he teacher; no license to teach is required, there is no governmental
inspection or control, nor does the State assume any part of the expense
of the school. Attendance is not compulsory, and yet male education is
so universal that scarcely a boy can be found who does not enjoy
opportunities for education. Charity schools are furnished by the
wealthy for those who cannot afford to contribute toward the maintenance
of a school.

There are no public schoolhouses. The school is sometimes held in the
temple, sometimes in the home of the schoolmaster, and sometimes in the
home of a wealthy patron. The furniture of the schoolroom consists of an
altar consecrated to Confucius and the god of knowledge, a desk and a
chair for the teacher, and the pupils' desks and stools, provided by the
children themselves. No effort is made to render the room attractive.

The child is admitted the first time with much ceremony in order that
the day may be one of pleasant memories. He also receives a new name,
the name of his babyhood being dropped. Indeed, a change of name
accompanies each new epoch of his life, as the time he takes a new
degree, the day of his marriage, etc. Thus the boy enters upon his new
work. The first years of study are devoted to reading, writing, and the
elements of arithmetic, which studies complete the education of the
majority of the pupils. No effort is made to interest the child; he is
simply required to memorize and write as many as possible of the fifty
thousand characters. Not until after the names of the characters have
been learned by rote is there any effort to teach the meaning of the
words which they represent. The child's writing, too, is mechanical, for
the expression of thought is but a secondary consideration. Thought
awakening is not encouraged in the Chinese course of education. Fear,
not interest, is the motive which drives the child to study. Memory is
the chief faculty to be cultivated, and each child vies with the others
to make the most noise in study.

The teacher is greatly revered, only less so than the father. His
discipline is rigid, the rod not being spared. There are no new methods
to learn; the practice to-day is the same as that of hundreds of years
ago; it consists simply in hearing what the children have learned by
heart.

The second stage of study consists of translations from text-books and
lessons in composition. This work brings some pleasure to the child, as
it is a little le