Twelve hundred and seventy-two supervisors of schools in a country with a population of 37,300,000 and a school population of about 6,200,000 does not seem a large number, particularly not if threefourths of them act as supervisors only in leisure hours. This is, however, easily understood if we consider the important fact that every Prussian and, for that matter, every German teacher has a professional training; that is, either a normal school training of three or four years or a university training of even a longer period. The election of a teacher by the school board has to be confirmed by the government of the county (Regierungs-Bezirk) or of the province, and that is done only after a close scrutiny of his credentials and antecedents. Then he serves two years on probation, so that a teacher rarely reaches permanent appointment before he is 25 years old.

Such teachers do not need supervision as those do who lack that systematic training for their duties so necessary for success in the schoolroom. There are many schools in the rural districts of Prussia where an inspection is made only once or twice a year, or even once every two years.

CHAPTER VI.

EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITY IN FOOCHOW, CHINA.

By JULEAN H. ARNOLD,

Late vice-consul in charge, Foochow.

To appreciate the force and the extent of the educational revolution which is now manifest in Foochow, China, one should have some conception of the conditions previous to the inauguration of this new movement.

There is probably no one factor which has done so much toward keeping the Chinese people intact as a nation as has the system of education which has obtained in China through centuries without a change. Dynasties have been overthrown; conquering hordes of aliens have swept over the country; but these, like waves washing over a rock, effected few perceptible changes in the Chinese peoples or institutions.

THE CHINese eduCATIONAL SYSTEM.

GENERAL CHARACTER.

That system of education, or instruction, as it might better be termed, which has obtained in China with little variation for the past twenty or thirty centuries, may be briefly described as follows:

At 6 or 7 years of age the son whose parents would have him enter the ranks of aspirants for literary honor or official position is placed either in the hands of a retained teacher or in a school. If the parents have the money, they generally retain a tutor; if not, several families combine to secure the services of a teacher. Public primary schools are unknown. When the teacher is secured and a room is borrowed, the boy enters upon his schooling armed with a book called the "Trimetrical Classic," or "Three Character Classic" (called three-character classic because composed in rhythmical lines which are divided into two parts each containing three characters). This book, written about seven hundred years ago, may be called a sort of an abridged compendium of ethics, biography, history, and science, besides being a guide to the child's future course of study. The first sentence which the child encounters reads, “Men at their birth are by nature radically good; to this they all approximate, but in practice they widely

diverge." (From R. C. Bridgman's translation.) Naturally, it is not expected that the child will comprehend the meaning of this bit of philosophy, nor is he expected to understand the meaning of any of the material which his teacher sets him to memorizing the first four years of his school career, unless it be certain exhortations to obedience and to study. For four years the child's one task is to familiarize himself with the sounds of the Chinese characters which he finds in the text assigned to him. In a majority of cases these four years constitute the sum total of the child's schooling.

If one were to visit a Chinese school of the ordinary type he would be greeted upon approaching the school with a babel of sounds, which he might at first mistake for the exuberance of childhood at play; but a peep into the school room would convince him of his error immediately. He would see from ten to twenty boys seated upon. narrow benches with Chinese texts before them; each irrespective of the presence of the others calling at the top of his voice, in a sing-song tone, the characters which he is supposed to see before him. It would be pure accident if two boys were bellowing the same lesson simultaneously, for each pupil is a class by himself. When the juvenile Confucius thinks he knows his lesson or, more often, when the old teacher thinks he ought to know it, he presents his book to the teacher and proceeds to recite that which he is supposed to have memorized. If a pupil shows any pretence to quietness or inability to cram, he is liable to a few raps from a ferule, which is the teacher's constant companion.

The Chinese schoolboy knows no play in connection with his schooling. Play is unbecoming the dignity of a scholar. The child is supposed to carry himself as a little Confucius from the day he enters upon his schooling. No Saturday afternoons and Sunday holidays, which mean so much to the Western lad in recreation and play; in fact, the Chinese boy must be in school at daylight, and, with the exception of his meal hours, spend his whole day there. He has a month's holiday in winter for Chinese New Year, and, if he be a farmer lad, he may have a sort of an enforced vacation during harvest time, when his services may be in demand in the rice or millet field. One could scarcely speak of the Chinese boy's school days as happy school days.

career.

After the lad has memorized the Trimetrical Classic, the Four Hundred Proper Names, and the Thousand-Character Classic, he has completed the elementary or purely parrot stage in his educational He is then led through the four books, Confucian Analects, Great Learning, Doctrine of the Mean, and the Works of Mencius; then through the Poetical Classics, Book of History, Book of Changes, and the historical works of Confucius, known as the Spring and Autumn Annals, and through certain commentaries. This order is

not adhered to everywhere, but these are the subjects which comprise his course. The one object of the student's education is to prepare him to construct essays which will embody the spirit and language of these ancient writers in such a way as to best satisfy the examiner before whom he must appear for his first degree.

EXAMINATIONS FOR LITERARY DEGREES.

By the time the student is ready to go up for examination for his first degree, he will have spent from twelve to twenty years at his task, the amount of time required depending upon his ability to cram. A student ripe for examination is one who has so fully imbibed the heterogeneous mass referred to in the above paragraph as to be able to take sets of characters or expressions from these model productions and, by different arrangements from those of the originals, produce the same sense or lack of sense as is found in the originals.

Examinations for the first degree are held once every three years by literary chancellors sent from Peking to the various provincial capitals for that purpose. From ten to thirty thousand candidates, the number depending upon the density of population of the Province, present themselves for the test. Those who are able to pass, the number being from one to five in each hundred, depending upon the number of degrees to be distributed, find themselves in possession of their first degree; this entitles them to wear official dress with a gilt button of the lowest grade, and to be exempt from criminal trial or penal servitude until after their diplomas may have been taken from them by officials of higher rank. In brief, this first degree entitles its possessor to a certain amount of respect, consideration, and honor from those not possessing official rank.

The examinations for the second degree are likewise held once every three years in the provincial capitals. Grand examiners, especially deputed by the Emperor for the purpose, are sent from Peking to each of the provincial capitals to conduct these examinations. Like the examinations for the first degree, these are held in examination halls consisting of long rows of cells, each cell measuring 3 feet in width by 4 feet in depth. Stretched across the interior of each cell are two boards, so arranged that one may serve as a seat and the other as a table. For three periods of three successive days each the candidates are confined in these cells day and night. The examination schedule is something like the following:

First period.-1. Three themes from the four books for prose essays. 2. One theme from the four books for poem essay. Each essay to consist of 700 to 800 characters and each poem essay to consist of 12 lines.

Second period. Five them from the five classies for prose essays.