CHINESE SCHOOLS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1716, 22 November 1887, Page 3

CHINESE SCHOOLS.

China has long anticipated the work of the Sahool Board. At six years cf age boys c| all ranks are aoppoaed go attend school and prepare for their lifelong bondage to Confucius by beginning their dreary struggle to master the character which take the place of our a'phabet, multiplied by a thousandfold. They are taught to write each character separately on equates of rod paper ; and by Blow dtJ^cass they learn to pronounce each, while the Hitle 6ogerß learn to fashion the elaborate crabbed strokes. Though these small students are just as merry and foil of life as our Boboolboys, they seem to take very kindly to the studies which they sea their elders value so * highly. Nevertheless, the cma is a fully-recognised institution m every school, and is applied unsparingly, without respect of Bex; As you pass outside of such & echool— which is probably held within the precincts of come merchant's guild — you hear the hum of a any voioes, all repeating lessons aloud ; and if you lock m you see a troop of quaint little shaven headed fellows, with their long blaok plaits and blue olothea, sitting at small ornamental tables, very different from our school <?eaks and benches, and suggesting a remarkable abßence of the destructive element m these tm«ll Chinamen. Cf course, a conspicuous feature m tho school is the shrine of the tablet bearing the name of Confuoius, to which etpb scholar must do dally homage;