China and the Chinese

by Herbert Allen Giles

The study of Chinese presents at least one advantage over the study of the Greek and Roman classics; I might add, of Hebrew, of Syriac, and even of Sanskrit. It may be pursued for two distinct objects. The first, and most important object to many, is to acquire a practical acquaintance with a living language, spoken and written by about one-third of the existing population of the earth, with a view to the extension of commercial enterprise, and to the profits and benefits which may legitimately accrue therefrom. The second is precisely that object in pursuit of which we apply ourselves so steadily to the literatures and civilisations of Greece and Rome.

Sir Richard Jebb, in his essay on "Humanism in Education," points out that even less than a hundred years ago the classics still held a virtual monopoly, so far as literary studies were concerned, in the public schools and universities of England. "The culture which they supplied," he argues, "while limited in the sphere of its operation, had long been an efficient and vital influence, not only in forming men of letters and learning, but in training men who afterwards gained distinction in public life and in various active careers."

Long centuries had fixed so firmly in the minds of our forefathers a belief, and no doubt to some extent a justifiable belief, in the perfect character of the languages, the literatures, the arts, and some of the social and political institutions of ancient Greece and Rome, that a century or so ago there seemed to be nothing else worth the attention of an intellectual man. The comparatively recent introduction of Sanskrit was received in the classical world, not merely with coldness, but with strenuous opposition; and all the genius of its pioneer scholars was needed to secure the meed of recognition which it now enjoys as an important field of research. The Regius Professorship of Greek in the University of Cambridge, England, was founded in 1540; but it was not until 1867, more than three centuries later, that Sanskrit was admitted into the university curriculum. It is still impossible to gain a degree through the medium of Chinese, but signs are not wanting that the necessity for such a step will be more widely recognised in the near future.

All the material lies ready to hand. There is a written language, which for difficulty is unrivalled, polished and perfected by centuries of the minutest scholarship, until it is impossible to conceive anything more subtly artistic as a vehicle of human thought. Those mental gymnastics, of such importance in the training of youth, which were once claimed exclusively for the languages of Greece and Rome, may be performed equally well in the Chinese language. The educated classes in China would be recognised anywhere as men of trained minds, able to carry on sustained and complex arguments without violating any of the Aristotelian canons, although as a matter of fact they never heard of Aristotle and possess no such work in all their extensive literature as a treatise on logic. The affairs of their huge empire are carried on, and in my opinion very successfully carried on—with some reservations, of course—by men who have had to get their mental gymnastics wholly and solely out of Chinese.

I am not aware that their diplomatists suffer by comparison with ours. The Marquis Tsêng and Li Hung-chang, for instance, representing opposite schools, were admitted masters of their craft, and made not a few of our own diplomatists look rather small beside them.

Speaking further of the study of the Greek and Roman classics, Sir Richard Jebb says: "There can be no better proof that such a discipline has penetrated the mind, and has been assimilated, than if, in the crises of life, a man recurs to the great thoughts and images of the literature in which he has been trained, and finds there what braces and fortifies him, a comfort, an inspiration, an utterance for his deeper feelings."

Sir Richard Jebb then quotes a touching story of Lord Granville, who was President of the Council in 1762, and whose last hours were rapidly approaching. In reply to a suggestion that, considering his state of health, some important work should be postponed, he uttered the following impassioned words from the Iliad, spoken by Sarpedon to Glaucus: "Ah, friend, if, once escaped from this battle, we were for ever to be ageless and immortal, I would not myself fight in the foremost ranks, nor would I send thee into the war that giveth men renown; but now,—since ten thousand fates of death beset us every day, and these no mortal may escape or avoid,—now let us go forward."

Such was the discipline of the Greek and Roman classics upon the mind of Lord Granville at a great crisis in his life.

Let us now turn to the story of a Chinese statesman, nourished only upon what has been too hastily stigmatised as "the dry bones of Chinese literature."

Wên T'ien-hsiang was born in A.D. 1236. At the age of twenty-one he came out first on the list of successful candidates for the highest literary degree. Upon the draft-list submitted to the Emperor he had been placed seventh; but his Majesty, after looking over the essays, drew the grand examiner's attention to the originality and excellence of that of Wên T'ien-hsiang, and the examiner—himself a great scholar and no sycophant—saw that the Emperor was right, and altered the places accordingly.