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Brief Introduction

In this article the term “encyclopaedic reference works” refers specifically to encyclopaedias and encyclopaedic dictionaries in the Western mould that were published in the late Qing. Of the 42 late Qing encyclopaedic reference works this author has examined to date, several dozen sciences are addressed at least superficially. I have previously surveyed how these works express the characteristics of the era, their structures of knowledge, and the circumstances of their translation, and have provided information on their compilers and preface-writers, etc.Footnote 1 The intention of this essay is to take a first step towards organising the characteristics of entry content. These entries offer us a way to look into the past, imbued as they are with a wealth of new knowledge and a new cultural spirit that is equally congenial to East and West. They contain a large quantity of new terminology, which even today has not been thoroughly examined. The mentality and methodology visible in the entries in this new kind of Chinese-language reference work expressed the particularities of that era’s new Chinese culture. Consequently, their inadequacies and regrettable features are outweighed by their achievement in successfully establishing a genre. This article seeks to explore the issue from the following seven vantage points: new thought, new knowledge, new terminology, compilation methodology, objectivity, accuracy, and special Chinese characteristics.

Features of Entry Content

New Thought

Chinese traditional culture, accreted over thousands of years, forms a thoroughly chaotic, albeit fertile, basis of thought. Its essence may be found in the Confucian concept of humanity, ren 仁. But this “humanity” was not based on the equality of individuals, but actually consisted of the “benevolence,” renshu 仁恕, with which the ruler should treat his subjects, and the “good will,” renxin 仁心, with which the subjects should obey their rulers. Besides Confucianism, ordinary people had first-hand experience of other, even more inequitable conceptions, that were based on ethnic prejudice or clan hierarchy, compounded by a way of coping with subjection through intellectual incuriosity, etc. Intellectuals were situated between the emperor and the common people, and their thought, rigid on the whole, did nothing to push traditional culture forward. This author once defined theirs as a “ruminating,” wanwei 玩味, culture, with their eight-legged essays constituting unendingly detailed digressions on the subject of Chinese traditional culture. Consequently, reference works in the field of culture consisted, besides the endless annotations of classical works, of the fertile genre of “category-books” or leishu 類書. Because these leishu consist of excerpts from classical records arranged by category, they provide the reader with a handy reference for such ruminating compositions. Thus, when writing “poetry or songs,” engaging in “qin playing, chess, calligraphy or painting” or engaging in other cultural activities, leishu could prove a very versatile resource. Naturally, their main emphasis was on the institutional regulations and classical allusions which had to be memorised for eight-legged examination essays or official posts. As a consequence, leishu were neither concerned with the accuracy or further development of knowledge, nor with its diffusion for popular edification. Because of their prolonged existence under the traditional system, such leishu were naturally concerned only with the accumulation of ever more materials for rumination, and there was no stimulus for the development of new kinds of reference works. Needless to say, when Western civilisation forced its entry into China, the culture of rumination was unable to take on the huge responsibility of saving the nation, and the traditional genre of leishu proved even more unable to assist a new generation of Chinese scholars in learning about the world and about China itself. Consequently, the attention of perceptive scholars was drawn to the wealth of Western encyclopaedic reference works. This genre was to be essential for a reformed imperial examination system, since it would provide entirely new knowledge for study and practice in preparation for these new examinations. Existing Western works of encyclopaedic knowledge could be used for this purpose because their entries were focused, accurate, and topical in content as well as intolerant of formal whimsy, ambiguity, or opacity.

Faced with this kind of cultural product, Chinese intellectuals could not but act upon its example. This involved, first, changing the intellectual principles and methods that had formed the original foundation of the leishu genre; and, second, attempting to develop brand-new principles and methods for encyclopaedic works based on these new models.

It was not very difficult to evoke interest in the acquisition of this new knowledge, because it was practical, trustworthy, and, furthermore, compelling. Compared with the traditional knowledge offered by the leishu, this new knowledge seemed straightforward, and its dissemination among the Chinese faced no insurmountable difficulties. Western encyclopaedic knowledge had already been present in China for several centuries; and a channel for the exchange of knowledge between China and the West had been established much earlier. Beginning with Matteo Ricci, Li-ma-dou 利瑪竇, (1552–1610) and Robert Morrison, Ma-li-xun 馬禮遜, (1782–1834), it had been expanded by the later large number of Westerners in China during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They were instrumental in fuelling this exchange, and their students learned it from them.

Of course, all forms of learning are bound to meet resistance, especially at a psychological level. During the conservative dynastic era, when suppression was formidable, it was naturally difficult for new “foreign barbaric” thought to obtain equal opportunity for dissemination. In the transformative later portion of the nineteenth century, there were, of course, many who opposed the growing precision of knowledge and the efforts or exhortations to change with the times. An example is the very representative series Collection of Statecraft Essays of Our August Dynasty, Huangchao jingshi wenbian 皇朝經世文編, which flew the flag of Confucian statecraft as a way of saving the country. This kind of work agitated for all kinds of empty nonsense, proposing something like “Chinese learning for the essence, Western learning for practical use.” Far from being meant as a joke, this was actually rather a popular ideological and methodological approach among the upper echelons of the late Qing bureaucracy. Consequently, the study of any kind of new knowledge-based thought had to contend with a jumbled chaos of old and new ideas. History demonstrates that the growth and development of encyclopaedic thinking occurred in an atmosphere dominated by indiscriminate acquisitiveness. In this context, the emerging encyclopaedic reference works were crucial in offering Chinese readers a new avenue to learning.

New Knowledge

The broad band of New Learning made available through new encyclopaedic works offered a vast challenge to the traditional knowledge systems. These knowledge systems had formed over thousands of years, and traditional rule, small-scale peasant economy, and Confucianism had kept them in a frozen state. It was hard to provide a clear definition of them because most had not progressed beyond the stage of “common knowledge.” Arising from the accretion of common knowledge over the lifespan of a society, these systems were in a fundamental way different from their Western counterparts, which had only formed in the Renaissance. The ‘knowledge’ contained in the Chinese systems had not been substantiated through scientific reflection or research.

It seems that before the nineteenth century not a single Chinese scholar had formulated a systematic framework for basic Chinese traditional knowledge systems. For this reason, I have decided to present the table of contents of two works in order to identify the outlines of basic traditional knowledge. One is the 1748 leishu called A Classified Repository of Profound Appraisals, Yuanjian leihan淵鑒類函.Footnote 2 Its general table of contents is provided below to demonstrate the scope of traditional knowledge as organised in this book:

Heaven, the seasons, the earth, the emperor, empresses and concubines, the crown prince, imperial relatives, bureaucratic organisation, the nobility, political tactics, rites, music, literature, martial arts, borders, people, Buddhism, Taoism, the divine and strange, Taoist methods and techniques, handicrafts and art, the capital, provinces and prefectures, residences, industry, fire, gemstones, cloth and silk, ceremonial ornaments, dress and adornment, implements, boats, vehicles, food, the five cereals, medicine, vegetables, fruit, flowers, grass, wood, birds, beasts, fish and crustaceans, insects. (Altogether 45 sections with 450 juan.)

