each a prince within his own narrow limits, were indignant that the Shogun had opened his ports to those aggressive foreigners of the West.  Raising a cry of “Kill the foreigners!” they overturned the Shoguns and restored the Mikado.  Their fury, however, subsided when they found that the foreigner was too strong to be expelled.  A few more years saw them patriotically surrendering their feudal powers in order to make the central government strong enough to face the world.  About the same time our Western costume was adopted, and along with it the parliamentary system of Great Britain and the school system of America.  Some foreigners were shallow enough to laugh at them when they saw those little soldiers in Western uniform; and the Chinese despised them more than ever for abandoning the dress of their forefathers.

To protect themselves at once against China and Russia, the Japanese felt that the independence of Corea was to them indispensable.  The King had been a feudal subject to China since the days of King Solomon; and when at the instance of Japan he assumed the title of Emperor, the Chinese resolved to punish him for such insolence.  This was in 1894.  The Japanese took up arms in his defence; and though they had some hard fighting, they soon made it evident that nothing but a treaty of peace could keep them out of Peking.

Li Hung Chang, who had long been Viceroy at Tientsin and who had built a northern arsenal and remodelled the Chinese army, had to confess himself beaten.  For him it was a bitter pill to be sent as a suppliant to the Court of the Mikado.  That China was beaten was not his fault.  Yet he was held responsible by his own government and departed on that humiliating mission as if with a rope about his neck.  Fortunately for him, during his mission in Japan an assassin lodged a bullet in his head, and the desire of Japan to undo the effect of that shameful act made negotiation an easy task, converting his defeat into a sort of triumph.  Happily, too, he enjoyed the counsel and assistance of J.W.  Foster, formerly United States Secretary of State.  Formosa, one of the brightest jewels in the Chinese crown, had to be handed over to Japan, and lower Manchuria would have gone with it, had not Russia, supported by Austria and Germany, compelled the Japanese to withdraw their claims.

The next turn of the kaleidoscope shows us China seeking to follow the example of Japan in throwing off the trammels of antiquated usage.  In 1898, when the tide of reform was in full swing, the Marquis Ito of Japan paid a visit to Peking, and as president of the University, I had the honor of being asked to meet him along with Li Hung Chang at a dinner given by Huyufen, mayor of the city, and the grand secretary, Sunkianai.  It was a lesson intended for them when he told us how, on his returning from England in the old feudal days, his prince asked him if anything needed to be reformed in Japan.  “Everything,” he replied.  The lesson was lost on the three Chinese statesmen, progressive though they were, for China was then on the eve of a violent reaction which threatened ruin instead of progress.