The name of Confucius is the one most revered among the Chinese. To him and his disciples are due not only the native religion, now supplanted by Buddhism, but also the language and literature. He began to teach in a private school at the age of twenty-two. He rejected no pupil of ability and ambition, but accepted none without these qualities. He said, "When I have presented one corner of a subject, and the pupil cannot make out the other three, I do not repeat the lesson." The following are extracts from the analects of Confucius:-- 1. What you do not like when done to yourself, do not to others. 2. Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous. 3. To see what is right and not do it is want of courage. 4. Worship as if the Deity were present. 5. Three friendships are advantageous: friendship with the upright, friendship with the sincere, and friendship with the man of observation. Three are injurious: friendship with a man of spurious airs, friendship with the insinuatingly soft, and friendship with the glib-tongued. 6. Shall I tell you what knowledge is? When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to confess your ignorance. FOOTNOTES: [2] Mrs. E. E. Baldwin, Foochow, China. [3] Houghton, "Women of the Orient," p. 14. CHAPTER III INDIA =Literature.=--_Marshman_, History of India; _Ragozin_, Vedic India; _Spofford_, Library of Historical Characters; _Butler_, Land of the Veda; _Houghton_, Women of the Orient; _Clarke_, Ten Great Religions; _Johonnot_, Geographical Reader; _Macaulay_, Essays; _Ballou_, Footprints of Travel; _Stoddard's_ Lectures; Encyclopaedia Britannica; _Arnold_, Light of Asia; _Chamberlain_, Education in India. =Geography and History.=--India lies between the sixth and thirty-sixth parallels of north latitude. It is bordered on the north by the Himalayas and on the south by the Indian ocean. The climate in general is hot, which makes the natives indolent and accounts for their lack of enterprise. The country is very rich, the chief products being wheat, cotton, rice, opium, and tea. The area is about one and a half million square miles, and the population two hundred millions. The early history of India is obscure, as the Brahmans, from religious scruples, have ever been opposed to historical records. It is certain that there was an aboriginal race which occupied the country from an unknown period, and that a branch of the Aryan[4] or Indo-Germanic race came to India and struggled for supremacy. The Aryans succeeded in reducing the natives to subjection or in driving them into the mountains. The comparatively pure descendants of these races are about equal in number in India, their mixed progeny composing the great mass of the Hindu population. The Sanskrit was their classic language, and the Veda their Bible. =The Caste System.=--There are four great castes in India:--