That the Chinese can become linguists has seldom been more uniquely illustrated than in the following experience related by Prince Henri d’Orleans. He was about to travel through the territories of the aboriginal Lolo tribes of Yunnan province. The difficulty was to find an interpreter. The general interpreter who only knew the Mandarin pronunciation of the north, or the Cantonese pronunciation of the south, would not do. The prince found at the Mission d’Etrangeres at Tali, in remote Yunnan, an interpreter who knew the Lolo dialects, and though he could not converse with the prince in French or English, he could converse fairly well in Latin, and they got along splendidly. It appears that the Catholic fathers had taught the convert from the Latin Fathers, Jerome, Chrysostom, etc!
Eager as the Chinese are to learn from text-books, they more eagerly cry for exhibits which appeal to the eye, and the establishment of museums, heretofore neglected, except in the few universities already mentioned, should be undertaken. Take one week’s records at the Hongkong Museum, for instance. Four hundred and sixteen non-Chinese and 163 Chinese used the library, but 193 non-Chinese and 3,100 Chinese studied in the museum. The resourceful Canadian government sent a traveling exhibit through China. It is what the Chinese call for. We shall yet see floating and wheeled museums, in parvo, throughout the empire, as educational bodies and merchants appreciate this as the quickest way to approach the Chinese mind.
When the revolution of 1911 had developed strength, the Chinese government found itself unable to remit to the thousands of students who were studying in foreign countries. The American and British universities, without exception, nobly offered to aid any needy Chinese student. The move was brilliant and humane, and will be bread scattered upon returning waters of appreciation some day.
The new representative assemblies have necessitated the introduction of shorthand in China. The Tsze Chen Yuan (National Assembly) in session at Peking as early as August, 1911, ordered night classes to be opened for learning the art, so that the civil service clerks might attend. I know that missionaries, helpless in committing to paper accurately the sounds of the scores of Lolo, Miaotsze, and other dialects in Yunnan, Szechuen and Kweichou provinces (where aborigines abound) have had recourse effectually to phonography. If the brilliant Dickens, John Hay, the American secretary of state, who founded the policy of “non-partition of China,” and many others, were phonographers, why might a missionary not be one also!
Some of the educational proverbs of the Chinese are the following:
“A lion breeds lions, and a brave father has brave sons.”
“Learn easy, forget easy; learn hard, forget hard.”
“Life is a river; if you are not going forward on it, you are falling behind.”
“Youth jumps and slips; age picks its steps and crosses safely.”
“Measure words by the height of the brain, not the height of the body.”