CONTENT OF CHINESE EDUCATION 31 



lesson in a loud singsong until he reaches the end of his task or of 

 his memory, when his voice suddenly drops from its high key like a 

 June beetle striking a wall. The stimulus of companionship in study 

 is denied, each pupil memorizes, recites and writes in a class by him- 

 self, even though many may be engaged on the same passages. 



The preceptor is seldom over diligent. Without any personal in- 

 terest save in the exceptional student, he simply keeps the mill going 

 and is not expected to modify either the curriculum or the method 

 of instruction. There is no variety, no adaptation to pupil, no room 

 for pupil- judgment — only attention cultivated so highly that he can 

 study without diversion amid the greatest din. The scholar must de- 

 velop ' phonographic ' abilities of memory ; if not, there is no remedy 

 except the rod. Recent native schools along more modern lines have 

 swung to the other extreme and are entirely too lax, and there have 

 been many instances in which the student body has presumed to run 

 the school. The aversion to the old-style severity of the native teacher 

 has been a primary cause of the frequent rebellions in foreign schools 

 in China when a stand for faculty-power in proper discipline has had 

 to be firmly though kindly taken. 



Sons of shopkeepers and farmers and others who do not expect 

 to enter the lists for literary honors, but merely to acquire a moderate 

 proficiency in the native language, are put through a three- or four- 

 year course in six elementary classics which the aspirant for a degree 

 usually skips, beginning at once with the ' Four Books,' which may 

 be studied also by the more clever of the lower class. Thus the literary 

 graduate who turns pedagogue in an elementary school has himself 

 probably never traversed as a student the texts he is to teach, though 

 his knowledge of the superior classics renders this superfluous, except 

 in the point of appreciating the scholars' difficulties. 



Owing to the ideographic nature of the language, one aspect of 

 Chinese education is practically beyond the ken of western peoples. 

 Each character requires a distinct memory effort, and the recognition 

 of its form and name is made to come at one stage of instruction, its 

 meaning much later on. 



Dr. Smith compares the aggregate bulk of the classics which must 

 be accurately engraved on the child's memory with the Old Testament. 

 No other writings have been ground into the memories of so many 

 of earth's millions; and the precepts they contain have had such a 

 determining effect in producing Chinese character that, under the risk 

 of being tiresome, we shall pause to glance at their content. 



1. The Trirrtetrical Classic, a mosaic with three characters in each clause, 

 universally employed unchanged for eight and a half centuries. Its 1,068 words, 

 or 534 different characters, deal with the nature of man and of numbers, neces- 

 sity and modes of education, filial and fraternal duties, the names of the 

 heavenly bodies, the three great powers, four seasons, four directions, five ele- 



