From what has been said it seems clear that the present teaching staff of China is a conglomerate class, consisting of graduates of mission schools, graduates of governmental, public, and private schools giving a general education, returned students from abroad, teachers from the old Chinese schools, amateur teachers, foreign teachers, and graduates of normal and teachers' training schools. The statistical report of the Ministry of Education for the year 1910 indicates that during that year there were in the modern schools of China 89,766 teachers, as against 73,703 for 1909, and 63,566 for 1908, showing a marked increase in the teaching staff. Of these teachers, 84,755 were in schools of general culture, 2,712 in technical and vocational schools, and 2,299 in normal and teachers' training schools. The character of the qualification of this teaching body can be gained from the following statistics:18 Non-graduates and those who have not attended modern Non-graduates and those who have not attended mod 2. NORMAL SCHOOLS a. HIGHER NORMAL ern schools.. Qualification Graduates of modern schools in China. Graduates from schools abroad........ Non-graduates and those who have not attended mod Foreigners.. Totals.... 467 ཙྪཙ།༦ 17.13 19.48 100.00 Non-graduates and those who have not attended mod Non-graduates and those who have not attended mod Non-graduates and those who have not attended mod Non-graduates and those who have not attended mod Several facts in regard to these figures need emphasis. First, the percentage of foreign teachers is greater in higher institutions than in lower; second, comparatively few of the graduates of modern schools have had any professional training; third, there is a large percentage of teachers who either have never attended any modern schools themselves or who have not graduated. This last class includes all sorts of unemployed men who considered teaching in the schools as a bed of roses, an attractive opportunity to do a few hours of work and draw a large salary. These facts go to show that the teaching corps of the modern schools of China was, in 1910, far from being competent and professional in character. In consequence of this state of affairs the incompetency of the teachers in some schools was most glaring. Some leading educators in China are of the opinion that even the earlier graduates of normal schools in China have proved for the most part unsatisfactory. This criticism, if true, is not surprising. Most of the young men who attended the normal schools had not had the mental training of primary and secondary schools as a basis for more advanced work. Moreover a large number of subjects in the normal schools were taught in a superficial manner owing to the overcrowding of courses of study which necessarily led to sham and cram and also to physical weakness or inefficiency. Considering the facts that the full course is now becoming popular with normal students, that the number of recitations per week is being reduced, and that more and more of those who enter the normal school will be graduates of primary and middle schools of the modern type, it is but reasonable to expect that from now on a better class of normal graduates will be turned out into the teaching service. Relating Education to Life There is at least one more educational problem of importance deserving special mention, namely, the problem of effectively relating education to the life of those who receive it. In the western countries the conflict so long waged between formal book training and the newer, more practical forms of education centering in the social and industrial needs of children, may be said to have been settled theoretically, at least, in favor of the latter, but in China this conflict has only just begun. For not until recent years has there been felt the need of bringing about a closer adjustment of school work to the changing social and industrial demands of the time and of making the curriculum a means of preparing the pupils to solve the problems of their daily life. True enough, most of the modern school subjects such as geography, civics, and the like, have been introduced into the regular course of study, but these subjects are often taught without much reference to the daily life of the pupil or that of the community, As a result, a serious doubt has arisen in the minds of many of the Chinese as to the efficacy of modern education in solving the perplexing problems of the country. There is a feeling on the part of some that both the subjects taught in school and the method used in teaching those subjects do little good to the children. Indeed, a loud cry has already been raised against this form of education as failing to do what is expected of it.19 The charge is made that from the moment a child enters school, he begins to alienate himself from the life of the family and that of the community, and by the time he graduates he is fit neither to be a farmer nor to be a merchant. This serious charge against new education, although it is not true of all schools, is yet not made without grounds. The root of the trouble lies, as already suggested, in the fact that much of the school work consists of merely imparting knowledge without reference either to the purposes which brought the children to school, or to the needs of the community in which they live. To remedy the evil something fundamental needs to be done both in the selection of material for the curriculum and in the method of teaching the various subjects of study. Fortunate it is for the new republic that these two problems are beginning to receive the serious attention of her more progressive leaders in education. 19 Mr. Huang Yen Pei, the commissioner of education of the province of Kiangsu, published in the fall of 1913 a pamphlet in which he disclosed some startling facts regarding the character of the work done in some schools, and made a strong plea for a more practical form of education. CHAPTER VIII SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS The development of the Chinese system of public education having been traced through its many vicissitudes, and a more or less critical study of a few of the important educational problems of to-day having been presented, there remains the need for a summarized statement of some of those facts revealed by the study which have a significant bearing upon the future progress of education in China. Education and National Progress1 The history of Chinese education forms an excellent example of the important relation of school training to national progress. For many centuries Chinese education was purely literary, philosophical, and ethical in character. There was little that could be called concrete or practical in the modern sense of the word, neither was there anything requiring the knowledge of the experimental method or of inductive reasoning. Education strongly resembled the form of training which prevailed in Europe for two centuries after the revival of Greek learning. This peculiar quality of Chinese education produced a prodigious effect on the career of the nation. It accounts for the present comparatively backward condition of China, explaining why the country made little progress in the arts of modern life and in the modern sciences until the last decade. Since her contact with the western nations, her educational system has undergone a radical change through the introduction of modern subjects of study and the education of many of her students in foreign lands. The effect of this change upon her national life has been marvelous. It set the country on the high road of progress and reform.. A great revolution, at once political, industrial, and social, is taking place under our very eyes. Educational reform in China now forms the very pivot around which all other reforms Cf. Eliot, Charles W., The Concrete and Practical in Modern Education, pp. 1-7. |