Part 3 — QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. ———— FIFTY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON CHAUTAUQUA TEXT BOOK, NO. 34, ASIATIC HISTORY—CHINA, COREA, JAPAN.

By ALBERT M. MARTIN, General Secretary C. L. S. C.

1. Q. What is one of the important particulars in which China is unlike Africa, or aboriginal America, or even India? A. It is not a collection of diverse tribes or races, but is one great nation.

2. Q. What is the basis and conserver of Chinese civilization? A. Filial piety.

3. Q. What is China’s heritage from Confucius, her greatest sage? A. An arrested development and stunted civilization, low morals, not higher than Proverbs, but loftier than Franklin’s, yet vastly below the Sermon on the Mount.

4. Q. What does the Chinese Empire comprise? A. One-third of the Asian continent, and one-ninth of the dry land of the globe.

5. Q. What are the comparative areas of the five great landed governments of the world? A. China in area ranks third; the British and Russian exceeding, and the United States and Brazil falling short.

6. Q. What are the boundaries of China? A. On the north, the Altai Mountains and the Amoor River; on the east, Usuri and Yalu rivers, and the Yellow, Eastern and China seas; on the south, Annam, Burmah and the Himalaya Mountains; and on the west, Siberia, Turkestan and the Himalayas.

7. Q. What is the area and what the population of China proper? A. It is two million square miles in area, and has over four hundred millions of people, the most densely populated country in the world.

8. Q. What are the three great rivers of China? A. Ho-ang, Yang-tse, and Hang, or Se-King.

9. Q. What are three great divisions of China? A. Manchuria, Mongolia and Ili, or Eastern Turkestan.

10. Q. What is Tibet? A. It is the highest plateau in the world, surrounded by mountains, snows and glaciers, which are the cradles of the mighty rivers that irrigate India, Turkestan, Burmah and China.

11. Q. Into what three periods is the history of China divided? A. The legendary period, from 2356 to 1122 B. C.; the semi-historical, from 1122 to 770 B. C.; and the historic, from 770 B. C. to 1883 A. D.

12. Q. What are some of the things the Chinese had from very ancient times and for centuries alone? A. Tea, silk, paper, printing, the magnetic needle and gunpowder.

13. Q. At whose reign does Confucius begin his history? A. The reign of Tao, 2356 B. C., the beginning of the legendary period, when the golden age was ushered in.

14. Q. With the commencement of the semi-historical period, 1122 B. C., what system was begun for the government of China by Wu-Wang, the founder of the Chow dynasty? A. The feudal system under which China was governed for over nine hundred years.

15. Q. When was Confucius born? A. 551 B. C.

16. Q. What are the names of China’s three greatest sages, and how near to one another did they flourish? A. Lao Tsze, Confucius and Mencius. They flourished within about a century or two of one another, at about the time of the captivity of the Jews in Babylon.

17. Q. Of what did the primeval religion as taught by Confucius consist? A. Of the double worship of God and of ancestors.

18. Q. What is said of the writings of Confucius? A. They influence one-third of the human race, and are the basis of the Chinese social, political, moral and educational systems, and form the national Bible.

19. Q. Name three great conquerors who, with their empires, flourished during the Chow dynasty. A. Cyrus, Darius Hystaspes, and Alexander.

20. Q. In the following, or Tsin dynasty, what was done by Prince Cheng who took the title of first Universal Emperor? A. He abolished the feudal system, drove back the Hun Tatar hordes into the desert, built the great wall, and extended the empire to the limits of modern China.

21. Q. What colony entered China and settled in Honan province during the Han dynasties, between B. C. 209 and 190 A. D? A. A colony of Jews.

22. Q. About what time was the system of competitive examination of candidates for office founded, and civil service reform made an accomplished fact in China? A. About the commencement of the Christian era.

23. Q. When was Buddhism introduced into China? A. In A. D. 68.

24. Q. What great dynasty began its course in 618 and lasted until 905 A. D? A. The great Tang dynasty.

25. Q. During the Tang dynasty what forms of religion were introduced into China? A. A Nestorian Christianity flourished in a limited number of places during two centuries, until extirpated by persecution. Mohammedanism took root, and mosques were built in various cities.

26. Q. Under what emperor did China reach the acme of its glory? A. Under Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan.

27. Q. What has been one of the worst results of foreign intercourse with China? A. The introduction of opium, which began at the opening of this century.

28. Q. From what province have nearly all the Chinese in Australia, the East Indias and the United States come? A. The one province of Kwang-Tung, in which Canton is situated. Most of them are natives of a district not larger than Connecticut.

