Page:Chinese Characteristics.djvu/36

 of wealthy persons, albeit a mere microscopic fraction of the whole community, who can abundantly live without doing any work, but their life is not ordinarily of a kind which is exter- nally visible to the foreigner. Wealthy people in China do not commonly retire from business, but devote themselves to it with the same kind and degree of attention as when they were poor.

The Chinese classify themselves as Scholars, Farmers, Work- men, and Merchants. Let us glance at each of these subdivi- sions of society, and see what they have to say for the industry of the people.

"it is exceedingly difficult for Occidentals to enter sympathetically into such a scheme of education as that of the Chinese. Its gross defects are not likely to be overlooked, but one feature of it is adapted to thrust itself on the attention at all times—it has no real rewards, except for diligence. The many back doors which are always open to those who have the money to purchase degrees would seem well calculated to dampen the ardour of any student, but such is not the main effect of the sale of office. The complaint is made in all the provinces that there are far more eligible candidates for every position than there are positions to be filled. All the examination halls, from the lowest to the highest, seem to be perpetually crowded, and the number of students who compete in any single prefecture often rises to above ten thousand. When we consider the amount of mental toil which the mere entrance to any one of these examinations involves, we get a vivid conception of the intellectual industry of the Chinese. The traditional diligence of the standard heroes mentioned in the Trimetrical Classic, who studied by the light of a glowworm, or who tied their books to the horns of the ox with which they were ploughing, is imitated at the present day, with various degrees of approximation, by thousands in all parts of China. In many cases this industry begins to dis-