Regeneration of the Chinese Village
XXVII
WHAT CAN CHRISTIANITY DO FOR CHINA?
However inadequate or imperfect our survey of the life of the Chinese
Village may have been, it must at least have shown that it has defects of
a serious character. It is therefore a legitimate question how they are to
be remedied, on the supposition that they can be remedied at all.
It is certainly conceivable that there might be many remedial agencies set
at work with varying degrees of success; but as a matter of fact, so far
as we are aware, there is but one the friends of which have been
stimulated to try on any extended scale. That sole agency is Christianity.
It thus becomes an inquiry of great moment, what effect the introduction
into China of Christianity in its best form may be rationally expected to
exert upon the springs of the national life and character of the Chinese.
What can Christianity do for the Chinese family? What can it do for the
Chinese boy and girl?
In the first place it can take better care of them. The dense and
impenetrable ignorance which sacrifices so large a proportion of Chinese
infants during the first two years of their life, might perhaps be
counteracted in other ways, but it is probably safe to predict that it
never would be. To the Chinese girl the practical introduction of
Christianity will mean even more than to her brother. It will prevent her
from being killed as soon as she is born, and will eventually restore her
to her rightful place in the affections of her parents. It is never enough
merely to point out the folly, danger, or sin of a given course of action.
There must be moral as well as intellectual enlightenment, coA¶peration in
a new social order, the stimulus both of precept and example, and adequate
moral sanctions. This can be furnished by Christianity alone. History
testifies that if Christianity begins to lose its power, the dormant
forces of human selfishness, depravity and crime reassert themselves in
infant murder.
Christianity will call into existence a sympathy between parents and
children hitherto unknown, and one of the greatest needs of the Chinese
home. It will teach parents to govern their children, an accomplishment
which in four millenniums they have never made an approach to acquiring.
This it will do, not as at present by the mere iterative insistence upon
the duty of subjection to parents, but by showing parents how first to
govern themselves, teaching them the completion of the five relations by
the addition of that chiefest one hitherto unknown, expressed in the words
Our Father. It will redeem many years during the first decade of
childhood, of what is now a mere animal existence, filling it with
fruitfulness for a future intellectual and spiritual harvest.
It will show Chinese parents how to _train_ as well as how to govern their
children--a divine art of which they have at present no more conception
than of the chemistry of soils. It will put an end to the cruelty and
miseries of foot-binding. Toward this great reform there was never in
China the smallest impulse, until it had long been urged by Christian
forces. If it shall prove at length to have successfully taken root in
China apart from Christianity, that fact would be a luminous star in the
East showing that there are no Chinese walls which may not ultimately fall
before the blast of Christian trumpets.
Christianity will revolutionize the Chinese system of education. Such a
revolution might indeed take place without reference to Christianity. The
moral forces which have made China what it is, are now to a large extent
inert. To introduce new intellectual life with no corresponding moral
restraints, might prove far more a curse than a blessing, as it has been
in the other Oriental lands. Christian education will never make the
mistake so often repeated of seeking for fruits where there have been
no roots. It starts from a fixed point and moves onward to a definite end.
[Illustration: LITTLE OLD PEOPLE.]
[Illustration: GOING TO A CHRISTIAN SCHOOL.]
Christian education will teach the Chinese child his own tongue in a
rational manner. It will abbreviate to the greatest possible extent "the
toils of wandering through the wilderness of the Chinese language to
arrive at the deserts of Chinese literature." It will awaken the child's
hibernating imagination, enormously widen his horizon, develop and
cultivate his judgment, teach him the history of mankind, and not of one
branch only. Above all it will arouse his conscience, and in its light
will exhibit the mutual interrelations of the past, the present, and the
future. It will create an intellectual atmosphere in the home, causing the
children to feel that their progress at school is intimately related to
instruction at home, and has a personal interest to the parents and to the
family as a whole. The value of such a stimulus, now totally lacking in
most Chinese homes, is beyond calculation, and would of itself easily
double the mental output of every family into which it entered.
Christianity will provide for the intellectual and spiritual education of
girls as well as boys, when once the Christian point of view has been
attained. The typical Chinese mother is "an ignorant woman with babies,"
but she is not the Chinese ideal woman as the long list of educated ladies
in many dynasties (a number too considerable to be ignored but too
insignificant to be influential) abundantly shows. A Chinese girl told her
foreign friend that before Christianity came into her life, she used to go
about her work humming a ballad, consisting of the words: "The beautiful
teacup; the painted teacup; the teacup, the teacup, the beautiful,
beautiful teacup." Contrast the outlook from such an intellectual
mouse-hole with the vista of a maiden whose thoughts are elevated to the
stars and the angels. By developing the neglected spiritual nature,
Christianity will broaden and deepen the existing rills of natural
affection into glorious rivers wide and deep, supplementing the physical
and the material by the intellectual and the divine. By cultivating a
fellowship between mothers and daughters in all these and in other lines,
it will make it easier for children to love their fathers and respect
their mothers, and will fill the lives of both parents and children with
new impulses, new motives and new ambitions. It will impel mothers to give
their daughters much needed instruction in their future duties as
daughters-in-law and as wives, instead of throwing them overboard as now,
often in mere childhood, expecting them to swim untaught, against the
current, and in the dark.
It will for the first time provide and develop for the daughters girl
friendships, adapted to their long-felt but uncomprehended needs. The
education of Chinese women is a condition of the renovation of the empire.
No nation, no race can rise above the status of its mothers and its wives.
How deftly yet how surely Christianity is beginning to plant its tiny
acorns in the rifts of the granitic rock may be seen in the surprising
results already attained. When the present isolated and initiatory
experiments shall have had time to bring forth fruit after their kind, it
will be clearly perceived that a new and an Imperial force has entered
into the Chinese world.
