History of Education

by Levi Seeley

The Chinese language contains no alphabet; each symbol represents a different word; the substantives are indeclinable, and the verbs are without inflection. It thus becomes necessary in mastering the language to learn by rote a vast number of signs and characters,—a prodigious feat for the memory.

The religion most widespread among the Chinese is Buddhism (which was imported from India), though ancestor worship is still universal. Women are the principal worshipers, yet the Chinese believe that women have no souls. The belief in transmigration of souls is implicit, and this is used to keep woman in a most degraded condition. If a woman is obedient to her husband and his relatives, and is the mother of sons, she may hope to return to this world, in the future, as a man, and thus have a chance ultimately to reach Buddha's heaven. The belief in the transmigration of souls explains the vegetarian diet of the Buddhist. No zealous Buddhist will touch meat or even eggs, neither will he kill the smallest insect, lest he should thus inadvertently murder a relative.[2] The men care but little for any religion beyond a veneration for their ancestors.

Polygamy is very generally practiced, the limit to the number of wives being determined by the ability to support them. Women usually become more religious as they advance in years, and they spend much time in worshiping in the temples. It is they who preserve the national religion and make most difficult the work of missionaries.[3]

The Home.—The wife exists only for the comfort of her husband. It is her duty to serve and obey him. If she abuses her husband, she receives one hundred stripes; but abuse from him is not a punishable offense. Instruction, at home as well as at school, is confined to boys. The birth of a boy is indicated by hanging a bow and arrow over the door; that of a girl, by a spindle and yarn. In naming the number of his children, the father counts only the boys. Boys are clothed in the finest material the family can afford; girls, in rags. Parents may destroy their children, but only girls are ever sacrificed. The mother can seldom read and write, her chief duty being to instill into her children the two cardinal Chinese virtues—politeness and obedience. The relation of parents and children is the highest and purest representation of the relation between the Creator and the creature, and to venerate the parents is the first and holiest of all duties, higher than the love of wife to husband, higher than the reverence for the emperor; therefore the emperor's father cannot be his subject.

To the Chinaman all other duties are included in filial duties. The bringing up of the children is left almost entirely to the mother. The training begins very early, and greatest stress from the first is laid upon obedience. Disobedience is a crime punishable by the father with death.

There are no illustrated children's books, no nursery rhymes to inspire the imagination, none of the bright and useful things so necessary to a happy childhood. The child grows up with but few playthings calculated to stimulate the powers of the mind.

The Elementary School.—At about six or seven years of age the child enters school. Sometimes a few parents unite to employ a teacher for their children. The government has no concern for the qualifications of the teacher; no license to teach is required, there is no governmental inspection or control, nor does the State assume any part of the expense of the school. Attendance is not compulsory, and yet male education is so universal that scarcely a boy can be found who does not enjoy opportunities for education. Charity schools are furnished by the wealthy for those who cannot afford to contribute toward the maintenance of a school.

There are no public schoolhouses. The school is sometimes held in the temple, sometimes in the home of the schoolmaster, and sometimes in the home of a wealthy patron. The furniture of the schoolroom consists of an altar consecrated to Confucius and the god of knowledge, a desk and a chair for the teacher, and the pupils' desks and stools, provided by the children themselves. No effort is made to render the room attractive.

The child is admitted the first time with much ceremony in order that the day may be one of pleasant memories. He also receives a new name, the name of his babyhood being dropped. Indeed, a change of name accompanies each new epoch of his life, as the time he takes a new degree, the day of his marriage, etc. Thus the boy enters upon his new work. The first years of study are devoted to reading, writing, and the elements of arithmetic, which studies complete the education of the majority of the pupils. No effort is made to interest the child; he is simply required to memorize and write as many as possible of the fifty thousand characters. Not until after the names of the characters have been learned by rote is there any effort to teach the meaning of the words which they represent. The child's writing, too, is mechanical, for the expression of thought is but a secondary consideration. Thought awakening is not encouraged in the Chinese course of education. Fear, not interest, is the motive which drives the child to study. Memory is the chief faculty to be cultivated, and each child vies with the others to make the most noise in study.

The teacher is greatly revered, only less so than the father. His discipline is rigid, the rod not being spared. There are no new methods to learn; the practice to-day is the same as that of hundreds of years ago; it consists simply in hearing what the children have learned by heart.