seem to be altogether arbitrary. The origin of this peculiarity it is not difficult to discover. In this, as in other things among the Chinese, usage has become law. Combinations which were accidental or optional with the model writers of antiquity, and even their errors, have, to their imitating posterity, become the jus et norma loquendi. Free to move upon each other when the language was young and in a fluid state, its elements have now become crystallized into invariable forms. To master this preëstablished harmony, without the aid of rules, is the fruit of practice and the labor of years.

The first step in composition is the yoking together of double characters. The second is the reduplication of these binary compounds and the construction of parallels-an idea which runs so completely through the whole of Chinese literature that the mind of the student requires to be imbued with it at the very outset. This is the way he begins: The teacher writes, "wind blows," the pupil adds, "rain falls;" the teacher writes, "rivers are long," the pupil adds, "seas are deep," or "mountains are high," &c.

From the simple subject and predicate, which in their rude gram. mar they describe as "dead" and "living" characters, the teacher conducts his pupil to more complex forms, in which qualifying words and phrases are introduced. He gives as a model some such phrase as "The Emperor's grace is vast as heaven and earth," and the lad matches it by "The Sovereign's favor is profound as lake and sea." These couplets often contain two propositions in each member, accompanied by all the usual modifying terms; and so exact is the symmetry required by the rules of the art that not only must noun, verb, adjective, and particle respond to each other with scrupulous exactness, but the very toues of the characters are adjusted to each other with the precision of music.

Begun with the first strokes of his untaught pencil, the student, whatever his proficiency, never gets beyond the construction of parallels. When he becomes a member of the institute or a minister of the imperial cabinet, at classic festivals and social entertainments, the composition of impromptu couplets, formed on the old model, constitutes a favorite pastime. Reflecting a poetic image from every syllable, or consealing the keen point of a cutting epigram, they afford a fine vehicle for sallies of wit; and poetical contests such as that of Melibœus and Menalcas are in China matters of daily occurrence.

If a present is to be given, on the occasion of a marriage, a birthday, or any other remarkable occasion, nothing is deemed so elegant or acceptable as a pair of scrolls inscribed with a complimentary distich.

When the novice is sufficiently exercised in the "parallels" for the idea of symmetry to have become an instinct, he is permitted to advance to other species of composition which afford freer scope for his faculties. Such are the shotiah, in which a single thought is expanded in simple language, the lun, the formal discussion of a subject more or less extended, and epistles addressed to imaginary persons and adapted to all

conceivable circumstances. In these last, the forms of the "complete letter writer" are copied with too much servility; but in the other two, substance being deemed of more consequence than form, the new fledged thought is permitted to essay its powers and to expatiate with but little restraint.

In the third stage, composition is the leading object, reading being wholly subsidiary. It takes for the most part the artificial form of verse, and of a kind of prose called wen-chang, which is, if possible, still more artificial. The reading required embraces mainly rhetorical models and sundry anthologies. History is studied, but only that of China, and that only in compends; not for its lessons of wisdom, but for the sake of the allusions with which it enables a writer to embellish classic essays. The same may be said of other studies; knowledge and mental discipline are at a discount and style at a premium. The goal of the long course, the flower and fruit of the whole system, is the wenchang; for this alone can insure success in the public examinations for the civil service, in which students begin to adventure soon after entering on the third stage of their preparatory course.

The examinations we reserve for subsequent consideration, and in that connection we shall notice the wen chang more at length. We may however remark in passing that to propose such an end as the permanent object of pursuit must of necessity have the effect of rendering education superficial. In our own universities surface is aimed at rather than depth; but what, we may ask, besides an empty glitter would remain, if none of our students aspired to anything better than to become popular newspaper writers! Yet successful essayists and penny-a-liners require as a preparation for their functions a substratum of solid information. They have to exert themselves to keep abreast of an age in which great facts and great thoughts vibrate instantaneously throughout a hemisphere. But the idea of progressive knowledge is alien to the nature of the wen-chang. A juster parallel for the intense and fruitless concentration of energy on this species of composition is the passion for Latin verse, which was dominant in our halls of learning until dethroned by the rise of modern science.

5.-GRADES OF SCHOOLS.

The division of the undergraduate course into the three stages which we have described gives rise to three classes of schools: the primary, in which little is attended to beyond memoriter recitation and imitative chirography; the middle, in which the canonical books are expounded; and the classical, in which composition is the leading exercise. Not unfrequently all three departments are embraced in one and the same school; and still more frequently the single department professed is so neglected as to render it utterly abortive for any useful purpose. This, as we have elsewhere intimated, is particularly the case with what are called public schools. National schools there are none, with the exception

of those at the capital for the education of the Bannermen, originally established on a liberal scale, but now so neglected that they can scarcely be reckoned among existing institutions.

A further exception may be made in favor of schools opened in various places by provincial officers for special purposes; but it is still true that China has nothing approaching to a system of common schools designed to diffuse among the masses the blessings of a popular education. Indeed, education is systematically left to private enterprise and public charity; the government contenting itself with gathering the choicest fruits and encouraging production by suitable rewards. A government that does this cannot be accused of neglecting the interests of educa tion, though the beneficial influence of such patronage seldom penetrates to the lower strata of society.

Even higher institutions, those that bear the name of colleges, are for the most part left to shift for themselves on the same principle. Such colleges differ little from schools of the middle and higher class, except in the number of professors and students; the professors, however numerous, teaching nothing but the Chinese language, and the students, however long they may remain in the institution, studying nothing but the Chinese language. Colleges in the modern sense, as institutions in which the several sciences are taught by men who are specially expert, are, as yet, almost unknown. But there is reason to believe that the government will soon perceive the necessity of supply. ing its people with the means of a higher, broader culture than they can derive from the grammar and rhetoric of their own language.

