Emperor Thành Thái’s Edict to Establish the Quốc học in 1896

In 1896, the Nguyễn Dynasty established a school at the royal capital in Huế for teaching French.

Known in Vietnamese as the Quốc học, its original name in classical Chinese was Quốc học trường 國學場, meaning the “national learning school,” and it was referred to in French as the “Collège national.” (And yes, it is significant that “national learning” at this time meant learning French. . .)

The decision to establish this school was made by French colonial officials and approved by Emperor Thành Thai and his court officials. [Note: when I first wrote this blog post I had Emperor Thành Thai’s age incorrectly as 27 when in fact he was still only 17, and was under the authority of regents, so it would be more accurate to say that this document reflects their views. However, in what follows I am going to continue to use Emperor Thành Thái’s name as 1) officially the edict came from him and 2) it’s just easier to write that way. Ultimately what this blog post is about, however, is a worldview that was held by Emperor Thành Thái’s regents and probably many other educated Vietnamese at that time as well.]

To officially establish the Quốc học, in the autumn of 1896 Emperor Thành Thái issued an edict (dụ 諭) in classical Chinese (Hán) approving its establishment. Shortly after that, Governor-General Paul Armand Rosseau issued an (arrêté) that likewise approved the establishment of the school. This order was accompanied by a French translation of Thành Thái’s edict.

In what follows, I will compare the Hán original of Emperor Thành Thái’s edict with the French translation. What we will see is that a lot was lost in translation, and that the Hán original can offer us a fascinating view of the world of ideas at the Nguyễn Dynasty court in 1896.

Emperor Thành Thái’s edict contains a good deal of factual information about such issues as how many teachers would be hired to work at the Quốc học, and what kinds of children could be admitted, etc. and all of this was accurately translated into French.

The same, however, cannot be said for the opening passage of the edict. The edict begins with an explanation of why it was necessary to establish a school for teaching French. When we compare what Emperor Thành Thái wrote here with what was translated, we can see a huge difference, and it is a difference that reflects the fact that classical Chinese and French at that time were not simply separate languages, but instead, that they were the means for conveying the ideas of two very different cultures with very different worldviews.

This is how the French translation of Emperor Thành Thái’s edict begins (and yes, I ran it through Google Translate, but then checked it against my rudimentary French):

“When one wishes to give a serious development to instruction, one does not limit oneself to exclusive teaching, just as to ensure the regularity of teaching, it is indispensable to create courses of study. Now, apart from the sacred books of China, there are other works from various countries, and the mandate to speak is very important in international relations.”

[Quand on veut donner un développement sérieux à l’instruction, on ne se borne pas à un enseignement exclusif, de même que pour assurer la régularité de l’enseignement, il est indispensable de créer des cours d’études. Or, eu dehors des livres sacrés de Chine, il existe d’autres ouvrages des divers pays et le mandat de porter la parole est chose très importante dans les relations internationales.]

And here is how I would translate those lines from the Hán original:

諭學無常師，欲其博也。教必立學，欲其專也。蓋六經之外別有方書，列國之交，重在辭命。

“Edict: In studying without a constant teacher one seeks to broaden one’s knowledge, and in teaching, one must establish a school to obtain specialization. Outside of the Six Classics, there are regional books, and interactions with the various countries relies on [spoken] rhetoric.”

There are several terms here that are key for understanding Emperor Thành Thái’s ideas and his worldview. They are: “studying without a constant teacher” (học vô thường sư 學無常師); the Six Classics (Lục Kinh 六經) vs. “regional books” (phương thư 方書); “[spoken] rhetoric” (từ mệnh 辭命); and “interactions with various countries” (liệt quốc chi giao 列國之交).

These are all terms and concepts that were very specific to the worldview of people like Emperor Thành Thái. They are also terms and concepts that did not make it into the French translation. Let us see what they meant.

