"Chinese Grammar, Self-Taught," and one or two arresting remarks in it, suggests curious reflexions, writes ' A.M.W." in the " Glasgow Herald." We used to speak of the unchanging East—a phrase not in the least applicable now when the ground-swell of war is altering the Orient. Perhaps it was never applicable. It probably had its rise in the inability of the Western mind to perceive what was happening among vast populations with a far-reaching inheritance of an alien culture. The mentality of the East seemed to elude recognition as completely as the faces of its inhabitants, for to most people one Chinese countenance is not distinguishable from another. Yet the example of Japan showed how swiftly and dramatically an Oriental country, might present to the world the result of slow, secret processes that involved changes of the most profound kind, and yet at the same time preserve the chief characteristics of the people. China has apparently changed less, though only apparently, and, like Japan, clings to an alphabet that is extremely baffling. One can understand and sympathize with a reluctance to jettison a monument of the antiquiry of a civilization.
The grammar of Chinese is not dificult, nor is a working acquaintance with the spoken language hard to acquire, but Chinese has its own obstacles to confront the foreigner, and the hardest to clear is the script. What is to happen to it? The formation by the Chinese Board of Education of a phonetic script seems to mark the beginning of a movement where final form may be momentous. The adoption of an easier alphabet and script would open the door more widely between the West and China, Japan, and it may be added, Russia. Only time will show.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.