Naturally, modern conditions have rendered this comparison ineffective in many ways. Yet the significance or moral of the saying remains. It emphasizes the painstaking years spent in accumulating, adapting and assimilating knowledge. While our Chinese predecessors in the intellectual field (and probably yours) frequently had to conduct their academic studies under adverse physical conditions, what threatens the students of the free world today is the philosophy of getting with the least effort possible, and the lack of intellectual initiative and freedom. To those of us here in Taiwan, those who teach and study on this island bastion in the frontline of defense against communism, the challenge becomes all the more starkly evident.
Politically, we have now before us a dismal picture of the world, half-free and half-enslaved. Mentally or intellectually, we are witnessing a race of materialistic and technological forces to control the human mind. Just as Communist indoctrination or more expressly "thought reform" has paralyzed the creative thinking and individuality of my countrymen on the mainland and frustrated their faith and hope, so the ascendancy of technological progress over liberal education is likewise not a blessing without certain reservations. "Education in the last two decades", as authoritatively pointed out by a leading contemporary figure, "in trying to keep pace with or surpass the scientific war developments, first of Germany and now of Communist Russia, has become a frenzied attempt to express itself only in the physical, chemical, mechanistic and electronic sense." For the horrors of current war technology are such that the "freedom and values of human dignity which we were taught to cherish above all else have begun to be secondary to biological survival."
Lest I should sound overly pessimistic, which certainly would not become such a happy occasion as this, I'd like to offer you an aphorism from President Chiang Kai-shek's Youth Day Message of several years ago. Starting off that address, he said: "The most precious period of life is youth, and the most precious thing about youth is faith." What is faith then? It represents the "crystallizing" of our ideas and the "intensification" of our will. Suppose we were asked to write a short composition entitled "We Have Faith In (Such And Such)". What would be your answer?
Actually, the answer is to be found in the story of mankind whose constant search for truth and universal good replacing the brutal and the primitive, culminated in our cultural heritage as well as in the civilization we enjoy today. In fact what is known as the history of the human race represents a summing up of conflicts big and small, of freedom at war with slavery, good against evil, and democracy versus despotism. Since the forces of evil can only be restricted or suppressed but will never totally vanish from the face of the earth, the struggle is waged continuously at all times in all places and seems liable today to grow into unprecedented proportions.
Nevertheless, the outcome of these freedom-against-slavery struggles is always reassuring. I would certainly exceed my time limit to recount one by one the downfalls of tyrants and dictators in both oriental and occidental history, whose high-handed measures instituted or consolidated their despotic rule, yet inevitably led to their disintegration. In the same category we would classify world communism whose constant aggressive intents and purposes are made to cover up insecurity and frustrations within. That we have faith in the ultimate triumph of democracy over materialism is based on the following line of reasoning.
First, as has often been pointed out, communism has come to power not through virtue, truth, humanity or charity but only by dishonest and terroristic methods. The special techniques of the Communists comprise enmity, cruelty, despotism, persecution and deceit, which in Christian terminology are "fruits of the devil".
Secondly, in order that all men under its rule should be reduced to being mere cogs in the giant Communist wheel, communism aims at the "permanent disfigurement of the true and lasting character of the human soul." This is known as "brain-washing."
Thirdly, communism "posits itself always as a challenge to Christianity and to the universally accepted standards of ethical behavior". Quoting the Bible, we can best describe the Communist rank and file as having "no fear of God before their eyes."
Lastly, since Communist conquests are always made through brute force and insidious methods, even the last vestiges of human dignity and moral courage, after suffering untold physical miseries, turn out to be the spark leading to explosion. Already the Polish, Hungarian and Tibetan uprisings plus the numerous day-to-day revolts on the mainland of China have sown seeds of the ultimate Communist downfall.
May I quote President Chiang again? "Spiritual power and psychological buildup", he emphasized, "are therefore more important than any military weapon at present". To outdo materialistic evils, our spiritual build-up should be founded, not upon the shifting dunes of deceit, humiliation and mass hypnosis, but upon the moral rock of human dignity and individual worth. This is as truly the underlying principle of Christianity as it is our Confucian teaching; the basis of the American Declaration of Independence and of the Chinese Constitution. In the Christian religion, the virtue of virtues is Charity or Universal Love which predicates individual personality as well as harmonious human relationships.
Ever since the time it was first known to the West, Confucianism has been given certain religious trappings and unworldly or ascetic airs. In truth it is not only a religion, but also a philosophy of life expounded and advocated by the greatest and most practical of all Chinese philosophers, Confucius, the "Sage of all ages." Born by the middle of the sixth century B.C., when the once powerful Chou Dynasty was on its way to decline and fall, Confucius witnessed much in the same way as Jesus Christ or Sakyamuni did, incompetent leadership, moral degeneration and wide-spread miseries of the people. So abnormal was the social picture that our Sage set out to look for its causes and the means of remedy. Being practical, yet far-sighted, he started his probings with human nature and discovered that "men were not like men, for they seemed to have lost their humanity."
