The chief security on the side of the people against an unmitigated oppression such as now exists in Turkey, besides those already pointed out, lies as much as anywhere in their general intelligence of the true principles on which the government is founded and should be executed. With public opinion on its side the government is a strong one, but none is less able to execute its designs when it runs counter to that opinion, although those designs may be excellent and well intended. Elements of discord are found in the social system which would soon effect its ruin were they not counteracted by other influences, and the body politic goes on like a heavy, shackly, lumbering van, which every moment threatens a crashing, crumbling fall, yet goes on still tottering, owing to the original goodness of its construction. From the enormous population of this ancient van, it is evident that any attempt to remodel it must seriously affect one or the other of its parts, and that when once upset it may be impossible to reconstruct it in its original form. There is encouragement to hope that the general intelligence and shrewdness of the government and people of China, their language, institutions, industry, and love of peace, will all act as powerful conservative influences in working out the changes which cannot now be long delayed; and that she will maintain her unity and industry while going through a thorough reform of her political, social, and religious systems.
It is very difficult to convey to the reader a fair view of the administration of the laws in China. Notwithstanding the cruelty of officers to the criminals before them, they are not all to be considered as tyrants; because insurrections arise, attended with great loss of life, it must not be supposed that society is everywhere disorganized; the Chinese are so prone to falsify that it is difficult to ascertain the truth, yet it must not be inferred that every sentence is a lie; selfishness is a prime motive for their actions, yet charity, kindness, filial affection, and the unbought courtesies of life still exist among them. Although there is an appalling amount of evil and crime in every shape, it is mixed with some redeeming traits; and in China, as elsewhere, good and bad are intermingled. Some of the evils in the social system arise from the operation of the principles of mutual responsibility, while this very feature produces sundry good effects in restraining people who have no higher motive than the fear of injuring the innocent. We hear so much of the shocking cruelties of courts and prisons that the vast number of cases before the bench are all supposed to exhibit the same fatiguing reiteration of suffering, injustice, bribery, and cruelty. One must live in the country to see how the antagonistic principles found in Chinese society act and react upon each other, and are affected by the wicked passions of the heart. Officers and people are bad almost beyond belief to one conversant only with the courtesy, justice, purity, and sincerity of Christian governments and society; and yet we think they are not as bad as the old Greeks and Romans, and have no more injustice or torture in their courts, nor impurity or mendacity in their lives. As in our own land we are apt to forget that the recitals of crimes and outrages which the daily papers bring before our eyes furnish no index of the general condition of society, so in China, where that condition is immeasurably worse, we must be mindful that this is likewise true.
[CHAPTER IX.]
EDUCATION AND LITERARY EXAMINATIONS.
Among the points relating to the Chinese people which have attracted the attention of students in the history of intellectual development, their long duration and literary institutions have probably taken precedence. To estimate the causes of the first requires much knowledge of the second, and from them one is gradually led onward to an examination of the government, religion, and social life of this people in the succeeding epochs of their existence. The inquiry will reveal much that is instructive, and show us that, if they have not equalled many other nations in the arts and adornments of life, they have attained a high degree of comfort and developed much that is creditable in education, the science of rule, and security of life and property.
Although the powers of mind exhibited by the greatest writers in China are confessedly inferior to those of Greece and Rome for genius and original conceptions, the good influence exerted by them over their countrymen is far greater, even at this day, than was ever obtained by western sages, as Plato, Aristotle, or Seneca. The thoroughness of Chinese education, the purity and effectiveness of the examinations, or the accuracy and excellency of the literature must not be compared with those of modern Christian countries, for there is really no common measure between the two; they must be taken with other parts of Chinese character, and comparisons drawn, if necessary, with nations possessing similar opportunities. The importance of generally instructing the people was acknowledged even before the time of Confucius, and practised to a good degree at an age when other nations in the world had no such system; and although in his day feudal institutions prevailed, and offices and rank were not attainable in the same manner as at present, on the other hand magistrates and noblemen deemed it necessary to be well acquainted with their ancient writings. It is said in the Book of Rites (B.C. 1200), “that for the purposes of education among the ancients, villages had their schools, districts their academies, departments their colleges, and principalities their universities.” This, so far as we know, was altogether superior to what obtained among the Jews, Persians, and Syrians of the same period.
STIMULUS TO LITERARY PURSUITS.
The great stimulus to literary pursuits is the hope thereby of obtaining office and honor, and the only course of education followed is the classical and historical one prescribed by law. Owing to this undue attention to the classics, the minds of the scholars are not symmetrically trained, and they disparage other branches of literature which do not directly advance this great end. Every department of letters, except jurisprudence, history, and official statistics, is disesteemed in comparison; and the literary graduate of fourscore will be found deficient in most branches of general learning, ignorant of hundreds of common things and events in his national history, which the merest schoolboy in the western world would be ashamed not to know in his. This course of instruction does not form well-balanced minds, but it imbues the future rulers of the land with a full understanding of the principles on which they are to govern, and the policy of the supreme power in using those principles to consolidate its own authority.
Centralization and conservatism were the leading features of the teachings of Confucius which first recommended them to the rulers, and have decided the course of public examinations in selecting officers who would readily uphold these principles. The effect has been that the literary class in China holds the functions of both nobles and priests, a perpetual association, gens æterna in qua memo nascitur, holding in its hands public opinion and legal power to maintain it. The geographical isolation of the people, the nature of the language, and the absence of a landed aristocracy, combine to add efficiency to this system; and when the peculiarities of Chinese character, and the nature of the class-books which do so much to mould that character, are considered, it is impossible to devise a better plan for insuring the perpetuity of the government, or the contentment of the people under that government.
It was about A.D. 600, that Taitsung, of the Tang dynasty, instituted the present plan of preparing and selecting civilians by means of study and degrees, founding his system on the facts that education had always been esteemed, and that the ancient writings were accepted by all as the best instructors of the manners and tastes of the people. According to native historians, the rulers of ancient times made ample provision for the cultivation of literature and promotion of education in all its branches. They supply some details to enable us to understand the mode and the materials of this instruction, and glorify it as they do everything ancient, but probably from the want of authentic accounts in their own hands, they do not clearly describe it. The essays of M. Édouard Biot on the History of Public Instruction in China, contains well-nigh all the information extant on this interesting subject, digested in a very lucid manner. Education is probably as good now as it ever was, and its ability to maintain and develop the character of the people as great as at any time; it is remarkable how much it really has done to form, elevate, and consolidate their national institutions. The Manchu monarchs were not at first favorably disposed to the system of examinations, and frowned upon the literary hierarchy who claimed all honors as their right; but the next generation saw the advantages and necessity of the concours, in preserving its own power.