University of Nanking - Linguist Yearbook (Nanking, China)

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THE TEN PERCENT A33 THE TEN PERCENT y Every one who comes to China, whether Christian' worker or mere traveler, visits the old Examination Halls which are in every capital city. In many places they are in complete ruing in others the material has been used to build schools for Western educationg and in still others, as in Nanking, sectionsofe them have been preserved as monuments to Chinese scholarship. Each booth is about three feet square' by six high: They are built in long rows, cover acres and acres, and mnnber in each place into the thousands. Three-day examinations were held in these booths annually. The candidates for honors 'were shut up in them for three days, during which they wrote essaysrunder eightheadsg if they were successful they passed-were recommended for special examination at Pekingg if they were physically weak and could not stand the strain they passed out, and were carried out of their cubby-holes the next morn- ing. The subjects of the examination were the Chinese Classics, literature and history, nothing ofa practical nature. Education was not considered as an end in itself, but merely a means to political office. It was not unusual, then, to find men of eighty and ninety taking the examinations. I learn from a Chinese teacher that besides the Chinese language, literature,and classics, a little geography and astrology were taught in the schools. When a Chinese boy recited to his teacher he stood with his back to the tutor, holding out his hand, palm up, behind him. For every error in reciting the lesson he should have memorized, he received from one to ten stinging blows from the teacher's ferule, the number depending upon the disposition of the teacher. ' This 'ruly' element of education is probably still retained in many private and government schools. 1 The scholarship of the old education is comparable to that of the Medieval Scholastsf There was nothing forward-looking in it, everything was referred back to authority, the more ancient the authority or the source, the more certain and truthful the matter. China has never 'reasoned induetively, if she has reasoned at all. This presents a striking contrast to Occidental education, which is now based on the scientific spirit and not on books and ancient lore. The purposes of our 'education is to give us as complete and varied a store of knowledge as possible and to train us to use that knowledge that we may live in understanding of our fellows and to fit us to be of most service to them. Our education brings us closer to life and to life's problems and is forward-looking. Under the old Chinese system, the more a man studied, the--farther removed he was from the problems of life. True, he studied ethics, but this only in the abstract and as a sort of ideal ethics, much as we should study Plato's Republic to-day. His learning was not applied to life, even though the ultimate goal of all his laborious memorizing wasaposition in authority over multitudes. Education was individual, unorganized, haphazard, in private schools of a few students each, or by tutor. I

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32 ' l'i:-IE l,lNGUIST ' automobile cleverly fashioned of bamboo and paper, a carriage three fourths' size, drawn by a life-sized paper horse mounted on wheels: large tloats of sacred animals'and birds made of gorgeous yellow chrysanthemumsg children carrying numerous silk banners, huge paper men, boxes, furniture, etc, tablets borne of fourg an enlarged picture of the deceased, as wgll as .a sta.tue,.als.o,,borne on a sacred table. A riderless horse immediately preceded the line of special friends of the deceased who were walking within long streamers of white cloth. The coffin, covered with a red pall of richly embroidered satin was carried on a large platform swung from a pole with a dragon's tail at one end and the dragopnfspliead, with long white beard and deer's horns, at the other. Immediately in front of the coffin, borne by thirty-two coolies, were the sons, dressed in white cotton cloth, with a head dress of sack-cloth. These sons were each carried hy two friends. As the procession passed the banks of the deceased and the shops- of special friends, there was a pause while mats were spread on the streets and the sons bowed with their heads to the ground. The pro- prietors came out and also bowed down before the broken-hearted QU mourners. Lastly came a score or more of sedan chairs bearing the wives, concubines, and children of the household, wailing out their grief. ' During one of these pauses, I inquired ofa gentleman inthe procession who the deceased was, and what was the approximate- expenditurc. He said that the deceased was Chen Shiso4mei, one of the wealthiest citizens in the province, that there was being expended fully 325,000 on the funeral, and that the procession alone cost about i53,000. NVhen the average wage of a day laborer is not more than 255.00 a month, one can by comparison realize how enormous the expenditure of this funeral really was. .ln the procession were scores of beggars, men, women, and children, employed to carry banners, for which they each received a few pennies. As I stood in- the midst of the huge crowd of on-lookers, I recalled the lines of Gray's e'eg5': The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, with the- accent of boast and pomp Residing in a city with a population' of 800,000, with its- very limited recreational facilities in librariesg thousands of poor children such as those who carried the things in the procession, who because of the pinch of' poverty are deprived of an educationg public sanitation at a standstill because of the lack of public funds? places of historic interest fallen into decayg one can readily appre- ciate what there is of apathy, of selfishness, of utter lack of con- sciousness in folks who are. of a civilization thoroughly saturated' with heathen practices. ' ' - 1 If a son in China ,wishes to show filial devotion to an aged or sick father, he buys the casket and places it around the house in order to prove that ie is preparing a good future life for the father,

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34 THE LINGUIST Fortunately, by lmperial Decree, this old education was abolished in September, 1905, and plans for universal governmental education were instituted. Primary education was to be made compulsoryg all the provincial governments . were to establish primary, high tmiddlej, and normal schoolsg and the national government was to es- tablish universities, technical colleges and higher normal schools. A good beginning has been made, but much of the tax money that should go to education goes to pay the army and government otiicials and sinecures in the school administration, so that there is little left for teaching. And the subjects of the new education are decidedly Occidental in nature and number. But so far, compulsory education exists in the edict only. Regarding government schools, since the report for the year ending july 31, 1916, no statistics have been issued by the minister of education. The iigures for that year are as follows: I Kind of School No. of Schools No. of Students Primary Schools- 1126, 71412 127,714 4,186,962 industrial 8 similar Schools of Primary Grade- l.7ll 531,10-l Middle Schools 444 69,770 Normal Schools, Secondary grade ,211 27,975 Industrial Sz other Schools of Secondary Grade- 455 28,710 Higher Normal Schools- 10 2,357 Colleges, Professional Schools 19-Us 76 25,373 Total. . . . . 130,621 4,294,251 Of course there has been much progress since 1916, but as the figures of that year are somewhat only on paper they may be taken as tairly accurate of conditions to-day. For the number of schools and students listed, there were 198,976 teachers and 130,799 adminis- trative officers: for every three teachers, two administrative oilicers! CU Educational Directory and Year Book of China -19.21, p. 76. C21 China Year Book -1921-2, p. 556, gives these Hgures. i I A vast Examination Hall accommodating 20,000 students.