he _Chun Tsew_[4] of Confucius and the
_Four Books_--_Ta-h[ue]-[uo]_,[5] _Chung-yung_,[6] _Lun-yu_,[7]
_M[ua]ng-tsze_.[8] She had never heard of them. I told her of the
invention of paper by the Marquis Tsae several centuries before Christ,
and she laughingly replied that she supposed that I would claim next
that the Chinese had libraries like those Mr. Carnegie is founding. I
was delighted to assure her that her assumption was correct, and drew a
little picture of a well-known Chinese library, founded two thousand
years ago, the Han Library, with its 3,123 classics, its 2,706 works on
philosophy, its 2,528 books on mathematics, its 790 works on war, its
868 books on medicine, 1,318 on poetry, not to speak of thousands of
essays.

I could not but wonder as I talked, where were the Americans and their
literature when our fathers were reading these books two thousand years
ago! Even the English people were wild savages, living in caves and
huts, when our people were printing books and encyclopedias of
knowledge. I dwelt upon our poetry, the National Airs, Greater Eulogies,
dating back several thousand years. I told her of the splendors of our
great versifier, _Le-Tai-Pih_; and I might have said that many American
poets, like Walt Whitman, had doubtless read the translations to their
advantage. I had the pleasure at least of commanding this lady's
attention, and I believe she was the first American who deigned to take
a Chinaman seriously. The facts of our literature are available, but
only scholars make a study of it, and so far as I could learn not a word
of Chinese literature is ever taught in American schools, though in the
great universities there are facilities, and the best educated people
are familiar with our history.

The American authors, especially novelists, who constitute the majority
of authors, are by no means all well educated. Many appear to have a
faculty of "story-telling," which enables them to produce something that
will sell; but that all American authors, and this will surprise you,
are included among the great scholars, is far from true. Some, yes many,
are deplorably ignorant in the sense of broad learning, and I believe
this is a universal, national fault. If one thing Chinese more than
another is ridiculed in America it is our drama. I met a famous
"play-writer" at the ---- dinner, who thought it a huge joke. I heard
that his income was $30,000 per annum from plays alone; yet he had never
hear