Education.
Nevertheless of this high esteem for education, there were no public schools in the sense as with us as the government did not establish schools, except, perhaps, for the most advanced students. Yet there were a great number of schools, taken care of in a private way, and although every village did not have a school, yet they would have liked such, but mostly on account of poverty could not, for everywhere was the most profound reverence for education. There were three classes of undergraduate schools: "The primary, in which little is attended to beyond memoriter recitation and imitative chirography; the middle, in which the canonical books are expounded; and the classical, in which composition is the leading exercise."[97] Because of the great number of literary scholars who wanted to teach, the pay for the most part was quite meager.
School usually began about six in the morning, and it continued all day, with intervals for breakfast and lunch, sometimes running till dark. In some of the higher schools the scholars would return in the evening to their school work. School would continue throughout the entire week and the year, except one month during the New Year's festival and a vacation at wheat harvest and also at the autumnal harvest. If the teacher was preparing himself for a literary degree, there might be a vacation of about six weeks in the summer. The teacher was often not quite regular in his attendance at the school and the pupils were still more irregular than he, so that in a way made up for the lack of holidays.
There were scarcely any school-houses as such in China. The schools were held as a rule in the hall of a temple or in a private building, usually the ancestral temples were used for such purposes, and yet they might be held in a shed, which scarcely protected from the weather, or in the upper attic of a shop. In this room were placed a table, with an arm-chair, for the teacher. The writing-materials, which consisted of brushes, India ink, and ink-wells made of slate, were placed on this table. About the room were tables and stools for the pupils. In one corner of the room was placed a tablet or an inscription on the wall, dedicated to Confucius and the god of Letters.
Whatever may be said of education in older China, the teachers were educated men, the majority of them being unsuccessful candidates for literary degrees, but many of them were Bachelors and not a few were Doctors. For the work they had to do they were well prepared by a long course of study and they were usually competent. "In no country is the office of teacher more revered. Not only is the living instructor saluted with forms of the profoundest respect, but the very name of teacher, taken in the abstract, is an object of almost idolatrous homage."[98] Yet, "as a matter of fact, the Chinese teacher is often barely able to keep soul and body together, and is frequently obliged to borrow garments in which to appear before his patrons."[99]
The first day of school was a great and noted day in the life of a Chinese boy. He entered school in his seventh or eighth year. When he was to enter school, a lucky day was found for him, and with his good clothes on he started for school, feeling that this was the greatest event that was to happen in his life till he entered the Imperial Academy, which he was sure to do, so said all his friends. On entering the school-room he saluted, by prostrating himself, the picture of Confucius and next, with almost as much reverence, saluted his teacher, for the teacher was held in very high respect.
The course of study for the schools of China was formulated a long time ago and rigidly held to in all the schools of the empire. It was divided into three grades of instruction. The Chinese language does not have an alphabet but there is a different symbol for each word. In the first period the pupil was to learn the most important symbols, learning also to write them, and to commit to memory the nine sacred books, known as the Four Books and the Five Classics. The Four Books are known as the Confucian Analects, the Great Learning, the Golden Medium, and the Sayings of Mencius; and the Five Classics are the Book of Changes, the Book of History, the Spring and Autumn Annals, the Book of Odes, and the Book of Rites. All this would take four or five years on the part of the pupil. As these books were written in the old Chinese language they would not be understood by the pupils and the second stage of learning consisted in the translation of these books and classics into the language of the pupils, and also there were lessons in composition. The commentaries on these works were taken up and their meaning explained. In the third stage of learning composition was entered upon and consisted in the writing of essays and poems, imitating the style and thought of the five classics and the better commentaries. A full comprehension of the four books and the five classics and the commentaries upon them and the use of this knowledge in the writing of essays and poems was the desired end aimed at by the Chinese scholar and which was all that was needed for the highest examination in the empire.
The methods of teaching with the Chinese were formal, being based upon methods handed down from the ages, so that all teachers taught in the one stereotyped way. In teaching reading the teacher would have the pupils come to his desk, stand in line, each holding his book open before him. The teacher would read aloud a line, the pupils would then read this in concert in a loud voice, and this would continue till the pupils could pronounce the line without the teacher's help. Then they would go to their seats and commit this line to memory, each shouting it out as loud as he could. "Every Chinese regards this shouting as an indispensable part of the child's education. If he is not shouting how can the teacher be sure that he is studying? and as studying and shouting are the same thing, when he is shouting there is nothing more to be desired."[100] When the pupil had learned the line, he would go to the teacher's desk, lay his book upon it, turn his back to the teacher, and shout out the line as rapidly as he possibly could do. This method gave to the Chinese the phrase "to back the book" as we have "to learn by heart." This method was continued till the whole book was committed to memory.
