III
The preceding selections give no more indication of the general character of the students' compositions than might be furnished by any choice made to illustrate a particular feeling. Examples of ideas and sentiments from themes of a graver kind would show variety of thought and not a little originality in method, but would require much space. A few notes, however, copied out of my class-register, will be found suggestive, if not exactly curious.
At the summer examinations of 1893 I submitted to the graduating classes, for a composition theme, the question, "What is eternal in literature?" I expected original answers, as the subject had never been discussed by us, and was certainly new to the pupils, so far as their knowledge of Western thought was concerned. Nearly all the papers proved interesting. I select twenty replies as examples. Most of them immediately preceded a long discussion, but a few were embodied in the text of the essay:—
1. "Truth and Eternity are identical: these make the Full Circle,—in Chinese, Yen-Man."
2. "All that in human life and conduct which is according to the laws of the Universe."
3. "The lives of patriots, and the teachings of those who have given pure maxims to the world."
4. "Filial Piety, and the doctrine of its teachers. Vainly the books of Confucius were burned during the Shin dynasty; they are translated to-day into all the languages of the civilized world."
5. "Ethics, and scientific truth."
6. "Both evil and good are eternal, said a Chinese sage. We should read only that which is good."
7. "The great thoughts and ideas of our ancestors."
8. "For a thousand million centuries truth is truth."
9. "Those ideas of right and wrong upon which all schools of ethics agree."
10. "Books which rightly explain the phenomena of the Universe."
11. "Conscience alone is unchangeable. Wherefore books about ethics based upon conscience are eternal."
12. "Reasons for noble action: these remain unchanged by time."
13. "Books written upon the best moral means of giving the greatest possible happiness to the greatest possible number of people,—that is, to mankind."
14. "The Gokyō (the Five Great Chinese Classics)."
15. "The holy books of China, and of the Buddhists."
16. "All that which teaches the Right and Pure Way of human conduct."
17. "The Story of Kusunoki Masaskigé, who vowed to be reborn seven times to fight against the enemies of his Sovereign."
18. "Moral sentiment, without which the world would be only an enormous clod of earth, and all books waste-paper."
19. "The Tao-te-King."
20. Same as 19, but with this comment. "He who reads that which is eternal, his soul shall hover eternally in the Universe."