chapter 34
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ESE SCHOLARSHIPPART II
Mr.Faber has made the remark that the ese do not uand any systematic method of stifiquiry. heless in one of ese Classics, called " Higher Education * , " a work which is sidered by most fn scholars as a Book of Platitudes, a ation is given of the order in which the systematic study of a scholar should be pursued. The student of ese ot perhaps do better than follow the course laid down in that book namely, to begin his study with the individual, to proceed from the individual to the family, and from the family to the Gover.
First, then: it is necessary and indispensable that the student should endeavour to arrive at a just knowledge of the principles of individual duct of the ese. Sedly, he will examine and see how these principles are applied and carried out in the plex social relations and family life of the people. Thirdly, he will be able then to give his attention, and direct his study, to the gover and administrative institutions of the try. Such a programme as we have indicated, , of course, be followed out only in general outlio carry it fully out would require the devotion and undivided energies of almost a whole lifetime. But we should certainly refuse to sider a man, a ese scholar or a attribute to him any high degree of scholarship, unless he had in some way made himself familiar with the principles above indicated. The Germa Goethe says: "In the* Known among fners as the "Great Learning .works of man, as in those of nature, what is really deserving of attention, above everything, is_the iion." Now i<u>.</u>udy of national character, it is also of the first importao pay attention, not only to the as and practice of the people, but also to their notions and theories; to get a knowledge of what they sider as good and what as bad, what they regard as just and what as unjust, what they look upon as beautiful and what as not beautiful, and how they distinguish wisdom from foolishness. This is what we mean when we say that the student of ese should study the principles of individual duct. In other words, we mean to say that you must get at the national ideals . If it is asked how this is to be attained: we answer, by the study of the national literature, in which revelations of the best and highest as well as the worst side of the character of a people be read. The one object, therefore, which should ehe attention of the fn student of ese, is the standard national literature of the people: whatever preparatory studies it may by necessary for him to gh should serve only as means towards the attai of that one object. Let us now see how the student is to study the ese literature.
"The civilisations of Europe, " says a German writer, "rest upon those of Greece, Rome and Palestihe Indians and Persians are of the same Aryan stock as the people of Europe, and are therefore related; and the influence of the intercourse with the Arabs during the Middle Ages, upon European culture has not even to this day, altogether disappeared. " But as for the ese, the in and development of their civilisatio upon foundations altogether fn to the culture of the people of Europe. The fn student of ese literature, therefore, has all the disadvao overe which must result form the want of unity of primary ideas and notions. It will be necessary for him, not only to equip himself with these fn notions and ideas, but also, first of all, to find their equivalents in the Europe languages, and if these equivalents do , to disie them, and to see to which side of the universal nature of man these ideas and notions may be referred. Take, for instan<bdi>藏书网</bdi>ce, those ese words of stant recurren the Classics, and generally translated into English as "benevolence, ""justice," and "propriety" (U). Now when we e to take these English words together with the text, we feel that they are not adequate: they do not ote all the ideas the ese words tain. Again, the word "humanity, " is perhaps the most exact equivalent for the ese word translated "benevolence;" but then, "humanity" must be uood in a sense different from its idiomatic use in the English language. A venturesome translator would use the "love" and &quhteousness" of the Bible, which are perhaps as exact as any other, having regard both for the sense of the words and the idiom of the language. Now, however, if we disie and refer the primary notions which these words vey, to the universal nature of ma, at o their full signifiamely, "the good, ""the true, " and "the beautiful. "
But, moreover, the literature of a nation, if it is to be studied at all, must be studied systematically and as one ected whole, and nmentarily and without plan or order, as it has hitherto been done by most fn scholars. "It is, " says Mr. Matthew Arnold, "it is through the apprehensioher of all literature, _the entire history of the human spirit, _or of a single great literary work, as a ected whole that the real power of literature makes itself felt. " Now how little, we have seen, do the fn students ceive the ese literature as a whole! How little, therefore, do they get at its significe! How little, in fact, do they know it! How little does it bee a power in their hands, towards the uanding of the character of the people! With the exception of the labours of Dr. Legge and of one or two other scholars, the people of Europe know of the ese literature principally through the translations <cite></cite>of novels, and even these not
of the best, but of the most onplace of their class. Just fancy, if a fner were to judge of the English literature from the works of Miss Rhoda Broughton, or that class of novels whi the reading stock of school-boys and nursery-maids! It was this class of ese literature which Sir Thomas Wade must have had in his mind, when in his wrath he reproached the ese with "tenuity of intellect. "
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