The whole of Chinese history that had lain within the cold and lifeless grasp of these square little puzzles which he had looked upon with unutterable loathing for five years, now under the magic touch of the teacher's hand began to tell the story of the past. He now heard for the first time of the great revolutions that had changed the destinies of proud dynasties, and listened to the clang of battle, and the mighty heroes who had figured in the nation's life centuries ago now seemed to march by, and he appeared to be able to catch a glimpse of their faces and to compare the pictures of them that he had imagined in his mind with the reality now before him.
One very unhappy result of compelling the boys to spend four or five years in merely learning the sounds of the words, and in familiarizing them with their look without at the same time acquiring a knowledge of their meaning, is to greatly reduce the number of those who can read any book that is put before them as is the case in the West. Fully sixty per cent. of the lads that enter the common schools leave before they reach the second stage. There are many reasons for this, but the chief one is a financial one. The parents are poor, and so when a boy reaches a certain age his services may be required to help in the support of the family, or a good situation is offered that does not demand much education, and the lad is glad of any excuse that will take him away from the heartbreaking drudgery of simply learning sounds; and so he jumps for joy when his books are thrown aside, and as he realizes that he is never more required to enter the school-room again.
All these boys have acquired a certain smattering of knowledge, which, however, is absolutely useless to them for the purpose of enabling them to read. One constantly meets with men that can read a page of a book who have not the remotest idea of what the meaning of the passage is. This is because they left school before the second stage in their education was reached, and therefore for all practical purposes they are no better off than those who have never received any instruction when they were lads. The mandarins are accustomed to put out proclamations about anything they wish to order or to instruct the people under their charge. These are posted up in prominent places throughout the town, and knots of men gather round them who seem to be able to read fluently the strange mysterious-looking symbols that compose them. You ask a man who is reading one of these to explain to you what the mandarin wishes to be done. He says he really cannot tell you, for when he was at school he never got further than the initial stage of learning to recognize the characters with the names that belong to them, and therefore he is unable to explain to you what the mandarin is forbidding or what regulations he is issuing for the conduct of the people.