Directory_and_Chronicle_1841 — Page 589

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Morrison Education Society.

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be found that this is enough to task the mind of a child with at once, and that there is more philosophy than absurdity in the method of instruction pursued in the schools of China. With a thorough know- ledge of the Chinese classics, a European teacher might undoubtedly make improvements upon the native mode of teaching; but experi- ence teaches me, (and that of others confirms the remark,) that to suggest a new method of instruction to a Chinese master, more con- sonant with our own views, is at once to diminish his interest in his employment, because he cannot appreciate what goes against all pre- cedent in his own mind; and if persisted in, will utterly destroy it.

While, therefore, the pupils of this school have pursued the usual course of Chinese study in their own way, I have myself devot- ed the same portion of time to the study of Chinese, apart from them, in order to qualify myself as soon as possible to interfere with this part of their education. With what success, it is not for me to say. Allow me, however, to express an opinion respecting the importance of this study, to him who would do good by means of education among this people. If it is necessary for a teacher among his own countrymen to understand the minds of those whom he instructs, how much more imperative is the necessity, in order to insure suc- cess among a strange people in a foreign land. Now language is the portrait of the mind in action, and he who would be familiarly ac quainted with it, must become qualified to judge of its picture with the skill of an artist. It is because this attainment is so rare that there is so much misconception and ignorance respecting the peculiar feelings, prejudices, habits, and history of the Chinese. We meet them day after day, but our interviews respect the most palpable and common-place things, while in other points, our minds and theirs are widely removed from mutual contact. There is little or no play of sympathies between us. Our intercourse is much like that of two untaught mutes, that meet with ideas circumscribed the limits of what their eyes have seen, and picture to each other in pantomime, the mere outlines of the few thoughts they have in com. mon, and then part again in utter ignorance of each other's spirit- ual being.

"Every one who has endeavored to acquaint himself with the Chi nese people through the medium of their language, has felt this, yet it is an acknowledged and remarkable fact, that some of the first links of the chain that would unite us to them are still wanting. For instance, some of the simplest questions in grammar, which would have been solved long ago in respect to any western language, that