560 B. C., drawn from memoranda existing in his native region.

Confucius also wrote himself or dictated to his disciple, T'sang-tsae, two supplementary works known as Heaou-king or Canon of Filial Piety, a collection of apothegms and conversations between the sage and T’sang-tsae, much in the style of the Confucian analects, and Syan-hyo, or Science for Children, which was chiefly a compilation from various writers. These books are sometimes called The Sixth Canon.

These six books are called King, a word signifying the warp or thread of a web,* and which has been applied metaphorically to denote works of authority. The Five King means the Five Canonical Books, containing the truth on the highest subjects from the sages of China, and to be received as a code of established law.

The remaining set of Chinese classics, although not writ ten by Confucius, nor in fact appearing until after his death, are so intimately connected with his teachings that an account of the sage would not be complete without some mention of them. This second series is known by the name of the Sse-Shoo, or Four Books, meaning the Books of the Four Philosophers-i. e., Confucius, T'sang-Sin, K'ung-Keih, and Meng-tsze, or Mencius.† The first of these bookscalled Lun-yu, or Speeches and Replies-has been already referred to under its more familiar title of The Confucian Analects. This, like Coleridge's Table Talk, is a collection of the sage's sayings, committed to memory by his disciples, and furnishes interesting glimpses of his life and character as well as of his teachings. They form a collection of proverbial philosophy second to that of no uninspired author. Some of these utterances are the more remarkable as they at times foreshadow, though dimly, the teachings of the Gospels. Such, for example, is the principle of the Golden Rule,

* Legge, p. 1, prolegomena.

+T'sang-Sin and K'ung-Keih were disciples of Confucius; the latter was also his grandson. Meng-tsze was a disciple of K'ung-keih.

which, in a negative form, was enunciated by Confucius as follows:

"Tsze-Kung asked, saying: 'Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life?' The master said: 'Is not reciprocity such a word? What you do not want done to yourself do not do to others.'”—Ana., xv., 23.

In another place he says:

"The superior man holds righteousness to be of the highest importance. A man in a superior situation, having valor without righteousness, will be guilty of insubordination; one of the lower people, having valor without righteousness, will commit robbery."— Ana., xvii., 23.

Does not this recall Solomon's "Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people?"

The second of the series-the Ta-hio or Great Learningis attributed to T'sang-Sin, a disciple of Confucius; but Choohe, the compiler, states in the introduction that it is a book left by Confucius himself. A certain portion of it was at one time included in the Le-ke; and this, which constitutes the first chapter of the work, is generally understood to be all that was in the original text of Confucius. The remaining ten chapters are said to be the commentaries of T'sang. Like Coke upon Littleton, the commentaries vastly exceed the text. But the chief value of the work is in the germ furnished by the sage. So highly was this book esteemed among the Chinese philosophers, that it was called the gate by which learners enter into virtue. To a modern reader much of it will appear vague and commonplace; yet there is profound wisdom in the fundamental principle enunciated by the sage.

"The ancients, who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the empire, first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to reguWishing to cul

Wishing

late their families, they first cultivated their persons. tivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things."-Ta-hio, 4.

The Ching-Yung or "Immutable Medium," which is the third volume of the series, is in like manner represented as a compilation of principles which had been delivered orally by Confucius to his disciples, and transmitted in the same mode, until Tsze-sze, another name for K'ung-Keih, the grandson of Confucius, committed them to writing. Like the analects, it prefaces every aphorism with "The Master said," or "Chung-ne said," showing that it consists, or is supposed to consist, substantially of the wisdom of the sage himself. Tsze-sze or K'ung Keih has added extensive commentaries and illustrations. Of its value there are different opinions. The compiler Choo-he, in the preface, describes it in the following exalted terms:

"This book first speaks of one principle; it next spreads this out, and embraces all things; finally it returns and gathers them all up under the one principle. Unroll it, and it fills the universe; roll it up and it retires and lies hid in mysteriousness. The relish of it is inexhaustible. The whole of it is solid learning. When the skillful reader has explored it with delight till he has apprehended it, he may carry it into practice all his life, and will find that it cannot be exhausted.”

