We have frequently recommended in these columns the advisability of attempts to give the Chinese secular jnstraction on a definite system. The truth is that there is much to be done in the direction of scientific training, that we all of us overrate the acquirements of the natives of this country, or rather, to speak more correctly, we are enable to put ourselves in the position of a Chinaman and to understand the jumble of superstitions and follies that crowd his mind and block its intricate avenues against the reception of scientific truth. Of the world in which he lives he knows nothing 8 he ought to know. It is an unreal, impossible environment which encompasses him, and ho is therefore only feeling his way to the apprehension of the elementary principles which constitute the first conditions of being. One of the most learned Mi sionaries who ever laboured in China, remarked that the great obstacle to progress with the Chinese was not false religion but false science, and there is much trath in the observation. The notions that prevail about the sea and the sky, the earth and the atmos. phere, are all wildly wrong. We know how very ill informed the peasantry of European countries are on the subject of the world they live in. The knowledge of a Somersetshire rustic is packed up in a few proverbs and some vague general ideas of the relations of the planeta to each other, and of their influences on atmospheric changes. An adage explains an alteration of climate and a rhyme solves the mysterious contection of cold or warm weeks with or systems surrounding the sun. Still in most civilized countries there are no absolutely crazy opinions as to the world in which our lot is cast. We do not find the most ignorant are in Burope saying that the earth is animated, and founding system of action on this insane hypothesis. In China, the nature worship and the opinions and practises which gather around the system of Féngshui have beclouded the eyes for 80 many centuries that it is a task of unexampled difficulty to make a beginning in the proper direction. This being so, we hail with some satisfaction aachome which is now occupying the attention of those who have the best burp interest of the natives of this country at heart, It is proposed to issue a sories of works of an elementary character to form a complete encyclopedia, with maps, woodcuts and engravings, and to circulate these amongst the hinese; and the originators of the scheme are not perhaps far wrong when they say that it will do more to open the minds of the people, and, "as 8 consequence, will be more efficient in opening the country, than most things which have s yeh been attempted." It seems that though the proposed pro. Series. ject will be conducted as economically 'a8 possible, a very considerable sum of money will have to be spent if the works issued are to be in any sense complete and satisfactory publications. Therefore, some preliminary help will be needed from individuals in China and in England who have the best in-forests of the dark-haired race at heart.
We have before us @ list of the manuals which are already in a forward state of preparation, and we notice in the catalogue a sot of object lessons, a treatise on Natural Philosophy for the young, a work on Astronomy issued by the Peking College, books on Mineralogy and Chemistry, by the translator at the Kiangnan Arsenal, as well as Botanical and Zoological wall charts. Besides those there is a list of text books for students who have already made some progress in the sciences, amongst which treatises on Mental and Moral Philosophy deserve mention from the importance of the subjects.
The project of an illustrated newspaper for China has recently been brought before the notice of the community, and that journal might, we conceive, with propriety form the pioneer of the present large and more ambitious plan, Some of us are old enough to recollect the old Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge which, in spite of the unsparing ridicule poured on it by the Tories of the day who delighted to bespatter Charles Knight's periodical and the London University with showers of abuse, unquestionably did an extraordinary amount of good, and kindled a taste for good literature in the poorer classes in England. The Penny Magazine was the precursor of the Penny Cyclopedia, and of many hundreds of carefully compiled popular educational works. Thus we see in the present undertaking a promise of much benefit to the natives. Instructive books once shown to the Chinese, and we shall have an eager demand for more, We trust that the plan to relieve the intellectual famine which dwarfs the natives of this country, will be relieved by the hands of those who have done 80 much to aid their physical needs.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.