CHINA. 421 



astonishing for the large area which they cover, and the vast 

 accommodation which they afford. It is singular that a similar 

 institution should just now be in course of construction at a 

 vast cost in Oxford. The Chinese examination halls cannot but 

 recall to an English University man the close analogy which 

 exists between Chinese methods of mental training and learned 

 thought, and those in vogue at home. As in our own Univer- 

 sities the main energies of the learned have been devoted to the 

 reiterated translation into English and study of the mouldy and 

 worm-eaten lore of a by-gone age ; so in China successive genera- 

 tions of students have for centuries devoted their lives to the 

 acquisition of the antiquated philosophy of their remote ancestors, 

 for the purposes of display in competitive examination. The 

 reformation of the English Universities proceeds but slowly, 

 and notwithstanding the hopeful movements now in progress in 

 that direction, a period of very many years must necessarily 

 elapse before all branches of knowledge shall be equally and 

 adequately represented in them. 



Like the examination halls, the great monastery at Honam 

 was full of interest from its close resemblances to similar 

 European institutions. We listened awhile to the evening- 

 service, intoned and chanted by the monks in their priestly 

 vestments, a gong and a kind of wooden bell giving out a very 

 sharp and short note when struck were used as an accompani- 

 ment. We were next shown the refectory ; here was a small 

 pulpit for the reading of pious books by one of the monks 

 whilst the others are at dinner, just, for example, as at Tintern 

 Abbey. Close by was the flower-garden of the monastery, 

 where bright flowers were carefully grown, to be used to 

 decorate the holy shrines. The principal flowers in blossom 

 were very fine large red and yellow Cockscombs (Amaranthus) 

 of which the gardener of the monastery was very proud and 

 which displayed pyramidal masses of blossom three or four 

 feet in height. Not far from the garden is a fish-pond and 

 near by a small cremation house, where the bodies of monks 

 who die at the monastery are burnt. The whole institution is 

 more or less in decay ; the monks do not act up to the rules of 

 their order. 



