Page 78 - 《孟子》（一）中·英对照版

?孟
子

Your Majesty wishes to effect this regulation of
the livelihood of the people, why not turn to that
which is the essential step to it? Let mulberry trees
be planted about the homesteads with their five
mu, and persons of fifty years may be clothed with
silk. In keeping fowls, pigs, dogs, and swine, let not
their times of breeding be neglected, and persons of
seventy years may eat flesh. Let there not be taken
away the time that is proper for the cultivation of
the farm with its hundred mu, and the family of eight
mouths that is supported by it shall not suffer from
hunger. Let careful attention be paid to education
in schools, —the inculcation in it especially of the
filial and fraternal duties, and grey-haired men will
not be seen upon the roads, carrying burdens on
their backs or on their heads. It never has been that
the ruler of a state where such results were seen, —
the old wearing silk and eating flesh, and the black-
haired people suffering neither from hunger nor

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