pened in French and English literature and in the literature of other European countries, and now it has happened in China. In the West no one would, however, have the courage to say that immortals like Milton and Shakespeare are no longer to be studied. For what is literature but the accumulated storehouse of thoughts and feelings of the past generations?

The publications in which the experiments in vernacular were given to the reading public were numerous. The New Youth, in the first month of 1918, printed nothing but what was written in the vernacular, and the editorial board was composed of Dr. Hu and some other members of the faculty of Peking National University, which has become the intellectual center of China and is identified with Radical thought. They also introduced the contemporary literature of Europe: Ibsen, Strindberg and Anderson were translated into vernacular; Dostoievski and Tolstoi were rendered into the familiar Pei Hua; Sienkiewicz, the Polish writer, and Ephtaliotis, the Greek, were also dressed in the language of the denizen of Cathay. Some of these translations are literal, the original thought being rendered into Chinese without changing the word order of the original sentence. Some are very good, but some require a previous knowledge of the language of the author to get the general drift in the translation. This raises a very important point, namely, the Europeanization of Chinese grammar, taking the word in its broad sense. Many daring spirits do not hesitate to translate with the grammatical peculiarities belonging to French or German or English, with the result that the reader has first to equip himself with a working knowledge of the language used by the author translated, and has also to think back in the original language in order to follow intelligently what the translation is all about. Whether these experiments will succeed in changing the Chinese mental habits is highly doubtful. I am extremely skeptical as to the possibility of making the Chinese people change their ways of thinking and their mental habits, which have been deeply ingrained in the brains of the four hundred millions. Slight modification of certain ways of expression is of course desirable and possible, and such modifications have constantly occurred in the European languages. But every language has its genius, the mysterious

force of communal thinking, which often refuses to accept any radical change of its habits.

It has also become a general practice with the Chinese writers and journalists to make very generous use of the punctuation marks of the West. While full stop and comma have been constantly employed in Chinese writings before the introduction of Western learning, colon, semi-colon and exclamation marks are the recently adopted children of the vernacular leaders. Whether the excessive use of exclamation marks by the contemporary Chinese writers enhances the beauty of their style or increases the expressiveness of their meaning is highly dubious, but it is significant of the whole movement that the exclamation mark should become their darling child, petted and spoiled. Its loving parents, the emotional youths of China, seem to be unable to find words sufficiently strong to express the whole gamut of their deeply felt emotions, whereas the classical writers, with their self-mastery and sweet calm, would consider it a compromise of dignity to show their bleeding heart without a veil.

On that epoch-making day, May 4, 1919, the students in Peking University made a public demonstration against the decision of the Paris Conference in awarding Shantung to Japan, which resulted in their soundly thrashing one Minister and in compelling the Government to dismiss three Cabinet Ministers for their sympathy with the policy of Japan. This incident aroused the students of the whole country and marked the beginning of the Student Movement, which has struck terror into the heart of the Chinese Government and has lately assumed alarming proportions, to the great embarrassment and irritation of certain Powers interested in China. But what is germane to our present subject is that the Student Movement has given a great impetus to the spread of the Vernacular Movement and has made it a common medium of expression among the journalists and writers. Dr. Hu says: "The student movements have greatly facilitated the spread of the literary revolution in the same mysterious way as they have incidentally brought about the recognition of the Yuan Shih-kai dollar by foreign banks in China on the same footing with the Mexican dollar." But really there is nothing mysterious about the phenomenon, for the Stu

dent Movement is essentially patriotic and is inspired with the most fervent wishes for the restoration of the sovereign rights of China which have been wrenched from her hands by the pugnacious Powers of the West. The students naturally used the vernacular as the most convenient medium through which to give vent to their feelings and emotions, for the vernacular, as I have pointed out, is far more effective for the expression of feelings than the classical. To be sure, the classical language is refined and polished and dignified, but it is rendered unfit by its very refinement, polish and dignity to suit the madding crowd. At any rate, the vernacular has come to stay and seems to fill a longfelt want. The political parties, always watching carefully in what direction the wind is blowing, lost no time in converting their party organs into propaganda for the use of the vernacular and the big publishing companies competed with each other in publication of books written in Pei Hua. There were also a great number of magazines and papers published in Pei Hua; it was estimated that in the year 1919 there were at least four or five hundred papers written in Pei Hua. There were also dailies written in the vernacular; The Morning Post of Peking and The Shanghai Republican have supplementary papers printed in Pei Hua, and such magazines as The Eastern Miscellany and The Short Story Magazine have followed the prevailing fashion without any further grumbling. At present The Weekly Review, published by the Peking National University, is entirely written in the vernacular. The subjects dealt with in these magazines range from researches in Chinese philology and Einstein's theory to Psychoanalysis and crossword puzzles.

