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professor, assisted by a native scholar of the country the language of which is taught. The provision thus made in Paris for the training of young men in a knowledge of Chinese and other eastern languages is as complete as it well could be. passed their examinations and received their di- When they have plomas, many of them go abroad to take part in the embassies and consulates of France, or to assist in the promotion of its commerce,--having in the first place laid the foundations of both a scientific and practical knowledge of the chief instrument which they have to employ in the fulfilment of their duties. Germany was later than France, and not earlier than England, in taking up the study of Chinese. Contemporaneously with the constitution of the Chair in University College, London, in 1838, a Chair of Chinese and the Tartar languages, to which Finnish has since been added, was established in the University of Berlin, with Dr. Wilhelm Schott as Professor Extraordinary. Three years later a similar appointment in the Academy of Sciences in the same capital was conferred on him, and to the present time Schott continues to teach Chinese in these two positions, Chinese Chairs of later constitution also exist at Minich and Vienna, though Sanskrit has hitherto had greater attractions for the scholars of Germany than Chinese.
At Leyden in Holland, since 1850, Professor Hoff- mann has given instruction in Japanese, and also in Chinese as subsidiary to that; and with him there has been associated of late years Professor Schlegel, specially to prepare young men by a knowledge of Chinese for service as interpreters in the Dutch East Indies.
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Since 1864 the Italian Government has promoted the study of both Chinese and Japanese in Florence, under Antelino Severini, formerly a pupil of Julien; and he is now assisted by Dr. Charles Puini, a very distinguished scholar of his own training,
any
This
To complete our review of what has been done in Europe for the cultivation of Chinese studies, it only remains for me to go with you for a minute or two to Russia, Till within the last sixteen years, the government of China had more intimate relations with that empire than with other western country. This was a consequence of the contiguity of their territories. Various Russian embassies were sent to the Court of Peking in the 17th century with little result; and in 1651 it was determined to build a fort and found a Russian colony at Albazin, called by the Chinese Yak-sha, on the northern bank of the Amoor, among the Tungusic tribes. brought the two empires into collision, for across the Amoor was the Manchurian province of Tsi-tsi-har. The fort was repeatedly taken by the Chinese, and re-occupied by the Russians, who finally, however, relinquished it-for a time, that is-in 1689, in accordance with the terms of a treaty concluded at Nertschinsk. But in 1685, a number of Russian soldiers, with one or more priests, had been carried from Albazin to Peking, where they were well treated, being allowed the exercise of their religion, while the soldiers were received into the emperor's body-guard. There thus grew up the rudiments of a Russian colony; and on the death of the religious instructors who had been taken from Albazin, the sovereign, known to us as K'ang-hi from the name of his reign, a really great man, requested that others
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