In sight from Dragon Hill is another hill known as Tortoise Hill, supposed to be inhabited by a tortoise spirit or devil, and at its foot are some lakes in which it has long been said that the tortoise washes its feet. Now these lakes are on property owned by the Hanyang Steel & Iron Works and they decided a few years ago that they would either drain off the water or else fill up the lakes so as to get more land. But before they got started the Chinese civil authorities heard of it and notified the Hanyang Company that such a proceeding could not be tolerated. The tortoise would have nowhere to wash his feet, and would straightway bring down the wrath of Heaven on all the community!
It is from superstitions such as these that the schools must free the Chinese before the way can be really cleared for the introduction of Christianity. The teacher is as necessary as the preacher. And the task of getting the masses even to the point where they can read and write is supremely difficult. The language, it must be remembered, has no alphabet. Each word is made not by joining several letters together, as with us, but by making a distinct character--each character an intricate and difficult combination of lines, marks, and dots. Or perhaps the word may be formed by joining two distinct characters together. For example, to write "obedience" in Chinese you write together the characters for "leaf" and "river," the significance being that true obedience is as trusting {130} and unresisting as the fallen leaf on the river's current. My point is, however, that for each word a distinct group of marks (like mixed-up chicken tracks) must be piled together, and the task of remembering how to recognize and write the five thousand or more characters in the language would make an average American boy turn gray at the very thought. My friend Doctor Tenney, of the American Legation in Peking, asserts that at least five years of the average Chinese pupil's school life might be saved if the language were based on an alphabet like ours instead of on such arbitrary word-signs.
There is one thing that must be said in favor of the Chinese system of education, however, and that is the emphasis it has always laid on moral or ethical training. The teaching, too, seems to have been remarkably effective. Take so basic a matter as paying one's debts, for example: it is a part of the Chinaman's religion to get even with the world on every Chinese New Year, which comes in February. If he fails to "square up" at this time he "loses face," as his expressive phrase has it. He is a bad citizen and unpopular. Consequently all sorts of things may be bought cheaper just before the New Year than any other time. Every man is willing to make any reasonable sacrifice, selling his possessions at a great discount if necessary, rather than have a debt against him run over into the new period--an excellent idea for America!
I do not know whether Confucianism is responsible for this particular policy, but at any rate the fact remains that outside the Bible the world has never known a more sublime moral philosophy than that of Confucius. It means much, therefore, that every Chinese pupil must know the maxims and principles of the great sage by heart. Moreover, as Confucius did not profess to teach spiritual truth, the missionaries in China are fast coming to realize that it is both unnecessary and foolish to urge the people to abandon Confucianism. The proper policy is to tell the Chinese, "Hold on to all that is good and true in Confucius. There is very little in his teachings that is {131} in conflict with religion, and Christian leaders now recognize him as one of the greatest moral forces the world has known. But to the high moral teaching of the Chinese master you must add now the moral teachings of Christianity and, more essential still, the great body of spiritual truth which Confucianism lacks." The grand old man among Chinese missionaries, Dr. W. A. P. Martin, who has been in the work since 1850, said to me in Peking, "Some of the best Christians are now the best Confucianists."
Confucianism, as any one can see by reading the books, is no more a substitute for Christianity than Proverbs is for St. John's Gospel. As Doctor Brewster, another missionary, says, "We do not ask an American scholar to renounce Plato to become a Christian; why should we ask a Chinaman to renounce Confucius?"
Confucius lived five centuries before Christ, and at his old home in Shantung are the graves alike of his descendants and his ancestors--the oldest family burying ground in the world. "No monarch on earth can trace back his lineage by an unbroken chain through so many centuries." In Peking I was so fortunate as to form a friendship with a descendant of Confucius of the seventy-fifth generation--Mr. Kung Hsiang Koh--a promising and gifted senior in the Imperial College of Languages. At my request he inscribed a scroll for me in beautiful Chinese characters, representing one of my favorite quotations from his world-famous ancestor. I give an English translation herewith:
"Szema-New asked about the Superior Man. The Master said, 'The superior man is without anxiety or fear.'
"'Being without anxiety or fear,' said New, 'does this constitute what we should call the superior man?'
"The Master replied, 'When a man looks inward and finds no guilt there, why should he grieve? or what should he fear?'"
On board S. S. Kutwo,
Yangtze River, China.