China's Literacy Myth: Narratives and Practices, 1904

Home , Baode County, Baojia system, Chen Xujing, Chinese given name, Communist bandit, Dahu (clothing)

China’s Literacy Myth: Narratives and Practices, 1904-1949

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

Di Luo

Graduate Program in History

The Ohio State University

2015

Dissertation Committee:

Christopher A. Reed, Advisor

Julia F. Andrews

Harvey J. Graff

Di Luo

2015

Abstract

This dissertation examines literacy’s relationships to social, cultural, and political changes in the first half of 20th-century China. It explores the meaning of literacy and its changes in both rhetorical and practical dimensions by examining the various literacy movements sponsored by competing political entities, namely the

Qing court (ruled until 1911), the Republican government under the rule of the

Chinese Nationalist Party (1928-1949), and the Chinese Communists (est. 1921).

Early 20th century Chinese social reformers, state leaders, and revolutionaries all defined literacy as a transformative tool for grand goals, including China’s independence and modernity. Such mindsets formed China’s literacy myth, which posits literacy in a direct, linear causal relationship to expected social changes. At the same, China’s literacy myth fails to present the dynamics and nuances of political actors’ uses of literacy in practice to build a modern China according to their distinctive visions. This dissertation examines China’s literacy myth as an ideology and powerful discourse that served various political entities’ quest for hegemony. It glorified mass education as a patriotic, nationalistic, and modernizing endeavor and thus legitimated its political sponsors as leaders of the nation. While competing political entities tailored literacy education to cultivate popular loyalty to their own regime, it was the content and forms of literacy education, rather than the skills of

ii reading and writing themselves, that to a great extent determined literacy’s diversified social impact. The meanings and functions of literacy were also shaped through an interactive negotiation process between political authorities and ordinary people involved in literacy learning. Focusing on the process of how political elites taught ordinary people to read and write, this dissertation challenges social theorists’ dichotomized view of literacy as being either a controlling or a liberating variable. Oftentimes, Chinese elites used literacy to control as well as to liberate; meanwhile, non-elites often managed to extend their own interests while submitting to the prescribed order.

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Dedication

This document is dedicated to the memory of my Mom.

Acknowledgments

It is a pleasure to be able finally to acknowledge, with sincere appreciation, the many teachers, friends, and colleagues who have been so generous with their help, encouragement, and time over the years. I am especially grateful to Christopher

Reed, my adviser, for suggesting the topic and guiding my research. His mentoring, unfailing support, and valuable critiques have been tremendously influential on my development as a scholar. I also owe a great intellectual debt to Harvey Graff, whose concept of “literacy myth” and insightful approach to literacy inspired my inquiry to this topic. His deep influence on my thinking about literacy is evident throughout this dissertation. I would also like to thank Julia Andrews for teaching me the methods of visual analysis and enriching my knowledge of Art history in 20th century China. I wish I had been able to incorporate more images in this dissertation.

Much more remains to be done when I turn this dissertation into a book manuscript.

My sincere gratitude goes to Philip Brown, a mentor and friend, whose generous assistance and academic encouragement guided me through key moments of my graduate school life and helped me tide over difficult times. I greatly appreciate James Bartholomew and Ying Zhang for broadening my understanding of historical studies.

In the process of completing this dissertation, I have received many invaluable comments and forms of support from my friends. Special thanks are due to Chad Berry, Austin Dean, Kevin Fujitani, and John Knight. They all read parts of my dissertation at varying stages to correct grammatical problems and clear editorial errors. Their efforts and help are greatly acknowledged. I am grateful to

Nora McCook, David Wandera, and Lisa Zevorich for their comments on my work on the Chinese Communist literacy movement during the Jiangxi period, which helped me sharpen my analysis.

The research on this dissertation would have been impossible without the generous financial support I received over the years. The Mershon Center for

International Security Studies at The Ohio State University provided me a travel grant to initiate preliminary archival research in Summer 2010. The Office of

International Affairs, College of Arts and Sciences, and Department of History at OSU supported my extended archival work with various research funds both in Summer

2010 and during the 2011-2012 academic year.

Big thanks are due to the staff of several libraries and archives for their kind help with locating many precious documents. My thanks go out to the Chongqing

Municipal Archive; the Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Sichuan provincial archives; and the National Library of China. I greatly appreciate the staff of the Firestone Library and East Asian Library at Princeton University for access to their collections essential to complete this dissertation.

For sharing their educational experiences with me, I greatly appreciate all the elderly informants whom I interviewed. Their personal stories enriched my understanding about actual practices and the social impacts of literacy learning during the first half of the 20th century.

Finally, I would like to express my gratitude for the countless happy hours of companionship shared with Wenjuan Bi, Man He, Steven Hyland, Keshia Lai,

Fangfang Sun, Daniel Vandersommers, Yan Xu, Yang Wang, Yanfei (Effie) Yin, and

Yanfei Zhu. Special appreciation also goes to Jeanette Barbieri, David Bello, Lynn

Chin, Mike and Gloria Smitka, and Yanhong Zhu for their friendship and moral support that encouraged me to finish the final stage of writing while I was teaching at Washington and Lee University.

I dedicate this dissertation to the memory of my mother, Guihua Ba, who, with my father Xianchen Luo, has given me unconditional love, infinite support, and inestimable encouragement. My love and great appreciation goes to my daughter,

Ashley, and husband, Hao, for their understanding and support that allowed me to concentrate on my writing and complete my journey through graduate school.

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Vita

2004 ...... B.A. History, Beijing Normal University

2007 ...... M.A. History, Beijing Normal University

2007 to 2014 ...... Graduate Teaching Associate, Department

of History, The Ohio State University

2014 to present ...... Visiting Instructor, History Department,

Washington and Lee University

Fields of Study

Major Field: History

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Table of Contents

Abstract ...... ii

Dedication ...... iv

Acknowledgments ...... v

Vita ...... viii

List of Tables ...... xi

List of Figures ...... xiii

Introduction ...... 1

Chapter 1: China’s Literacy Myth ...... 26

Chapter 2: Training Imperial Loyalists ...... 71

Chapter 3: Maintaining the Morale of Literacy Myth in the Nationalist Republic of China

...... 120

Chapter 4: Reading the Three Principles of the People ...... 157

Chapter 5: Revolutionary Literacy ...... 194

Chapter 6: Constructing a Literacy in Rural Shanxi ...... 235

Conclusion ...... 279

Bibliography ...... 297 ix

Appendix A: Level of Literacy Exemplified by 23 Models of Cultural Learning (1944)

...... 335

List of Tables

Table 1. Preschool and ordinary primary school weekly schedule (class hours per a twelve-day week) in the 1902 school system ...... 91

Table 2. Number of half-day schools in 1909 and basic literacy schools in 1911 and their enrollments ...... 108

Table 3. GMD central government budget on social education, 1936-39 ...... 139

Table 4. Sources of funds for expanding basic education in local society (1941-45)

...... 147

Table 5. Chongqing government’s plan on schooling uneducated adults in 1946 .. 150

Table 6. Illiteracy and literacy rates and numbers of students in Xunwu County,

Jiangxi province ...... 201

Table 7. Rural population of Xunwu County, Jiangxi province in 1930 ...... 202

Table 8. Numbers of literacy groups and students in the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border

Region (1938-1942) ...... 231

Table 9. Number of students able to write travel permits and short sentences ...... 261

Table 10. Numbers of characters that were taught to peasant students, and that they were able to recognize and write in winter schools in 1941 ...... 263

Table 11. Social problems solved in winter schools in Baode County, Shanxi province during winter 1944-45 (based on the statistics of 89 winter schools) ...... 270

Table 12. Mass satisfaction survey towards the social problems resolved in winter schools, winter 1944-45 (based on reports of 80 winter schools from five counties)

...... 272

xii

List of Figures

Figure 1. Gu Yuan, The Masses Fight to Reduce Rent, 1943, woodblock print,

13.4×19.6cm ...... 265

xiii

Introduction

On August 1, 2013, the General Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and

Television of China announced that it had drafted a new regulation on promoting popular reading, which would be submitted to the State Council for approval by the end of the year.1 This proposal was motivated by concern for Chinese people’s low reading rate. As shown in the 10th national public reading survey published on April

18 by the state-affiliated Chinese Academy of Press and Publication, Chinese adults from age 18 to 70, at average, read 6.7 books per year in 2012, less than half of the average number of books Americans read every year, which is 15.2 This was not the first time Chinese authorities drew foreign experiences, sometimes in an unsubstantiated way as in this case, to validate the urgency of literacy learning in

China. While the Chinese government showed concerns about the crisis of literacy in the beginning of the 21th century, it was haunted by the crisis of illiteracy at the advent of the 20th century. Early in 1904, the Qing court, the last imperial ruler in

China, inaugurated a general educational project that aimed at teaching the masses

1 Yao Zhen (姚贞), “Quanmin yuedu lifa lieru Guowuyuan lifa jihua (全民阅读立法列入国务院立法计划 Regulation on public reading included in State Council’s legislation plan),” State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of The People’s Republic of China, http://www.gapp.gov.cn/news/1656/153888.shtml (accessed April 8, 2014). 2 Xi Huijiao (息慧娇), “’Dishici quanguo guomin yuedu diaocha’ chengguo gongbu (‘第十次全国国民阅读调查’成果公布 Publication of the tenth national public reading survey result),” Chinese Academy of Press and Publication, http://cips.chinapublish.com.cn/kybm/cbyjs/cgzs/201304/t20130419_140027.html (accessed April 8, 2014). 1 how to read and write. It, too, was motivated by the notion that China’s literacy rate was far lower than those of Western modernized countries.

Since the European Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, large-scale efforts to provide literacy have become a vital part of broad social transformations that aimed to establish a moral or political consensus.3 As has happened in many emerging nations over the past two hundred years, early 20th-century Chinese elites also frequently regarded literacy as essential to nation-state building and modernization. Such a belief placed literacy at the center of intellectual discussions and sociopolitical reforms, but hardly revealed the complexities, nuances, and dynamics of the ways that literacy interacted with social and political changes. What roles, both discursive and pragmatic, did literacy play in social, cultural and political dominance and empowerment? How did historical, sociopolitical, and economic contexts influence the outcomes of literacy? These are the questions at the heart of this dissertation. It explores these problems by examining the various literacy movements sponsored by competing political entities, namely the Qing court (ruled until 1911), the Republican government (1912-1949), and the Chinese Communists

(est. 1921) in the first half of 20th-century China, the formative historical period for contemporary China.

Early 20th-century Chinese literacy movements interacted with an ongoing process of structural change in politics and society. They were different from

3 Robert F. Arnove and Harvey J. Graff, “Introduction,” in National Literacy Campaigns and Movements, Historical and Comparative Perspectives, ed. Robert F. Arnove and Harvey J. Graff (New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 2008), 2. 2 literacy campaigns that followed political revolutions that created new social orders, such as those in the USSR after 1917, Cuba after 1959, as well as China after 1949.

Rather than simply responding to the needs of producing a new political culture,

Chinese literacy projects in this era present us with a diversified and fluid scenery about the interplay between literacy and changes in society. Studying these movements also offers possible interpretation regarding the mechanics under which literacy could bring about social and political transformations.

The Interplay of Ideologies and Practices

This dissertation unfolds around three themes—literacy’s meanings in different sociopolitical contexts, the content and form of literacy education, and interaction between political authorities and ordinary people involved in literacy learning—seen through the prisms of the Qing court, the Chinese Nationalist Party

(Guomindang/GMD)-state, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). By investigating these issues, it provides a historically inflected, subtle, and nuanced account of the creation, derivation, implementation, and limitations of China’s literacy myths from 1904 to 1949.

Acknowledging that “the value attached to literacy is fundamentally an historical development,”4 this study explores the meaning of literacy and its changes in early 20th century China in both rhetorical and practical dimensions. By analyzing the writings of influential intellectuals, it explores the discursive value of

4 Harvey J. Graff, “Introduction”, in Literacy and Historical Development, A Reader, ed. Harvey J. Graff (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2007), 1. 3 literacy. Late Qing reform-minded scholars believed widespread literacy was a precursor to national independence and modernization. Through newspaper publications, these scholars asserted their beliefs as “public opinions” and created an early form of China’s “literacy myth.” This myth, as Harvey Graff characterizes it, posited a direct, linear, causal relationship between literacy and the progress of a nation. A literacy myth granted literacy a sacred legitimating power that stimulated political groups’ literacy education efforts.

This nation-building and modernization rhetoric, however, fails to present the dynamics and nuances of political parties’ uses of literacy in practice to build a modern China according to their distinctive visions. Political authorities’ uses of literacy deviated from reform-minded scholars’ modernization myth of literacy.

They invested in the power of literacy in forming political conformity. The CCP in the early 1930s, for example, used literacy instruction as a vehicle for spreading communist ideas and arousing the populace’s class consciousness, thus laying the foundation for building a Soviet-style revolutionary socialist China.

Political elites’ conception of literacy, however, adhered to the mythicized and absolute power of literacy, too. Convinced by the transformative power of literacy education, political entities sponsored a variety of literacy programs with the belief that these initiatives would unconditionally win popular support. I identify this as part of the Chinese literacy myth, because literacy’s impacts on individual attitudinal and behavioral changes do not work in a single linear direction. After the Qing court inaugurated its mass literacy campaign in 1904, 4 successive political leaders—particularly the Chinese Nationalists and

Communists—all created different, politically-guided literacy programs. Their projects had a range of impacts. Although the CCP’s literacy campaigns played a role in organizing communist revolution among the populace, neither the Qing court’s nor the Nationalist Party’s literacy projects elicited support adequate to sustain political hegemony. Such diversified results raise doubts about the effectiveness of literacy per se in cultivating the populace’s loyalty to certain political regime.

Under what circumstance could literacy movements serve political entities’ interests? This study explores this question by looking at how literacy learning was organized and provided along with the lexicons and knowledge transmitted by literacy primers. It proposes that the content and form of literacy education, rather than the skills of reading and writing themselves, to a great extent shaped literacy’s social impact. As shown in this study, the Chinese Nationalists’ school-based literacy education in the 1930s and 1940s proved insufficient to bring their lofty nation-building agenda to the lower sectors of society. By contrast, during the same period, the CCP structured literacy projects in the form of mass organizations and used its land and social reform policies for literacy instruction, thus creating visible and applicable meanings of literacy in people’s daily lives and also making the

Party’s initiatives more palatable.

Lastly, because the meanings and functions of literacy are largely shaped through interactive negotiations between individuals and authorities, this research also explores how non-elites responded to literacy movements initiated by political 5 entities. It highlights the elite political values attached to literacy movements that shaped student’s political inclinations; it also emphasizes the agency of ordinary people within literacy learning to support, alter, or undermine political dominance.

Ordinary people invested their own agenda in literary learning, such as pursuing personal economic interests and promoting individual prestige in local communities.

Non-elites’ use of literacy in their daily lives played an important role in re-defining literacy’s impact and in modifying or undermining the myth of literacy as defined by elites, whether reform-minded scholars, or political authorities.

Overall, the discursive and pragmatic values of literacy compose the two axes of inquiry of this research. At this junction, it examines how scholars, political authorities, and ordinary people interacted and shaped the impacts of literacy on sociopolitical changes.

Literacy Myth and the Construction of Literacy in Local and Global Context

The research for this dissertation is grounded on Harvey Graff’s path-breaking studies of the literacy myth.5 Literacy myth refers to the beliefs that

“the acquisition of literacy is a necessary precursor to and invariably results in economic development, democratic practice, cognitive enhancement, and upward social mobility.”6 This myth, as Graff demonstrates, hardly reveals the complexities and dynamics of how literacy influences and interacts with the changes in societies

5 Harvey J. Graff, The Literacy Myth, Literacy and Social Structure in the Nineteenth-Century City (New York: Academic Press, 1979). 6 Harvey J. Graff and John Duffy “Literacy Myths,” in Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 2nd ed., Vol. 2, Literacy, ed. Brian V. Street and Nancy Hornberger (Berlin and New York: Springer, 2007), 41. 6 and individual’s life. Meanwhile, Graff argues that the literacy myth, as an ideology and a culture, is powerful and has its own values. It should be understood as a mode of communication, “an expression of the ideology of those who sanction it and are invested in its outcomes.”7

Scholars have responded quite actively to Graff’s call to contextualize literacy studies in concrete historical and local settings as seen in the New Literacy Studies.8

Their works challenge the perception, as expressed in the literacy myth, that literacy has universal impacts on people and societies free of temporal and spatial limits.

Among the most prominent studies, Brian Street proposes to understand literacy as an ideological issue, which has inextricable links to particular cultural and political structures in society. And there are a variety of “cultural practices associated with reading and writing in different contexts.”9 However, few works have been published to show that literacy myth as an ideology also varies in different contexts and embraces its own historical values.

This study illuminates the distinctive features of literacy myth in the first half of 20th century China that were colored with local, institutional, and national

7 Harvey Graff, “The Literacy Myth at Thirty,” Journal of Social History 43, no.3 (Spring 2010): 638. 8 The New Literacy Studies “takes a sociocultural view of literacy, emphasising the description of literacy practices of everyday life, and challenging approaches which emphasise decontextualised basic skills.” See Kate Stephens, “A Critical Discussion of the 'New Literacy Studies',” British Journal of Educational Studies 48, No. 1 (Mar., 2000): 10. The following works exemplify the New Literacy Studies. Brian V. Street, Literacy in Theory and Practice (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984), Social Literacies: Critical Approaches to Literacy in Development, Ethnography and Education (London and New York: Longman, 1995); Shirly B. Heath, Ways with Words: Language, Life, and Work in Communities and Classrooms (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983); David Barton and Mary Hamilton, Local Literacies: Reading and Writing in One Community (London and New York: Routledge, 1998). 9 Brian V. Street, Literacy in Theory and Practice, 43-44. 7 concerns, and historical imperatives. The literacy myth in the Western liberal societies closely associates literacy with basic Western values and key elements in social thoughts, such as freedom, equality, democracy, and human rights. In a similar way, early 20th century China’s literacy myth also reflected the fundamental values that Chinese considered as essential in this transitional period: from imperial empire to a modern nation-state. Nowhere were these values more distinctive than in the construction of the desirable ways that elites and non-elites, state and society would participate in political, economic, social, and cultural life. Scholars, political authorities, and the masses all embraced their own interpretations.

Furthermore, Chinese experiences prove that literacy myth, as a mindset and mode of communication, is open to serve practically and overtly political goals. As accepted wisdom that mass literacy would inevitably lead to China’s modernity, this literacy myth helped the CCP and the GMD to promote their literacy projects, and further legitimate their governments as the leaders of the nation. Besides functioning in the context of power struggles between political parties, China’s literacy myths also embraced historical values in a global context. With modernity as the universally worshipped and pursued goal and vaguely defined concept in the late 19th and early 20th century, China’s modernization literacy myth served as a point of engagement, and a channel to join international conversations.

My study of China’s experiences will also provide crucial comparison for better understanding the multiple ways that literacy interacts with authority and sociopolitical structure on a macroscopic level. Literacy’s relationship to economic 8 development, social and political structure, and cultural patterns are a long-lasting and worldwide concern. Studies on literacy campaigns in Russia,10 India,11 and

Nicaragua12 also perceive literacy as social and political movements. Engaging this scholarship from a comparative perspective, this research demonstrates the significance of historical and local contexts in influencing literacy’s sociopolitical function, it also provides more complex and interpretive analysis of literacy’s functioning mechanics.

In the last thirty years, the ideology of literacy has evolved to emphasize empowerment. Brazilian educator Paulo Freire’s critical literacy theory13 stresses that literacy helps produce consciousness and that “reading the world and reading the word” are mutual influences. My study acknowledges that dominant groups utilized literacy to influence the development of lower sectors’ consciousness.

Likewise, my research suggests that working classes’ conception of the world that preceded their literacy learning directed how they began to read and write.

My study of non-elites’ uses of literacy acquisition challenges the dichotomized view that sociologists hold towards literacy’s social impact. Focusing solely on the intention of literacy sponsors or the impact on students as passive receivers, sociologists take a polarized stance, considering literacy as either a

10 Jeffrey Brooks, When Russia Learned to Read: Literacy and Popular Literature, 1861-1917 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985); Ben Eklof, Russian Peasant Schools: Officialdom, Village Culture, and Popular Pedagogy, 1861-1914 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986). 11 H.S. Bhola, The India Education Project: A Case Study of Institution Building and Organizational Conflict (Bloomington: International Development Research Center, 1975). 12 Robert F. Arnove, Education and Revolution in Nicaragua (New York: Praeger, 1986). 13 Paulo Freire, The Politics of Education: Culture, Power and Liberation, trans. Donaldo Macedo (South Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey, 1985). 9 controlling or a liberating variable.14 I position my research within the negotiating process between ordinary people and dominant groups and view both sides as active historical agents. Thus, I argue that dominance and empowerment are not mutually exclusive goals. Oftentimes, the elites used literacy to control as well as to liberate. Political elites organized literacy programs to suppress social insurgencies threatening their authority but sanction the aggression targeting their political enemies. Meanwhile, non-elites could join the literacy programs under political parties’ command but for the sake of pursuing individual ends within the political framework.

Education, Modernization, and State-building in the First Half of 20th Century China

Viewing literacy from an international perspective, this dissertation sheds new light on the educational history of early 20th century China. Previous studies15 have emphasized China’s adoption and adaption of different foreign educational models. China, consequently, has been presented solely as a receiver in its connections with the outside world. However, information did not flow in a unidirectional way. This study shows that while “foreign models” tuned the rhetoric

14 For the interpretation favors control theory see James Moffett, Storm in the Mountains: A Case Study of Censorship, Conflict, and Consciousness (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988); for the ideas of literacy education as a liberating device see Colin Lankshear, “Afterword,” in Critical Theory and Educational Research, ed. Peter L. McLaren and James M. Giarell (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), 301-310. 15 Marianne Bastid, Educational Reform in Early Twentieth-Century China, trans. Paul J. Bailey (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, the University of Michigan, 1988); Paul J. Bailey, Reform the People, Changing Attitudes towards Popular Education in Early 20th Century China (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990); Suzanne Pepper, Radicalism and Education Reform in 20th-century China (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Xiaoping Cong, Teachers’ Schools and the Making of the Modern Chinese Nation-State 1897-1937 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2007). 10 and directed the education of popular literacy in early 20th century China, literacy efforts in China served as a testimony to the outside world that China was making progress towards a civilized and modernized society. This message would help

China build up its international prestige and pursue a culturally equal position in the global community. This information was exchanged in a mutual and bidirectional fashion between China and the outside world.

Most of the existing studies on education in early 20th century China focus on institutions. Educational reform, school systems, and clashes and accommodations between tradition and modern values and practices are the major themes.16 Local community’s uses and notion of literacy have been left out. However, both Evelyn

Rawski’s study on popular literacy in Qing China17 and Glen Peterson’s inquiry of literacy campaigns in the early PRC period18 have convincingly demonstrated the existence of multiple types of literacies in different commuities. Those literacies are different from the institutionalized literacy sanctioned by the state and obtained through formal schooling and examination. This present research fills the gap by focusing on the Republican period. It explores how the local and historical conditions shaped the ways that the populace perceived the meaning of reading and

16 Besides the scholarly works mentioned in note 7, other books with similar focuses include William Ayers, Chang Chih-tung and Educational Reform in China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971); Barry C. Keenan, Imperial China’s Last Classical Academies, Social Change in the Lower Yangzi, 1864-1911 (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1994); Wen-hsin Yeh, Provincial Passages: Culture, Space, and the Origins of Chinese Communism (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996). 17 Evelyn Rawski, Education and Popular Literacy in Ch’ing China (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1979). 18 Glen Peterson, The Power of Words: Literacy and Revolution in South China, 1949-95 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1997). 11 writing in the first half of the 20th century.

Contextualized in local settings and in the process of literacy learning and practices, this study also intends to challenge the existing paradigms in the field of early 20th century Chinese literacy studies. Joan Judge’s 2002 article on female literacy during the turn of the 20th century19 concentrates on 1898 reformists’ and

Chinese women students’ discussion and perceptions. She demonstrates that female literacy in this period was defined in nationalistic terms. The reformists considered literacy as the prerequisite for qualified motherhood of citizens, while the first generation of overseas female students deemed literacy essential for women’s own political autonomy as citizens. Focusing primarily on these discursive narratives,

Judge confirms the crucial position of literacy in the intellectual mapping of China’s nation building, but unintentionally reproduces the impression that mass literacy would inevitably lead to China’s modernity. Although Charles Hayford’s work on

China’s rural literacy education in the 1920s and 1930s20 moves away from political actors to a liberal intellectual—James Yen, it values Yen’s literacy projects as efforts at Sinifying American liberalism. The linear causal relation between literacy and liberal practices is treated as an unchallenged premise.

Grounded on Graff’s theory, this present study contends that state leaders, local elites, revolutionaries, as well as the ordinary people, all envisioned China’s

19 Joan Judge, “Reforming the Feminine: Female Literacy and the Legacy of 1898,” in Rethinking the 1898 Reform Period: Political and Cultural Change in Late Qing China, ed. Rebecca E. Karl and Peter Zarrow (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2002), 158-179. 20 Charles W. Hayford, To the People, James Yen and Village China (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990). 12 modernity in different ways and had different understandings about literacy’s place in modernizing China. Not only should we realize that there were different types of literacies serving diversified ends, but also that what modernity meant to Chinese should be examined in plural forms. Under this framework, this research examines how a specific kind of communication through reading and writing connected with a particular form of modernity, conceptually, rhetorically, and empirically.

This work also engages important scholarly debates on Chinese nation building, on state-society and society-individual relationships, and on changes in political topography. In his analysis of the CCP’s success, for example, Mark Selden ardently praised literacy education at Yan’an, arguing that it played a significant role in the Communists’ rise of power during the Second Sino-Japanese War

(1937-1945).21 Such simplified causal relationship overlooks the most important link—the working process. During the same period, the CCP’s political competitors, the Nationalists, also organized their own literacy programs to train citizens loyal to their regime. The failure of the Nationalist Party in terms of maintaining its regime and the Communists success in establishing its legitimacy suggest that literacy programs interact with changes in sociopolitical structure in more subtle contingent ways than heretofore explained.

Sources and Research Methodologies

Methodologies of regional historical studies, literature, and art history

21 Mark Selden, China in Revolution: The Yenan Way Revisited (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharp, 1995). 13 inform this work’s integrated use of a wide range of primary sources, including local archives, library materials, oral narratives, diaries, and visual images. Most have not yet been utilized by scholars.

Drawing on provincial-level archives, this work compares literacy movements in the GMD-controlled areas around Chongqing in the southwest and

CCP-controlled regions in Shaanxi and Shanxi in the northwest. These two groups organized often contemporaneous and sometimes even geographically contiguous literacy programs in the 1930s and 1940s. Comparative analysis provides an integrative approach to study the multiple patterns in which literacy programs interacted with local social ecologies and political cultures.

The Chongqing Municipal Archive has extensive collections on the policies, decisions, and instructions issued by the Nationalists’ Chongqing Executive Council and Chongqing Municipal Government towards literacy education. It also preserves the enrollment records of local schools’ literacy classes, and reports on literacy learning from grass-roots administrative units, factories, and mass education institutions. These materials shed light on how the Nationalists’ literacy movements were carried out and how these initiatives were received from 1938 to 1945, when

Chongqing served as war-time capital.

The CCP’s projects are divided into two historical phases—the Jiangxi Soviet

(1931-1934) and the Yan’an period (1936-1947). Materials from multiple archives substantiate this part of study on the Chinese Communists’ literacy narratives and practices. The CCP Central Committee’s thinking, design, and policies towards 14 literacy are seen here through the published archival collections from the Jiangxi and Shaanxi provincial archives. Investigation about how the Communist cadres carried out literacy education in local society during the Jiangxi period, then, is based on documents collected by Chinese Nationalist Chen Cheng (陳誠

1897-1965).22 Collections in the Shanxi Provincial Archive contain detailed records of literacy activities organized among villagers, including the minutes of local Party meetings, daily records of rural literacy schools, writings of peasant students, and correspondence between local and central Party/state organs. With the help of these materials, this research recounts literacy learning as a process that involved contention, negotiation, compromises, and cooperation among different social sectors and individuals.

Educational periodicals published prior to 1949 provide information about how literacy and literacy learning was discussed and propagated in the print media.

This information is essential for understanding the creation, derivation, and implementation of China’s literacy myth. There is a broad range of journals under examination here, ranging from the Commercial Press flagship journal—Jiaoyu zazhi

(教育雜誌 Journal of Education)—to the locally based—Shaanxi jiaoyu zhoukan (陝

西教育週刊 Shaanxi education weekly), for example. These materials present not only the major stream but also regional variations and dynamics as well.

