Directory_and_Chronicle_1842 — Page 567

1812.

Report of the Morrison Education Society.

549

what it can do, leaving the higher effort of the understanding to a more advanced stage of its development.

The true objection that lies against the Chinese system of educa- tion, is that the books before mentioned, are admired and adopted in schools of every grade to the exclusion of all others, except a few works on polite literature, that are used in the higher academies. In fact the sum of the best education that Chinese schools can give is told, when a man has learned to use his own language. No science, nor art, but that of penmanship, enters into the schedule of studies pursued anywhere in the land. Even the study of the language is no exception to this remark, for instead of prosecuting it in a philoso- phic way, every student learns it by the tedious process of imitating particular passages from the best authors, without even thinking, so far as I have been able to ascertain, that it is possible to facilitate his progress by the aid of generalizations. This it is that renders a Chinese teacher so poor an assistant to one who has learned by the opposite method.

But what is most to be regretted is the influence of this course of education upon the national mind.

the national mind. While it utterly fails to enrich it in the various departments of knowledge most needed, and there- fore most useful, it confines the attention of both young and old who attempt to learn, to books that are filled with profound abstrac- tions, dreamy nonsense, and occasional veins of practical wisdom. It teaches the people to look upon these books as the repositories of all that is necessary or worthy to be learned, and from the highest personage at court, to the lowest laborer in the field or shop, all have become accustomed to listen to the voice of gray antiquity for instruction, and he that is the most patient listener, is surest of pre- ferment. The mind of the nation has been systematically taught not to think, and the reasoning faculty, like their written language, has long ago been arrested in its improvement, so that what another has said of Egypt, is as true of this country-and China "is a pe- trifaction."

I have allowed myself to enlarge upon the subject to this extent, because I have not seen it discussed anywhere else, and because it, to my mind, shows us where the greatest artificial obstacle to success in our undertaking lies, and because my employment brings it con- stantly into notice. Could we prevail upon a community of Chinese in their own country to substitute other well written, but suitable books, for those now universally used in their schools, I am persuad- ed that community would, in the next generation, show an order of