giving a rough outline of the object and scope of the faith, was set
up at Chʽang-an (the modern Si-gan Fu), disappearing soon afterwards
in the political troubles which laid the city in ruins, to be
brought to light again in 1625 by Father Semedo, S. J. The genuineness
of this tablet was for many years in dispute, Voltaire, Renan,
and others of lesser fame regarding it as a pious Jesuit fraud; but
all doubts on the subject have now been dispelled by the exhaustive
monograph of Père Havret, S. J., entitled La Stèle de Si-ngan. The
date of the tablet seems to mark the zenith of Nestorian Christianity
in China; after this date it began to decay. Marco Polo refers
to it as existing in the 13th century; but then it fades out of
sight, leaving scant traces in Chinese literature of ever having
existed.
The Manichaeans, worshippers of the Chaldaean Mani or Manēs, who died about A.D. 274, appear to have found their way to China in the year 694. In 719 an envoy from Tokharestan reached Chʽang-an, bringing a letter to the emperor, in which a request was made that an astronomer who accompanied the mission might be permitted to establish places of Manichaeism. worship for persons of the Manichaean faith. Subsequently, a number of such chapels were opened at various centres; but little is known of the history of this religion, which is often confounded by Chinese writers with Mazdeism, the fate of which it seems to have shared, also disappearing about the middle of the 9th century.
By “the sect of those who take out the sinew,” the Chinese refer to the Jews and their peculiar method of preparing meat in order to make it kosher. Wild stories have been told of their arrival in China seven centuries before the Christian era, after one of the numerous upheavals mentioned in the Old Testament; and again, of their having carried the Pentateuch to China Judaism. shortly after the Babylonish captivity, and having founded a colony in Ho-nan in A.D. 72. The Jews really reached China for the first time in the year A.D. 1163, and were permitted to open a synagogue at the modern Kʽai-fêng Fu in 1164. There they seem to have lived peaceably, enjoying the protection of the authorities and making some slight efforts to spread their tenets. There their descendants were found, a dwindling community, by the Jesuit Fathers of the 17th century; and there again they were visited in 1850 by a Protestant mission, which succeeded in obtaining from them Hebrew rolls of parts of the Pentateuch in the square character, with vowel points. After this, it was generally believed that the few remaining stragglers, who seemed to be entirely ignorant of everything connected with their faith, had become merged in the ordinary population. A recent traveller, however, asserts that in 1909 he found at Kʽai-fêng Fu a Jewish community, the members of which keep as much as possible to themselves, worshipping in secret, and preserving their ancient ritual and formulary.
See H. Hackmann, Buddhism as a Religion (1910); H. A. Giles, Religions of Ancient China (1905); G. Smith, The Jews at Kʽae-fung-foo (1851); Dabry de Thiersant, Le Mahométisme en Chine (1878); P. Havret. S.J., La Stèle chrétienne de Si-ngan-fou (1895). (H. A. Gi.)
[Christian missions, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, are established in every province in China. Freedom to embrace the Christian faith has been guaranteed by the Chinese government since 1860, and as a rule the missionaries have free scope in teaching and preaching, though local disturbances Christian missions. are not infrequent. The number of members of the Roman Catholic Church in China was reckoned by the Jesuit fathers at Shanghai to be, in 1907, “about one million”; in the same year the Protestant societies reckoned in all 250,000 church members. By the Chinese, Roman Catholicism is called the “Religion of the Lord of Heaven”; Protestantism the “Religion of Jesus.” For the progress and effects of Christianity in China see § History, and Missions, § China. Ed.]
Education and the Press.
The educational system of China till nearly the close of the 19th century was confined in its scope to the study of Chinese classics. Elementary instruction was not provided by the state. The well-to-do engaged private tutors for their sons; the poorer boys were taught in small schools on a voluntary basis. No curriculum was compulsory, but the books used and the programme pursued followed a traditional rule. The boys (there were no schools for girls) began by memorizing the classics for four or five years. Then followed letter-writing and easy composition. This completed the education of the vast majority of the boys not intended for the public service. The chief merit of the system was that it developed the memory and the imitative faculty. For secondary education somewhat better provision was made, practically the only method of attaining eminence in the state being through the schools (see § Civil Service). At prefectural cities and provincial capitals colleges were maintained at the public expense, and at these institutions a more or less thorough knowledge of the classics might be obtained. At the public examinations held periodically the exercises proposed were original poems and literary essays. Three degrees were conferred, Siu-tsʽai (budding talent), Chû-jên (promoted scholar) and Chin-shih (entered scholar). The last degree was given to those who passed the final examination at Peking, and the successful candidates were also called metropolitan graduates.