The

Other commentators have regarded it with less favor. While containing many valuable moral maxims and much of the traditional wisdom of Confucius, it considerably weakens their effect by the intermixture of Tsze-sze's own views which are remarkable rather for extravagance than accuracy. objects of its teaching are involved in a cloud of verbiage which it is difficult to penetrate; and a large portion of it consists of little more than a eulogy on the national sages, and especially of Confucius, of whom Tsze-sze says:

"All embracing and vast, he is like Heaven. Deep and earnest as a fountain, he is like the abyss. All who have blood and breath unfeignedly honor and love him. Hence it is said, 'He is the equal of Heaven.' Call him man in his ideal, how earnest is he! Call him an abyss, how deep is he! Call him Heaven, how vast is he!"-Chs. xxxi., xxxii.*

*This extravagant tone of laudation, however characteristic of the period when these commentaries were written, by no means indicates the estimation in which Confucius was held in his life-time. Like most

It is impossible not to contrast all this laudation with the profound humility of Confucius himself, when he said, "the way of the superior man is threefold; but I am not equal to it."

The last of the Four Books contains the works of Mengtse or Mencius, a disciple of Tsze-sze, or K'ung-Keih, the author of the Ching-Yung. Of course, it is principally a development of Confucian ideas. Thus to this sage are Chinese scholars indebted for most of what is admirable in both their earlier and later classics.

ART. VII.—1. Reports, by VICTOR COUSIN, MATHEW ARNOLD, and others, on the Educational Systems of Germany, France, etc.

2. Catalogues of Several Universities, Colleges, Academies, etc., Male and Female.

MANY will ask, before finishing this article, will we never cease to criticise our educational institutions? We reply in advance that most probably we shall not-that, as long as we are able to write and publish, we must criticise. Yet we are not in the least cynical. None are less disposed than we to disparage American institutions of any kind. We certainly great men it was only after his death that he began to be appreciated. By the time, however, that the Ching-Yung was published, the Chinese in their estimate of the sage had reached a pitch of idolatrous veneration, of which the foregoing extract is no exaggerated expression. M. Clerc, in his work on Confucius, gives us a specimen of the estimation of the sage entertained by the modern Chinese, which falls little short of the eulogies of the Ching-Yung.

"L'esprit de Confucius, disent les Chinois, était une flamme intériéure, qui cherchait des objets à qui s'attacher. Son âme, qui prenait fortement l'empreinte des choses qu'elle concevait, ne manquait jamais de se reproduire avec un nouveau caractère de vérité, de force et d'agrément, elle était semblable à ces miroirs métalliques qui concentrent en une seul point tous les rayons épais de la lumière."— Yu le Grand et Confucius, p. 103.

* Ana, xiv., 30.

VOL. XXX.-NO. LX.

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have no ill-will toward those engaged in teaching. On the contrary, there is no other body with whom we sympathize more heartily, so far as we think they perform their duties intelligently and faithfully. There is not one even of those who have abused and vilified us, for exposing their ignorance and charlatanism, to whom we would do the slightest personal injury to-morrow, if it were in our power to do so.

never.

Then, at no time have we overlooked the fact that, if we consulted our own interests, we should criticise rarely, or We were well aware, fifteen years ago, that if profit were our object, the way to secure it was not to criticise, but to praise. We knew that those whose motive was to make money, would undertake almost any enterprise for that purpose, if they had any knowledge of mankind, rather than attempt to establish a Quarterly Review. If our own common sense could not have taught us this, we had warnings enough before us in the failures of several Quarterlies published at different times in this city, and those failures were pointed out to us, with the kindest intentions, by several editors, and other literary friends, now no more.

In short, we were fully convinced that it would be vastly more profitable for us to publish a sort of catalogue, after the fashion of the auctioneers, containing the names and pretensions of all sorts of institutions, and in which the owner or head of each should have the privilege of setting forth its perfections, editorially, for a consideration proportioned to the number and size of the superlatives which the strength or weakness of his stomach prompted him to use. Institutions. appearing in a work of this kind have, of course, no fault; all are equally perfect. Even the towns, villages, and cities in which they are situated are equally salubrious and attractive; so that all are exactly alike in surpassing excellence! It is no new discovery on our part that this is the sort of literature and science which nine-tenths of our "éducators" like to patronize.

Nor has it failed to occur to us that we might profit from imitating the course of some of the newspapers in this respect;.