The other book is an even more voluminous leishu, called the Collection of Texts and Illustrations. Old and New, Gujin tushu jicheng 古今圖書集成 (1726). Its general contents are as follows:

  • Calendar Division: astronomical phenomena; seasons and agriculture; calendar; strange phenomena.

  • Geography Division: earth; governance; geography; neighbouring and other foreign states.

  • Human Relations Division: emperor section, imperial palace section, bureaucracy section, family discipline section, social friendship section, clan section, human affairs section, women section.

  • Natural Sciences Division: arts section, spirits and extraordinary creatures section, beasts and insects section, plants and trees section.

  • Study of Principles Division: canonical and non-canonical books section, academic conduct section, literature section, Chinese character studies section.

  • Governance Division: Examinations section, weights and measures section, food and goods section, rites section, music section, military politics section, law and punishment section, industries and manufactured articles section. (Altogether 6 divisions, 32 sections, 6,109 subsections, 10,000 juan and approximately 100 million characters.)Footnote 3

I expect that no single scholar before the mid-nineteenth century, foreign or Chinese, would have been able to collate and develop this rich repository into a knowledge system in modern terms. However, the manner in which the topics of these works and essays were compiled is enough to manifest the particularities of the common knowledge accumulated by the Chinese over millennia. For instance, in the domain of metaphysics, China could boast many instances of brilliant inspiration, but the field lacked logic and strict tests, and was marred by personal, subjective, and political explanations. Though perhaps Chinese practices had at one point led the world in fields such as agriculture, astronomy, geography, and natural history, this common knowledge was never translated into industrial use and its techniques, and by the nineteenth century these methods had become obsolete. More importantly, the motive for compiling these traditional systems of common knowledge had been to provide references for the scholars’ culture of rumination, not to advance knowledge. A Classified Repository of Profound Appraisals is the classic example, in that every entry features all sorts of classical extracts drawn from poetry and chosen for the benefit of poetic composition, but bearing no relation whatsoever to the scientific significance of the entry. If a scholar today, whether Chinese or foreign, can read and understand these two works in their entirety, he or she will perhaps have earned the title of a “great master of Chinese national learning,” but will most certainly not have contributed to the advancement of human knowledge.

The new knowledge systems that emerged in late Qing encyclopaedic reference works, on the other hand, have essentially integrated contemporary Western knowledge systems. The rush of Chinese-language explanations of new knowledge had come after several centuries of preparation, while the necessary ambient conditions and types of tools had not yet emerged. I have chosen the categorical table of contents of Huang Ren’s 1911 New Encyclopaedic Dictionary of General Knowledge, Putongbaike xin dacidian 普通百科新大辭典, also examined in the contributions by Chen Pingyuan and Milena Doleželová-Velingerová in this volume, to demonstrate the knowledge systems of the reference works that emerged in the late Qing for the first time:

  • Politics: Constitution, administrative law, jurisprudence, civil law, commercial law, procedural law, criminal law, international law, economics, finance, statistics, bookkeeping, military administration.

  • Education: Chinese history, world history, Chinese geography, foreign geography, philosophy, education studies, religious studies, psychology, ethics, logic, sociology, Chinese literature, world literature, linguistics, graphics, sculpture, music, ornamentation, games.

  • Natural Sciences: Arithmetic, geometry, algebra, trigonometry, calculus, mechanics, thermodynamics, acoustics, optics, magnetism, chemistry, astronomy, physical geography, geology, seismology, palaeontology, physiology, hygiene, pathology, pharmacology, mineralogy, zoology, botany, anthropology.

  • Economic sectors: Agronomy, sericulture, forestry, fishery, hunting, industry.

  • General Categories

    (Altogether 11,856 entries in 63 categories).Footnote 4

The system of knowledge expressed in the table of contents of this encyclopaedic dictionary is already basically similar to systems of knowledge that are generally in use in China today. The inclusion of concepts and structures borrowed wholesale from the West as well as examples of systematised Chinese traditional common knowledge shows how the Chinese had already accepted a completely new systematic method of expression. An especially good example is the large number of terms that, in emulation of the Japanese, append the character xue 學 (studies) to a field of specialised knowledge; there are 40 such examples in the table of contents. One should note that in the Western system of knowledge, whenever the suffix xue appears (like the suffix “-ology”), six fixed conditions must be identifiable: a definition of this branch of study; its structure; its theories and concepts; its cultural value; its methodology; and its evolution. Without satisfying these six conditions, the suffix “-ology” cannot be used. The terms ending in xue which appeared in the two previously discussed leishu, for example, “Study of Principles,” lixue 理學, “Literature,” wenxue 文學, and “Study of Chinese characters,” zixue 字學, would have great difficulty meeting these conditions. Only later, in the twentieth century, did Chinese scholars apply Western analytical methods to these traditional Chinese forms of knowledge under the auspices of “national learning,” guoxue 國學.

For a Chinese scholar in the nineteenth century, this new knowledge was too abundant; so abundant that is was beyond absorption. One had to acquire Western knowledge (from the alphabet all the way to knowledge about material objects); and at the same time, one had to reinterpret one’s own traditional common knowledge. This created a state of social indigestion in which all kinds of scientific knowledge and common knowledge were mixed into an olio of confusion, misapplication, and misconception. It seems that even the 100 years of the twentieth century did not suffice to establish a clear organisation while to the Western men of learning, who came to nineteenth-century China and offhandedly undertook the task of enlightening the country, knowledge of the alphabet and of material objects seemed extremely elementary. Many of them were earnest and diligent instructors, and perhaps they themselves benefitted from this instruction; but for the Chinese, the gains were very limited indeed. There were two basic reasons for this: first, if one wanted to transplant new knowledge, one had to take into account the difficulty of having it take root and germinate in Chinese soil. Second, these scholars had only a limited grasp of Chinese traditional common knowledge, and so either praised it to the skies or regarded it as utterly worthless, deficient as an expression of a whole knowledge system, and without any counterpart in the realm of correct knowledge. Only in the early twentieth century, when they initiated reforms in the Chinese education system, did the situation improve.

In terms of breadth and depth, the New Learning also far exceeded the scope encompassed by traditional Chinese common knowledge. The diligent study of this New Learning as contained in the new encyclopaedic works would at that time have sufficed to make someone an important figure in his generation, even without his ever having studied abroad. Unfortunately, history shows that only a very few proved equal to this task in practice. Still, as the products of an era’s civilisation, these encyclopaedic reference tools possess permanent historical value. The following is an overview of the various specific fields of learning in late Qing encyclopaedic reference works.

