Every one who knows anything of the Chinese, is aware that they have the highest respect for learning. Their views as to the manner in which instruc~ tion should be imparted, can be learned not only from their practice, but also from occasional hints dropped in the classical writings. One of the most significant of these is to be found in Confucian analects, and is as follows Ch'en Kang asked Po Yii (the son of Confucius) saying "Have you heard any lessons from your father, different. from what we have all heard?" Po Yii replied, "No, He was once standing alone, when I passed huriedly below the hall, and he said to me, 'Have you learned the Odes?" On my replying ' Not yet," he added, 'If you do not learn the Odes, on will not be fit to converse with.'
retired and studied the Odes.
Another day he was in the same way standing alone, when I hastily passed below the hall, and he said to me, Have you learned the Rules of Proriety On my replying, 'Not yet,' he added, If you do not lean the rules of Propriety, your character can not established. 'I then retired, and studied the rules of Propriety. I have heard only these two things from him. Chten Kang retired delighted saying, I asked about one thing, and I have got three things. I have heard about the Odes, I have heard about the rules of Propriety, and I have also heard that the superior man maintains a distant reserve towards his son. Confucius was a master, who felt himself to be in possession of great truths, of which his age vas in deep need, and he offered his instructions to rich and poor alike, upon the sole condition of receptivity. "I do not open up the truth," he said, "to one who is not eager to get knowledge, nor help out any one who is not anxious to explain himself. When I have presented one corner of a subject to any one, and he cannot from it learn the other three, I do not repeat the lesson." For ought that appears, the son of Confucius was wholly dependant for whatever he knew or received, pou his father. According to Confucius, an acquaintance with the Odes, and with the rules of Propriety form a very considerable part of the equipment of a scholar. They embrace such subjects as could be comprehended and assimulated, one would suppose, only by the assistance of a competent teacher, that in the education of his own son, Confucius should have contented himself with a casual question, and a single lint as to the pursuit of these branches which were, in his eyes, of prominent ar! that if it were not handed down importance, is a circumstance so sin-
upon the same authority as the other facts in the life of the Sage, we might be disposed to doubt its credibility. The theory upon which the master acted is happily epitomized in the expression of ien-K'ang's distant reserve! Even to his own son, the superior man is a higher grade of being, whose slightest word contains fruitful seeds of instruction. He expects his pupil to act upon a hint, as if it were the formal enowncemen of a law of nature. He is the sun, around whom his pupil planets revolve, in orbits proportioned to the force of the central attraction, an attraction which varies with the capacity to be attracted. Yet in every case there is a point beyond which no pupil can go. He must not come too near his sun.
According to occidental ideas, the ideal of teaching in exemplified in the methods of such educators as Dr.
Arnold, of Rugby, whose stimulating influence was felt over an entire gene tion, Upon the plan of Confucin is difficult to see not only how he could have won the love of his pupils, but how he could have permanently" impressed himself upon any except the very apt. Few are the pupils, we may be sure, who, after a chance question and a remark, will retire and study unaided, a branch of learning which, they are told, will enable them to converse, or to establish' their characters, How far this Confucian of instructing children, may have served. as a model for the Chinese, it may not be easy to say, but whatever influence it exerted cannot have been a beneficial one. Contrast. with the method of Confucius that of James Mill, as detailed in the Autobiography of his son John Stuart Mill. Here was a father not a professional philosopher, but a man of business who anid the composition of historical and other works found time to superintend the education of his son from the days of his earliest infancy until his mature manhood, not in the ancient languages only, but in histor i political economy, composition caution, and all with a comprehen of plan, a laborious and unwearying persistence in teaching principles and not rules, and in requiring exact and perfect comprehension of every part of every subject traversed, combined with se pulous fidelity in minutest details, such as resulted in the produc of one of the most remarkably educated men of whom we have any record. By this patient assiduity and skilful direction of his father, Mill was given a start over his contemporaries, as he himself remarks, of at least a quarter of a century. Walter Savage Lander is known as the author of " Imaginary Conversa tions of Literary men and Statesmen." We should like to have had him adda chapter, giving an " Imaginary Conversation between Confu and James Mill, on "distant reserve" as a factor in the education of sons.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.