Zhang Zhidong · 1898
Exhortation to Learning
- Original title
- 勸學篇 (Quanxue pian)
- Language
- Chinese
- Form
- Treatise
- Text
- Full text
- English
- No English translation · China's Only Hope: An Appeal, trans. Samuel I. Woodbridge (1900), Internet Archive.
- Source text
- archive.org
- Selected
- Ben Breen, 2026-09-29; suggested by Claude research agents, 29 Sep 2026
- Status
- Arguments unverified; quotations chosen by machine, unchecked
Q33CIVILIZATION
Can a society adopt another society's machinery without adopting its ways of life?Yes. machinery can be adopted while keeping native ways. China should keep the Confucian basis of society and take Western learning only to strengthen its material basis.
To sum up : Chinese learning is moral. Western learning is practical. Chinese learning concerns itself with moral conduct. Western learning, with the affairs of the world. What matters it, then, whether Western learning is mentioned in the Classics or not, if it teaches nothing repugnant, or antagonistic, to the genius of our books? If the Chinese heart throbs in unison with the heart of the sages, expressing the truth in irreprovable conduct, in filial piety, brotherly love, honesty, integrity, virtue; if government is loyalty and protection, then let government make use of foreign machinery and the railway from morning to night, and nothing untoward will befall the disciples of Confucius.
OCR corrected
Internet Archive catalogue page for Woodbridge translation (1900); HathiTrust record for Chinese text; Wikipedia ti-yong article.