西人中国纪事-中国和中国人（英）

《中国和中国人》带您了解一个世纪以前中国的社会状况以及中西交流的历史。

 

《中国和中国人》通过大量实例讲述了中国的语言特点、剑桥图书馆所藏有关中国的图书、中国的行政管理制度、中国与古希腊的比较、道教，以及中国的民风和习俗。

翟理斯（Herbert Allen Giles，1845—1935），1867年来到中国，历任天津、宁波、汉口、广州、汕头、厦门、福州、上海、淡水等地英国领事馆翻译、领事等职，归国后任剑桥大学教授。

LECTURE ITHE CHINESE LANGUAGEIts Importance— Its Difficulty— The Colloquial— Dialects—“Mandarin”— Absence of Grammar— Illustrations— Pidgin-English—Scarcity of Vocables— The Tones— Coupled Words— The Written Language— The Indicators— Picture Characters— Pictures of Ideas—The Phonetics— Some Faulty AnalysesLECTURE IIA CHINESE LIBRARYThe Cambridge (Eng.) Library— (A) The Confucian Canon—(B) Dynastic History— The “Historical Record”— The “Mirror of History”— Biography— Encyclopædias— How arranged—Collections of Reprints— The Imperial Statutes— The Penal Code—(C) Geography— Topography— An Old Volume— Account of Strange Nations— (D) Poetry— Novels— Romance of the Three Kingdoms—Plays— (E) Dictionaries— The Concordance— Its Arrangement—Imperial Catalogue— Senior ClassicsLECTURE IIIDEMOCRATIC CHINAThe Emperor— Provincial Government— Circuits— Prefectures—Magistracies— Headboroughs— The People— The Magistrate— Other Provincial Officials— The Prefect— The Intendant of Circuit (Taot‘ai)—Viceroy and Governor— Taxation— Mencius on “the People”— Personal Liberty— New Imposts— Combination—IllustrationsLECTURE IVCHINA AND ANCIENT GREECERelative Values of Chinese and Greek in Mental and Moral Training— Lord Granville— Wên T’ien-hsiang— Han Yü— An Emperor— A Land of Opposites— Coincidences between Chinese and Greek Civilisations— The Question of Greek Influence— GreekWords in Chinese— Coincidences in Chinese and Western Literature—Students of Chinese wantedLECTURE VTAOISMReligions in China— What is Tao?— Lao Tz?— The Tao Tê Ching—Its Claims— The Philosophy of Lao Tz?— -Developed by Chuang Tz?— His View of Tao— A Taoist Poet— Symptoms of Decay— The Elixir of Life— Alchemy— The Black Art— Struggle between Buddhism and Taoism— They borrow from One Another— The Corruption ofTao— Its Last StateLECTURE VISOME CHINESE MANNERS AND CUSTOMSOrigin of the Queue— Social Life— An Eyeglass— Street Etiquette— Guest and Host— The Position of Women— Infanticide—Training and Education of Women— The Wife’s Status— Ancestral Worship— Widows— Foot-binding— Henpecked Husbands— TheChinaman a Mystery— Customs vary with Places— Dog’s Flesh—Substitutes at Executions— Doctors— ConclusionINDEX

The following Lectures were delivered during March, 1902, at Columbia University, in the city of New York, to inaugurate the foundation by General Horace W. Carpentier of the Dean Lung Chair of Chinese.By the express desire of the authorities of Columbia University these Lectures are now printed, and they may serve to record an important and interesting departure in Oriental studies.It is not pretended that Chinese scholarship will be in any way advanced by this publication. The Lectures, slight in themselves, were never meant for advanced students, but rather to draw attention to, and possibly arouse some interest in, a subject which will occupy a larger space in the future than in the present or in the past.HERBERT A. GILES.Cambridge, England,April 15, 1902.

If the Chinese people were to file one by one past a given point, the interesting procession would never come to an end. Before the last man of those living to-day had gone by, another and a new generation would have grown up, and so on for ever and ever.The importance, as a factor in the sum of human affairs, of this vast nation,—of its language, of its literature, of its religions, of its history, of its manners and customs,—goes therefore without saying. Yet a serious attention to China and her affairs is of very recent growth. Twenty-five years ago there was but one professor of Chinese in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; and even that one spent his time more in adorning his profession than in imparting his knowledge to classes of eager students. Now there are all together five chairs of Chinese, the occupants of which are all more or less actively employed. But we are still sadly lacking in what Columbia University appears to have obtained by the stroke of a generous pen,—adequate funds for endowment. Meanwhile, I venture to offer my respectful congratulations to Columbia University on having surmounted this initial difficulty, and also to prophesy that the foresight of the liberal donor will be amply justified before many years are over.I have often been asked if Chinese is, or is not, a difficult language to learn. To this question it is quite impossible to give a categorical answer, for the simple reason that Chinese consists of at least two languages, one colloquial and the other written, which for all practical purposes are about as distinct as they well could be.Colloquial Chinese is a comparatively easy matter. It is, in fact, more easily acquired in the early stages than colloquial French or German. A student will begin to speak from the very first, for the simple reason that there is no other way. There are no Declensions or Conjugations to be learned, and consequently no Paradigms or Irregular Verbs.In a day or two the student should be able to say a few simple things. After three months he should be able to deal with his ordinary requirements; and after six months he should be able to chatter away more or less accurately on a variety of interesting subjects. A great deal depends upon the method by which he is taught.The written or book language, on the other hand, may fairly be regarded as a sufficient study for a lifetime; not because of the peculiar script, which yields when systematically attacked, but because the style of the book language is often so extremely terse as to make it obscure, and sometimes so lavishly ornate that without wide reading it is not easy to follow the figurative phraseology, and historical and mythological allusions, which confront one on every page.