MR. MAYOR: I suppose we are all of one opinion on this remarkable
occasion of meeting the embassy sent from the oldest Empire in the world
to the youngest Republic. All share the surprise and pleasure when
the venerable Oriental dynasty—hitherto a romantic legend to most of
us—suddenly steps into the fellowship of nations. This auspicious event,
considered in connection with the late innovations in Japan, marks a new
era, and is an irresistible result of the science which has given us the
power of steam and the electric telegraph. It is the more welcome for the
surprise. We had said of China, as the old prophet said of Egypt, “Her
strength is to sit still.” Her people had such elemental conservatism
that by some wonderful force of race and national manners, the wars and
revolutions that occur in her annals have proved but momentary swells
or surges on the pacific ocean of her history, leaving no trace. But in
its immovability this race has claims. China is old, not in time only,
but in wisdom, which is gray hair to a nation,—or, rather, truly seen,
is eternal youth. As we know, China had the magnet centuries before
Europe; and block-printing or stereotype, and lithography, and gunpowder,
and vaccination, and canals; had anticipated Linnæus’s nomenclature
of plants; had codes, journals, clubs, hackney coaches, and, thirty
centuries before New York, had the custom of New Year’s calls of comity
and reconciliation. I need not mention its useful arts,—its pottery
indispensable to the world, the luxury of silks, and its tea, the cordial
of nations. But I must remember that she has respectable remains of
astronomic science, and historic records of forgotten time, that have
supplied important gaps in the ancient history of the western nations.
Then she has philosophers who cannot be spared. Confucius has not yet
gathered all his fame. When Socrates heard that the oracle declared that
he was the wisest of men, he said, it must mean that other men held that
they were wise, but that he knew that he knew nothing. Confucius had
already affirmed this of himself: and what we call the GOLDEN RULE OF
JESUS, Confucius had uttered in the same terms five hundred years before.
His morals, though addressed to a state of society unlike ours, we read
with profit to-day. His rare perception appears in his GOLDEN MEAN, his
doctrine of Reciprocity, his unerring insight,—putting always the blame
of our misfortunes on ourselves; as when to the governor who complained
of thieves, he said, “If you, sir, were not covetous, though you should
reward them for it, they would not steal.” His ideal of greatness
predicts Marcus Antoninus. At the same time, he abstained from paradox,
and met the ingrained prudence of his nation by saying always, “Bend one
cubit to straighten eight.”
China interests us at this moment in a point of politics. I am sure that
gentlemen around me bear in mind the bill which the Hon. Mr. Jenckes of
Rhode Island has twice attempted to carry through Congress, requiring
that candidates for public offices shall first pass examinations on their
literary qualifications for the same. Well, China has preceded us, as
well as England and France, in this essential correction of a reckless
usage; and the like high esteem of education appears in China in social
life, to whose distinctions it is made an indispensable passport.
It is gratifying to know that the advantages of the new intercourse
between the two countries are daily manifest on the Pacific coast. The
immigrants from Asia come in crowds. Their power of continuous labor,
their versatility in adapting themselves to new conditions, their stoical
economy, are unlooked-for virtues. They send back to their friends, in
China, money, new products of art, new tools, machinery, new foods, etc.,
and are thus establishing a commerce without limit. I cannot help adding,
after what I have heard to-night, that I have read in the journals a
statement from an English source, that Sir Frederic Bruce attributed to
Mr. Burlingame the merit of the happy reform in the relations of foreign
governments to China. I am quite sure that I heard from Mr. Burlingame
in New York, in his last visit to America, that the whole merit of it
belonged to Sir Frederic Bruce. It appears that the ambassadors were
emulous in their magnanimity. It is certainly the best guaranty for the
interests of China and of humanity.