if there is anything we may do to co-operate with you, it will be a pleasure to do so.
Please extend my kindest personal regards to Prof. Dewey. You may be interested to know that Miss Evelyn Dewey's "New Schools for Old" is receiving prompt and enthusiastic recognition, and shows promise of becoming a very widely used book before the year is out. With my very best hopes for the success of your work, I am,
Very sincerely, [John Macrae]
JM-JKT

John Dewey : Lecture on 'Industrial education'. = Shi ye jiao yu lun. In : Xin Zhongguo ; vol. 1, no 5 (1919).

Mao, Zedong. Statutes of the Problem Study Society.
Mao listed seventeen educational problems including "the problem of how to implement [John] Dewey's educational doctrine, seventeen women's problems, fifteen labor problems, eight industrial problems, seven transportation problems, nine public financial problems, five economic problems, and more than sixty other international and general human problems".

Dewey, John. The American opportunity in China [ID D28472].
The average American probably regards the past course of the United States in China with complacency, and imagines that we have won a like admiration from the Chinese. Even the casual newspaper reader knows of the return of the Boxer indemnity, and supposes in a hazy way that our declaration in behalf of the Open Door in China succeeded in arresting the partitioning of China. The better informed reader takes pride in the consistently enlightened diplomacy of the United States exemplified in Cushing, Burlingame and Hay, and the insistence upon comparatively mild measures after the Boxer revolt had been put down. Our entire course, we readily fancy, is one that has secured for us the grateful confidence and respect of the Chinese. Our treatment of Chinese immigrants on the Pacific coast and our exclusion act may occur to us, but we quickly put such disagreeable thoughts out of mind as so much past history.
It is worth while to ask how far our notion of the Chinese attitude towards us corresponds with the facts. Or if this way of putting the matter implies a false assumption regarding the universality of public opinion in China, then what is the attitude of an influential section of public men, and what are the grounds upon which it is based? The result of the inquiry even if unflattering will be a necessary preliminary to the conception of a proper policy for the future. To give the uncomplimentary answer in a few words, our prior behavior has left with many Chinese, especially those who have not been in the United States, the impression that we are not, in our foreign dealings, a very practical people; that we lack alertness, quickness of decision in emergencies, promptness of action, and especially persistence. And all this even where our own interests are at stake. We are thought of as, upon the whole, a well disposed people, but somewhat ineffectual in action. Even gratitude for our refusal to enter into the game of grabbing China is colored by a suspicion that perhaps we lacked the energy and skill to engage successfully in the game. The immediate background of this feeling is connected with the contest of Japan and the United States in the past two and a half years for prestige and moral authority, a rather passive contest, to be sure, as far as the United States is concerned. Some parts of the record have a definite bearing on the obstacles that are in the way of a successful American policy in the Far East. The expressed objectives and ideals of the United States in entering the war and the vigor with which we went in aroused the greatest enthusiasm in a certain section of Chinese public men. For a time it looked as if there were to be a powerful liberal party with pro-Americanism for one of the most important planks in its platform. Enthusiasm for the Allied cause ran high. Even the militarists who are now in control were anti-Japanese in the early months of 1917. Eloquent testimony is given by the fact that diplomatic relations were broken off with Germany without consultation with any of the Japanese representatives. In fact the Japanese minister being out of China at that time, Japan did not know of the event until it was an accomplished fact. There was then much zeal for an active participation of Chinese troops on the western front. The militarists wanted it because of the training that the army would get; the liberals because they were pro-Ally and pro-democracy; all because they saw the advantage for China of a share in the international negotiations at the end of the war. Plans were made to use the seized interned German ships for transporting troops. But the Allies were short of shipping and parcelled out the ships themselves. If American diplomacy made any effort to help the Chinese carry out their own plans, it was either defeated or no knowledge of the effort came to the ears of the Chinese.