They contain a large amount of introductory materials on political systems, including the political structure, population and domestic politics of various European and American states as well as of Japan and other countries. Also included are quite a number of entries on various structures of power and administration as well as a variety of laws and regulations. Their division according to era and nation and their graphic separation of individual entries makes them convenient for reference. Discussions on reforming the Chinese system may include writings from both Chinese and foreign commentators on the Chinese political system, political tutelage, reform, as well as personnel use or the new version of the baojia 保甲local control system, etc. The contents are marred by the weaknesses of the times, and there is much that is no more than empty words. There were many suggestions for measures that in the end still proved powerless to save the Qing Court from demise. One entry, for instance, from the third juan of the Comprehensive Examination of Current Affairs. Sequel, Shiwu tongkao xubian 時務通考續編 (1901), proclaims that “sovereignty hinges on independence,” 國權在於自立and advocates “recognising foreign nations as autonomous”人他國為自主之國.Footnote 5 A section from the 22nd juan of The Revised and Newly Illustrated Comprehensive Synthesis of the Times, Xinji zengtu shiwu huitong 新輯增圖時務匯通 (1903), is entitled “[China] should establish a parliament so as to have [government] be in contact with the situation among the people,” 宜刱設議院以通下情, and so on.Footnote 6

The Qing government’s interaction with Westerners was marked throughout by mishaps. There were many reasons for this, but among them were slip-ups and self-wrought troubles occasioned by misunderstandings about manners of interaction. After the Opium War, China, under pressure from the great powers, signed a number of humiliating treaties that caused great hardship upon implementation. On the one hand, the rulers had surrendered sovereignty under humiliating terms; on the other hand, they planned the establishment of a modern state. This was reflected in the encyclopaedic reference works through the inclusion of many entries on diplomatic treaties and regulations, as well as diplomatic etiquette, negotiating rights, diplomatic work, border negotiations, declarations of war, and suing for peace, etc. I am afraid that this profusion stemmed from the hope that a deeper understanding of these questions would prevent renewed losses and hardship.

Besides the entries on law included in the comprehensive encyclopaedias, there are also seven encyclopaedic reference books devoted specifically to law. Of these, six are works translated from the Japanese: Explanations of Japanese Legal Terms, Riben fagui jiezi 日本法規解字 (1907),Footnote 7 Comprehensive Explanations of Legal Terminology, Falü mingci tongshi 法律名詞通釋 (1908),Footnote 8 Legal Advice on the Laws of the Four Great Codes, Si da fadian falü guwen 四大法典法律顧問 (1910),Footnote 9 Explanation of Terms of Law and Economy, Falü jingji cijie 法律經濟辭解 (1907),Footnote 10 Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Law and Economy, Falü jingji cidian 法律經濟詞典 (1907),Footnote 11 and Dictionary of Chinese Translations of New Legal Terms, Han yi xin falü cidian 漢譯新法律詞典 (1905).Footnote 12 There is also one translation of an American work, A Practical Introduction to International Law, Gongfa bianlan 公法便覽 (1877).Footnote 13 This reveals how the Chinese had begun to attach importance to law enforcement and legislation both domestically and internationally. Guided by the Qing court’s directives, a new modern Chinese legal system began to take shape. These legal concepts appeared in the entries of these encyclopaedias, and were evidently based principally on new, modern Japanese legal concepts.

New economic knowledge was another focus. The traditional Chinese economic system had already deteriorated by the end of the nineteenth century, and was staggering on with difficulty. Domestically, the rulers needed funds, though the question of how to organise and control economic activity remained a major problem. They lacked a reliable method for increasing revenue and reducing expenditures. What should be done about coinage and the gold standard? What was the key to Western finance, and how did the system work? How did one do business with foreign enterprises? How could commercial contracts and chambers of commerce be formed? How should Chinese agricultural economy be reformed? How to encourage the establishment of new industries? What was the situation of foreign economies, and what was economic research like abroad? The answer to all these questions could be found among the entries of these encyclopaedic reference works.

During the Opium Wars China had experienced the decrepitude of her own military and the real strength of Western militaries with their “fortified ships and powerful guns.” But the vitality of the Chinese gave them the ability to absorb new, powerful techniques for constant self-reform. And so, beginning in 1865, the Self-Strengthening Movement began actively implementing New Learning in the field of military studies, not only establishing a series of new armaments factories but also undertaking the translation of various publications on new military matters. By 1911 a total of 300 military works had been translated, more than for any other specific branch of knowledge. As one might expect, there are numerous entries on military affairs in the encyclopaedic dictionaries, addressing the state of the army and navy of various nations, a variety of weapons models, capabilities and manufacturing, a range of examples of battles, military systems, methods and tactics of attack and defence, rear service and training, military theory, grain provision by civilians and the civil corps—in short, everything such a work ought to have.

One important reason for the difficulty of enacting modernising reforms in China was the lack of people who had mastered new knowledge. In every field of expertise and at every level there were too few capable people. The initiators of the 1898 Reform movement, acknowledging this circumstance, felt that the only way to systematically foster a corps of personnel who had mastered the new knowledge was the establishment of a large number of new schools together with the abolition of the imperial examination system and the eight-legged essay. The new educational system would be complemented by new textbooks and instructors. Their assessment was absolutely correct, and encyclopaedic reference works emerged as one result of the reformed education system. For this reason, a large number of entries in these works are related to new-style education, including introductions to schools and educational systems of various countries, the principles and methods of operating new schools, curricula, how China should establish new schools, etc. Also appended were very lucid and concrete discussions of Chinese characters and of translation, etc. No doubt these results are related to the traditional Chinese emphasis on education, and represent, both by the standards of the time and historical perspective, a stunning and crucial transformation.

Western humanities knowledge exerted a decisive influence on the Renaissance and on modernisation, determining the cultural characteristics of Westerners. Unfortunately, it was very late before modern Chinese recognised the importance of the human sciences. During the late Qing, a subconscious dread prevented the spread of knowledge in this domain. The slogan “Chinese learning for the essence, Western learning for practical use” was widely deployed to dismiss new knowledge in the humanities, thus rejecting this crucial and, in terms of the Chinese humanities, potentially transformative knowledge by assigning it to the periphery of “practical use.” The Chinese of the era certainly did not see the (Western) humanities as belonging to the fundamental “essence.” This hindered the healthy development of our people’s psychology and physiology. In fact, only in the late Qing did the trickle of basic knowledge in the humanities begin in the form of translations of works in fields such as philosophy, logic, sociology, anthropology, psychology, folklore, and jurisprudence. Even so, many of them were brought to China and translated on the initiative of foreigners. Consequently, encyclopaedic reference works contain few entries related to the humanities, and what is included is superficial and not conducive to the establishment of lucid, systematic concepts. Historical knowledge is somewhat better represented, however, since we find substantial entries on both world and Chinese history. In retrospect, the re-emergence of Western humanities knowledge in China (the first appearance occurring during the early seventeenth century’s late Ming Dynasty) was, though rather basic, nevertheless quite useful to the Chinese. It played an even more important role in China’s twentieth-century development.