The Vernacular Movement received an added impetus in 1920, when the Ministry of Education issued a proclamation to the effect that from the autumn of that year the text books used in the primary schools should be written in the vernacular. As a result the vernacular has replaced the literary language in the reading material of the primary schools, but many of the high schools have also voluntarily chosen or had text books written in the new medium, and in a great many cases the students in the middle schools are directed by the teachers to express themselves in the vernacular. The impression that I have of these juvenile

essays is that while they lose in dignity and polish, they gain in directness and freshness and expressiveness. And this is true of the products of the aspiring poets and authors. If there is no beauty in most of the literary hodgepodge, there is at least a good deal of strangeness, which is by no means a loss. For did not the same thing happen in the Elizabethan period? Do we not remember the inkhorn words, the Italianated phrases and other antics familiar to students of English literary history? It will take some time before the infant vernacular grows into a lusty youth, but I have faith in the essential sanity of the Chinese race and the immortality of the Chinese language.

Another thing which should also be mentioned in connection with this movement is the phonetic alphabet. In the first year of the Chinese Republic the Minister of Education appointed a committee for the standardization of the pronunciation of the Chinese language and the committee adopted thirty-nine symbols, some of them initial sounds and others finals, by which the phonetic value of any word or character can be expressed and be identical for every district. Long since, the Japanese in their two sets of Kana made use of such symbols, and the result was to make reading easy and widespread. There the proportion of characters to Kana was at first very great, but today newspapers and books are so printed as to bring relatively few characters into the line, and all of them with their phonetics at the side. In November, 1918, the Minister of Education promulgated this phonetic alphabet, and in September, 1919, the dictionary of pronunciation was published so that the alphabet became that of the national language.

As for the opposition that was encountered by this movement, a word need be said. It was opposed from the very beginning by Ku Hung-ming and Lin Shu, and also by Messrs K. T. Mei and M. Wu, both graduates of Harvard University, and Chinese scholars with splendid training in this country. They started a review called The Critical Review, which has as its aim the promotion of Chinese culture and the preservation of the great intellectual heritage of China, and is opposed to the new movement which I have described. It is an excellent magazine in its own but as it runs counter to the popular tendency and, besides,

way,

as it has no catch word or battle cry to appeal to the popular imagination, the influence it is exercising over the generality of the students and the masses is naturally not very great. But still its criticisms of the excesses of the Vernacular Movement and the rampant vices and abuses of those who are fishing for fame supply a wholesome tonic and corrective. But "occupying," as it is doing, "all the spaces between," it is bound to miss popularity, for literary opinions are like political opinions; extreme views, whether ultra-conservative or ultra-radical, will attract attention, whereas moderate opinions and liberal views will never find enthusiastic support and following.

Another attempt was made last year by the late Minister of Education, Chang Shi-chao, to effect a revival of the Chinese classics. This movement found expression in the publication of a weekly of which Mr. Chang is the editor, and in the ready response in several provinces in the establishment of schools of college grade with the main purpose of emphasizing the ancient classical learning and the classical language. The Governor of Hunan Province has added the weight of his influence to the movement by holding a qualifying examination for the candidates for the civil offices in the Province, based on the old ideals, but including modern topics. This examination was placed under the supervision of some of these conservative leaders. Chinese classics received special attention by the invitation of one of the most distinguished classical scholars in China, Chang T'ai-yen of Hangchow.

It is as yet too early to pass a final judgment on the achievements of the writers in the vernacular, although nine years have elapsed since the movement was started. But it is possible to discern some of the general tendencies and the direction in which the Vernacular Movement is traveling. I think it likely that the Pei Hua with its informality and elasticity will be a fit medium for the development of a particular kind of literature which is known in English as the informal essay, and there are a few persons in China already exploring its possibilities with some degrees of success. I also think the great prestige Pei Hua is enjoying will tempt many of dramatic talents to try their hand in this important form of literature, but the present period is a period of