Textbooks, including literacy primers and readers, compose another kind of

22 Chen Cheng (陳誠), comp., Shishou ziliaoshi gongfei ziliao (石叟資料室共匪資料 Collection of Chinese Communist materials by the Shisou Archives) (1960). 15 published materials essential to this dissertation. Close reading of the characters and vocabulary taught in the literacy learning materials illuminates the social lexicons, worldviews, and knowledge transmitted through literacy education and indicates the potential uses of literacy. These materials also bring to light how the sponsors’ and targeted students’ interests might have influenced the composition of characters used to define basic literacy. In this way, this work shows literacy learning is a process of essential importance for sociocultural identity formation.

Moreover, visual representations, such as artistic works, political posters, and folklore arts have also been consulted to examine literacy’s socio-political functions. Visual images were not only used to promote literacy, but also, maybe more importantly, created and propagated legends associating literacy achievement with certain political entities’ contributions.

Last but not least, non-elite, bottom-up historical studies inform this research as well. I have conducted several interviews with people in their eighties and late seventies about their experiences of learning to read and write.23 These oral narratives, supplemented by published memoirs and diaries, are the basis for this study to explore individual experience and personal perceptions of literacy and schooling in the early 20th century.

Chapter Outline

Chapter 1, “China’s Literacy Myth,” provides an overview of how literacy was

23 This research has acquired IRB certification, Protocol Number: 2011B0259. 16 conceptualized in relationship to national independence and modernization in print media in early 20th century China. It begins by arguing that the concept that literacy was essential to the survival of China as a nation-state in a Western-dominated modern world was in fact a learned historical product. The pursuit of literacy during the late imperial period was driven by familial or individual self-interest, whether to advance personal prestige, power and wealth through government service, or to meet practical needs in daily life. However, literacy education was merely an option, rather than a duty.24 The sense of national crisis and urgency for changes in political institutions decisively transformed literacy’s sphere of practice from private to public during the 1898 reform period. Qualified literate voters were essential components in the blueprint for both constitutional monarchy before 1912, and for the Republic of China after 1912.

The importance of literacy for China’s modernization extended further into the realm of culture during the May Fourth Movement. Enlightening illiterate citizens—the majority of the population—became the key to the survival of the whole nation, although scholars and politicians never reached a consensus that detailed how Chinese culture should modernize.25

24 For popular literacy during the Qing dynasty, see Evelyn Rawski, Education and Popular Literacy in Ch’ing China, 24-53, 128-133; Wilt L. Idema’s review of Evelyn Rawski’s work published in T’oung Pao 66, nos.4-5 (1980): 314-324. Cynthia Brokaw, Commerce in Culture, The Sibao Book Trade in the Qing and Republican Periods (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007). 25 Intellectuals divided into various schools of thinking which held different opinions about the place of traditional Chinese culture in modernizing China. For example, the Guocui school (國粹派 the school promoting national quintessence) represented by Zhang Binglin (章炳麟 1868-1936) emphasized to reform and modernize traditional Chinese culture as the basis for building national culture on top of learning from the West; the school of Quanpan xihua (全盤西化派 the school 17

In the 1930s, literacy was much more valued as a key part of social reforms.

The GMD organized literacy campaigns in its New Life Movement (新生活運動

Xinshenghuo yundong) (1934-1949); the CCP used mass education to awaken the power of the people; and some liberal scholars, like Y.C. James Yen (1890-1990), deemed literacy education essential to reconstructing the countryside. When the

Second Sino-Japanese War swept across China, reading and writing, became important to mobilize patriotic spirit.

In sum, over the course of the first half of the 20th century, literacy was successively envisioned by different groups, for manifold reasons, to be a key stage in China’s nation-building. Such concepts granted literacy great rhetorical power that encouraged political investment in educating the populace to read and write.

Early in 1904, the Qing court, the last imperial regime in China, inaugurated a literacy movement as part of its educational reform. Chapter 2, “Training Imperial

Loyalists,” discusses the Qing court’s notions and uses of literacy, as well as the impact of their legacy on projects initiated by the Chinese Nationalist and

Communist parties. Clearly, the imperial ruler was quite cautious about “wild”

advocating complete Westernization) headed by Hu Shi (胡適 1891-1962) proposed to replace traditional Chinese learning with modern Western culture. See Tse-tsung Chow, The May Fourth Movement: Intellectual Revolution in Modern China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960); Merle Goldman and Ou-fan Lee, eds., An Intellectual History of Modern China (New York : Cambridge University Press, 2002); Sor-Hoon Tan, “China's Pragmatist Experiment in Democracy: Hu Shih's pragmatism and Dewey's Influence in China,” Metaphilosophy 35, no. 1-2 (January 2004): 44-64; Tian Tong (田彤), Zhuanxingqi wenhuaxue de pipan: yi Chen Xujing wei gean de lishi shidu (转型期文化学的批判:以陈序经为个案的历史释读 Criticism of cultural studies during the transitional period: a historical and analytical case study of Chen Xujing) (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 2006). 18 literacy26 and intended to keep mass literacy education under its supervision and guidance. However, the withered government could not afford full-scale effective financial or administrative control. Thus, regulating and censoring textbooks was left as the only feasible choice. The Board of Education (學部 Xuebu) took charge of compiling primers for mass education. These were required to be used in all types of literacy schools that were funded by the government, the public, or the private sector.

Unfortunately, the Qing court’s calculation of cultivating imperial loyalists through mass education, to great extent, depended on whether the local government and elites were willing to cooperate. Previous scholarship has demonstrated that the major concerns of local gentry were limited to the district, or, at the most, provincial levels. They did not think about, let alone promote or protect, the interests of the monarchy and central government.27

The Qing failure warned the GMD and CCP of the importance of maintaining administrative control over mass education. Furthermore, as the pioneering attempt, the last decade of Qing rule began debates on the key institutional and operational issues involved in literacy education: relations between formal and informal education, the age range for primary schools and literacy classes, and the most effective ways to organize literacy education. These problems went unsolved and defined debates and challenges in the decades to come.

26 Wild literacy refers to a different way to name the world that is not sanctioned by the state. 27 Marianne Bastid, Educational Reform in Early Twentieth-Century China, 18. 19

The newly established Republic of China inherited the concept that mass literacy was necessary for training qualified citizens. It institutionalized literacy education into governmental administrative system. However, the political and social chaos during the early Republic and warlord period prevented the state from organizing systematic literacy projects, and left the power over education in the hands of the new corps of professional educators. They generally fought for the neutrality and independence of education against the political and financial vicissitudes of the 1910s and 1920s.28 This dissertation is geared primarily towards the literacy projects organized by political entities, and, therefore, it does not address professional educators and liberal scholars’ projects in detail. Rather it only discusses them in relation to the GMD and CCP’s literacy initiatives in the 1930s and

1940s.

The GMD’s literacy projects are the subject of chapter 3, “Maintaining the

Morale of Literacy Myth in the Nationalist Republic of China” and chapter 4 on

“Reading the Three Principles of the People.” In his program for national reconstruction,29 Sun Yat-sen, a revolutionary and Provisional President of the

Repbulic of China, designed China’s route to political democracy through three

28 See Suzanne Pepper, Radicalism and Education Reform in 20th-century China; Helen R. Chauncey, Schoolhouse Politicians: Locality and State during the Chinese Republic (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1992). 29 See Sun Yat-sen, Jianguo dagang (建國大綱 The Bases of National Reconstruction), vol. 9 of Sun Zhongshan quanji (孫中山全集 Complete works of Sun Yat-sen), ed. Guangdong Sheng shehui kexue yuan lishi yanjiushi (广东省社会科学院历史研究室 Guangdong Province Social Science Academy history research office), Zhongguo shehui kexue yuan jindaishi yanjiusuo Zhonghua minguoshi yanjiu shi (中国社会科学院近代史研究所中华民国研究室 Research office of Republic of China history at China Academy of Social Science Instiute of Modern History), and Zhongshan daxue lishixi Sun Zhongshan yanjiushi (中山大学历史系孙中山研究室 Sun Yat-sen research office at History Department of Sun Yat-sen University) (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 2006). 20 stages: military dictatorship, political tutelage, and constitutional government. Mass literacy education was a key task for the political tutelage phase that was supposed to follow the military dictatorship that was sealed with the success of the Northern

Expedition (1926-28). Like the late Qing scholars, the GMD also considered formal compulsory schooling as the fundamental solution for cultivating the citizenry.

Informal mass education was only an expedient. Thus, literacy education for the general populace was placed in an awkward position, important in a political sense for state-building but inferior culturally to formal schooling. Such a concept, to a certain degree, hampered the GMD from devoting sufficient material, financial, and human resources to popular literacy education.

After-school classes of primary schools were often the only option to teach youths and adults how to read and write during the wartime, although a separate organization, the Mass Education Institute (民眾教育館 Minzhong jiaoyuguan), was widely established across the country and carried broader responsibility for social education since the early 1930s.30 Most of the time, the Mass Education Institute

30 Social education refers to all kinds of cultural activities outside schools. The Mass Education Institute usually sponsored museums, reading rooms, and theaters for public visit. It also published wall newspapers, hosted public lectures, and organized productive cooperation. This title, Mass Education Institute, was eventually adopted universally by early 1930s in an effort to unify pre-existing social education institutions. After the establishment of Nanjing Nationalist government, Cai Yuanpei, chairman of national University Council (大學院), advocated educating the general populace to be the main focus of social education. Subsequently, education institutes mushroomed across the country in response to the demand from the central government. These associations with diversified names, including Mass Education Institute, Popular Education Institute (通俗教育館 Tongsu jiaoyuguan), lacked a systematic organization and framework. In 1929, the Association of Jiangsu Popular Education Institute (江蘇省通俗教育館聯合會 Jiangsusheng tongsu jiaoyuguan lianhehui) suggested to unify the name under Mass Education Institute. The other provinces followed the lead. The term minzhong jiaoyu (民眾教育 mass education) originally was proposed by Yu Qingtang (俞慶棠 1897-1949) and Tang Maoru (湯茂如), the founders of Mass Education Academy 21 only gave assistance to the literacy classes offered by schools, factories, and other institutions. The dispersed nature of administrative authorities further obstructed the efforts to organize effective and systematic educational activities.

Further, the republican political system the GMD intended to construct did not bring recognizable structural changes in local society. In the countryside, the areas inhabited by the largest number of illiterates and also the largest number of

Chinese, the GMD inherited the Qing’s administrative system—baojia (保甲).

Villagers relied much more on their social customs, experiences, and habits to function in such an environment, rather than the knowledge gained from the written texts taught in modern schools. In other words, the GMD’s rural construction failed to produce new and urgent needs for the skills of reading and writing. This partially explains why the GMD’s literacy projects failed to attract positive responses from the masses, let alone enlisting popular support for the

Party.

The GMD’s experiences lead to a comparison with the CCP’s effort, which will be examined in the following two chapters: chapter 5, “Revolutionary Literacy;” chapter 6, “Constructing a Literacy in Rural Shanxi.” The Communists’ literacy projects are divided into two phases—the Jiangxi Soviet (1931-1934) and Yan’an period (1936-1947). In the Jiangxi Soviet period, the CCP gave substantial attention

(民眾教育學院 Minzhong jiaoyu xueyuan) in January 1928. In May 1928 during the National Education Conference, the Nationalist central government officially proclaimed minzhong jiaoyu to name all programs aiming at educating the general populace. See Zhou Huimei (周慧梅), Minzhong jiaoyuguan yu Zhongguo shehui bianqian (民眾教育館與中國社會變遷 Mass Education Institute and social changes in China) (Taipei: Xiuwei chuban, 2013), 93-95. 22 to mass literacy education, which was inherited and further extended during the

Yan’an period. Chapter four sets out to explore the central Party’s leaders’ perception of literacy in relation to state-building and their exercises of rhetoric power of literacy to legitimate its political regime. Based on local revolutionary experiences and the Soviet Russia’s literacy campaign, the CCP believed teaching the working class how to read and write was a crucial way to unleash the power of people.

Literacy education served revolutionary mobilization and ideological remolding. As an established regional regime competing for national leadership, the

Jiangxi Soviet used literacy education to socialize villagers into its Communist movement. In terms of organizing literacy learning, the Party used mass organizations, such as labor unions (工會 Gonghui) and the women’s organizations

(婦女會 Funühui), rather than governmental bureaus, to mobilize literacy campaigns. These locally based mass organizations worked better at fostering a sense of community loyalty and commitment than the vertically structured formal school system of the GMD, thus laying the foundation for group activities under the lead of local party branches. This method for mobilizing the masses for literacy learning was carried into the Yan’an period.

To assess how the Party’s agenda was accepted by the local people, chapter 6 examines the CCP’s literacy projects in northwest rural Shanxi during the war-time period from 1937-1945. Local cadres were committed to using literacy education to solicit popular support for its war effort and for consolidating its revolutionary base 23 areas infiltrating behind Japanese lines. To this end, local cadres designed literacy primers to foster personal identities identified with its local political regime—the anti-Japanese revolutionary area. They also enthusiastically labeled the cultural activities organized through literacy programs as part of a new culture separating from the past, in attempt to claim cultural authority and contribution in transforming local community. In the eyes of local villagers, literacy provided by the

Party allowed them to understand governmental policies and thus got a chance to practice their agency in the interaction with the authorities. More importantly, literacy program provided a platform for developing social connections and adjusting social conflicts, a function that both the Party and villagers intended to appropriated for their own gains.

Comparing the CCP’s literacy projects with those organized by the GMD during the same period, this study demonstrates that non-elites tended to work cooperatively when literacy learning served immediate needs in their daily life.

For example, the CCP’s land reform and rural revolution created the demand for the peasants to understand the new sociopolitical structures under construction.

Literacy education, which featured with the party’s political, economic, and social policies, provided essential knowledge for life adjustment. Thus, it would arouse interest among the illiterate and attract villagers to participate in the sociopolitical life designed by the CCP. The CCP’s literacy efforts demonstrated that both individual and cooperate authorities invested distinctive interests in literacy education. The social impact of literacy was shaped through the interaction and 24 negotiation between both sides while they both managed to, at least to certain extent, have their goals satisfied. This working mechanism was further justified from a micro-level perspective through individual’s memoirs and oral narratives.

Overall, this study highlights the political values embedded in literacy education. It also proposes to assess ordinary people’s agency within literacy learning in ways that support, alter, or undermine political dominance and authority.

Situating the role of literacy in China’s political topography over the course of the transformative 20th century, this research reveals the limitation of assuming the literacy functions in the ways general rhetoric describes. In the first half of the 20th century, many Chinese leaders of various political suasions portrayed mass literacy as a key factor in national independence and modernization. However, in 1949, when the People’s Republic China was established, about 70 percent of its population was illiterate.31 Further, while universal literacy is typically viewed in liberal societies as a precursor to democratic practices, since the early 1980s when the majority of Chinese acquired literacy, the polity has remained undemocratic.

China’s experience necessitates breakthrough thinking about the basic values historically claimed by and normally attached to modern literacy.

31 Vilma Seeberg, Literacy in China: the Effect of the National Development Context and Policy on Literacy Levels, 1949-79 (Bochum: Brockmeyer 1990), 268, 278-279. This is also cited by Glen Peterson, The Power of Words, 4. 25

Chapter 1: China’s Literacy Myth

Introduction

Like the political movements of the 19th and 20th centuries which frequently included literacy education as part of nation-building,1 early 20th century Chinese social reformers, state leaders, and revolutionaries all defined literacy as a transformative tool for grand goals, including China’s independence and modernity.

This nation-building and modernization rhetoric helped create China’s literacy myth.

It not only posited that literacy had a direct, causal relationship with the expected sociopolitical changes these elites envisioned, but also generated tremendous legitimating power that galvanized political entities’ efforts to educate all.

This chapter analyzes Chinese narratives about literacy publicized in print media, including newspapers and journals. These discourses helped fuel the belief in the transformative power of literacy in China, which in turn sustained the continuous investment in mass education by Chinese political authorities and

1 For example, literacy efforts in Sweden in the 19th century, see Egil Johansson, “Literacy Campaign in Sweden,” in National Literacy Campaigns and Movements, Historical and Comparative Perspectives, ed. Robert F. Arnove and Harvey J. Graff (New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 2008), 65-98; as well as literacy campaigns in Vietnam (1945-1977), in Cuba following its 1959 revolution, and in Tanzania in the 1970s, see H.S. Bhola, Campaigning for Literacy: A Critical Analysis of Some Selected Literacy Campaigns of the 20th century, with a Memorandum to Decision Maker (Ottawa: International Council for Adult Education, 1981). 26 intelligentsia since the last decade of the 19th century. Meanwhile, the concrete ideological pronouncements ebbed and flowed with the pulse of Chinese politics and society and were subject to changes brought about by historical events. In this way, China’s literacy myth developed its concrete forms situated in specific historical contexts. Because of its relevance to contemporary concerns, China’s modernization discourse on literacy acquired the status of myth, which was grounded in some aspect of perceived or constructed reality but predicted an absolute and direct casual relation between mass literacy and social progress.

From the beginning, China’s literacy myth was tied closely with the issue of national power. Strengthening the nation, not liberating the individual, was the ultimate goal. This belief originated during the period of the 1898 reforms, persisted throughout the course of the early 20th century and continued to exert influence on post-1949 China. For this reason, it is important to notice the changing ways in which mass literacy was connected with national strength. These nuances rendered a much more refined and sophisticated picture of the Chinese leaders’ notion of literacy’s place in sociopolitical transformation. The formula of China’s literacy myth evolved over time.

The value of literacy was first conceived in the arena of constructing a modern nation-state around the turn of the 20th century, particularly in cultivating a national identity and sense of civic duty.2 Social Darwinism stimulated an

2 Robert Culp, Articulating Citizenship: Civic Education and Student Politics in Southeastern China, 1912-1940 (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007); Ryan Dunch, Fuzhou Protestants and the Making of a Modern China, 1857-1927 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001); John Fitzgerald, 27 ideological ferment that summoned all Chinese to rally to the cause of the nation, for whose sake the masses had to learn to read and write. This discourse laid the groundwork for the Qing court’s literacy programs, which combined the concept of nationhood with loyalty to the monarchy.

Literacy was moved into the realm of culture during the May Fourth

Movement (1915-1921), a period that revolutionized the concept of language’s role in molding cultural consciousness. The young intelligentsia educated in Japan, North

America, Europe, and Western-style Chinese universities rallied and called for reforms to Chinese writing, such as switching from logographic script to a phonetic system, and vernacularizing literature. They valued these changes as the necessary measures to popularize literacy, which in turn would serve as an essential means to rejuvenate China’s culture. The conviction that universal literacy would unconditionally transform popular culture converged with the alphabetic myth.

Literacy training was still viewed as serving group interests. This time, the economic and politically disadvantaged—the common people, in particular—caught national attention thanks to the Mass Education Movement’s advocacy.

Y.C. James Yen initiated and led the Mass Education Movement (MEM) in the early 1920s. It called attention to the differences among different social class and

Awakening China: Politics, Culture, and Class in the Nationalist Revolution (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996); Joshua A. Fogel and Peter Gue Zarrow, eds., Imagining the People: Chinese Intellectuals and the Concept of Citizenship, 1890-1920 (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1997); Merle Goldman and Elizabeth J Perry, eds., Changing Meanings of Citizenship (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009); Henrietta Harrison, The Making of the Republican Citizen: Political Ceremonies and Symbols in China 1911-1929 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Joan Judge, Print and Politics: ‘Shibao’ and the Culture of Reform in Late Qing China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997). 28 the widening gap between China’s urban and rural residents involved in literacy learning. When this movement merged with the rural reconstruction program in

1926, popular literacy became an instrument fundamental to reforming society and economy in China’s countryside. This pronouncement of China’s literacy myth continued into the 1930s, providing the backdrop for both the Nationalist Party’s

New Life Movement and the Chinese Communist Party’s literacy education programs in the Jiangxi Soviet (1931-1934).

In order to appeal to the masses, reformers started paying attention to commoners’ uses of literacy in their daily lives in the 1930s. Functional literacy in commoners’ everyday lives became a key measure for scholars who assessed the effects of various literacy programs that had proclaimed optimistically the ability to make people literate within four months.3 Also appearing at this time was the idea of using reading and writing to express and publicize individual opinions. This liberal spirit, however, was soon submerged under the high tide of anti-Japanese nationalism that swept across the country after 1937.

During the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), the importance of literacy was linked, again, to nationhood and patriotism, as had been the case in the late Qing educational reforms. What had changed was the growth of militancy and increased emphasis on military training associated with literacy acquisition. The atomic bomb brought an end to the war but not to Chinese elites’ eagerness to teach

3 The Mass Education Movement organized by James Yen actively promoted to teach the masses how to learn to read and write within fourth months by utilizing their literacy primers that contained about one thousand characters. Discussions of James Yen’s literacy programs see Charles W. Hayford, To the People: James Yen and Village China (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990). 29 the general populace how to read and write. Following the end of the war with Japan, the final stage of the Chinese Civil War (1946-1949) between the Chinese

Communists and Nationalists perpetuated the demands on literacy training to enlist popular loyalty. The earlier form of China’s literacy myth that presumed mass literacy a prerequisite to modernizing China’s economy and society retreated to the background, only to resume its popularity after the country reunited again under

People’s Republic of China in 1949.

Central to nation-building in the first half of 20th century China, China’s literacy myth, not only adapted to changing domestic cultural and political circumstances, but also linked to the international environment. China’s mass literacy efforts persistently were compared with those of industrialized Europe and

America, as well as with those of British India and Bolshevik Russia. Through a comparative perspective, national leaders justified the connection between literacy and national strength. Reports on the ongoing literacy programs carried out in foreign countries fashioned a sense of synchronism, that China was fighting on the same front as other countries lodged along the progressive spectrum of human civilization.

This narrative also created a sense of modernity. China was not only marching towards the modern world via mass literacy learning, but was also concurrently experiencing it. With modernization a worldwide endeavor, China’s literacy and literacy education functioned as a point of engagement with the global community, as well as an arena for promoting national prestige. 30

Foreign experiences also served as reference points for scholars’ views of literacy standards. Scholars agreed that literacy entailed the capability to communicate through written words. But they were nowhere near an agreement on how many characters needed to be mastered before being considered literate.

Neither did they form a consensus upon what composed the basic characters essential for daily life in the 20th century.

Nevertheless, suggestions were made regarding how characters should be selected and how textbooks should be compiled. The basic principle advocated by scholars was to employ social research methods to investigate which characters commoners used and encountered most frequently. Different from the elitist perspective that literacy education meant to enlighten the masses by the educated during the May Fourth Movement, China’s literacy myth acquired a populist identity in the later 1920s and 1930s. Literacy would help commoners fare a better life.

Commoners’ daily needs should direct literacy learning. This principle, however, regularly conflicted with how literacy primers were usually compiled. The primers often aspired to transmit certain knowledge through words, rather than teach how to read and write. The usefulness of words normally was secondary to the demands of compiling a lesson that made a cultural, social, or political statement. Despite of liberal scholars’ advocacy of commoner characters, some of the most commonly used words, ironically, were left out of popular literacy primers they edited. A problem was more prominent in primers sponsored by the political authorities,

31 which ideological indoctrination replaced commoner’s daily practices as the standard defining basic characters.

There was no easy solution to this problem. The value of literacy resided precisely in its role as an instrument to obtain knowledge, shape ideas, mold behaviors, and interact with other people and the surrounding environment. As shown in this chapter, China’s intelligentsia perceived literacy education as the initial step that could bring better economic productivity and widespread engagement in politics. Therefore, at its core, the issue was really who—the elite or non-elite—would decide what was essential and ought to be learned in literacy classes. Apparently, the masses lived in a world quite different from the one that social and political elites designed for them. Their notion of literacy, therefore, differed sharply from that of politicians or other well-educated policymakers.

This chapter shows commoners generally associated literacy with social prestige in the same way that fluency in Chinese classics had granted elevated status to the gentry literati in late imperial China. The goal of literacy was not to further collective ends but served the goals of individuals and their families. Scholars realized that the masses’ lack of interest in literacy learning was caused by the absence of social circumstances that necessitated reading and writing skills in their daily lives. Meanwhile, scholars contradictorily argued that mass literacy was the crucial means to creating such an environment through improving China’s economy and politics. Given the masses’ notion of literacy, the elites determined to transform it. Creating a sense of nationhood was the paramount goal. 32

The Drive to Strengthen the Nation

In 1898, a scholar versed in Chinese classics and an 1879 graduate of

Britain’s Royal Naval College, Yan Fu (嚴複 1854-1921) published his translation of

Thomas Henry Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics. Titled Tian yan lun (天演論 On

Evolution), this book defended Herbert Spencer’s views on Social Darwinism and instilled in Chinese elites a new perception of human order predicated on the rule of competition and power. The book created a sensation among contemporary Chinese elites, most prominent of whom was Liang Qichao (梁啟超 1873-1929), a leader among Chinese intellectuals in the early decades of the 20th century. The book remained a profound influence on later generations. Leaders of all stripes in twentieth-century China testified to its resounding impact, including Cai Yuanpei

(蔡元培 1867-1940), an early (1912) Minister of Education of the provisional

Republic of China and an early president of Peking University from 1917-26, Lu Xun

(魯迅 1881-1936), the influential left-wing writer who launched devastating attacks on traditional Confucian ethics and culture, Hu Shi (胡適 1891-1962), a

Columbia University-trained philosopher and champion of Western liberalism and language reform, and Mao Zedong (毛澤東 1893-1976), a visionary revolutionary and leader of the Chinese Communist Movement. They all felt the influence of Yan’s

33 books in their youth.4 The slogans of Social Darwinism and the sense of urgency to strengthen the nation left a lasting impression on Yan’s young readers.

It was for collective ends, such as those espoused in Yan’s works, that Liang

Qichao elaborated on the necessity of educating all. This produced an early form of

China’s literacy myth. Liang believed that a knowledgeable and morally reformed citizenry was the foundation for a strong country. Mass education not only determined a nation’s position in the world, but also was the fundamental prerequisite for constitutional reform and modernization. Inspired by Japan’s example, Liang further emphasized the importance of compulsory primary education, which was deemed to be the first step for establishing a national school system. He promoted the state imposition of primary education by suggesting that parents should be punished if they failed to send eligible children to schools. In his

1902 essay “Personal Ideas about Education Policy” (教育政策私議 Jiaoyu zhengce siyi) published in the semi-monthly journal Xinmin congbao (新民叢報 New citizen repository), Liang explained that compulsory education embodied two meanings:

“first, every school-age child has the duty to enroll in schools; second, the whole citizenry has the obligation to bear educational expenses.”5 Thus, Liang transformed the issue of literacy education from personal choice to an individual’s legal responsibility. Moreover, literacy and basic education gradually were conflated

4 Benjamin Schwartz, In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the West (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1964), 3, 98-99. 5 Liang Qichao, Liang Qichao quanji (梁啟超全集 The collected works of Liang Qichao) (Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 1999), 3:754. 34 with the schooling system organized and regulated by the state as well. Beginning in

1904 the Qing court’s educational reforms echoed Liang’s propositions, as the following chapter will show.

In addition to advocating compulsory primary education, Liang Qichao also argued for extending general education to peasants, artisans, merchants and soldiers in order to develop the people’s knowledge (開民智 kai minzhi), since the purpose of the new education was to cultivate new citizens serving the country.

Liang criticized traditional education, which trained people to concern themselves with personal promotion and wealth while failing to create a sense of loyalty to the nation and public welfare. In Liang’s eyes, such persons were disqualified from being citizens. Liang claimed new citizens (新民 xinmin) not only should have knowledge about current affairs, but also should have new virtues (新道德 xin daode), including patriotism, self-respect, progressiveness, and a sense of collectivity. In this way, Liang posited literacy and basic education as the premises and channels for the formation of a new type of person in a qualitatively different, modernized society. Literacy was considered as the necessary but not totally sufficient condition for becoming a qualified and responsible new citizen; new virtues were also required.6

Liang’s conception of literacy education as an instrument to create a modern citizenry was carried over into the Republican period. Cai Yuanpei, while serving as

6 For discussions of Liang’s perception of nation as a bounded moral community, see Hao Chang, Liang Ch’i-ch’ao and Intellectual Transition in China, 1890-1907 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 95-99. 35 the Minister of Education in 1912, further institutionalized mass literacy education into the government administrative system. He hewed out the social education (社

會教育 shehui jiaoyu) and general education(普通教育 putong jiaoyu) branches within the educational bureau. The term “social education” was introduced to China from Japan in 1902. It originally referred to all informal educational activities outside school with an aim to repair social cleavages caused by the process of industrialization.7 In Republican China, social education expanded to incorporate all types of education, both school and non-school based, that targeted the general populace. Meanwhile, general education referred to three-tiered formal schooling reserved for children to study. To teach the entire national population how to read and write remained on the state agenda thereafter. Drumbeats for mass literacy as the sign of national strength continued to grow louder.

