An optimist look at China

1.The hereditary absolute monarchy has been overthrow, and with it are gone all those institutions which for centuries has been its paraphernalia: the imperial household with its unlimited wives and concubines, the institutions of eunuchism, the parasitic nobility born to power and many others.

2.The opening of new schools marked the disappearance of the mechanical and exacting form of literary composition, known as the Octopartite, which had been required as a standard form in all state examinations, and for mastery of which the best years and energies of the whole educated class of the past six centuries had been sacrificed.

3.not merely ... but:

The binding of women's feet, for example, was not merely an isolated(D:desolated) institution of extreme cruelty and brutality, but also the clear and undeniable evidence of a general attitude toward womanhood which ten centuries of native religion and moral philosopher had failed to condemn and rectify.  The abortion of foot-binding, therefore, was not merely the passing away of an inhuman institution, but an indicator of the coming of an entirely new attitude toward womanhood. In that case, it is veritably a moral revolution.

plus poem：                    

                        the Spirit of Autumn 

       In my young days,

        I had tasted only gladness

        But loved to mount the top floor,

        But, loved to mount the top floor,

        To write a song pretending sadness

        And now I've tasted 

        Sorrow's flavor, bitter and sour,

        And can't find a word,

        And, can't find a word,

        But merely say, 'What a golden autumn hour!'