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14
or a series of books are provided, dealing with citizenship as
2 substitute for the moral teaching which is so much stressed by
the Confucianists.
Such teaching however will lack the authority
and the urge to right action or the application of the moral
which the
principles in the daily life/ritual, ceremonial and prestige
that surrounded the Confucian canon in the past provided.
The
old scholars were able to invest their doctrine with that halo of
importance and dignity which made loyalty to Confucius and his
teaching the test of Chinese citizenship. Such a compelling force
is clearly absent, when only detached.statements are made, or
moral lessons given, which are without the emotional and ceremonial
associations of the old teaching.
But Chin. hes business clsewhere.
She is for the moment more
concerned with acquiring & knowledge of the new and easier processos
her
of earning *** daily broad, than in gaining that old knowledge by
sweat and tears, which at best led to good behaviour, or me de the
ritual of life more important than the content or the substance.
Anything therefore which is an obstacle to the matter in hand must
be ruthlessly swept aside. If the normal life is too short even to
obtain that mastery of the language which the old system required,
thon there is some thing obviously wrong either with the system of
lcarning or the learning itself.
Both aro now suspect.
-
It is complained that the modern Chinese pupil either plays
or sleeps while supposed to bo studying his own classics, and is
more resistent to their influence today than he is to modern sub-
jacts. It may of course be due to the contrast in styles, the
wost with its vitality, variety, alertness, and omphasis on the
rational processes and on the concrcto, and the cast with its
cmphasis on memorising and the repetition of abstract doctrinos,
but on the other hand it may be due to that most fatal of all
obstacles to learning a loss of faith in the value, and utility
of the study.