25th May. "Tr is the fault of his parents if the child does not go to school, for if he does not do so when young of what use will he be in old age?" These words are found in the 'I'rimetrical Classic, a Primer for beginners written by a scholar of the 12th century, and are the keynote upon which rests the entire system of education in China. Although this quotation is, comparatively speaking, a modern one, yet the feeling is one that can be dated from the era of the Sages. No father wishes to have the imputation of neglecting his children attached to his name. Although the early Sages have always endeavoured to impress on the minds of the nation the value of early education as the foundation of the solidity of the Empire, their works were of so profound a character as to be intelligible only to the learned, so that it was not until the century just named that the clever scholar combined the whole question in a nutshell by putting it into the short and pithy sentence just referred to, 'I'he masses, who heretofore had always but a hazy idea of their duties respecting their young, and about education in general, now began to entertain clearer views of what was required of them as parents, by a sentence which every one could understand the moment it was quoted and hence an impetus was given to general education in China, which before the appearance of the Trimetrical Classic, had been conducted in that stolid, apathetic manner into which it seems the Chinese have again relapsed. So important has it always been to the minds of the statesmen of China from the earliest times that the young of their generation should have the benefits of a general education at the very least, that to provide for even the poorest in this respect the system of charity or endowed schools was a universal one before the Christian era. From the earliest times there were public-spirited men who were always willing to lighten the burdens of the State, so that the majority of these institutions soon became to be entirely in the hands of private individuals or the village com-june, whilst the State, relieved in this, turned its attention to the higher branches of education and established colleges in each city where the young men of the district who were ambitious of literary honours, but too poor to pay for private tuition, might have all the opportunities and advantages of the best classical teachers to guide their studies—colleges where no teacher under a Provincial Graduate or chujén is engaged and whose President or Yuan-chang is always some retired official of high literary reputation and at least a Haulin—Member of the Imperial Academy,—when Hanlins were first created in the reign of Wu 'I'sén-tien the masculine Empress of the 'I'ang dynasty A.D. 684-706. his be it understood, applies only to the colleges in the metropolis of a province, where, as they are more richly endowed by government and under the eyes of the high provincial authorities, the opportunities given are naturally better than in the other provincial cities; but the axiom holds good that only the best of teachers are engaged according to the wealth of the towns the colleges are in, and that the least that can be said of the Presidents of these institutions is that they never are under the rank of a Metropolitan Graduate or chinshik, retired from the bustle of official life. Indeed to such a degree of perfection are these colleges brought that exceptional opportunities are given to the deserving poor, who, in addition to free instruction, are given something like six dollars a month to pay for their daily sustenance, from the college funds. This stipend may be added to by trying for the prizes of 'I's, 10, 'I'ls. 8, and 'I'ls. 4, which are given monthly by the examining goverment officials who are obliged to do this in rotation.
So much for the higher education of the youths of this country of the poorer classes.' Let us now turn our attention to the primary and ordinary schools of China, from whose ranks only about twelve per cent. continue their studies into the colleges mentioned above, while 88 per cent. of the rest having got as far as the limit of the education afforded by the ordinary schools, enter into the arena of life as apprentices to trade or turn their attention to the cultivation of their ancestral acres, 'I'his last class, with but few exceptions, forget all they have leaned at school within five years of leaving it. Human nature is made up of contrarieties; although philanthropy has built and endowed primary and middle schools from the earliest ages, and parents feel it incumbent upon them, from the maxims of their Sages, to give an education to their children in order to fit them for life, yet even the very poorest refuse to send their young ones to the Yi-hsia or charity schools that have been established for their benefit. They consider it such a disgrace to their manhood to send their children to such institutions that they would prefer the younger generation to remain ignorant, rather than that they should disgrace their family by entering a charity school, which they also know was endowed merely for families of their special class. Filial piety in a country like this is the first of all virtues, yet a rustic would not consider himself half so insulted when his parents and forefathéra
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.