Chen Duxiu (陳獨秀 1879-1942), the herald of the May Fourth Movement, criticized the Chinese people for being in a state of disunity, “like a sheet of loose sand.”8 Only through literacy learning could a cultural consensus, as well as

7 Paul Bailey, Reform the People, Changing Attitudes towards Popular Education in Early 20th Century China (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990), 3. 8 Sun Yat-sen used the same expression as well. See his Jianguo fanglue (建國方略 The Foundamentals of National Reconstruction) (1917-1919), vol. 6 of Sun Zhongshan quanji Sun Zhongshan quanji (孫中山全集 Complete works of Sun Yat-sen), ed. Guangdong Sheng shehui kexue yuan lishi yanjiushi (广东省社会科学院历史研究室 Guangdong Province Social Science Academy history research office), Zhongguo shehui kexue yuan jindaishi yanjiusuo Zhonghua minguoshi yanjiu shi (中国社会科学院近代史研究所中华民国研究室 Research office of Republic of China history at China Academy of Social Science Instiute of Modern History), and Zhongshan daxue lishixi Sun Zhongshan yanjiushi (中山大学历史系孙中山研究室 Sun Yat-sen research office at History Department of Sun Yat-sen University) (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 2006). 36 national unity, be fostered.9 The type of knowledge Chinese people should learn for the sake of their country was also newly defined during this period as well.

Traditional Confucianism was condemned for producing a population without a consciousness of nationhood. Science and democracy were advocated as the new orthodoxy. China’s majority illiterate population unwittingly took the blame for the failure of the 1911 Revolution to produce a modern democratic polity. Enlightening the general populace, therefore, became a task of tremendous significance and requiring immediate action. Literacy learning served this purpose. China’s literacy myth unfolded during the May Fourth period championed that literacy would enable the masses to read newspapers, become informed about national politics, and increase their overall intelligence. Importantly, this intelligence could only grow from modern science and Western notions of politics and society. Those adhering to traditional wisdom were deemed to be fatuous.

This new type of literacy would steer China’s future, intelligentsia in the

1920s and 1930s argued. They justified literacy’s importance by positing it to be on the trajectory of civilization, asserting that, “The sharp decline in illiteracy was the most outstanding feature of the 20th century.”10 China could not keep up with the modern world experiencing rapid social and scientific gains unless its people’s

9 Chen Duxiu, “Wo zhi aiguo zhuyi (我之愛國主義 My patriotism),” Xin qingnian (新青年 New Youth) 2, no. 2(1916): 1-6. 10 Xu Xiling (徐錫齡), “Zhongguo de wenmang wenti (中國的文盲問題 The illiteracy issue in China)”(January 1928), in Zhongguo wenmang wenti (中國文盲問題 China’s illiteracy issue) (Shanghai: Nanguo shushe, 1932), 16-18. 37 educational level improved.11 The Chinese scholars, like other literacy reformers and campaigners in the past four centuries, construed historically the association of the “presumed condition of literacy” with the “condition of civilization.”12 They asserted mass literacy education was the battlecry of the era.

According to the standard argument, the more widely written language was disseminated, the more progressive a society had developed. The more sophisticated people’s literate skills were, the more advanced the society became.

Fu Baochen (傅葆琛 1893-1984), an expert on rural education trained in the United

States and an active supporter of mass education, actually argued that no one in modern society would attain happiness without being literate first. Written language was an indispensible tool in human lives in a civilized world.13 Such a discourse granted literacy indisputable importance. It charted the course of China’s efforts at pursuing modernity and progress.

China was not alone on this journey. The industrialized Western countries, though with a literacy rate far higher than China at the time, were also fighting the same war against illiteracy.14 Chinese scholars kept a close eye on literacy

11 Fu Baochen (傅葆琛), “Wenmang yu feiwenmang de yanjiu (文盲與非文盲的研究 A study on the illiterate and the literate),” Jiaoyu yu minzhong (教育與民眾 Education and the masses) 1, no. 10(1930): 15. 12 Harvey J. Graff, “Literacy, Myths, and Legacies: Lessons from the History of Literacy,” in Literacy and Historical Development, A Reader, ed. Harvey J. Graff (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2007), 15. 13 Fu Baochen, “Weishenme women yao zai xunzheng shiqi nuli minzhong wenzi jiaoyu (為什麼我們要在訓政時期努力民眾文字教育 Why we should devote effort on mass literacy education during the political tutelage period),” Jiaoyu yu minzhong 2, no.5 (1932): 3-5. 14 Leslie J. Limage, “Adulte Literacy Policy in Industrialized Countries,” in National Literacy Campaigns and Movements, 293-313. 38 movements in the United States. They reported that the illiteracy rate among people of age ten and above in the United States had dropped from 7.7 to 6 percent from

1910 to 1920.15 This decline, however, was not a satisfactory result in the eyes of the Americans, as it indicated that the U.S. was behind Denmark, Sweden,

Switzerland, Germany, Netherland, Scotland, England, Wales, and France. Was it possible for a country as rich as the United States to be content with lagging behind?

Certainly not. The Chinese media eagerly reported that the U.S. federal government had already summoned a conference and was determined to eliminate illiteracy by

1930.16 Clearly, Chinese elites perceived mass literacy education as a form of global competition. The national literacy rate was tied closely to national strength. The more people were literate, the stronger the country would be, and vice versa.17 This global atmosphere of competition featured China’s literacy myth. It confirmed the imperative that China must keep up.

The spur came from less-developed countries, too. British India, a country in a similar, if not worse, situation as China, apparently was making progress. It was reported that India’s population grew by 1.2 percent, while its literate population

15 “Shijie jiaoyu xinchao: Meiguo zhi bushizizhe (世界教育新潮: 美國不識字者 International education news: The illiterate in the United States),” Jiaoyu zazhi (教育雜誌 Education Magazine) 14, no. 6 (1922): 18. 16 “Guowai jiaoyu xinwen: Meiguo zhuyi bushizizhe zhi jiaoyu (國外教育新聞:美國注意不識字者之教育 Oversea education news: The United States pays attention to education for the illiterate),” Zhonghua jiaoyujie (中華教育界 China’s educational world) 14, no. 4 (1924): 1-2. 17 “Geguo bushizizhe zhi baifenshu, zhanqian (各國不識字者之百分數,戰前 The illiterate rate in different countries, before the [World] War),” Jiaoyu zazhi 14, no. 12 (1922): 9; Fu Baochen, “Weishenme yao ban xiangcun pingmin jiaoyu (為什麼要辦鄉村平民教育 Why to organize rural mass educatio)?” (November 1924), in Fu Baochen jiaoyu lunzhu xuan (傅葆琛教育論著選 Fu Baochen’s selected works on education), ed. Chen Xia and Fu Qiqun (Beijing: Renmin jiaoyu chubanshe, 1994), 2. 39 increased 22 percent over a decade (1911-21).18 Mexico, with 61.4 percent of males and 77.7 percent of females deemed illiterate, also acted resolutely on this issue by opening more schools adjunct to 7,000 already existing ones.19 Mass literacy learning, apparently, was a top priority in all countries, whether rich or poor. No excuse would be valid or legitimate for any state to deny supporting mass education.

It also seemed possible to eliminate mass illiteracy within a relatively short period. Soviet Russia provided a real and current example. Chinese scholar’s observation most likely was influenced by the contemporary Russian official rhetoric, which exaggerated the cultural backwardness during pre-Revolution

Tsarist era.20 Chinese educational journals reported that when the USSR began to impose compulsory education in 1924, more than half of its population was illiterate.21 By 1933, after a four-year campaign, almost all Russians had mastered reading and writing skills at varying levels. Universal literacy was arguably one of

18 “Shijie jiaoyu xinchao: Yindu shizi de renshu(世界教育新潮: 印度識字的人數 International education news: The literate population in India),” Jiaoyu zazhi 17, no. 3(1925): 37; “Waiguo jiaoyu xinwen: Yindu shizi de renshu(國外教育新聞: 印度識字的人數 Oversea education news: The literate population in India),” Zhonghua jiaoyu jie 14, no. 10 (1925): 6-7. 19 “Shijie jiaoyu jie: Moxige litu wenmang saochu (世界教育界:墨西哥力圖文盲掃除 Education in the world: Mexico determines to eliminate illiteracy), Zhonghua jiaoyu jie 20, no. 9 (1933): 99. 20 Russia experienced substantial increase in the percentage of literate people between the Emancipation in 1861 and 1914. The rate of literacy probably had reached 41 percent by 1914 in Russia, and the enrollment rate of children in Russian Empire was about 51 percent. This high rate declined in the following decades due to disruption of war, a trend to be reversed since 1923 but slowly. See Ben Eklof, “Russian Literacy Campaigns, 1861-1939,” in National Literacy Campaigns and Movements, 123-145. 21 “Shijie jiaoyu xinchao: Erguo jiang shixing qiangpo jiaoyu (世界教育新潮: 俄國將實行強迫教育 International education news: Russia will implement compulsory education),” Jiaoyu zazhi 16, no. 5(1924): 21. 40 the most distinguished accomplishments of Russia’s socialist construction.22 This inspiring and successful case vindicated Chinese scholars’ call for an all-out effort to reduce illiteracy swiftly. It was feasible that China’s mass literacy rate could catch up with other developed countries over a decade or so.

China’s modernization was frequently narrated through the metaphor of racing.23 No issue more directly and clearly illustrated China’s anxiety over falling behind and the passion to “catch up” than that of literacy. Quantified in the form of literacy rate, China’s literacy myth crystallized modernization into a linear and seemingly less daunting journey. Literacy was vested with political meanings beyond cultural or pragmatic purposes. It took center stage as the nation journeyed to a level of parity with the West. Simplifying the Chinese language was deemed as the key to expediting this process.

Moving forward through Language Reform

Chinese classical literature and the Chinese logographic script were chastised for holding China back during the May Fourth Movement. The popularization of literary style and the Romanization of Chinese script became the focal points. Hu Shi championed literary reforms that privileged colloquialism over classical Chinese.

The latter, scholars condemned, was loaded with decayed, outdated, and pedantic

Confucian ideas, which suffocated and imprisoned the populace’s mind from

22 “Sulian xiaochu wenmang yundong (蘇聯消除文盲運動 Anti-illiteracy movement in the Soviet Union,” Minzhong jiaoyu tongxun (民眾教育通訊 Mass education dispatch) 4, no. 9 (1934): 15. 23 Dorothy Ko, “Jazzing into Modernity: High Heels, Platforms, and Lotus Shoes,” in China Chic: East Meets West, ed. Valerie Steele and John S. Major (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 142. 41 advancing.24 It was a language of the past and the deceased. In contrast, vernacular language was modern, alive, and useful. It could smooth the process of educating the general populace to read and write.25 Language, both its scripts and style of writing, were subjected to an evolutionary gaze.

In the linguistics field, Chinese reforms adopted the unidirectional linear development theory, which proposed that script evolved from ideographic through logographic eventually to phonetic. The May Fourth generation was convinced by this alphabetic myth, and produced a widely-circulated illusion that Chinese script was ideographic, residing at the primitive end in the history of writing, and lagged behind the alphabetic scripts widely used in Western industrial world. To catch up with more advanced nations mandated a phonetic reform to the Chinese writing system, which in turn prepared for other profound developments. Eliminating illiteracy was one.26 Although this outdated wisdom no longer prevails and recent scholarly works have demonstrated written Chinese is logographic,27 this alphabetic myth generated momentous power stimulating a language and literary revolution in early 20th century China.

“Unless Chinese script is reformed, education can never become widespread,” argued Qian Xuantong (錢玄同 1887-1939), a leading linguist and radical

24 Qian Xuantong (錢玄同), “ Zhongguo jinhou de wenzi wenti (中國今後的文字問題 Hereafter China’s language problems),” Xin qingnian 4, no. 4 (1918): 350-356. 25 Xu Xiling, “Zhongguo de wenmang wenti,” in Zhongguo wenmang wenti, 21-22. 26 John DeFrancis, Nationalism and Language Reform in China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950). 27 John DeFrancis, The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1984). 42 reformer.28 Qian condemned Chinese script for being extremely hard to recognize, memorize, and write, because it was disconnected with pronunciation. On top of that, there were about 40,000 Chinese characters.29 Some pronounced differently depending on the word combination. Such a system presented a tremendous challenge for acquiring literacy. Consequently, the minority upper class monopolized literacy. Mass education in the 20th century, therefore, demanded popularization. The term tongsu jiaoyu (通俗教育 popular education) was used more widely during the May Fourth era and early 1920s. It referred not only to the means of educating the people, including vernacular literature and phonetic symbols, but also to the ends of such an endeavor—popularizing education.30

To introduce new knowledge and concepts demanded language reform. To the reformers, the rigid and static nature of classical Chinese made it extraordinary difficult to translate and import learning, ideas, and principles commonly shared by the global community. Weak in transcribing the pronunciation, traditional scripts appeared to be inadequate for accommodating and introducing modern knowledge originating outside China.31 Changes to the writing system, therefore, were deemed the prerequisite to a cultural and ideological revolution.

28 Qian Xuantong, “Hanzi geming (漢字革命 A revolution to Chinese characters),” Guoyu yuekan(國語月刊 National language montly) 1, no.8 (1922): 5-40. 29 Christopher A. Reed, Gutenberg in Shanghai: Chinese Print Capitalism, 1876-1937 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2004), 34. The number of Chinese characters fluctuated over time. The dictionary—Jiyun (集韻)—published in 1039 during the Northern Song dynasty listed 53,525 characters. Zhonghua da zidian (Chinese big dictionary) published in 1916 included 48,000 characters. See Jerry Norman, Chinese (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 72. 30 Paul Bailey, Reform the People, 3. 31 Qian Xuantong, “Hanzi geming,” Guoyu yuekan 1, no.7 (1923). 43

Along with the advocacy of phonetic writing came the issue of standardizing the spoken language. How to pronounce Chinese characters was loaded with political meanings, that of solidifying people’s thoughts and infusing the value of nationhood. The Chinese government began exploring ways to annotate the pronunciation of Chinese characters in 1898, with a focus on matching the spoken language with the written one. In 1902, Wu Rulun (吳汝綸 1840-1903), Dean of the new Imperial University of Beijing, impressed by Japan’s effort at standardizing

Japanese pronunciation based on the Tokyo dialect,32 promoted a similar movement in China. A unified spoken language was argued to be the key to national unity, both cultural and political. This belief held strong into the Republican era.

Succeeding efforts were devoted to designing a system of phonetic notations that transcribed spoken Chinese based mainly on the Beijing dialect. The system eventually proclaimed by the Nationalist government in 1928 resembled Japanese katakana in substantial ways in terms of its origins: notations were created by taking parts of Chinese script as a form of shorthand.33 The GMD named it Zhuyin fuhao in 1930, a system that is still used today in Taiwan.

32 Atsuko Ueda, “Competing “Languages’: ‘Sound’ in the Orthographic Reforms of Early Meiji Japan,” in Rethinking East Asian Languages, Vernaculars, and Literacies, 1000–1919, ed. Benjamin A. Elman (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 220-253. 33 Lu Zhuangzhang (卢戆章 1854-1928), a Fujian native and language teacher in Amoy involved in compiling Dr. Robert Morrison’s (1782-1834) famous Dictionary of the Chinese Language, pioneered designing a phonetic notations transcribing Chinese language. Published in 1892, Lu’s system included 55 Latin-like alphabets annotating Amoy dialect. In 1898, the Qing Court ordered its Grand Councilors to consult Lu’s work on language reform. In 1906, the Latin-like alphabets were replaced by simple Chinese strokes. After the establishment of Republic of China, the Ministry of Education established Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation (讀音統一會 Duyin tongyihui) headed by Wu Zhihui (吳稚暉 1865-1953) continued the effort of annotating and standardizing Chinese pronunciation. In 1913, a set of phonetic symbols—zhuyin zimu (註音字母 Annotated phonetic 44

In 1931, Chinese and Russian scholars at the Oriental Institute of Academy of

Sciences at Leningrad invented a new Latin alphabetic system to challenge the one endorsed by the Nationalist government. This new Romanization system, named as

Sin Wenz (新文字 New Writing), received a favorable response among some

Chinese elites who claimed it would enable people to read and write without learning the Chinese scripts.34

The basic consensus was that China had to achieve universal literacy as soon as possible. This objective became extremely urgent when the tension between

Japan and China reached a boiling point in the middle of the 1930s. In December

1935, 688 Chinese intellectuals signed a proclamation entitled “Our opinions on letters) was created based on the shorthand invented by Zhang Binglin (章炳麟 1868-1936), but it did not successfully unify and standardize pronunciation. Scholars kept designing new phonetic systems based on local dialects, the most prominent among which was Cantonese, and required for governmental endorsement. To promote and popularize zhuyin zimu, several staff from the Ministry of Education helped found Republic of China National Language Research Association (中華民國國語研究會 Zhonghua minguo guoyu yanjiuhui) in 1916. This association attracted a large group of liberal scholars, including Hu Shi, and became heavily involved in promoting vernacular literature during the May Fourth Movement. In November 1918, the Ministry of Education promulgated zhuyin zimu responding to the petition made by this association. In April 1919, the Preparatory Commission for the Unification of the National Language (國語統一籌備會 Guoyu tongyi choubeihui) was established by the Ministry of Education in an effort to supervise the use of zhuyin zimu, which later was renamed as guoyin zimu (國音字母 Phonetic Alphabet of the National Language). The number of alphabet increased from 36 to 40. The Nationalist government officially endorsed this system in 1928 and renamed it as zhuyin fuhao (注音符號 phonetic symbols) in 1930. Two years later, it decreed Mandarin was based on Beijing dialect and finalized zhuyin fuhao with 37 symbols in total. See Li Jinxi (黎錦熙), Guoyu yundong shigang (國語運動史綱 A general history of the national language movement) (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1934). Elisabeth Kaske, The Politics of Language in Chinese Education: 1895 - 1919 (Leiden: Brill, 2007). 34 John De Francis, Nationalism and Language Reform in China, 87-109. Early in 1928, the Soviet Scientific Research Institute on China set about devising a romanization system to facilitate literacy learning among Chinese minority in Soviet territory. The goal was to use the Latin-based alphabetic system to replace Chinese script. To carry out this mission, the Oriental Institute of the Academy of Sciences organized a commission recruiting eminent Soviet Sinologists, including V.M. Alekseev, A.A. Dragunov, and A.G. Shrprintsin, to work with Moscow-based Chinese scholars, including Qu Qiubai (瞿秋白 1899-1935), Wu Yuzhang (吳玉章 1877-1966), and Xu Teli (徐特立 1877-1968). The Sin Wenz, as a new writing system, was produced in the following year. The pinyin system published in 1958 by the Chinese government shared with Sin Wenz in substantial way in terms of orthography. 45 promoting Sin Wenz (我們對於推行新文字的意見 Women duiyu tuixing xinwenzi de yijian).”35 They called for nationwide adoption of Sin Wenz, as Latinization proved to be an expedient way to educate and organize the masses. Facing a looming national crisis, scholars clung to the new phonetic alphabets as the essential tool to push forward a mass national liberation movement.

The Chinese Communists ardently experimented with using Sin Wenz for literacy education at Yan’an and its surrounding areas starting from 1940. Wu

Yuzhang (吴玉章 1878-1966), the Chinese Communist educator and veteran, led a

“Sin Wenz Movement (新文字運動 xinwenzi yundong)” with the support of Party leaders including Mao Zedong and Zhu De (朱德 1886-1976). The CCP did not simply use Sin Wenz to facilitate learning of Chinese script. It promulgated this new

Latinized system as an official written language in addition to Chinese characters.

However, this alphabetic myth dissolved in practices. The Latin alphabet-based Sin Wenz appeared to be too alien. To local residents, the value of

Sin Wenz system was just as a learning aid, at best. They could not replace the

Chinese script in their daily lives. As a result, the CCP first scaled down its Sin Wenz

Movement in 1942 by confining it within Yan’an County. One year later, it called for an end to the movement. Nonetheless, this early Romanization experiment provided

35 “Women duiyu tuixing xinwenzi de yijian (我們對於推行新文字的意見 Our opinions on promoting Sin Wenz),” Shenghuo jiaoyu (生活教育 Life and education), no.5 (1936): 195-197; Ni Haishui (倪海曙), Ladinghua xinwenzi yundong shimo he biannian jishi (拉丁化新文字運動始末和編年紀事 The full story and chronicle of Latinization and Sin Wenz movement) (Xi’an: Zhishi chubanshe, 1987), 53. 46 a key reference point for the CCP’s pinyin reform and literacy education in the post-1949 era.36

In contrast to the CCP’s fervent advocacy of Sin Wenz, the GMD gave it the cold shoulder. The Nationalists condemned Sin Wenz and the Latinization effort as part of the Communist movement to undermine traditional culture. Sin Wenz was legally banned in the areas under Nationalist control.37 At the same time, some members of the CCP politicized the practices of Latinization. They considered popularizing Sin Wenz to be solely the CCP’s responsibility.38

Thus, the two competing parties (GMD and CCP) investing in the alphabetic myth each endorsed a phonetic system and contended for legitimacy. Phonetic symbols carried political meanings by labeling the “correct,” effective, and, thus, orthodox way to teach people how to read, especially underprivileged adults and children who had constraints on their time and resources. At the same time, lower social sectors were singled out and became the main target of literacy education.

Such a focus had its origins in the Mass Education Movement led by Y.C. James Yen in the early 1920s.

36 “Tuixing xinwenzi (推行新文字 Promoting Sin Wenz),” in Shaan-Gan-Ning bianqu jiaoyu ziliao shehui jiaoyu (陕甘宁边区教育资料社会教育 Collections of social education materials in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia border region), ed. Shaanxi shifan daxue shehui jiaoyu yanjiusuo (陕西师范大学社会教育研究所 Shaanxi Normal University Social Education Research Institute) (Beijing: Shehui kexue chubanshe, 1981), 2: 1-3. 37 Shaanxisheng zhengfu(陝西省政府 Shaanxi provincial government), Guanyu jinyong jianti ji guaiyi wenzi an (關於禁用簡體及怪異文字案 Proposal on banning the use of simplified and strange characters), Shaanxi Provincial Archive (citied by catalogue and file number), 1-12-76 38 Wu Yuzhang, “Xinwenzi zai qieshi tuixing zhong de jingyan he jiaoxun (新文字在切實推行中的經驗和教訓 Experiences and lessons in promoting Sin Wenz,” in Shaan-Gan-Ning bianqu jiaoyu ziliao shehui jiaoyu, 2: 85. 47

Literacy: A Master Key to Transforming the Lives of Non-elites

A graduate of Yale University, Y.C. James Yen39 devoted his life to teaching less privileged people how to read and write. He first taught Chinese laborers on the

French front during World War I. After returning to Shanghai in 1920, Yen aspired to extend literacy education to all commoners by working with the Chinese YMCA, which had established broad organizational networks through its popular city-centered health campaigns. Consequently, Yen started in 1922 his literacy program at a provincial capital city—Changsha.40 This project received warm support from educated social activists, who volunteered as literacy teachers. Mao

Zedong, by then a primary school principal and member of the Strenghten

Education Society, was among them. He participated in Yen’s Changsha literacy campaign in the fall of 1922 and in 1923.41

Designating their program as pingmin jiaoyu (平民教育 commoner’s education), Yen and his colleagues gave literacy education a populist look, which was exemplified by their adoption of a new literacy text entitled People’s Thousand

Character Primer (Pingmin qianzi ke 平民千字课) sponsored by the Chinese

39 James Yen was a Christian. He was drawn to the mass literacy education through his association with Christian missionary societies in his early years. Dissatisfied with most missionaries’ work alienating from Chinese realities, James Yen attempt to make his literacy campaign able to provide pragmatic solutions to the problems in China’s village. See Charles W. Hayford, To the People. 40 James Yen chose to experiment his literacy project in Changsha upon the local YMCA Secretary, L.K. Hall’s suggestion. Hall believed his Changsha Boy’s Department capable of raising citywide support. See Charles W. Hayford, To the People, 43. 41 Ibid., xiii, 43-45; Linda Shaffer, Mao and the Workers: The Hunan Labor Movement, 1920-1923 (White Plain, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1982), 59. 48

National YMCA. This literacy text aimed to teach the populace the basic characters commonly used in their daily lives. It thus differed from the old literacy primers, which introduced characters in order of simplicity in writing but was concerned little about their frequency in daily usage.42 Though scholars questioned whether the 1,200 selected characters represented the most basic ones (an issue discussed in the next section), this literacy text legitimated the necessity of taking common people’s needs into consideration.

To make the commoners’ education a nationwide endeavor, Yen organized a

National Association of Mass Education Movements in 1923 with Tao Xingzhi (陶行

知 1891-1946), a Columbia graduate and a student of John Dewey (1859-1952).

With this national organization, these independent reformers marshaled an alternative path to universal literacy differing from the government initiatives of formal schooling, an approach enshrined during the late Qing education reforms.

MEM mobilized individuals as volunteer teachers and offered classes tailored to students’ schedules and residential locations. The “little teacher” method invented by Tao, in particular, took on a non-professional profile. It held that school children were qualified to teach their families while they were still learning to be literate themselves.43 This non-institutional based drive fueled by social forces demonstrated the feasibility of diverse paths to literacy. When the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek desired to consolidate state control over education

42 Charles W. Hayford, “Literacy Movements in Modern China,” in National Literacy Campaigns and Movements, 160. 43 Ibid., 161. 49 in the late 1920s, it could not ignore the non-school based approaches, but rather worked to absorb and regulate them.

The attention devoted to providing lessons suitable for students’ daily conditions further led scholars to acknowledge the differences between villagers and city dwellers. MEM responded by compiling two sets of literacy primers: Shimin qianzi ke (市民千字課 Urbanites’ Thousand Character Primer) and Nongmin qianzi ke

(農民千字課 Peasants’ Thousand Character Primer). Noticing the widening gap between the urban and rural in terms of accessibility to modern schools sponsored by the state, Yen and his supporters, including Mao, shifted their focus to the countryside.44 This shift was also justified by the fact that the majority of Chinese lived in rural areas. Rural issues arguably were the focal point of China’s modern development. Literacy education subsequently became a part of the Rural

Reconstruction Yen orchestrated from 1926.

China’s literacy myth subsequently expressed as literacy served as a means to economic reforms, social progress, and democratic practices. Scholars advocated that the ability to read and write largely conditioned access to new knowledge and information. Illiteracy hindered peasants from using new scientific methods to improve agriculture. As a result, it was common to see fertile land wasted, hillsides deforested, and a lack of irrigation. China’s farmers had little idea about new knowledge regarding seed selection and pesticides. Improving China’s agriculture

44 Suzanne Pepper, Radicalism and Education Reform in 20th-century China (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 50 required introducing new knowledge and technology, to which literacy was the key.45

Meanwhile, literacy learning was also integral to other types of education, such as livelihood education and citizenship training. For instance, the core part of livelihood education was to learn how to calculate and keep accounts, which involved reading and writing characters. Simultaneously, acquiring the skills of reading and writing enabled people to work as an accountant, secretary and storyteller, or provide writing services for others. In this way, literacy learning figured prominently in making a living.46

This belief formed the basic consensus in the late 1920s and 1930s among liberal scholars like Yen, Communist revolutionaries led by Mao, and leaders of

China’s Republican government (the Nationalist Party after 1928). There was general agreement about the value of scientific knowledge, health information, and cooperative production in improving the rural economy and social customs.

Apparent and titanic differences lay in their interpretations of literacy’s relationship to democracy, however. Each group gave distinct annotation to the literacy myth on democracy in China.

45 Song Baozuo (宋寶祚), “Sijiao jianzi yu minzhong jiaoyu (四角檢字與民眾教育 The Four-Corner Method and Mass Education,” Jiaoyu yu minzhong 1, no.1 (1929):110; Fu Baochen, “Zhili jingzhao xinyong hezuoshe sheyuan ruhe xiezhu tuixing xiangcun pingmin jiaoyu (直隸京兆信用合作社社員如何推行鄉村平民教育 How the members of the credit cooperative in Zhili and the capital region promote rural commoners’ education” (1931), in Fu Baochen jiaoyu lunzhu xuan, 9. 46 Fu Baochen, “Xiangcun pingmin jiaoyu dayi (鄉村平民教育大意 General principles for rural commoners’ education)” (July 1928), in Fu Baochen jiaoyu lunzhu xuan, 80; “Minzhong jiaoyu de zhenyi yu qita jiaoyu de guanxi (民眾教育的真義與其他教育的關係 The true essence of mass education and its relations with other types of education),” Jiaoyu yu minzhong 1, no.8 (1930):6-7; “Weishenme women yao zai xunzheng shiqi nuli minzhong wenzi jiaoyu,” Jiaoyu yu minzhong 2, no.5 (1932): 3-5. 51

Liberal scholars valued literacy in terms of enabling the masses to voice their own opinions. The essence of democracy, they argued, meant that citizens had their own independent thoughts and were able to accept others’ ideas. Illiteracy prohibited individuals from publicizing their own points of view. Similarly, an illiterate person hardly could be informed about others’ opinions.47 Literacy, thus, was fundamental for forming and reconciling contesting ideas. This liberal stance, however, failed to prevail upon political authorities.

