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-2- would-be-great, sweltered as they discussed what they were going to do with Chinese education. As soon as that was over I came back to Tungshien. We had here a teachers' conference (institute) for twenty days, with about 150 Chinese teachers in attendance. This is the second year it has been held here, and everyone seems to think that this year was an improvement over previous years in a number of respects. The teachers who taught in the Institute were for the most part English, and it was my job to keep house for them. You know about how much I know about English people, anyway. I cannot remember having had a speaking acquaintance with one until I came out here, and it was some job to try and make them happy in that awful August weather. But they were all very delightful people and I continue to be glad I had the opportunity to get acquainted at such close range. I went to some of the meetings, but most of what I learned I learned outside in hearing the tachers talk. My time was very full getting ready for school to start, which it was to do as soon as the Institute was over, and altho I had been here a year in connection with this school I still knew very little about educational problems and I knew few Chinese equivalents for educational terms.

 The first of September we opened the girls' boarding school. Of the four teachers three are new, one of them a teacher who has taught in one of our primary schools for some 20 years and has just been promoted to the position in the boarding school. The two other teachers are newly graduated, one from academy and one form the college normal department. I had rather supposed that we would not have any larger enrollment than last year because we have done no advertising, and I was not particularly anxious to have a large increase at the time of a change in management; but instead of 66 we have 77 with prospects of some others coming the second term. One interesting things about the school this year is that we have a graduating class of 17; six is the largest they have ever had before. I think in many ways this simplifies the management of the school this year, because I know these older girls best, having had them in English classes, and when I get them with me in a matter the younger girls do not dare have a different opinion. I was somewhat disappointed last year, but not particularly surprised, to find that this school stood lowest of the 18 grade school which took the uniform examinations given by the Association, but we are hoping to do much better this year. So I have a great deal of encouragement, the many times it seems a hopeless task making them remember to do the things which they are supposed to do and not to do the things they are supposed not to do.

Last year we had six primary schools. This year before the year is over we will have nine. They were supposed to begin the first of September and five began then, but for various very good reasons the others have opened one by one. The new school at the Drum Tower Church, which had been the center of our fond hopes, could not begin because the building has not been finished. Also, the house for the teacher had no sooner been finished than an extra heavy rain melted the building into mud. It had been made of cheap mud bricks and not sufficiently protected until it was dry. It was a great disappointment, but now it is rebuilt and a school house and kindergarten are finished, the yard all smoothed, and we are having school. The school is not as big as it ought to be, and it is great fun to hear the teacher tell what all those children can think of to do and what funny writing they make; but the poor lit-