EDUCATION IN CHINA.

1.-INFLUENCE ON NATIONAL CHARACTER.

The interest of the inquiry on which we are about to enter is based on the assumption that differences of national character are mainly due to the influence of education. This we conceive to be true, except in extreme cases, such as those of the inhabitants of torrid or frigid regions, where everything succumbs to the tyranny of physical forces. In such situations, climate shapes education, as, according to Montes-quieu, it determines morals and dictates laws. But in milder latitudes the difference of physical surroundings is an almost inappreciable element in the formation of character in comparison with influences of an intellectual and moral kind. Much, for example, is said about the inspiration of mountain scenery-an inspiration felt most sensibly, if not most effectively, by those who see the mountains least frequently-but, as John Foster remarks, the character of a lad brought up at the foot of the Alps is a thousandfold more affected by the companions with whom he associates than by the mountains that rear their heads above his dwelling.

The peculiar character of the Chinese-for they have a character which is one and distinct-is not to be accounted for by their residence in great plains, for half the empire is mountainous. Neither is it to be ascribed to their rice diet, as rice is a luxury in which few of the northern population are able to indulge. Still less is it to be referred to the influence of climate, for they spread over a broad belt in their own country, emigrate in all directions, and flourish in every zone. It is not even explained by the unity and persistency of an original type, for in their earlier career they absorbed and assimilated several other races, while history shows that at different epochs their own character has undergone remarkable changes. The true secret of this phenomenon is the presence of an agency which, under our own eyes, has shown itself sufficiently powerful to transform the turbulent nomadic Mantchoo into the most Chinese of the inhabitants of the Middle Kingdom. The general name for that agency, which includes a thousand elements, is education. It is education that has imparted a uniform stamp to the Chinese under every variety of physical condition; just as the successive sheets of paper applied to an engraving bring away, substantially, the same impression, notwithstanding differences in the quality of the material.

In this wide sense we shall not attempt to treat the subject, though

it may not be out of place to remark that the Chinese themselves employ a word which answers to education with a similar latitude. They say, for instance, that the education of a child begins before its birth. The women of ancient times, say they, in every movement had regard to its effect on the character of their offspring. This they denominate kiao, reminding us of what Goethe tells us in his autobiography of certain antecedents, which had their effect in imparting to him

"That concord of harmonious powers which forms the soul of happiness."

All this, whatever its value, belongs to physical discipline. We shall not go so far back in the history of our typical Chinese, but, confining ourselves strictly to the department of intellectual influences, take him at the time when the young idea first begins to shoot, and trace him through the several stages of his development until he emerges a full fledged academician.*

2.- HOME EDUCATION.

With us the family is the first school. Not only is it there we make the most important of our linguistic acquirements, but with parents who are themselves cultivated there is generally a persistent effort to stimu late the mental growth of their offspring to develop reason, form taste, and invigorate the memory.

In many instances parental vanity applies a spur where the curb ought to be employed, and a sickly precocity is the result; but in general'a judicious stimulus addressed to the mind is no detriment to the body, and it is doubtless to the difference of domestic training rather than to race that we are to ascribe the early awaking of the mental powers of European children as compared with those of China. The Chinese have, it is true, their stories of infant precocity-their Barretiers and Chattertons. They tell of Li-muh, who, at the age of seven, was thought worthy of the degree of tsin-shi, or the literary doctorate, and of Hie-tsin, the "divine child," who, at the age of ten, composed a volume of poems, still in use as a juvenile text book. But these are not merely exceptions; they are exceptions of rarer occurrence than among us. The generality of Chinese children do not get their hands and feet so soon as ours, because, in the first months of their existence, they are tightly swathed and afterward overloaded with cumbrous garments. The reason for their tardier mental development is quite analogous. European children exhibit more thought at five than Chinese children of twice that age. This is not a partial judgment, nor is the fact to be accounted for by a difference of race; for in mental capacity the Chinese are, in my opinion, not inferior to the "most favored nation." Deprive our nurseries of those speaking pictures that say so

* For an account of the Hanlin or Imperial Academy, see the North American Review for July, 1874, where much may be found to supplement the present paper. The same periodical (some time in 1870) contains an article by the present writer on "Civil service competitive examinations in China."

much to the infant eye; of infant poems, such as those of Watts and Barbauld; of the sweet music that impresses those poems on the infant mind; more than all, take away those Bible stories and scraps of history which excite a thirst for the books that contain them, and what a check upon mental growth, what a deduction from the happiness of childhood! With us the dawn of knowledge precedes the use of books, as the rays of morning, refracted by the atmosphere and glowing with rosy hues, anticipate the rising of the sun. In China there is no such accommodating medium, no such blushing aurora. The language of the fireside is not the language of the books.

