the opposition of the literati. This was no less the case then
than it is now. To abolish feudalism by one stroke was a radical
change indeed. Whether the change was for the better or the
worse, the men of letters took no time to inquire; whatever was
good enough for their fathers was good enough for them and their
children. They found numerous authorities in the classics to
support their contention and these they freely quoted to show
that Shih Huang Ti was wrong. They continued to criticize the
government to such an extent that something had to be done to
silence the voice of antiquity ... As to how far this decree (on
the burning of the books) was enforced, it is hard to say. At any
rate, it exempted all libraries of the government, or such as
were in possession of a class of officials called Po Szu or
Learned Men. If any real damage was done to Chinese literature
under the decree in question, it is safe to say that it was not
of such a nature as later writers would have us believe. Still,
this extreme measure failed to secure the desired end, and a
number of the men of letters in Han Yang, the capital, was
subsequently buried alive.

This passage is written from the point of view of Young China, which is
anxious to assimilate Western learning in place of the dead scholarship
of the Chinese classics. China, like every other civilized country, has
a tradition which stands in the way of progress. The Chinese have
excelled in stability rather than in progress; therefore Young China,
which perceives that the advent of industrial civilization has made
progress essential to continued national existence, naturally looks with
a favourable eye upon Shih Huang Ti's struggle with the reactionary
pedants of his age. The very considerable literature which has come
down to us from before his time shows, in any case, that his edict was