Chapter XI China in the Twentieth Century IN the preceding chapters there has been pre- sented a brief review of the greater and more important conditions underlying and leading up to such industrial development in China as is found to exist at the close of the nineteenth cen- tury. I have endeavored to let the reader see the country, the people, their ways of doing things, what has been accomplished and the difficulties in the path of further progress, as these appeared to me. But what of the future? We have seen that the Chinese are absolute and unthinking slaves to precedent and established custom, and how in lieu of a practical and serviceable educa- tion they still continue to memorize the doc- trines of Confucius, who, in his day, merely put into permanent and imperishable form the teach- ings of those whom even he called the ancients. Are these habits so firmly fixed after five thousand years of practice that they cannot be broken? Or in spite of all, does there exist in the Chinese char- acter the latent trait of mobility? The Chinaman was once an engineer of no mean ability. Is he going to let things rest as they are, or will he set about to learn the newer application of science, especially modern methods of transportation, the direction in which he is most deficient ? Will he 306