In establishing and contributing to the support of schools, the gentry are exceedingly liberal; but they are not always careful to see that their schools are conducted in an efficient manner. In China nothing flourishes without the stimulus of private interest. Accordingly, all who can afford to do so endeavor to employ private instructors for their own families; and where a single family is unable to meet the expense, two or three of the same clan or family name are accustomed to club together for that object.

Efforts for the promotion of education are specially encouraged by enlightened magistrates. Recently, over three hundred new schools were reported as opened in one department of the province of Canton as the result of official influence, but not at government expense. The Emperor, too, has a way of bringing his influence to bear on this object without drawing a farthing from his exchequer. I shall mention three instances by way of illustration.

Last year, in Shantung, a man of literary standing contributed four acres of ground for the establishment of a village school. The gov ernor recommended him to the notice of the Emperor, and His Majesty conferred on him the titular rank of professor in the Kwotszekien or Confucian college.

Three or four years ago, in the province of Hupeh, a retired officer of

the grade of Tautai, or intendant of circuit, contributed twenty thou sand taels for the endowment of a college at Wuchang. The Viceroy Li-Hung-Chang reporting to the throne this act of munificence, the Chinese Peabody was rewarded by the privilege of wearing a red button instead of a blue one and iuscribing on his card the title of provincial judge.

The third instance is that of a college in Kwei-Lin-Foo, the capital of Quangsi. Falling into decay and ruin during the long years of the Taiping rebellion, the gentry, on the return of peace, raised contributions, repaired the buildings, and started it again in successful operation.

The governor solicits on behalf of these public spirited citizens some marks of the imperial approbation; and His Majesty sends them a laudatory inscription written by the elegant pencils of the Hanlin.

But private effort, however stimulated, is utterly inadequate to the wants of the public. In western countries the enormous exertions of religious societies, prompted as they are by pious zeal enhanced by sectarian rivalry, have always fallen short of the educational necessities of the masses. It is well understood that no system of schools can ever succeed in reaching all classes of the people unless it has its roots in the national revenue.

In China, what with the unavoidable limitation of private effort and the deplorable inefficiency of charity schools, but a small fraction of the youth have the advantages of the most elementary education brought within their reach.

I do not here speak of the almost total absence of schools for girls, for against these the Chinese are principled. The government, having no demand for the services of women in official posts, makes no provision for their education; and popular opinion regards reading and writing as dangerous arts in female hands. If a woman, however, by any chance, emerges from the shaded hemisphere to which social prejudices have consigned her, (si qua fata aspera rumpat,) she vindicates for herself a position among the historians, poets, or scholars of the land and never fails to be greeted with even more than her proper share of public admiration. Such instances induce indulgent fathers now and then to cultivate the talents of a clever daughter, and occasionally neighborhood schools for the benefit of girls are to be met with; but the Chi. nese people have yet to learn that the best provision they could make for the primary education of their sons would be to educate the mothers, and that the education of the mothers could not fail to improve the intellectual character of their offspring. But even for the more favored sex the facilities for obtaining an education are sadly deficient ; only a small percentage of the youth attend school, and, owing to the absurd method which we have described, few of them advance far enough to be initiated into the mysteries of ideography.

On this subject a false impression has gone abroad. We hear it as

serted that "education is universal in China; even coolies are taught to read and write." In one sense this is true, but not as we understand the terms "reading and writing." In the alphabetical vernaculars of the west, the ability to read and write implies the ability to express one's thoughts by the pen and to grasp the thoughts of others when so expressed. In Chinese, and especially in the classical or book language, it implies nothing of the sort. A shopkeeper may be able to write the numbers and keep accounts without being able to write anything else; and a lad who has attended school for several years will pronounce the characters of an ordinary book with faultless precision, yet not comprehend the meaning of a single sentence. Of those who can read understandingly, (and nothing else ought to be called reading,) the proportion is greater in towns than in rural districts. But striking an average, it does not, according to my observation, exceed one in twenty or the male sex and one in ten thousand for the female; rather a humiliating exhibit for a country which has maintained for centuries such a magnificent institution as the Haulin Academy.

With all due allowance for the want of statistical accuracy where no statistics are obtainable, compare this with the educational statistics of the United States as given in the last census, (that of 1870.) Taking the country as a whole, the ratio of illiteracy among persons over ten years of age is 1 in 6; taking the Northern States alone, the ratio is 57 to 1,000, or about 1 in 18.*

6.- SYSTEM OF EXAMINATIONS.

To some it may be a matter of surprise that popular education is left to take care of itself in a country where letters are held sacred and their inventor enrolled among the gods; to others it may appear equally strange that mental cultivation is so extensively diffused, considering the cumbrous vehicle employed for the transmission of thought and the enormous difficulty of getting command of it. Both phenomena find their solution in the fact that the government does not value education for its own sake but regards it as a means to an end. The great end is the repose of the state; the instruments for securing it are able officers and education is the means for preparing them for the discharge of their duties. This done, an adequate supply of disciplined agents once secured, the education of the people ceases to be an object. The repose of the state, one of the ancient philosophers tells us, might be assured by a process the opposite of popular education. "Fill the people's bellies and empty their minds; cause that they neither know nor desire anything, and you have the secret of a tranquil government." Such is the advice of Lankeun, which I am inclined to take as an utterance of Socratic irony rather than Machiavelian malice. So far from subscribing to it in its literal import the Chinese government holds its officers responsible for the instruction of its subjects in all matters of

* Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1871.