of this empire that education has been highly prized in it from the earliest times. It was so before the era of Confucius, and we may be sure that the system met with his approbation. One of his remarkable sayings was,— 'To lead an uninstructed people to war is to throw them away [3].' When he pronounced this judgment, he was not thinking of military training, but of education in the duties of life and citizenship. A people so taught, he thought, would be morally fitted to fight for their government. Mencius, when lecturing to the ruler of T'ang on the proper way of governing a kingdom, told him that he must provide the means of education for all, the poor as well as the rich. 'Establish,' said he, 'hsiang, hsu, hsio, and hsiao,— all those educational institutions,— for the instruction of the people [4].'
1 2 See the 大清通禮卷十二. 3 Ana. XIII. xxx. 4 Mencius III. Pt. I. iii. 10.
At the present day, education is widely diffused throughout China. In few other countries is the schoolmaster more abroad, and in all schools it is Confucius who is taught. The plan of competitive examinations, and the selection for civil offices only from those who have been successful candidates,— good so far as the competition is concerned, but injurious from the restricted range of subjects with which an acquaintance is required,— have obtained for more than twelve centuries. The classical works are the text books. It is from them almost exclusively that the themes proposed to determine the knowledge and ability of the students are chosen. The whole of the magistracy of China is thus versed in all that is recorded of the sage, and in the ancient literature which he preserved. His thoughts are familiar to every man in authority, and his character is more or less reproduced in him. The official civilians of China, numerous as they are, are but a fraction of its students, and the students, or those who make literature a profession, are again but a fraction of those who attend school for a shorter or longer period. Yet so far as the studies have gone, they have been occupied with the Confucian writings. In the schoolrooms there is a tablet or inscription on the wall, sacred to the sage, and every pupil is required, on coming to school on the morning of the first and fifteenth of every month, to bow before it, the first thing, as an act of reverence [1]. Thus all in China who receive the slightest tincture of learning do so at the fountain of Confucius. They learn of him and do homage to him at once. I have repeatedly quoted the statement that during his life-time he had three thousand disciples. Hundreds of millions are his disciples now. It is hardly necessary to make any allowance in this statement for the followers of Taoism and Buddhism, for, as Sir John Davis has observed, 'whatever the other opinions or faith of a Chinese may be, he takes good care to treat Confucius with respect [2].' For two thousand years he has reigned supreme, the undisputed teacher of this most populous land. 3. This position and influence of Confucius are to be ascribed, I conceive, chiefly to two causes:— his being the preserver, namely of
l During the present dynasty, the tablet of 文昌帝君, the god of literature, has to a considerable extent displaced that of Confucius in schools. Yet the worship of him does not clash with that of the other. He is 'the father' of composition only. 2 The Chinese, vol. ii. p. 45.
the monuments of antiquity, and the exemplifier and expounder of
[Sidebar] The causes of his influence.
the maxims of the golden age of China; and the devotion to him of his immediate disciples and their early followers. The national and the personal are thus blended in him, each in its highest degree of excellence. He was a Chinese of the Chinese; he is also represented as, and all now believe him to have been, the beau ideal of humanity in its best and noblest estate. 4. It may be well to bring forward here Confucius's own estimate of himself and of his doctrines. It will serve to illustrate the
[Sidebar] His own estimate of himself and of his doctrines.
statements just made. The following are some of his sayings:— 'The sage and the man of perfect virtue;— how dare I rank myself with them? It may simply be said of me, that I strive to become such without satiety, and teach others without weariness.' 'In letters I am perhaps equal to other men; but the character of the superior man, carrying out in his conduct what he professes, is what I have not yet attained to.' 'The leaving virtue without proper cultivation; the not thoroughly discussing what is learned; not being able to move towards righteousness of which a knowledge is gained; and not being able to change what is not good;— these are the things which occasion me solicitude.' 'I am not one who was born in the possession of knowledge; I am one who is fond of antiquity and earnest in seeking it there.' 'A transmitter and not a maker, believing in and loving the ancients, I venture to compare myself with our old P'ang [1].' Confucius cannot be thought to speak of himself in these declarations more highly than he ought to do. Rather we may recognise in them the expressions of a genuine humility. He was conscious that personally he came short in many things, but he toiled after the character, which he saw, or fancied that he saw, in the ancient sages whom he acknowledged; and the lessons of government and morals which he labored to diffuse were those which had already been inculcated and exhibited by them. Emphatically he was 'a transmitter and not a maker.' It is not to be understood that he was not fully satisfied of the truth of the principles which he had learned. He held them with the full approval and consent of his own understanding. He believed that if they were acted on, they would remedy the evils of his time.
1 All these passages are taken from the seventh Book of the Analects. See chapters xxxiii, xxxii, iii, xix, and i.