I hold then that, physically, mentally, and morally, we have in the Chinese a people worthy of the best efforts we can put forth for their education.

We have great reasons for encouragement in regard to the education of the Indian and the negro, but neither of these races can present such antecedents to stimulate our endeavors and arouse our brightest hopes as are presented by the Chinese. The Chinaman has passed the stage of experiment, both in his own land and in ours, and has proved his capacity for education. We know what sort of material we have in him, and what we may expect from him. We know that he has the qualities which would make him the best sort of citizen; that in peaceful industry, in fidelity, in integrity, he would have no superior. We know that strikes have no attraction for him; that he cannot be drawn into boycotting schemes, or into whiskey shops; and that he has no fellowship with dynamiters. We know that while he likes to live well when he can afford it, he prefers living within his income to going into debt. We know that he has a fondness for doing what he promises to do, although he doesn't care to be a ward politician, or aspire to rule our municipalities. He is just the right sort of man for us to educate.

Some objections are made to the education of the Chinese among us, which ought to receive our notice. It is said that they are slaves, and it is not worth while for us to try to educate a class of men in that condition. It is amazing that this utterly absurd and baseless charg is still reiterated in the presence of intelligent people. There are no male slaves in China; it is not possible therefore that any should immigrate to the United States. The whole immigration here comes. from the British port of Hongkong; British officers board every vessel, and ask each individual passenger whether he is going of his own free will, and none are allowed to depart unless they declare that they go voluntarily. When they reach San Francisco, they go where they please and do as they please. If they don't like the places they enter upon, they leave them and seek others. No man in this assembly is more perfectly free in all his actions than the Chinese in this country. This was abundantly proved before the Congressional Committee, as stated by the Chairman, the late Senator Morton, who said: "The evidence established the fact that Chinese labor in California is as free as any other. They all come as free men, and are their own misters absolutely." This fact is shown conclusively by our late Minister to China, the Hon. George F. Seward, who resided for several years in Sau

Francisco after his return from China, in his able and exhaustive work on Chinese Immigration, published by the Scribners; and in the able work of Rev. Otis Gibson, D. D., on "The Chinese in America," published by Cranston & Stowe, Cincinnati.

The charge that they are under the control of the Six Companies is of a similarly baseless character. It has been repeatedly shown that these companies are of the nature of mutual aid associations, in which membership is entirely voluntary, and which have no more control over their members than the New York Mutual Life Insurance Company has over its members. Col. F. A. Bee, the Chinese Vice-Consul in San Francisco, has a standing offer before the public of $1,000 for any person who will prove that the Six Companies have ever imported a single Chinaman into this country; and no one has ever appeared to claim the money.

It is charged that the Chinese are morally degraded. If this were so, it would not be a valid argument against their education; but it is not true of them as a class. While there are wicked men among them, they can compare favorably with most of our immigrants in general morality. They are not the people who fill either our jails or our poor-houses. Moral principles receive their ready assent, and their practices are not more divergent from those principles than are the practices of their neighbors of other nationalities.

Once more, it is urged against them that they do not intend to become citizens. In order to make this apparent, the people who prefer the charge have secured the passage of a law which forever prohibits them from being naturalized. To this objection, several answers are pertinent: 1st, they are worthy of education even if the charge is true. 2d, Education would be likely to make them desirous of being citizens; as in the case of Yung Wing and others who have become naturalized citizens. 3d, While they do not come here with the purpose of becoming citizens, it is very probable that, with proper treatment, in the course of time many of them would be naturalized.

There are other objections urged, but none of any valid character. Then let the gates of education be opened wide to these strangers in our midst. For the common classes among us, the rudimentary instruction of Sunday Schools and Evening Schools will be well adapted; but let us remember that these men are not, as some suppose, the outpourings of the slums of Chinese cities, but are very generally from the country peasantry-from the very class of people.

out of whose ranks have risen some of the best and wisest officials of the Chinese Empire.

