It was on a bright spring afternoon that a Chinese official and his
little boy called at our home on Filial Piety Lane, in Peking.
The dresses of father and child were exactly alike--as though they had
been twins, boots of black velvet or satin, blue silk trousers, a long
blue silk garment, a waistcoat of blue brocade, and a black satin
skullcap--the child was in every respect, even to the dignity of his
bearing, a vest-pocket edition of his father.
He had a T'ao of books which I recognized as the Fifteen Magic Blocks,
one of the most ingenious, if not the most remarkable, books I have
ever seen.
A T'ao is two or any number of volumes of a book wrapped in a single
cover. In this case it was two volumes. In the inside of the cover
there was a depression three inches square in which was kept a piece of
lead, wood or pasteboard, divided into fifteen pieces as in the
following illustration.
These blocks are all in pairs except one, which is a rhomboid. They are
all exactly proportional, having their sides either half-inch, inch,
inch and a half, or two inches in length.
They are not used as are the blocks in our kindergarten simply to make
geometrical figures, but rather to illustrate such facts of history as
will have a moral influence, or be an intellectual stimulus to the
child.
He may build houses with them, or make such ancient or modern
ornaments, or household utensils, as may suit his fancy; but the
primary object of the blocks and the books, is to impress upon the
child's mind, in the most forcible way possible, the leading facts of
history, poetry, mythology or morals; while the houses, boats and other
things are simply side issues.
The first illustration the child constructed for me, for I desired him
to teach me how it was done, was a dragon horse, and when I asked him
to explain it, he said that it represented the animal seen by Fu Hsi,
the original ancestor of the Chinese people, emerging from the Meng
river, bearing upon its back a map on which were fifty-five spots,
representing the male and female principles of nature, and which the
sage used to construct what are called the eight diagrams.
The child tossed the blocks off into a pile and then constructed a
tortoise which he said was seen by Yu, the Chinese Noah, coming out of
the Lo river, while he was draining off the floods. On its back was a
design which he used as a pattern for the nine divisions of his empire.
These two incidents are referred to by Confucius, and are among the
first learned by every Chinese child.
I looked through the book and noticed that many of the designs were for
the amusement of the children, as well as to develop their ingenuity.
In the two volumes of the T'ao he had only the outlines of the pictures
which he readily constructed with the blocks. But he had with him also
a small volume which was a key to the designs having lines indicating
how each block was placed. This he had purchased for a few cash. Much
of the interest of the book, however, attached to the puzzling
character of the pictures.
There was one with a verse attached somewhat like the following:
The old wife drew a chess-board
On the cover of a book,
While the child transformed a needle
Into a fishing-hook.
Chinese literature is full of examples of men and women who applied
themselves to their books with untiring diligence. Some tied their hair
to the beam of their humble cottage so that when they nodded with
sleepiness the jerk would awake them and they might return to their
books.
Others slept upon globular pillows that when they became so restless as
to move and cause the pillow to roll from under their head they might
get up and study.
The child once more took the blocks and illustrated how one who was so
poor as to be unable to furnish himself with candles, confined a
fire-fly in a gauze lantern using that instead of a lamp. At the same
time he explained that another who was perhaps not able to afford the
gauze lantern, studied by the light of a glowworm.
"K'ang Heng," said the child, as he put the blocks together in a new
form, "had a still better way, as well as more economical. His house
was built of clay, and as the window of his neighbor's house was
immediately opposite, he chiseled a hole through his wall and thus took
advantage of his neighbor's light.
"Sun K'ang's method was very good for winter," continued the child as
he rearranged the blocks, "but I do not know what he would do in
summer. He studied by the light reflected from the snow.
"Perhaps," he went on as he changed the form, "he followed the example
of another who studied by the pale light of the moon."
"What does that represent?" I asked him pointing to a child with a bowl
in his hand who looked as if he might have been going to the grocer's.
"Oh, that boy is going to buy wine."
The Chinese have never yet realized what a national evil liquor may
become. They have little wine shops in the great cities, but they have
no drinking houses corresponding to the saloon, and it is not uncommon
to see a child going to the wine shop to fetch a bowl of wine. The
Buddhist priest indulges with the same moderation as the official class
or gentry. Indeed most of the drunkenness we read about in Chinese
books is that of poets and philosophers, and in them it is, if not
commended, at least not condemned. The attitude of literature towards
them is much like that of Thackeray towards the gentlemen of his day.
