CO129-531-10 Hong Kong University- encouragement of Chinese students to counteract American influence 30-5-1931 - 1-9-1931 — Page 94

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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.