VILLAGE GOVERNMENT IN China, 1933
of local custom. And there are others.
115
But there are certain powerful factors which have tended toward a unity of custom. The race of the Chinese is at present more homogeneous than it is diverse; on the whole the people live everywhere on the same economic level, that of agriculture; and they have a fairly common spoken language in Mandarin, and one single written language. In all these respects Europe differs from China on the side of diversity: Europe is composed of a series of cultures which are only slowly amalgamating. Lastly, the Chinese have a common spiritual and intellectual heritage. This point is probably the most important of all, and corresponds to the common heritage which Europe enjoys, on the spiritual side from Christianity, and on the intellectual side from Greece and Rome. These considerations, while not entirely justifying the sort of generalization undertaken here, do render it more valid.
There remains to be mentioned the scope of this work and the plan adopted. What the writer has done has been necessarily modest indeed. There are in this study no original facts before unpublished; but very nearly everything of value available in English, and to a lesser extent in French, has been assembled. The writer's contribution has been the assembling of this material, and the attempt both to interpret it, and to draw conclusions therefrom.
The main attempt has been to give the picture of village government in China as it was at the end of the Manchu (Ch'ing) dynasty. At that time traditional village life was well crystallized and still quite stable, foreign influences and the disruption of the dynasty having little if at all affected the institution. Certain cultural and psychological phenomena which have contributed to the establishment and maintenance of village polity have been pointed out; at the same time certain concomitant phenomena arising from village government have been stressed.
The first four chapters of the study deal with this crystallized and stabilized form of customary government. It is the writer's belief that even to-day government in the village goes on much as it did in its crystallized form. On the whole Western forces have had little effect as yet; nor have the efforts of Western-inspired revolutionaries done much, for all their theories, to modify the situation. For this reason the writer has used the present tense almost exclusively in these four chapters.
VILLAGE GOVERNMENT IN China, 1933
of local custom. And there are others.
115
But there are certain powerful factors which have tended toward a unity of custom. The race of the Chinese is at present more homogeneous than it is diverse; on the whole the people live every- where on the same economic level, that of agriculture; and they have a fairly common spoken language in Mandarin, and one single written language. In all these respects Europe differs from China on the side of diversity: Europe is composed of a series of cultures which are only slowly amalgamating. Lastly, the Chinese have a common spiritual and intellectual heritage. This point is probably the most important of all, and corresponds to the common heritage which Europe enjoys, on the spiritual side from Christianity, and on the intellectual side from Greece and Rome. These considera- tions, while not entirely justifying the sort of generalization under- taken here, do render it more valid,
There remains to be mentioned the scope of this work and the plan adopted. What the writer has done has been necessarily modest indeed. There are in this study no original facts before un- published; but very nearly everything of value available in English. and to a lesser extent in French, has been assembled. The writer's contribution has been the assembling of this material, and the attempt both to interpret it, and to draw conclusious therefrom.
The main attempt has been to give the picture of village govern- ment in China as it was at the end of the Manchu (Ch'ing) dynasty. At that time traditional village life was well crystalized and still quite stable, foreign influences and the disruption of the dynasty having little if at all affected the institution. Certain cultural and psychological phenomena which have contributed to the establish- ment and maintenance of village polity have been pointed out; at the same time certain concomitant phenomena arising from village government have been stressed.
The first four chapters of the study deal with this crystalized and stabilized form of customary government. It is the writer's belief that even to-day government in the village goes on much as it did in its crystalized form. On the whole Western forces have had little effect as yet; nor have the efforts of Western-inspired revolutionaries done much, for all their theories, to modify the situation. For this reason the writer has used the present tense almost exclusively in these four chapters.
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.