Christianity wherever introduced tends to a more rational selection of
partners for its sons and daughters than has ever been known before. In
place of the mercenary considerations which alone find place in the
ordinary practice of the Chinese, it naturally and inevitably leads to the
choice of Christian maidens for daughters-in-law, and Christian youths for
sons-in-law. It attaches weight to character, disposition and acquirements
instead of to wealth and to social position alone. A Christian community
is the only one in China where it is possible to learn with certainty all
important facts with regard to those who may be proposed for matrimonial
engagements, because it is only in such a community that dependence can be
placed upon the representations of third parties. As Christian communities
come more and more to distinct self-consciousness, more and more care
will be exercised in making matches. Christians are indeed the only
Chinese who can be made to feel that caution in this direction is a
religious duty. The result of this process continued for an extended
period will produce by "natural selection" a distinctly new type of
Chinese, physically, intellectually, and morally the superiors of all
types about them and therefore more fitted to survive.
Chinese customs will not be rashly invaded, but the ultimate tendency will
be to postpone marriage to a suitable age, to consider the preferences of
the principal parties--so far as they may have any--and to make wedlock a
sacred solemnity instead of merely a social necessity.
Christianity will make no compromise with polygamy and concubinage, but
will cut the tap-root of a upas-tree which now poisons Chinese society
wherever its branches spread. Christianity will gradually revolutionize
the relations between the young husband and his bride. Their common
intellectual and spiritual equipment will have fitted them to become
companions to one another, instead of merely commercial partners in a
kettle of rice. The little ones will be born into a Christian atmosphere
as different from that of a non-Christian household as the temperature of
Florida from that of Labrador. These forces will be self-perpetuating and
cumulative.
Christianity will purify and sweeten the Chinese home, now always and
everywhere liable to devastating hurricanes of passion, and too often
filled with evil-speaking, bitterness and wrath. The imperative inhibition
of all manner of reviling would alone do more for domestic harmony than
all the wise maxims of the sages mechanically learned and repeated could
accomplish in a lifetime. Indeed, Christianity will take these
semi-animate precepts of the dead past, breathe into them for the first
time the breath of life, and then reinforce them with the Word of the Lord
and the sanctions of His Law.
Christianity will introduce a new and a potent factor into the social life
of the Chinese by its energy as a prophylactic. Chinese society has a
virtuous talent for "talking peace" when there is no peace, and when
matters have come to such a pitch that a catastrophe appears inevitable.
But the remedy almost invariably comes too late. Chinese "peace-talking"
is usually a mere dust-storm, unpleasantly affecting the eyes, the ears,
the nostrils of every one exposed to it, thinly covering up the
surrounding filth with even impartiality, while after all leaving the
whole of it just where it was before. Christianity is an efficient
sanitary commission which aims at removing everything that can breed
pestilence. In this it will not, indeed, entirely succeed, but its
introduction upon a large scale will as certainly modify Chinese society,
as a strong and steady north-east wind will eventually dissipate a dense
fog.
As has been already remarked, perhaps there is no single Chinese custom
which is the source of a larger variety of mischief than that of keeping
large family organizations in a condition of dependence upon one another
and upon a common property, instead of dividing it up among the several
sons, leaving each free to work out his own destiny. The inevitable result
is chronic discontent, jealousy, suspicion, and on the part of many
indolence. This is as clearly perceived by the Chinese as by us, indeed
far more so, but hereditary cowardice, dread of criticism, and especially
of ridicule prevent myriads of families from effecting the desired and
necessary division, lest they be laughed at. Christianity is itself a
defiance of all antecedent public opinion, and an appeal to a new and an
illuminated understanding. Christian communities will probably more and
more tend to follow the Scriptural plan of making one man and one woman a
new family, and by this process alone will save themselves an infinity of
misery. This will be done, not by the superimposition of any force from
without, but by the exercise of a common sense which has been at once
enlightened to see and emboldened to act, attacking with courage whatever
needs amendment.
Christianity will introduce an entirely new element into the friendships
of the Chinese, now too often based upon the selfish considerations
suggested by the maxim of Confucius, "Have no friends not equal to
yourself." Friendship is reckoned among the Five Relations and occupies a
prominent place in Chinese thought as in Chinese life. But after all is
conceded in regard to it which can be reasonably claimed, it remains true
that its benefits are constantly alloyed by mutual insincerity and
suspicion, and not infrequently by jealousy. This the Chinese themselves
are ready to admit in the frankest manner; but as they have no experience
of friendships which arise from conditions above and beyond those of the
material issues of everyday life, no remedy for existing evils is ever
thought of as possible. Those Chinese who have become intimate with
congenial Christian friends, recognize at once that there is a flavour and
a zest in such friendships not only unknown before, but absolutely beyond
the range of imagination. Amid the poverty, barrenness, and
discouragements of most Chinese lives, the gift of a wholly new
relationship of the sort which Christianity imparts is to be reckoned
among the choicest treasures of existence.
The theory of the Chinese social organization is admirable and beautiful,
but the principles which underlie it are utterly inert. When Christianity
shows the Chinese for the first time what these traditional principles
really mean, the theories will begin to take shape as possibilities, even
as the bones of Ezekiel's vision took on flesh. Then it will more clearly
appear how great an advantage the Chinese race has enjoyed in its lofty
moral code. The Classical but not altogether intelligible aphorism that
"within the Four Seas all are Brethren," requires the Christian teaching
regarding a common Father to make it vital to Chinese consciousness. When
once the Chinese have grasped the practical truth of the Fatherhood of God
and the Brotherhood of Man, the starlight of the past will have been
merged into the sunlight of the future.
In China the family is a microcosm of the empire. To amplify
illustrations of the _modus operandi_ of Christianity on a wider scale
beyond the family is superfluous. What Christianity can do in one place it
can do in another. Though soils and climate vary, the seed is the same.
For the changes which Christianity alone can affect, China is waiting
to-day as never before. Her most intelligent thinkers--too few alas, in
number--recognize that _something_ must be done for her. They hope that by
the adoption of certain formulA|, educational, industrial, economical,
China may be saved, not perceiving that her vital lack is neither Capital
nor Machinery, but Men. The New China is to be penetrated by numerous
railways, and by steam navigation of its inland waters. Vast industrial
enterprises such as mines and factories will call for great supplies of
labour from the most numerous people on earth. In the management of these
immense and varied interests, in the conduct of the new education which
China cannot dispense with, in the administration of all branches of its
government China must have men of conscience, and of sterling character.
