History of education
Although there are more than 40,000 Chinese characters in written Chinese, many are rarely used. Studies have shown that full literacy in the Chinese language requires a knowledge of only between three and four thousand characters.
A Dictionary of the Chinese Language
Part I, A Dictionary of the Chinese Language, is supertitled in Chinese—but not English—as a "character dictionary" (). It was a Chinese-to-English dictionary, organized by the 214 radical system employed by the 1716 "Kangxi Dictionary". These radicals are the initial or major graphic components of Chinese characters, ranging from 1 to 17 strokes. In Morrison's dictionary, Volume I starts with Radical 1 (, "one") and ends at Radical 41 ( ("thumb; Chinese inch") ; Volume II starts with Radical 42 (, "small") and stops at Radical 119 (, "rice") ; and Volume III begins with Radical 120 (, "silk") and ends the dictionary with Radical 214 (, "flute") . Vols. II & III were published simultaneously in London by Kingsbury, Parbury, & Allen.