CHINA'S NEXT LEADERS

Evening Star, Issue 20089, 1 February 1929, Page 7

CHINA'S NEXT LEADERS

STUDENTS AND POLITICS With the advance of cooler weather and the opening of the schools students are coining into the eily by the tnonsjnds, says the ‘ China Critic 1 cd.tonlalv. To them the month ol beptembei is significant, in many ways, it is tlic beginning ol a new school year, when they are to pursue, higher and mure comprehensive studies, it means the abandonment of their home hie and tl - entrance into or the renewal oi tlic society of men like themselves in age, in interest, and probably m intellectual equipment. And above all tins is the time tor them to determine the course which thov are to follow during the months to come; and on these decisions depend whether those months will prove fruitful to them or whether they will prove a social loss. Students in China during the past vears have been greatly hampered by other matters that have demanded their chief attention. That students have plavcti a very important role in Chinese politics during the last decade or so is a fact which few would deny. 1 henrole, we are happy to observe, has always been fortunate and on the whole useful. But whatever the students have accomplished they have done it at their own expense. f l hey are worse off now in their intellectual equipment, and hence less valuable in their services to society, than otherwise they would be. Whether the ,students are conscious of the sacrifice or not does not matter. The important question lieiorc us now is whether these same students, who already have sacrificed much, should be asked for further sacrifices, at the danger of impairing the quality ol the younger generations for the years to come. Mr Tsai Yuan-pei, the prominent educator, lias answered in the negative, Mr Tai Chi-tao. Kuoiningtang, thinker, agrees with Mr Tsai. They are right. The future prosperity of the nation depends upon the well-being of its younger generations. Much as we demand their service lor the present, their essential service must bo reserved for the future. The students are those who are to carry on the important constructive programmes which have yet hardly begun. Jt is their duty to prepare themselves, and prepare themselves well, lor the performance of tlic gigantic tasks awaiting them. They can do so only when the mind is not distracted, and when they bend their efforts solely upon those things which they arc not yet too old to learn.