Trial Request

Journal of National Essence (國粹學報)

In 1904 and during the period of internal and external turmoil of late Ching Dynasty, many thoughts appeared. That was the year “The Association on the Preservation of Sinology” was founded by a group with one of the thoughts of supporting going back the ancients led by Teng Chih, Huang Chie, and Chang Tai-yan. 

     The association started publishing “Guocui Xuebao” in February of the year after, with the objective of “illuminating sinology, preserving Chinese cultural essence, refraining from clannish thoughts, and not serving party interests.” The periodical was a monthly and its articles were written in ancient Chinese. It stressed language in oral and written forms, ceremonies and systems, description of persons, objects, and affairs. Main writers for the monthly were mostly famous masters of sinology. So the importance people attached to this monthly was very obvious and needed no publicity. 

   “Guocui Xuebao” stressed study on the history of academics and sought a comprehensive understanding of scholastic disciplines of both modern and ancient times. It was divided into seven chapters, namely discussion on social phenomena, politics, history, academics, compositions, compilations, and documentaries. There was also appendix. Of them, documentaries and appendix not only contained articles of various writers for the periodical, but also non-published articles of saints of different generations of the past. The monthly was first published on February 23, 1905 and stopped publication in March, 1911, with 82 issues. It had collected over 600 of expert work of master sinologists and over 400 articles of scholars in early Ching Dynasty who were still reminiscent of Ming Dynasty and in other periods of the Ching Dynasty. Portraits of celebrities of various generations and all kinds of drawings (including inscription rubbing, painting, and drawings of all objects) were included in each issue. In total there were over 600 drawings printed.

Value-added functions of the electronic edition

Full-text searching and browsing: full-text searching, classified browsing, and on-shelve reading for the whole book (16 volumes)
● Classified browsing: with 21 classifications, including politics, academics, compositions, classics, saints, geography, all objects, and fine arts and appendix. 
● Unrecognizable rare ancient Chinese words magnifying with the move of cursor: Unrecognizable rare ancient Chinese words can be displayed within the main text box by its original pieces of drawing shape. One can use a cursor to magnify them for easier reading.
● Drawings displaying with full text: For information with drawings, such drawings and text can both be displayed in the main text box. One can use a cursor to magnify drawings at any time.
● Output functions: with such output functions of downloading, printing and e-mailing basic information, PDF images of both main text and original text of an article.