Words of Warning to a Prosperious Age
Chapter 4
Western Learning
Today’s “gentlemen” always boast themselves as warriors against westernization and criticize those advocators as sinners that betray Chinese academia. How ridiculous it is! As they say, people in Myanmar and Vietnam today shall all be praised as wise and brilliant! I would say that the responsible people choose to jeopardize their lives and names while the hypocrites manage to survive by their lack of shame. The plausibility definitely contributes nothing to the situation. Nowadays, westernization is almost equivalent to current affairs that we need to deal with, and a remedy of the situation requires targeted prescription. For example, for those who wish to save their emperors or fathers from ill, shall they look for a highly skilled doctor, learn medical practice, or promise to die with himthem while wasting thetime in complaining? The answer is obvious, and so is the answer to the westernization problem.
An old saying says: “A wise person shall have profound and all-encompassing knowledge.” There also is another saying: “A Confucian practitioner takes any ignorance of his as shameful.” Today, in the west, their astronomy-related teaching includes disciplines derived from astronomy, such as arithmetic, calendars, electricity, and optics; geography-related teaching includes disciplines derived from geography, such as surveying, latitude and longitude, planting, transportation, and art of war.
China only has an observatory in the Capital and there are few visitors. While in the western countries, observatories and geography associations are built nationwide and attract lots of people. Japan has over 20 observatories and their geography association was established years before. In France, the Geography Association issues several gold medals to geographic surveyors from all over the world every year.
Great Britain created its Geography Association years ago to discuss the development and history of the landscape and it has attracted lots of resourceful members. Recently it restarted the practice of worldwide survey, and surveyors sent abroad are already on their way back to theGreat Britain. A total of 150 people went to Africa from London on December 14, 1878. The leader died half way and a young man about 20 years old took over the responsibilities to explore gold and silver mines, correct the wrong information in previous records and note down the knowledge regarding those virgin lands. The western surveyors’ courage to do their works despite the danger assures the excessivelyaccuracy of their records. As it is reported, a natural science association was recently established in the middle of Africa, the leader, is a professional surveyor that has travel experience across continents. Some local businessman affords their expenditures, half of which will be later reimbursed by the French government. Such associations have complete working procedures – they choose people to travel all over the world for products and landscapes, bring back things that they are able to carry, and for those could not be carried, the surveyors will make drawings and notes for description and further review, and compile such data into books. Our country shall do the same toand invest in knowledge development. Humanities-related teaching refers to all disciplines based on dialects and characters, such as politics, religions, criminal laws, foods and goods, manufacturing, merchants, and craftsmanship. These teachings include only those that could contribute to the welfare of the people and the strength of the nation and excludes any useless gimmicks or tricks. It is to be noted that, some people peddle their superficial views of other countries, their descriptions of the western serve only as big talk and lack any reasonable rationale therefore shall not be taken seriously.
Instead, we need those knowledgeable people that can grasp the universal rules and make their acts suitable to the situation. These people are neither picky nor oppressive; they conceal neither their merits nor their shortcomings, such personalities make them outstanding people capable to achieve extraordinary feats. It has been decades since our government allowed the international trade and we have witnessed tons of overwhelming matters, such as our lack of competent talents in foreign manufacture, languages, systems, policies and customs. If we fail to reverse the trends, it will make it hard for us to handle the situation against the covetous neighbors. And as everyone knows, any achievement, no matter in which areas of a career, writing, knowledge and skills, could only be achieved through efforts step by step.
As some westerners criticized, our westernization focuses on the trivial part rather than the core spirit. The person in charge shall be blamed for this due to his incompetency, that is, such people’s failure in teacher evaluation will deteriorate the education and further make the students inferior to their foreign competitors. As Western newspapers reported: Japan has managed to cultivate their students as successfully as western countries. It adaptively introduces the educational system of Northern Britain to a set of male and female schools, broadens their knowledge in various disciplines, especially in the geography of various countries. With spacious and comfortable classrooms, and health-keeping education for the students, these schools are comparable to those in London and Paris.
All kinds of subdivisions in the western education system-including business, politics, art of war, shipbuilding, manufacturing, agriculture, fishing, animal husbandry, and mining- facilitate their excellent use of water, fire, wind and electricity by virtue of the underlying theories, namely, dynamics, optics, chemistry, and electricity. They use introductory textbooks at the beginning of the education and the action of jumping the gun is strictly prohibited. With years of accumulation, the teaching content will advance, deeper and branch into various majors including history, mathematics, natural science and chemistry. By this way, students are more likely to get interested in learning and creating success. Today’s so-called scholars, while ignorant in our own classics and history, despise the western teachings as some vulgar things invented by the westerners and criticize them as either crafty or worthless. How ridiculous it is!
All the ground breaking creations by the sages in ancient China have been treated the same way. Besides, theastronomy, geometry, geography and mathematics all have their origins in China. Even the theory of “Spherical Earth” has been proposed by Guan Zhong, and the discipline of survey, machine manufacture, shipbuilding, translation, are not new to China from an historical point of view either.
As for natural science, there are related concepts in our history, there are also records regarding chemistry, mechanics, optics – the mechanism of image formation, atmospheric science, electricity- including phenomenon related to lightnings, thunders, and magnetics.
Ancient sages created all kinds of concepts for the convenience, yet all of them are summarized from the physical world instead of being fictitious. That’s why such concepts could be used as the foundation in the education. Yet as I see in my town, the kids, after years of education, not only gain no knowledge in geography, mathematics, and etiquette, even worse, they could not finish a single article or a letter. And there are cases where students waste their time in only the stereotyped writing without having any common sense. Furthermore, the lack of exercises and education in the 6 classic Chinese skills always make the pedants hunch. This orientation misleads the learners to the wrong way of wasting their prime time in their stereotype writing and calligraphy skills, and those learners, once holding official offices, further misguide the entire society to an impasse that abandons Chinese teachings while failing to pick up the essence of the western teachings. The westerners, on the other hand, manage to follow the core spirit of our culture and make remarkable accomplishments. Because of this, I would say it is time for us to seek our lost intelligence from them. Jiang Shenxiu, as a talent in recent times, his proficiency in both Chinese and Western mathematic skills as well as in equipment manufacture firmly refutes the idea that Chinese people are born inferior to the westerners in their intelligence.
It is reasonable and natural to retrieve Chinese teachings, yet some people argue that the Western teachings are irrelevant to ours, such nonsense will make the foreigners laugh.
Furthermore, any country has its own foundation and causes for its ups and downs. The cultivation of talents relies on schools, and the power of a country is built by such talents, therefore the key of prosperity of the western countries lies in education rather than the superiority of their people. The way to compete with them, in this case, is to take the advantage of Chinese teachings and meanwhile introduce theirs instead of investing in just armaments. As I learned, today’s learners of western teachings have only limited knowledge on foreign languages, care only about their own benefits, and are totally ignorant of the essence. However, a good learner shall first figure out his priority in learning and the ultimate goal. In the case of western teachings: natural science and manufacture are the foundation, the former of which is the focus of education in many countries, especially in Britain – it sets up many natural science associations with tens of thousands of members. Languages and characters are less important. Therefore, Chinese teachings are more essential and shall be taken as the core and western teachings shall be taken as the supplement. This way, everything will be arranged orderly, flexible and suitable to the political system and the ultimate end of education is thus achieved.
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