1842.
Report of The Morrison Education Society
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ing portions of the Chinese version of the New Testament, under my own direction. In this they exhibit different degrees of facility, in proportion generally to their knowledge of the English language. They have occasionally been required to compose letters, &c., in Chinese, which is an exercise that would be altogether premature in Chinese schools of the same grade. The result has been such, that they themselves say they can write better English than Chinese, and I certainly agree with them.
To write even correctly in Chinese, is confessedly an accomplish- ment that can only be acquired by long study and practice, and so far as my observation extends, it is much more rare than would be supposed from the statements of writers upon China, and the preva- lence of schools in the country. Not that the language is intricate in its construction, for in this point of view it is one of the simplest, but because each character, instead of being composed of symbols that are significant of the same sound in all words where they occur, is an arbitrary cipher, so that one inust, so to speak, seat himself before an enormous number of these strange signs of words, that are contrived with, it would seem, the least possible aim to assist the reader in pre- nouncing or collecting them, and knowing the form and adaptation of each to each, select and arrange a series to suit his purpose. To do this with any degree of facility, one must have a liberal supply of these grotesque forins ever present in his memory, ready to be tran- sferred to paper, as well as their significations, and the usages that regulate their positions in a sentence. No wonder, then, that even the natives of this country, who enjoy the best advantages, are obliged to go through a long course of study, in order to write, not to say elegantly, but tolerably well. Nor is it at all strange that the boys in our school find it easier to write English than Chinese. Every alphabetic or syllabic language must in the nature of things, be less difficult of acquisition, than one formed after the model of the Chi- nese, which exhibits only in the remotest manner, any design to meet that demand of the inind which has usually resulted in the in- vention of alphabets.
In my last report to the trustees, I ventured to advance the opi- nion, that the Chinese mode of study in schools, is by no means destitute of good and substantial reasons for its support. It is well known that boys generally spend six, seven, or even eight years in reading the books in a loud voice, and repeating them memoriter. During all this period, there is about as little exercise of any faculty of the anind but memory, as when an infant repeats some lines of