The position of the paternal grandfather in China bore some resemblance to that occupied by the maternal grandfather in Egypt. The grandson is conceived, for some purposes, as actually nearer than the son, and it is he who acts as personator of the dead. A curious and burdensome privilege enjoyed by eldest sons, throws light upon the train of thought which gives its character to this relation. Only an eldest son is required or permitted to wear the three years' mourning for his own eldest son, and he may do so because this son represents the direct line of the father and grandfather. The share taken by the established wife in the important business of founding a family is evidenced by a similar rule, a man, who is the lineal head of a new branch family, being allowed to mourn the full period (of three years) for his wife, even though his own mother may be living. The commentators are perplexed by this provision, which is inconsistent with the general rule, requiring a wife to mourn three years for her husband as for a parent, while he only observes one year's mourning for her. But it becomes intelligible and reasonable if viewed as à survival from a forgotten period, when the mother, as well as the son, was considered an essential link in the genealogical chain. Complimentary mourning (for three months) might be worn for the head of a clan, not on the ground of relationship, which was not counted for this purpose through more than five generations, but on the ground of his representing the remote high ancestor, from whom all the different branch families claimed descent. A curious proof of the tenacity of Chinese usage is afforded by a passage in the Chow Li, forbidding a custom which is still in use. The officer of marriages, according to this clause,1 forbids the removal of the bodies. of those who have died unmarried to fresh tombs, where, by a sort of posthumous marriage, they are united to girls who have died before reaching the marriageable age. It is not quite clear whether betrothed pairs whose marriage had not been culpably adjourned might be united after death, but the intention seems to have been to promote marriages by closing a too easy way of wiping out the disgrace attached to celibacy. One of the odes of Chow, which has rather perplexed the commentators, becomes intelligible if we suppose this officer of marriages to have taken his functions seriously and have interfered to prevent love matches that offended in any way against the rules of propriety. "Do not I think of you," is the burden of the quatrains the maiden addresses to her lover, "but I am afraid of this officer and dare not rush to you." And she consoles herself with the hope of the very arrangement proscribed in the Rites : "When living, we may have to occupy different apartments; But when dead, we shall share the same grave. 1 I. p. 308. If a man married a widow with children, the officer of marriages registered them as belonging to his family, the presumption being that the mother would not have been allowed to take them with her to a second husband if they had other guardians or property. C.C., iv. i. p. 121. A youth was considered marriageable at twenty, and a girl at fifteen ; thirty and twenty respectively marked the lawful limit for celibacy; single men and women above those ages were liable to be exhorted by the officer of marriages, for it was a part of good government to have no unmarried persons in the country. An account of the nine provinces and their produce in the Chow Li mentions the proportion of men to women in each province,1 which varies extraordinarily, from five to one to one to three. The average of the nine is possible enough, as it is at the rate of twenty-five men to twentyfour women; but it is difficult to believe that the statistics give an accurate account of such variations as might be noted, for instance, in the United States between Massachusetts and Nevada, though there is no other conceivable explanation of the discrepancy if historical. Children were registered at three months old, the time when they received from the father their first or childish name. A record was made of the child's birth on such a day, month, and year, and the secretaries of the hamlets made two copies of it, one of which was kept in the village office, and the other passed to the officer of the district. It is thus evident that in well ordered departments the materials for a census of some kind must have existed from very early times. Indeed, the very reasons given against the proposal, when a prince in the 9th century B.C. was anxious to number the people of a certain district, betray some experience of the results of statistical inquiries. The wise minister of the period observed that it was the business of the local officials to know the number of families and of persons in their departments; the officers in charge of public works must. know how much labour they can command, and the military officers know how many soldiers can be raised, and that is all the knowledge required for practical purposes. But, though the district in question was one of the most populous in the country, the total number of the inhabitants was sure to fall short of the emperor's expectations, while