

CHAPTER I 

 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 



THE Chinaman, whose religion teaches him to reverence 

 the memory of his ancestors, has for ages given in the 

 performance of his devotions an explicit recognition of 

 a principle which only in comparatively recent times 

 has been the subject of much notice in the western world. 

 Everyone now knows that all qualities and powers for 

 good or ill are the products of heredity. 



" Born into life, man grows 

 Forth from his parents' stem, 

 And blends their bloods, as those 

 Of theirs are blent in them ; 

 So each new man strikes root into a far fore-time." 



The family tree is therefore not merely traced up for 

 the satisfaction of family pride, but when it conveys 

 some knowledge of the individuals whose names appear 

 on the stem, or rather the two stems, it may possess 

 definite scientific interest. Biography therefore natur- 

 ally takes account of not only father and mother, 

 but of the facts and even the traditions current in the 

 family during as many generations as possible. Ramsay 



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