Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/335

 LIT£RATUfiK 309 In Reading the beginner never doubts. When further advanced, he begins to doubt; and when his education is thorough, he ceases to doubt* Doubt succeeds ignorance, and certainty follows after doubt; — ^this is the course of true learning. The object of Music is to display the harmonies of gods and men ; — of Poeti^, clearly and simply to recite the subject ;— of Ritual (propriety, etiquette, &c.), to prevent men from acting unbecomingly ; — of the Shooking (ancient history), to understand and hear the long past ; — of the SpriTig and Autumn Annals, written by Confucius, to set forth, in actual life, the value and necessity of Faith ; for in this book the Five Constant (virtues) are complete (viz., Benevolence, Integrity, Propriety, Wisdom, and Faith) ; — and the design of the Book of Changes, is the discovery of the origin, and the knowledge of the end. If these six books are thoroughly studied, it is impossible to limit the beneficial influence produced on the mind of the student Of Characters there are six kinds — 1st, The pictorial, indicating the object by a picture; 2nd, Those whose form indicates an action ; 3rd, Those whose form is explanatory of an idea, or whose composition explains the meaning ; 4th, Onoma- topoetic ; 5th, Compound words, the simple elements of which are mutually explanatory ; and 6ih, Compounds, — one element of which is indicative of the meaning and another of the sound. Paper, Pencils, and Ink. Anpiently bamboo was cut up into thin slips, covered over with a dark glaze, and written upon. Mung Tien of Tsin, the general who began the first great wall of China (second century B.C.), made pencils of hare hair, and ink of the soot of burnt pine. In the After Han, Tsai Lwun, a minister, made the first paper of the inner bark of the Sang begins to entertain doubts; but mth the greater growth of knowledge, he again ceases to doubt ; for, as if by instinct, he knows the true and the false. The nation which can write thus is one which cannot be classed with the savage.
 * The reading child believes everything, As he advances in knowledge, he