120,000 VOLUNTEER TEACHERS SERVE IN CHINA WITHOUT PAY

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6867, 23 March 1929, Page 19 (Supplement)

120,000 VOLUNTEER TEACHERS SERVE IN CHINA WITHOUT PAY

Five millions among the labouring class in the rural sections of China, arc learning to read under the direction of the Mass Education Movement, says Y. C. James Yen, head of that movement, while visiting the United States. "I have been ashed,” Dr. Yen says, “why in all these recent revolutions the Mass Education Movement has been able to carry on. There are at least two reasons. (1) The common people aro eager to get an education, and (2) thoro has been a nation-wido awakening of the need of educating all the people of China. China now realises that she must train her common people it' China is to take her place in the sisterhood of nations. Now we have 120,000 volunteer teachers serving without pay. This seems to be far more significant for the ancient nation and the young republic than we sometimes read in the newspapers. There is a dawn of a new era in the Far East. “We realise -that to make the people literate is just tho first step. There remains the task of teaching citizen- - ship. We must stress qualitative «s against quantitative and depth as against breadth. And so we are faced with the question as to the content of this great movement. Wo have the problem of training supervision and the matter of literature. But notliing can stop tho movement. But what are the millions going to read! In the paihui language there is very little literature available, and we must provide a literature. It must be a kind that will influence the pooplo to great thinking and fine living. “For tho first time in the history of China we have started a farmers' journal called the Farmer. It costs less than a cent, and is the first rural paper in more than 4000 years because the farmers could never read before. “How are wo going to make this education practical'!” Et, Yen then gave an apt illustration of an intelligent Chinese who went back to China to hel-p in tbe rural sections. Instead of scrapping the old water-wheel and advocating expensive modern machinery for intensive farming, ho set to work to improve it, with the result that one was invented which took half the labour to run, produced thrice the product, and cost less than the old one. Dr Yen said it was now their custom to send these helpers to live in the mud huts of the peasants. “What is the relation of this Mass Education Movement to tho rest of the world? I think this world is shrinking. Space doesn't count as it once did. The people of the world are thrown together more and more. I think what one-quarter of the human race is going to do in the next few years is a matter of concern to China and the rest of the world. I recall tho words of your Roosevelt and ours when he said that the Atlantic era was closing and that the Pacific era was just at its dawn. “Surely with China’s 400,000,000 of people and 4000 years of history, she must have something to contribute to tbe peace and progress of humanity.”