Inside Canton/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII.
EDUCATION AND LITERATURE IN CANTON.
Canton is not only a great focus of commerce, and a city of pleasure and luxury; it is also a literary and cultivated city. Hither come, every three years, the siou-tsaï of the viceroyalty of Kuang-ton and Kuang-si, to undergo, before a member of the College of the Han-Lin, delegated by the Emperor, an examination by which they may earn the degree of kiu-jèn.
There is not a country in the world where there are such facilities of education for children of all ranks as China. In this empire, not a village, not a hamlet, however small, but has its day-school and evening-school. In the rural districts, the heads of the nearest houses join together to appoint a school-master, whom they instal in the most centrally-situated house of their quarter. All the schools are supported at the cost of the parents; the Government is innocent of any "organisation of instruction;" its interference comes somewhat later, and aims to test and verify, in some sort, the outcome of the instruction received.
A Chinese proverb says, that there are more doctors than sick people, and more masters than scholars. This very exaggerated proposition has yet a degree of plausibility and truth in it. In China, literary degrees open the door to honours and to wealth. No success in life is possible, if the aspirant have not passed the ordeal of the public examinations. The merited privileges which here attend upon learning have the effect of enticing into a literary career great numbers of persons, for whom it is an unhappy one: there is not a family which does not make great sacrifices in order to count a graduate among its members. But in China, as elsewhere, there are "many called and few chosen!" The unlucky candidates are very numerous, and different orders of minds are compelled to seek, in different professions, the means of utilising the knowledge they have acquired. It is not only France which is encumbered with educated young men in search of a vocation. Teaching and medicine are the two pursuits most commonly resorted to by these university men. It sometimes happens, even, that the poor unsuccessful ones devote themselves to school-keeping when young, picking up as they can stray recipes for curing all diseases; and then when their hair begins to turn gray, they suddenly appear in the character of physicians!
I shall not enter upon a discussion relative to the difficulties which the Chinese method of writing presents. We have in France plenty of learned men well able to deal with that subject, and I shall not place my ignorance in competition with their knowledge. But certain assertions, with regard to the method of teaching adopted in China, are repeated with such obstinacy by incompetent persons, that it is not useless to correct them when opportunity offers. The Jesuit fathers have very well observed, that, in spite of the difficulty which exists in the study of Chinese, everybody knows how to read in the Celestial Empire, because the schoolmaster takes pains to teach every one what is necessary according to his condition. The fact is analogous to what takes place in France, and in all civilised countries, where the elementary teacher gives the young of the masses sufficient education for the management of their business, and the ordinary affairs of life, but not sufficient to make it easy for them to digress into scientific treatises or transcendental metaphysics. Well, some very dull persons have chosen to confound condition in life with profession or trade, and pretended that every one receives an education specially bearing upon the technical words of his business! It was with amazement that I read in a recently published work the following passage:—
"I remember well my astonishment, when, the first time I walked through the streets of Canton with my servant, I discovered that he could only read the notifications of the shoemakers, because he had only learned the trade of a shoemaker!" Many humorous individuals are always repeating ridiculous stories about China and the Chinese; but that pastime should, I fancy, be forbidden to serious travelers. It is extremely well observed by Sir John Davis, that "all the assertions put forth concerning the difficulties of the Chinese characters, from their number and variety, are the exaggerations of ignorance."
Writing being, in the eyes of a Chinaman, the highest expression of civilisation, it is the object of a sort of worship. Often masons, journeymen, demolishing a house, will pause over some portion of the wall covered with hieroglyphic characters, and go through certain religious ceremonies, before they obliterate them. In all respectable houses there is a little white portable stove, of an octagonal shape, on which is inscribed, in red letters, "Have pity on the written paper!" When a child or a servant finds a stray leaf or a torn book, it is brought to be burned with pious care upon this altar consecrated to the Ingenious Art. There may be something puerile in this superstition, to our judgments, but it is based upon creditable feelings; it is the simple expression of the admiration of the Chinese for literary superiority.
