ON ITEMS OP CHINESE ETHICS AND PHILOSOPHY. 41 



flower will soon appear and flourish. Too great an anxiety 

 about the health of children is an excess into which many 

 parents fall. Has a young child the least indisposition, he 

 is immediately surfeited with medicines and cordials ; his 

 constitution thereby ruined, his health impaired, his days 

 shortened. 



" When a daughter is born into a family," so says the code 

 of philosophy now quoted,* "it is to leave it, and soon pass 

 into another." If then, her education has been neglected, 

 " she is a reproach to her parents, and does a great injury 

 to the family into which she enters." 



Among the duties of a Avife which may be appropriately 

 alluded to are these : " To pay a respectful obedience 

 to her father and mother-in-law ; to hve in perfect union 

 with her sistei-s-in-law." [Please to observe we are 

 referring to the Chinese, not to the more advanced condition 

 of such matters in the highly favoured islands of the western 

 seas.] To honour her husband (assuming of course that he 

 is worthy of honour) ; to instruct her children, to compas- 

 sionate her domestics (whether slaves or servants) ; to prepare 

 the silk and fit it for working^ (equivalent to attending to 

 the family wardrobe) ; to be a frugal and laborious house- 

 wife ; to patiently bear crosses and annoyances ; not to listen 

 to tittle tattle, nor meddle with that which is outside her 

 doors — in all of which a daughter should be instructed before 

 marriage. 



On the part of a son obedience and respect towards his 

 parents ; in other words to " honour his father and his mother," 

 is held to be the most im23ortant of '' the five duties of civil 

 life." If the father treats the son well, the son will behave 

 Avell towards the father. But though the father is not such 

 as he ought to be, the son should not be wanting in duty 

 towards him. 



2. Duties among hrethren. — According to an ancient 

 (Chinese) proverb, " When brethren live together they ought 

 to support themselves," there should in fact be no idlers 

 among them. Harmony between brothers and their families 

 is a source of happiness ; and among the ways to so maintain 

 it are these : — " to hear a great deal, yet to seem as if one 

 had heard nothing ; though seeing many things, yet behaA^e 



* See Du Halde^ vol. ii, pp. 37, et seq. 



t Equivalent to the duties assigned in olden times to British maidens, 

 whence also the term sjjiusCers which still clings to them, thoi^li but in 

 name. 