Then China needed money, and needed it badly. She needed money not only for internal reorganization but for active participation in the war. The United States was making regular advances to the other Allies. China wanted a loan and got nothing. The Japanese overwhelmed her with financial proffers. Current gossip insists that more or less of the funds stuck in the pockets corrupt Chinese officials. But in the larger sense the accuracy of this allegation is negligible. The outstanding fact is that Japan came forward when the United States did not. From this time dates the hold of Japan upon Chinese official circles. Another fact cooled the ardor of even the military people for an active share in the war.
After August of 1917, the military fortunes of the Allies sank to their lowest. Many Japanese leaders became convinced that German victory was either inevitable or that the war would end in a deadlock which would be almost equivalent to German victory. Responsible statesmen, men who had been prime ministers and heads of the foreign office, publicly stated that while Japan would be faithful to her allies throughout the war, an international realignment was almost certain after the war. Japan had already undertaken the necessary rapprochement with Russia, obviously undertaken in part with a view to resisting the growth of American influence in the Far East. Where would China be after the war in the case of an alliance offensive and defensive between Japan and Russia and Germany? It was obvious prudence for her to tread softly and give no offence to the powers which in the near future were likely to dominate the Far East. It is, I am convinced, impossible to exaggerate the influence of this factor in determining the present position of forces. For while the forecast did not come out according to specifications, in the meantime a situation was created which was pro-Japanese and indifferent to America. Even recently the man who is credited with being the head of the pro-Japanese military party in the government circles (and who is known as an incorruptible man) said that China had to be pro-Japanese, because Japan was so powerful in army and navy and also so nearby. 'If the Pacific shrinks to a pond we shall be pro- American'.
This is the concrete background upon which to project more general considerations regarding Chinese opinion of American policy. While Americans commence their account with, say, the benevolent return of the Boxer indemnity, the Chinese are likely to recall that as a positive force the United States opened its Far Eastern career with proposals for the neutralization of the Manchurian railways, and then met a defeat at the hands of Russia and Japan. This in itself was nothing very important. All countries receive diplomatic checks. But as it looks to the Chinese, after proposing a large scheme and meeting initial rebuffs, the American government neither made use of its check to secure a compensating advance elsewhere, nor did it try other means to maintain the principle it had laid down.
The affair of the Hankow-Peking railway strikes them also as an example of the tendency of the American government to conceive rather grandiose schemes and then fall down or withdraw when resistance is encountered. Through the American Red Cross valuable flood relief work was done. But there was also a large engineering plan for the regulation of the water-ways. After an original flourish, that too dissolved. The Siems-Carey railway projects may not be a case in point, for they may be in a state of suspended animation rather than of death. But the fact remains that the United States is the only great power that has nothing to show in China in achievement on a large scale. Or rather our one decided achievement is in the educational line where confessedly we are far ahead. But this success is not of a kind to be impressive when it comes to determination of international affairs. The cases given must stand as samples of the facts that have led educated and influential Chinese to feel that America could not be seriously counted upon. The Chinese have not, like some other nations, set us down as bluffers. But the cases mentioned, together with our failure to do much except utter words in behalf of the 'Open Door', have led to the feeling that we readily emit large and good schemes, but are ineffectual when it comes to the test of action. The Chinese do not carry sentiment into practical matters. They judge by results not by intentions. In contrast with ourselves, they have found the Japanese constantly on the job, never allowing anything to get by, taking advantage of every opening, stimulated by obstacles only to renewed or redirected effort, quick, patient, persistent, unremitting. If Japan had not blundered hugely in estimating Chinese national sentiment, China might already have put its foreign policies mainly into the hands of Japan. For if China has to depend upon some outside power, there was much to say for relying, even at great cost to itself, upon a nation that was acute, vigorous, vigilant, and that never abandoned a plan after it started to realize it. To the Americans, Baron Shibusawa's Proposal for Japanese-American cooperation in China, the United States to furnish the money and Japan the brains, did not seem together tactful in form of expression. But it is not likely that the great Japanese financier-philanthropist meant to imply that universally speaking Japanese intelligence is superior. He spoke rather on the basis of the fact that the Japanese have used their brains actively and persistently in pushing their policies in China, and Americans have not.