Here the "album," that refuge of small celebrities, is not known, but the fan supplies its place. It is customary, in social intercourse with respectable people, to offer them a paper fan, whose folds are covered with sentences or verses. In this case the present itself must be of extreme simplicity, to make it evident that the value consists entirely in the literary productions confided to its keeping. After the dinner which Huan-gan-Toun gave to M. de Ferrières, in the pagoda of the Nenufar at Macao, he presented to me the fan he had been using, which contained in its folds the counsels of a learned sage to a young man desirous of visiting China. On these frail and foliated sheets are inscribed the letter of an academician to his colleague, or the strophes, sonnets, and madrigals exchanged by two rival poets. M. de Ferrières has reproduced in his book the verses sent to him by Huan-gan-Toun, and I finally insert in this place those which the ugliest of the Han-lin, the descendant of Confucius, Chao-Chan-Lin, presented to our friend Callery. These verses are, at present, quite unedited; but they form a portion of the book which my friend proposes to publish shortly, and he has been so good, with that disinterestedness which characterises him, as to allow me to print them beforehand. These, then, are—
THE VERSES OF CHAO-CHAN-LIN.
"Macao, grouped like a flower not yet developed, resembles a pedicle tipped with a young bud."Its storeyed houses are like the stairs which lead up to the heavenly abodes.
"In this city there is a stranger come from the far, far West.
"His heart loveth China, and his spirit delighteth in the studies of our land.
"Having had the honour of following those to whom was intrusted the administration of affairs, I have made the acquaintance of the man of letters from the West.
"I have taken him by the hand in friendship, and I have laughed with him.
"We have met in cheerful converse over the greenstone goblets and dishes ornamented with pearls. Lo, what a wonder is this! After more than a thousand years, China and the world without have made a compact of friendship which is mutual.
"The stranger of whom I sing embraces within the compass of his mind the most opposite sciences: he sounds their depths.
"Moreover, while his spirit is gifted with lofty wisdom, his outer form discovers his genius.
"His aspect recalls the beauty of the tiger and the majesty of the dragon.
"His writings have been long known and esteemed in Europe.
"Interrogate him at your will: he will tell you the theory of celestial and terrestrial motions; he will go to the root and fountain of all things, and will advance nothing without proofs.
"He is able admirably to penetrate the true meaning of our sacred books.
"When he enumerates the deeds of ancient times, it is as if necklaces of pearl fell from his mouth, and the pearls were scattered.
"He explains, O most wonderful thing! all the characters in our dictionaries.
"He handles the pencil like a son of the Flowery Land, and his doctrines do not differ from ours.
"Speak not of pieces of silk mutually offered! my greatest pleasure is to take the goblet of glass and give him to drink!
"These imperfect Verses are offered by Chao-Chan-Lin to M. Callery, in order that he may correct them."
Alas! "these imperfect verses," as the poetical mandarin calls them, resemble all the verses hatched for ages in the Flowery Land—those of the master as well as those of the pupil: they all reproduce, without intermission, the same images and the same thoughts. Poets and prose-writers in China have only one idea—that of servilely copying the models which their classic orthodoxy holds out for their imitation as perfect. In their judgment, originality would be a fault. This literary system, weighing continually upon all education, has produced the most deplorable results. Under the guidance of the sien-seng minds lose their individuality; they become materialised, and resemble machines which always execute the same round of motions, and throw off uniformly the same results. Let us learn from this that the exaggeration of even the best of human feelings has its dangers; too much respect for ancient forms begets monotony; literary conservatism may be carried to excess.
I have endeavoured, in this brief sketch, to give the reader an idea of the capital of the two Kuangs, and to familiarise him with Canton in its different phases. This is a work not yet attempted in our country. I hope I have been successful, so far as the difficulties of the task permitted. I have not said anything in this attempt of the country houses of the mandarins, of Chinese festivals, of their restaurants, of their pagodas, or of their theatres; but the omissions are intentional. For the last thirty years, every traveller who has been to China has stopped short at Canton; and knowing, myself, of a score of descriptions more or less exact of the same localities, the same structures, the same entertainments, I have not had the courage to execute fresh variations upon such exhausted themes. Canton is, after all, only one corner of China, and if this narrative should be favourably received by the public, I will supply my apparent oversight, by describing, hereafter, some quarters less known than the famous City, and for that very reason more interesting.
HENRY VIZETELLY, PRINTER AND ENGRAVER,
GOUGH SQUARE, FLEET STREET.