Another thing that causes sorrow to the conservative fathers and mothers is the fact that as soon as their children receive a smattering of the Western civilization they immediately begin to scoff at their own modes of acquiring knowledge and the text-books which have trained their people’s minds for so many years. They become proud of the fact that they know nothing of the classics, and they quote Shelley, Byron, Burns, and Browning instead of their own beautiful poets. But, what is more serious for the youth of this Eastern land, this worldly knowledge seems to have freed his intelligence without teaching him self-control, and it has taken him away from the gods of his fathers without replacing them with others. He, like his cousin of Japan, is inclined to become agnostic and say, “There are no gods.”
Whether the religion from the West is the religion best suited for the Oriental we cannot say, but whatever he receives from us must be adapted to fit the needs and conditions of his race and country. China must raise up leaders from her own people, both men and women, as her regeneration will come from within, not without. More and more the West must see that the East and the West may meet, but they can never mingle. Foreigners can never enter the inner door of Chinese thought or feeling. The door is never wholly opened, the curtain never quite drawn aside between the two races. They are unlike in almost every characteristic. The Westerner is much more a materialist than is the cultured man of China. To him the taste of the tea is not so important as the aroma, and the acquiring of wealth and honours is not so much to be desired as is the ability to live the leisured life, the life of thought and meditation, when he may sit apart from the noise and cares of the present day.
The rush and worry of the Western world seem to have penetrated even to the women’s courtyard, and there is no doubt that the new China will be Westernized in every department of her being. But we who love China hope that she will not change too rapidly, that she will take what is necessary for her happiness from the knowledge and the mode of life of the Occident, but that she will touch it with her own individuality, making it a real part of her and not simply becoming an imitation of the alien people by whom she is surrounded.