When between six and eight years of age, my girl-cousins took that step which affected all their after-lives. At that age all well-born Chinese misses have their feet bound. It is a fashion they are obliged to follow. If they should not, they would not be recognized as ladies when they grow up, and they would become a disgrace to their families. Chinese aristocrats are as proud and jealous of their good name as the bluest-blooded of European nobles. Anything that lowers them in the eyes of their neighbors is carefully guarded against. Accordingly, only the daughters of poor and humble parents are permitted by society to retain the feet as nature bestowed them.
The process of binding is a gradual one. From first to last, bands are wound around the tender feet to prevent their growth; but at first shoes are worn nearly as large as the natural size; in a year or so the shoes will have to be smaller, and as the feet decrease in size till they attain to three or two and a half inches in length, so shoes are made to fit the lessened foot. But oh! the suffering that goes with it. This never has been exaggerated in any account. Many a time have I heard my cousins groan with pain as the tortures of binding were being undergone. Yet, strange to say, those girls would not have had exemption from the process, on any account. To be ranked as servants, working girls? Not they. The Chinese young lady chooses to be fashionable even though she undergo torture for several years and incur helplessness for life.
Don’t imagine, however, that Chinese ladies are unable to move. They can, most of them, walk short distances. But it is true that the spirit is taken out of them by this species of suffering, and that they are oppressed by a sense of physical helplessness and dependence.
The work that little girls in China do is light. Trifling things about the cooking, such as shelling of peas or assorting of greens, were given over to my girl-cousins. Between meals, the little girls were taught to sew, embroider and to spin flax. They were never so happy as when a group of them sat together at work; one would tell a story, another would follow with a ballad, singing it with that peculiar plaintive tone which is considered a part of the ballad’s charm. My cousins were early taught to read and write, and in company with us boys, until they were eleven or twelve; then they were thought too old to be left in the society of boys very much; especially was it so after some young strangers came to our school, which was established in the men’s living rooms.
In closing this chapter, I wish to call attention to the fact that Chinese girls—though you may think they lead a humdrum sort of life, though it be true that they are strangers to the exciting gayeties enjoyed by American girls—are usually contented and think their lot a pleasant one. It is the custom, I am aware, to represent Chinese young ladies as languishing in their apartments and contemplating with tearful eyes the walls that confine them. To be sure, they do not have that excess of liberty by which some American girls are spoiled; yet they are not kept under lock and key. They have that liberty which is consistent with our ideas of propriety. They make visits, they call on their neighbors, they go to theatres, they see the sights, they witness boat-races and do many pleasant and social things besides. But whatever they do, there is always this limit—they are not permitted the acquaintance of young men. And when they are married, they are restricted to the society of their husbands. You perhaps think their existence a failure. They look upon the sort of life that American girls lead as very improper.
CHAPTER VI.
SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL LIFE.
Schools in China are usually kept by private gentlemen. The government provides for advanced scholars only. But since the one qualification for office is education, and the avenue to literary distinction and public honors lies through competitive examinations, the encouragement that the government extends to education and learning can be estimated only by that eager pursuit of knowledge which is common to all classes, and by the veneration in which scholars and scholarship are held.
Therefore it is not strange that schools are to be found everywhere, in small hamlets as in large towns, although the government appropriates no funds for the establishment of common schools; and although no such thing is known as “compulsory education,” there is a general desire, even among the poorest classes, to give their children “a little schooling.” Schools of the lower grades never boast more than one teacher each. The combination system of a head-master and several assistants does not work well in China. The schoolmaster in China must be absolute. He is monarch of all he surveys; in his sphere there is none to dispute his rights. You can always point him out among a thousand by the scholar’s long gown, by his stern look, by his bent form, by his shoulders rounded by assiduous study. He is usually near-sighted, so that an immense pair of spectacles also marks him as a trainer of the mind. He generally is a gentleman who depends on his teaching to make both ends meet;—his school is his own private enterprise—for no such thing exists in China as a “school-board” and if he be an elegant penman, he increases the weight of his purse by writing scrolls; if he be an artist, he paints pictures on fans. If he has not taken a degree, he is a perennial candidate for academic honors which the government only has a right to confer.
A tuition fee in China varies according to the ability and reputation of the teacher, from two dollars to twenty dollars a year. It varies also according to the age and advancement of the pupil. The older he be, the more he has to pay. The larger sum I have named is paid to private tutors. A private tutor is also usually invited to take his abode in the house of the wealthy pupil; and he is also permitted to admit a few outsiders. During festivals, and on great occasions, the teacher receives presents of money, as well as of eatables, from his pupils. And always he is treated with great honor by all, and especially by the parents of the pupils. For the future career of their children may, in one sense, be said to be in his hands.
One who teaches thirty or forty boys at an average tuition fee of four dollars, is doing tolerably well in China; for with the same amount he can buy five or six times as much of provisions or clothing as can be bought in America.