Studying Without a Constant Teacher

The expression “study without a constant teacher” (học vô thường sư 學無常師), means to seek knowledge widely and not limit oneself by only learning from an established teacher. It is an old expression that the Tang Dynasty scholar-official, Han Yu 韓愈, later made famous (in slightly altered wording) in a work called “Discourse on Teachers” (Shishuo 師說). To quote:

聖人無常師：孔子師郯子、萇弘、師襄、老聃。郯子之徒，其賢不及孔子。孔子曰：「三人行，則必有我師」。是故弟子不必不如師，師不必賢於弟子。聞道有先後，術業有專攻，如是而已。

“The sages did not have constant teachers [thánh nhân vô thường sư]. Confucius took Tanzi, Chang Hong, Shi Xiang and Lao Dan as his teachers, [even though] Tanzi and his like were not as good and wise as Confucius. Confucius said, ‘Among three people walking, there must be one who can be my teacher.’ Therefore, disciples are not necessarily inferior to teachers, and teachers are not necessarily better and wiser than disciples. It is just that one has learned the Way [Đạo] before the other, and some have specialized skills. That is all.”

Emperor Thành Thái began his edict with this expression as a way of explaining to his officials why he was ordering that a school be established to teach French. He was clearly anticipating opposition from orthodox Confucian scholars who viewed the French as “barbarians,” that is, as a people whose knowledge was inferior to their own.

Emperor Thành Thái thus tried to counter such expected opposition by putting forth an orthodox Confucian argument of his own. By stating that Confucius and the sages could learn from (almost) anyone, he was arguing that the children of his officials could likewise learn from the French.

Writing vs. Rhetoric, The Capital vs. Regions

The knowledge that the French possessed, Emperor Thành Thái explained, was from “outside the Six Classics” (Lục Kinh chi ngoại 六經之外) and was contained in “regional books” (phương thư 方書). Compare that statement with what was translated into French: “Now, apart from the sacred books of China, there are other works from various countries” (Or, eu dehors des livres sacrés de Chine, il existe d’autres ouvrages des divers pays).

While Emperor Thành Thái simply referred to the “the Six Classics,” the French translation has “the sacred books of China” (les livres sacrés de Chine). From this we can see two very different worldviews. The French saw the texts that “Annamites” (as they referred to the Vietnamese) studied as “Chinese.” However, to Emperor Thành Thái they were simply, “the Six Classics.”

Further, while the French translation places “the sacred books of China” on more or less the same level as “works from various countries,” the wording in Emperor Thành Thái’s original Hán text makes it clear that he did not see these two types of texts as equivalent. Instead, the terms that he used made a very clear hierarchical distinction between “the Six Classics” and what exists outside them, or what Emperor Thành Thái referred to as “regional books.”

This term “regional books” (phương thư 方書) is not a common term. In fact, this is the only time I’ve ever seen it, and I can’t find examples of it elsewhere. The same term, phương thư, was used to refer to a type of medical text (formularies) that contained recipes for dealing with health disorders. However, that is clearly not what this term is used to refer to here. Instead, it is used to refer to books from a “region” (phương 方), and in that sense, it has a negative connotation.

In the Confucian worldview there was a hierarchical dichotomy between writing (văn 文) and speaking (ngôn 言), and there was likewise a hierarchical dichotomy between the capital (kinh 京) and regions (phương 方). What is more, these dichotomies were interrelated.

The capital was where one could find the emperor and his court officials, a group of men who were supremely adept at communicating through writing, and who believed that they exemplified the moral values promoted in the texts that they studied, the Six Classics. In the distant regions of the empire, on the other hand, one found illiterate people who could only communicate through speaking, and whose morality was therefore considered by the elite in the capital to be far inferior to their own.

So central were these ideas to the Confucian worldview that in 1896 there was no way for Emperor Thành Thái to refer to French, as a spoken language, in a neutral manner. There simply did not exist the vocabulary for making that point, and we can see this here in his edict.