Now, of course, the reply to all this from an American standpoint is easy. We have never had large enough interests in the Far East to make it worth while to keep our attention and energy concentrated. We have never, beyond the Monroe Doctrine, gone in for a continuous foreign policy, as have other great powers. We have had so many other profitable ways of investing capital that it paid better to switch off to any other scheme than to bother too long in putting through a railway or other plan in the face of constant irritating and delaying obstacles. And in addition it is to our credit that we have never had the close alliance of business enterprise and governmental action which has characterized the policy of every other great power in dealing with economically backward countries and with China. From the American standpoint, excuses, and good ones, are as plenty as blackberries. But after all, as has been indicated, justifications and reasons do not concern the Chinese when it comes to their formulation of policy in foreign relations. They are interested in past results, in the actual outcome, as a means of forecasting the probable course of the future.
The war has now conclusively demonstrated that the United States can act promptly, efficiently and on a large scale in its foreign affairs. Unfortunately the contrast between President Wilson's words and the concrete results of the Peace Conference—a contrast that circumstances make glaringly conspicuous in China—tends to restore the older idea about the United States. Yet not wholly; there is a new interest and a new expectation on the part of important leaders while the masses of people look pathetically toward us for their redemption. The historic friendliness of sentiment toward the United States is so reinforced that it is an asset of great potentiality. The problem is the practical one of turning it to account by a constructive policy in action. It cannot be said that there is any single specific political act which is absolutely indispensable. But there is a line of action which would be fatal, at least for a considerable time. After so much talk about Shantung, to allow matters to go by default, or to permit them to drift, would be to confirm the worst opinions about the instability and futility of our policies. Some kind of definite course, persistently followed up, is a necessity unless China is to fall into practical vassalage to another nation. For help from without China must have. While the peace settlement has made the political international issue most acute for the moment, the financial and industrial question is the important one in the long run. Here lies the great chance of the United States. The introduction of a unified comprehensive currency system, a unified comprehensive railway system, improved modem harbors and terminal facilities, the reconstruction of the inland water-way system to improve transportation and avoid destructive floods—these are samples of the important tasks that must be undertaken. At the present time the United States is the only country that combines the requisite capital, engineering ability and executive talent.
The important thing is that by undertaking big things on a large scale the United States will get around much of the competition that breeds irritation and suspicion. If the scale is big enough, there will be no competition. Japan is not prepared to take hold of these matters on a large scale. A negative policy that can be interpreted as putting obstacles in the way of the legitimate development of Japan is fraught with dangers. To concentrate upon big enterprises in a constructive way will leave Japan plenty of opportunities, while it will once and for all avert the possibility of rendering China a virtual subject of Japan—a danger which the best friends of Japan must admit to be real as long as the militaristic-bureaucratic element continues to dominate her policies. The serious source of evil in the present situation is the likelihood that the United States will have sufficient interest in the Far East to talk a great deal, to act in minor ways but upon the whole in ways which can be construed with more or less justice as having for their main object to thwart the ambitions of other countries, especially Japan. It is not necessary to say that the next few years are crucial. In China as elsewhere reconstruction is imminent, but for the time being things are in solution. Distance has its disadvantages ln all the lesser relations. But it can be made an advantage if the Mention of America is fixed on large scale undertakings. A considerable part of past friction in accomplishing things under foreign direction in China is due to failure to secure the administrate cooperation of the Chinese. American enterprise should be reasonably free from the temptation to fill such positions with economic carpet-baggers. The Chinese students who have studied and who are studying in America supply a definite nucleus for administrative cooperation. If there are not enough such trained persons among the Chinese then business plans should include an extension of educational facilities to train the required number. The great stumbling-block of the past, the lack of active alliance between business interests and political governmental authority, can also be converted into a positive asset. The Chinese, like the Americans, have the tradition of industrial self-help; they are constitutionally averse to governmental activities. To get around the government, with its almost unbreakable traditions of procrastination, obstruction and corruption is an advance step. And this can largely be effected by enlisting the cooperation of Chinese voluntaryism. It cannot be done however by sending subordinates to carry out plans made without Chinese consultation. Leaders must come whom Chinese leaders recognize as their equals and who are intellectually prepared to deal with Chinese leaders as equals. And the plans must be on such a scale that it is evident while ample security and reasonable profit are given foreign investors the outcome will be to make China the mistress of her own economic destinies. When this is accomplished, she will have no difficulty in looking out for herself politically. Just because the controlling factor in the policies of other nations has been to cultivate the economic subjection of China, the United States has an unparalleled opportunity to pursue the opposite course. Has it the imagination and the energy?