Both the CCP and GMD appreciated literacy’s role in creating national unity and political consensus, but were much less concerned about encouraging different voices. The Communists proposed that political revolution was a precondition to universal literacy. Democracy to them meant that politics were controlled by and thus served the interests of the majority Chinese—peasants and workers. Literacy was necessary in terms of arousing popular class-consciousness and political fervor.

The Nationalists, in contrast, perceived that a literate population composed the mass base for an electoral system. Literacy learning allowed the populace to participate and support the Nationalists’ nation-building project, but not to challenge it.

The national crisis ignited by the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) strengthened the political authorities’ cry for national solidarity and conformity.

Scholars no longer evaluated literacy texts by studying commoners’ empirical experiences as the criteria for selecting characters and compiling texts. Instead, they,

47 Xu Xiling, “Zhongguo de wenmang wenti”(January 1928), in Zhongguo wenmang wenti, 19 52 too, advocated that literacy was essential for inspiring patriotism and spreading basic military knowledge. Such belief rendered a new fact to China’s literacy myth.

Literacy was important, not for its own sake, but as a means to awaken the nation.48

Literacy programs organized by the GMD in 1939 in the rear area of Sichuan

Province, for example, were overshadowed by citizenship training. Students were expected to spend thirty minutes per day attending a patriotic lecture, listening to reports on current affairs, or learning basic knowledge about war and military. This was twice the time students devoted to reading and writing. Even learning to sing patriotic songs was privileged over literacy training.49 The CCP’s literacy programs during the war were also made up of two parts: political training and literacy learning. The Party’s overarching goal of constructing anti-Japanese local communities entailed the content of literacy learning, which in turn, intended to combine immediate use with national relevance.

In summary, since the creation of China’s literacy myth at the turn of 20th century, literacy had never been an isolated or absolute goal.50 By the 1920s and early 1930s, Chinese elites perceived popular literacy as a solution to rural poverty and general apathy to politics. During the Anti-Japanese War of Resistance

(1937-1945), social and political leaders deemed literacy as a vehicle to encourage

48 Fu Baochen, “Suqing wenmang yingdang zhuyi de wenti (肅清文盲應當注意的問題 Issues about anti-illiteracy calling our attention)” (1939), in Fu Baochen jiaoyu lunzhu xuan, 359. 49 Han Depu (韓德溥), “Jiaoyu wenhua xiaoxi: Chongqingshi saochu wenmang yundong (教育文化消息:重慶市掃除文盲運動 Education and culture news: Anti-illiteracy movement in Chongqing),” Jiao yu xue (教與學 Teaching and learning) 3, no.9 (1938): 55-56. 50 Robert F. Arnove and Harvey J. Graff, “Introduction,” in National Literacy Campaigns and Movements, 7. 53 patriotism and militancy against the Japanese. Literacy was understood within the web of forces working to transform commoners’ economic, political, and social lives.

If literacy were not the end in itself and just a means to multiple purposes, then what defined basic literacy? This was an enduring question that Chinese scholars strived to answer in the first half of the 20th century.

Literacy vs. Illiteracy: Definition

When entering the public discourse around the turn of the 20th century in

China, literacy was tied closely with the anxiety of national survival. It was constantly discussed from a global comparative perspective. Chinese scholars took foreign experiences as a point of reference in determining the definition and basic standard of literacy. Inevitably, they got a range of answers, which further complicated the picture. Scholars passionate about teaching the masses how to read and write found themselves unable to give a concise translation of the words literacy and illiteracy.

In early 20th century China, shizi (識字) was the commonly used word representing literacy. Literally, it means the ability to recognize characters. This translation caused confusion and debates in regard to the place of writing in literacy acquisition. Scholars noticed that reading and writing were two related, but distinct, skills. Some people, especially those living in the countryside, were able to read but

54 could not write due to the lack of opportunities to practice.51 Further, even the meaning of “recognize characters” was unclear. Scholars questioned, “Does recognition signify the ability to simply pronounce the character, or to understand the meaning of written text?” There was a general agreement that the skills associated with shizi were three-fold: mastery of the pronunciation, understanding the meaning, and ability to apply given characters in a sentence. Given the fact that a word or term—the basic meaning unit in Chinese—usually was composed of at least two characters, scholars suggested that literacy exams correspondingly should test people’s abilities to read words, rather than single independent characters. But the position of writing in literacy learning was not settled, as revealed by various literacy tests scholars and reformers designed.

The literacy tests adopted in the 1920s thus tended to examine reading skills only. Neither did tests administrated by MEM nor one designed by a psychologist professor assess students’ writing.52 Doubts about testing methods began to mount among scholars as literacy became associated more closely with social and economic reform in the 1930s. The May Fourth cultural reformers thought commoners were ignorant and needed to read more, while social activists in the

1930s aimed to involve the masses in their reconstruction projects, as producers of wealth, teachers in literacy classes, and possibly spokesmen for themselves and the

51 Xu Xiling, “Wenmang biaozhun yu wenmang ceyan (文盲標準與文盲測驗 Illiteracy standards and test),” Jiaoyu zazhi 20, no.8 (1928):2-3. 52 Fu Baochen, “Wenmang yu feiwenmang de yanjiu,” Jiaoyu yu minzhong 1, no. 10(1930): 6-8; Zhang Yaoxiang (張耀翔), “Shizi ceyan (識字試驗 Literacy test),” Henan jiaoyu gongbao (河南教育公報 Henan education bulletin) 2, no. 18 (1923): 1-34. 55 local community. The ability to write became essential to fulfilling these tasks.

Consequently, scholars advocated literacy tests should include a writing section.

Some went even further, suggesting that the ability to communicate verbally the meanings of learned vocabularies should be examined as well.53

Similarly, the translation of illiteracy caused ambiguities, as well. Initially, scholars simply added a negative prefix to “shizi” and got “bushizi” (不識字). In the

1920s, wenmang (文盲)—a word imported from Japan—gradually gain popularity.54

Wenmang literally meant cultural blindness and carried demeaning connotations by drawing an analogy between lack of literacy and physiological deficiency. It gained the edge, however, by showing vividly that an illiterate person could not fully function in a cultural world. Nonetheless, its meaning was equivocal. Scholars argued that the English word—illiteracy—meant being ignorant of letters for books and not learned. In comparison, wenmang had a much narrower connotation, literally referring to those not knowing any characters at all. Those who were not wenmang were not necessarily literate.55 Examining these nuances, scholars highlighted that people developed reading and writing skills at varying levels.

A wide range of literacy standards adopted by different countries confirmed such variation. For example, England, Portugal, and France investigated popular

53 Fu Baochen, “Wenmang yu feiwenmang de yanjiu,” Jiaoyu yu minzhong 1, no. 10(1930):13; Xu Xiling, “Wenmang biaozhun yu wenmang ceyan,” Jiaoyu zazhi 20, no.8 (1928):2-3. 54 Contemporary scholars suggested that wenmang became an established word probably in the late 1920s; see Xu Xiling, “Zhongguo de wenmang wenti”(January 1928), in Zhongguo wenmang wenti, 7; Fu Baochen, “Suqing wenmang yingdang zhuyi de jige wenti” (1939), in Fu Baochen jiaoyu lunzhu xuan, 359. 55 Xu Xiling, “Wenmang biaozhun yu wenmang ceyan,” Jiaoyu zazhi 20, no.8 (1928): 2-3. 56 literacy via marriage registration in the beginning of the twentieth century. Those able to sign their own names were considered literate. In the case of the United

States, Chinese scholars interpreted that reading the U.S. Constitution was an integral component.56 Other countries tested both reading and writing skills.57 The fundamental issue, then, was what defined basic literacy in China?

This question, first of all, devolved into a mastery of how many characters was sufficient for being considered literate. No definite answer was concluded, but the general impression was about one thousand, a notion fashioned from the mass literacy movement organized by James Yen in the early 1920s. Yen advocated literacy learning by the means of the Thousand Character Primer he compiled with another scholar. Thereafter, different versions of literacy texts were published, most entitled with “thousand character lessons.” But it was still unclear “whether the thousand characters were envisaged as an end in themselves or simply as an introduction to more characters.”58 Neither did those literacy texts include exactly one thousand characters. Examining twenty-seven different versions of broadly circulated literacy texts, Fu Baochen found that the total number of selected characters fluctuated around one thousand, with seventeen above and ten below.

The number could be as low as 588 and as high as 1,712, but definitely not

56 The rate of literacy in the United State was usually measured by a question about read/write capability in census. Sometimes, the literacy was equaled with a level of school completion. See Harvey J. Graff, The Literacy Myth, Literacy and Social Structure in the Nineteenth-Century City (New York: Academic Press, 1979), 326-333. 57 Xu Xiling, “Zhongguo de wenmang wenti,” in Zhongguo wenmang wenti, 9-16. 58 John De Francis, Nationalism and Language Reform in China, 11. 57 exceeding 2,000.59 There still existed broad standards, even if those selected characters were able to define basic literacy, a premise itself subjected to heated debates.

To clarify the issue, scholars introduced the concept of basic characters, mastery of which, theoretically speaking, would enable commoners to function in a literate world.60 What defined basic characters? To answer this question, scholars pushed for scientific investigation into ordinary people’s daily experiences rather than relying on elites’ arbitrary instincts. The early 1920s literacy texts published by the YMCA and edited by James Yen and Tao Xingzhi respectively were based on research conducted by Chen Heqin (陳鶴琴 1892-1982), a disciple of John Dewey and professor at Southeast University. Chen counted the frequency of characters in selected texts and ranked them from high to low. Yen and Tao then edited their

Thousand Character Primer by using those found in the top 2,500.

Scholars subsequently questioned both the representativeness of Chen’s selected texts, and Yen/Tao’s editorial approach. The counterarguments substantially built upon the notion that people lived in diverse literate worlds.

59 Fu Baochen, “Minzhong shizi jiaoyu yu minzhong jiben zi (民眾識字教育與民眾基本字 Mass literacy education and basic characters for commoners),” Jiaoyu yu minzhong 3, no. 6 (1932): 1113-1114. 60 Xu Xiling, “Shanghao yongzi de yanjiu (商號用字的研究 A study on shop name),” in Zhongguo wenmang wenti, 45. Evelyn Rawski suggests that in late imperial China children usually learnt to read and write through orthodox literacy primers, including Qianziwen (千字文 Thousand-Character Classic), Sanzijing (三字經 Trimetrical Classic), and Baijiaxing (百家姓 Hundred Names). These three texts all together introduced about 2000 characters, mastery of which could be able to read simple materials. Rawski also points out that those who mastered a few hundred characters probably would be able to manage simple accounts but had to consulted the more educated on handling matters that involved advanced level of reading and writing. Evelyn Rawski, Education and Popular Literacy in Ch’ing China (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1979), 53,144-145. 58

Commoners were not a monolithic entity. The texts commonly read or fundamentally useful for urban dwellers did not necessarily hold the same value among villagers. Similar differentiations could be found between children and adults, and among people from different regions. The principal defect of Chen’s research was the assumption that the texts he selected enjoyed unilateral popularity across all social strata. Scholars questioned the legitimacy of using children’s literature as a reference for basic characters designated for adults. Scholars doubted, too, if Dream of the Red Chamber, a masterpiece of Qing fiction,61 could be considered as an example of popular literature that was widely read in the early 20th century. Also, they disagreed with Chen including the Bible in his study. The result of Chen’s research, to a certain extent, justified scholars’ doubts. Among the top thousand characters on Chen’s frequency list, many were those found to be used regularly in classical Chinese. In contrast, Zhao (趙), one of Chinese’s most common last names, only appeared once in Chen’s statistics.62 Also not included were many of the characters favored in shop names.63 It appeared to contemporary scholars that the texts selected for Chen’s study were not comprehensive, and were also detached from the lower classes’ lives.

Scholars then devoted extensive effort to compiling literacy primers suitable for different groups, including urban commoners, peasants, soldiers, and women. In this spirit, MEM sponsored two versions of literacy primers for urbanites and

61 C.T. Hsia, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction (Indiana University Press, 1999). 62 Fu Baochen, “Minzhong shizi jiaoyu yu minzhong jiben zi,” Jiaoyu yu minzhong 3, no. 6 (1932): 1117-1118. 63 Xu Xiling, “Shanghao yongzi de yanjiu,” in Zhongguo wenmang wenti, 41. 59 peasants separately. Fu Baochen served as the chief editor for the latter. His work began with collecting the characters that peasants encountered in their daily lives.

Books and popular newspapers that targeted peasants, and documents and written records that peasants produced or received composed Fu’s main sources of information, which included land deeds, invitation letters, loan documents, and doctor’s prescriptions.64 In a similar fashion, the editor of the literacy primer for urban commoners consulted materials widely circulated and present in cities, such as drama scripts, street signs, commercial ads, notices, and postal orders.65

During the same time period, shrewd commercial publishers, like Shanghai’s

World Book Company (世界書局 Shijie shuju), sensed the gap in the market and ventured to producing textbooks for the rural and urban populations separately.

World Book Company developed a close connection with mass literacy campaigners.

Tao Xingzhi was hired to edit two sets of trial textbooks for industrial workers and peasants. These texts enjoyed wide sales in the lower Yangzi River Delta in eastern

China. In addition, World also published special editions for soldiers that were adopted by Feng Yuxiang (馮玉祥 1882-1991), a warlord and devotee of troop training in Hebei province in north China.66 With diversified textbooks targeting specialized readers, scholars hoped to select the basic characters that were in accord with non-elites’ daily experiences.

64 Fu Baochen, “Minzhong shizi jiaoyu yu minzhong jiben zi,” Jiaoyu yu minzhong 3, no. 6 (1932):1119-1120. 65 Liu Dewen (劉德文), “Pingjiao zonghui gaibian Qianzike jianzi gongzuo de jingguo (平教總會改編千字課檢字工作的經過 Character selecting procedure in re-editing Thousand Character Primer by the National Association of Mass Education Movements),” Jiaoyu zazhi 18, no.12 (1926):1-14. 66 Christopher A. Reed, Gutenberg in Shanghai, 247. 60

Despite such broad wishes, the compilers’ subjectivity, to a certain extent, shaped the nature of the basic characters and how they were arranged into literacy lessons. In charge of MEM’s rural education department from 1924-1928, Fu viewed literacy as a tool to improve the rural economy, a key agenda in MEM’s Rural

Reconstruction. In this context, books about farming and animal husbandry became major references for choosing the basic characters.

In a similar way, the GMD’s Ministry of Education gave obvious favor to materials introducing its political ideologies. Those texts substantially determined what comprised “basic characters” to be used in compiling Three Principles of the

People’s Thousand Character Primer (三民主義千字課 Sanmin zhuyi qianzike).67 As seen from its title, this literacy text aimed to spread the basic knowledge about

Nationalist Party doctrine—the Three Principles of the People. Clearly, the concept of basic characters was by no means neutral. Usually, literacy advocates played an influential role, purposefully or unconsciously, in framing the desirable texts commoners were expected to read and understand after acquiring literacy.

Using the selected characters to compose meaningful lessons opened even more space for designers to shape literacy learning. In most cases, literacy texts were organized around certain topics, which then dictated the content of the text.

For the sake of transmitting desirable messages, editors from sometimes used

67 “Bianji Sanmin zhuyi qianzike de jingguo baogao (編輯三民主義千字課的經過報告 A report on the editing process of Thousand Character Primer of Three People’s Principles,” Jiaoyubu gongbao (教育部公報 Ministry of Education bulletin) 2, no. 27(1932): 55-70. 61 characters beyond the pool of the basic ones they selected.68 Debates on the function of literacy primers ensued. Should they be only for introducing a collection of useful characters? Was it justified to use literacy texts to teach knowledge at the expense of character learning? Contemporary scholars became aware that literacy learning was not necessarily equivalent to obtaining the skills needed to read and write, albeit some of them so advocated.

Scholars further challenged the effectiveness of short-term literacy training via the celebrated Thousand Character Primer. “Learn ten characters per day; mastery of one thousand characters will be a sure result within four months. Thus, students would be able to read newspapers and books, write letters and keep accounts,”69 it stated. Such was the general rhetoric for various literacy movements organized by MEM and political authorities in the early twentieth century. A myth about Thousand Character Primer thus sprouted.

Only a few scholars were curious enough to figure out the learning results of those short-term literacy classes, however. They conducted a study at a mass literacy school attached to Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou. A test was given at the end of the first month of study. The results showed most students could pronounce 70 percent of the characters taught, but only mastered the meaning of from 40-50 percent. In terms of writing skills, they could copy 80 percent of what they had learned, but could only write 20 percent from memory. Based on these

68 Fu Baochen, “Minzhong shizi jiaoyu yu minzhong jiben zi,” Jiaoyu yu minzhong 3, no. 6 (1932): 1122-1123. 69 Xu Xiling, “Qianzike de xiaolü yu neirong (千字課的效率與內容 Thousand Character Primer, efficiency and content),” in Zhongguo wenmang wenti, 82. 62 results, scholars doubted that with four months’ literacy training commoners would be able to master one thousand characters, including their pronunciation, meaning, and script.70 This study also revealed, even after a year of study in literacy class, that students were barely able to understand the news selected from widely circulated national and local papers, the Shanghai News and Republican Daily News

(Guangzhou) (廣州民國日報 Guangzhou Minguo ribao) respectively.71 Some scholars therefore claimed that literacy acquisition demanded continuous effort.

Mobilizing the populace’s own interest was the key.

Literacy Through the Eyes of Non-elites: Professional Training or Life Skill?

Non-elites’ notion of literacy was by no means a unanimous opinion. In their words, literacy could entail book-learned, cultured, schooled, or just rudimentary skills of reading and writing. Their views of literacy were subject to the rigid societal power relations in China at the time. Prior to the abolition of the civil service exam in 1905, literacy in Confucian classics was tied directly to political power. Only those versed in classical Chinese could become social elites (e.g. gentry) and have hopes of attaining an official appointment. This occupational-oriented attitude towards literacy perpetuated into the post-civil service exam era.

70 Ibid., 72-84. 71 Xu Xiling, “Yinianlai chengren wenzi jiaoyu de shiyan(一年來成人文字教育的試驗 A test on adult literacy education in the past year),” in Zhongguo wenmang wenti, 125-142. There were thirty-two students enrolled in the literacy class under study. Students, on average, were only able to correctly answer 1.5 out of 20 reading comprehension questions based on the news selected from the newspapers. 63

Ordinary people considered book learning as career preparation for bureaucrats. In this view, literacy was defined as full mastery of the classical written languages. The stereotype of the cultured and socially elite detaching themselves from farming, trade, and other manual labors was still held by many Chinese into the early twentieth century.72 It should be noted that not all parents preferred to train their children in such a way—to be officeholders serving in a place other their own hometown. Such was the case for Mao Zedong’s own father, who wanted his son to remain at home and help as a farm hand. A rudimentary education would be sufficient. Therefore, he pulled thirteen-year old Mao out of school against his son’s wishes. Mao’s father was not alone. With no intention of raising their sons to be officials, some rural or working class parents considered literacy learning, especially beyond the rudimentary level, to be simply a waste of time and money. The modern school system, with its demands of full-time attendance and an extended period of enrollment, seemed to heighten the conflict between literacy learning and family needs for children’s labor.

Commoners’ daily needs oriented their attitudes towards literacy. In a paradoxical way, they confirmed the values of basic reading and writing skills. But these skills were situated in specific contexts and thus composed a wide spectrum of literacies, a condition that had already unfolded during the Qing dynasty. For example, a merchant aspired to learn characters just enough to keep records and write contracts for his business. A Daoist priest ventured to master the vocabularies

72 Fu Baochen, “Minzhong jiaoyu de zhenyi yu qita jiaoyu de guanxi,” Jiaoyu yu minzhong 1, no.9 (1930):7. 64 of divination and managed to write magic spells. Certain other life events put a demand on reading and writing skills, including marriages, funerals, ritual sacrifices on holidays, division of inheritances, and property transactions.73

Mass literacy education sponsors in the twentieth century invested in this notion about practical use of literacy in daily life. Their propaganda was filled with anecdotes about economic loss caused by illiteracy. For instance, a peasant lost his land because he did not know someone had falsified the deed. An industrious and thrifty village woman pasted family windows with whatever paper was available at home, but ruined her husband’s pawn tickets in the process. Or money that a husband sent home fell into the hands of others who read the letter for the wife.74

Such stories emphasized that literacy was essential for protecting personal interests.

They cast a strong contrast between the innocent, helpless illiterate and the tricky, wicked literate. When propagating these stories, ironically, few of those who were literate appeared to be bothered by the presence of literacy being used for illegal and immoral gains.

Commoners’ attitudes toward literacy, simply put, were built upon two premises: professional training for scholars and officials, and pragmatic use in daily life. Neither generated the demand for universal literacy at a standardized level or above. Under the drive for modernizing China, however, early twentieth century literacy programs called for a certain type of conformity to further collective ends.

73 Evelyn Rawski, Education and Popular Literacy in Ch’ing China, 16-22. 74 He Hanguang (何漢光), “Xiaojuchang: bushizi de ku (小劇場: 不識字的苦 A small theatre drama: the pain of being illiterate),” Jiating zhoukan (家庭週刊 Family weekly), no. 94 (1935): 43-44. 65

To mobilize the masses to join their reform efforts, then, the intelligentsia worked to transform popular attitudes towards literacy and cultivate the belief that literacy was an essential life skill, persuading the populace to embrace the same literacy myth as they did.

A social environment that made literacy indispensible for daily life was the key, scholars argued. Contemporary conditions, however, suggested the opposite.

Literacy was not required for most jobs. People were able to make a living without knowing how to read and write.75 A swirl of contradictions impinged on promoting mass literacy. Scholars believed that a better livelihood would generate popular need for literacy,76 but literacy was the means to improve one’s personal economic condition. Different from the intelligentsia, the Chinese Communist Party approached the issue from a political angle and somehow solved the conundrum to a certain degree. The Communist revolution in the countryside produced the need for political and cultural cadres from the lower sector, who were able to understand and spread party directives. The newly opened career paths in local communities provided a fresh take on commoners’ perception of literacy.

75 “Shixing minzhu buxi jiaoyu an (實行民主補習教育案 A resolution on implementing democratic supplementary education),” Shaanxi jiaoyu zhoukan (陝西教育週刊 Shaanxi Education weekly) 2, no. 57 (1929): 18. 76 Xue (雪), “Duanping: Jiaoyubu de shizi jiaoyu jihua (短評:教育部的識字教育計畫 Brief comment: the Ministry of Education’s literacy education plan,” Guoji jiaoyu (國際教育 International education) 1, no.3 (1936): 2. 66

Conclusion

The drive for modernization promoted China’s literacy myth. It galvanized literacy efforts in early twentieth-century China. The belief in literacy’s role in transforming the masses was taken for granted and sustained China’s literacy myth.

This conviction was justified through a comparative perspective, in which literacy was associated directly with national prestige and power in the global community.

The imperative to catch up internationally guided Chinese elites’ understanding of literacy’s function and value. It shaped the prospect of the desired national community and mandated the type of literacy to be instructed.

The desired collective image of a nation gradually grew into concrete form over the course of the first half of twentieth century. China’s literacy myth evolved during this process. Mass literacy became associated with increase of national strength in direct but specific ways. Literacy learning initially was employed to nurture individual commitment to national affairs around the turn of the century, thus rendering the contour of this national community into an image of nation-state.

This conceptualized national entity subsequently was expected to speak, read, and write in a unified vernacular language in the following two decades. New Culture reformers argued for a renewed national culture, defined by the principles of science and democracy they adopted from the West. Vernacular literacy was the artery for spreading this new culture. To their surprise, reformers found commoners giving the cold shoulder to these imported new products, instead 67 remaining content with a routine mundane life centered around the Confucian clock.

To solicit mass involvement in literacy learning, scholars began to give closer scrutiny to the masses and “excitingly” discovered more than one face. In the 1930s, literacy was used to transform multiple subgroups of the masses, delineated by gender, occupation, and living space.

Peasants, the largest group, drew prominent attention. Literacy was implemented to improve rural poverty and backwardness. After the Second

Sino-Japanese War plagued the country, China’s collective identity once again stressed patriotic, militant, and national unity. Despite the changing directions and varied emphases, the basic values of literacy appeared persisted and posited literacy as the means to create patriotic, economically productive, and culturally receptive citizens.

To this end, Chinese scholars took their “responsibilities” as cultural shepherds seriously. Shen Baiying (沈百英 1897-1992), a famous educator and prolific textbook editor, in his literacy primer gave a vivid depiction of elites’ concerns about unbridled literacy through a fictive story about Gutenberg:

Gutenberg was the inventor of the printing machine. One day, he fell asleep leaning against the press. A faint voice came from the machine trying to wake him up. It said “Gutenberg! Work harder. The more books that are published in the world, the cheaper they will be. The poor, thus, will get a chance to read. [Human] follies will become less and less. All will be your contribution!” A second time, Gutenberg fell asleep right by the press. He heard a voice from the machine again, which said: “You have invented the printing machine, which wins you undying fame! However, you 68

should know, not all the books are good. Bad books, too, will be distributed widely thanks to the convenience of the press, which will make people go astray further and further.” These words awakened Gutenberg with a start. To his relief, it was just a dream.77

This anecdote is an illustrative example of literacy sponsors’ sense of duty. Although dedicated to expanding mass education, they “attempted to restrict the ability to read to learning a particular text or doctrine.”78 In early twentieth-century China, the texts were those essential to modernize China in the way the elite envisioned.

Non-elites’ notions of literacy eventually came to scholars’ attention. This was driven by the desire of the well educated to transform commoners’ perception of literacy. The intelligentsia desired popular involvement in literacy learning. They confidently trusted that commoners subsequently would use their literacy to read books and newspapers, to keep records, and to gain further knowledge to better their lives. Hardly anyone cared to explore whether their students applied literacy in the ways they expected. The presumption was that literacy learning indisputably transformed individuals into members of an ideal society that the sponsors set out to create. Such beliefs generated and sustained China’s literacy myth.

As Graff proposes, literacy myth is an expression of ideology and a mode of communication.79 As an ideology, it is specific to historical contexts. China’s literacy myth was laden with the national salvation and modernization agenda in the early

77 Shen Baiying, ed., Shizi keben (識字課本 Literacy primer) (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1929), 41-43. 78 Robert F. Arnove and Harvey J. Graff, “Introduction,” in National Literacy Campaigns and Movements, 7. 79 Harvey J. Graff, “The Literacy Myth at Thirty,” Journal of Social History (Spring 2010): 638. 69 twentieth century and responsive to the tenor of social and political changes. As a mode of communication, China’s literacy myth granted broad, appealing power to mass education, whether organized by liberal scholars, political authorities or radicals, or commoners. Oftentimes, political entities used literacy to further their own quest for power.

Chapter 2: Training Imperial Loyalists

Introduction

The Qing (1644-1912) court and its officials’ notions of literacy changed significantly over the course of the second half of the 19th century. The challenges from foreign imperial powers and domestic chaos decisively transformed the key components of the state functionaries’ conception of literacy. What was the basic knowledge that should be learned? Who needed to be literate? How should reading and writing be taught? These were the questions that concerned them. Maintaining the rule of the withering Qing dynasty charted their way to solution. It also predicted their investment in the outcomes of China’s literacy myth—the promises of a strong nation.

Before the Western colonial powers claimed military dominance over China, literacy in China predominantly meant the ability to understand and communicate

Confucian values. As contact with the outside world grew, knowledge of Western learning, mainly in terms of science, technology, and language, became indispensible in defining a literate official. This was particularly true for those in charge of foreign affairs. However, the same expectation was not placed upon the general populace, at least not before the advent of the 20th century. This asynchronous development 71 disrupted the continuous spectrum of knowledge centered on Confucian values and morality spanning from the lower to the upper sector. The elite’s worldview diverged from that of the non-elite. To re-forge national cultural consensus, a state-initiated literacy project appeared in the last decade of Qing rule. It intended to illuminate the commoners’ place within the country under transformation and

China’s position within the ever-changing world. Instead of celebrating individualism, this “enlightenment project” in China featured the idea of consolidation, integrating people across different social sectors politically and ideologically. Training imperial loyalists was the fundamental goal.

This chapter firstly charts the course for changes in elites’ notion of literacy, of both their own and that of the general populace, prior to late Qing educational reforms. The focus then will be placed upon the institutional and curricular reforms surrounding popular literacy education in the first decade of the 20th century. It analyzes the place of literacy in sociopolitical transformations as perceived by state functionaries. Within the new and modern educational system, general literacy was perceived not only as a means for social stability but also a source of national strength. Cultivating a united citizenry blessed with the virtues of patriotism, hard-work, and loyalty to the throne embodied the literacy myth to which Qing subscribed. This ambitious agenda was, however, hindered by the limited fiscal, institutional, and human resources that the Qing government possessed. As a pioneering project, the late Qing mass literacy education initiatives also sparked debates on key institutional and operational issues, such as the relation between 72 formal and informal education, the age ranges for primary school, and ways to organize literacy projects. These questions went unsolved and defined debates and challenged in the decades to come.