Strangely though, the Master through his writings or oral accounts, never attempted a full definition of the word "humanity," nor did his disciples, followers and descendants. But he gave posterity enough approximations to abide by. The closest we come to it is the all-inclusive synthesis of what is human and what is divine in man. An interesting parallel to Jesus Christ's love-thy-neighbor preaching was offered in Book 6 of the Analects—a written record of Confucius' sayings compiled by his followers, which goes like this: "For a man of true humanity is one who, desiring to stand firm himself, helps others to stand firm, and desiring to develop himself fully, helps others to develop themselves fully. To be able from one's self to draw a parallel for the treatment of others, this may be called the art of humanity."
Nor should any individual be contented with self-cultivation alone. For the Mentor took it as his life mission to improve the world through better politics, better and more harmonious human relationships. The latter, in the pattern he prescribed to cure the moral and political decadence of his times, comprised the "five relations" of sovereign and subject, parent and child, husband and wife, brother and brother, and friend and friend. Although China some 2,500 years ago lacked the workable democratic procedures of an electoral system, the rule by majority, and multifold division of government powers and the practice of checks and balances, showed that Confucius was truly democratic in spirit. The stipulations he laid down for government structure and administrative operations placing the interests of the people above the right of the sovereign, championed the same cause of Democracy as did the Greeks and early Romans.
Nevertheless, it was primarily in the field of education that Confucius distinguished himself. To him the purpose of education is "to provide instructions on how to live like a gentlemen". The paragon of the classic Confucian school is "Chun Tzu", or the Superior Man, whose qualifications are many, whose virtues unsurpassed and who is therefore capable of taking care of his home, his national affairs and of promoting international relations.
To sum up: Confucius was our protagonist for liberal education which makes for a well-round personality and good citizenship. This education moreover emphasizes independent thinking and intellectual courage as indispensables in man's quest for knowledge. It offers us the academic and moral armament we need today against the onslaught of dialectic materialism.
In order that I may not be accused of over-emphasis on the Confucian-type of humanism (to which incidentally I devoted my postgraduate years as a philosophy-major) let me quote what the great thinkers of the West had to say about man's intellectual enlightenment. To Plato, the sole aim of education is to "develop in the body and in the soul all the beauty and all the perfection of which they are capable. Education is the first and fairest thing that the best of men can ever have." Could it have been possible that Aristotle in his day foresaw the complexities of "isms", "ideologies", "theories", etc. that modern man is involved in, when he pointed out, - clearly and irrevocably, - that "knowledge has little value unless it can bring light and truth to life?"
Exactly what Mr. Rudyard Kipling had on his mind when he penned his much-quoted couplet that: "East is East and West is West, and never the twain will meet" is something we cannot explore at this moment for lack of time. The answer I would venture to give as a conclusion to my address is to point out that the orthodoxy of mankind's ethical and cultural heritage is shared by both the East and West alike. Confucianism has been, still is, and will always be, the back bone of Asian humanistic tradition. On the other hand, the spirit of democracy and freedom, initiated by the early Greeks, painstakingly preserved in monasteries through the Dark Ages and put to work so splendidly in the United States and other democracies today, would forever be the ideological answer to Marxist-Leninist heresy. What better deterrent to World Communism could there be found?
In China we have a proverbial saying that "While it takes ten years for a tree to bear fruit, it takes a hundred years of education for a human being to reach perfection." Here we find education as distinct from sheer academic or technological training. Whereas the former is steered along the humanistic course, the latter is in grave danger of departure or detachment from moral goodness. And schools like the Taipei American School and our institutions throughout free China are the conservatories of man's heritage of freedom. For the amalgamation of knowledge with freedom can unleash the greatest power mankind has ever known.
As Mr. Lyndon B. Johnson, your vice president recently told Chinese youth, education makes "the difference between herding sheep and being vice president", and "under freedom in America the son of a poor farmer may—by hard work—come to be vice president of the US". In much the same way, though the obstacles in your path may be different, we are all looking up to you, the graduating class and to your fellow students as well, for potential leadership in the future. What is more, I have reason to believe that among you may be not only future vice presidents, but also presidents of as many countries as your nationalities represent, wherever the freedoms of a genuine democracy prevail. I thank you.
*An address by Dr. Sampson C. Shen, director of Government Information Office, at the Commencement Exercises of the Taipei American School, June 2, 1961.