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18.
[[underlined]]LOCATION OF THE SCHOOL[[/underlined]]

Concerning the location of the School in Peking, it was the general feeling of the Committee, before I left America, that it must be in Peking and that it should be on ground within the so-called Legation Quarter where it would be under the protection of the foreign Legation guards and garrisons and at the same time be associated with the American Government in the minds of the Chinese.
It was suggested that the ideal site might prove to be on land now owned by the American Government.
With this in view I set about to find a suitable site in the Legation Quarter, as near as possible to the American Legation itself.  I was told that while the American Government owns three compounds of considerable area in Peking, it would be useless to apply to them for leave to build on any of these as they were already cramped for space and had plans already completed for future building.  In fact at the very time that I reached Peking, nearly a whole company of Marines had to be encamped in tents in the compound and work on additional officers' quarters was going on over the gateway to the compound. I was told that land belonging to the Government could be given away or sold only by act of Congress, and that in this case such a permission would be extremely unlikely to be granted.  One of the members of the Legation staff told me unofficially that he hoped I would not recommend that the Archaeological Institute