hinese child all the parental
commands are not simply law to the letter, they are to be anticipated
in the spirit. To do what he is told is but the merest fraction of his
duty; theoretically his only thought is how to serve his sire. The pious
Aeneas escaping from Troy exemplifies his conduct when it comes to
a question of domestic precedence,--whose first care, it will be
remembered, was for his father, his next for his son, and his last for
his wife. He lost his wife, it may be noted in passing. Filial piety
is the greatest of Chinese virtues. Indeed, an undutiful son is
a monstrosity, a case of moral deformity. It could now hardly be
otherwise. For a father sums up in propria persona a whole pedigree of
patriarchs whose superimposed weight of authority is practically divine.
This condition of servitude is never outgrown by the individual, as it
has never been outgrown by the race.

Our boy now begins to go to school; to a day school, it need hardly be
specified, for a boarding school would be entirely out of keeping with
the family life. Here, he is given the "Trimetrical Classic" to start
on, that he may learn the characters by heart, picking up incidentally
what ideas he may. This book is followed by the "Century of Surnames," a
catalogue of all the clan names in China, studied like the last for the
sake of the characters, although the suggestion of the importance of the
family contained in it is probably not lost upon his youthful mind. Next
comes the "Thousand Character Classic," a wonderful epic as a feat of
skill, for of the thousand characters which it contains not a single
one is repeated, an absence of tautology not properly appreciated by the
enforced reader. Reminiscences of our own school days vividly depict the
consequent disgust, instead of admiration, of the boy. Three more books
succeed these first volumes, differing from one another in form, but
in substance singularly alike, treating, as they all do, of history
and ethics combined. For tales and morals are inseparably associated by
pious antiquity. Indeed, the past would seem to have lived with special
reference to the edification of the future. Chinamen were abnormally
virtuous in those golden days, barring the few unfortunates whom fate
needed as warning examples of depravity for succeeding ages. Except
for the fact that instruction as to a future life forms no part of
the curriculum, a far-eastern education may be said to consist of
Sunday-school