In the eyes of the late Qing Chinese, knowledge of the natural sciences was the main constituent of Western learning. It had already circulated for many years in China. Whether it was the translation department of the Jiangnan Arsenal, Jiangnan zhizao ju 江南制造局, which began translating the works of science and technology, or the College of Foreign Languages, Tongwen guan 同文館, which used the works of science and technology as study materials, the instructors involved had always included foreigners. By the late Qing, about 1,500 works of science and technology had been published, and so entries on this field in the encyclopaedic reference works are numerous and possess a certain depth. For example, Sino-Western exchanges in the field of astronomy had been going on since the late Ming years of the seventeenth century, for over 300 years. Both Western and Chinese astronomers learned a great deal from these exchanges, and so subjects broached by the entries include introductions to celestial phenomena, astronomical instruments, calendar systems, time measurement, and all kinds of astronomical theories. There was also a great deal of Chinese traditional common knowledge in the geosciences, with historical works frequently including travel accounts of geographic value. However, there was also too little in the way of quantitative analysis, and the cartographic methods were inferior. The modern integration of Western geography and geology caused a rapid development in new Chinese geographical studies. Naturally, planetary and space sciences, world geography, and economic geography were included in the entries; but Chinese geography was also presented in great detail in the encyclopaedic reference works, including each province’s topography, physical features, products, borders, and landscape. These detailed surveys had all been conducted by foreign experts in China.

A great many entries are devoted to the natural sciences, including chemistry, mechanics, thermotics, acoustics, optics, and electrical sciences. These were circulated among the Chinese as novel and interesting sciences, with entries introducing basic concepts and experiments in physics and chemistry, the use of instruments, and profiles of expert natural scientists. Though mathematics had existed in China since ancient times, both its intellectual approach and its forms of expression were distinct from Western mathematics. Consequently, the harmonisation of Western and Chinese mathematics required substantial efforts, an enterprise that can be traced back to Matteo Ricci’s and Xu Guangqi’s 徐光啟 (1562–1633) translation of Euclid’s Elements. Nevertheless, the process, including the adoption of mathematical operators, horizontal writing, and trigonometry, was less problematic than the harmonisation of the social sciences. As a result, entries in the encyclopaedic reference works contain introductory information on both Western and Chinese mathematics, with an emphasis on applied mathematics. Information on modern biology in the entries is primarily confined to general introductions of a zoological or botanical nature, though they were quite appropriate for diffusion in the new elementary schools, and provided a wealth of information. There was also a little bit of genetics. Western medical knowledge had been accorded recognition by the Chinese and could be introduced in encyclopaedic reference works. In fact, it was Chinese medicine that was underrepresented. Also, there were specific encyclopaedic reference books for science and technology, such as The Great Anthology of Chinese and Western Mathematics, Zhongxi suanxue dacheng 中西算學大成 (1897),Footnote 14 The Newly Translated Atlas of Strategic Locations of Rivers and Seas of China, Xin yi Zhongguo jianghai xianyao tuzhi 新譯中國江海險要圖志 (1900),Footnote 15 Prescriptions from around the World, Wanguo yaofang 萬國藥方 (1886),Footnote 16 Further Prescriptions from around the World, Xin wanguo yaofang 新萬國藥方 (1909),Footnote 17 A New World Geography, Wanguo xin dizhi 萬國新地志 (1903),Footnote 18 Terminological Dictionary of Natural History, Bowu da cidian 博物大辭典 (1907),Footnote 19 and The Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Physics, Wuli da cidian 物理大辭典. Footnote 20

In ancient China, applied technology was considered to be no more than a skill and was long disdained by the literati. But it was greatly valued during the West’s Industrial Revolution, as is especially evident from Diderot’s inclusion of a great deal of technical information in his Encyclopédie (1751–1772), accompanied by a large number of detailed illustrations. After the Opium War, the Chinese gradually recognised the real importance of technology and production. For this reason, the Jiangnan Arsenal began the publication of a number of books for technical use. The promotion of new technologies and industries in China was welcomed by many people of all classes, both Chinese and foreign. Consequently, technology features prominently in the entries of encyclopaedic reference works. However, because the Chinese lacked a tradition of mechanised civilisation, the compilers were often of literati background. Explanations remained too crude and the information insufficiently detailed for practical application. There was also too little in the way of diagrams. At the time, the most detailed descriptions were devoted to railway engineering technology and the state of railways domestically and abroad. By that time, under the leadership of Chinese railway engineer Zhan Tianyou 詹天佑 (1861–1919), the Beijing-Zhangjiakou railway had already been completed, stoking Chinese confidence in domestic capabilities. Western mining methods were vigorously promoted, and mining products had become items of international trade. A large proportion of the entries are devoted to this subject. Other subjects included steam engines, textiles technology, municipal works, electric lighting, telephones, running water, and river engineering. Two encyclopaedias were specifically devoted to technology: A Comprehensive Compendium of Western Technical Learning, Taixi yixue tongkao 泰西藝學通考 (1901)Footnote 21 and A Comprehensive Compendium of Technical Learning, Yixue tongzuan 藝學通纂 (1902),Footnote 22 both of which offer a wealth of materials.

For over 1,000 years, agriculture had been China’s foundation. By the modern era, however, China’s agricultural sciences had rather fallen behind the West’s new agricultural technology. For instance, in terms of crop species, agricultural machinery, cultivation methods, fertiliser, industrial sericulture, afforestation, and agricultural theory the West had produced new methods and results. Encyclopaedic reference works of the time devoted more than a little space to the new agricultural knowledge and recommendations for Chinese agricultural reform. The information on this topic is quite good.

Entries on art, culture, and customs primarily introduce Western circumstances. I am afraid that they are compiled mostly from the travelogues of Chinese who had been abroad. They are both too general and too eager for novelty, with very little in the way of systematised knowledge.

New Terminology

The quantity and quality of new terminology present in a culture during a given era is a gauge of that culture’s progress. From a linguistic perspective, late Qing encyclopaedic reference works can be regarded as an extensive exposition of new Chinese-language terminology. Compared with the terminology of traditional China, this period saw an overnight blossoming of new terminology, broad in scope, profound in content, brilliant in concept, and completely unprecedented. So much new terminology had emerged that the era’s scholars hardly knew how to integrate and apply it. Unfortunately, 100 years later, we have still not completely sorted out these magnificent treasures of our national culture. This section attempts a short analysis.

