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46 CHINA MISSION YRAR BOOK.education throughout the Kmpire. This method hasnothing spectacular in its development, and it is yet tooearly for the Board of Education to have preparedcareful statistics covering the whole country. Thestatistics which have already been published by theBoard in the columns of its official Bulletin are not allprepared on the same system, so that it is difficult tocontrast the amount of work done in one Province withthat done in another. General impressions gained fromChinese newspapers, from correspondence in the foreignpress usually furnished by missionaries, the opinions ofvarious travellers in the interior, all go to confirm theaccuracy of the statement that there has been a rapiddevelopment of primary schools. They are yet too fewin number, but when it is remembered that ten years agothere were practically no such schools under Governmentsupervision, there can be no question that a decidedadvance has been made in this branch of education.One difficulty in the establishment of elementaryschools has been the competition with the private schools,which in former times were conducted in the home ofthe teacher. The new schools have paid larger salariesto the teachers, which have made it necessary to demandlarger school fees. Frequently the newly opened schoolhas gathered to itself boys from the well-to-do middleclasses, leaving the boys from poorer families to get sucheducation as they could from the old-style private school.The teachers of the remaining private schools are usually men who have had no opportunity for training inmodern methods, and their schools are conducted inexactly the same way as those of forty or fifty yearsago. In some instances, very good private .schools havebeen started by two or three teachers, trained in modernmethods, combining to open a larger and better schoolthan would have been possible for any single teacher todo. In Shanghai there are several schools, on privatefoundations, which are greatly assisted by the voluntaryservices of young men who hold good positions in other

GOVKKNMKNT SCHOOLS. 47lines. Gratuitous teaching of one or two hours a day,merely for the love of it, and with the desire to advancethe cause of modern education, indicates a real zeal on thepart of the young men. These private schools mustcontinue yet for some time before sufficient provision canbe made by the Government for the instruction of allpupils, thus rendering them unnecessary. The idealplan for elementary schools is to make them free to allcomers, and when this is carried into effect the privateschools will cease to exist.In an address before the Educational Associationseveral years ago, I alluded to a plan providing Readersfor the teaching of the Chinese language which wasbeing carried on at Nanyaiig College at that time. Myreference to the subject elicited the keenest interest fromthe members of the Association, and I received mainenquiries, at that time and subsequently, concerningwhat we were doing. At the present time, such Readersare so common as to cause younger teachers to imaginethat they had always been in use. In all modernschools they have replaced the former clumsy method otteaching the language by memorizing the Classics. Theyhave made itpossible for a child to learn to recogni/tcharacters much more quickly than formerly, and to beable to put these characters together into simple .sentences. The introduction of these Readers has markeda decided progress in the advance of universal education,as they have made easier the stupendous task of mastering the knowledge of Chinese written characters. Thetendency of these modern schools is toward a moresimple method of expression, but it yet remains to beseen whether their methods will be able to produce asufficient number of writers of the style required forofficial documents and books. Those trained in earliermethods consider the scholarship of those being trainedin modern methods shallow and superficial. Timealone can show whether this opinion is founded uponprejudice or fact. It is possible that, in the stress of

46 CHINA MISSION YRAR BOOK.education throughout the Kmpire. This method hasnothing spectacular in its development, and it is yet tooearly for the Board of Education to have preparedcareful statistics covering the whole country. Thestatistics which have already been published by theBoard in the columns of its official Bulletin are not allprepared on the same system, so that it is difficult tocontrast the amount of work done in one Province withthat done in another. General impressions gained fromChinese newspapers, from correspondence in the foreignpress usually furnished by missionaries, the opinions ofvarious travellers in the interior, all go to confirm theaccuracy of the statement that there has been a rapiddevelopment of primary schools. They are yet too fewin number, but when it is remembered that ten years agothere were practically no such schools under Governmentsupervision, there can be no question that a decidedadvance has been made in this branch of education.One difficulty in the establishment of elementaryschools has been the competition with the private schools,which in former times were conducted in the home ofthe teacher. The new schools have paid larger salariesto the teachers, which have made it necessary to demandlarger school fees. Frequently the newly opened schoolhas gathered to itself boys from the well-to-do middleclasses, leaving the boys from poorer families to get sucheducation as they could from the old-style private school.The teachers of the remaining private schools are usually men who have had no opportunity for training inmodern methods, and their schools are conducted inexactly the same way as those of forty or fifty yearsago. In some instances, very good private .schools havebeen started by two or three teachers, trained in modernmethods, combining to open a larger and better schoolthan would have been possible for any single teacher todo. In Shanghai there are several schools, on privatefoundations, which are greatly assisted by the voluntaryservices of young men who hold good positions in other

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