It has hitherto been impossible to secure any such men except by
importation; how is it to be otherwise in the future? Only by the
cultivation of conscience and character as they have been cultivated in
lands to which China is at last driven to turn for help. Like all
processes of development this will be a slow one, but it will be sure; and
aside from it there is literally no hope for China.
With its other great benefits Christianity will confer upon China real
patriotism, at present existing almost entirely in the blind impulses of
the bias of national feeling. During the political crises of the past few
years, the great mass of the Chinese people have been profoundly
indifferent to the fate of their country, and in this respect there has
been little distinction between scholars, farmers, merchants, and coolies.
Each individual has been chiefly occupied in considering how in any
cataclysm impending he could make with fate the best bargain for himself.
If there are any exceptions to this generalization, so far as we know
they consist exclusively of those who have been acted upon by forces from
outside of China.
The Christian converts are now sufficiently numerous to show in what
direction their influence will be felt in the not distant future. They are
keenly alive to what is taking place in the empire, and they may almost be
said to be the only Chinese in it who are so. China will never have
patriotic subjects until she has Christian subjects, and in China as
elsewhere Christianity and patriotism will be found to advance hand in
hand.
It must be distinctly understood that all which we have said of the
potency of Christianity as of "unwasting and secular force" is based upon
the conception of it as a moral power "producing certain definite though
small results during a certain period of time, and of a nature adapted to
produce indefinite similar results in unlimited time." It is therefore
eminently reasonable to point out that under no circumstances can it
produce its full effects in less than _three complete generations_. By
that time Christian heredity will have begun to operate. A clear
perception of this fundamental truth would do much to abate the impatience
alike of its promotors and its critics.
There are some Occidentals with large knowledge of China who seriously
raise the question, What good can Christianity do in China? Of what use is
it for a Chinese to be "converted"?
To infer from any phenomena of Chinese life that the Chinese do not need a
radical readjustment of their relations is to judge most superficially.
Patient and long continued examination of these phenomena in their endless
variety and complexity, shows clearly the imperative necessity of a force
from without to accomplish what all the forces from within operating
unimpeded for ages have been powerless to effect. To those who know the
Chinese people as they are the question what good Christianity can do
them, answers itself. Of the necessity of a new power the Chinese
themselves are acutely conscious. If what has been already set forth in
proof of the proposition that there is imperative need of renovation is
regarded as irrelevant or inadequate, then further debate is indeed vain.
But it may be objected that the views here taken of the efficacy of the
remedy are exaggerated. Those Chinese who have had the best opportunity to
become acquainted with the nature of the benefits which Christianity
affords, perceive its adaptation to China's need. All that is required to
render the proof to every reasonable inquirer as complete as evidence can
be made, is a searching and scientific analysis of known facts. The case
for Christianity in China may rest solely upon the transformations which
it actually effects. These are not upon the surface, but they are as real
and as capable of being accurately noted as the amount of the rain-fall,
or the precession of the equinoxes. They consist of revolutionized lives
due to the implanting of new motives and the influence of a new life. They
occur in many different strata of society, and with the ever widening
base-line of Christian work they are found in ever increasing numbers. At
first few and isolated, they are now counted by scores of thousands. Among
them are many immature and blighted developments, as is true of all
transitional phenomena everywhere; but the indisputable residuum of
genuine transformations furnish a great cloud of witnesses in the presence
of which it is unnecessary to inquire further what good Christianity will
do the Chinese, and of what use it will be to a Chinese to be converted.
It will make him a new man, with a new insight and a new outlook. It will
give back his lost soul and spirit, and pour into all the avenues of his
nature new _life_. There is not a human relation in which it will not be
felt immediately, profoundly, and beneficently.
It will sanctify childhood, ennoble motherhood, dignify manhood, and
purify every social condition. That Christianity has by no means yet done
for Western lands all that we expect it to do for China, we are perfectly
aware. Christianity has succeeded wherever it has been practiced. It is no
valid objection to it that it has been misunderstood, misrepresented and
ignored. Whatever defects are to be found in any Christian land, not the
most unintelligent or the most sceptical would be willing to be
transplanted into the non-Christian conditions out of which every
Christian land has been evolved. It must be remembered also that although
the lessons of Christianity are old, the pupils are ever new. Each
generation has to learn its lesson afresh. It has well been said that
heredity, so mighty a force for evil, has not yet been captured for
Christianity on any large scale, and its reserves turned to the
furtherance of Christian forces. When it has been so taken captive,
progress upward will be greatly accelerated.
How long it will take Christianity to renovate an empire like China, is a
question which may be answered in different ways, but only hypothetically.
First by historical analogies. It took eight centuries to develop the
Roman Empire. It has taken about as long to mold Saxon, Danish, and Norman
elements into the England of to-day. Each of these race-stocks were at the
start barbarous. The Chinese are an ancient and a highly civilized race, a
fact which may be in some respects a help in their Christianization, and
in others a hindrance. Taking into account the intensity of Chinese
prejudices, the strength of Chinese conservatism, the vast numbers
involved and their compact, patriarchal life, we should expect the first
steps to be very slow. Reckoning from the general opening of China in
1860, fifty years would suffice for a good beginning, three hundred for a
general diffusion of Christianity, and five hundred for its obvious
superseding of all rival faiths. Reasoning from history and psychology
this is perhaps a probable rate of progress, and its realization would be
a great result.
There is however a different sort of forecast which appeals to many minds
more powerfully. It must be remembered that spiritual development, like
that of races, is slow in its inception, but once begun it takes little
account of the rules of ratio and proportion. The intellectual, moral, and
spiritual forces of Christianity are now far greater than they have ever
been before. The world is visibly contracted. The life of the man of
to-day is that of "a condensed Methusaleh." The nineteenth century
outranks the previous millennium. Great material forces are but types and
handmaids of the great spiritual forces which may be reinforced and
multiplied--as they have been at certain periods of the past--to a degree
at the present little anticipated.
