Children of China

by C. Campbell Brown

When the time comes for a boy to go to school, a lucky day is chosen by a fortune-teller, and young Hopeful, spotless in dress, and with head well shaved, is taken to be introduced to his teacher. In the neat bundle which he carries as he trots along by his father’s side he has ‘the four gems of the study’ ready for use, that is to say, a pen which has a brush for a nib, a cake of ink, a stone slab for rubbing down the ink with water, and a set of books. As soon as the new pupil has been taken into the school and introduced in the proper way, the teacher asks the spirit of Confucius to help the little scholar with his work. Then the master sits down and the boy bows his head to the ground, beseeching his master to teach him letters. After this a ‘book-name,’ such as Flourishing Virtue, Literary Rank, Opening Brightness, is chosen and given to the lad; for a Chinese boy gets a new name when he goes to school. The room in which the budding scholar will sit at a little black table for many a day to come is often dark and dingy, with tiny windows and a low tiled roof.

A book, called The Juvenile Instructor, tells how children used to be trained, in the good old days of China’s greatness. It says: “When able to talk, lads must be instructed to answer in a quick, bold tone, and girls in a slow and gentle one. At the age of seven they should be taught to count and name the points of the compass, but at this age boys and girls should not be allowed to sit on the same mat nor to eat at the same table. At eight they must wait for their superiors and prefer others to themselves.... Let children always be taught to speak the simple truth, to stand erect in their proper places, and to listen with respectful attention.”

At an old-fashioned Chinese school the pupils have no A B C; but they have to learn by heart ‘characters,’ that is, the signs which stand for words in their books. Boys who expect afterwards to go into business are taught to do sums by a clerk or shopkeeper, who is hired to teach them; but the ordinary schoolboys are taught no arithmetic, or geography, or dates. Perhaps you think you would like to go to a Chinese school! But wait a bit until you hear what Chinese boys have to learn.

Beginners stand in a row before the master’s table and are taught to read the first line of the Three Character Classic, until they know it pretty well. Then they sit in their places and repeat it aloud. If one of them forgets a word, he goes up to the table again and asks his master how to read it, but he must not go too often.

What a din there is with some twenty boys all reading at the pitch of their voices! The teacher does not scold them, for the busier his pupils are at their work, the noisier they become. Whenever one of the class knows his task, he hands in his book, and turning his face away, so that his back is to his master, he repeats his lesson aloud. This ‘backing the book’ (as it is called), is to prevent a dishonest pupil from using his sharp black eyes to peep over the top of the page and help himself along.

After the Three Character Classic and The Hundred Surnames, which gives a list of the family names used in China, the schoolboy reads a book called The Thousand Character Classic. This book, made up of exactly a thousand characters, is said to have been written, by order of an emperor of China, in a single night. The scholar who wrote it worked so hard, that his hair, which was black when he began his task, had turned white when the book was finished next morning. The Four Books and other Classics, as the standard books of Chinese literature are called, are next begun by the pupil.

Boys do a great deal of writing at a Chinese school: when they are able to read and to repeat quotations from their famous books, they must go on to the higher art. First they are taught how to hold the brush pen. Each boy is given a small book of red characters. He dips his sharp-pointed brush in ink and holding it straight up and down begins painting the red letters over. After a time he goes on to tracing letters on thin paper over a copy. A square of wood, painted white, serves him as a slate. On this he writes characters, which balance one another, as heaven and earth, fire and water, light and darkness. By and by he begins essay and letter-writing, which is very difficult in Chinese. Pupils used to spend many years on this, but nowadays schoolboys in China have to do more sums and less writing than their fathers did.

Writing essays and verses used to be the chief lessons at a Chinese school; for when scholars were fairly good at these, they entered for the examinations. It was a difficult thing for a boy to go into the great examination hall among two or three thousand men, and, after having been searched to make sure that he had no books or cribs up his sleeves, to go and sit at a bench and write his essay. Yet many gained degrees when very young.

One of these was called Ta Pin. He had a wonderful memory and when he had read the Five Classics once over, he could remember them every word! When eight years old, Ta Pin was in the house of an elderly scholar, who was pleased by his good manners and wise ways. Seeing that he behaved more like a grown-up man than a boy, the old gentleman pointed to a chair and said: “With a cushion made of tiger’s skin, to cover the student’s chair.” Then he waited to see if Ta Pin could answer this bit of poetry as a grown-up scholar would have done, by a second line of verse, which would match what he had just said. “With a pencil made of rabbit’s hair, to write the graduate’s tablet,” answered Ta Pin, every word of his line pairing with the corresponding word in the old gentleman’s verse, ‘pencil’ with ‘cushion,’ ‘rabbit’ with ‘tiger,’ etc. The scholar struck the table with delight and gave a present to the boy. When Ta Pin was thirteen he became a Master of Arts, coming out higher than all the other competitors but one. He was afterwards second in the examination for the degree of Doctor of Letters and won the highest degree of all next year. This clever boy lived over four hundred years ago, when the Ming emperors ruled in China.

The story of how Mencius’ mother looked after him whilst he was at school, is very interesting. At first they lived together near a cemetery and little Mencius amused himself with acting the various scenes which he saw at the graves. “This,” said his mother, “is not the place for my boy.” So she went to live in the market street. But the change brought no improvement. The little boy played then at being a shopkeeper, offering things for sale and bargaining with imaginary customers. His devoted mother then took a house beside a public school. Now the child was interested by the things which the scholars were taught, and tried to imitate them. The mother was pleased and said: “This is the proper place for my son.” Near their new house was a butcher’s shop. One day Mencius asked what they were killing pigs for. “To feed you,” answered his mother. Then she thought to herself, “Before this child was born I wished him to be well brought up, and now that his mind is opening I am deceiving him; and this is to teach him untruthfulness.” So she went and bought a piece of the pork, to make good her words. After a time, Mencius went to school. One day when he came home from school his mother looked up from the loom at which she was sitting, and asked him how far he had got with his books. He answered carelessly that “he was doing well enough.” On which she took a knife and cut through the web she was weaving. The idle little boy, who knew the labour required to weave the cloth, now spoilt, was greatly surprised and asked her what she meant. Then she told him that cutting through the web and spoiling her work was like his neglecting his tasks. This made the lad think and determine not to spoil the web of his life by idle ways; so the lesson did not need to be repeated.[3] Thanks to the care of this wise and patient mother, Mencius grew up to be a famous man.