The child constructed the picture of a Buddhist priest, who, with staff
in hand, and a mug of wine, was viewing the beautiful mountains in the
distance. He then changed it to one in which an intoxicated man was
leaning on a boy's shoulder, the inscription to which said: "Any one is
willing to assist a drunken man to return home."
"This," he went on as he changed his blocks, "is a picture of Li Pei,
China's greatest poet. He lived more than a thousand years ago. This
represents the closing scene in his life. He was crossing the river in
a boat, and in a drunken effort to get the moon's reflection from the
water, he fell overboard and was drowned." The child pointed to the
sail at the same time, repeating the following:
The sail being set,
He tried to get,
The moon from out the main.
I noticed a large number of boat scenes and induced the child to
construct some of them for me, which he was quite willing to do,
explaining them as he went as readily as our children would explain Old
Mother Hubbard or the Old Woman who Lived in her Shoe, by seeing the
illustrations.
Constructing one he repeated a verse somewhat like the following:
Alone the fisherman sat,
In his boat by the river's brink,
In the chill and cold and snow,
To fish, and fish, and think.
Then he turned over to two on opposite pages, and as he constructed
them he repeated in turn:
In a stream ten thousand li in length
He bathes his feet at night,
While on a mount he waves his arms,
Ten thousand feet in height.
The ten thousand li in one couplet corresponds to the ten thousand feet
in the other, while the bathing of the feet corresponds to the waving
of the arms. Couplets of this kind are always attractive to the Chinese
child as well as to the scholar, and poems and essays are replete with
such constructions.
The child enjoyed making the pictures. I tried to make one, but found
it very difficult. I was not familiar with the blocks. It is different
now, I have learned how to make them. Then it seemed as if it would be
impossible ever to do so. When I had failed to make the picture I
turned them over to him. In a moment it was done.
"Who is it?" I asked.
"Chang Ch'i, the poet," he answered. "Whenever he went for a walk he
took with him a child who carried a bag in which to put the poems he
happened to write. In this illustration he stands with his head bent
forward and his hands behind his back lost in thought, while the lad
stands near with the bag."
We have given in another chapter the story of the great traveller,
Chang Ch'ien, and his search for the source of the Yellow River.
In one of the illustrations the child represented him in his boat in a
way not very different from that of the artist.
Another quotation from one of the poets was illustrated as follows:
Last night a meeting I arranged,
Ere I my lamp did light,
Nor while I crossed the ferry feared,
Or wind or rain or night.
The child's eyes sparkled as he turned to some of those illustrating
children at play, and as he constructed one which represents two
children swinging their arms and running, he repeated:
See the children at their play,
Gathering flowers by the way.
"They are gathering pussy-willows," he added.
In another he represented a child standing before the front gate, where
he had knocked in vain to gain admission. As he completed it he said,
pointing to the apricot over the door:
Ten times he knocked upon the gate,
But nine, they opened not,
Above the wall he plainly saw,
A ripe, red apricot.
He continued to represent quotations from the poets and explain them as
he went along.
There was one which indicated that some one was ascending the steps to
the jade platform on which the dust had settled as it does on
everything in Peking; at the same time the verse told us that
Step by step we reach the platform,
All of jade of purest green,
Call a child to come and sweep it,
But he cannot sweep it clean.
"You know," he went on, "the cottages of many of the poets were near
the beautiful lakes in central China, in the wild heights of the
mountains, or upon the banks of some flowing stream. In this one the
pavilion of the poet is on the bank of the river, and we are told that,
In his cottage sat the poet
Thinking, as the moon went by,
That the moonlight on the water,
Made the water like the sky."
Changing it somewhat he made a cottage of a different kind. This was
not made for the picture's sake, but to illustrate a sentence it was
designed to impress upon the child's mind. The quotation is somewhat as
follows:
The ringing of the evening bells,
The moon a crescent splendid,
The rustling of the swallow's wings
Betoken winter ended.
The child looked up at me significantly as he turned to one which
represented a Buddhist priest. I expected something of a joke at the
priest's expense as in the nursery rhymes and games, but there was
none. That would injure the sale of the book. The inscription told us
that "a Buddhist lantern will reflect light enough to illuminate the
whole universe."
Turning to the next page we found a priest sitting in front of the
temple in the act of beating his wooden drum, while the poet exclaims:
O crystal pool and silvery moon,
So clear and pure thou art,
There's nought to which thou wilt compare
Except a Buddha's heart.
