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IlL THE A[-_ALEC"[_, _5
A. D. the Four Books and Five Canons were classified as
Thirteen, viz., Yi _, Ssfi _, Shu _, Three Ch'un
Ch_ius _i_ _ ._-_ {_iL, Three Lis, _[ _, _ _., _ j_,
Analects _ _, Alexicon called the Erh Ya ]_ _, the
Hsiao Ching, or Canon of Filiat Piety :_ _j_, and Mencius
i_ z]_ ; the Analects, Great Learning, Mean, Filial Piety
and Meucius being described as the "Smaller Canon."
It must always be borne in mind that when the Classics
were indited, writing was a much more laborious process
than it is to-day. The period of knotted cords (quipos) had
long passed away, but still neither pen, ink, nor paper had
. been invented, and all records had to be engraved on
bamboo tablets with a sharp style,--a most tedious
process,--or laboriously painted with a kind of varnish.*
Tile difficulty involved in such a method may easily
account for the terseness of China's literary style. More-
over these bamboo tablets were cumbersome, and therefore
difficult to transport, to preserve, or to conceal. Hence
when Ch'in Shih Huang at'ose, and, yielding to the
advice of a rascally minister, in B. C. 213 ordered
that all books be destroyed, save those on medicine,
divination and husbandry, (thus exceptin_ the Yi Ching,)
subsequently also burying alive 460 scholars for violating
his commands, few of the monuments of antiquity were
preserved intact. Nevertheless, as only three years
elapsed from the promulgation of that decree to the death
of its promulgator, and only eleven to the foundation of
Since the above went to press the following statement by Prof. E.
I I. Parker has come to hand, "Chinese records were at first written with a
bamboo style on slips of bamboo prepared with varnish/_