29. Q. About how many Christians are there now in China? A. There are now about 16,000 protestant church members, and a following in all of about 25,000 nominal Christians.

30. Q. At the rate of increase in the number of Christians since 1840 when will China be a Christian nation? A. During the next century.

31. Q. Into how many periods may Corean history be divided? A. Four.—Era of old chosen, era of the three kingdoms, united Corea, and modern chosen.

32. Q. What is said of the character of the early history of Corea possessed by the natives? A. It is of a confused and untrustworthy character down to the Han dynasty, 206 B. C., and until after the Christian era is drawn almost wholly from Chinese sources.

33. Q. During ten centuries after the opening of the Christian era what chiefly is the history of the three States which the independent tribes of the peninsula form? A. It is chiefly that of border wars, with alternating invasions or succor from China and Japan.

34. Q. What is said of the Corean alphabet? A. In the seventh century a Shinra statesman invented the Corean alphabet of fourteen consonants and eleven vowels, classified according to the organs of speech, and perhaps the most perfect in the world, which greatly promoted the spread of native literature.

35. Q. How was political unity first given to the peninsula in 960 A. D? A. Wu-Wang, of noble blood, arose out of Korai, and by talent and arms extinguished the rival states, and proclaimed united Corea under the name of Korai, fixing his capital at Sunto, a little north of the present capital.

36. Q. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries to whom was Corea subject? A. To the Mongols.

37. Q. What occurred in 1392, on the fall of the Mongols and the rise of the Ming dynasty in China? A. A revolution in Corea overthrew the reigning family, when the present line of rulers and order of things were established.

38. Q. What were some of the provisions made to carry out the national policy of Corea, that of isolation? A. A coast guard along the sea to patrol by day and kindle signal fires at night, a line of pickets and custom-houses on the frontier, with a neutral strip of land unoccupied and devastated, seventeen leagues wide on the Manchurian side, and ten miles in width along the Tumen river.

39. Q. What was the result of a treaty of peace and commerce entered into in 1876 by the Japanese commander Kuroda with the Coreans? A. The ports of Fusan and Gensen on the east coast have been opened to Japanese trade.

40. Q. What field of missionary effort will Corea soon be? A. One of the missionary fields of reformed Christianity.

41. Q. What does the empire of Japan comprise? A. Four large islands, various outlying groups, and about 3,800 islets.

42. Q. What are the three imperial cities of Japan? A. Tokio, Kioto, and Ozaka.

43. Q. What is the state of things first revealed by the light of written history in Japan? A. The central and southwestern parts are inhabited by an agricultural people dwelling in villages, and governed by chiefs, under a rude species of feudalism. In the central region of Yamato, around Kioto, these communities are in allegiance to the royal family of the mikado.

44. Q. What radical change in government was made in 603? A. Simple feudalism was exchanged for centralized monarchy with boards of government.

45. Q. For five centuries, from the seventh to the twelfth, how may the political history of Japan be written? A. In the rise and rivalries of the Fujiwara, Taira, and Ninamoto families, all of them sprung from scions of imperial blood. The mikados were little more than puppets.

46. Q. In 1192 what office was created, which existed with intervals until 1868? A. The military ruler called Shogun, known to foreigners as Tycoon.

47. Q. What are the names of three of the greatest men in Japanese history? A. Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Iyeyasu.

48. Q. For more than two centuries previous to 1868 what laws prevailed in Japan which made it a hermit nation? A. Japanese were forbidden to leave the country, boats had to be built on an unseaworthy model, and all foreigners, with a few exceptions, were banished.

49. Q. What have the recent revolutions in Japan effected? A. A profound change in the national policy toward foreigners; the restoration of the ancient centralized imperialism; and the abolition of the feudal system.

50. Q. When did protestant Christianity, founded upon the Bible and the preaching of Christ crucified, begin in Japan, and with what results has it been attended? A. It began in 1859, and in 1881 there were about seventy churches and over four thousand members in Japan.

The Summer Assembly of the Pacific branch of the C. L. S. C. will open on the evening of July 4, and continue nine days. This Assembly is held annually at Pacific Grove, two miles from the old historic town of Monterey, California. A very large attendance is expected, and all members of the C. L. S. C. are urgently invited to come to the richest intellectual feast yet spread for them at this western C. L. S. C. table. An able corps of lecturers and instructors has been secured for the session, and the exercises of the first graduating class of the Pacific Branch, which occur on Friday, July 13, will be the crowning feature of this Assembly. All members of this branch who hope to attend, will do well to notify the secretary, Miss M. E. Norton, and also J. O. Johnson, the manager of Pacific Grove, in time to secure good accommodations. The Assembly circular will soon be forwarded to all members of this branch.