17 -
104
It is probable then that a new group of scholars will even-
tually emerge in the Universities and devote itself to Chinese
studies not with a view to securing public appointments, but out
of pure love of learning.
It is to such a group that the ark of
the old learning will be entrusted; but they will bring to bear on
their task 2 different mental equipment from that of the old Hanli
scholar, for they will be imbued with a new spirit and armed with
new weapons and instruments of precision for research.
It would seem at first sight mere arrogance and presumption
to express doubt about the method of teaching the Chinese language
or to suggest it might be modified. It would be natural to suppose
that after six thousand years of experience the very best methods
of teaching would be arrived at as a result of the ordinary pro-
Johnson's cess of trial and error end that Dr. Zahnts assertion would be
correct as applied to Chinese educational methods, namely, that
there was nothing new to be said about education, the subject
having been exhausted and the last word said upon it hundreds of
years ago.
Yet it may be that this is not the truth. He would be a very
rash educationist who denied that there had been any great advances
in technique in urope during the past hundred years.
fifty
The methods have been overhauled and revolutionised while the
teachers during the past fix years have been vitalised and equipped
for their work in a manner hitherto unknown.
One suspects that absence of variety of content or of com-
peting subjects has created the leisurely and protracted method of
teaching Chinese now in vogue. Monopoly always spells stagnation,
and the result has been to multiply in the course of training the
difficulties, and to magnify the unimportant, until the whole scheme
has become to a certain extent divorced from life and become an
esoteric cult only for those who are willing to submit to the
unpleasant initiatory rites.
P.T.C.