Let us posit that the aforementioned works, Zhang Ying’s A Classified Repository of Profound Appraisals and the Collection of Texts and Illustrations. Old and New, contain 100 million characters and that these works can be taken as representative of traditional Chinese usage. Had traditional society not been overthrown and had the culture of rumination continued, this traditional terminology would have been naturally sufficient for endless linguistic diversion. Historically speaking, Chinese terminology has not discriminated against borrowed words. The absorption of terminology from Indian Buddhist culture between the Han and Tang Dynasties is a case in point. The many cooperative translations between early seventeenth-century Ming Dynasty figures and foreigners were also productive. Of the large number of new foreign terms that appeared in the translations of that early period, many were transliterations. For instance, Philosophia was directly transliterated into Chinese as fei-lu-suo-fei-ya 斐錄所費亞, or else translated as “the study of the love of knowledge,” aizhi xue 愛知學. There was no attempt to probe or present the connotations of this concept. For this reason, scholars of the period had great difficulty grasping the meaning of this word, and resorted to wild guesses and their own imagination. These misreadings ultimately yielded a concept very similar to neo-Confucianism. After the transition into the Qing in the middle of the seventeenth century, elements of the Manchu language could be smoothly integrated into Chinese, but the consolidation of absolutism resulted in a delay in the modernisation of Chinese terminology. In China, it was forbidden to have knowledge of new Western terminology, while foreigners continued to develop reference books based on the textual exchanges initiated by Matteo Ricci and others. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Robert Morrison, a Briton in Macau, edited and published a nearly 5,000-page bilingual Dictionary of the Chinese Language in three parts, part the first containing Chinese and English, arranged according to the radicals [Zidian 字典], part the second containing Chinese and English, arranged alphabetically [Wu che yunfu 五車韻府]; and part the third, English and Chinese [Ying Hua zidian 英華字典].Footnote 23 This demonstrates that a two-way channel of communication had already opened between Western and Chinese cultures. While foreigners effectively mastered Chinese in order to grasp the foundations of China, the Chinese themselves declined the proffered opportunity to communicate. Lin Zexu 林則徐 (1785–1850) had taken note of this by the eve of the Opium War, and had promoted communication by putting together the Record of the Four Continents, Sizhou zhi 四州志 (c. 1841), from translations he had organized.Footnote 24 Later, Wei Yuan 魏源 (1794–1856) quoted new terminology in his compilation of the Records with Maps of Maritime Countries, Haiguo tuzhi 海國图志 (1841–1852).Footnote 25 However, these efforts did not produce a sufficient effect. Not until the 1898 Reform movement and the replacement of the imperial eight-legged essay-based examinations with “New Learning” examinations did China really free itself from its self-imposed ban. Thereupon, the importation of a large amount of new terminology from Japan created a frenzy to acquire it in China.

What does it mean to say that the essence of learning was in the implications of the new terminology itself? The general student need not necessarily know the origin of new terminology, and the question of who had first imported and translated the term is of secondary concern. However, only terms that accurately express a concept are easy to learn and understand. If one were to translate an entire book by means of transliteration, the content would remain incomprehensible. Semantic translation was the only viable method for primary use. Semantic translation had to consider the original meaning of the Western words, the original meaning of the Chinese characters employed, and the original meaning of the kanji 漢字 imported into Japanese for Western concepts before being borrowed back into Chinese. One can be sure that these three considerations were difficult to accommodate. The encyclopaedic reference works of the late Qing were primarily oriented toward definitions of new terminology. Before these encyclopaedias, there may have been a few others who coined or created one new term or the other; but explanations and definitions were independent and idiosyncratic, since they were composed solely based on the understanding of the given author.

Encyclopaedic reference work entries are designed to be widely understandable, including the terms used in the entry composition. This also required the harmonisation of the different phonetic renderings for foreign names and words and the establishment of an authoritative version. Examining the new terminology of the late Qing, we discover a relatively mature store of detailed definitions of new knowledge. Because of the limited space available, we cannot here examine the specific definitions of entries. The reader is advised to consult The Insight of Terms, Ciyu de zhihui 詞語的知惠 by this author, in which some entries are excerpted.Footnote 26

In 1950, Luo Changpei 羅常培 (1899–1958) proposed the following linguistic classification of the new terms:

  1. A.

    Phonetic substitutions

    1. 1.

      Purely phonetic

    2. 2.

      Simultaneously phonetic and semantic

    3. 3.

      Phonetic plus semantic

    4. 4.

      Phonetic, misinterpreted as semantic

  2. B.

    New phonetic-compound

  3. C.

    Loan translation

  4. D.

    Descriptive form.Footnote 27

The contemporary scholar Shi Youwei 史有為 added another category for new terms imported from the Japanese—“form-translation.”Footnote 28 Applying these five categories to a search for new terminology in the late Qing encyclopaedic reference works would no doubt provide fertile grounds for study, since all categories are certain to be represented. No examples will be provided here, however.

Quality of Compilation, Objectivity and Accuracy of the Entries

Besides scientific merit, topicality, and comprehensibility there are other criteria by which the quality of encyclopaedic reference works may be measured, and other standards that allow the discerning reader to pass judgment. Other standards to consider include quality of compilation, objectivity, and accuracy of entries. Since encyclopaedias are the representative tools of new knowledge, the connotations of the entries as well as the inclusions and exclusions of the compilation should be handled in a conscientious manner. During the great popularity of encyclopaedia publication in the West, the composition of encyclopaedic entries as well as their organisation and arrangement were held to high standards, and consequently exerted an excellent influence on the cultural sphere. Beginning with the editing and publication of Diderot’s Encyclopédie, contributions to and compilations of renowned Western encyclopaedias was most often the work of an entire generation of scholars. Their diligent and thorough delineations of knowledge and colossal, painstaking, collaborative efforts turned encyclopaedias into cultural reference works of general use, and created a new branch of study. These scholars were often called encyclopédistes.

In China, however, things were different. First of all, the emergence and publication of these encyclopaedias was not guided by the political authorities, but most often by financial profit. Naturally, translations from foreign encyclopaedic reference works were primarily undertaken by the first wave of students returning from abroad, eager to earn a quick penny. They deliberately opted to translate works that were of lesser difficulty and in great domestic demand, while rejecting encyclopaedic reference works of large scale or too high a specialisation. Regardless of their basic translation skills, a work rendered into Chinese ought to be adequate as long as the basic structure of the original work was left untouched. But compilers attempting to put together an encyclopaedic reference work of their own were faced with the problem that, by and large, the entries were not written for the purpose. It was more common for the compiler to hire people to copy texts, or even to do some of this work himself. Procuring commercially available New Learning books and journals, they would copy relevant portions of these publications, divide them up according to classifications of their own making, and collate the material into a book that reflected their own grasp of the material. In other words, there was no process of expert supervision, and the copiers were themselves far from expert. They were satisfied as long as the work could be sold; market demand reigned supreme. Encyclopaedic reference works compiled in this manner, not subject to the high standards that were usual in the West, were marred by regrettable errors. Consequently, it is not reasonable to expect Chinese readers to evince a passionate interest in these encyclopaedias. Only in retrospect is the historical value of these encyclopaedic reference works evident. The element of competition between editors is also evident in these works. The works increased in length, and entries, once simply copied, were later altered and improved by the compiler. Naturally, it is hard to say to what degree these entries were considered authoritative. Perhaps they held a certain influence among the scholars of the period.

The quality of compilation for these works was, all in all, adequate. It goes without saying that the translated works were acceptable. Compilations of Chinese origin allowed the editor to indulge his own particular tendencies, since he could copy from various sources. Listed below are the combined numbers of entries in the first three juan of A Comprehensive Examination of Current Affairs, Shiwu tongkao (1897),Footnote 29 and the Comprehensive Examination of Current Affairs. Sequel, Shiwu tongkao xubian (1901)Footnote 30:

First juan: Astronomy and Mathematics—Early Beginnings, 40 entries; Names and Definitions, 55 entries; Instruments, 21 entries; Measurements and Calculations, 76 entries; the Seven Celestial Bodies, 110 entries; the Stars, 42 entries; Eclipses, 412 entries; Lunar Calendar, 47 entries; Origin and Development of Astronomy and Mathematics, 47 entries; Astronomical and Mathematical Works, 55 entries; Solar stations 44 entries; Calendrical Method, 40 entries; Eight-Diagrams Study, 56 entries; Circle Measurement, 46 entries.