The only other subject taught in the elementary schools was writing. In teaching writing, the master would make a copy and the pupil would place it under transparent paper and trace it with a hair pencil and then copy it without the tracing till he could make it from memory. "In lieu of slates, they generally use boards painted white to save paper, washing out the writing when finished."[101] In China, writing takes the place that drawing and painting do here, so all strive to become fine penmen.
For most of the boys, three or four years was the extent of their schooling, but if higher education was desired they attended higher schools. Here they were given lectures explaining the meaning of classical authors, which lectures were greatly committed to memory. They were also taught prose and verse composition, in which they followed the thought, style, and meter of the sacred books or of great writers, memorizing these writings for the purpose.
The Chinese teacher was very severe. The more severe he was, the better teacher he was considered. Fear ruled in the Chinese school. That the boy might ever be reminded of the necessity of studying, the implements to help him were always kept in plain view, as, "a wooden ruler to be applied to the head of the offender and sometimes the hands, also a rattan stick for the body. Flogging with this stick is the heaviest punishment allowed; for slight offenses the ruler is used upon the palms, and for reciting poorly—upon the head."[102] Teachers carried their punishments to extreme lengths. The bad pupils were the stupid ones who did not get their lessons assigned in the given time. For such, severe beatings were administered, so severe that in one case "a pupil was so much injured as to be thrown into fits, and such instances can scarcely be uncommon."[103]
Girls were not often educated in China, because the parents thought it of no use as they would marry and leave them, also there was no such incentive for girls as with boys, who might hold office, and besides popular opinion regarded reading and writing dangerous arts in female hands. Nevertheless here and there a woman came forth among the educated and celebrated instances were sometimes quoted of women who have been skilled in verse. When a woman did emerge with a good education, she was highly respected for her attainments. The girls of the better class were taught needlework, painting on silk, and music.
Education in China did not stop with the youth, as the manner of filling the offices through literary competitive examinations kept many studying even to old age. This system was very old, dating back to several centuries before Christ. In these examinations there were three grades of degrees conferred—"flowering talent," Bachelors; "promoted man," Master; "entered scholar," Doctor. Beyond this was yet another higher honor, as the very highest became members of the Imperial Academy, the "forest of pencils," at the court at Peking. The best and most finished scholar of all was so designated every three years by the Emperor, the very greatest honor. The only thing in history that seems to approach this honor is the winning of the foot-race at the Olympian Games.
Chinese education appears to fulfill the saying heard in this country in bygone days—Educate a boy and he won't work—for in China "the scholar, even the village scholar, not only does not plow and reap, but he does not in any way assist those who perform these necessary acts. He does not harness an animal, nor feed him, nor drive a cart, nor light a fire, nor bring water—in short, so far as physical exertion goes, he does as nearly as possible nothing all day. 'The scholar is not a utensil', (a Confucian saying), he seems to be thinking all day long, and every day of his life, until one wishes that at times he would be a utensil, that he might sometimes be of use. He will not even move a bench nor make any motion that looks like labor."[104]
"There are among us who are enamored of state-systems which regulate education down to its minutest detail, and leave no room for the free play of mind: in China we have this indirectly accomplished and see in it all its necessary rigidity, uniformity, and pedantry. There are who advocate a secular system of education: in China we see this in full operation. There are who think that all success in the education of mind should be measured by external competitive tests: in China we have this elaborated into an iron system. There are who cling by the dogmatic and preceptive, and regard with suspicion the habituating of the mind of schoolboys to ideals esthetic and spiritual, including even the simple elements of humanity: in China they will find what they desire to see. There are who hold that teachers and school-inspectors are heaven-born, and are above the study of educational principles and methods (as the Emperor Sigismund was supra Grammaticam): so China thinks."[105]
Whatever may be said of Chinese education, it has lasted through the ages and it has sufficed for the needs of the nation. It may be that when this old nation gets a system of education based upon European and American ideas, and fills her offices with the most highly educated and only the most highly educated, then may China lead the world.