Putting aside all consideration of the time element, we consider it
certain that what Christianity has done for us it will do for the Chinese,
and under conditions far more favourable, by reason of the high
vitalization of the age in which we live, its unfettered communication,
and the rapid transfusion of intellectual and spiritual forces. The
forecast of results like these is no longer the iridescent dream which it
once appeared. It is sober history rationally interpreted. When
Christianity shall have had opportunity to work out its full effects, it
will be perceived to have been pervasive leaven in the individual heart,
in society, and in the world. Whether it is to take five centuries or
fifty to produce these results appears to be a matter of altogether minor
importance in view of certain success in the end.
There are in China many questions and many problems, but the one great
question, the sole all-comprehending problem is how to set Christianity at
work upon them, which alone in time can and will solve them all.
END
Index
Abacus, Chinese, 105.
Abdomen, the seat of intellect, 85.
Actors debarred from literary degrees, 54;
different grades, 57;
salaries, 58.
Adobe houses, construction, 23.
Adoption, conditions, 251, 252.
Aged, occasional hard lot of the, 326.
"Analects" quoted, 93.
Architecture of China described, 25.
Arnold of Rugby _vs._ Confucius, 72.
"Backing" the lesson, 81;
illustration, 81, 82.
Betrothal, evils of early, 267.
Bookkeeping, difficult in Chinese, 52.
"Book of Surnames," 84.
Books copied by poor scholars, 100.
Borrowing, its universal necessity, 204, 205.
"Bowl associations," 188.
Boys and men, village:
infancy of, 237, 238;
"milknames" given them, 238;
why called by girls' names, 238;
names a clue to relationship, 239;
"style," 239, 240;
secret titles used on letters, 240;
titles for men, 240;
boys carried about for years, 241;
Chinese fathers not sympathetic with childhood, 242, 243;
boys' amusements and toys, 242-245;
do not rob birds' nests, 244;
work of boys, 245-247;
their wages, 247;
outings, 247;
"donning the cap" on arriving at majority, 247, 248;
getting married, 248-250;
adoption of sons, 251, 252;
adopting a daughter's husband, 252;
"reverting to original names," 253, 254;
two branches of a family represented by one man, 254;
treatment in serious illness, 255, 256;
subordination of men to the elder relationships, 256;
summary of village boy's limitations, 256, 257.
Bricks, colour and manufacture of, 22;
adobe, 23.
Bridal chair, 269;
its dismantling, 271.
Bully, the village:
peculiar to China, 211;
Chinese traits favouring his existence, 211;
names, 211, 216;
differentiated from four cognate classes of society, 211, 212;
dual classification of villagers, 212;
three varieties of bully, 212-225;
dress of bullies, 213;
how one becomes a "village king," 214;
gymnastic preparation, 215;
poverty as a qualification, 216;
bullies as incendiaries, 217;
as crop injurers, 217, 218;
feeders to the yamAȘns, 218;
devices used against the rich, 218, 219;
the literary bully, 219;
the female bully, 219;
organization of a bully's followers, 220, 221;
attacks on yamAȘns, 222;
worsted, 223;
power when influential, 223;
an illustration of such a bully, 223-225.
Candidates for examination, 112.
Carts, 39;
how drawn, 39.
Cash, one way of securing rare coins, 52.
Cash payments rare, 206.
Cave dwellings, 22.
Chang Kung, 27.
ChAȘn-tien, or market towns, 147.
Christianity, what can it do for China? it can care for children
physically, 341, 342;
it creates sympathy between parents and children, 342;
it teaches child-training, 342;
it will revolutionise education, 342, 343;
will educate girls as well as boys, 343;
will foster girl friendships, 344;
will lead to Christian choice of partners in marriage, 344, 345;
will postpone marriage to a suitable age, 345;
will oppose polygamy and concubinage, 345;
will sweeten and purify home life, 345;
will be a true peacemaker, 346;
will make man and wife the unit of society, 346;
will change ideals of friendship, 347;
will implant Christian idea of brotherhood, 347;
will improve the government, 348;
will implant patriotism, 348, 349;
the time required for this process, 349, 351, 352;
this prophecy based on past accomplishment, 350;
Christianity's ultimate triumph, 352.
Chu Hsi's Commentary, 87.
Cities irregular in form and reason therefor, 20;
monotonous appearance, 25.
Civilization unable to vitally change China, 348.
"Classics," their excellencies, 95;
their defects, 95, 96.
Classification unheard of in Chinese schools, 90.
Colquhoun's volume and its importance, 16, note.
Concubinage, 297, 300-302.
Confucius and his son, 70, 71;
his theory of teaching, 71, 72;
honoured in schools, 76.
Constables, local, 228.
Conversation, topics of, 315.
Cotton-gathering and manufacture, 276.
Cotton-gleaning, 166, 167.
Courtyard, arrangement of buildings in a, 25;
animals in, 28.
Crop-watching societies, why necessary, 161-164;
description of watchers' lodges, 162;
fate of captured thieves, 163;
announcing the existence of a society, 164;
how expense is borne, 164;
agreement entered into, 165;
trial and punishment of thieves, 165, 166;
fines, 168;
effect on health, 168.
Daughters, infancy of, 237.
Dead, marrying to the, 298, 299.
Degrees, sale of, 121;
three methods of falsely securing, 122-126;
motives leading men to compete for degrees, 132, 133.
Democracy in China apparent, not real, 226.
Dictionary, standard Chinese, 97.
Digging through walls by thieves, 28.
Display, Chinese love of, 191.
"Distant reserve," a Chinese factor in education, 72, 73.
District officials' occasional objections to theatres, 59.
Divorce, seven grades of, 288.
Dogs destroyers of crops, 162.
Door-locking and thieves, 28.
Dunning must be repeated, 206, 207.
Educational Edicts of 1898, 134, 135;
results, 135.
Education, Chinese theories of, 71-73;
its object, 91, 106.
Education of girls unnecessary, 264.
Emigration made necessary in Yung Lo's time, 20.
Essay brokers, 124, 125.