Second juan: Geography—General Geography 10+5 entries; Asian and Chinese Coastlines 200 + 167 entries; Asia 183 + 27 entries; Europe 302 + 15 entries; Africa 51 + 1 entries; America 67 + 11 entries; Australasia 2 entries.

Third juan: International Law—General 19 + 12 entries; Sovereignty 12 + 39 entries; Diplomatic Relations 19 + 49 entries; Alliances 23 + 14 entries; Rights 17 + 73 + 44 entries; Legislation 49 entries; Diplomatic Envoys 26 + 127 entries; Examples of Battles 83 + 184 entries; Peace Negotiations 13 + 56 entries; Western Public Legal Scholars 164 entries.

Judging by the number of entries, one might conclude that the quality of compilation for these works is rather high, but a closer look at the content in historical perspective shows that they are less than satisfactory.

As for the objectivity and accuracy of Chinese-compiled encyclopaedic entries, it is very difficult to speak of them in general terms. One must examine the implications of each entry individually. Some are indeed of the highest quality and entirely appropriate to assist readers of that era in their pursuit of knowledge. Others are vague and chaotic, so that nobody then or now could make any sense of their import. This is often because the copier had failed to grasp the meaning of the original, and had consequently produced slipshod work. For example, in the 14th juan of Li Zuodong’s The Revised and Newly Illustrated Comprehensive Synthesis of the Times, Xinji zengtu shiwu huitong, which is the eighth of eight juan in the geography section, the entries are entitled as follows: The Territorial History of all Nations; On Geography; Regarding Geology; On Why China Should Attach Importance to Geosciences; On Map Latitudes and Longitudes; On the Movement of the Earth; On the Roundness of the Earth; On the Perfect Roundness of the Earth’s Shape; Debate on the Shape of the Earth; On the Shape of the Globe; On Geographic Convergence; Examination of the Age of the Earth; On the Inanimateness of the Earth; On Sacrifices to Earth Spirits; On the Elevation and Depression of Terrain; On Geomancy; A List of High Mountains; A List of Great Rivers; Regarding Remarkable Stones in the Earth; Regarding the Heat beneath the Earth; On the Three Rivers; About Mount Sumeru of Buddhist Sutras; The Seasons on Uninhabited Islands; Trivial Records on Explorations of Remote Places.Footnote 31 The contents of these entries present modern world geography quite objectively and accurately. However, for whatever reason, the content jumps from the shape of the earth to geomancy, discusses spirits and monsters, and generally confuses the reader. For example, the entry “On the Movement of the Earth” begins with ideas proposed by Liezi 列子, Zhuangzi 莊子, and other classical philosophers. However, it also includes an accurate account of Copernicus’s views and corroborative data. Although it does not mention Copernicus or Newton, it includes a few words from Li Shanlan 李善蘭 (1810–1882). This demonstrates the utterly bewildering way in which the entries “excerpt from the classics for guidance.” Though readers today may find these entries very distinctive,Footnote 32 it is difficult to comment on their objectivity. In terms of relative objectivity and accuracy, the entries dealing with natural sciences and technology, being drawn from contemporary Western originals, can basically be regarded as acceptable. The entries dealing with Chinese politics, economics, society, etc., on the other hand, generally draw their material from Western surveys of China. Consequently, their objectivity and accuracy are in need of verification and are provided only for reference.

Special Features of the Translations of Encyclopaedic Entries

The following encyclopaedic reference works, some of which have already been mentioned and most of which are accessible in the Heidelberg database, were translated from foreign languages:

Brief Biographies of Notables Worldwide, Shijie mingren zhuanlüe 世界名人傳略 (1908),Footnote 33 a selection of translations from Patrick, David and Francis Hindes Groome, comp. Chambers’s Biographical Dictionary. London and Edinburgh: W & R Chambers, Ltd., 1897, 1899, and Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1898, 1900. Translations by Dou Yuean 竇樂安(= John Darroch) (1865–1941) and his Chinese collaborators Huang Ding 黃鼎, Zhang Zaixin 張在新 and Guo Fenghan 郭鳳翰. Shanghai, Commercial Press, 1908. One hardcover edition.

Newly Translated Atlas of the Strategic Locations of Rivers and Seas of China, Xin yi Zhongguo jianghai xianyao tuzhi 新譯中國江海險要圖志. Original edition by Charles Henry Clarke Langdon from the Great Britain Hydrographic Office. Translated by Chen Shoupeng 陳壽彭 (b. 1855). Shanghai, Jingshi wenshe, 1900. 22 juan.

Jin Yuehan 金約翰 (=John William King), ed., Newly Translated Illustrated Explanations for Maritime Routes, Xinyi haidao tu shuo 新譯海島圖說. Shanghai: Shanghai shuju. 1896. Oral translation by John Fryer (1839–1928) 傅蘭雅. Transcribed by Wang Dejun 王德均. Shanghai: Shanghai shuju 1896. 16 juan. Originally published by the Jiangnan zhizao ju in 1874, this is a translation of John William King, comp., The China sea directory. Compiled from various sources. London, Hydrographic office, Admiralty, 1867–.

A Practical Introduction to International Law, Gongfa bianlan 公法便覽. [Originally Introduction to the Study of International Law] by the American Theodore Dwight Woolsey (1801–1889). Edited and translated by Ding Weiliang 丁緯良( = William Alexander Parsons Martin (1827–1916)) and others. 6 juan. Beijing: Tongwenguan, 1877.

Prescriptions from around the World, Wanguo yaofang 萬國藥方 (1886). [Originally A Companion to the British Pharmacopoeia] by Sikuaier 思快爾 (= Sir Peter Wyatt Squire) (1847–1919). Translated by Hong Shiti 洪士提 (=Stephen Alexander Hunter). 8 juan. Shanghai: Meihua shuguan. 8 juan.

A New World Geography, Wanguo xin dizhi 萬國新地志 (1903). Written by the Briton Lei-wen-si-dun雷文斯頓 (Livingston?). Translated by He Yujie 何育杰 (1882–1939). Shanghai: Shanghaitong she. 1 volume.

Encyclopaedic Lexicon for Law and Economy, Falü jingji cidian 法律經濟辭典 (1907). Originally written by Shimizu Chô (1868–1947) 清水澄. Translated by Zhang Chuntao 張春濤 (1881–1919) and Guo Kaiwen 郭開文 (1877–1936). Shanghai: Qunyi she.

A Chinese Translation of the New Dictionary of Legal Terms, Han yi xin falü cidian 漢譯新法律詞典 (1905). By the Dai Nihon shin hōten kōshūkai 日本新法典講習會. Translated by Xu Yongxi 徐永錫. Edited by Zhang Jiguang 張輯光. Jingshi yixue guan.

