a phonogram or sound-word, and the second character a determinative, _i.e._ ideogram or sense-word. They are, as Professor Whitney says, "rather an auxiliary language than a reduction of speech to writing." The sign for "man" has nearly six hundred combinations, all denoting something relating to man; that for "tree" has about nine hundred, to indicate various kinds of trees and wood, things made of wood, and so forth; while, to borrow a concrete example, _pe_, which means "white," has, with a "tree" prefixed, the meaning of "cypress"; with the sign for "man" it means "elder brother"; with the sign for "manes" it means the vital principle that survives death; and so forth. _Chow_ is the Chinese word for "ship," so a picture of a ship stands for the sound _chow_. But the word _chow_ means several other things, and the determinative or "key" sign indicates these. "Thus the ship joined with the sign of water stands for _chow_, 'ripple'; with that of speech for _chow_, 'loquacity'; with that of fire for _chow_, 'flickering of flame,' and so on for 'waggon-pole,' 'fluff,' and several other things which have little in common but the name of _chow_" (Tylor, p. 102). Although, theoretically, the Chinaman has to make an enormous number of characters before he can write his own language, so that, at the age of twenty-five, a diligent student has barely acquired the same amount of facility in reading and writing which is usually attained by an English child--using the twenty-six characters of his alphabet--at the age of ten; practically some four or five thousand characters suffice for average needs, and the convenience of "a system enabling those who speak mutually unintelligible idioms, to converse together, using the pencil instead of the tongue," caused the abandonment of an attempt to make nearer approach to an alphabetic system which was promoted by the Chinese Government some centuries ago.