journey from Suchau to Nanking had suggested several things to me, which I thought might be of interest to him. They were as follows:
- To organize an army on scientific principles.
- To establish a military school for the training of competent military officers.
- To establish a naval school for a navy.
- To organize a civil government with able and experienced men to act as advisers in the different departments of administration.
- To establish a banking system, and to determine on a standard of weight and measure.
- To establish an educational system of graded schools for the people, making the Bible one of the text books.
- To organize a system of industrial schools.
These were the topics that suggested themselves to me during the journey. If the Taiping government would be willing, I said, to adopt these measures and set to work to make suitable appropriations for them, I would be perfectly willing to offer my services to help carry them out. It was in that capacity that I felt I could be of the most service to the Taiping cause. In any other, I would simply be an encumbrance and a hindrance to them.