American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1873-04-19
Education in China.

boys In the street on the way to school,
with an armful of books-the satchel be-
ing piece of blue cloth. / entered a
school the other day-they are easily dis
tinguished from the noise of voices proceed
ing from them-and found an old man
with about twenty pupils. The boys do
not sit on forms, as in England; there
were number of small tables, each with
boy or two sitting at them. A very
prominent object was a large new coffin,
which the schoolmaster had evidently pro-
vided to be ready when he should require
it. 1t was decorated at the end with
piece of bright red paper, and the charac-
ter 'Shih" upon it, which is used as sym :
Dol for happiness. This would indicate
that they have not the same sepulchral and
dismal ideas in connection with a coffin
that we have. A school is very noisy
place; all the boys are bawling at the
same time at the very top of their voices.
They do this to get by heart the books
which they are reading, and when they
have done SO they come to the school
master, and, standing with their backs to
ni~, SC that they cannot see the book in
the m@ster's hand, they repeat what they
nave learned 1t is system of examining,
IN Which inc hoy with the best memory
VIII stand hlshes'. and this seems to be
l was rather astonisheo TO find that instead
of horn books those litu. fellows were
reading the Chinese classics. One bow
was pointed out to me as reading Men.
cius; and whoever at last gets the .ost
of these works by heart is the bes
scholar. Imagine boys at home in
village school, reading Plato, Ho-
repeat them by memory, and you will
realize the Chinese mode of education.
All this is working up to the public ex-
animation system which occupies such an
important place in China; SO important is
it, that it may be called the core of the po-
litical and social fabric. AS it is an old
institution here, it would be well if it were
carefully studied in reference to our own
examination system, which is but thing
of yesterday. The principle upon which
it is founded is no doubt good, still it is
full of defects. A system which has been
a thousand years at work, however per-
feet, and adapted to the times when it be-
gan, is not likely to be in accordance with
the altered circumstances of the times
now. To be able to. repeat the works of
Confucius and Mencius is no doubt good;
but examining mere words into one is not
quite the best system of training. The
mind has other and more important pow
ers than that of mere memory. Limiting
the resources of knowledge to these old
classic authors is another defect of the
Chinese system. We have had the strug-
gle about the classics and more modern
knowledge going on in our own universi-
ties. No sensible person would object to
the study of ancient knowledge. The
limiting of a national system of education
in any way must be fault. The whole
temple should be thrown open. The
American who announced 1.-THE History
of the World, from the Creation till Half
past Ten Last Night" was upon the right
track of education. Our kilograms from
all round the globe, which we read at our
breakfast in the morning, are the last page
in the world, and bring that history up 10
somewhere about halfpast ten last
night"
In China the literati, or educated class,
are said to be haters of foreigners, the OPP
pOnents of telegraphs, railways, and of
everything new. Their classic books date
from the time of Confucius, and the his
tory of the world, or of intellectual thought,
which is tire essence of all history and
knowledge ceases at that time. The Chi
naman has been grinding his teeth on these
dry bones ever since, and he growls if any
other dog should venture to approach.
This education, confined to such narrow
limits has been going on until his mind is
as compressed and diminutive as the small
feet of the women of the country. A Chi
nese girls feet are stopped growing in her
infancy, and a literary mans mind has its
growth arrested at the early date of Con-
fucius. A woman here goes about some
thing very like goat trying to walk on it's
hind legs, and an educated Chinaman
seems equally incapable of treading the
paths of modern knowledge; hence his
total incapacity to comprehend the strange
foreigners who have of late invaded his
soil. The whole civilization of these
foreigners began ages after the date of
Confucius, and the educated Chinaman has
s,,I Ii. a;v,in fbo
liminary knowledge necessary to reform a
notion of their science and power. Over
the outside of the gateway of the Exami-
nation Hall at Pekin there is an inscrip-
ton saying: If you are high up in the
classics you will gain scholarships" and
over the inside of the same door it says:
=" Those who pass through here afterwards
means that knowledge of the classics is
all that a man required to entitle him to
be governor of men in the nineteenth
century in China.
There are examination halls in every
provincial capital, where the first two de-
grees can only be given; but the two high
er degrees can only be completed at Pekin.
The Suwang Yuen is the fourth degree,
and is equivalent to our Senior Wrangler.
He is a so-called Zone of the Ten Thou
sand" The place where the examination
name, for there only is one young man out
of that number who can receive the honor
once in three years. Examination after
men come up to compete,
till they grow old and gray, such is the de-
sire to achieve this high distinction. 1t is
told of one man that he competed every
three years till he was eighty. When men
persevere to this great age the Emperor
confers some honor upon them.
The competition at Pekin is hard trial.
1t lasts for nine days, and is divided into
three goes" For three days and three
Nights the "ten thousand" are confined in
pens, each man having about square
yard of space into which he is imprisoned,
so that he is totally separated from his
neighbors, and there he has to write his
essay or paper on the subject given to him
by the Judges, and which he knows moth
ing about till he is in his cell. Paper,
with an official stamp, is given to each to
write upon, and all depends upon his men,
DRY of the classics-miniature copies have
been produced, so that they could be
i'm, but it is crime TO print or
sell such copies now. l have read some of
the early efforts produced, and they remind
one much of early school essays, or essays
for Young mems associations for mental
cultivation at home, but they are embel-
lishcd with endless quotations from the
classics and the style of writing may be
family imagined from the sign board style
already given; their howery phraseology
LARGELY predominates. The examination
hall occupies some acres of ground, and is
formed of large rows of cells, which look
as if intended for a competition of prize