The first hours of study are from sunrise till ten A.M., when the boys go to breakfast; they reassemble in an hour or more, and continue at their books till about five P.M., when they disperse for the day. In summer, they have no lessons after dinner, but an evening session is often held in the winter, and evening schools are occasionally opened for mechanics and others who are occupied during the day. When a boy comes into school in the morning, he bows reverentially before the tablet of Confucius, salutes his teacher, and then takes his seat. The vacations during the year are few; the longest is before new year, at which time the engagement is completed, and the school closes, to be reöpened after the teacher and parents have made a new arrangement. The common festivals, of which there are a dozen or more, are regarded as holydays, and form very necessary relaxations in a country destitute of the rest of the Sabbath. The requisite qualifications of a teacher are gravity, severity, and patience, and acquaintance with the classics; he has only to teach the same series of books in the same fashion in which he learned them himself and keep a good watch over his charge.
THE TRIMETRICAL CLASSIC.
When the lads come together at the opening of the school, their attainments are ascertained; the teacher endeavors to have his pupils nearly equal in this respect, but inasmuch as they are all put to precisely the same tasks, a difference is not material. If the boys are beginners, they are brought up in a line before the desk, holding the San-tsz’ King, or ‘Trimetrical Classic,’ in their hands, and taught to read off the first lines after the teacher until they can repeat them without help. He calls off the first four lines as follows:
Jin chí tsu, sing pun shen;
Sing siang kin, sih siang yuen;
when his pupils simultaneously cry out:
Jin chí tsu, sing pun shen;
Sing siang kin, sih siang yuen.
Mispronunciations are corrected until each can read the lesson accurately; they are then sent to their seats to commit the sounds to memory. As the sounds are all entire words (not letters, nor syllables, of which they have no idea), the boys are not perplexed, as ours are, with symbols which have no meaning. All the children study aloud, and when one is able to recite the task, he is required to back it—come up to the master’s desk, and stand with his back toward him while rehearsing it.