Mothers and nurses are not taught to read; nor are fathers less inclined than with us to leave the work of instruction to be begun by the professional teacher. This they are the more disposed to do, as an ancient maxim, sanctioned by classic authority, prohibits a parent being the instructor of his own children; still some fathers, yielding to better instincts, do take a pride in teaching their infant sons; and some mothers, whose exceptional culture makes them shine like stars in the night of female ignorance, have imparted to their children the first impulse in a literary career.

How many of those who have obtained seats in the literary Olympus were favored with such early advantages, it is impossible to ascertain. That the number is considerable, we cannot doubt. We remember hearing of two scholars in Chekiang who were not only taught the mechanical art of writing but the higher art of composition by an educated mother, both of them winning the honors of the academy.

As another instance of the same kind, the memoirs of the academy embalm the memory of such a noble mother, along with the name of her illustrious son, the Emperor Kienlung, with vermilion pencil, celebrating the talents of the one and the virtues of the other.

Dropping the "meed of a melodious tear" on the grave of an eminent literary servant, Chien-chén-keun, a member of the Hanlin, the Emperor says: "He drew his learning from a hidden source: a virtuous mother imparting to him her classic lore." In the prose obituary prefixed to the verses, His Majesty says: "Chien's mother, Lady Chén, was skilled in ornamental writing. In his boyhood it was she who inspired and directed his studies. He had a painting which represented his mother as holding the distaff and at the same time explaining to him the classic page. I admired it, and inscribed on it a complimentary verse."

A graceful tribute from an exalted hand, worth more in the estimation of the Chinese than all the marble or granite that might be heaped upon her sepulchre.

3.- COMMENCEMENT OF SCHOOL LIFE.

In general, however, a Chinese home is not a hotbed for the development of mind. Nature is left to take her own time, and the child vege tates until he completes his seventh or eighth year. The almanac is

then consulted, and a lucky day chosen for inducting the lad into a life of study. Clad in festal robe, with tasselled cap, and looking a mandarin in small, he sets out for the village school, his face beaming with the happy assurance that all the stars are shedding kindly influence and his friends predicting that he will end his career in the Imperial Academy. On entering the room he performs two acts of worship: the first is to prostrate himself before a picture of the Great Sage, who is venerated as the fountain of wisdom, but is not supposed to exercise over his votaries anything like a tutelar supervision. The second is to salute with the same forms, and almost equal reverence, the teacher who is to guide his inexperienced feet in the pathway to knowledge. In no country is the office of teacher more revered. Not only is the living instructor saluted with forms of profoundest respect, but the very name of teacher, taken in the abstract, is an object of almost idolatrous homage. On certain occasions it is inscribed on a tablet in connection with the characters for heaven, earth, prince, and parents, as one of the five chief objects of veneration, and worshipped with solemn rites. This is a relic of the primitive period, when books were few and the student dependent for everything on the oral teaching of his sapient master. In those days, in Eastern as well as Western Asia and Greece, schools were peripatetic, or (as Jeremy Taylor says of the church in his time) ambulatory. Disciples were wont to attend their master by day and night, and follow him on his peregrinations from state to state, in order to catch and treasure up his most casual discourses.

As to the pursuit of knowledge, they were at a great disadvantage, compared with modern students, whose libraries contain books by the thousand, while their living teachers are counted by the score. Yet, the student life of those days was not without its compensating circumstances. Practical morality, the formation of character, was the great object, intellectual discipline being deemed subordinate, and in such a state of society physical culture was, of course, not neglected. The personal character of the teacher made a profound impression on his pupils, inspiring them with ardor in the pursuit of virtue; while the necessity of learning by question and answer excited a spirit of inquiry, and favored originality of thought. But now all this is changed, and the names and forms continue without the reality.

A man who never had a dozen thoughts in all his life sits in the seat of the philosophers and receives with solemn ceremony the homage of his disciples. And why not? For every step in the process of teaching is fixed by unalterable usage. So much is this the case, that in describing one school I describe all, and in tracing the steps of one student I point out the course of all; for in China there are no new methods or short roads.

In other countries, a teacher, even in the primary course, finds room for tact and originality. In those who dislike study, a love of it is to be inspired by making "knowledge pleasant to the taste;" and the dull