The Analytical Reader: A Short Method for Learning to Read and Write Chinese (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Analytical Reader: A Short Method for Learning to Read and Write Chinese

Several years ago I commenced a volume, on a plan somewhat similar to that of the present work. Its progress was interrupted by a voyage to America; but when I returned, I was enabled to resume the task on a better basis. At first I had been guided in the selection of characters by no surer rule than the judgment of a Chinese scribe, who culled them from the pages of K'ang hi's Dictionary. I was now favored with a list, formed on scienti fic principles, in which every character was placed with numerical precision according to the frequency of its use.

For this, I was indebted to Mr. Wm. Gamble, Superintendent of the Presbyterian Mission Press.

Mr. Gamble prepared it for a purpose very different from mine, viz. To ascertain the proportion in which the several letters would be required in casting a font of metallic type; and to determine in what order the types should be arranged, so as to bring those in most common use, nearest to the hand of the compositor Both of these ends it succeeded in effecting - preventing a waste of metal in casting useless type, and increasing the rapidity of composition. But it was obvious that a collection arranged with such elaborate care might be adapted to a higher end - to save the time expended in learning rare or useless characters, and abbreviate for foreign students, or Chinese pupils the tedious task of acquiring the written language. The process by which these tables were constructed is well stated by Mr. Gamble, in an Introduction, the greater part of which I take the liberty of transcribing, for the sake of the information it contains.

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