The fortune attending the unsuccessful candidates is various. Thousands of them get employment as school-teachers, pettifogging notaries, and clerks in the public offices, and others who are rich return to their families. Some are reduced by degrees to beggary, and resort to medicine, fortune-telling, letter-writing, and other such shifts to eke out a living. Many turn their attention to learning the modes of drawing up deeds and forms used in dealings regarding property; others look to aiding military men in their duties, and a few turn authors, and thus in one way or another contrive to turn their learning to account.
During the period of the examinations, when the students are assembled in the capital, the officers of government are careful not to irritate them by punishment, or offend their esprit de corps, but rather, by admonitions and warnings, induce them to set a good example. The personal reputation of the officer himself has much to do with the influence he exerts over the students, and whether they will heed his caveats. One of the examiners in Chehkiang, irritated by the impertinence of a bachelor, who presumed upon his immunity from corporeal chastisement, twisted his ears to teach him better manners; soon after, the student and two others of equal degree were accused before the same magistrate for a libel, and one of them beaten forty strokes upon his palms. At the ensuing examination, ten of the siu-tsai, indignant at this unauthorized treatment, refused to appear, and all the candidates, when they saw who was to preside, dispersed immediately. In his memorial upon the matter, the governor-general recommends both this officer, and another one who talked much about the affair and produced a great effect upon the public mind, to be degraded, and the bachelors to be stripped of their honors. A magistrate of Honan, having punished a student with twenty blows, the assembled body of students rose and threw their caps on the ground, and walked off, leaving him alone. The prefect of Canton, in 1842, having become obnoxious to the citizens from the part he took in ransoming the city when surrounded by the British forces, the students refused to receive him as their examiner, and when he appeared in the hall to take his seat, drove him out of the room by throwing their ink-stones at him; he soon after resigned his station. Perhaps the siu-tsai are more impatient than the kü-jin from being better acquainted with each other, and being examined by local officers, while the kü-jin are overawed by the rank of the commissioners, and, coming from distant parts of a large province, have little mutual sympathy or acquaintance. The examining boards, however, take pains to avoid displeasing any gathering of graduates.
We have seen, then, in what has been of necessity a somewhat cursory resumé, the management and extent of an institution which has opened the avenues of rank to all, by teaching candidates how to maintain the principles of liberty and equality they had learned from their oft-quoted ‘ancients.’ All that these institutions need, to secure and promote the highest welfare of the people—as they themselves, indeed, aver—is their faithful execution in every department of government; as we find them, no higher evidence of their remarkable wisdom can be adduced, than the general order and peace of the land. When one sees the injustice and oppressions in law courts, the feuds and deadly fights among clans, the prevalence of lying, ignorance, and pollution among commoners, and the unscrupulous struggle for a living going on in every rank of life, he wonders that universal anarchy does not destroy the whole machine. But ‘the powers that be are ordained of God.’ The Chinese seem to have attained the great ends of human government to as high a degree as it is possible for man to go without the knowledge of divine revelation. That, in its great truths, its rewards, its hopes, and its stimulus to good acts has yet to be received among them. The course and results of the struggle between the new and the old in the land of Sinim will form a remarkable chapter in the history of man.
FEMALE EDUCATION IN CHINA.
With regard to female education, it is a singular anomaly among Chinese writers, that while they lay great stress upon maternal instruction in forming the infant mind, and leading it on to excellence, no more of them should have turned their attention to the preparation of books for girls, and the establishment of female schools. There are some reasons for the absence of the latter to be found in the state of society, notable among which must stand, of course, the low position of woman in every oriental community, and a general contempt for the capacity of the female mind. It is, moreover, impossible to procure many qualified schoolmistresses, and to this we must add the hazard of sending girls out into the streets alone, where they would run some risk of being stolen. The principal stimulus for boys to study—the hope and prospect of office—is taken away from girls, and Chinese literature offers little to repay them for the labor of learning it in addition to all the domestic duties which devolve upon them. Nevertheless, education is not entirely confined to the stronger sex; seminaries for young women are not at all uncommon in South China, and it is not unusual to find private tutors giving instruction to young ladies at their houses.[288] Though this must be regarded as a comparative statement, and holding much more for the southern than for the northern provinces, on the other hand, it may be asserted that literary attainments are considered creditable to a woman, more than is the case in India or Siam; the names of authoresses mentioned in Chinese annals would make a long list. Yuen Yuen, the governor-general of Canton, in 1820, while in office, published a volume of his deceased daughter’s poetical effusions; and literary men are usually desirous of having their daughters accomplished in music and poetry, as well as in composition and classical lore. Such an education is considered befitting their station, and reflecting credit on the family.