Letter from John Dewey to Albert C. Barnes
135 Morrison St Peking China, Sept 15 [1919]
Dear Barnes,
I didnt get your lettr of the end of July till about three or four days ago. We have recently moved into this small aprtment, which we were fortunate enough to hit upon, mostly furnished, after some months of vain hunting and the unwelcome expectation of having to go to a hotel. We inherited the servants with the place, and as the old story goes it is wonderful how much comfort dam heathen can bring into a Christian—(so alleged—) home. When we think of what we are going back to, the exclusion law seems a huge mistake. Lucy celebrated her arrival by coming down in a few weeks with typhoid, but it was a mild case and she has been back from the—very good—hospital a week now. I told Evelyn to send you back the five hundred you were kind enough to let me have. We have been very well taken care of, both in Japan and China, and didnt need the funds as it turned out, but the accommodation on your part was just the same.
My general reactions to the situation here I am putting in articles—some of them are coming out in the N R. and others will come in Asia as I had a acble from them to send them six articles on the general political and social psychology of the Chinese as affecting the preent situation. Taking the word with psychology with a good deal of allowance, Im trying to do this. Its an absurdly pretentious perfromance in one way, with my short stay here and no knowledge f the language. But it will be just as good as most of the stuff travellers put out fr the American reader, and a little better than some for it will give some attempt at interpretation from the Chinese standpiint. It is almost to easy to get up a sympathetic admiration for them, not coming in direct contact to speak of with the disagrreable phases of their life. I have sent more stuff on Japan to the Dial. I dont think it will be as dull as the other one. The atmosphere of Japan has a peculiar restrictive and constrictive influence which it would be hard to analyze or explain. But im Sure almost everyone there suffers from it, the Americans and other foreigners get so used to it tha they dont know what they suffer from; I didnt when I was there, verybody was so friendly and in most ways so open. But there is a hush in the air. I dont know anything just like it. I think it is the reason that so much of writing about Japan is laudatory or eulogistic—that is the only open vent, and seems to be exected some how, waited for by the Japanese, or else just wholesale condemnation in reaction from the irritation of supre subconscious suppressions. In spite of the backardness of China, there is much more openness and outspokenness here which is one of things that one makes one believe the future is with China—but why, of why, dont they get busy and bring in that future. Thats what makes so much despair and disgust about China among foreigners. The puzzle of their contrasting strong and weak sides is one of the most fascinating things Ive ever exerienced, and keeps one always on the alert to see what is coming next. Just now there is a lull with the most activity on the side of the militarists who re strengthening their fences and fortications, because they got scared by the student movement. But now they have things more in hand than ever. But the Chinese principle seems to be to give everybody rope enough to hang himself with—the greater the oppression the greater the ultimate resistance and overthrow. Its a fascinating game to watch, but hard to repress one's desire for a lieel more drect western energy to tackle things before they get to the topling over point. ||
My lectures begin regularly this week, Scattered about—one day a week at the Boxer Indemnity College, two lectures a week at the University, tho one of them is a public rather than a students course, and one at the Board of Education Ministry. We shall be here till about the first of March.
I thot Walter Weyl's article on Wilson was a keen analysis, the best thing of Weyl's I have read. The N R has more pep since Lippman is back.
Please remember me to Mrs Barnes.
Sincerely yours, John Dewey.