ments five cardinal virtues, six grains, six domestic animals, seven passions, eight kinds of music, nine degrees of kindred, and the ten moral and social duties, followed by a summary of future studies and a catalogue of dynasties up to 1644, when the present dynasty began, the latter not being thought a fit subject for instruction, as if a class in English history should halt at the accession of the House of Hanover!
2. A Century of Surnames, 454 clan names to be memorized.
3. Millennary Classic, 1,000 distinct characters, written A.D. 550 as a connected ode, possessing rhyme and rhythm, but no more poetry than the multiplication table; in fact, its characters are used as ordinals to designate the successive rows of stalls in the triennial examination halls. In subject matter it is similar to the 'Trimetrical Classic,' but more discursive.
4. The Odes for Children, 136 lines in rhymed pentameters, containing a brief description and praise of literary life and allusions to the changes of the seasons and the beauties of nature.
5. Canons of Filial Duty, a tract of 1,903 characters, representing a conversation between Confucius and a disciple concerning the chief virtue inculcated by his school.
6. The Juvenile Instructor, which is said to exhibit better than the works of later scholars the Chinese ideas in all ages on principles of education, rules of conduct, etc.
A host of commentaries (over fifty on 'The Juvenile Instructor' alone) more copious than the texts themselves are employed to illumine and amplify the string of ideas presented as 'primer-stimuli' to the youthful mind.
The task of memorizing the contents of these six elementary school books, which have had such a formative influence on the large proportion of students who go no further, is somewhat relieved by exercises in penmanship. After two or three years spent thus, explanations are in order, and the student is introduced to the various commentaries. Such a course of study surely stunts the genius and drills the faculties into a slavish adherence to venerated usage and dictation.
Though followed chiefly by those destined to practical lives, this curriculum far from fits them for ordinary duties. Formal letter-writing and even elementary arithmetic are not taught in the Chinese school of the old type, and proficiency in either is obtained only by a sort of apprenticeship or by private instruction. No knowledge of business Chinese is imparted, so that the majority of those who fail to carry their studies high enough for degrees are not prepared for practical life.
The course of instruction for those who are likely to try for literary honors consists of three stages, each of which embraces two leading subjects. The 'Trimetrical Classic' may have been taken as preparatory, though not necessarily.
I. In the first stage the aim is to get words at the tongue's end and characters at the pen's point, by memorizing the canonical classics and writing an infinitude of characters as a mere manual exercise—a system sure to prevent precocity and preclude originality. The whole of the 'Four Books' and often a good part of the 'Five Classics,' all in a dead language, are encompassed by pure memory before any ex-