the report of his disappointment would be sure to reach the neighbouring princes, and encourage them to presume on his supposed weakness. A rural calendar of the Hia Dynasty, supposed to have been found in the grave of Confucius in the 3rd century A.D., adds to our former list of times and seasons, the information that at such a day of the second month (ie. towards the end of March), "they execute the dance wan, they enter the school." Boys were sent to school at eight years old, to learn the elements of writing and arithmetic. The lives of both Confucius and Mencius contain anecdotes of their school days, and the mother of the latter fixed her residence opposite a school, in order that her son, who was apt to imitate what he saw around him, should have nothing but examples of studiousness and decorum in sight. 1 Book xxxiii. §§ 8-49. 2 De Mailla, Histoire générale de la Chine, ou Annales de cet Empire traduites du Tong-Kien Kang-mou, 1777, ii. p. 42. According to the Li Ki, there was anciently a school for every twentyfive families, a college for 500 or the department, an academy for 2,500 or the county, and a university for the whole kingdom. The ordinary curriculum extended over seven or nine years; examinations took place every other year, and selected candidates from the ordinary colleges were transferred to the Imperial college. The competitors were exempt from forced labour in their own villages, and the students of the imperial college were excused from all manual work. Not less authentic and more graphic accounts of the common schools are given by two writers of the first century A.D.2: "When the plough has been brought under cover, the harvests gathered, and the operations of the year ended, the unmarried youths go to school, at fifteen to the lower school, at eighteen to the higher; at the winter solstice they leave school for forty-five days (as is the usage even until now), and prepare for the labours of cultivation." So far Ma-yong, while Pan-kow (58-76 A.D.), in his history of the first Han Dynasty, adds that in winter, to save lights and firing, the villagers assembled in the common hall, the women with their work, while the young men not yet taxpayers repaired to the school-house. The lads who entered the elementary school at eight begin at fifteen to learn music and the Rites. The teachers in these schools were not appointed by the State, but the district officers were expected to keep an eye on their efficiency. It would be an anachronism to assume from these particulars that during the Chow Dynasty or earlier a system of graduated schools provided a complete ladder of learning from the village to the court. The Grand Director of Public Works is required by the Chow Li to teach the people “the six virtues, the six praiseworthy actions, and the six branches of knowledge;" i.e. music, dancing, archery, charioteering, writing, and arithmetic. But so wide a curriculum warns us to understand the word "to teach as referring to the educational effects of good government, rather than to any special supervision of the schools, where virtue can hardly be taught in class. The fact seems to be that under the three first dynasties the idea of public instruction as a State function, over and above independent local schools, was mixed up with that of other public establishments, such as the official academy of music, the Court of the Heir Apparent, with whom the sons of high officers and nobles were educated, and the "college," as it would be called by analogy with medieval endowments, where State pensioners were maintained at the public cost. "It was the universal rule in ancient China that the young should be taught and the old maintained in the same buildings." 3 A prince of Tse, who headed one of the 1 Book xvi.. Record on the Subject of Education, § 4. 2 E. Biot, Essai sur l'Histoire de l'Instruction publique en Chine, pp. 54, 64. 3 S.B., xxvii. p. 242 n.; Tcheou-li, i. p. 82, ii. p. 211. According to the Bamboo Books, in the sixth year of Wu-ting, he "inspected the schools where they nourished the aged." This prince, who is the subject of the eighth and ninth books of Shang in the Shoo (S.B., iii. pp. 112-119), reigned, according to the chronology of the Bamboo Books, 1273-1214 B.C., and according to the usual scheme, 1324-1264 B.C. federal leagues formed by the feudal States, was credited with a desire to revive the educational as well as the other good customs of the kings of Chow. His allies pledged themselves to "Honour the aged, protect the orphans, name the deserving to office, nourish capable men, and bring forward virtuous ones"-all of which undertakings would anciently have been included under the head of "teaching" the six virtues. Ma-twan-lin saw plainly that the system of examinations was only a modern and not very successful expedient for the detection of capacity and virtue, and he supposes that in the good old times men were first recommended for employment on account of their character and reputation, and were then examined to see if they possessed the special knowledge required for the discharge of their duties; whereas subsequently scholars applied themselves to one kind of study with a view to the examinations, and, as soon as the