The Allure of Western Learning

The Qing defeat in the First Opium War (1839-1842) at the hands of Great

Britain initiated many changes. How to survive and function in a changing world dominated by Western industrial and maritime powers became a delicate problem.

In this context, Western learning and knowledge about the West gradually and increasingly gained their importance. Impressed by Western military techniques and armament, a group among the Qing ruling elites defined Western learning initially in terms of science and technology, and ardently suggested that this was the knowledge essential for strengthening China’s maritime defense. Wei Yuan (魏源

1794-1857) who served in the office of the Viceroy of Liangjiang (兩江總督

Liangjiang zongdu) Yuqian (裕謙 1793-1841) during the war, was representative of this group. In 1844, Wei published his famous work Illustrated Treatise on the Sea

Kingdoms (海國圖志 Haiguo tuzhi) detailing his opinions.1 In this book, Wei also introduced foreign countries from their geographic locations, political systems, social customs, education system, to the people. Knowledge about the outside world not only became the object of scholars’ reading, but also the subject of their writing.

1 Jane Kate Leonard, Wei Yuan and China's Rediscovery of the Maritime World (Cambridge: Harvard Univ Asia Center, 1984), 93-94. 73

After losing the war, Qing was deprived of its sovereign role of setting the rules in international trade. Unequal treaties2 favoring the Western imperialists replaced the Qing Canton system (1757-1842)3 as the framework for China’s foreign relations. The ability to understand Western politics, society, and culture became necessary skills for the state functionaries after 1842.

Qing officials needed to read and write in foreign languages to communicate with the West. In 1858, the Sino-British Treaty of Tientsin signed during the Second

Opium War stipulated that all official communications addressed by the British government to the Qing would, henceforth, be written in English. However, these were to be accompanied by a Chinese version, at least in the beginning, but once some Qing officials became proficient in English, the Chinese text would be removed.

Furthermore, “in the event of there being any difference of meaning between the

English and Chinese text,” the British Government would “hold the sense as expressed in the English text to be the correct sense.”4 A similar clause was concluded between China and France that privileged French as the official

2 The Treaty of Nanjing signed in 1842 after the First Opium War is considered the first unequal treaty that the Qing signed with foreign imperialist power. It opened five treaty ports for international trade: Guangzhou, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo, and Shanghai. Trade in treaty ports was subject to fixed tariffs decided jointly by the British and Qing government. Via the supplementary Treaty of the Bogue in 1843, Great Britain further obtained the status of Most Favored Nation and extraterritoriality for its subjects. Other Western powers soon followed its example. John King Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast: The Opening of the Treaty Ports, 1842-1854 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1953); Odd Arne Westad, Restless Empire: China and the World since 1750 (New York: Basic Books, 2012). 3 The Canton System refers to the way in which the Qing controlled its trade with the West after 1757. Western trade was confined to Canton. Foreigners were only allowed to trade with imperially sanctioned monopolies—the “Thirteen Hongs,” which began to function in 1760. Leonard Blusse, Visible Cities: Canton, Nagasaki and Batavia and the Coming of the Americans (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008), 50-53. 4 Treaties, Conventions, Etc., between China and Foreign States, vol. I (Shanghai: Statistical Department of the Inspectorate General of Customs, 1917), 418. 74 diplomatic language between these two countries in the same year. With Great

Britain, France, Russia, and the United States stationing their legations in Beijing and the establishment of the Zongli yamen (總理衙門 Office of foreign affairs) in

1861, reading and writing foreign languages became part of the routine for the Qing bureaucrats dealing with diplomatic issues. The Tongwenguan (同文舘 Foreign

Language School) was established in the following year to train translators initially in English and French, later in Russian, German, and Japanese as well.5

The value of Western learning eventually gained formal recognition from the

Qing court during the Self-Strengthening Movement (1861-1895). “Western learning for practical use” paired with, although in a subordinate position to

“Chinese learning for the essence,” became the state policy. However, not everyone was expected to master such practically oriented knowledge through reading and writing. A few modern schools established during this era were to produce professional engineers, linguists, and military officials for staffing the strengthening projects,6 rather than to educate the general populace.

5 A similar college was set up in Shanghai and Guangzhou in 1863 and 1864 respectively. The one in Shanghai renamed as Guangfangyanguan (廣方言館 Foreign Language School) in 1867. Lawrence Wang-chi Wong (王宏志), “Beyond Xin Da Ya: Translation Problems in the Late Qing,” in Mapping Meanings: The Field of New Learning in Late Qing China, ed. Michael Lackner and Natascha Vittinghoff (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 241-243. 6 There were about 25 modern schools founded by Chinese during the Self-Strengthening Movement, including the aforementioned Capital Foreign Language School (京師同文館 Jinshi Tongwen Guan) in Beijing and the Shanghai Foreign Language School (廣方言館 Shanghai Guang Fangyan Guan), as well as Fuzhou Shipbuilding School (船政學堂 Chuanzheng Xuetang), Jiangsu Military School (武備學堂 Wubei Xuetang), etc. See Xiaoping Cong, Teachers’ Schools and the Making of the Modern Chinese Nation-State, 1897-1937 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2007), 30; Sang Bing, Wanqing xuetang xuesheng yu shehui bianqian (Tapei: Hemu chubanshe, 1991), 2. 75

In contrast, literacy learning for the lower classes in the second half of the

19th century was oriented towards Confucian moral indoctrination. This was the ruling elites’ response to the increasing social unrest which climaxed in the Taiping

Rebellion (1851-1864). This uprising shook the political, economic, and social foundations of Qing rule. It swept through large parts of southern China—the economic powerhouse for the Qing—and ended with a death toll of about 20 million.7 As a millenarian movement with a distinct Christian thrust, the Taiping

Rebellion also demonstrated the danger of “unsanctioned” Western learning in poisoning Confucian social ethics. As a result, guiding the populace back to an obedient track through Confucian moral training set the tone for Qing basic education after the Taiping Rebellion.8

Literacy was annotated with different content for literati scholars and general populace after 1860s. Western science and technology was part of the professional literacy of statecraft, a realm irrelevant to the commoners in the dynastic polity. Consequently, by the end of the 19th century, critical cultural divergences between the upper and lower classes became obvious. Knowledge about the West then became the dividing line between the civilized and uncivilized.

7 Jonathan D. Spence, God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997), 17. 8 Alexander Woodside and Benjamin A. Elman, “Introduction,” in Education and Society in Late Imperial China, 1600-1900, ed. Benjamin A. Elman and Alexander Woodside (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 8; Christopher A. Reed, Gutenberg in Shanghai: Chinese Print Capitalism, 1876-1937 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2004), 166-168; R. Keith Schoppa, Chinese Elites and Political Change: Zhejiang Province in the Early Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982), 61-62; Elizabeth R. Vanderven, A School in Every Village, Educational Reform in a Northeast China County, 1904-31 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia, 2012), 60. 76

The leader of the Hundred Days of Reform (百日維新 1898), Kang Youwei (康有為

1858-1927), fiercely criticized the social customs of the general populace, which, as

Kang described, were barbaric, superstitious, and uncivilized in the eyes of Western visitors. An empire-wide school system, therefore, was needed to transform the masses.9 However, conservatives at the court suppressed this proposal made by the reform-minded scholars.

The Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901) pushed the reformists’ call to educate the general populace with Western knowledge to a new level. In 1900, Kang Youwei’s disciple—Mai Menghua (麥孟華 1875-1915)—commented on the Boxers as the

“foolish people (愚民 yumin),” different from the “righteous (義民 yimin)” who were willing to learn from the West. The Boxers’ xenophobic intolerance would only incur more indemnities and further loses of territory forced upon China by foreign imperialists. Moreover, the Boxers’ beliefs in supernatural power and their violent destruction of railroad and telegraph lines only reinforced foreigners’ scorn for the

Chinese as “uncivilized savages.” The prestige of the whole country, therefore, was severely damaged.10 It became more broadly accepted among scholars that popular

9 Paul J. Bailey, Reform the People, Changing Attitudes towards Popular Education in Early Twentieth-Century China (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990), 28; Xiaoping Cong also cites Liang Qichao’s proposal which suggests a school system to replace the civil service examination as a way to reform political and educational culture. See Xiaoping Cong, Teachers’ Schools and the Making of the Modern Chinese Nation-State, 1897-1937, 31. 10 Mai Menghua (麥孟華), “Lun yimin yu lunmin zhi yi (論義民與亂民之異 A discussion of the difference between righteous people and the disorderly people),” Qingyi bao (The China Discussion), no. 52(26 July 1900), photocopy (Taiwan: Chengwen chubanshe, 1967), 3361-3369. 77 social education entailed enlightening the masses with basic scientific knowledge and understanding about the world.11

Meanwhile, the Boxer Rebellion also revealed the divisions within the Qing government. When Empress Dowager Cixi (慈禧 1835-1908) declared war against foreign powers in June 1900, local Han Chinese viceroys and the main advocates of pragmatic Self-Strengthening projects in the southeast, including Li Hongzhang (李

鴻章 1823-1901), Liu Kunyi (劉坤一 1830-1902), and Zhang Zhidong (張之洞

1837-1909), refused to follow the imperial order. Instead, they chose a neutral stance with the purpose of preserving the peace within the territories under their governance.12 Apparently, the imperial house had trouble maintaining absolute allegiance of its officials who were experienced in foreign affairs. Retaining the loyalty of the ruling elite now became a pressing concern for the Qing court.

With the occupation of Beijing by the Eight-Nation Alliance,13 the exiled court in Xi’an determined to inaugurate constitutional reform modeled after Japan.

Scholars’ proposal on new popular literacy was officially endorsed by the state. The

Qing court began to perceive training new types of individuals was essential for building a new state and society. Formal education, the traditional way for molding

11 The reform of backward and superstitious customs was a major theme discussed in educational journals springing up after 1900, such as Jiaoyu shijie (教育世界 Educational World 1901), Jiaoyu zazhi (教育雜誌 Journal of Education 1909), and Dongfang zazhi (東方雜誌 Eastern Miscellany 1904). See Paul J. Bailey, Reform the People, 72-29. 12 Joseph W. Esherick, The Origins of the Boxer Uprising (University of California Press, 1988). 13 In response to the siege of diplomatic legations in Beijing during the Boxer Uprising, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Russia, Japan, and the United States sent an alliance force, known as the Eight-National Alliance. 78 personal character in Confucian culture, continued to carry on in this role. However, its format and content required significant changes to meet the new expectations.

Literacy Education in the 1902 School System

Late Qing educational reform began with a reorganization of the school systems. This was the first time ever in China that the state attempted to claim monopoly over school education, which invoked the primacy of state-sanctioned institutional literacy. This court-led reform effort was still, as practiced during the

Self-Strengthening period, driven by the goal of “training the talent to serve the government.”14 Initially, the focus was put on the highest institution of education—the Imperial University—the final stage of producing governmental personnel. In 1902, the imperial court appointed Zhang Baixi (張百熙 1847-1907) as the Chancellor of the Imperial University (管學大臣 Guanxue dachen). Along with this nomination, the Imperial University, an innovation of the 1898 Reform and having temporarily closed in 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion, reopened.15

14 “Shangyu (上諭 edict),” Guangxu ershiqi nian shi’er yue chuyi (光緒二十七年十二月初一), Zhongguo jindai jiaoyu shiliao huibian, wan Qing juan (中国近代教育史料汇编晚清卷 Collections of educational materials in late Qing China) (Beijing: Quanguo tushuguan wenxian suowei fuzhi zhongxin, 2006), 1: 1. 15 Timothy Weston discusses how the Imperial University, modeled on Tokyo’s Imperial University, made a statement to the world on the day of its establishment that “China had joined the modern world.” See Timothy Weston, The Power of Position, Beijing University, Intellectuals, and Chinese Political Culture, 1898-1929 (University of California Press, 2004), 28. Other studies on the history of Beijing University see Xiaoqing Diana Lin, Peking University: Chinese Scholarship and Intellectuals, 1898–1937 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005); Hao Ping (郝平), Peking University and the Origins of Higher Education in China (New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2013). 79

Populating the University with well-prepared students, Zhang argued, required establishing a modern multi-tiered school system at the provincial, prefectural, and county level. With proper family/preschool education, students were expected to attend, successively, the primary schools (小學堂 xiaoxuetang) at county towns, middle-level schools (中學堂 zhongxuetang) in prefectural cities, and high-level schools (高等學堂 gaodeng xuetang) located at the provincial capitals, and then could be admitted to the University.16 A complete education system, running from the elementary level to the college level, thus, became the venue to nurture “talent” for government service. To this end, the content and method of basic literacy training was conceived and designed by the court and its high officials, who aspired to extend central control over “educational training” beyond “selection through examinations.”

Establishing State Control over Basic Education: Assertive Proclamation with Crippled Administrative Design

Issuing regulations for modern schools was one way for the court to claim its authority. Soon after being appointed as the highest official for education issues,

Zhang Baixi drafted the Imperial Regulations for a Modern School System (欽定學堂

章程 Qinding xuetang zhangcheng) and obtained approval from the throne. This was

16 Zhang Baixi, “Zou wei chouban daxuetang dagang qingxing gongzhe (奏為籌辦大學堂大概情形恭折 Memorials about the general situation involved in organizing the Imperial University),” Zhongguo jindai jiaoyu shiliao huibian, wan Qing juan, 1:10. Within the educational system designed by Zhang, high-level schools referred to colleges. The title of university could be used for those having the same curriculum as the Imperial University. See Qinding gaodeng xuetang zhangcheng (欽定高等學堂章程 The imperial regulations on high-level schools), Zhongguo jindai jiaoyu shiliao huibian, wan Qing juan, 1:124. 80

China’s first systematic legislation on schools usually referred to as Renyin xuezhi

(壬寅學制 Educational system of 1902). It was composed of regulations concerning the Imperial University, entrance examinations, high-level schools, middle-level schools, primary schools, and preschools (蒙學堂 Mengxuetang). With the promulgation of these regulations, the Qing state for the first time institutionalized its power over basic education in local society. Literacy acquisition as the base was placed at the initial stage of a learning progress leading to higher education.

The new system separated educational administration from the general governmental functions that previously were exercised by local governors. Based on the source of funding, the 1902 system divided schools into three categories: government-run, public, and private schools.17 The government-funded schools were the administrative organs of education. Within this new system, the Imperial

University sat at the top, enjoying overall authority over educational issues nationwide. Beneath it were the government-run high-level schools that supervised educational institutions within a provincial domain.

Although diplomas for graduates of primary schools were issued by the middle-level schools established by prefectural governments, both primary and middle-level schools were subjected to direct administrative supervision from the high-level schools. The reason lay in the fact that Zhang Baixi believed that middle and primary schools should be broadly established at both the prefectural and

17 Public schools were usually funded collectively by local communities, clans, and groups of local elites and merchants; private schools referred to the schools sponsored predominantly by individuals and single families. 81 county level. For the sake of building a complete new multi-tiered school system in a timely manner, Zhang, however, proposed a compromise plan, which ordered the prefectural government to found a middle school and the county government to establish a primary school at first. These would serve as model schools for those funded by public and private sources.

It is important to note that the 1902 system did not propose to establish direct governmental administrative control over the preschools. Continuing traditional practices,18 the Qing government did not provide direct funding to schools established below the county level, where the majority of preschools in the

1902 system were located. In other words, there would be neither government-funded schools nor educational administrative apparatuses at the preschool level.

The publicly funded and the privately funded were the two types of schools providing basic education. The former were those converted from previous charitable and community schools; the latter came from the schools funded by individual families or run by private tutors. Both kinds of schools, public and private, were placed under the supervision of government-funded primary schools in the local county, to which preschools every year reported their locations, names of their teachers, numbers of enrolled students and graduates.

18 Schools in villages and towns prior to the 20th century were primarily funded either privately by individual families and local elites, or publicly by clans and local communities. See Evelyn Rawski, Education and Popular Literacy in Ch’ing China, 25-40. 82

Relying on government-funded schools to provide administrative infrastructure planted the seeds of potential disarray and confusion in management.

Firstly, although the local government bore financial responsibility, it did not take charge of administration of the schools it funded. Instead, it had to hand over the supervisory authority to the higher educational institute established beyond its jurisdictional territory. Such separation of duties and rights was unlikely to foster local government’s initiatives. Arranged in a zigzag pattern across different administrative levels and apparatuses, this system also could easily lead to inefficiencies and malfeasance.

Secondly, the 1902 system was based on the presumption that there was one government-funded school at each administrative level. Using primary schools as an example, at the initial stage, the 1902 framework assumed there was only one primary school established by the local government in each county. Along with the development and proliferation of the new school educational system, however,

Zhang Baixi predicted that government-funded primary schools would be established in prefectural cities as well.

According to regulations, each primary school was allowed, at most, to enroll

300 students. For those exceeding such limits, a separate school had to be established. Therefore, there most likely would be more than one government-funded primary school existing within a county in five or ten years.

Hence, it raised the problem of how to distribute administrative power among the primary schools established by the local government. Obviously, the dispersed 83 nature of local educational administration was hardly able to fulfill the task of consolidating the state’s control over education at the bottom.

Compulsory Schooling: The Way for Children to Acquire Literacy

The 1902 school regulations, for the first time, introduced the idea of compulsory education to China. Students’ ages, rather than family background, were the crucial factor that determined which social group was subjected to this policy.

Zhang Baixi suggested that every child, of whatever class, should receive seven years of school education from age five to twelve. After this, “they can follow whatever occupation they like.”19 Although the phrase “every child” was used, it actually referred only to male children. Zhang’s initiative made no attempt to extend the state-implemented school system into the arena of girls’ education, which was left to be handled by the families themselves. Further, Zhang realized that Western countries implemented this rule by punishing those parents who failed to send their children to school. However, he lacked the will to enact a similar law immediately after China’s systematic educational reform just initiated.20 Encouraging each township to establish a preschool within half a year was his first step, because

Zhang understood that without these schools being widely available and accessible, to implement compulsory education was nothing but a dead issue.

19 Zhang Baixi, Qinding xiao xuetang zhangcheng (欽定小學堂章程 The imperial regulations on primary schools), Zhongguo jindai jiaoyu shiliao huibian, wan Qing juan, 1:210. 20 Zhang Baixi, Qinding meng xuetang zhangcheng (欽定蒙學堂章程 The imperial regulations on preschools), Zhongguo jindai jiaoyu shiliao huibian, wan Qing juan, 1:259. 84

Nevertheless, Zhang framed this seven years of compulsory education into two phases: four years of preschool and three years of primary schooling. Within the framework set up by Zhang, six years of elementary education was divided evenly into two phases—ordinary primary schools (尋常小學 xunchang xiaoxue) and higher primary schools (高等小學 gaodeng xiaoxue). The former were framed as a continuation of the preschool and a compulsory part of the child’s education; the latter prepared students with knowledge necessary to pursue higher education. For those who were not interested in climbing the academic ladder, simplified vocational schools for agriculture, industry, and commerce, paralleling the higher primary schools, were available.

Apparently, Zhang Baixi perceived basic literacy education that culminated with ordinary primary schools as preparatory for training for a variety of occupations, including scholar, farmer, industrialist, and merchant. Endorsing

Zhang’s plan, the Qing court began to expect all males regardless of profession to be able to read and write. This would be achieved through unified-compulsory schooling under a high degree of state direction. Literacy acquisition was no longer a personal choice in the hands of individuals; rather, it became one of the responsibilities that Qing subjects owed to the state.

Literacy education was already available to a very broad cross-section of the male population prior to the adoption of the compulsory system. The pursuit of literacy before the 20th century, however, was still driven by self-interest, whether to advance personal prestige, power and wealth through government service, or to 85 meet practical needs in daily life. There were various educational facilities in Qing

China, such as private tutors, village schools, clan schools, and public charitable schools, to meet the needs of people in different economic and social situations. Also, since the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), there were a great number of commercially published literacy primers and readers available for self-teaching and review; materials such as character books zazi (雜字 collection of words), illustrated reading primers, and popular encyclopedias.21

Compulsory schooling would profoundly change the contours of young male literacy learning in China. In the first place, this policy regulated the path to become literate, that is, formal-schooling, as the only way sanctioned and recognized by the state. Thus, it denied legitimacy to multiple ways of acquiring literacy, including self-learning and private schools (私塾 sishu), although the latter persisted as an alternative to the new schools in rural China throughout the course of the early 20th century.22 In other words, compulsory schooling granted the state monopoly over

21 For popular literacy in the Qing Dynasty, see Evelyn Rawski, Education and Popular Literacy in Ch’ing China, 24-53, 128-133. Wilt L. Idema suggests that the actual literacy rate was about 20-25 percent. See his review of Evelyn Rawski’s work published in T’oung Pao 66, nos.4-5 (1980): 314-324. Quote cited in Christopher A. Reed, “From Woodblocks to the Internet: Chinese Printing, Publishing, and Literary Field in Transition, circa 1800 to 2800,” in From Woodblocks to the Internet, Chinese Publishing and Print Culture in Transition, circa 1800-2008, eds. Cynthia Brokaw and Christopher A. Reed (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 14-15. Cynthia Brokaw’s study of the Sibao publishing industry in western Fujian demonstrates the continuum of literacy at varying levels. It also called attention to the spread of texts to the lower social strata hinterlands. See Commerce in Culture, The Sibao Book Trade in the Qing and Republican Periods (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007). 22 Although it is difficult to estimate the precise number of sishu and their attendance during the Republic period due to its illegal status, Glen Peterson’s study on literacy education in Guangdong confirms that private schools provided basic literacy and moral instruction to a considerably large number of rural youths. See Glen Peterson, The Power of Words, Literacy and Revolution in South China, 1949-95 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia, 1997), 25-29. Liao T’ai-ch’u also finds that villagers in Shandong and Sichuan provinces in the 1930s and 1940s preferred organize provincial educational association to modern schools for their children’s literacy education. See Liao 86 licensing the skills of reading and writing, as those who obtained literacy outside of formal schools still needed official certification via government-administered exams in order to gain exemption from compulsory schooling.

Further, compulsory schooling demarcated the age limit for basic education.

It paid substantial attention to educational training in childhood. The 1902 system expected all boys to complete their educational obligations by age twelve. Initially, certain leeway was permitted, which allowed preschools to admit boys under the age of nine and ordinary primary school to take students under the age of fourteen, which meant those overaged but still illiterate students would have the chance to fulfill their obligation by age seventeen. This extension, however, was to be revoked in five years.23 In this way, the state further asserted its authority by interfering with family prerogative to decide how one should spend the early years of their lives.

Compared to elementary education as practiced during the Qing period prior to the 20th century, compulsory educational policy not only dramatically prolonged the period of basic schooling, but also accelerated the beginning of literacy training.

There had been no state regulation of the school age previously. Private and village schools were free to enroll students from age six or seven up to age sixteen or eighteen. Young males under the age of nineteen or twenty were also able to attend the public charitable schools as well. It usually took two or three years for those

T’ai-ch’u, “Rural Education in Transition: A Study of the Old-fashioned Chinese Schools (Szu shu) in Shantung and Szechuan,” Yenching Journal of Social Studies 4, 2(1949): 19-67. 23 Zhang Baixi, Qinding xiao xuetang zhangcheng, Zhongguo jindai jiaoyu shiliao huibian, wan Qing juan, 1:238-239, 277. 87 boys to master reading about 2,000 characters and the ability to write.24 In contrast, the 1902 school system designated seven years for basic education. Students were required to learn more than basic literacy skills. The Confucian classics, history, geography, and physical education were all part of the curriculum.

Literacy Training

Reading and writing were taught concurrently at the preschool level designed for the 1902 system. Each was taught for an hour on a daily basis. In a teaching schedule comprising 6 hours a day for a twelve-day week, reading and writing occupied 12 hours (out of 72 hours), respectively.25 The reading lessons focused on Chinese character recognition. Visual aids, such as illustrations, were used to facilitate the recognition. In the writing class immediately following, pupils learned how to write the characters they had just memorized. Unfortunately, the framers of the 1902 school system did not provide further information about how many characters were expected to be learned within 4 years of preschool education.

In the ordinary primary school’s teaching schedule, reading classes were omitted entirely. But the writing class enjoyed the same number of class hours which then divided into calligraphy and composition. In the first year, students would practice regular script (楷書 kaishu) for 10 hours per twelve-day week, which would be reduced to 6 hours for the remaining two years with cursive script

24 Benjamin A. Elman, A Cultural History of Civil Examination in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 263-266. 25 Zhang Baixi, Qinding meng xuetang zhangcheng, Zhongguo jindai jiaoyu shiliao huibian, wan Qing juan, 1:268-269. 88

(行書 xingshu) introduced at the end. Correspondingly, lessons on composition increased from 2 hours to 6 hours per week in the second and third year. When a young boy completed his compulsory education, he was expected to be able to write a short narrative using 7-8 vernacular sentences.

This curriculum demonstrated clearly that the reading and writing training embodied within compulsory education in the 1902 system aimed to equip the students with the basic literacy skills useful in their daily life, similar to elementary education in China before the 20th century. It was vernacular literacy, as Benjamin

Elman designates,26 that the new compulsory education intended to bring to the general population. Classical literacy was beyond the goal of compulsory schooling.

It was in the higher primary school where students began to learn to read classical poetry to nurture their literary taste, and to write argumentative essays—the style of writing tested in civil service examinations. The ordinary-higher primary school divide marked the shift from vernacular to classical literacy training, a design similar to the Latin-vernacular split that distinguished secondary from primary education in early modern Europe.27

26 Benjamin Elman distinguishes vernacular literacy from classical literacy. The former refers to the functional literacy that enabled people to read and write the basic vernacular Chinese they frequently encountered in daily life. It involved mastery of 2,000 characters. Classical literacy oriented towards civil service examination required linguistic mastery of nonvernacular classical texts. Exam candidate were expect to learn about 10,000 common characters in the Classics and 518,000 repeating graphs. See Benjamin Elman, A Cultural History of Civil Examination in Late Imperial China, xxx, 262-266. 27 Robert Allan Houston, Literacy in Early Modern Europe, Culture and Education 1500-1800, 2nd ed. (Harlow: Longman, 2001), 23-25. 89

Besides reading and writing, arithmetic was also an indispensable part of literacy training in the new school system. Beginning from the third year in preschool, pupils spent eight hours per school week learning numbers and simple addition and subtraction. Multiplication and division were introduced later in the ordinary primary school in which arithmetic classes were taught six hours per week in the first year, four hours in the second year, and eight hours in the third year.

Numeracy equipped the young boy with the necessary skills for engaging in farming, commercial activities, and keeping accounts in daily life.

Literacy, however, did not simply mean training in how to read, write, and calculate. Instead, it involved studying classics, history, geography, physical education, and moral cultivation in a substantial way. The lessons dedicated to training literate skills—reading, writing, and arithmetic—together accounted for

1/3 of the total school hours for the first two years in preschool, which increased to about 45% for the last two years. The ratio decreased at the ordinary primary level to 22% and 28% for the first two years and the third year, respectively (See Table 1 below). The remaining school hours were assigned to inculcate knowledge on various subjects.

The 1902 school system inherited the educational function embedded in

Confucian culture, which emphasized the essential role of learning in moral and behavioral cultivation. In the Chinese context, literacy not only refers to the abilities of reading and writing (識字 shizi), but, more importantly, has connotations for an individual’s cultural and moral qualities, that is, being “cultured (有文化 you 90 wenhua)” and “educated (有教養 you jiaoyang).” Confucius demarcated the subjects of teaching that included culture (文 wen), moral conduct (行 xing), doing one’s best (忠 zhong), and being trustworthy (信 xin).28 Neo-Confucianism, the mainstream Confucian learning during late imperial China, further placed self-cultivation at the center of educational purposes.29 The way to cultivate virtue and good behavior was through learning the words and deeds of sages and notables of the past.

