sell her, as it best pleases you." The handmaids are in fact only domestic slaves.

66

The birth of a son is, of course, an occasion of great rejoicing; the family or sur-name is first given, and then the "milk-name," which is generally some diminutive of endearment. A month after the event, the relations and friends between them send the child a silver plate, on which are engraved the three words, long-life, honours, felicity." The boy is lessoned in behaviour and in ceremonies from his earliest childhood, and at four or five he commences reading. The importance of general education was known so long since in China, that a work, written before the Christian era, speaks of the "ancient system of instruction," which required that every town and village, down to only a few families, should have a common school. The wealthy Chinese employ private teachers, and others send their sons to day-schools, which are so well attended, that the fees paid by each boy are extremely small. In large towns there are evening schools, of which those who are obliged to labour through the day avail themselves.

The sixteen discourses of the Emperor Yoong-ching, called the Sacred Edicts, commence with the domestic duties as the foundation of the political; and the eleventh treats of instructing the younger branches of a family. Dr. Morrison, in his dictionary, has given a selection from one hundred rules, or maxims, to be observed at a school, some of which are extremely good. Among other points, the habit of attention is dwelt upon as of primary importance, and boys are warned against "repeating with the mouth while the heart (or mind) is thinking of something else." They are taught never to be satisfied with a confused or indistinct understanding of what they are learning, but to ask for explanations; and always to make a personal application to themselves of the precepts which they learn. Scholars are not often subjected to corporal punishments. The rule is to try the effects of rewards and of persuasion, until it is plain that these

will not operate; after which it is the custom to disgrace a boy by making him remain on his knees at his seat before the whole school, or sometimes at the door, while a stick of incense (a sort of slow match) burns to a certain point: the last resort is to flog him. The object of the government, as Dr. Morrison justly observed, in making education general, is not to extend the bounds of knowledge, but to impart the knowledge already possessed to as large a portion as possible of the rising generation, and " to pluck out true talent" from the mass of the community for its own service. The advancement of learning, or discoveries in physical science, are not in its contemplation. It prescribes the books to be studied; a departure from which is heterodoxy; and discountenances all innovations that do not originate with itself. In this we may perceive one of the causes, not only of the stationary and unprogressive character of Chinese institutions, but likewise of their permanency and continuance.

The process of early instruction in the language is this: they first teach children a few of the principal characters (as the names of the chief objects in nature or art), exactly as we do the letters, by rude pictures, having the characters attached. Then follows the Santse-king, or "trimetrical classic," being a summary of infant erudition, conveyed in chiming lines of three words or feet. They soon after proceed to the "Four Books," which contain the doctrines of Confucius, and which, with the "Five Classics" subsequently added, are in fact the Chinese scriptures. The Four Books they learn by heart entirely, and the whole business of the literary class is afterwards to comment on them, or compose essays on their texts. Writing is taught by tracing the characters, with their hair pencil, on transparent paper placed over the copy, and they commence with very large characters in the first instance. Specimens of this species of caligraphy are contained in the Royal Asiatic Transactions. In lieu of slates, they generally use boards painted white to save paper,

washing out the writing when finished. Instructors are of course very plentiful, on account of the numbers who enter the learned profession, and fail in attaining the higher degrees.

Every principal city is furnished with halls of examination, and the embassy of 1816 was lodged in one of these buildings, at Nanheung-foo, a town at the bottom of the pass which leads northward from Canton province. It consisted of a number of halls and courts, surrounded by separate cells for the candidates, who are admitted with nothing but blank paper and the implements of writing; a part of the system which corresponds with our college examinations. The students who succeed in their own district, at the annual examination, are ranked as Sew-tsae, or bachelors, and according to their merits are drafted for further advancement, until they become fitted for the triennial examination, held at the provincial capital, by an officer expressly deputed from the Hânlin college at Peking. The papers consist of moral and political essays on texts selected from the sacred books, as well as of verses on given subjects. Pains are taken to prevent the examiners from knowing the authors of the essays and poems; but of course this cannot always be effectual in shutting out abuse.

Those who succeed at the triennial examinations attain the rank of Kiu-jin, which may be properly termed licentiate, as it qualifies for actual employment; and once in three years all these licentiates repair to Peking (their expenses being paid if necessary), to be examined for the Tsin-sse, or doctor's degree, to which only thirty can be admitted at one time. From these doctors are selected the members of the imperial college of Hânlin, after an examination held in the palace itself. These fortunate and illustrious persons form the body from whom the ministers of the emperor are generally chosen.

A man's sons may or may not be instrumental, by their literary success, in reflecting honour on their parents, or advancing them in w. rldly rank and pro

sperity; but the mere chance of this, joined to the heavy responsibility for their conduct, is a great inducement to fathers to bring them up with care, and may serve to account for the great and universal prevalence of a certain degree of education throughout the empire. Such is the demand on every individual for exertion, in a country so thickly peopled, that the children of the very lowest classes, whom extreme indigence precludes from the hope or chance of rising by learning, are trained to labour and to the cares of life almost from the time they can first walk. With a slight stick or pole, proportioned to their size, across their shoulders, young children are constantly seen trudging along with weights, sometimes much heavier than they ought to carry, or busily engaged in other serious employments, as the assistants of their parents. In a country where the youngest cannot afford to be idle, and where, as their proverb strongly expresses it, "to stop the hand is the way to stop the mouth," there is an air of staid gravity about some of the children quite unsuited to their years.

But it is not during his life only that a man looks for the services of his sons. It is his consolation in declining years, to think that they will continue the performance of the prescribed rites in the hall of ancestors, and at the family tombs, when he is no more; and it is the absence of this prospect that makes the childless doubly miserable. The superstition derives influence from the importance attached by the government to this species of posthumous duty; a neglect of which is punishable, as we have seen, by the laws. Indeed, of all the subjects of their care, there are none which the Chinese so religiously attend to as the tombs of their ancestors, conceiving that any neglect is sure to be followed by worldly misfortune. It is almost the only thing that approaches to the character of a "religious sense among them; for, throughout their idolatrous superstitions, there is a remarkable absence of reverence towards the idols and priests of the Budh and Taou sects. The want of