The first education on western lines was given by the Roman Catholic missionaries. In 1852 they founded a college for the education of native priests; they also founded and maintained many primary and some higher schools—mainly if not exclusively for the benefit of their converts. The Protestant missions followed the example of the Roman Catholics, but a new departure, which has had a wide success, was initiated by the American Protestant missionary societies in founding schools—primary and higher—and colleges in which western education was given equally to all comers, Christian or non-Christian. Universities and medical schools have also been established by the missionary societies. They also initiated a movement for the education of girls and opened special schools for their instruction.
Missionary effort apart, the first step towards western education was the establishment of two colleges in 1861, one at Peking, the other at Canton in connexion with the imperial maritime customs. These institutions were known as Tʽung Wen Kwan, and were provided with a staff of foreign professors and teachers. These colleges were mainly schools of languages to enable young Chinese to qualify as interpreters in English, French, &c. Similar schools were established at Canton, Fuchow and one or two other places, with but indifferent results. A more promising plan was conceived in 1880, or thereabouts, by the then viceroy of Nanking, who sent a batch of thirty or forty students to America to receive a regular training on the understanding that on their return they would receive official appointments. The promise was not kept. A report was spread that these students were becoming too much Americanized. They were hastily recalled, and when they returned they were left in obscurity. The next step was taken by the viceroy Chang Chih-tung after the Chino-Japanese War of 1894–95. The viceroy wrote a book, China’s Only Hope, which he circulated throughout the empire, and in which he strongly advocated a reform of the traditional educational system. His scheme was to make Chinese learning the foundation on which a western education should be imparted.[1] The book was one of the factors in the 1898 reform movement, and Chang Chih-tung’s proposals were condemned when that movement was suppressed. But after the Boxer rising the Peking government adopted his views, and in 1902 regulations were issued for the reform of the old system of public instruction. A university on western lines was established in that year at Peking, the Tʽung Wen Kwan at the capital being incorporated in it. The new educational movement gained enormously in strength as the result of the Russo-Japanese War, and in 1906 a new system, theoretically almost perfect, was established. The new system comprises the study of the Chinese language, literature and composition, modern sciences, history and geography, foreign languages,[2] gymnastics, drill and, in the higher grades, political economy, and civil and international law.
By 1910 primary and secondary government schools and schools for special subjects (such as agriculture and engineering) had been established in considerable numbers. In every province an Imperial University was also established. The Imperial University at Peking now teaches not only languages and Chinese subjects but also law, chemistry, mathematics, &c. A medical school was founded at Peking in 1906 through the energy of British Protestant missionaries, and is called the Union Medical College. When in 1908, the United States, finding that the indemnity for the Boxer outrages awarded her was excessive, agreed to forgo the payment of £2,500,000, China undertook to spend an equal amount in sending students to America.
The general verdict of foreign observers on the working of the new system up to 1910 was that in many instances the teaching was ineffective, but there were notable exceptions. The best teachers, next to Europeans, were foreign or mission-trained Chinese. The Japanese employed as teachers were often ignorant of Chinese and were not as a rule very successful. (See further § History.) A remarkable indication of the thirst for western learning and culture was the translation into Chinese and their diffusion throughout the country of numerous foreign standard and other works, including modern fiction.
The Peking Gazette, which is sometimes called the oldest paper in the world, is not a newspaper in the ordinary sense, but merely a court gazette for publishing imperial decrees and such public documents as the government may wish to give out. It never contains original articles nor any discussion of public affairs. The first
- ↑ For a summary of Chang Chih-tung’s treatise, see Changing China (1910 edition), chap. xxii.
- ↑ It was announced in June 1910 that the throne had approved a recommendation of the Board of Education that English should be the official language for scientific and technical education, and that the study of English should be compulsory in all provincial scientific and technical schools.