For those who wish to obtain higher education, let all our schools be freely open-our grammar and high schools; our colleges and universities. They will need no other. It is not desirable that they should have special schools by themselves. It will be better for us and for them that they enter our higher schools, and come in contact with the brightest intellects of our own young men, trained under the systems of Western education. In a fair field they will ask no favors. They will stand well among their fellow students, and carry off their fair share of the prizes. The education they receive here will qualify them to be leaders of thought at home. In the time which is surely coming, when China shall introduce the modern sciences into her curriculum, they will be found guiding that ancient Empire along the path of progress, and adding to what has been valuable and useful in her past the stores of Western knowledge. Her conservatism will help her to tread safely along a new pathway which might otherwise be fraught with peril; and her future historian will pay a debt of gratitude to those Western educators who in the closing years of the Nineteenth Century opened the way for the highest education of her people in all the arts and sciences of the West!

III.-EDUCATION OF THE MEXICAN.

BY W. H. ASHLEY, PRINCIPAL OF THE LAS VEGAS ACADEMY, NEW MEXICO.

The civilization of New Mexico at the time of the building of the A. T. & S. F. R. R. through it was that of the sixteenth century. Immigration has begun to awaken this sleep of ages, but thus far, light has dawned on the great centres only, and the effect has been to make the surrounding darkness seem but the greater. If one only visits the few American and Americanized towns passed through by the railroads, he has no conception of the territory, its inhabitants, customs, intelligence, religion, or laws. New Mexico is still Spain in the United States,—a region where the Spanish language, civilization, customs, habits, and religion still prevail; where the debates of the legislature, and the pleadings of the court are in a foreign tongue; where an American is put on trial for life and property with a jury who are strangers to his language, customs, and laws, and in many cases too ignorant to render justice, and too prejudiced to err on the side of mercy; where the records are kept in a foreign language. It is a Spain, too, not alone in language, but also in the theocratic form of government; a Spain, in which until within a few years, the Feudal system has survived in all its glory. The system of peonage beggared that of our southern slavery in its grinding oppression, its ignorance, and its superstition, for it had a higher power to aid it, and hemmed in by lofty mountains and trackless deserts the civilization of the nineteenth century advanced to her doors but found no reception within her borders. Her everlasting hills towering in grandeur to the skies, covered with the pine and cedar, and hiding within their bosoms a wealth of precious metals surpassing that of the Indias; her beautiful valleys made fertile by the eternal springs, and her broad mesas covered with the rich gramna have supplied but a meagre subsistence to her inhabitants.

South Carolina has been an educational test for the nation, but New Mexico surpasses her in the percentage of illiteracy by twelve; i. e., including the Americans, forty-four per cent. of her population cannot read or write. Oh, dark blot on the fair face of enlightened freedom!

Over three hundred years ago (1581) the Romish Church established the first mission in New Mexico, and from that time has controlled the religious and educational institutions of the people. It is not my intention to cry down the spirit which led the priests and friars to risk their lives in their devotion to the church, in carrying the gospel among savages and an isolated portion of the Spanish race, but I do say, for good or ill, praise or blame, the present intellectual condition of the Mexican people rests with the Romish Church. That condition, in 1880, resulted in a reported illiteracy of sixty per cent. in persons over ten years of age. For nearly three centuries the parochial schools were the only ones in the territory, and the few educated Mexicans obtained the greater part of their education in the States.

The first order for establishing public schools was made April 27, 1822, but it included no provision for their support, and consequently could accomplish nothing. In 1856 an effort was made to provide a tax for the support of the schools, but the counties of Laos, Rio Arriba, Santa Ana, and Socono, comprising the greater part of the territory, overruled it by a vote of 4981 to 35. In 1872 the first public school law, with provisions for a meagre support, was enacted. The part of these funds which has been collected during these fourteen years, has been largely used as a political corrupting fund by the county officials, or the disbursing has been left to the church. During the past three years there have been a few exceptions where the Superintendents have been faithful to their trust. We cannot learn that in any of the public schools as late as 1880, any provision was made for the education of girls, or that they were expected to attend. Even now, in most places outside of the larger Americanized towns, no girls attend the public schools.

The school laws of the territory are exceedingly defective. There are no provisions for school buildings or any of the accessories. There are no specified qualifications required of the teachers. The Superintendent has no control over the directors, who are elected by the people without any thought as to their fitness, and a large majority of them, in signing the contract, make a mark for their names. These directors elect the teacher, rent the room, and regulate the books and other supplies.

The funds for the support of the schools are inadequate. The taxable property is small, compared with the number of children of school age, for the children of the poor are many. The school tax in most counties does not amount to sixty cents per annum for each child. In