Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 27.djvu/276

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
242
THE Lî Kî.
BK. III.

Great officer)[1]; at sixty, he did not go in person to the college; at seventy, he retired from the service of the government; and in mourning, he used only the dress of sackcloth (without adopting the privations of the mourning rites).

10. (Shun), the lord of Yü, nourished the aged (who had retired from the service) of the state in (the school called) the higher hsiang, and the aged of the common people (and officers who had not obtained rank) in (the school called) the lower hsiang. The sovereigns of Hsiâ nourished the former in (the school called) the hsü on the east, and the latter in (that called) the hsü on the west. The men of Yin nourished the former in the school of the right, and the latter in that of the left. The men of Kâu entertained the former in (the school called) the eastern kiâo, and the latter in (what corresponded to) the hsiang of Yü. This was in the suburb of the capital on the west[2].

11. The lord of Yü wore the hwang cap in


  1. See Book X, Section ii, i. This was, say the Khien-lung editors, a lesson against forwardness in seeking office and rank, as retirement at seventy was a lesson against cleaving to these too long.
  2. It is wearisome to try and thread one's way through the discussions about the schools, called by all these different names. One thing is plain, that there were the lower schools which boys entered when they were eight, and the higher schools into which they passed from these. But in this paragraph these institutions are mentioned not in connexion with education, but as they were made available for the assembling and cherishing of the aged. They served various purposes. A school-room with us may do the same, occasionally; it was the rule in ancient China that the young should be taught and the old ministered to in the same buildings.