examination was over, all that they had learnt was put aside and neglected, while they began a fresh education in the practical work belonging to their offices, so that science and government were divorced. The enumeration of the duties incumbent on filial children in families of official rank1 is our best guide as to the indoor, domestic life of the Chinese during the period of Middle Antiquity. The housework, as we should say, is expected to be performed by the children or inferior wives. These, "at the first crowing of the cock, should wash their hands and mouths, gather up their pillows and fine mats, sprinkle and sweep out the apartments, hall, and courtyard, and spread the mats, each one doing his proper work." The sons and sons' wives dress and wash with care, and hang at their girdle or sash "their articles for use." Both sexes carry the "duster and handkerchief, the knife and whetstone, the small spike and the metal speculum to get fire from the sun, and the borer to get fire from wood," to which are added the implements of writing and archery for men, and for women a needle-case, silk, and thread. When fully dressed the children go to inquire after the health of their parents (or parents-inlaw), bring them water to wash, and then the best of food. They "should not move the clothes, coverlets, fine mats or undermats, pillows, and stools of their parents." They should reverently regard their staff and shoes, but not presume to approach them, nor should they meddle with their food or utensils, unless it were to eat what was left from their parents' meals. "Sweet, soft, and unctuous things" left by the grandparents should be given to the little children, who are also allowed to go to bed, to get up, and to take their meals when they please. It shows the force of ideas in China that the young married people, to whose interests the older generations are sometimes sacrificed in other communities of the same type, are here subordinated to the old and young. It was considered proper that children should be petted and indulged, as they still are in modern China. At eight they begin to learn manners,2 1 S.B., xxvii. p. 448 ff. 2 "When the child was able to take its own food, it was taught to use the right hand;" and the art of yielding to others; and after that, advancing years only bring fresh duties till the son becomes himself a husband and father. Elder children, however, are only subject to a constitutional rule. We have heard much about the duties of the sovereign, but they are all summed up in the phrase, he should be the father and mother of his people. The father and mother therefore, in private life, have to consider the interests and inclinations of their children, as the ruler should those of the multitudes. Before his parents a son should not speak of himself as old, and, though he might speak of the duty owing to parents, he might not speak of the gentle kindness due from them; 1 but the latter duty was not the less recognised, and it would evidently be a proper topic of conversation in a company of parents. If children do not like the food or clothes provided for them, they are required to taste or put them on without demur; but the parents are expected to divine from the nuances of still respectful deportment that they are not altogether pleased, and the children await their further commands with a reasonable expectation that their tastes will be considered. On the whole we should judge modest comfort, with an absence of display, to have characterized the family life of ancient as of modern China. The extent to which the family waited on itself reminds us of what we are told of the Nabateans. Life was more decorous than among the Egyptians, more formal than in Babylonia, and more elaborate than in any other community not dependent on slave labour. One note of material civilization, a free use of the bath, is conspicuous. It was the duty of filial children to prepare tepid water, and invite their parents to take a bath every fifth day; and the bathing tub of Thang the Successful was decorated with the inscription, If you can one day renovate yourself, do so from day to day; yea, daily renovate yourself." 3 The constant efforts after self-rectification of the Chinese sage stand midway between the self-discipline required from the Christian saint and the purely secular Bildung or culture of which the greatest German poet was an apostle. The "superior man " in China "cultivates his person; he "internally examines his heart," he keeps watch over himself when alone, and, for his own satisfaction simply, strengthens himself in gravity and reverence, because "indifference and want of restraint lead to a daily deterioration." The ceremonies of politeness are the outward and visible signs of goodwill and considerateness. Courtesy is near to propriety;" conduct cannot go very far wrong which is kept within the rules of good 4 manners. In many cases the formal rules of propriety only emphasize the requirements of natural politeness and good feeling. Take the following paragraph: and many of the precepts of the Li Ki would commend themselves equally to the approval of any superior English upper nurse. 2 Ante, i. p. 512. 1 S.B., xxviii. p. 291. 3 Ib., p. 415. |