Preschool Subject Reading Writing Arithmetic Moral classics History Geography Physical training Education Grade 1 12 12 N/A 12 12 6 6 12 2 12 12 N/A 12 12 6 6 12 3 12 12 8 8 12 6 6 8 4 12 12 8 8 12 6 6 8 Ordinary primary school Subject Writing Arithmetic Moral classics History Geography Physical Grade training Education Calligraphy Composition 1 10 N/A 6 12 12 12 8 12 2 6 6 4 12 12 12 8 12 3 6 6 8 12 12 12 4 12 Table 1. Preschool and ordinary primary school weekly schedule (class hours per a twelve-day week) in the 1902 school system30

28 Confucius, Confucian Analects, 7.25, trans. D.C. Lau (New York: Penguin Books, 1979), 89. Confucian Analects is divided into twenty “books” that are further divided into “chapters.” 7.24 stands for book 7, chapter 24. 29 Peter K. Bol, Neo-Confucianism in History (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, distributed by Harvard University Press, 2008), 116. 30 Zhang Baixi, Qinding xiao xuetang zhangcheng, Zhongguo jindai jiaoyu shiliao huibian, wan Qing juan, 1:778-803. 91

The moral training class in the 1902 system was designed according to this need. It was built upon illustrated stories of those virtuously distinguished men and had the objective of establishing role models for young boys. The class on Classics taught core texts of Confucian learning. At the preschool level, childern first learnt

Xiaojing (Classics of Filial Piety 孝經) which was then followed by the Four Books, in the order Analects (論語 Lunyu), Mencius (孟子 Mengzi), Great Learning (大學

Daxue), and Doctrine of the Mean (中庸 Zhongyong). Two of the Five Classics—the

Classic of Poetry (詩經 Shijing) and Book Rites (禮記 Liji)—were introduced later at the ordinary primary school. It was still the traditionally defined good virtues that were instilled through the classes on moral training and classics, which included

“filial piety and fraternal duty (孝弟 xiaodi), faithfulness and sincerity (忠信 zhongxin), correct decorum and a sense of shame (禮儀廉恥 liyi lianchi), respect for elders and teachers (敬長尊師 zunjing shizhang),” and most importantly, “loyalty to the monarch and love of country (忠君愛國 zhongjun aiguo).”31

In terms of individual morality, the 1902 new school’s literacy training had no intention of producing a population that was different qualitatively from the traditional ideal expected in the Chinese imperial dynastic political structure. Rather, the sense of hierarchy stemming from a family and rippling out over the whole

31 Zhang Baixi, Qinding meng xuetang zhangcheng, Zhongguo jindai jiaoyu shiliao huibian, wan Qing juan, 1:264. 92 society was still stressed as the core value. Male youths learned to be obedient and respectful to their superiors.

Schools under the new 1902 system cultivated a pupil’s sense of reverence through ritual observation as well. All students would be summoned together in an auditorium and practice kowtowing under the lead of their teachers on the birthdays of the Empress Dowager Cixi, the Emperor, the Empress, and Confucius.

Two more memorial ceremonies for Confucius would be held in the Spring and

Autumn.32 Routinizing these worship activities, the 1902 system partially realized

Kang Youwei’s 1898 proposal to elevate Confucianism to a state religion. In Kang’s opinion, civilizing the Chinese populace required a unified religion, as the belief in a variety of spirits and gods had caused the Chinese to be labeled as “barbarians” by the Westerners, who worshipped only one God.33

Furthermore, if we perceive Confucianism as a religion, the literacy education through this unified schooling also ensured religious conformity across the whole country. Seeking a uniform belief system was a frequently used strategy for political stability by various states in precarious situations. For example, in post-Reformation Germany in the middle of the 16th century, the religious

32 This ritual was called chunqiu dingji (春秋丁祭) that was designed to offer sacrifices to Confucius on the first ding ri (丁日 day of ding) in the second and the eight month of the Chinese lunar calendar in Qing China after 1645. Traditionally, Chinese used the Stems-and-Branches, a cycle of sixty terms, to record days and years. Ding ri refers to the day with the character ding (丁) in its name. 33 Kang Youwei, “Qing zun Kongsheng wei guojiao li jiaobu jiaohui yi Kongzi jinian er fei yinji zhe (請尊孔聖為國教立教部教會以孔子紀年而廢淫祀折 Proposal to elevate Confucianism as a state religion and establish a Board of Religion and religious associations to commemorate Confucius and eliminate decadent forms of worship),” in Kang Youwei zhenglunji (康有為政論集 Collections on Kang Youwei’s articles on politics), ed. Tang Zhijun (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1981) 1: 279-284. 93 preference of the ruler of each city or princedom determined whether the residents in his domain would be Catholic or Protestant. Suspicious of the possibility of subversion from a neighboring state belonging to a different religious faction, both

Catholic and Protestant states actively sponsored school-building and placed primary schools under religious authorities’ supervision.34 Similarly, the Qing court had witnessed the tremendous destructive power to its rule inflicted by the adherents of heterodoxy, such as the Taiping rebels and the Boxers. The urgent need for cultural if not religious conformity among the general population spurred the

Qing government to place substantial emphasis on the recitation of Confucian classics, and to advocate worshipping Confucius within compulsory education as the pupils learned to read and write.

Besides the Confucian classics, the traditional subject in elementary education, the 1902 school system embraced relatively new features in its curriculum design. History and geography were treated as separate subjects. Pupils were to learn Chinese dynastic history and the changes in Chinese territory and administrative divisions over time. Geography classes began with broad information about the earth and the five continents,35 then zoomed into China, introducing the names and locations of provinces, prefectures, counties, as well as the major mountains and rivers. With this knowledge, students got to know where China was

34 Richard L. Gawthrop, “Literacy Drives in Preindustrial Germany,” in National Literacy Campaigns and Movement, Historical and Comparative Perspectives, ed. Robert F. Arnove and Harvey J. Graff (New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publisher, 2008), 31-33. 35 The five continents covered in the textbook are Asia, Europe, Africa, Australia, and America (including both North and South America). 94 located on the globe and where their hometowns were sited within China. The 1902 regulations also stipulated that maps must be used in teaching these subjects in order to create a visual imprint. In this way, the history and geography classes lent temporal and spatial dimensions to the cultural unity cultivated by the lessons on

Confucian classics. These classes also nurtured cultural distinctiveness within the borders that separated China from the outside world.

Physical education was another new element that distinguished the new schools from the traditional educational institutions. Training well-disciplined and physically healthy future generations was the goal. Pupils lined up and paraded around for an hour every school day for the first two years at preschool. For the remaining years of compulsory education, physical education took the form of calisthenics.

Overall, within the framework of the 1902 school system, a literate young boy was expected to embrace the following qualities: mastery of the basic skills of reading, vernacular writing, and ciphering, knowledge of the core Confucian classics, general Chinese history and geography, and possession of refined virtues and physical strength. Literacy was part and vehicle of education, but not an end in itself.

The 1904 School System: A Revisionary and Innovative Plan

Under the 1902 system, the dispersed nature of the administrative system was unable to impose state control over schools in an effective way. With the civil service examination in place, the new schools also competed with private schools 95 and traditional academies, while the latter’s examination-oriented curriculum was favored more by parents who expected their children to succeed in gaining imperial degrees. These structural deficiencies caused noticeable problems for implementing a nationwide new-style school system.

Moreover, although the 1902 proposal placed substantial emphasis on the

Classics, it still aroused opposition within the central government which complained that traditional training did not receive due attention.36 In response to this criticism, the throne ordered Zhang Zhidong and Manchu Grand Councilor Rongqing (榮慶

1859-1917) to assist Zhang Baixi in revising the 1902 regulations. In 1903, two influential governors-general –Zhang Zhidong and Yuan Shikai (袁世凱 1859-1916) petitioned for a radical move—abolishing the civil service examinations. One year later, the throne promulgated the Imperially Approved Memorial on Modern School

Regulations (奏定學堂章程 Zouding xuetang zhangcheng). These regulations became the guideline for the educational reform efforts that persisted during the last years of Qing rule until 1911.

Reconstructing the Administrative System

The first step to reforming the 1902 system was to establish educational administrative offices separate from the school system. In 1903, Zhang Zhidong proposed to appoint a Director of Education (總理學務大臣 Zongli Xuewu Dachen)

36 Paul J. Bailey, Reform the People, 30. 96 in charge of education across the country, which obtained imperial approval.37 The following year, a Bureau of Educational Affairs (總理學務處 Zongli xuewu chu) was established at the capital, which replaced the Imperial University as the central administrative authority for education. Six departments were set up within this bureau, taking charge of general education, specialist schools, vocational education, censoring textbooks, overseas students, and financial accounting, respectively.38

This administrative structure had its antecedent in the provinces. In 1902,

Yuan Shikai, the Viceroy of Zhili, took the initiative setting up a bureau of school education (學校司 Xuexiao si) that was comprised of the departments of general education, special education, and compilation of textbooks.39 The same year, Zhang

Zhidong also established an office of educational affairs in Hubei province and vigorously advocated other provinces to follow this model.40 After being established, the Bureau of Educational Affairs took control over these local educational offices and renamed them “provincial bureaus of educational affairs (學

務處 Xuewuchu).” An educational administrative system, running from the center down to the provincial level, thus took shape.

37 Zhang Zhidong “Qing zhuanshe xuewu dachen pian (請專設學務大臣片 A plea for establishing a special office in charge of educational issue,” in Qing shigao (清史稿 History of Qing), comp. Zhao Erxun (趙爾巽) (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1976), 106: 3135. 38 Zhu Youhuan (朱有瓛), ed., Zhongguo jindai xuezhi shiliao (中国近代学制史料 Historical sources of educational system in modern China) (Shanghai: East China Normal University press, 1987), 2: 98. 39 Zhu Youhuan, ed., “Jiaoyu xingzheng jigou ji jiaoyu tuanti (教育行政機構及教育團體 Educational administrations and organizations),” in Zhongguo Jindai Jiaoyushi Ziliao Huibian (中国近代教育史资料汇编 Collections of educational materials in modern China) (Shanghai: Shanghai jiaoyu chubanshe, 1993), 32. 40 Shu Xincheng (舒新城), ed. Zhongguo jindai jiaoyushi ziliao (中國近代教育史資料 Educational materials of modern China) (Beijing: Renmin jiaoyu chubanshe, 1961), 1: 219. 97

To further consolidate unified control over schooling, institutional innovations appeared at both the central and local level. Based upon suggestions from the Xuezheng (學政 education officer)41 of Shanxi province, Baoxi (寶熙

1871-1930), in December 1905, the Qing court promoted the Bureau of Educational

Affairs to the Board of Education (學部 xuebu). For the first time since the Sui dynasty (581-619) the Six Boards42 administrative structure within the central government was reformed by adding one more Board. This creative move symbolized the vital significance, in terms of governance, the court had ascribed to modern education. The following year, 1906, the Board of Education ordered each prefecture and county to organize an Education Promotion Bureau (勸學所 quanxuesuo) within its jurisdiction. The major duties of these Education Promotion

Bureaus were to persuade and encourage primary school building for the sake of promoting universal education.43

Along with administrative reforms, the personnel in charge of educational issues also became specialized. Originally, it was the provincial governors who were responsible for promoting new-style schooling while the Xuezheng administered provincial civil service examinations. After the throne issued the edict abolishing the examination system in September 1905, Xuezheng was assigned to supervise the modern schools. When the Board of Education was founded, a new official

41 Xuezheng: the title of officials who presided over provincial level civil service examinations and government-funded academies within provinces. 42 The Six Boards were in charge of personnel (吏部 Libu), finance (戶部 Hubu), rites (禮部 Libu), military (兵部 Bingbu), punishments (刑部 Xingbu), and public works (工部 Gongbu). 43 Shu Xincheng ed. Zhongguo jindai jiaoyushi ziliao, 1: 219. 98 title—Tixueshi (提學史 director of education)—was created to replace provincial

Xuezheng. These new posts were appointed by and subject to the Board of

Education.44 Within the Education Promotion Bureaus at prefecture and county level, a director (總董 Zongdong) took responsibility for administrating local modern schooling under the supervision of Tixueshi. The director, then selected assistants (勸學員 Quanxueyuan) among “upright gentry” to help promote new school education within his administrative domain.

In addition to these executive officials, supervisory staff were also appointed at both the provincial and county level. In 1906, the Board of Education appointed six provincial inspectors and sent them on an inspection tour around the country in

1907. Two years later, twelve educational districts were set up across the country with each having two inspectors that alternated inspection visit every year.45

However, the supervision system in the counties did not operate independently from the administrative offices: the director of the Education Promotion Bureau also served as the inspector of education. This personnel arrangement, in practice, caused the supervision system at the county level to exist in name only. The effort of

44 “Xuebu zouchen gesheng xuewu guanzhi zhe (學部奏陳各省學務官制折 The Board of Education’s memorial on educational affairs and official titles in provinces),” in vol. 1 of Daqing jiaoyu xin faling (大清教育新法令 New educational laws and regulations of the great Qing)(Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1910). 45 Provinces were grouped into twelve educational districts in the following way: i. Fengtian (nowadays Liaoning), Jilin, and Heilongjiang; ii. Zhili (nowadays Hebei) and Shanxi; iii. Shandong and Henan; iv. Shaanxi and Sichuan; v. Hubei and Hunan; vi. Jiangsu, Anhui, and Jiangxi; vii. Fujian and Zhejiang; viii. Guangdong and Guangxi; ix. Guizhou and Yunan; x. Gansu and Xinjiang; xi. Mongolia; xii. Qinghai and Tibet. See Fan Jiang (凡將), “Shinianlai Zhongguo zhengzhi tonglan: jiaoyu pian (十年來中國政治通覽·教育篇 Overview of China’s politics in the past ten years: the educational section),” The Eastern Miscellany 9, no.7 (1913). 99 establishing a vertically integrated supervisory bureaucracy worked less effectively below the county level. Local educational affairs left much in the hands of the directors of the Education Promotion Bureaus and their assistants.

The establishment of educational offices separate from general administration provided an apparatus responsible for organizing school education across the country. However, this does not necessarily mean that the late Qing educational reform was structured simply in a top-down fashion. Local governors took the initiative in terms of setting up new offices and experimenting with modern school reform. The throne then standardized successful local experiences and extended them throughout the whole empire. When it came to implementing its educational agenda in local society, the court once again had to elicit financial, human, and material support from the local gentry. This cooperative relationship between gentry and bureaucracy in the realm of education was still anchored in the

Neo-Confucian advocacy of gentry as moral authority, bearing the responsibility of civilizing the local populace. What had changed was the focus of education: cultivation of literati elites was replaced by the need for equipping the general populace with basic literacy.

Shifted Orientation: From Selecting the Talent to Molding the General

The 1902 system introduced the modern school as a main venue for education. The importance of primary and secondary education, however, was perceived principally as preparing and screening the best candidate to be enrolled

100 in the Imperial University. Such attitudes began to change in the 1904 system where primary education that targeted the general populace was considered to be the foundation for building a strong nation that could sustain the Qing’s rule. Focus moved from the top down to the bottom level of education. Nowhere was this shift more apparent than in the discussion of the relation between the civil service examination and new school education.

Early in 1903, Zhang Zhidong and Yuan Shikai jointly submitted a memorial to the throne elaborating how the civil service examination hampered the development of a modern school system. Later in the same year, Zhang Baixi,

Rongqing, and Zhang Zhidong petitioned the throne again. Firstly, they argued, establishing modern schools relied primarily on local elites’ sponsorship. However, with the existence of the civil service examination, local elites still preferred to invest on the examination, rather than donate money for building modern schools.

Secondly, those students who attended new style schools considered civil service examination to be a back-up plan. Consequently, they could not dedicate themselves to school learning. Lastly, compared to the examination system, school education enjoyed much more advantages.

For example, modern schools trained students with practical knowledge, but the civil service exams selected officials based on their writing, most of which were not original works; also, new schools evaluated students’ abilities based on their performance over multiple years of education. In contrast, the civil service examination selected people according to their scores gained in a single test; finally, 101 and most importantly, school education could also check on an individual’s virtues and ethics, which could not be assessed based on the essays in the civil service examinations.46 An individual’s practical skills and morality, rather than knowledge on Confucian scholarships, were stressed more and became the main objectives of education. Spurred by their initiatives, the throne abolished the civil service examination in September 1905.

The goal of schooling, now, was placed upon educating all. The Qing high officials envisioned the value of universal education within the parameter of global competition. They were convinced that Prussia’s victory over France in 1871 and

Japan’s defeat of Russia in 1905 was owed primarily to their compulsory education systems that created a patriotic, literate, and productive civilian society.47 Directed by this perspective, the Qing embraced the modernization literacy myth and tailored it to focus on strengthening the state, rather than empowering the individual politically. This belief generated the forceful impetus for Qing’s endeavor for mass literacy education.

Institutionally based schooling was the main approach that Qing court adopted for literacy training. Cultivating future citizens—children’s literacy education—gained the imperial government’s full attention at the initial stage.

46 Zhang Baixi, Rongqing, and Zhang Zhidong, “Niqing shiban dijian keju zhe (擬請試辦遞減科舉折 Memorial about decreasing the quota of civil service examination candidates the on a trial basis),” Zhongguo jindai jiaoyu shiliao huibian, wan Qing juan, 1:363-365. 47 In 1905, Governors-General—Zhang Zhidong, Yuan Shikai, Duanfang (端方 1861-1911), Zhou Fu (周馥 1837-1921), and Cen Chunxuan (岑春煊 1861-1933) submitted a joint memorial articulating the importance of universal education. See Zhu Zhoupeng (朱壽朋), comp., Guangxu chao donghua lu (光緒朝東華錄 Donghua lu, Guangxu reign)(Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1958), 29:5327. 102

Primary schools and half-day schools composed two major forms of institutions, with the former located in county seats and big towns and the latter aimed to be widely established across the country. In 1906, the court encouraged every 200-300 households to set up a half-day school for their school-aged children. Besides its broader geographic coverage, the half-day school was free of charge, another factor that distinguished it from the standard primary school.

The Board of Education presumed optimistically that tuition was the dominant hurdle that prevented people from attending school. With the free education offered by half-day schools, there should be no question about achieving universal education in China. By 1907, there were 614 half-day schools established that recruited 18, 246 students in total. The number, then increased to 941 half-day schools with 24,699 students enrolled in 1909.48 However, the increases in the total number did not necessarily indicate enhanced accessibility of literacy education across the country. Considerable regional variation existed. While Sichuan province ranked first with 203 half-day schools established in 1909 that recruited 6352 students, no half-day schools were set up in Shaanxi. More importantly, there were declines in the number of half-day schools in several provinces within this two year period. For example, the number in Jiangsu plummeted from 91 to 12. Guangdong,

Guangxi, and Yunan were other provinces that showed a reduction in the number of

48 See Qing Xuebu zongwu si (清學部總務司 Qing Board of Education general affairs department), comp., Diyici jiaoyu tongji tubiao, 1907(第一次教育統計圖表 The first statistics about education); Di’erci jiaoyu tongji tubiao, 1908 (第二次教育統計圖表 The second statistics about education); Disanci jiaoyu tongji tubia, 1909 (第三次教育統計圖表 The third statistics about education). 103 half-day schools. There was no clear and unidirectional trend that indicated that the half-day schools would gradually and eventually become available across the nation.

The Qing court’s wish that half-day school would bring universal literacy, therefore, hardly could come true.

While the Qing government believed free education offered by the half-day school would inevitably bring about mass literacy, ordinary people’s view on new-style schooling, however, was not solely a financial issue. Distrust towards the new schooling limited local people’s receptiveness to the literacy education offered in modern schools. Shu Xincheng (舒新城 1893-1960), a prominent educator and publisher born in a peasant family, recalled his mother’s unfavorable impression of the new primary schools. It was not because it was much more expensive, since the public-run school did not charge tuition. Rather, it was due to the fact that the modern school was perceived as too foreign for the local residents at Xupu, Hunan,

Shu’s hometown.49 The new subjects introduced in modern schools aroused suspicion among the populace. As observed by a commentator of the Shenbao (申報

Shanghai News)50 in 1909, there were a considerable number of people who viewed physical education as teaching students to leap onto roofs and vault over walls, skills associated with a thief. In a similar way, the study of singing and playing

49 Shu Xincheng, Wo he jiaoyu (我和教育 Myself and my education) (Taibei: Longwen chubanshe, 1990), 47-48 50 Shenbao was founded by an English merchant Earnest Major (1841-1908) in 1872. It became a Chinese-owned enterprise in 1909. Shenbao remained Shanghai’s most successful Chinese-language newspaper until 1949 when it was shut down. See Barbara Mittler, A Newspaper for China? Power, Identity, and Change in Shanghai's News Media, 1872-1912 (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004). 104 musical instruments was considered nothing better than professional training for actor or actress.51

Even for the poor, free education did not necessarily lead to voluntary school enrollment. Mary Jo Maynes’s study of compulsory education in France and

Germany during 1750-1850 demonstrates that the poor tended to assess the value of literacy against children’s contribution to the family’s livelihood through their work and earnings.52 A similar situation very likely existed in late Qing China, a country overwhelmingly rural, where children were heavily involved in agriculture activities and household handicraft production. When a family could not afford losing a child’s labor, free education could hardly sound attractive to them.

The actualities of school enrollment, to a certain extent, confirmed such speculation. Fan Zengxiang (樊增祥 1846-1931), administrator of Shaanxi province, complained in 1907 about the two major difficulties of promoting school education, that is, the shortage of both teachers and students. Although the government-funded schools did not collect tuition, they still had trouble in recruiting students in those remote counties.53

51 “Lun woguo jiaoyu bu fada zhi yuanyin (論我國教育不發達之原因 Reasons why China’s education is underdeveloped,” Shanghai Daily, May 4, 1909, see in Luo Zhitian (罗志田), “Kejuzhi feichu zai xiangchun zhong de shehui houguo (科举制废除在乡村中的社会后果 The impact of the abolition of civil service examination on rural society),” Zhongguo shehui kexu 1(2006), 197. Luo’s article is also cited in Elizabeth R. Vanderven, A School in Every Village, 6. 52 Mary Jo Maynes, Schooling for the People, Comparative Local Studies of Schooling History in France and Germany, 1750-1850 (New York and London: Homes & Meier, 1985). 53 Fan Zengxian, “Pi Heyang xianling Qiuling bing (批郃陽縣仇令稟 Remarks on the report of Qiu magistrate of Heyang county),” in vol. 10 of Fanshan zhengshu (Collection of political documents written by Fan Zengxiang 樊山政書) (n.p., 1910), 17. Cited in Luo Zhitian, “Kejuzhi feichu zai xiangchun zhong de shehui houguo,” Zhongguo shehui kexu 1(2006): 196. 105

Privately-funded schools also encountered similar problems—a lack of motivation for schooling among the rural population. An article published in the flagship journal of modern education Jiaoyu zazhi (教育雜誌 Journal of Education) detailed such a story in the rural south. Even after the school managers promised not to charge tuition, nine out of ten villagers were still reluctant to send their children to schools.54 Villagers’ rejection of free education punctured badly the Qing court’s confidence in achieving mass literacy through simply expanding the free of charge educational institutions.

When the Qing government pushed its mass education project further to include illiterate adults as the target, adjustments were made. The local sponsors of mass literacy education realized that the poor were busy with working to earn a living during the day, hence had literacy classes scheduled during the night. In their view, “without night schools, literacy education could hardly become popularized.”55

In 1909, the court approved the regulation on making basic literacy schools (簡易識

字學塾 Jianyi shizi xueshu) for both adults and children from poor backgrounds free of charge. Most of these facilities were attached to primary schools and under the control of the Provincial Advisory Council (諮議局 Ziyiju) and the local Education

Promotion Bureau.

54 Wen Tian (問天), “Shu neidi banxue qingxing (述內地辦學情形 Reports on the schools in the inland,” Jiaoyu zazhi (教育雜誌 Journal of Education) 1, no. 7(1909): 77-90. The author listed the reasons the villagers rejected modern schooling. Cited in Luo Zhitian, “Kejuzhi feichu zai xiangchun zhong de shehui houguo,” Zhongguo shehui kexu 1(2006): 196-197. 55 “Jianyi shizi xueshu huizhi (簡易識字學塾匯志 Collected record of basic literacy schools),” Jiaoyu zazhi 2, no. 2(1910): 14. 106

As with half-day schools, literacy schools also varied considerably among different provinces (see Table 2). Sichuan province once again surpassed the others with the highest number (4,596) of basic literacy schools. Besides, Sichuan had

7,504 reformed private schools that provided literacy training to 103,387 students.

It is notable that literacy schools developed more rapidly than half-day schools.

Using the three provinces in the northeast—Fengtian (nowadays Liaoning), Jilin, and Helongjiang—as examples, there were only 6 half-day schools in total in 1909, three years after the court inaugurated the free education program. In contrast, each province established more than 200 basic literacy schools in 1911, two years after the court promulgated the order. However, the growth of literacy schools in culturally well developed Jiangsu province was not quite dramatic. Less than 200 basic literacy schools were found in its two major prefectures—Jiangning and

Suzhou which had long been known for their economic prosperity and highly literate culture in Qing China. This could be explained partially by the ambiguous position of basic literacy classes in relation to standard primary schools for national education (國民教育 guomin jiaoyu).

The 1904 school system placed primary school at the core of popular education, supplemented by the basic literacy school. However, there was a tendency in practice that the latter replaced the former, becoming the main institutes that provided basic education. The reason lay partially in the fact that basic literacy schools focusing primary on reading, writing, and arithmetic cost less in terms of financial and human investment than regular primary schools with a full 107 curriculum. Local sponsors—both officials and elites, therefore, preferred literacy schools much more. In those places where literacy schools were attended exclusively by children, such as in Suzhou,56 the construction of standard primary schools was further neglected.

Half-day school (1909) Basic literacy school(1911) schools students schools students Zhili 166 3,853 4,160 69,005 Fengtian 3 137 Over 200 - Jilin 3 161 Over 200 - Heilongjiang 1 47 Over 300 - Shandong 50 884 Over 900 - Shanxi 23 622 Over 500 - Henan 52 1,240 Over 2,500 Over 59,000 Jiangning - - Less than - 200 Suzhou - - Less than - 200 Zhejiang 65 2,219 Over 1,000 - Jiangxi Over 200 - Hubei 27 1,492 Over 1,000 - Hunan 32 1,215 Over 500 - Sichuan 203 6,352 4,596 47,611 Guangdong 9 715 Over 700 - Fujian 7 137 Over 500 - Table 2. Number of half-day schools in 1909 and basic literacy schools in 1911 and their enrollments57

56 “Jianyi shizi xueshu huizhi (簡易識字學塾匯志 Collected record of basic literacy schools),” Jiaoyu zazhi 2, no. 1(1910): 3. 57 Source: statistics of half-day schools in 1909 see Qing Xuebu zongwu si, comp., Disanci jiaoyu tongji tubia, 1909, and Chen Yilin(陳翊林), Zuijin sanshinian Zhongguo jiaoyushi (最近三十年中國教育史 A history of Chinese education in the last 30 years) (Shanghai: Taipingyang shudian, 1930), 97-100; statistics of basic literacy schools in 1911 see “Gesheng jianyi shizi xueshu zhi chengji (各省 108

In response, the Board of Education issued a regulation in Summer 1911, reemphasizing the subsidiary role of the basic literacy school in relation to the standard primary school. In order to distinguish these two, the Board ordered basic literacy schools to recruit illiterate adults only.58 Such a shift also was derived from certain pedagogical concerns as well. It argued that adults and children were different in their abilities to comprehend and memorize, thus, they should be educated separately.59 Some provincial governors agreed with the central government and carried out such reforms into the Republic era. In early 1912, the governor of Suzhou abolished the basic literacy school by dividing it into a supplementary school (補習科 buxike) for illiterate adults and a primary school that enrolled children.60

The Qing government, both at the central and local level, prioritized children’s literacy training and excluded adult learning from the scope of compulsory education. However, some scholars, such as Lu Erkui (陸爾奎

1862-1935), held a different opinion. Lu argued that popular literacy learning should be incorporated into compulsory education. The basic literacy school, rather

簡易識字學塾之成績 Reports on the numbers of basic literacy schools in each provinces),” Jiaoyu zazhi 3, no. 6(1911): 46, and Paul J. Bailey, Reform the People, 106. 58 “Xuebu gaiding jianyi shizi xueshu zhangcheng ji shoukebiao (學部改訂簡易識字學塾章程及授課表 Board of Education reissued the basic literacy schools’ regulations and curriculum),” Jiaoyu zazhi 3, no.3 (1911): 91. 59 Ibid. 60 “Su dudufeichu jianyi shizi xueshu zhi tonggao (蘇都督廢除簡易識字學塾之通告 Suzhou governor’s announcement on abolishing the basic literacy school,” Jiaoyu zazhi 3, no.10 (1912): 71. 109 than the standard primary school, was the institution that could make universal education achievable in China, because of its simplified curriculum and reduced educational period.61 In Lu’s perception, literacy education was the people’s duty.

Everyone should learn to read and write, just as each individual should pay taxes.62

In contrast, educator Zhuang Yu (莊俞 1876-1938) considered access to literacy learning as the people’s right. Zhuang emphasized equal educational rights for both the poor and the rich. It should not be the case that the regular primary school was for the rich, while the basic literacy school for the poor. Unlike Lu Erkui,

Zhuang instead preferred the primary school as the principle institution providing a well-rounded citizenry education (Guomin jiaoyu 國民教育) to all the people regardless of their economic condition.63 In Zhuang’s eyes, the informal basic literacy school was qualitatively inferior to the standard primary school. Although there were debates about the institute for general literacy training, a consensus formed by 1909 that mass literacy was essential for building a constitutional monarchy.

