Chapter I: Front Matter

CHILDREN OF CHINA

“The good man is he who does not lose his child-heart.”--MENCIUS,
371-288 B.C.

“What the leaves are to the forest,
With light and air for food,
Ere their sweet and tender juices
Have been hardened into wood.

That to the world are children;
Through them it feels the glow
Of a brighter and sunnier climate
That reaches the trunks below.

Come to me, O ye children!
And whisper in my ear
What the birds and the winds are singing
In your sunny atmosphere.

* * * * *

Ye are better than all the ballads
That ever were sung or said;
For ye are living poems,
And all the rest are dead.”

LONGFELLOW.

CHILDREN OF CHINA

BY

COLIN CAMPBELL BROWN

AUTHOR OF
“CHINA IN LEGEND AND STORY”

WITH EIGHT COLOURED ILLUSTRATIONS

OLIPHANTS LTD.
LONDON EDINBURGH

_Uniform with this Volume_

CHILDREN OF INDIA
By JANET HARVEY KELMAN

CHILDREN OF CHINA
By G. CAMPBELL BROWN

CHILDREN OF AFRICA
By JAMES B. BAIRD

CHILDREN OF ARABIA
By JOHN CAMERON YOUNG

CHILDREN OF JAMAICA
By ISABEL C. MACLEAN

CHILDREN OF JAPAN
By JANET HARVEY KELMAN

CHILDREN OF EGYPT
By L. CROWTHER

CHILDREN OF CEYLON
By THOMAS MOSCROP

CHILDREN OF PERSIA
By Mrs NAPIER MALCOLM

CHILDREN OF LABRADOR
By MARY LANE DWIGHT

CHILDREN OF SOUTH AMERICA
By KATHARINE A. HODGE

CHILDREN OF BORNEO
By EDWIN H. GOMES, M.A.

CHILDREN OF WILD AUSTRALIA
By HERBERT PITTS

Printed in Great Britain by Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh
Bound by Anderson & Ferrier, St Mary Street, Edinburgh

TO

ROBIN, MARGERY AND HUGH

INTRODUCTORY LETTER

MY DEAR BOYS AND GIRLS,

There is a nook among the hills in far-away China to which, if only I possessed the famous flying carpet, I should very much like to carry you. To know it properly one ought to find it for oneself upon a day in spring. The road to it runs at the foot of steep hills, on which the grey earth peeps through a threadbare carpet of dry grasses.

Above these lower hills the mountain-sides are green, shading into slate-colour and black; and when the sky clouds over, they look dark and angry. The road rounds a corner and passes a wood: a few more steps and the baby valley is in sight.

To leave the path and pick your way through some trees is the work of a moment. You reach an open space like a little lawn. Above the lawn is a bank, on which, among shrubs and scattered trees, many flowers are growing.

A faint scent of almonds breathes in the air. You feast your eyes on great wild roses and azaleas, rose-coloured, magenta, crimson--bushes of red fire burning among ferns and green branches. Here, you notice tufted flowers like feathers carved in ivory: there, white jasmine, clematis and plants whose shining leaves are nearly covered by balls of snow. Over the flowers and under the tree-tops great swallow-tailed butterflies go whirling by. It is as if one of the old men of the hills of whom Chinese stories tell, had opened a doorway in the mountain-side and led you into a sweet wild garden of fairyland.

The daily round of life in China is bare enough, like a worn road winding among hills; but when one comes to know the children of the country, it is like finding a surprise garden where one had only looked for rocks and boulders. The love of boys and girls, and the tenderness and self-denial which they call forth among older people, are the flowers that grow in this enchanted spot.

The flying carpet was lost long ago, when this old world forgot how to be young, but you boys and girls sometimes weave one for yourselves and fly off as far as Pekin or Peru. It is my hope in these pages to join some of you in this pleasant task and carry you to some of the far-off garden nooks of China.

_The Chinese_ by Sir John F. Davies, _Child Life in Chinese Homes_, by Mrs Bryson, and _Chinese Slave Girls_, by Miss M. E. Talmage, are books which have helped me to write about the children of China. I am sure they will interest you by and by whenever you can find time to read them. But the big Chinese city in which I live, and the hundreds of villages round it, help me most of all to tell you about China and its boys and girls, and I greatly hope that one day some of you may come and see them for yourselves.

I am,
Your sincere friend,
C. CAMPBELL BROWN.

CHINCHEW, 1909.

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTORY LETTER 6

I THE INVISIBLE TOP 11

II CHINESE BABIES 14

III THE CHILDREN’S HOME 18

IV SCHOOL DAYS 23

V GIRLS 30

VI GAMES AND RIDDLES 37

VII STORIES AND RIMES 42

VIII RELIGION 52

IX FESTIVALS 58

X SUPERSTITIONS 63

XI REVERENCE FOR PARENTS 73

XII FAITHFULNESS 76

XIII THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 80

XIV MINISTERING CHILDREN 87

XV THE CHILDREN’S KING 94

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE EMPEROR OF CHINA _Frontispiece_

FACING PAGE

CHINESE BABIES 16

CHILD LEADING BUFFALO 20

KINDERGARTEN PUPILS 28

CHILDREN AT FOOD AND AT PLAY 40

GOING TO VISIT HIS IDOL MOTHER 60

PHŒNIX 84

SUNDAY SCHOOL, CHINCHEW 88

CHILDREN OF CHINA