Essay, its place in Chinese education, 110, 111.
Examinations announced, 111, 112;
_District Examinations_, first day, 112, 113;
second to fourth days, 113;
fees, 113, 114;
second examination on fifth or sixth day, 114;
third examination, 114;
fourth examination, 114;
fifth examination, 115;
number of successful candidates small, 115;
_Prefectural Examinations_, their character, 116;
number of candidates, 116;
severity of hall regulations, 117, 118;
fees of successful candidates, 119;
"joyful announcements," 119, 120;
honours paid successful candidates, 120;
diplomas lacking, 120, 121;
literary buttons and their forfeiture, 121;
result of negligence of examiners, 127, 128;
examinations required after first degree is obtained, 129.
Fairs, shopkeepers preparing for, 50;
gambling at temple fairs, 144;
differentiated from markets, 149;
numbers attending, 149;
duration, 150;
essentials to their success, 150;
opened by a play, 150.
"Falconing" with a woman, 296.
Family disunity:
why marriage is an element in this, 324-326;
disunity due to daughters, 326;
due to married sons living at home, 326, 327;
due to distribution of property, 327-329;
due to "empty grain-tax land," 329, 330;
due to poisoning propensities, 330, 331;
due to lack of mutual confidence, 332;
due to lack of sympathy and pity, 333;
due to "face," 335, 336;
due to transmigration ideas, 336;
due to domestic brawls, 337;
partial remedy for this disunity, 338.
Family, unstable equilibrium of the Chinese:
unit of social life, 317;
equilibrium affected by famine, 317;
by inundation, 317, 318;
by rebellions, 318;
by the labour market, 318;
by lawsuits, 319;
by debts, 320;
by sickness, 320, 321;
by gambling and opium among the wealthy, 321;
by social immorality, 322.
Farmers in China comparatively independent, 146.
Farms in various plots, 163.
"Feast" in its technical sense, 183.
Ferries, why essential in the North, 39;
loading animals and carts on the boats, 40, 41;
unloading, 41;
why ferry reforms are deemed impossible, 42.
Ferule and its uses, 78, 89.
Financiering, seven deadly sins of Chinese, 204-208.
"Five Classics," 85.
Five degrees of relationship, 193.
Foot-binding, 261.
Foreigners attacked in theatres, 65, 66.
"Four Books," 85.
Freedom of assembling, 228.
Funerals:
of suicides, 186;
why pillaging occurs at rich men's funerals, 186;
fate of unpopular survivors, 187;
announcing funeral expense deficits, 187, 188;
coA¶perative bearers, 188;
catafalque ownership, 188;
funeral aid societies, 189, 190;
two factors determining elaborateness of, 192;
rites of the "seven sevens," 192;
shabby paraphernalia, 193;
mourning costume, 193;
blocking the procession, 194;
funeral director's duties, 194;
at the grave, 195.
Gathering fuel and manure, 246, 247.
Girls and women in China:
girls' inferiority to boys, 258;
unwelcome at birth, 258;
reasons for female infanticide, 258, 259;
sale of daughters, 259, 260;
"rearing marriage," 260;
foot-binding, 261;
girls' employments, 261;
confined at home, 262;
married daughter's return home and its consequences, 263, 264;
daughters rarely taught to read, 264;
anxiety about girl's betrothal, 265;
restrictions after betrothal, 265, 266;
evils of early engagements, 267;
engagement cards, 268;
arrival of bridal chair, 268, 269;
"lucky days" sometimes unlucky, 269;
delivery of bride essential feature of wedding, 269;
dowry, 270, 271;
birth of first baby, 272;
children must be born at their father's house, 272, 273;
faulty care of infants and children, 274, 275;
mortality of infants, 274, 275;
early senility of women, 275;
incessant labours of women, 275, 276;
daughter- and mother-in-law, 276, 277;
abuse of daughters-in-law and consequent retaliation, 277-279;
lawsuits in such cases are rare, 279, 280;
result of bride's suicide, 281;
a typical case, 282-286;
number of women suicides, 286;
suicide a virtue, extract from the _Shih Pao_, 287, 288;
grounds of divorce, 288, 290;
why women must be married, 289;
prudishness in speaking about marriage, 290, 291;
sons should be married before parents' death, 291, 292;
marriage to epileptics, idiots, etc., 292;
kidnapping of wives, 292-295;
wives sold by husbands, 295, 296;
"cheaper than an animal," 297;
concubines, 297, 300-302;
marrying the dead, 298, 299;
men and women do not eat together, 302;
husband and wife do not converse, 303;
wife's twofold defence, 303, 304;
hen-pecked husbands, 304, 305;
classical teaching concerning women, 305, 306;
Confucianism's seven sins against woman: lack of education, 306, 307;
sale of wives and daughters, 307, 308;
early and too universal marriage, 308;
female infanticide, 308, 309;
secondary wives, 309;
suicide of wives and daughters, 309;
overpopulation, 309, 310.
God of Literature, 140.
God of War, 137.
Government high schools or colleges, 131.
Government, weaknesses of Chinese, 220;
its strength, 221.
Grapevines unlucky in yards, 24.
Greek drama in some respects like the Chinese, 56.
Hare hunting in Denmark, 175.
"Harrying to death," 185.
Headmen, village: names, 227;
qualifications, 227;
duties and functions, 227-229;
"ins" and "outs," 229, 230;
why incompetents are not removed, 230;
result of complaints illustrated, 230-232;
facility with which troubles arise in village life, 233, 234.
High schools, how different from common schools, 110;
Government high schools, 131.
History, Chinese, 99.
History taught through plays, 66.
Hospitable man described, 180.
Houses of stone, 22;
of bricks, 22;
of adobe, 23;
their roof, 23;
rooms, 25;
doors, 26;
windows, 26;
k'angs, 26, 27;
floors, 28;
furnishings, 28.
Hsien District, conditions in, 317, 318, note.
Hsiu-ts'ai obliged to attend examinations after graduation, 129.
Ice-sleds, 245.
Illness announced and the results, 255.
Imperial University in Peking, 135.
Incendiary fires, 217.
