Page:The Spirit of the Chinese People.djvu/175

Rh be thought a German scholar among his tea drinking circles, he would scarcely have his name appear as such in print or placard. Yet among Europeans in China the publication of a few dialogues in some provincial patois, or collection of a hundred proverbs, at once entitles a man to be called a Chinese scholar. There is, of course, no harm in a name, and, with the exterritorial clause in the treaty, an Englishman in China might with impunity call himself Confucius if so it pleases him.

We have been led to consider this question because it is thought by some that Chinese scholarship has passed, or is passing, the early pioneering, and is about to enter a new, [sic] stage, when students of Chinese will not be content with dictionary-compiling or such other brick-carrying work, but attempts will be made at works of construction, at translations of the most perfect specimens of the national literature, and not only judgmentjudgement [sic], but final judgmentjudgement [sic], supported with reasons and arguments, be passed upon the most venerated names of the Chinese literary Pantheon. We now propose to examine: 1st, how far it is true that the knowledge of Chinese among Europeans is undergoing this change:; [sic] 2ndly, what has already been done in Chinese scholarship; 3rdly, what is the actual state of Chinese scholarship at the present day; and in the last place, to point out what we conceive Chinese scholarship should be. It has been said that a dwarf standing upon the shoulders of a giant is apt to imagine himself of greater dimensions