Pi Xirui and Jingxue lishi

Abstract

Jingxue lishi (The History of Classical Scholarship) is a textbook that was written by a schoolteacher for the purpose of helping his students learn the subject that he taught. Pi Xirui (1850--1908) was more than a schoolteacher. He was a son and a grandson, a father and a grandfather, a husband, a mentor, a friend, a patriot, a strong believer in reform and an activist, an accomplished poet, and a scholar of the Chinese Classics. And Jingxue lishi is more than a textbook---it is a rich repository that contains much valuable information about a very important part of Chinese culture and civilization, as well as insights into a traditional way of life. This dissertation contains a partial translation of Jingxue lishi along with Zhou Yutong's annotations to the text, as well as a partial translation of Pi Xirui's chronological biography. The purpose is to provide the reader with a vehicle for acquiring facility with the language and familiarity with the source materials, as well as gaining a greater understanding and appreciation of what it was like to be a traditional Confucian scholar at the end of the imperial era.