Fighting Against Illiteracy Keen Campaign Grows in China

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6889, 20 April 1929, Page 13

Fighting Against Illiteracy Keen Campaign Grows in China

PICTURE of 5,000,000 Chinese illiterates mastering the three “R’s” within the next few years is drawn by Y. C. James Yen, founder

and director or tne uninese iNauunai Association of the Mass Education Movement. Mr. Yen possesses both a classical Chinese and Western education, having been graduated from Yale ten years ago.

He is one of a group of younger Chinese scholars who, dissociating themselves from the political revolution, have been instrumental in helping the social movement that may justly be regarded as the beginning of the Chinese renaissance. This movement aims to transform the 4,000-year-old classical culture of China, which was the exclusive possession of a few, and bring it within the reach of the many by the comparatively simple expedient of teaching the masses to read and write the Pai-hua, or popular written language of China. Pai-hua means simply the "people’s language," spoken in conversation by both scholars and the man in the street, as distinguished from the classical or literary language, written but not spoken, which for more than 40 centuries has been the only recognised literary medium in China. Pai-hua bears the same relation to classical Chinese that the "vulgar" dialects bore to 'Greek and Latin in the prerenaissance period in Europe. Its literary use is frowned upon by Chinese classical scholars of the old school, but Pai-hua persists as a spoken language, and much of the newer Chinese literature is written in this medium. Its growth is aided by the fact that the classical language is not spoken at all, and the difficulty of learning its 40,000 odd characters puts it beyond the reach of the great majority of the Chinese people. By selecting 1,300 Chinese characters most commonly in use for the Pai-hua, and using them as an essential minimum vocabulary, the organisers of the .mass education movement have compiled four simple text books that can be mastered by the average 12-year-old mentality in 96 hours of classroom work, at the rate of one hour a day. Thus, within the space of four months, the illiterate Chinese is enabled to read and

write with a vocabulary of 1,300 wordsigns. By using these in conjunction with the “People’s Pocket Dictionary” containing 2,000 additiqnal characters, he is equipped for all ordinary purposes of elementary, education.

The mass education movement, as Mr. Yen explains, aims to reach illiterate Chinese above the age of 12, of which there are over 200 million in the country. It is thus essentially an educational movement for adults, the work of teaching children below 12 years being left to Government and other institutions. Already there are 100,000 volunteer teachers enlisted in the cause. They; teach two hours a day without pay, and the work has spread from Peking, . where it was started in 1923, to all parts of China. Within the last four months, says Mr. Yen, the Nationalist Government has ordered 1,500,000 copies of the “People’s Thousand Character Reader" for use in the schools.

• “Illiteracy and democracy cannot Stand side by side,” says Mr. Yen. “The system adopted by the mass education movement is capable of wiping out illiteracy' in China, possibly within the next ten years, if the present rate of progress continues. We are creating a public opinion that is in favour of literacy, and people are pouring into our classes by thousands. At the present stage we have not enough teachers, text books and facilities, and we find ourselves swamped by the tremendous eagerness of the masses to learn. “Our work is not confined to teaching alone. We publish newspapers, books and pamphlets in the popular language on various useful subjects, such as agriculture, industry and commerce, with a view of helping to solve our economic problems. Thei West knows only the first stage of our work, .popularly called the thousand character course to teach reading and writing and simple arithmetic to the masses. But there is a second and bigger part that has just been started. We desire to relate the entire educational programme to the every-day life of the people, and help them to climb higher in the social scale. Our simple text books are designed to teach the essentials of citizenship and education, as well as the three ‘R’s.’ ” •