ABSTRACT
One of the earliest classics existing is the "Book of Changes," written in the prison where he languished on a political charge, by a philosopher called Wan-Wang, in the year b.c. 1150. The Board of Rites, one of the seven governing Boards of Peking, has for its only object the proper carrying out of its precepts throughout China. The "Book of Odes" is an anthology of primitive poetry, being a collection of 311 national songs, which Confucius selected from amongst 3000 of the same kind existing in China at a date long antecedent to the production of any other poetry. According to the historian Sze-ma-Tsien, "he rejected those which were only repetitions of others, and selected those which would be serviceable for the inculcation of propriety and righteousness." Under the dynasties of Sung and Yuan a.d. 960-1368, China attained to a degree of mental culture far in advance of that existing in the West.
