duty; and in Chinese society the idea of instruction as the one thing needful has so wrought itself into the forms of speech as to become a wearisome cant. The red card that invites you to an entertainment solicits "instruction." When a friend meets you he apologizes for having so long absented himself from your "instructions ;" and in familiar conversation, simple statemen ts and opinions are often received as "precious instruction" by those who do not by any means accept them. It is more to the point to add that one of the classical books denounces it as the greatest of parental faults to bring up a child without instruction. This relates to the moral rather than to the intellectual side of education. The Chinese government does, nevertheless, encourage purely intellectual culture; and it does so in a most decided and effectual manner, viz, by testing attainments and rewarding exertion. In the magnificence of the scale on which it does this, it is unapproached by any other nation on the earth.

Lord Mahon, in his History of England, speaking of the patronage extended to learning in the period preceding Walpole, observes that "though the sovereign was never an Augustus, the minister was always a Mæcenas. Newton became master of the mint; Locke was commissioner of appeals; Steele was commissioner of stamps; Stepney, Prior and Gray were employed in lucrative and important embassies; Addi. son was secretary of state; Tickell, secretary in Ireland. Several rich sinecures were bestowed on Congreve and Rowe, on Hughs and Ambrose Phillipps." And he goes on to show how the illiberality of succeeding reigns was atoned for by popular favor, the diffusion of knowledge enabling the people to become the patron of genius and learning.

The Chinese practise none of these three methods. The Emperor, less arbitrary than monarchs of the west, does not feel at liberty to reward an author by official appointments, and his minister has no power to do so. The inefficiency of popular patronage is less to their credit, authors reaping oftentimes much honor and little emolument from their works. But it is something to be able to add that all three are merged in a regulated state patronage, according to which the reward of literary merit is a law of the empire and a right of the people. This brings us to speak of the examination system; not, indeed, a fresh theme, but one which is not yet exhausted. Though not new to the occidental public, these examinations are not properly understood, for the opinion has been gaining ground that their value has been overrated and that they are to be held responsible for all the shortcomings of Chinese intellectual culture. The truth is just the reverse. Those shortcomings (I have not attempted to disguise them) are referable to other causes, while for something like two thousand years this system of literary competition has operated as a stimulating and conservative agency, to which are due, not only the merits of the national education, such as it is, but its very existence. Nor has its political influence been less deep and beneficial. Essentially political in its aims, it has effected far more in the way of

political good than its authors ever ventured to anticipate. By enlarging the liberties of the people it contributes to the strength of the state, and by affording occupation to the restless and aspiring it tends to secure the tranquillity of the public. The safety valve of society, it provides a vent for that ambition and energy which would otherwise burst forth in civil strife and bloody revolution.

These examinations are of two kinds, which we shall distinguish as preofficial and postofficial; the former is the offspring of the latter, which it has outgrown and overshadowed. Their genesis is not difficult to trace; and, paradoxical as it may appear, these literary examinations date back to a period anterior to the rise of literature. The principles that lie at their foundation are found clearly expressed among the received maxims of government under the earliest of the historic dynasties. It was not, however, until the dynasties of the Tang and Sung (6181120) that these examinations assumed substantially the form in which we now find them. Coming down from the past, with the accretions of many centuries, they have expanded into a system whose machinery is as complex as its proportions are enormous. Its ramifications extend to every district of the empire; and it commands the services of district magistrates, prefects, and other civil functionaries up to governors and viceroys. These are all auxiliary to the regular officers of the literary corporation.

In each district there are two resident examiners, with the title of professor, whose duty it is to keep a register of all competing students and to exercise them from time to time in order to stimulate their efforts and keep them in preparation for the higher examinations in which de grees are conferred. In each province there is one chancellor or superintendent of instruction, who holds office for three years, and is required to visit every district and hold the customary examinations within that time, conferring the first degree on a certain percentage of the candidates. There are, moreover, two special examiners for each province, generally members of the Hanlin, deputed from the capital to conduct the great triennial examination and confer the second degree. The regular degrees are three:

1st. Siu-tsai or "Budding talent."

2d. Ku-jin or "Deserving of promotion."

3d. Tsin-shi or "Fit for office."

To which may be added, as a fourth degree, the Haulin, or member of the "Forest of Pencils." The first of these is sometimes compared to the degree of B. A., conferred by colleges and universities; the second to M. A.; and the third to D. C. L. or LL.D. The last is accurately described by membership in the Imperial Academy; always bearing in mind how much a Chinese academy must differ from a similar institution in the west. But so faint is the analogy which the other degrees bear to the literary degrees of western lands that the interchange of terms is sure to lead to misconceptions. Chinese degrees represent

talent, not knowledge; they are conferred by the state, without the intervention of school or college; they carry with them the privileges of official rank; and they are bestowed on no more than a very small percentage of those who engage in competition. With us, on the contrary, they give no official standing; they attest, where they mean anything, acquirements rather than ability; and the number of those who are "plucked" is usually small in comparison with those who are allowed to "pass." But, after all, the new-fledged bachelor of an occidental college, his head crowned with the outlines of universal knowledge, answers quite as nearly to the sprightly siu-tsai,

"Whose soul proud science never taught to stray

Far as the solar walk or milky way,"

as does a western general to the chief of an undisciplined horde of so-called soldiers.

