China and the Chinese

The following Lectures were delivered during March, 1902, at Columbia University, in the city of New York, to inaugurate the foundation by General Horace W. Carpentier of the Dean Lung Chair of Chinese.

By the express desire of the authorities of Columbia University these Lectures are now printed, and they may serve to record an important and interesting departure in Oriental studies.

It is not pretended that Chinese scholarship will be in any way advanced by this publication. The Lectures, slight in themselves, were never meant for advanced students, but rather to draw attention to, and possibly arouse some interest in, a subject which will occupy a larger space in the future than in the present or in the past.

HERBERT A. GILES.

Cambridge, England, April 15, 1902.

CONTENTS

LECTURE I

THE CHINESE LANGUAGE

Its Importance--Its Difficulty--The Colloquial--Dialects--"Mandarin"-- Absence of Grammar--Illustrations--Pidgin-English--Scarcity of Vocables --The Tones--Coupled Words--The Written Language--The Indicators-- Picture Characters--Pictures of Ideas--The Phonetics--Some Faulty Analyses ... 3

LECTURE II

A CHINESE LIBRARY

The Cambridge (Eng.) Library--(A) The Confucian Canon--(B) Dynastic History--The "Historical Record"--The "Mirror of History"--Biography-- Encyclopædias--How arranged--Collections of Reprints--The Imperial Statutes--The Penal Code--(C) Geography--Topography--An Old Volume-- Account of Strange Nations--(D) Poetry--Novels--Romance of the Three Kingdoms--Plays--(E) Dictionaries--The Concordance--Its Arrangement-- Imperial Catalogue--Senior Classics ... 37

LECTURE III

DEMOCRATIC CHINA

The Emperor--Provincial Government--Circuits--Prefectures--Magistracies --Headboroughs--The People--The Magistrate--Other Provincial Officials-- The Prefect--The Intendant of Circuit (Tao-t'ai)--Viceroy and Governor--Taxation--Mencius on "the People"--Personal Liberty--New Imposts--Combination--Illustrations ... 73

LECTURE IV

CHINA AND ANCIENT GREECE

Relative Values of Chinese and Greek in Mental and Moral Training--Lord Granville--Wên T'ien-hsiang--Han Yü--An Emperor--A Land of Opposites--Coincidences between Chinese and Greek Civilisations--The Question of Greek Influence--Greek Words in Chinese--Coincidences in Chinese and Western Literature--Students of Chinese wanted ... 107

LECTURE V

TAOISM

Religions in China--What is Tao?--Lao Tzu--The Tao Tê Ching--Its Claims--The Philosophy of Lao Tzu---Developed by Chuang Tzu--His View of Tao--A Taoist Poet--Symptoms of Decay--The Elixir of Life--Alchemy-- The Black Art--Struggle between Buddhism and Taoism--They borrow from One Another--The Corruption of Tao--Its Last State ... 141

LECTURE VI

SOME CHINESE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS

Origin of the Queue--Social Life--An Eyeglass--Street Etiquette--Guest and Host--The Position of Women--Infanticide--Training and Education of Women--The Wife's Status--Ancestral Worship--Widows--Foot-binding-- Henpecked Husbands--The Chinaman a Mystery--Customs vary with Places-- Dog's Flesh--Substitutes at Executions--Doctors--Conclusion ... 175

LECTURE I

THE CHINESE LANGUAGE

CHINA AND THE CHINESE

THE CHINESE LANGUAGE

If the Chinese people were to file one by one past a given point, the interesting procession would never come to an end. Before the last man of those living to-day had gone by, another and a new generation would have grown up, and so on for ever and ever.