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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



The Grotto and the Image of the Deer. 



while the fourth or upper side gives space for teachers' quarters and 

 class-rooms. 



But in one court in place of the teachers' quarters there is a high 

 pillard shrine-room, where behind red curtains sits the massive 

 wooden statue of Chii Fu Tsz, an object of reverence as the intellectual 

 father of the race of students cultured here. This room comes just in 

 front of the grotto where the image of the white deer stands. An in- 

 scription in huge characters hangs above his throne and on either side 

 are tablets to the memory of his distinguished disciples. 



Passing into the adjacent court through a circular doorway we 

 stand in the sanctum sanctorum of the college, in the very midst of 

 its buildings, occupied by a temple with great double doors smeared 

 witli the ubiquitous Chinese red. Dark and damp, the main hall of 

 this temple offers shelter to large images of Confucius, Mencius and 

 fifteen of the famous disciples of the sage. This image of Confucius 

 is rather contrary to custom, and is perhaps accounted for by the 

 Buddhistic inclinations of Chit Fit Tsz. Besides this crude wooden 

 image, there is also a portrait of the sage, one of the only three reputed 

 to have been made. It is engraved life-size on a huge slab of dark 

 slate, and is evidently the product of no mean skill. 



In a small room in front of this Confucian temple is enshrined, 

 curiously enough, a tutelar god. Formerly this room was supposed to 

 bestow remarkable success in the examinations for high degrees upon 

 all those who bad studied in it, because of the literary god standing in 

 a little pavilion across the brook, who holds in his hand a pencil which 

 points directly to that room, and who guided the pen of the favored 