The following report of Panszelien, chancellor of the province of Shantung, though somewhat vague, will give us au idea of the official duties of the chief examiner and the spirit in which he professes to discharge them:

"Your majesty's servant," says the chancellor, "has guarded the seal of office with the utmost vigilance. In every instance where frauds were detected he has handed the offender over to the proper authorities for punishment. In reëxamining the successful, whenever their handwriting disagreed with that of their previous performances he at once. expelled them from the hall, without granting a particle of indulgence. He everywhere exhorted the students to aim at the cultivation of a high moral character. In judging of the merit of compositions he followed reason and the established rules. At the close of each examination he addressed the students face to face, exhorting them not to walk in ways of vanity, nor to concern themselves with things foreign to their vocation, but to uphold the credit of scholarship and to seek to maintain or retrieve the literary reputation of their several districts. Besides these occupations, your servant, in passing from place to place, observed that the snow has everywhere exercised a reviving influence; the young wheat is beginning to shoot up; the people are perfectly quiet and well disposed; the price of provisions is moderate; and those who suffered from the recent floods are gradually returning to their forsaken homes. For literary culture, Hinchen stands preeminent, while Tsaochen is equally so in military matters."

This is the whole report, with the exception of certain stereotyped phrases, employed to open and conclude such documents, and a barren catalogue of places and dates. It contains no statistical facts, no statement of the number of candidates, nor the proportion passed; indeed, no information of any kind, except that conveyed in a chance allusion in the closing sentence.

From this we learn that the chancellor is held responsible for examinations in the military art; and it might be inferred that he reviews

the troops and gauges the attainments of the cadets in military history, engineering, tactics, &c.; but nothing of the kind; he sees them draw the bow, hurl the discus, and go through various manœuvres with spear and shield, which have no longer a place in civilized warfare.

The first degree only is conferred by the provincial chancellor, and the happy recipients, fifteen or twenty in each department, or 1 per cent. of the candidates, are decorated with the insignia of rank and admitted to the ground floor of the nine storied pagoda. The trial for the second degree is held in the capital of each province, by special commissioners, once in three years. It consists of three sessions of three days each, making nine days of almost continuous exertion a strain to the mental and physical powers, to which the infirm and aged frequently succumb. In addition to composition in prose and verse, the candidate is required to show his acquaintance with history, (the history of China,) philosophy, criticism, and variou s branches of archæology. Again 1 per cent. is dec orated; but it is not until the more fortunate among them succeed in passing the metropolitan triennial that the meed of civil office is certainly bestowed. They are not, however, assigned to their respective offices until they have gone through two special examinations within the palace and in the presence of the emperor. On this occasion the highest on the list is honored with the title of chuang yuen or “ laureate,” a distinction so great that in the last reign it was not thought unbefitting the daughter of a chuang yuen to be raised to the position of consort of the Son of Heaven.

A score of the best are admitted to membership in the Academy, two or three score are attached to it as pupils or probationers, and the rest drafted off to official posts in the capital or in the provinces, the humblest of which is supposed to compensate the occupant for a life of penury and toil.

In conclusion, this noble institution the civil service competitive system― appears destined to play a conspicuous part in carrying forward an intellectual movement the incipient stages of which are already visible. It has cherished the national education, such as it is; and if it has com pelled the mind of China for ages past to grind in the mill of barren imitation, that is not the fault of the system, but its abuse.

When the growing influence of western science animates it with a new spirit, as it must do ere long, we shall see a million or more of patient students applying themselves to scientific studies with all the ardor that now characterizes their literary competition.

Six years ago the viceroy of Fuhkien, now a member of the imperial. cabinet, proposed the institution of a competition in mathematics. The suggestion was not adopted; but a few days ago it was brought up in a new form, with the addition of the physical sciences, by Li-Hung-Chang, the famous governor of the metropolitan province. When adopted, as it must be, it will place the entire examination system on a new basis

and inaugurate an intellectual revolution whose extent and results it would be difficult to predict.

In remodelling her national education, Japan has begun with her schools, and, however reluctant, China will be compelled to do the same. Thus far her efforts in that direction have been few and feeble, all that she has to show being a couple of schools at Canton and Shanghai, with forty students each, three or four schools in connection with the arsenal at Fuhchow, with an aggregate of three hundred, and in the capital an Imperial College for Western Science, with an attendance of about a hundred.*

The proposed modifications in the civil service examination system will not only invest each of these schools with a new importance, and give a higher value to every educated youth; it will have the effect of creating for itself a system of schools and colleges on the basis of an existing organization.

In every department and district there is a government school with two or more professors attached. The professors give no instruction, and the students only present themselves at stated times for examination. With the introduction of science these professors will become teachers, and each of these now deserted schools a centre of illumination.

APPENDIX.

HARTFORD, CONN., March 17, 1876.

DEAR SIR: Inclosed herewith I beg to hand you a brief report of our Chinese students in this country. I should have written it much earlier had not my time been well taken up by other duties connected with the mission. Should you have any inquiries to make about our students, do not hesitate to put them.

I remain, your obedient servant,

Hon. J. EATON,

Commissioner of Education, Washington, D. C.

YUNG WING.t

Since the statement of January 7, 1873, respecting the arrival in September, 1872, of the first detachment of Chinese government students in this country was published, we have had three more detachments, of thirty students each, who came in succession in the years 1873-74-75; thus completing the whole number of one hundred and twenty, as originally determined upon by the Chinese government. These student s

* The number of students in this institution is limited by the fact that they are on government pay and training for government service. The faculty of instruction consists of eleven professors, seven foreign and four Chinese.

A printing office with six presses has lately been erected in connection with the college, with a view to the printing and circulation of scientific works. These are expected to be supplied in part by the professors and students, who are at present largely occupied with the translation of useful books.

+ Mr. Yung Wing is an alumnus of Yale College, (class 1876,) and has received the honorary degree of LL. D.