61 Most of basic literacy schools taught during the night for two hours, one hour for learning characters, the other designed for arithmetic learning, such as those in Tianjin, Changzhou, see in “Jishi (紀事 Report),” Jiaoyu zazhi 2, no.1 (1910):3; no.2 (1910): 14. The length of schooling in the basic literacy schools was also quite flexible, ranging from one to three years. 62 Lu Erkui, “Lun jianyi shizi yi xian dingwei yiwu jiaoyu (論簡易識字宜先定為義務教育 Basic literacy education should be defined as compulsory education),” Yubei lixian gonghuibao (預備立憲公會報 Newspaper of preliminary constitutionalism society)1, no.8 (1909): 3-6. 63 Zhuang Yu, “Lun jianyi shizi xueshu (論簡易識字學塾 Comments on the basic literacy schools),” Jiaoyu zazhi 2, no.3 (1910): 23-29. 110

Defining a Literate Citizenry for the New Constitutional Monarchy under Building

The 1904 system inherited the principle laid out by the 1902 school regulation, adding a further extended curriculum on classic learning. Students were expected to be educated in the ethics of respect for their elders, be well-disciplined, and be able to reject all heterodox learning. Training patriotic and economically responsible citizens was the key, with moral conduct as one major criteria to evaluate students. General literacy training was part of Qing officials’ plan for building a constitutional polity. Reading Confucian classics (讀經 dujing), a core subject for both primary and secondary level education, was argued as the basic principle that defined China (立國 liguo). Confucian learning was officially acknowledged as a national religion.64

It is analytically inadequate to use a conservative tradition/ progressive modern dichotomy to evaluate the emphasis on Confucian classics within the Qing’s new school-building. To the contrary, from the point of view of the Qing reform agenda that intended to create cultural conformity and consensus among the masses, using Confucianism as the cultural framework was a reasonable, pragmatic and advisable choice. Considering the fact that Confucianism had been widely dispersed and deeply immersed in social norms and local customs in imperial China, it enjoyed the advantage of being readily acceptable to the general population. The reports on the rural populations’ response to the new schools confirmed this. It was

64 “Quanguo xuetang zongyao (全國學堂總要 Guiding principles for schools across the country),” Zhongguo jindai jiaoyu shiliao huibian, wan Qing juan, 1:385, 395-396. 111 not the heavy dose of the classics that made the villager dislike the new schools.

Rather, as mentioned before, it was the new, “foreign” subjects—physical education, for example—that raised doubts about the usefulness of the new school in training proper behavior in the young.

In addition to Confucian classic learning, the Qing statesmen were quite aware of the importance of language itself in cultural identity formation. They held quite cautious attitudes towards loanwords imported from Japan. Their outspoken rejection cracks the simple, unitary image construed in previous studies on late Qing educational reform, which depicts the favorable impression and receptiveness of

Qing towards the Japanese model.65 Qing officials argued that many Japanese terms did not fit into China’s culture and criticized the uses of those words by the youth.

They opposed, for example, introducing tuanti (團體 group), guohun (國魂 national spirit), pengzhang (膨脹 swelling), and wutai (舞臺 theatrical stage), as they were not elegant, refined, and docile (雅馴 yaxun). Further, the words xisheng (犧牲 sacrifice), jiguan (機關 government apparatus), zuzhi (組織 organization), chongtu

(衝突 conflict), and yundong (運動 movement) were also unacceptable, because they contained new meanings different from what they had been in traditional

Chinese literature.66

65 Abe Hiroshi, “Borrowing from Japan: China’s First Modern Educational System,” in China’s Education and the Industrialized World, ed. Ruth Hayhoe and Marianne Bastid (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1987), 57-80. 66 Quanguo xuetang zongyao (全國學堂總要 Guiding principles for schools across country), Zhongguo jindai jiaoyu shiliao huibian, wan Qing juan, 1: 402-303. 112

Among these ten words cited in the 1904 school regulations, at least five words—group, organization, movement, conflict, and sacrifice—would appear frequently in the discussion of the popular political movement aimed at social structural changes. Although it might go too far to argue that the Qing government intended to prevent mass movements based on this limited sample, it is reasonable to suggest that the court was quite conscious about inculcating the “right” words to the general populace. This concern also could be sensed from its carefully constructed and tightly supervised compilation of the Simple Literacy Primer (簡易

識字課本 Jianyi shizi keben) designated for the basic literacy school.

The Board of Education Book Bureau (Tushuju 圖書局) was in charge of compiling, censoring, and publishing the literacy primers. Gao Buying (高步瀛

1873-1940), a provincial imperial degree holder and graduate of Tokyo Hongwen

Academy, served as the chief editor.67 After screening the drafts it solicited from compilers affiliated with the bureau, the Board favored three types of textbook which corresponded to the varied schooling period of the simple literacy school that ranged from one to three years.68 The first was for school-age-children from less well-to-do families, which had six volumes for three-years of education. It began with single characters followed by words and short sentences, and closed by short essays. Students spent one hour learning the pronunciation and meaning of the

67 Shen Guo-wei(沈国威), “Guanyu Qing Xuebu bian Jianyi shizi keben (关于清学部编《简易识字课本》 [A study] on Qing Board of Education’s compilation of the Simple Literacy Primer), WAKUMON 83, no.17(2009): 83-100. 68 Xuebu (學部 Board of Education), ed., “Zou bian jun jianyi shizi keben zhe (奏编竣简易识字课本折 Memorial on the completion of compiling literacy primers,” Jiaoyu zazhi 2, no.2 (1910): 4. 113 character and used another hour practicing how to write. Characters selected were those easily understood by and familiar to children. There were about 3,200 characters.69 The second kind consisted of four volumes with 2,400 characters serving the illiterate adult for two years of education; and the third one with 1,600 characters edited into two volumes was used to teach adults with limited abilities in reading and writing for one year.70 The content design for the latter two was similar starting with simple sentences, expanding into short essays.

The Qing government showed stronger interests in direct involvement in producing the primers for mass literacy education than in textbooks assigned for general modern schools. For the latter, the Board of Education heavily relied on private commercial publishers for editorial and compilation work, but retained the right of licensing and censoring. As a result, 85 out 102 textbooks approved by the

Board in 1906 came from the private sector. The Shanghai-based Commercial Press dominated textbook publishing for lower primary, upper primary, and secondary general school through the end of the Qing and lasted until 1937.71 In contrast, the

Board of Education not only presided each step of the production of the Simple

Literacy Primers, but also directed assessment test trials of these primers in Beijing and Tianjin. Except the third kinds expected some revision, the first two was

69 Xuebu, comp., Diyizhong jianyi shizi keben jiaoshou shu (第一種簡易識字課本教授書 The instruction book for the first type of simple literacy primer)(Beijing: Xuebu yinshuju, 1910). 70 “Zou bianji guomin bidu keben jianyi shizi keben dagai qingxing zhe (奏編輯國民必讀課本簡易識字課本大概情形折 Memorial on compiling An Essential Reader for the Citizen and Simple Literacy Primer,” Xuebu guanbao 78, no.2 (1909). 71 Christopher A. Reed, Gutenberg in Shanghai, 211-212; Robert Culp, Articulating Citizenship: Civic Education and Student Politics in Southeastern China, 1912-1940 (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007), 43-44, 47. 114 evaluated highly.72 In the end of 1910, the first two literacy primers was promulgated and required to be adopted by local provinces. Private publishing houses were allowed to reprint these texts upon the approval of education officials at their locale.

Not only children and adults were taught with different literacy primers, the instructional focus for these two groups was also not the same. Literacy training for children put emphasis on moral cultivation and citizenship supplemented by history, geography, and general knowledge. It prepared the students, if they could afford it, for further study in primary school after completing three-years of training at basic literacy school. For those illiterate adults, most likely, these one or two years of literacy training would be the only education they received. Emphasis was placed upon teaching characters for everyday use and practical ethics.

The literacy primer for illiterate adults described natural phenomena and objects people encountered in their daily life. Instruction of numbers accompanied character learning. One lesson, for example, taught “birds using two wings to fly; animals having four hoofs to walk (鳥二翼而飛, 獸四足而走).” It also included idioms that were widely known such as “A young idler, an old beggar (少壯不努力,

72 There were some complains about the second kind, considering it might be too recondite for illiterate adults to understand. See “Chengsong Jianyi shizi xueshu riji (呈送簡易識字學塾日記 Submission of basic literacy school diaries),” Zhili jiaoyu guanbao (直隸教育官報 Zhili Education Communiqué), no. 3 (1910): 38; “Xuebu zou Jianyi shizi keben bianjun zhe (學部奏簡易識字課本編竣折 Memorial on completion of compiling the Simple Literacy Primer),” Jiaoyu zazhi 2, no. 2 (1910): 4. 115

老大徒傷悲).”73 The ethics inculcated through the primers focused on those familiar to the populace as well, including the five relations and filial piety74 regulating family relations as defined by Confucian culture.

Although mass literacy education was perceived as an integral part of the process for building a constitutional monarchy, neither the knowledge about the new politics nor the people’s place in the new political community yet to be built was included in the literacy primers. The political ethics taught in other texts used in basic literacy schools—An Essential Reader for the Citizen (國民必讀課本 Guomin bidu keben) was not dramatically new either.75 By referring substantially to the

Confucian classics, learners were instilled with loyalty to the monarch and

73 Xuebu, comp., Dierzhong jianyi shizi keben (第一種簡易識字課本 The second type of simple literacy primer) (Beijing: Xuebu yinshuju, 1909). 74 Confucius believed if people know their place in society and the associated duties, they would behave properly. Therefore, he proposed the five principal relationships in which most people are involved. The five relations are ruler/subject; father/son; husband/wife, elder brother/younger brother; friend/friend. Filial piety is the key concept that regulates these relations. It means respect for familial and social elders, and by extension, for one’s ancestor. Cynthia Brokaw, The Ledgers of Merit and Demerit: Social Change and Moral Order in Late Imperial China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), 157-228; Donald J. Munro, Images of Human Nature: A Sung Portrait (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 45-54; William T. Rowe, Saving the World: Chen Hongmou and Elite Consciousness in Eighteenth-Century China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), 306-22. 75 Ministers of the Board of Education, Yan Xiu (嚴修 1860-1929) and Baoxi (寶熙 1871-1942), invited Yan Fu to examine and revise a draft of An Essential Reader for the Citizen compiled by the Board’s staff Chen Cengshou (陳曾壽 1878-1949) and Zhang Zhidong’s disciple Pan Qingyin(潘清蔭 unknown). This reader was finalized and published by the Board’s Book Bureau in 1910. See Shen Guowei and Sun Qing (孙青), “厳復と清末学部編『国民必読課本初稿』(Yan Fu and An Essential Reader for the Citizen compiled and edited by the Board of Education in late Qing),” in Higashi Ajia ni okeru bunka jōhō no hasshin to juyō (東アジアにおける文化情報の発信と受容), ed. Akira Matsuura (Tōkyō : Yūshōdō Shuppan, 2010), 31-54. 116 determination to serve the country (忠君報國 zhongjun baoguo), the same ideology governing the relation between imperial rulers and their subjects.76

Both constitutional reform and mass literacy education in the last decade of

Qing rule followed a gradual progress. In 1908, Qing leaders envisioned promulgation of a constitution in nine years. Through expanding basic literacy schools from cities and towns into the countryside, the court aimed to have the literacy rate reach 10% by 1914,77 20% the following year, and eventually 50% by

1916. Literacy efforts during the late Qing intended to foster a populace that could justify the practicability of constructing constitutional politics. As we will see in chapters 4 and 5, it was different from the literacy movement organized by the

Chinese Communist Party in the 1930s and 1940s, which was concerned more about mobilizing the masses for immediate political ends, and thus favored a campaign-like approach.

Conclusion

Qing mass literacy education was intended to serve to strengthen the nation rather than to empower the individual politically, especially those in the lower

76 “Zou bianji guomin bidu keben jianyi shizi keben dagai qingxing zhe,” Xuebu guanbao 78, no.2 (1909). 77 While the Qing court speculated that the general literacy rate was below 10% in the first decade of the 20th century, Des Forges’s study on the late Qing reading public in Shanghai estimates that 60 percent of adult males and from 10 to 30 percent of adult women mastered a certain level of reading skills. Alexander Des Forges, Mediasphere Shanghai: The Aesthetics of Cultural Production (Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 1998), 189. Cynthia Brokaw also discusses the debates on literacy rates, which varies from a high of 45 percent to a low of 10 percent male literacy. The existence of varying kinds of specialized literacy makes it extremely hard to reach a simple calculation of literacy rates. See Cynthia Brokaw, Commerce in Culture, 559-568. 117 sectors. The education-based criteria for the voting franchise required graduation from middle school at least—far beyond basic literacy training; and the economic power-based criteria demanded ownership of commercial capital or real estate worth at least 5,000 yuan. Under such a regulation, less than 0.4% of the total population was eligible to vote.78 With such rigorous standards, the basic literacy acquisition per se during this time period hardly could empower the individual in the new constitutional state the Qing proposed to build.

The court was fully aware of the potential that literacy could make people rebellious and was careful about instructing the right kinds of literacy. It recognized the importance of language in the formation of sociopolitical identity. In order not to interfere with children learning Chinese, foreign languages were banned entirely at the lower primary school.79 The Board also stripped off the private-funded schools’ option of offering classes on politics, law, and military drill. It believed teaching politics and law without state supervision would resulted in heterodoxy, as manifested in the discussion of people’s rights (民權 minquan) and freedom (自由 ziyou ) among “reckless and presumptuous youths.”80 When the Qing court acted to extend basic education to the general populace, it took a far more cautious stance than the overwhelmingly positive attitudes Paul Bailey suggests, which states Qing

78 Zhang Pengyuan (張朋園), Zhongguo minzhu zhengzhi de kunjing (1909-1949) (中國民主政治的困境 The dilemma of China’s democratic politics, 1909-1949) (Taipei: Lianjing chuban shiye gufen youxian gongsi, 2007). 79 Quanguo xuetang zongyao (全國學堂總要 Guiding principles for schools across the country), Zhongguo jindai jiaoyu shiliao huibian, wan Qing juan, 1: 405-406. 80 Ibid., 1: 413-414. 118 officials had “more confidence in the people’s potential and less fear that education might make them lazy and rebellious.”81

Despite the training offered by the basic literacy school did not grant much agency to the students, they provided political capital to the local patrons—the

Provincial Advisory Council and local Education Promotion Bureau. Two institutions held sway over on-going provincial self-governance projects. The number of literacy schools became an essential index for evaluating readiness to constitutional government in the province.82 The local elites’ enthusiasm for funding and administrating literacy schools derived much more from their ambitions for governance over local society free from interference from Beijing. For the local sponsors, it was the statistical data of the number of literacy schools and literacy rate that carried much more political meaning, rather than the actual literacy skills acquired by the populace. Essentially, while the Qing court strove desperately to maintain the populace’s loyalty through mass literacy education, local elites—the group of people the court entrusted with educational affairs—betrayed their trust and subverted the imperial cause.

81 Paul J. Bailey, Reform the People, 42. 82 Ibid., 106. 119

Chapter 3: Maintaining the Morale of Literacy Myth in the Nationalist Republic of China

Literacy is the fundamental solution to problems in an individual’s life! Literacy is the prerequisite for reviving nationalism and improving national status! Literacy undergirds all types of education! The literacy movement pioneers the path to achieving the Three Principles of the People! All the masses nationwide let us all join the literacy movement!1

Introduction

The importance of literacy could not be emphasized more than by the slogans above, which were coined by the Nationalist Central Executive Committee’s

Propoganda Bureau in May 1929 to promote a nationwide literacy movement. This initiative was proposed shortly after the Nationalists’ Nanjing government claimed political hegemony and legitimacy at the end of 1928.2 These slogans illustrated the literacy myth the Chinese Nationalist Party embraced and strived to sustain, a belief

1 Zhongguo guomindang zhongyang zhixing weiyuanhui xuanchuanbu (中國國民黨中央執行委員會宣傳部 The Propaganda Bureau of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s Central Executive Committee), Shizi yundong xuanchuan gangyao (識字運動宣傳綱要 The propaganda outline for literacy movement) (Nanjing: Zhongguo Guomindang zhongyang zhixing weiyuanhui xuanchuanbu, 1929), 21-22. 2 On December 29, 1928, Zhang Xueliang (張學良 1901-2001), warlord of Manchuria, announced his acceptance of the leadership of the Nationalist Nanjing government by ordering all banners of the Beiyang Government replaced by the flag of the Nationalist Government in Manchuria. This event is referred to as the Northeast Flag replacement, which formally ended the reign of the Beiyang government and marked China nominally unified under one state led by the Nationalist Party. See Jay Taylor, The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009), 83-85. 120 that literacy was crucial to improving individual lives, strengthening the nation, and building a desirable society and polity framed by the Three Principles of the People

(Sanmin zhuyi 三民主義)—the core political ideology of the Nationalist Party.

Though being flamboyantly propagated, mass literacy appeared to be an imperative but difficult goal to achieve, to which the recurring governmental directives on anti-illiteracy offered a testimony.

Ineffective administration, one chronic disease of the GMD’s rule that scholars have identified,3 offered one explanation for its failure in educating the masses. As Lloyd Eastman observes, the Nationalist officials were busy producing documents of plans, regulations, and laws, but were less concerned with their implementation. In fact, the documentation discussed in this chapter confirms the observation that the GMD officials were caught in a whirlwind of policy-making.

They repeatedly issued and revised national literacy education plans, the value of which resided primarily in perpetuating the bureaucracy and sustaining the official belief in China’s literacy myth reframed within Sun Yat-sen (孫中山 1844-1925)’s

Three Principles of the People. Most of the time, however, the GMD’s literacy myth was out of touch with the reality of the Chinese masses.

This chapter first sets out to examine how the GMD’s fundamental ideological framework—the Three Principles of the People—dictated the meaning of literacy in the Nationalist Republic of China. Abiding by the modernization thesis, the

3 Lloyd E. Eastman, The Abortive Revolution, China under Nationalist Rule, 1927-1937 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974). 121

Nationalists branded literacy with a distinct political imprint. As illustrated in its

“Propaganda outline for literacy movement” (Shizi yundong xuanchuan gangyao (識

字運動宣傳綱要) issued by the Party’s Central Executive Committee in May 1929, the GMD posited the importance of mass literacy in building the national community prescribed by its enshrined national father—Sun Yat-sen.4 Achieving universal literacy was defined as an essential task during the period of political tutelage, the second stage in Sun’s program of nation-building and a preparatory step for a future constitutional polity.5

Basing its political legitimacy on the Party’s revolutionary past and the promises of a constitutional republic, the GMD government found itself constrained, at least rhetorically and ideologically, by Sun’s visionary national reconstruction model. The Nationalists were obliged to demonstrate their commitment to mass education. Mass literacy, quantified in literacy rate and numbers of schools and students, served as an index charting the progress of the GMD’s effort in building a constitutional China. However, the progress was not satisfying in the eyes of not only the GMD’s political competitor—the CCP—but also of the GMD’s own officials.

The existence of a vast illiterate majority in China trivialized what quantitative improvement the GMD made, which further undermined its political authority, as

4 The Nationalist government built the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall at Guangzhou to commemorate Sun and evoke national spirit and political allegiance. For discussion of artistic decoration of this memorial hall, see Ralph Croizer, Art and Revolution in Modern China, the Lingnan (Cantonese) School of Paining, 1906-1951 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988). 5 For the Nationalists’ interpretation of party history, see William L. Tung, Revolutionary China: A Personal Account, 1926-1949 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1973), 5. 122 the GMD itself theorized that mass literacy was the prerequisite to the strong and democratic nation it endeavored to build.

In order to keep up the morale of their literacy myth, the Nationalists constantly and tirelessly issued comprehensive plans with ambitious goals of achieving universal literacy within a limited time frame. This chapter traces the continuous adjustments the GMD government made in planning mass basic mass education. The documents examined in this chapter show that the failure of previous efforts paradoxically generated momentum to compress the time frame to make everyone in China literate. While the GMD’s 1936 plan of attaining universal literacy within six years struggled along without making substantial progress, a replacement proposal was published hastily during the Second Sino-Japanese War

(1937-45) that set the goal of accomplishing mass literacy within one year. These educational plans, though sounding unrealistic, had rhetorical value and repeatedly affirmed the significance of mass literacy and the GMD’s commitment to this cause.

To implement mass education, the Nationalists privileged institutionalized literacy training sanctioned by the state, thus seeking to absorb and incorporate private schools (sishu 私塾) in its effort of citizenry training.6 In 1928, the GMD government designated two branches of government to oversea separately general education for school-aged children and social education for adults. Compulsory

6 Jiaoyubu shehuijiaoyu gongzuotuan(教育部社會教育工作團 Ministry of Education’s social education corps), Jiaoyubu diyi shehui jiaoyu gongzuotuan gongzuo gangyao (The operation outline for the first social education corps of Ministry of Education 教育部第一社會教育工作團工作綱要), 1938, reprinted in Minguo shiliao congkan (Collection of historical materials during the Republican era 民国史料丛刊), ed. Zhang Yan (张研) and Sun Yanjing (孙燕京) (Henan: Daxiang chubanshe, 2009), 1050: 150-157. 123 schooling was proclaimed as the way to achieve children’s literacy in 1932. Four years later, school-based education was prescribed as the primary approach to adult literacy. This institution-based approach to literacy turned out to favor children more than adults. The literacy myth the GMD crafted in the image of commitment to universal education was violated by the negligence of adult literacy training by local governmental officials and educators.

To promote adult literacy education, the GMD government resorted to disciplining and (re)structuring its bureaucracy, a solution that, to a certain extent, was predicated by its institution-based approach to literacy. After more than a decade of mostly fruitless efforts to improve adult literacy, the GMD concluded that the internal bureaucratic friction between general and social education was the crucial reason for the lack of progress. To promote cooperation, the GMD government officially integrated these two systems of education under the name of citizenry education (國民教育 guomin jiaoyu) in 1940. The intention was to blur the boundaries between these two sections segregated by students’ age. This reform, unfortunately, failed to put an end to the rivalry that prioritized children’s schooling.

Eventually, an administrative regrouping took place in 1946, which abolished the branch of social education and that of general education within the government the same year. Continuous institutional reforms testified to the difficulties involved in the effort to educate all of China.

In addition, the GMD government strived to expand and strengthen the state-sponsored institution-based approach to mass literacy. To this end, it 124 extended governmental control over educational resources previously owned by local communities, a goal reflected in the GMD’s 1939 New County System (新縣制 xin xianzhi) reform. It also legitimated the replacement of professional educators by bureaucracy in administrating education affairs in 1940. However, in reality, the shortage of institutional resources thwarted the effort to extend school-based education to a broad populace. As a result, the local government of Chongqing, for example, attempted to absorb non-institutional educational approaches within the formal schooling framework. Primary and middle school students were recruited as

“little teachers” (小先生 xiao xiansheng) to instruct adults in how to read and write.

These little teachers served to transmit state-sanctioned school literacy, not to provide alternative literacies. “What does literacy mean in Nationalist Republic of

China?” was the question the GMD sought to clarify to its representatives.

Literacy in the Three Principles of the People

The Three Principles of the People, a political philosophy conceived but not fully articulated by Sun Yat-sen, defined the sort of society that the GMD purported to build. The philosophy was presented as the ideological core by which the GMD distinctively identified itself. Subscribing to this belief became a critical way to cultivate a sense of loyalty to the Party and its political regime. Marie-Claire Bergère points out that the Three Principles of the People “appeared to have been a constantly evolving doctrine, an ideology that continued to change and adapt to new

125 circumstances” from 1905 to 1925.7 This section sets out to examine how the

Nationalists posited mass literary in relation to the Three Principles of the People in their propaganda, the purpose of which was to instill ideas rather than to analyze them. Making an appeal to mass education efforts, the Nationalists preached that a society regulated by the Three Principles of the People functioned upon the premise that the general populace had obtained literacy, which was defined as embracing nationalism, mastering basic political knowledge, and possessing economic productive power. The enshrined Three Principles of the People bestowed abstract value to literacy and produced the Nationalists’ literacy myth. The Three Principles of the People not only dictated the type of person the GMD intended to mold through literacy training, but also constituted a key element to be taught in basic education. Meanwhile, the canonical texts of the Three Principles of the People Sun produced in 1924 were impaired by “imprecisions, incoherences, and contradictions.”8 The literacy of the Three Principles of the People could not be easily diffused to the masses.

In its inaugural literacy movement in May 1929, the GMD elucidated the importance of literacy in its relation with the Three People’s Principles, which includes nationalism (民族主義 minzu zhuyi), People’s power (民權主義 minquan zhuyi), and People’s livelihood (民生主義 minsheng zhuyi). Mass literacy, it believed, determined the power of a nation, the capabilities of government, and the welfare of

7 Marie-Claire Bergère , Sun Yat-sen, trans. Janet Lloyd (Stanford University Press, 1998), 352 . 8 Ibid., 354. 126 the people.9 Agreeing with the Qing court, the Nationalists, too, invested in the idea that a mass literacy rate was crucial for evaluating a country’s international status.

The reason for China falling victim to foreign imperialism rested exactly upon the fact that the majority of Chinese (about 80 percent) were illiterate. Teaching people how to read and write, first and foremost, served the purpose of cultivating national consensus and solidarity—the core values in the GMD’s definition of nationalism.10

A literate person was expected to embrace a national identity, especially being informed with the national crisis that China faced. China, as a nation, was in jeopardy. It might only “take Japan ten days, the United States a month, or Great

Britain and France two months to conquer China militarily.” The only reason for

China not yet being annexed was because imperialist powers checked each other’s ambitions.11 The Nationalists trumpeted this warning. In order to save the country, there was no other way than having everyone literate. A mass literacy movement was a fundamental way to cultivate a sense of nationhood, to arouse the national spirit, and to cement collective power.

It is important to note that the GMD relied upon the concept of nation, rather than loyalty to the monarchy as the Qing court did, to foster political consensus.

Nation was construed at the conjunction of the modern Western-influenced concept of race and the classical Neo-Confucian interpretation of social formation, which considers nation an extended form of family and lineage. The notion of race

9 Zhongguo guomindang zhongyang zhixing weiyuanhui xuanchuanbu, Shizi yundong xuanchuan gangyao, 2. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid., 4. 127 distinguished Chinese as yellow from the white, brown, black, and red. The idea of nation as being a supreme clan (大族 dazu) stressed the unity of all Chinese. Such an analogy was also supposed to be internalized easily by commoners. This family-lineage oriented understanding of nation, to a certain extent, explained why the GMD revived the community-based baojia system12 for its local organization.

Literacy was also essential for defining the GMD regime politically, which claimed to operate under the principle of the People’s power. The Nationalists interpreted that the people had four main political powers: election (選舉 xuanju), recall (罷免 bamian), initiative (創制 chuangzhi), and referendum (複決 fujue).

Endowed with these powers, the people supervised the operation of government, which was organized through five branches (院 yuan): the legislative, executive, judicial, examination, and control. The further the People’s power developed, the better administration the government could possibly realize.

The United States offered an excellent example in this regard, the GMD suggested. Only six percent of Americans were illiterate. The majority were able to read its constitution, which explained why the United States could establish an honest and enlightened government. Apparently, basic political knowledge was an

12 Baojia was a system for local organization. During the Republican era, the basic principle was that ten households formed one jia, and ten jia constituted one bao, but considerable regional variations existed. There was also an associated bao (聯保lianbao) at the district level. The baojia system established the principle of shared responsibilities. The Nationalist Party government used the baojia system to monitor ideological deviance and to undermine the Chinese Communists. See Fei-ling Wang, Organizing Through Division and Exclusion: China's Hukou System (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005), 39-43. Franz Schurmann, Ideology and Organization in Communist China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), 368-371. 128 indispensable ingredient of the GMD’s interpretation of literacy, which enabled people to use their right of initiative and referendum.

Unfortunately, this sophisticated theory sometimes was sacrificed for a more straightforward GMD narrative, which reduced literacy to the skills of reading and writing. The ability to read and write people’s names, the Nationalists asserted, preconditioned the right of election and recall. This skill-oriented perspective on literacy turned out to incur criticisms towards the GMD regime. Lacking substantial improvement in the mass literacy rate, the Nationalist government seemed to drag its feet on the path to democratic politics, or so the CCP, its political competitor, argued (see chapter 5). In addition, the skills of reading and writing per se did not necessarily correlate with grassroots democracy in the way the GMD presented. The

CCP’s democratic experimentation in its base areas suggested practicability of local direct election with majority illiterate. The CCP promoted bean election (豆選 douxuan) in the countryside from 1937, a method that allowed illiterate villagers to vote by casting beans instead of ballots.13 In the face of its competitor’s enthusiastic propagation of democratic practices that circumvented popular illiteracy, it was crucial for the GMD to be explicit about what political literacy entailed, in order to

13 Zhou Qiming (周其明), “ ‘Douxuan’ de minzhu yiyi (‘豆选’的民主意义 Democratic significance of bean election),” Renda yanjiu (人大研究 Research on the National People's Congress), no. 12 (2006): 22. To advocate bean election as an innovative way to involve the masses in local governance, Communist artists Gu Qun (顧群 1928-) and Yan Han (彥涵 1916-2011) created a woodcut print in 1947 and 1948 separately with the same title—Douxuan. Gu Qun’s piece is a colored Chinese New Year print. Another work with the same theme was made by famous Communist woodcut artist Li Qun (力群 1912-2012) 1947, which was named Renmin daibiao xuanji dahui (人民代表選舉大會 People’s representatives electoral meeting). 129 justify its claim that the government by the people it strived to build was based upon everyone being literate.