Explanation of Terms of Law and Economy, Falü jingji cijie 法律經濟辭解 (1907). Translation of Kishimoto Tatsuo岸本辰雄 (1852–1912), Hōritsu keizai jikai 法律経済辞解. Tokyo: Meiji daigaku shuppansha, no date. Translated by Zhang Enshu 張恩樞, Qian Chongwei 錢崇威 (1870–1969), Chen Yanbin 陳彥彬, and Wang Yunian 汪郁年. Tokyo: Namiki letterpress.

Legal Advice on the Laws of the Four Great Codes, Si da fadian falü guwen 四大法典法律顧問 (1910). Liu Jixue 劉積學, tr. Lin Wenzhao 林文昭. Tokyo: Hakutō. Based on Shimizu Tetsutarō 清水鐵太郎, Hōritsu komon:kaisei yondai hōten 法侓顧問, 改正四大法典. Tokyo: Tsujimoto sueyoshi, 1907.

Sakamoto Kenichi 坂本健一, Encyclopaedic Dictionary of the Names of Foreign Places and Persons, Waiguo diming renming cidian 外國地名人名辭典 (1904). Translated and edited by the New Knowledge Society, Xingaku kaisha 新學會社. Namiki letterpress, Tokyo. Based on Sakamoto Kenichi (b. 1874) 坂本健一, Gaikoku chimei jinmei jiten 外國地名人名辭典. Tokyo: Hobunkan 寳文館1903. The Chinese editors and translators removed Chinese place names and added Japanese ones.

Rika kenkyūkai 理科研究會 (Japanese Society for scientific research), comp., The Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Physics, Wuli da cidian 物理大辭典. Trans. unknown. Shanghai: Hongwen. 1907. Based on Rika kenkyūkai 理科研究会編 comp., Saikin butsurigaku jiten 最近物理学辞典, Tokyo: Sanbunsha 参文舎, 1905.

The New Prescriptions from around the World 新萬國藥方 (1909). By Onda Shigenobu 恩田重信. Translated by Ding Fubao 丁福保 (1874–1952). Shanghai: Yixue shuju.

As this list shows, there were altogether six encyclopaedic reference works directly translated from Western languages, and seven from the Japanese. Moreover, one can also list the following books, which obviously draw upon Japanese translations of encyclopaedic reference works:

The New Erya, Xin Erya 新爾雅 (1903). Compiled by Wang Rongbao 汪榮寶 (1878–1933) and Ye Lan 葉瀾 (both of whom studied in Japan). Shanghai: Mingquan she 明權社.Footnote 34

The Japanese-Chinese Dictionary (1908), Tō Chū daijiten 東中大辭典. Compiled and published by the Society for Renewal, Sakushinsha 作新社 (all members of which had studied in Japan) in Shanghai.

Terminological Dictionary of Natural History, Bowu da cidian 博物大辭典 (1907). Compiled by Zeng Pu 曾樸 (1871–1935) and Xu Nianci 徐念慈 (1875–1908). Shanghai: Hongwen guan.

Explanations of Japanese Legal Terms, Riben fagui jiezi 日本法規解字 (1907). Compiled by Qian Xun 錢恂 (1853–1927) and Dong Hongyi 董鴻禕 (1878–1916). Shanghai: Shangwu.

Comprehensive Explanations of Legal Terminology, Falü mingci tongshi 法律名詞通釋 (1908). Sichuan Institute of Legal and Political Studies, Sichuan fazheng xuetang 四川法政學堂. Distributed to the course for gentry students.

The 18 works listed above account for almost half of all late Qing encyclopaedic reference works. They occupy an important place in the history of the Chinese pursuit of new knowledge. However, examination of their particularities reveals many regrettable failures. Firstly, none of the translated works, whether from English or from Japanese, are reference works of decisive importance for the nineteenth century. Our failure to translate any authoritative encyclopaedia for such a long time is a significant defect, and it shows how efforts to construct our culture were woefully insufficient, just as our assessment of priorities was misguided. According to Yang Jialuo 楊家駱 (1912–1991), his grandfather Ziji 紫極 translated Diderot’s Encyclopédie during the late Qing, but it was not published.Footnote 35 In this same period, over 200 encyclopaedic reference works were published in Japan, our neighbour, of which a few were large-scale, absolutely world-class encyclopaedic reference works. Secondly, all translations were of reference works limited to a given field. At that time this may have been more practical, but altogether only eight fields are represented, of which jurisprudence is the principal one. One fears that this was insufficient for the needs of Chinese students at the time. Thirdly, translations from the Japanese are more numerous than translations from the English, a fact that has to do with the circumstances of the period. Although the information in Japanese encyclopaedic reference works was also drawn from the West, Chinese translators and editors were mainly young Japanese-educated students who produced translations of indifferent quality. Moreover, kanji was frequently adopted for use by Chinese translators, even when the original meaning in Japanese was dissimilar to the characters used in Chinese. This may have provided the illusion of facility but in fact it simply muddied the waters further. Kanji terminology borrowed into Chinese is very common in reference books translated from the Japanese, this has resulted in a disunity of translation that persists even today. Fourthly, one must regrettably conclude that the most satisfactory of these works is Brief Biographies of Notables Worldwide, although it cannot really be claimed that the translation is very good. Nevertheless, the original was a relatively important Western biographical reference work, and so its choice of figures, its introductions, layout and arrangement, its appraisal of merits and demerits, as well as its reference system make it the most accomplished of the various encyclopaedic reference works.

Special Chinese Characteristics

Although the Chinese accepted the principle of encyclopaedic works of reference, they did not entirely put it into practice. On the one hand, this can be put down to shoddy work and slovenly technique. On the other hand, it created reference books with special Chinese characteristics. Tools and methods formed in this way exhibited special characteristics and began to exert influence on the construction of Chinese culture. But the relative paucity of material and the unevenness of its quality prevented this genre from being employed to better effect.

A certain proportion of entries are devoted to the domestic situation in China, especially with regard to politics, economics, geography, and agriculture. Contents include a few official documents, many suggestions for reform, all kinds of statistical data, even including provincial and county population and economic figures, geography and transportation, agricultural production, etc. For instance, the commerce section of A Comprehensive Examination of Current Affairs. Sequel includes over 240 entries devoted to specific regional products. However, one fears that the data is mostly the product of foreign surveys of China or of official statistics. Formerly, ordinary people would have had no access to this data, for it would have been held only in the Grand Council, Junji chu 軍機處. Their publication in this fashion made them available for reference to Westerners and Chinese alike.

