1859.] Memorandum on Education in China. 49 



Secondly. — The Emperor, by his example and by his periodical 

 exhortations, sets and keeps up the fashion, and by making the in- 

 terior not the exterior of a man the test by which his pretensions to 

 position are determined, causes his subjects to devote more care to 

 the former than to the latter. 



And lastly, by keeping up a system by which all the burthens of 

 the state fall on the rich ignoramuses, while all the prizes fall to 

 the scholars, the spirit of economy, so strong in Chinese breasts, is 

 enlisted in the pursuit of knowledge. 



Thus, Education is so widely spread in China, that Teh, when 

 asked how they managed to do justice there, none of the Mandarins 

 being able to speak the local dialects, was able to say, Why, very 

 easily: all the depositions are written down and submitted to the 

 parties interested, and there is not a single household in China 

 which has not at least one member able to read. 



The elementary schools are, however, all in private hands, and so 

 early do the Chinese youth commence their studies, that the rudi- 

 ments are always taught at home, one Chinese philosopher, indeed, 

 saying that education should commence previous, not subsequent to, 

 birth, and the sage Mercuis is cited as an instance of the favorable 

 results of this course being followed. 



Having then learnt his A B C at home, or more correctly, 

 having had his eye familiarized with the written character by getting 

 up a certain number of easy simple signs answering to our pothooks 

 and hangers, and been instructed in a few ordinary rules of decorum 

 and behaviour, the young student is, if his father is too much 

 engaged to attend to his instruction himself, and too poor to hire a 

 tutor to do it for him, sent off to a public day School, where a 

 little book is put into his hand which he has to learn by rote, and 

 having thus accomplished the first drudgery of his life, it is explain- 

 ed to him ; the first sentence impressing on him that he is by nature 

 good, and that if he becomes depraved, he is then in an abnormal 

 and unnatural condition. 



To give him time to digest this and other similar pieces of wisdom, 

 a second book, more difficult than the former, is given him to be 

 learnt by rote, before it is explained, and having mastered this, he is 