One of the most celebrated female writers in China is Pan Hwui-pan, also known as Pan Chao, a sister of the historian Pan Ku, who wrote the history of the former Han dynasty. She was appointed historiographer after his death, and completed his unfinished annals; she died at the age of seventy, and was honored by the Emperor Ho with a public burial, and the title of the Great Lady Tsao. About A.D. 80, she was made preceptress of the Empress, and wrote the first work in any language on female education; it was called Nü Kiai or Female Precepts, and has formed the basis of many succeeding books on female education. The aim of her writings was to elevate female character, and make it virtuous. She says, “The virtue of a female does not consist altogether in extraordinary abilities or intelligence, but in being modestly grave and inviolably chaste, observing the requirements of virtuous widowhood, and in being tidy in her person and everything about her; in whatever she does to be unassuming, and whenever she moves or sits to be decorous. This is female virtue.” Instruction in morals and the various branches of domestic economy are more insisted upon in the writings of this and other authoresses, than a knowledge of the classics or histories of the country.
THE “FEMALE INSTRUCTOR” ON WOMEN.
One of the most distinguished Chinese essayists of modern times, Luhchau, published a work for the benefit of the sex, called the Female Instructor; an extract from his preface will show what ideas are generally entertained on female education by Chinese moralists.
“The basis of the government of the Empire lies in the habits of the people, and the surety that their usages will be correct is in the orderly management of families, which last depends chiefly upon the females. In the good old times of Chau, the virtuous women set such an excellent example that it influenced the customs of the Empire—an influence that descended even to the times of the Ching and Wei states. If the curtain of the inner apartment gets thin, or is hung awry [i.e., if the sexes are not kept apart], disorder will enter the family, and ultimately pervade the Empire. Females are doubtless the sources of good manners; from ancient times to the present this has been the case. The inclination to virtue and vice in women differs exceedingly; their dispositions incline contrary ways, and if it is wished to form them alike, there is nothing like education. In ancient times, youth of both sexes were instructed. According to the Ritual of Chau, ‘the imperial wives regulated the law for educating females, in order to instruct the ladies of the palace in morals, conversation, manners, and work; and each led out her respective classes, at proper times, and arranged them for examination in the imperial presence.’ But these treatises have not reached us, and it cannot be distinctly ascertained what was their plan of arrangement....
“The education of a woman and that of a man are very dissimilar. Thus, a man can study during his whole life; whether he is abroad or at home, he can always look into the classics and history, and become thoroughly acquainted with the whole range of authors. But a woman does not study more than ten years, when she takes upon her the management of a family, where a multiplicity of cares distract her attention, and having no leisure for undisturbed study, she cannot easily understand learned authors; not having obtained a thorough acquaintance with letters, she does not fully comprehend their principles; and like water that has flowed from its fountain, she cannot regulate her conduct by their guidance. How can it be said that a standard work on female education is not wanted! Every profession and trade has its appropriate master; and ought not those also who possess such an influence over manners [as females] to be taught their duties and their proper limits? It is a matter of regret, that in these books no extracts have been made from the works of Confucius in order to make them introductory to the writings on polite literature; and it is also to be regretted that selections have not been made from the commentaries of Ching, Chu, and other scholars, who have explained his writings clearly, as also from the whole range of writers, gathering from them all that which was appropriate, and omitting the rest. These are circulated among mankind, together with such books as the Juvenile Instructor; yet if they are put into the hands of females, they cause them to become like a blind man without a guide, wandering hither and thither without knowing where he is going. There has been this great deficiency from very remote times until now.