The child next directed our attention to various kinds of flowers, more
especially the marigold. A man in a boat rows with one hand while he
points backward to the blossoming marigold, while in another picture
the poet tells us that,
Along the eastern wall,
We pluck the marigold,
While on the south horizon,
The mountain we behold.
"What is that?" I asked as he turned to a picture of an old man riding
on a cow.
"That is Laotze, the founder of Taoism, crossing the frontier at the
Han Ku Pass between Shansi and Shensi, riding upon a cow. Nobody knows
where he went."
There were other pictures of Taoist patriarchs keeping sheep. By their
magic power they turned the sheep into stones when they were tired
watching them, and again the inscriptions told us, "the stones became
sheep at his call." Still others represented them in search of the
elixir of life, while in others they were riding on a snail.
The object of thus bringing in incidents from all these Buddhist,
Taoist, Confucian, and other sources is that by catering to all classes
the book may have wide distribution, and whatever the Confucianist may
say, it must be admitted that the other religions have a strong hold
upon the popular mind.
The last twenty-six illustrations in Vol. I represent various incidents
in the life, history and employments of women.
The first of these is an ancient empress "weaving at night by her
palace window."
Another represents a woman in her boat and we are told that, "leaving
her oar she leisurely sang a song entitled, 'Plucking the Caltrops.'"
Another represents a woman "wearing a pomegranate-colored dress riding
a pear-blossom colored horse." A peculiar combination to say the least.
The fisherman's wife is represented in her boat, "making her toilet at
dawn using the water as a mirror." While we are assured also that the
woman sitting upon her veranda "finds it very difficult to thread her
needle by the pale light of the moon," which fact, few, I think, would
question.
In one of the pictures "a beautiful maiden, in the bright moonlight,
came beneath the trees." This is evidently contrary to Chinese ideas of
propriety, for the Classic for girls tells us that a maiden should not
go out at night except in company with a servant bearing a lantern. As
it was bright moonlight, however, let us hope she was excusable.
This sauntering about in the court is not uncommon if we believe what
the books say, for in the next picture we are told that:
As near the middle summer-house,
The maiden sauntered by,
Upon the jade pin in her hair
There lit a dragon-fly.
The next illustration represented the wife of the famous poet Ssu-Ma
Hsiang-Ju in her husband's wine shop.
This poet fell in love with the widowed daughter of a wealthy merchant,
the result of which was that the young couple eloped and were married;
and as the daughter was disinherited by her irate parent, she was
compelled to wait on customers in her husband's wine shop, which she
did without complaint. In spite of their imprudent conduct, and for the
time, its unhappy results, as soon as the poet had become so famous as
to be summoned to court, the stern father relented, and, as it was a
case of undoubted affection, which the Chinese readily appreciate they
have always had the sympathy of the whole Chinese people.
One of the most popular women in Chinese history is Mu Lan, the A
Chinese Joan of Arc. Her father, a great general, being too old to take
charge of his troops, and her brothers too young, she dressed herself
in boy's clothing, enrolled herself in the army, mounted her father's
trusty steed, and led his soldiers to battle, thus bringing honor to
herself and renown upon her family.
We have already seen how diligent some of the ancient worthies were in
their study. This, however, is not universal, for we are told the
mother of Liu Kung-cho, in order to stimulate her son to study took
pills made of bear's gall and bitter herbs, to show her sympathy with
her boy and lead him to feel that she was willing to endure bitterness
as well as he.
The last of these examples of noble women is that of the wife of Liang
Hung, a poor philosopher of some two thousand years ago. An effort was
made to engage him to Meng Kuang, the daughter of a rich family, whose
lack of beauty was more than balanced by her remarkable intelligence.
The old philosopher feared that family pride might cause domestic
infelicity. The girl on her part steadfastly refused to marry any one
else, declaring that unless she married Liang Hung, she would not marry
at all. This unexpected constancy touched the old man's heart and he
married her. She dressed in the most common clothing, always prepared
his food with her own hand, and to show her affection and respect never
presented him with the rice-bowl without raising it to the level of her
eyebrows, as in the illustration.
It may be interesting to see some of the ornaments and utensils the
child made with his blocks. I shall therefore add three, a pair of
scissors, a teapot, and a seal with a turtle handle.
Such is in general the character of the book the official's little boy
had with him. I afterwards secured several copies for myself and
learned to make all the pictures first shown me by the child, and I
discovered that it is but one of several forms of what we may call
kindergarten work, that it has gone through many editions, and is very
widely distributed. My own set contains 216 illustrations such as I
have given.