First, by making reference to the “regional books” of the French, Emperor Thành Thái already conveyed a sense of inferiority, as things that were “regional” were distant from the capital and were closer to speech, rather than writing, and were therefore clearly not in the same category as the Six Classics.

Second, in saying that “[spoken] rhetoric” (từ mệnh 辭命) was important when interacting with “the various countries,” Emperor Thành Thái again employed a term that carried negative connotations.

This term comes from a famous passage in the Mencius (Mạnh tử 孟子) where it is pointed out that some of the disciples of Confucius were good at speaking (thiện vi thuyết từ 善爲說辭) but that Confucius said of himself that he was not good at rhetoric (từ mệnh 辭命) [我於辭命則不能也].

Famous stories like this one inculcated in the minds of scholars in premodern East Asia this idea that there was a hierarchical dichotomy between speech and writing/morality. That Confucius was not good at rhetoric did not matter, because speech ultimately did not matter.

Writing and the morality that writing was intimately connected to is what mattered. And that was not in “regional books.”

Interactions with Various Countries

So explaining the need to set up a school to teach French was not an easy task for Emperor Thành Thái. He had to explain why it was ok to learn from people who valued “rhetoric” over writing and who came from a “region.”

On a conceptual level, this would be like telling students studying for PhDs in English literature at Cambridge or Oxford that they need to learn IT from chimpanzees. As hard as that would be, for Emperor Thành Thái it was even more difficult because at a linguistic level there was simply no way for him to make his argument without using terms that pointed to the inferiority of the French and their language.

This edict is therefore fascinating as it shows how Emperor Thành Thái was struggling to deal with the incredible changes that were taking place around him at that time. This changing world that Thành Thái lived in was likewise reflected in the words that he used, like “regional books,” as well as “interactions with the various countries” (liệt quốc chi giao 列國之交).

Today the term for “foreign relations” in Vietnamese and Chinese is quan hệ quốc tế 國際關係. That term, however, did not exist yet in Thành Thái’s world. Nor did the term “diplomacy” (ngoại giao 外交). Prior to the arrival of the French in the nineteenth century, the Vietnamese had only known of “bang giao” 邦交, a term that we can translate as “domainal interactions.”

This was a term that was particular to the hierarchical East Asian world of inter-state relations where the Middle Kingdom had tributary states. It is a term that can be found in such early texts as the Warring States-era (5th cent.-221 BCE) Record of Rites (Liji 禮記) where it refers to the ritual interactions between vassal domains in the Zhou Dynasty empire. In nineteenth-century Vietnam this term was likewise used to refer to the hierarchical sovereign-vassal relations between the Qing and Nguyễn dynasties.

“Interactions with the various countries” (liệt quốc chi giao 列國之交), on the other hand, was a new expression that Vietnamese started to use in the nineteenth century to refer to a new form of relations with peoples from Western countries. It is a kind of intermediary concept between premodern “bang giao” (domanial interactions) and modern “ngoại giao” (diplomacy).

The world of “bang giao” had relied on communication in writing in classical Chinese, and Vietnamese scholar-officials were very good at that. The world of “interactions with the various countries,” on the other hand, required a new skill – speaking French, and in 1896, Vietnamese were not good at that.

There was thus a definite need to set up the Quốc học in 1896, but it was also clearly a challenge for Emperor Thành Thái. It was a challenge because he had to convince scholar-officials who had been educated to look down on people like the French and their forms of knowledge and communication that it was now ok and necessary to learn from such people.

We can see how difficult this was from the words that he used in his edict. The layers of meaning that one can see in those words, however, did not make it through their translation into French.

The French therefore perhaps could not grasp what Emperor Thành Thái had to deal with, but then again, they probably didn’t care. Today, however, for anyone who can read Hán, Emperor Thành Thái’s words provide us a fascinating glimpse of the times he lived in, and of the issues that he had to deal with.