The Old World and Its Ways. Bryan William Jennings
of the Methodist University at Pekin has published a volume entitled "Chinese Heroes," in which he gives a number of instances of consecrated devotion on the part of the Chinese to the Christian faith, and why should not China be a promising mission field? Buddhism has here done its perfect work and can not reasonably ask for a further trial; the philosophy of the sages has also been shown impotent for the harmonious development of the three-fold man. China has followed an ideal and followed it with a diligence rarely exhibited, but that ideal has been weighed in the balance and found wanting. It is often said in defense of Confucianism that its founder gave to his disciples the golden rule, stated in its negative form, but too little emphasis has been given to the difference between the doctrine of Confucius, "Do not unto others as you would not have others do unto you," and, the doctrine of the Nazarene, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." There is a world of difference between negative harmlessness and positive helpfulness, and Christianity could well afford to rest its case against Confucianism on the comparison of these two doctrines.
In the Analects of Confucius the philosopher is asked, "Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life?" He was answered, "Is not reciprocity such a word?" Here we have the doctrine of selfishness as plausibly presented as it will ever be again. Life is described as a balancing of favors – a nice calculation of good done and good received. There is no suggestion here of a heart overflowing with love, no intimation of a blessedness to be found in giving.
At another time someone asked Confucius, "What do you say concerning the principle that injury should be recompensed with kindness?" He replied, "With what then will you recompense kindness? Recompense injury with justice and recompense kindness with kindness." In reply to another question, he goes so far as to charge that one "who returns good for evil, is a man that is careful of his person." How different these precepts are from those of the Sermon on the Mount! Christians are accused of failure to live up to the high ideal presented by Jesus, and the accusation is just, and yet, although the Christian nations fall far short of the measure which they themselves recognize, although professing Christians reflect but imperfectly the rays which fall upon them from the Sun of Righteousness, they are leading the world in all that is ennobling and uplifting, and China gives silent recognition to the superiority of the western ideal in every reform which she undertakes.
CHAPTER XI.
EDUCATION, RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY
Chinese education has been very much overestimated. The literati have boasted of the antiquity of the government and educational system, the invention of the compass, the printing press and of gunpowder, and the western world has been inclined to concede their claims, but these claims will not bear investigation. The government is ancient, but it is also antiquated. The emperor exercises a power as unlimited as that of the czar and is as inaccessible to his subjects. The ruling family seized the throne two and a half centuries ago and has retained power because the people have learned to submit to almost anything. The laws have not only been arbitrary, but they have been cruel; the officials have not only been appointed without consulting the governed, but they have been shamelessly corrupt.
When Confucius and Mencius taught, they complained of the degeneracy of the government, and in more than twenty centuries that have elapsed since those days, there has been no marked improvement. Of course there have been pure and patriotic men in high places occasionally, but the government showed neither perfection then nor improvement afterwards – until within the last few years.
What if the compass was known to the Chinese before it was to Europe? They made little use of it compared with the use to which it was put by the Portuguese, the Spaniards, the Dutch and other Europeans.
They invented gunpowder, and yet they equipped their soldiers with bows and arrows down to the present generation.
They invented the printing press, and yet until recently they had scarcely any newspapers and but few books. I shall speak in another article of the improvement in this direction, but as an evidence of the little use made of the printing press even now, I record the fact that in a four days' ride (at present the train runs only in the daytime) from the capital of the empire to Hankow, through a densely populated section, we did not see a man reading a paper or hear the voice of a newsboy.
Equally without justification is the boast of great learning among the people. They have had no educational system and their children have had to rely upon private schools, a few families getting together and hiring a teacher. Even then the main purpose of their higher education was to obtain a government position. As only a very limited number could possibly be selected at the competitive examinations held by the government, there was small incentive to study and the written language, with two hundred and fourteen radicals and twelve hundred different characters, was enough to discourage even the ambitious. A Chinese official informed me that not more than one man in a hundred could write a letter and that not more than one in ten could understand a letter when read to him.
The object of the schools, such as they had, was to cultivate the memory and to teach the pupils to write essays expounding the doctrines of the Chinese sages. All of the schools used the same text book, the primer in universal use having been prepared over eight hundred years ago. Education was limited in the number who received it and limited in the amount provided, and the course of instruction was fossilized. None of the students were taught anything about the outside world and but few of the people were students. It is sufficient evidence of the absolute failure of their educational system to compare this great empire, containing approximately one-fourth of the population of the globe, with even the smaller states of Europe in the production of scientists, scholars and poets. China has had diplomats and astute statesmen, but these have been developed in the school of experience rather than in halls of learning. Considering the educational opportunities furnished, it is astonishing that she has produced any great men at all.
China has her religions and they have doubtless exerted a moulding influence upon the people, but the influence has not been an unmixed good. Take, for instance, ancestor worship; it contains a germ of good, in that it teaches respect and care for parents, but the spirit has been lost in the observance of the letter until the welfare of the living is neglected, that senseless sacrifices may be made to the dead. At Canton we visited a place called "The Place of the Dead." It is connected with a Buddhist temple and is just outside the city wall. There are some four hundred rooms in the group of buildings and nearly every room contains a coffin. Here the well-to-do deposit the body of an ancestor and keep incense burning as long as they can afford to pay for it. Rent must be paid for the rooms; the light must be kept bright; food and drink must be offered to the departed each day and the incense must be paid for. As someone has remarked, it costs more to care for a dead ancestor than a live one. We saw one coffin that had cost three thousand dollars; it had been in the building for sixteen years and had been moved from one apartment to another, a cheaper one being chosen each time as the resources of the family declined. In some cases the families have become so poor that they can neither pay rent nor buy a burying plot.
There is also at Canton an ancestral hall where for a specified sum the name of an ancestor may be inscribed on a little wooden tablet; incense is also burned here, too. Foreign residents relate instances where servants have spent three years' income in burying a parent, the money being borrowed and gradually repaid from the earnings. Besides the first cost of burial, there must be frequent pilgrimages to the grave. It is within the bounds of truth to say that the money expended in elaborate funerals, in sacrifices to the dead, and in periodical pilgrimages to tombs would have gone far toward educating and enlightening each rising generation – and who will say that respect for the dead can better be shown by formal ceremonies than by a proper regard for the welfare of the descendants?
The tombs of the royal family are always objects of interest to the tourist. The most famous of these tombs are north of Pekin and so near to the great wall that they are usually visited at the same time, three or four days being required for the trip. There are other tombs of less renown still nearer to Pekin, while the tomb of the first emperor of the Ming dynasty is just outside the walls of Nanking. Some of these tombs are mere masses of masonry now, but all were once richly carved. The avenues leading up to these tombs are lined with large stone figures of men and animals. These are arranged in pairs, one on each side of the road – two huge warriors, two priests, two