Infanticide of girls, 258, 259;
opposition to, 259.
Infant mortality, 274.
Intellectuality without stimulus except in school, 91;
intellectual obtuseness, 101.
Interest per month, 152, 210.
K'ang, construction and use of, 26, 27.
Kidnapping wives, 292-295.
Kinship claimed for inheritance, 253.
Kitchen god, 27;
at New Year, 199.
Kung-shAȘng's rank, 129, 130.
Lending a necessity, 205, 206.
Letters, ambiguity of address, 240.
Letter-writing, 101, 102.
Life in villages, monotony and vacuity of: villages a fixture, 312;
their intellectual life in grooves, 313;
illiteracy a source of vacuity, 315;
topics of conversation, 315;
indifference to happenings outside the village, 315, 316;
travelled villagers speedily stagnate, 316.
Li Hung Chang honouring snakes, 169.
Literary chancellor's duties, 111.
Live-stock fairs, 148.
Loan Societies, object, 152;
simplest form, 152, 153;
feasts, 153;
societies charging interest, 154;
method of securing loans, 154, 155;
tables illustrating their working, 155, 156;
insuring payment, 157;
risks involved, 157, 158;
Hong Kong lawsuit _re_ such societies, 158-160.
Local deity, T'u-ti, 137, 138.
Lord Clive a Chinese bully in boyhood, 218.
"Lord-of-bitterness," _i. e._, elder brother, 283.
Markets, why necessary, 146;
harmful to morals, 147;
"official" markets, 147;
number attending, 147;
use made of market taxes, 148;
market-day nomenclature, 148, 149;
"market" and "fair" differentiated, 149;
taxes levied, 149, 150;
coA¶peration most helpful in one respect, 151.
Mencius' view of teachers, 70.
Men (See Boys and men).
Mill, James, and his method of teaching, 72.
Mind, characteristics of the Chinese, 102;
like a high bicycle, 103.
Ming Huang, the god of actors, 54.
Mohammedans exempt from temple assessment, 137.
Mothers-in-law, 276, 277.
Names of villages derived from surnames, 30;
from temples, 30;
confusion in names, 31, 32;
names derived from distances, 31;
villages nicknamed, 33;
singular names, 33, 34.
Naming children, 238;
a clue to relationship, 239.
New Year in China:
dumplings, 196, 197;
family reunions, 197, 198;
new clothes essential to, 198, 199;
New Year religious rites, 199, 200;
its social ceremonies, 200, 201;
universal leisure of the time, 201, 202;
gambling, 202, 203;
debt-paying, 203, 204;
lantern search for debtors, 208.
New Year Societies:
fees, 209;
use of funds, 209;
consequences if not paid, 210;
gamblers' use of its funds, 210.
"Odes, Book of," quoted, 237.
Parents, care of in Chinese theory, 328, 329.
Partial payments in China, 207, 208.
_Peking Gazette_, 99.
Pig-styes, 28, 29.
Pits near villages, 24.
Poisoning in China, 330, 331.
Population of China:
ignorance of the Chinese people concerning it, 17;
official ignorance on the subject, 17;
attempts of foreigners to ascertain density in certain districts,
18, 19;
too great, 308, 309.
Poverty characteristic of China, 310, 311;
its alleviation, 311.
Property, distribution of, 327-329.
Proverbs:
concerning teachers, 73, 74;
school discipline in last month, 76;
necessity of continuous study, 91;
reading required, if one would know history, 99;
funeral feasts, 192;
girls _vs._ boys, 258;
obstreperous women, 305;
daughters useless to mother's family, 326.
Punctuality a lost art in China, 151.
Rain-making:
gods connected therewith, 169, 170;
iron tablets used, 170;
why these methods seem efficacious, 171;
detrimental influences, 171;
punishment of unsuccessful rain-gods, 172.
Reforms in China, how to be secured, 43;
difficult in educational matters, 107.
Relationships, assumed, 240.
Religious societies, four characteristics of, 141;
two varieties of "Mountain Societies," 142, 143;
program on reaching the mountain, 144, 145;
the secret sects, 145.
Roads in villages used as shops, 35;
"low-ways," 35;
why crooked, 35;
flanked by ditches, 36;
in rainy season often rivers, 36;
method of making new ones, 37;
road-building and la grippe, 38.
Scholars "not utensils," 93;
economically they are useless, 94;
an exception, 94;
begging of foreigners, 94, 95;
without adequate literary apparatus, 96, 97;
their ignorance of history, 98, 100;
of geography, 101;
their conservatism, 103;
lack of literary judgment, 104;
ignorance of arithmetic, 105;
strolling scholars, 107-109;
functions at funerals, 133;
in lawsuits, 133;
subjectivity of, 313;
gullibility, 314;
riots due to their credulity, 314, 315.
Schoolboy beginning his studies, 80;
honoured in the family, 91, 92;
a spoiled child, 92;
effects of study, 92, 93.
Schoolhouses, 75;
their furniture, 75, 76.
Schools in villages, why important, 70;
prevalence of schools, 73;
abundance of teachers, 73;
salaries, 74;
school lists, 74;
arrangements concerning tuition, 75;
schoolhouses, 75;
furniture, 75, 76;
duration of school year, 76;
vacations, 76, 90;
honour shown to Confucius, 76;
school hours and intermissions, 77;
heating schoolrooms, 77;
returning from school, 77;
severity of discipline, 79, 80;
shouting in study, 80;
"backing," 81, 82;
books studied, 82-85;
"explaining," 85, 86;
writing exercises, 87;
studies interrupted by teacher's guests and his examinations, 88, 89;
playing in the school, 89;
irregular attendance of pupils, 89, 90;
lack of classification, 90;
no genuine intellectual work done, 90;
two valuable lessons learned at school, 93;
do not teach arithmetic, 104, 105;
their strength and weakness, 106, 107.
Screens before gates, their use, 21.
Secret sects, 145.
Seers or "bright-eyes," 283, 284.
Shan-tung productions, 161, 162.
