CONTENT OF CHINESE EDUCATION 39 



it has at once been ' the foundation of their political system, their 

 history, and their religious rites, the basis of their tactics, music and 

 astronomy.' 



The Shift Ching, or ' Book of Odes,' is another work which Con- 

 fucius preserved for posterity. It is a collection of rhymed ballads 

 whose ages run from probably 1719 b.c. to 585 B.C. They are 305 in 

 number though they appear to have been reduced by mishaps and 

 editorial selection from as many as 3,000. Giles thus exhibits their 

 arrangement : 



(a) Ballads commonly sung by the people in the various feudal states and 

 forwarded periodically by the nobles to their suzerain, the Son of Heaven. 

 The ballads were then submitted to the Imperial Musicians, who were able to 

 judge from the nature of such compositions what would be the manners and 

 the customs prevailing in each state, and to advise the suzerain accordingly 

 as to the good or evil administration of each of his vassal rulers. 



(6) Odes sung at ordinary entertainments given by the suzerain. 



(c) Odes sung on grand occasions when the feudal nobles were gathered 

 together. 



(d) Panegyrics and sacrificial odes. 



Confucius regarded a man unacquainted with the ' Book of Odes ' 

 as unfit for intercourse with intellectual men. According to him the 

 design of all may be expressed in the one sentence, ' Have no depraved 

 thoughts.' 



Early commentators ignoring the natural beauties of these poems 

 have saddled these ditties with weighty moral and political allegories. 

 This may have served to preserve a work which would otherwise have 

 been deemed too trivial. The native literature, illustrative, critical, 

 and philological dealing with the ' Book of Odes ' is not as large as 

 that on the ' Book of Changes,' but Chinese scholars know it by heart, 

 and each separate verse has been so searchingly examined that exegesis 

 can go no further. The fifty-five commentaries mentioned by Legge 

 in his translation increase our opinion of Chinese scholarship when we 

 remember its isolation from the literature of other lands. 



A nation's ballads have often been regarded as a more important 

 factor in the life of the people than its laws, and the insight which 

 the ' Book of Odes ' gives into the customs and feelings of ancient 

 China is its chief merit. While these poems lack the grandeur of the 

 Greek and Latin productions, they are fortunately free from the 

 looseness that too often detracts from the latter. As the 305 odes are 

 usually committed to memory before coming to the examination hall, 

 all poetical efforts of Chinese scholars have been practically molded 

 by them. 



Though in some of the odes women are roughly handled and per- 

 haps the position of women to-day is in part due to their influence, 

 the fairer side also appears, and contrasts in female character like those 

 portrayed by King Solomon in the same age are presented. Witness 