Unfortunately, it was a great shortcoming that the Chinese failed to study with sufficient diligence or comprehensiveness. In 1865, at the beginning of the Self-Strengthening Movement, the study of foreign matters was the affair of officials and compradors. From the late nineteenth-century Reform Movement to the Reform of Governance era of the early twentieth century, intellectuals turned to the active study of Western new knowledge. At the time, although the authorities called on the entirety of the nation and its people to study, a significant faction of the ruling class had become hostile to the idea, while ordinary people had not yet drawn lessons from the nightmarish experience of the Boxer Rebellion. But after grasping that “annihilating the foreigners” was a feeble-minded notion, members of this faction also desired to move with the times and to acquire new knowledge. To reinvigorate the antiquated education system, the reforms desired by the Guangxu emperor 光緒 (reign 1874–1908) were enacted: the eight-legged essays were replaced with examinations on current affairs. Six fields of study were designated as content for examinations and examination preparations: “internal affairs, foreign relations, finance, military affairs, science and commerce.” Statistics record that by 1908 there were 47,995 new-style schools, with a combined attendance of over 1.3 million students.Footnote 36 By that time there were already many schools of higher education like the Metropolitan University, Jingshi daxuetang 京師大學堂, the North and South University, Jinan daxuetang 暨南大學堂, the German Medical School, Dewen yixuetang 德文醫學堂, Tsinghua College, Qinghua xuetang 清華學堂, the Sino-Western University, Zhongxi daxuetang 中西大學堂, Hunan Higher University, Hunan gaodeng daxuetang 湖南高等大學堂, Soochow University, Dongwu daxue 東吳大學, Aurora University, Zhendan daxue 震旦大學, University of Shanghai, Hujiang daxue 滬江大學, Fudan University, Fudan daxue 復旦大學, Université Franco-Chinoise, Zhongfa daxue 中法大學, and Peiyang Engineering College, Beiyang gongxueyuan 北洋工學院. The encyclopaedic works were exactly the kind of reference tools that could be used by the students at these institutes. However, many of the students had vague objectives and outmoded study methods; furthermore, the instructors themselves, whether foreigners or Chinese, were less than brilliant. Consequently, the students often acquired only trivial morsels of Western learning. The 1898 Reform Movement was undermined by its dependence on students whose basic training was faulty. Though these encyclopaedic reference works were created for the benefit of these students, the social effect it had upon them is hard to assess.

From another perspective, we should recall that more than a few foreigners came to China in the late Qing, joined by a number of Chinese students returning from studies abroad. These two groups provided most of the translation and compilation for new knowledge books, a body of work that reaches several thousand volumes. But few of these were of remarkable quality. The translation of large-scale foreign encyclopaedias proved especially difficult. Due to the limits of the translators’ skills, no large-scale foreign encyclopaedic reference work was translated for the benefit of the Chinese readership. I mention this historical fact today not in order to assess blame, but to explain causative relations in culture construction.

The special characteristics of the thought habits of Chinese literati are reflected in the four-juan reference work entitled Records of the Essence of Science, Gezhi jinghua lu 格致精華錄 (1890).Footnote 37 The compiler was a famous expert in national learning, Jiang Biao 江標 (1860–1899). The table of contents is at great variance with the aforementioned reference works. The preface is the work of an even more renowned figure, Zhang Zhidong 張之洞 (1837–1909). Apart from heaping praise on the compiler, he makes the following remarkable comment: “If one wishes to eliminate stubborn defects and to forcefully engage in practical governance, nothing is better than to cultivate the Dao of peaceful governance of the [legendary] Five Emperors and Three Kings even while not rejecting the study of natural sciences” 若欲蠲除痼病,力行實政,莫如修明五帝三王治平之道,而不廢格致之學行.Footnote 38 This passage is the core of “Chinese learning as the essence, Western learning for practical use,” an ideology which Zhang advocated; it also clearly demonstrates the intentions of the compiler. All of the entries in this work obey a central tenet: regardless of which field of the natural sciences is being explained, a passage from an ancient Chinese work has been excavated to prove that the ancient Chinese empires had always possessed such things as electrical sciences, steamboats, paddle steamers, railways, etc. and that these were simply later adopted by Westerners. Jiang Biao wrote, “we can reproach ourselves today for being inferior to the ancients; but we should certainly not infer that China is inferior to foreign countries.”Footnote 39 As a master of national learning who decided to make a diligent study of Western learning, Jiang Biao showed enterprise. His goal was to “expand Chinese ambitions, and quench foreign might.” However, he was violating basic scientific knowledge and was irresponsibly rewriting historical common knowledge. In so doing he made himself a laughing-stock in the eyes of later scholars. However, some of his contemporaries lauded this work as a magnificent treasure.

The rapid development of society brought about the establishment of the Chinese United League, Tongmenghui 同盟會 in 1905, signalling the beginning of a period of unified effort for the Chinese to overthrow the ancient system and bolster national strength. The content of published encyclopaedic reference works also developed very rapidly, stressing the social applications of new science and technology, the operation of new domestic economic relations, the need for of international communication, the obligation to rapidly cultivate human resources, etc. Much of this new knowledge was clearly imported from neighbouring Japan. These encyclopaedic reference works reflected the hopes and aspirations of the Chinese.

Short Summary

Firstly, late Qing encyclopaedic reference works constitute a store of historical materials that have been subject to relatively little examination. They are replete with all manner of new thought, new knowledge, and new terms. These works are all composed of rich and varied entries. Yan Huiqing 顏惠慶 (1877–1950), named high scholar of translation, yike jinshi譯科進士, by the Qing court, aptly described the newly emerging encyclopaedic reference works as “the certificate of Chinese evolution.”Footnote 40

Secondly, the new ways of thinking apparent in the encyclopaedic entries, which expand the traditional leishu approach into an encyclopaedic approach that is in step with the Western nations, represent a historic renewal for China. The valorisation, pursuit, study, and application of scholarly knowledge meant that things no longer revolved around ruminations on common knowledge.

Thirdly, the new knowledge contained in the encyclopaedic entries was of a depth and breadth unprecedented in Chinese history. Not only did it cover a great deal of knowledge on modern natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities but even the entries on study methods proposed brand-new and rigorously logical methods. In terms of form, every entry provided only one, relatively scientific, explanation, allowing the reader to reject senseless multiple explanations while quickly and easily absorbing accurate knowledge.

Fourthly, the new terms expressed in encyclopaedic entries completely renewed the national language system. An enormous change took place, from accommodating new writing systems, to the construction of new terms, new grammatical structures, and new punctuation. Even more importantly, efforts were made to bring both new concepts and contents in line with terms that were in use internationally. This writer once remarked that from the seventeenth century, when Matteo Ricci and other figures came to China and began planning bilingual Sino-foreign dictionaries, until the early nineteenth century when Robert Morrison finished editing his voluminous English and Chinese Dictionary, a channel of communication between China and the West was open. Unfortunately, for a long time this was a one-way channel, with foreigners drawing advantage from it and China making use of it only later. The encyclopaedic reference works appearing in the late Qing meant that new terminology could move entirely freely in both directions.

Fifthly, though our nation took the opportunity to reform, modernise, and create new reference genres, we unfortunately did not study with sufficient diligence or earnestness, so that the quality and quantity of encyclopaedic reference works published in the late Qing leave much to be desired. Even explanations about the translation and content of new terminology can be frequently vague. For readers of the period and those who came later, this is a great inconvenience. The disparity in the success of our cultural reform is especially apparent when compared with the 250 encyclopaedic reference works compiled and published by the Japanese people during that time. Even today, these historical experiences have not been dealt with sufficiently.

Translated from the Chinese by Josh Stenberg.