Shops in villages, goods sold, 49, 50;
headquarters from which to radiate to fairs, 50;
hard lot of clerks, 51, 52;
case of meat seller, 51, 52;
cheating methods, 53.
Sorghum, 161;
stripping off lower leaves, 166.
Strolling scholars, 107, 109.
"Style" of individuals, 239, 240.
Suicide, punishment for inciting to, 322, 323.
Superintendent of Instruction, 130, 131.
"Surety" for literary candidates, 115, 116.
"Surnames, Book of," 84.
Surnames, the four common ones, 31.
T'ai Shan's historical importance, 141;
its pilgrimages, 141, 142;
"Mountain Societies," 142.
Taxes on "empty grain-tax land," 329
Teacher's hard lot as pictured in a play, 67, 68;
in proverbs, 73;
in experience, 74;
do not teach in their own towns, 74, 75;
their manner of life, 75;
honourable position, 76, 78;
unlimited power, 78;
relation to pupils, 78;
substitute teachers, 89;
Western criticism of, 102.
Temples to be used as schoolhouses, 135;
how village temples came to be built, 136;
reasons for their absence in some villages, 137;
two gods most commonly honoured with temples, 137, 138;
uses made of building fund surplus, 138;
resorts of thieves and beggars, 139;
temple expenses, 139;
as receptacles of coffins and funeral paraphernalia, 139;
different deities in same temple, 140;
temple tax at fairs, 149;
lawsuits over, 232.
Theatre, its origin in China, 54;
little understood by foreigners, 55;
the stage and its equipment, 55, 56;
the theatre an investment, 56, 57;
costumes, 57;
classes of players, 58;
amateurs, 58;
child apprentices, 58, 59;
plays a public benefit, 60, 65;
occasions for giving a play, 60, 61;
cost of presenting it, 61;
the "program bearer," 62;
transporting stage properties, 62;
preparations for a theatre, 62;
used as a device for attracting customers for fairs, 62;
impression made by a play, 63;
plays as a social factor, 63, 64;
a drain upon hosts, 64;
subjects of plays, 66;
synopsis of one, 66-68;
the theatre an index of the Chinese theory of life, 68, 69.
Thieves' action at theatres, 65;
use temples as resorts, 139.
"Thousand Character Classic," 84.
Title deeds often lost, 27.
Torture as a means of raising temple funds, 136.
"Trimetrical Classic" quoted, 78;
origin, 82;
epitomised, 82-84;
its allusions often not understood, 100.
Village hunt, why possible in populous China, 174;
the bald annunciator of the hare-hunt, 175, 176;
the hunt described, 176;
resulting quarrels, 176-178.
Villages, number of in India, 15;
the residence of most Chinese, 15;
irregularly laid out, 21;
how first settled, 21;
streets and alleys, 21;
overcrowding, 21;
village walls and their use, 29;
nearness of one to another, 146, 147;
each village a principality, 226.
"Vinegar sipping," 300.
Wages of farm labourers, 247;
of boys, 247.
Washington and the cherry tree in Chinese, 333-335.
Weddings:
a "joyful event," 179;
wedding contributions, 179;
bride's arrival the essence of the wedding, 180;
exposition of the "share" principle, 180;
account-keeping at weddings, 181;
duties of the wedding committee, 182;
city and village caterers, 182, 183;
three "wedding committees," 183;
"borrowing" provisions, 184;
opium smoking stewards, 184;
poor relatives at weddings, 185;
"drawing friends," 191;
pranks at, 251.
Week, unique survival of the, 192.
Wells, manner of digging, 44, 45;
driven wells, 45;
occasions of feuds, 45;
unpopular people forbidden to use, 45;
Western ideas needed for Chinese well-diggers, 46;
how a force pump was refused by a village, 46-48.
Western Learning Edict, 134, 135.
Wife of Tao-t'ai envying a dog, 262, note.
Woman (See Girls and women).
Women have no name, 241;
terms used, 241.
Writing Chinese very difficult, 87, 88.
Yellow River, "China's Sorrow," 172, 173.
Footnotes:
[1] A consideration of the important crisis through which the Chinese
Empire is passing at the close of the century, does not fall within the
scope of a work like the present. All who are interested in that subject
should not omit to read attentively Mr. Colquhoun's "China in
Transformation," London and New York, 1898, embodying the matured
convictions of an accomplished traveller, and an experienced Oriental
administrator, with an exceptional first-hand acquaintance with China.
[2] A Chinese woman for many years employed in the writer's family,
remarked that for a long time after she was married she was never allowed
to leave the narrow courtyard in her hamlet. The wife of a Tao-t'ai told a
foreign lady that in her next existence she hoped to be born _a dog_, that
she might go where she chose!
[3] We have known occasional instances in which a betrothed girl was not
required to attend the funeral of her future father-in-law or
mother-in-law, a trying ordeal which she must be glad to escape. Sometimes
when she does attend, she merely kneels to the coffin, but does not
"lament," for usage is in this, as in other particulars, very capricious.
[4] A Chinese woman whose parents are living, is constantly referred to
not only as a "girl," but as an unmarried girl (_ku-niang_), although she
may be herself the mother of half-a-dozen children.
[5] See a small pamphlet on "The Status of Woman in China," by Dr. Ernst
Faber, Shanghai, 1889, containing many illustrative classical citations.
[6] For ample illustration of this subject see Dr. Ernst Faber's "The
Famous Women of China," Shanghai, 1890, and "Typical Women of China," by
the late Miss A. C. Safford, an abridged translation of a famous and
authoritative Chinese work.
[7] An extreme case of chronic misery from this cause is found in the
HsiAȘn District of Chih-li, where there is a section wedged in between the
high artificial banks of two rivers. Every year many villages are deluged
as matter of course, and the houses have been repeatedly destroyed. No
autumn crop can ever be raised here, but wheat is put in after the waters
have subsided. In the winter one sees many of the houses with doors and
windows plastered up, almost all the inhabitants having gone off in droves
to beg a living where they can, returning the next spring to look after
their wheat. This has become a regular practice even with families who own
fifty or sixty acres of land, and who elsewhere would be called well off.
