Page:The Chinese Empire. A General & Missionary Survey.djvu/94

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50
THE CHINESE EMPIRE

of the Canton Christian College. It has now been in operation in temporary premises for some years, but, a suitable site having been found, it will soon be more worthily housed. The College is being built at Honglok, two miles south-east of the city of Canton, on an extensive site, which will admit of very large extensions in future. A comprehensive plan has been prepared, providing for dormitories and other college buildings for 2000 students, including an auditorium, chapel, and residences for professors, an athletic field, and a hospital as part of a medical school. The first building is nearly complete, and measures 166 feet in length and 53 feet in depth. A College on a smaller scale, but with a similar object, has just been built at Swatow. It consists of a quadrangle, enclosed on all sides by blocks of buildings about 135 feet in length, including large hall, dining-room, class-rooms, dormitories, gymnasium, rooms for resident Principal, and extensive playing-fields. The cost of the site and nearly half the cost of the building is the gift of a large-hearted Chinese Christian gentleman who had long desired to found such a College, and the remainder is the gift of other Chinese friends, many of them not Christians, who were stirred up by his example, and had themselves an enlightened appreciation of the undertaking. It has accommodation for over one hundred resident students, and the site will admit of large extensions if required. It is placed by the donors in the hands of the English Presbyterian Mission. In all parts of the province there is a strong demand for the " New Learning," and great efforts are being made, both by officials and people, to reorganise their educational system, and to provide schools of all grades to meet the needs of the time.

Space will not admit of any details of the history or features of the several Missions. The grand result of their united work is the building up of a Chinese Church whose dimensions can be gathered from the statistical table which is given on p. 53. From this it appears that the number of communicants, which had more than doubled in the eight years from 1893 to 1901, and stood in the latter year at