In order to understand the political condition of China it will be necessary to know something of the persons and forces that brought it about.

In 1898 the late Emperor Kuang Hsü, inspired by the study of a New Testament, sent to the Empress Dowager by the Christian women of China, and by the study of all the books translated out of European languages into the Chinese, sent to him by the writer and others, began issuing a remarkable series of reform edicts, ordering the establishment of boards of railroads, of mines, of education, etc., and dismissing various conservative officials, and disbanding various useless boards that were an encumberance to the government.