[8] A case of this sort came to the writer's notice in which a man from
Ho-nan had gathered a stock of goods amounting to more than the value of
fifty Mexican dollars, and departed for Manchuria, nearly 1,500 miles
distant, in order to learn what had become of his sister's son who had
left home in anger. The goods were disposed of to pay travelling expenses,
but the journey of a few months as planned, was lengthened to more than a
year. The poor man fell sick, his goods were spent, and he was many months
slowly begging his way back, and after all had learned nothing of his
nephew.
Selections from Fleming H. Revell Company's Missionary Lists
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Chinese Characteristics.
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Glances at China.
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Pictures of Southern China.
By Rev. JAMES MACGOWAN. With 80 Illustrations. 8vo, cloth, $4.20.
A Winter in North China.
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John Livingston Nevius,
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Ph.D., of the Lutheran Mission, Saga. Illustrated. 12mo, cloth
decorated, $1.25.
This book does not pretend to be an exhaustive treatise of an
exhaustless topic; it does pretend to cover the subject; and
whosoever is eager to know the "gist" of those matters Japanese in
which Westerners are most interested--the land, the people, the
coming of Christianity, the difficulties and prospects of her
missions, the condition of the native Church--will find it set down
in Dr. Peery's book in a very interesting, reliable, instructive, and
condensed form.
The Ainu of Japan.
The Religion, Superstitions, and General History of the Hairy
Aborigines of Japan. By Rev. JOHN BATCHELOR. With 80 Illustrations.
12 mo, cloth, $1.50.
"Mr. Batchelor's book, besides its eighty trustworthy illustrations,
its careful editing, and its excellent index, is replete with
information of all sorts about the Ainu men, women, and children.
Almost every phase of their physical and metaphysical life has been
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The Diary of a Japanese Convert.
By KANZO UCHIMURA. 12mo, cloth, $1.00.
"This book is far more than the name indicates. It is the only book
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The Story of the Missionary Work of Wm. A. B. Johnson. By Rev. ARTHUR
T. PIERSON, D.D. 16mo, cloth, $1.00.
Johnson was a missionary of the Church Missionary Society in Regent's
Town, Sierra Leone, Africa, from 1816 to 1823.
Among the Matabele.
By Rev. D. CARNEGIE, for ten years resident at Hope Fountain, twelve
miles from Bulawayo. With portraits, maps and other illustrations.
_Second edition._ 12mo, cloth, 60c.
Peril and Adventure in Central Africa.
Illustrated Letter to the Youngsters at Home. By BISHOP HAMMINGTON.
Illustrated, 12mo, cloth, 50c.
Madagascar of To-Day.
A Sketch of the Island. With Chapters on its History and Prospects.
By Rev. W. E. COUSINS, Missionary of the London Missionary Society
since 1862. Map and Illustrations. 12mo, cloth, $1.00.
Madagascar.
Its Missionaries and Martyrs. By Rev. W. J. TOWNSEND, D.D. Missionary
Biography Series. Illustrated. _Tenth thousand._ 12mo, cloth, 75c.
Madagascar.
By BELLE MCPHERSON CAMPBELL. Missionary Annals Series. 12mo, paper,
net, 15c.; flexible cloth, net, 30c.
Madagascar.
Country, People, Missions. By Rev. JAMES SPREE, F.R.G.S. Outline
Missionary Series. 16mo, paper, 20c.
_MISSIONS, AMERICA._
On the Indian Trail,
And Other Stories of Missionary Work among the Cree and Saulteaux
Indians. By EGERTON R. YOUNG. Illustrated by J. E. LAUGHLIN. 12mo,
cloth, $1.00.
Mr. Young is well known to readers of all ages as the author of "By
Canoe and Dog Train," "Three Boys in the Wild North Land," and other
very popular books describing life and adventure in the great
Northwest. The stories in this new book tell of some very exciting
incidents in his career, and describe phases of life among the
American Indians which are fast becoming things of the past.
Forty-two Years Among the Indians and Eskimos.
Pictures from the Life of the Rt. Rev. John Harden, first Bishop of
Moosonee. By BEATRICE BATTY. Illustrated. 12mo, cloth, $1.00.
Vikings of To-Day;
Or, Life and Medical Work among the Fishermen of Labrador. By WILFRED
T. GRENFEL, M.D., of the Deep Sea Mission. Illustrated from Original
Photographs. _Second edition._ 12mo. cloth $1.25.
"The author has been in charge of the work since its inception, and
writes, accordingly, with special authority and wealth of detail,
both as to the methods of work and as to the people--the fearless,
patient Vikings--to whom he has dedicated his life."--_The Examiner._
Amid Greenland Snows;
Or, The Early History of Arctic Missions. By JESSE PAGE. Missionary
Biography Series. Illustrated. _Tenth thousand._ 12mo, cloth, 75c.
Kin-da-Shon's Wife.
An Alaskan Story. By Mrs. EUGENE S. WILLARD. Illustrated. _Third
edition._ 8vo, cloth, $1.50.
"From beginning to end the book holds the attention. Mrs. Willard has
shown herself peculiarly well qualified to write such a
book."--_Public Opinion._
David Brainerd,
The Apostle to the North American Indians. By JESSE PAGE. Missionary
Biography Series. Illustrated. _Twelfth thousand._ 12mo, cloth, 75c.
South America, the Neglected Continent.
By LUCY E. GUINNESS and E. C. MILLARD. With a Map in colors and many
other illustrations. Small 4to, paper, 50c.; cloth, 75c.
Transcriber's Notes:
Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.
The following misprints have been corrected:
"familar" corrected to "familiar" (page 105)
"meeeting" corrected to "meeting" (page 164)
"literary" corrected to "literally" (page 212)
"are are" corrected to "are" (page 278)
"XXVI" corrected to "XXV" (page 317)
"guage" corrected to "gauge" (page 323)
"inadequte" corrected to "inadequate" (page 341)
Other than the corrections listed above, inconsistencies in spelling and
hyphenation have been retained from the original.
End of Project Gutenberg's Village Life in China, by Arthur H. Smith