Temple of Heaven and Hell, Workhouse.
An important new book which Governor Yen has recently published, is called What Every Family Ought to Know, and is a description of what he conceives to be a good home and the happiness which results from it. “If we desire to have a good home, virtue is of first importance,” he says, but alas! he gives no clue as to how it is to be achieved.
The chief rules for family life are, (i) Friendliness, (ii) Magnanimity, (iii) Dignity, (iv) Rectitude, (v) Diligence, (vi) Economy, (vii) Cleanliness, (viii) Quietness. He makes the Head of the House responsible, as setting the example, and exhorts him to repentance (if he falls short) before God and his ancestors. The whole book is eminently practical, and he recommends what would be a startling change of immemorial custom, that the son should not marry until he is grown up and able to support a wife in a home of his own—namely, not under his father’s roof. This is an innovation which is beginning to be seen elsewhere, as the result of foreign intercourse.
As a writer, Governor Yen is concise and practical: he has completely broken away from the old Chinese classical style. His last work is written, like all his books, in simple mandarin instead of in beautiful classical mandarin, so that every one may be able to understand it. This is the more noteworthy, because the additional cost entailed was $5,400 per leaf; he states this fact in the preface of What the People Ought to Know.
His one object appears to be the uplift of the people in every way, and he believes in God and in righteousness. As an index of his view of life it may be interesting to quote a few of the forty Family Maxims which form the concluding chapter of his above-named book.
“Unjust wealth brings calamity.”
“Vitiated air kills more people than prison.”
“To be cruel to one’s own is to be worse than a beast.”