Last but not least, the GMD perceived mass literacy as indispensible for improving individual livelihoods and enhancing national economic power. When science and technology were the driving forces of improving productivity in the

20th century, literacy became the basic tool to acquire information. The Nationalists estimated in 1929 that ninety percent of Chinese workers and peasants were illiterate, which caused their ignorance toward new knowledge pertaining to their occupation. Consequently, agriculture and manufacture in China clung to outdated methods; workers and peasants lived in poverty. To industrialize the national economy required qualified literate workers and farmers, who were capable of managing mechanized production.

The GMD’s belief in literacy as a necessary precursor to China’s industrialization, however, was constantly violated by the realty of illiterate-staffed factories. This could be seen among the workers at the Daxigou (大溪沟) industrial district in wartime Chongqing.14 Level of literacy of the industrial workforce

14 “Chongqingshi daxigou ge gongchang lianli buxi xuexiao sanshisannian xiaqi chuji diyiban xuesheng xinsheng biao (重慶市大溪溝各工廠聯立補習學校三十三年下期初級第一班學生新生表 New student roster of the first beginners’ class at the adult supplementary school co-sponsored by factories at Daxigou in Chongqing, 1944),” Chongqing Municipal Archive (citied by catalogue and file number), 65-1-714. Joshua H. Howard’s study on Chongqing textile female workers suggests most of them were uneducated upon joining the workforce in late 1930s. In the first years of the war, factory managers discouraged rather than promote factory education program “for fear they would add to workers’ fatigue, interfere with production, and generate potentially subversive ideas.” Instead, there were a small group of workers aspired to learn how to read and write “as a form of empowerment and a means of becoming self-reliant. Otherwise, they risked dependency on male staff to help them write letters to their families in return for sexual favours.” When education program were organized after 1939 within factories under the state sponsorship and directed by the Women’s Advisory 130 remained low throughout the GMD’s rule.15 Apparently, modern industrial occupational training was not necessarily text-based. Some literacy classes offered by factories only responded to the government’s request, but were not generated by needs deriving from the work place.16

The GMD’s view of literacy’s function synchronized with the views commonly presumed internationally. Since the late 19th century, literacy was deemed “to be intrinsic to individual and social advances.”17 It was associated with democratic practices, economic success, and “a metaphorical ‘state of grace’.”18 Literacy under this framework became a neutral variable and a caliber for signifying a nation’s power and status within the global community.

Meanwhile, when pondering about what the general population should read and write, the GMD consciously linked literacy to its political ideology. Literacy clearly served as a means to inculcate values and influence political inclination.

Committee of the General Association for the Advancement of the New Life Movement, they aimed to alleviate the tension between labor and capital, to “diffuse the risk of social conflict,” and to promote disciple and moral behaviors dictated by Confucian values, goals far beyond expanding literacy. See Joshua H. Howard, “The Politicization of Women Workers at War: Labour in Chongqing's Cotton Mills during the Anti-Japanese War,” Modern Asian Studies 47, no. 6 (November 2013): 1892, 1908-1912. 15 Chongqing shi Jiaoyuju Shehuiju (重慶市教育局社會局 Bureaus of education and of social affair), “Guanyu baosong banli gongren shiziban banfa shang Chongqingshi zhengfu de cheng (關於報送辦理工人識字班辦法上重慶市政府的呈 A memorial to Chongqing municipal government about how to organize literacy class for workers) (August 1946),” Chongqing Municipal Archive, 53-1-425. 16 Guomindang zhongyang zuzhi bu (國民黨中央組織部 The central department of organization of the Guomindang), “ Guanyu zhuanfa gongren shizi duben zhi Chongqingshi dangbu de han (關於轉發工人識字讀本致重慶市黨部的函 A letter to the Chongqing party branch about distributing worker’s literacy primers) (August 1943),” Chongqing Municipal Archive, 51-2-381. 17 Harvey J. Graff and John Duffy, “Literacy Myths,” in Literacy, vol.2 of Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 2nd ed., Vol. 2, Literacy, ed. Brian V. Street and Nancy Hornberger (Berlin and New York: Springer, 2007), 44. 18 Robert F. Arnove and Harvey J. Graff, introduction to the transaction edition of National Literacy Campaigns and Movements, Historical and Comparative Perspective (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2008), xiv. 131

When calling for mass literacy learning in March 1944, the Nationalists explicitly contended that literacy was the decisive credential for citizenship in a China governed by the Three People’s Principles.19

There were multiple dimensions within the GMD’s notion of literacy. The meaning of literacy was contingent upon what particular goals it served, whether to promote China’s national status in comparison with foreign countries or to cultivate politically and economically capable citizens subscribing to the Three People’s

Principles. Though the latter determined the nature of literacy education the GMD offered, its focus on the qualitative transformation on individuals incurred challenges in assessment. The state functionaries discussed numbers of educational institutes established and students enrolled instead. Implicit in this narrative was the belief that state-sponsored or -sanctioned literacy training undoubtedly produced students’ literacy about nationalism, politics, and production. This assumption, though lacking historical evidence to sustain, perpetuated the government’s approach measuring mass literacy via enrollment records. Structuring educational institutions, thus, became the focal aspect for the GMD government to manage mass literacy training.

19 Zhuyin shizi xuanchuan gangyao (注音識字宣傳綱要 Outlines for promoting literacy learning via phonetic symbols) (March 1944), Chongqing Municipal Archive, 65-1-16. 132

Walking on Two Legs: Children and Adult Literacy Education, 1928-1939

After taking control of the central government in 1928, the GMD inherited the basic educational structure institutionalized in the beginning of the Republican era. This system separated social education for adults from general school education for children.20 It intended to craft literacy instruction appropriate for people at varying ages and with different schedules. Though being designed to supplement each other, these two sections, oftentimes, competed for funds and teachers, which further stretched resources that were already quite limited. Such rivalry, oftentimes, ended with disfavoring mass education targeted on youth and adult. The ever-changing plans the GMD issued over the course of the 1930s illuminated the government was entrenched in the struggle to balance between adult and children literacy education.

Compulsory Schooling for Children: 1932 and 1935 Mass Education Plans

The first mass education plan came out in 1932 but only addressed compulsory schooling for children. The meanings of compulsory education were now two-fold. The government strived to offer education free of charge. Meanwhile, individuals bore the responsibilities to become literate, just as they needed to pay taxes. The latter, most times, was more emphasized. This idea had taken root in the

20 Ping Wen Kuo (郭秉文), The Chinese System of Public Education (New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1915), 115-116; Chen Qingzhi (陳青之), Zhongguo jiaoyu shi (中國教育史 A history of China’s education) (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1934), chaps. 62-63. 133

GMD government’s initial vision of mass education in 1929, which even proposed to collect surcharges from those who were illiterate.21 Although there was no direct evidence of actual implementation, the intention to adopt punitive measures illustrated the Nationalists’ determination to interfere in personal pursuits of literacy. Literacy learning was no longer simply an option, but a duty, for ordinary people.

Responding to the center’s call for compulsory education, each province took initiatives in devising supportive institutes in its locale. According to the GMD’s own review, the overall impact of the 1932 plan, unfortunately, failed to generate substantial progress. Wu Yanyin (吳研因 1886-1975), an educationalist and office-holder in both the GMD and post-1949 CCP governments, attributed the stagnation, unsurprisingly, to financial insufficiency.22 Despite such an interpretation, the GMD government did not bother discussing whether the economic sustainability that was absent in 1932 had been acquired three years later when it launched its 1935 proposal. Instead, a compromise was made to accommodate flexible schooling periods designated for children.

The 1935 plan was divided into three stages. During the first stage, from

August 1935 to July 1940, one-year primary schools were required to be widely established across the country, which aimed to provide one year of schooling to at

21 Zhongguo guomindang zhongyang zhixing weiyuanhui xuanchuanbu, Shizi yundong xuanchuan gangyao (Nanjing: 1929), 21-22. 22 Wu Yanyin (吳研因), preface to Ge shengshi shishi guomin jiaoyu diyici wunian jihua zong baogao (各省市實施國民教育第一次五年計劃總報告 A overall report on the result of first five-year plan of citizenry education) (September 1947), reprinted in Minguo shiliao congkan, 1047: 5-7. 134 least eighty percent of children aged between nine and twelve. These one-year primary schools would then be converted into two-year schools after August 1940, which would educate children between age eight to twelve. By July 1944, it expected having eighty percent and above enrolled. The final stage began from August 1944, which featured four years of schooling. All school-aged children would receive compulsory education for four years hereafter.23

Based on the data collected by the central government, the number of children enrolled increased after the plan was implemented in the latter half of

1935. The figure jumped from 1934’s 13,128,625 to 15,559,848 in 1935, and then changed to 18,285,129 the following year, which accounted for 41.53 percent of all school-aged children in China. Due to the disruption of the Second Sino-Japanese

War, the number dropped to 12,847,924 in 1937 with a slight recovery in 1940 with a figure of 13,545,837.24 Despite the state’s focus on universalizing one-year schooling, this data shows the continuous existence of multiple years of schooling.

However, it is less clear about the percentage of the newly enrolled, those who graduated, and those who dropped out. Therefore, it was hard to measure the scale of progress in terms of increases of numbers of new children being schooled.

Furthermore, the 1935 plan implied varied standards of literacy associated with years of schooling. Those who were between nine and twelve in 1935 would be fourteen to seventeen years old by 1940, falling outside the parameters for primary

23 Ge shengshi shishi guomin jiaoyu diyici wunian jihua zong baogao (September 1947), reprinted in Minguo shiliao congkan, 1047: 11-12. 24 Ibid., 12-13. 135 schooling during the second phase (Fall 1940-Summer 1944) that targeted children from eight to twelve years old with a goal of two years of schooling. This educational plan inevitably created stratified levels of literacy among generations. Nevertheless, one year of primary-school education composed the minimum requirement that exempted a person from further compulsory education imposed by the state, as illustrated in the 1936 regulation outlining supplementary education for the adult.

Supplementary Education for Unschooled Populace: The 1936 Mass Education Plan

The so-called supplementary education (buxi jiaoyu 補習教育) explicitly targeted people aged 16-30 who has no possession of the minimum of one-year schooling or equivalent level of education. The GMD government referred to them as shixue mingzhong (失学民众 unschooled populace), a phrase that literally means the populace who were out of school. In the official rhetoric, literacy was apparently conflated with schooling. Despite their existence, the other alternative for literacy acquisition, such as apprentice training in shops and factories, had to be converted and calculated into years of formal schooling in order to assess individuals’ literacy.

The 1936 regulation was the first systematic plan for an adult literacy campaign promulgated by the GMD government. It aimed to coordinate previous literacy programs initiated separately by various educational institutes and social organizations. It also determined to set up a timeframe—six years—to eliminate illiteracy among the masses. In the view of the Nationalist policy makers, the key leading to a successful literacy campaign was effective administration, which relied

136 heavily upon the cooperation among different bureaus staffed by highly-motivated government functionaries. Lack of both accounted for the unsatisfactory growth of adult literacy during 1928-35, a period when only about 8,096,543 adults acquired literacy.

The 1936 regulation also marked a shift in focus for the GMD’s social education that stressed schooling for the first time. Previously, the state placed its energy chiefly upon institutional expansion, particularly of non-school based cultural infrastructures.

Within the administrative framework inherited in 1928, the GMD government separated social education designated for the general populace from school education for children, a system inherited from the previous Beiyang government (1912-27). Social education was then divided between non-school based cultural activities and schooling. The former primarily provided the space, services, and institutions that facilitated the masses’ various needs, both pragmatic and recreational, of reading and writing. For example, newspaper reading rooms, reading and writing service stations, mass education institutes, public lecture halls, stadiums, theaters, cinemas, concert halls, tea houses, libraries, parks, and museums all belonged to this category.

These public facilities comprised more than half (52.9%) of all social educational institutes sponsored by the state. They enjoyed an overwhelming advantage in sharing financial sponsorship by the state. They absorbed 73.4% of the

137 governmental budget on social education in 1933.25 In contrast, mass literacy schools, the primary venue for adult schooling only gained 12.6% of state grants allocated for social education.26

After 1936, adult schooling’s share of the central government’s budget for social education grew steadily. It increased from 45.5% in 1936, to 71.2% in 1937, and then climbed up to 77.6% in 1938. In addition, a separate fund was designated for printing learning materials that would be distributed to literacy learners free of cost. In contrast, investment in audio-visual media shrank from 45.6% to 25.4% and then to 15.7% in the same period (see Table 3). Clearly, school-based education was adopted as the primary approach in the GMD’s 1936 campaign for mass literacy.

The goal was to have each county add 20-40 mass literacy schools each year within the campaign’s six-year span. Each school was required to recruit students at least twice a year, with a minimum of two classes each term. Literacy learners would receive two-hour training everyday during evenings and holidays while avoiding the busy farming season in the countryside. The central authority advised the standard training period of four months, which, however, could be shortened

25 This fact could partially be explained by the high initial investment cost in constructing these facilities. For instance, 31.1% of the money was spent on theaters and cinemas, which all together only accounted for about 1% of existing social education institutes. 26 Quanguo shehui jiaoyu tongji (全國社會教育統計 National statistics on social education), 1933, reprinted in Minguo shiliao congkan, 1051: 226-227. 138 into three or extended into six months contingent upon the local situation. But the bottom line was to guarantee 200 class hours.27

1936 1937 1938 School-based 500,000 Planned 937,502 570,000 mass education Direct expenses 1,122,001 Mass literacy 100,000 Planned 37,499 50,000 primers and Direct expenses 53,000 readers Mass education by 300,000 Planned 374,998 75,000 film Direct expenses 264,998 Radio teaching 200,000 Planned 225,000 40,000 Direct expenses 135,000 Total 1,100,000 Planned 735,000 2,100,000 Direct expenses 1,574,000 Note: In 1937, due to the impact of the war, only 70% of the original budget was distributed from September onwards. Therefore, this chart lists both the original budget and out of pocket expenditure. Table 3. GMD central government budget on social education, 1936-3928

To accommodate the populace’s varied educational levels, classes were also divided between those for beginners and for relatively advanced students. The entry-level class focused on reading practices. Students learnt to read with the aid of

27 Jiaoyubu shehui jiaoyu si (教育部社會教育司 Social education department of Ministry of Education), comp., Shixue minzhong buxi jiaoyu fagui (失學民眾補習教育法規 Regulations on supplementary education for unschooled populace) (n.p.: Jiaoyubu shehui jiaoyu si, 1936), 5-16. 28 Jiaoyubu shehui jiaoyu shi (教育部社會教育室 Ministry of Education social education office), comp., Zhongguo shehui jiaoyu gaikuang (中國社會教育概況 A overview of social education in China) (n.p.: Jiaoyubu shehui jiaoyu shi, 1938), 29. 139 phonetic symbols—zhuyi fuhao (注音符號), a system of notation used to transcribe the pronunciation of Mandarin. In the end, students would be capable of understanding simple documents and writing basic characters. The advanced class expected students to be able to use a dictionary, read and understand general popular literature, and write basic documents without grammatical mistakes.29 It seemed to be designed as a continuous and extended training for those who graduated from the beginner’s class. However, no regulation was made proclaiming that the completion of advanced level training was a universal requirement. Were those people only receiving four-month training at the beginner’s class literate? This question was left without a clear answer.

Illiterate, semi-illiterate, and literate, words oftentimes used by the CCP and others to classify literacy learners, were not the paramount categories in the GMD’s perception of mass education. It might be more appropriate to describe the GMD’s

1936 drive for mass education as a campaign for schooling in lieu of an anti-illiteracy campaign. The direct goal was to have the general populace schooled for about half a year without being bothered by the question of whether this was sufficient to acquire literacy. Meanwhile, the mass school enrollment record could be appropriated in the official discourse as an index for the decreases of illiteracy if needed. The GMD advertised in 1939 that the campaign’s first year ran successfully, with 16,555,500 people acquiring basic literacy, exceeding the original plan by 4

29 Jiaoyubu shehui jiaoyu si, comp., Shixue minzhong buxi jiaoyu fagui (Jiaoyubu shehui jiaoyu si, 1936), 36. 140 million. It also alleged that more than 10 million people became literate in 1937 despite the disruption caused by the war.30

The Ambitious 1937 Mass Education Plan: Achieving Universal Literacy within One Year

The Ministry of Education ascribed the sustaining improvement on mass literacy to local officials being able to execute the plan with zeal amidst warfare, as they considered mass education indispensible for training patriotic citizens. With the survival of the nation at stake, universal literacy became an urgent demand.

After retreating from Nanjing to central China at Wuhan, the GMD central government issued an order on “mass supplementary education during wartime (戰

時民眾補習教育 Zhanshi minzhong buxi jiaoyu)” in late 1937. It called for cutting down the schooling period to two months and achieving universal literacy within one year.31 Yet, the war thwarted this ambitious plan.

After resettling permanently in Chongqing, the Ministry of Education resumed this one-year long campaign, but on a smaller scale. It determined to eliminate illiteracy in GMD-controlled large cities first, such as Chongqing, Chengdu,

Guiyang, Kunming, and Lanzhou.32 Nevertheless, achieving universal literacy in a year proved to be too idealistic to realize even within cities. Throughout the eight

30 Jiaoyubu shehui jiaoyu shi, comp., Zhongguo shehui jiaoyu gaikuang, 2-3. The reported number was 21,414,74. The Ministry of Education itself admitted the number might be over-exaggerated in the regions affected by the war. Hence, it believed 10 million would be more close to the reality in 1939. Even so, these figures are still inflated. In 1947 when reviewing the progress on mass literacy education after war, the Ministry of Education reduced the number to 3,121,820 for 1936 and 3,937,271 for 1937. 31 Ibid., 4. 32 Ibid. 141 years of the Anti-Japanese War, mass literacy education appeared as a recurring theme of administrative programs. The reason for the Ministry of Education’s stubbornness on the one year time limit probably should be understood as a strategy to create a sense of urgency rather than merely as unrealistic.

Besides the shortened training period, what distinguished the wartime literacy program from pre-war ones was the increased dose of citizenship education.

The Ministry of Education compiled and published a special edition textbook assigned for the mass school. The content was tailored for its two-month term with a focus on cultivating national consciousness and instructing basic knowledge essential for waging a war against the Japanese. Obviously, the Nationalist government resorted to literacy training as an effective and swift means of forging a patriotic and militant populace amenable to the government’s war mobilization.

With young adults—the backbone in the military front—as its main target students, mass schools thus attained substantial attention from the central government. Unfortunately, such favorable rhetoric still could not resolve the tension between adult literacy schools and primary schools competing for local financial and material resources, a rivalry that deprioritized mass literacy schools from the beginning of the GMD’s reign.

Examining the Nationalist regime’s mass education programs up to the late

1930s, a noticeable divergence existed between discourse and practice. Rhetorically, the GMD government granted mass literacy an essential place in its political construction, as the propaganda slogans cited in the beginning of this chapter 142 proclaimed. In fact, it prioritized uniform schooling for children and youth in terms of fiscal support. While 49.8% of the governmental budget flowed to primary schools in 1933, only 2.2% was used for teaching adults how to read and write at mass literacy schools and classes.33 These circumstances even deteriorated for adult literacy training in the following year. When the overall state budget on education decreased by 0.7%, the share of adult literacy schools became 1.9%, but that of primary schools increased to 50.1%.34 This pattern perpetrated into the local level as well. In most provinces, less than 10% of educational funds were used in mass education from 1929-1936, a situation that had no chance for a dramatic change during war time.35

The alternative the state made was to allow and promote the sharing of resources between these two. In 1938, the Ministry of Education instructed mass schools to recruit children, and primary schools to set up classes for adults. This institutional modification laid the foundation for further reform in 1940, which officially merged adult supplementary education with compulsory education under the unified name of citizenry education.

Under One Umbrella—Citizenry Education, 1940-1949

Changes to the educational realm were an integral part of the administrative reform—the New County System that Chiang Kai-shek had hammered together one

33 Quanguo shehui jiaoyu tongji, 1933, reprinted in Minguo shiliao congkan, 1051: 139. 34 Quanguo shehui jiaoyu tongji (全國社會教育統計 National statistics on social education), 1934, reprinted in Minguo shiliao congkan (Henan: Daxiang chubanshe, 2009), 1051: 329. 35 Jiaoyubu shehui jiaoyu shi comp., Zhongguo shehui jiaoyu gaikuang, 28. 143 year earlier in 1939. Chiang abbreviated the essence of this reform as “integration of politics and education,” utilizing schooling to organize and cultivate the populace.36

Literacy training was now tied directly with self-governance at the county level. On top of teaching people how to read and write, it also carried out the duties of managing local affairs, promoting production, and maintaining public health. Basic education, the GMD leaders expected, would embrace and absorb every aspect of local administration.

Under this new citizenry education system, formal primary schools became the main institute shouldering the responsibilities of literacy education for both adults and children. In large towns, central schools (中心學校 Zhongxin xuexiao) were established as the regional leading educational bureau. In villages, primary schools were attached to the GMD’s rural administrative baojia system. Each bao

(about one hundred households) was to set up a national school (國民學校 Guomin xuexiao).37

The local governance structure demanded unification of personnel as well.

Under the new system, administers and educators were no longer separate tracks of

36 Chiang Kai-shek presented “Gaijin dangwu yu tiaozheng dangzheng guanxi (改進黨務與調整黨政關係 Improving party affairs and adjusting party-government relationship)” on the Fourth Plenary Session of the Guomingdang Fifth Central Committee in 1938. Based on this article, the GMD central committee deliberated on administrative reforms which were promulgated in 1939, for which Chiang publicized a precept “Queding xian geji zuzhi wenti (Decisions on organizational matters on country level 確定縣各級組織問題).” See Wu Yanyin, preface to Ge shengshi shishi guomin jiaoyu diyici wunian jihua zong baogao, reprinted in Minguo shiliao congkan, 1047: 5-7. 37 The primary school in a village was commonly called Bao guomin xuexiao numbered after the bao it served. For example, the “first-bao guominxuexiao” referred to the national school in the first bao. This central school format was replicated by the CCP during the early 1960s and late 1970s under the name of key-point school (重點學校 zhongdian xuexiao). See Suzanne Pepper, Radicalism and Education Reform in 20th-century China (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 205-206. 144 posts. In the countryside, baojia leaders served as the principals of primary schools, as well as the heads of village security groups. Educators worked as culture secretaries in the government. In this way, the Nationalist leaders wished to resolve the shortage of clerical personnel, and also aspired to have local administrators attach more importance to education. Unfortunately, this personnel readjustment did nothing more than eliminate the independence of educational circles from the government bureaucracy.38 In addition, all educational bureaus at the county level, formerly under the directive of the Ministry of Education, were abolished. Instead, educational offices were set up to be affiliated with the local government. This institutional reshuffling further undermined the professionalized administration of educational matters. Executive chaos ensued.39

Moreover, despite nominally associating literacy learning with the self-governance movement, this new county system essentially aimed to further the state’s access to local resources. It abolished the previous separate management of the budget by different bureaus. Instead, revenues and expenditures were managed in a unified way at the county level. All formerly community-owned educational funds and properties were requested to be reported and transferred to the government at the county level. By doing so, county governors wrestled away from

38 Xiaoping Cong argues that the new system of teachers’ schools established in the late Qing institutionalized the split between educational circles and the government bureaucracy. During the warlord period, professional educators functioned at the provincial levels and gradually replaced the old gentry in the field of education, which furthered the independence of educational groups from the government officials. See Xiaoping Cong, Teachers’ Schools and the Making of the Modern Chinese Nation-State 1897-1937 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2007). 39 Wu Yanyin, preface to Ge shengshi shishi guomin jiaoyu diyici wunian jihua zong baogao, reprinted in Minguo shiliao congkan, 1047: 5-7. 145 local elites the power of controlling public educational croplands and funds in the rural community.40 It is conceivable that local elites consequently became alienated from the GMD government’s literacy effort. Self-governance dealt less with expanding the autonomy of civic society in managing local affairs, mainly dictated more sharing of the local government and society to finance their own basic education.

A New Five-year Plan (1940-1945)

The GMD set to increase baojia schools by 60 million in addition to the existing 20 million primary schools over a five-year plan (1940-45). In this process, local society became increasingly responsible financially for rural education. Its share increased from 50% to 70% by the end of the five-year period according to the plan (see Table 4). But actually, it paid more, as both the central and provincial government could not guarantee paying off their claimed quota.41 Both the central and provincial government gradually ridded themselves of subsidizing local education, leaving county governments and villages to figure out their own way to fund local schools.

The major source for education funds derived from donations. Contrary to the principle of voluntariness, local governments usually collected contributions

40 A community-owned educational cropland system was widely established in late imperial China. The profit gained from these lands was reserved for sponsoring local educational efforts, such as financing village schools, travel allowances for exam candidates, and rewards granted to degree winners. 41 Ge shengshi shishi guomin jiaoyu diyici wunian jihua zong baogao, reprinted in Minguo shiliao congkan, 1047: 30-31. 146 coercively from the masses and local well-to-do families. Village communities continued paying for local education but lost control of these funds, as well as school management, to county governments. The latter, however, oftentimes appropriated education funds for other purposes. This issue not only raised central authority concerns; it also dampened local elites’ ardor for education.42

Source of Central Provincial County government funds Year government government and baojia subsidy subsidy self-financing 1st 25% 25% 50% 2nd 25% 25% 50% 3rd 20% 20% 60% 4th 20% 20% 60% 5th 15% 15% 70% Table 4. Sources of funds for expanding basic education in local society (1941-45)43

It turned out that this new citizenry education system failed to expand significantly the scale of either children’s compulsory education or mass literacy learning. In terms of children’s education, the first five-year plan aimed to establish one primary school at each bao. In order to meet this request with the already stretched local budget, county government chose to reduce the number of baojia. In

Henan and Sichuan provinces, the number shrank by one third. A primary school that used to serve one hundred households now provided education to more.

42 Ibid., 34-35. 43 Ibid., 18. 147

Accessibility to schooling actually decreased for individual families. This was true particularly for those living far away from schools.44

Mass literacy education encountered more severe problems. The social education work team45 sent by the central government repeatedly complained how local officials, educators, and the general populace all considered schooling to be a matter exclusively pertaining to children. When facing the problem of the shortage of teachers, mass education was an easy choice for sacrifice. Village teachers, oftentimes, had no experience in mass education. Neither were they zealous about increasing their work load to extend education to adults. In addition, mass drafting during the war made labor scarce, whose payment increased correspondingly. With jobs became more readily available, few villagers were keen about spending their time schooling.46 The goal set by the government of having 60% of the populace educated by 1945 still fell far short.

Post-war Mass Education: Absorbing Non-institutional Approaches

After the war, the GMD government once again launched a campaign for universal schooling in 1945. It targeted people between age twelve and forty-five.

This was the first time that the GMD government officially extended mass education

44 Ibid., 38-40. 45 In order to promote mass education in local provinces during the war, the Ministry of Education organized and dispatched special work teams in 1938. See Zhongguo shehui jiaoyu gaikuang, 30. 46 Ge shengshi shishi guomin jiaoyu diyici wunian jihua zong baogao, reprinted in Minguo shiliao congkan, 1047:40. 148 to people above forty and lowered the minimum to twelve.47 Initially, the time frame was set at five years but was soon revised to three years in 1946. In addition to mass schools, literacy classes were expected to be established widely by primary schools, the Mass Educational Institute (民眾教育館 Minzhong jiaoyuguan), chambers of commerce, guilds, labor unions, and party and government bureaus.

Besides these institution-based endeavors, middle school students, teachers, and local intellectuals were all called upon to provide individual instruction to people who could not attend literacy classes in school.

The Chongqing government, for example, aimed to teach 26,050 adults how to read and write in 1946. While ordering each of the fifty-seven center schools in big towns to set-up two adult literacy classes, the government held a lower expectation for baojia schools. It anticipated that only half of the village schools would be able to create one adult class each. All together, these public schools would provide 171 literacy classes, each with a cap of fifty students. Additionally, the

Chongqing government estimated 150 more literacy classes would be sponsored by various social organizations, governmental bureaus, and private schools (see Table

5).

47 The age bracket for the 1936 campaign is sixteen and thirty. However, this age limit was not enforced strictly by local mass schools and classes, which recruited students in their thirties. See Chongqing Shiqiaozhen diqibao guominxuexiao (重慶石橋鎮第七保國民學校 The Shiqiao town seventh bao national school), “Guanyu baosong 1942 nian shiyi shier yuefen defang zizhi shishi qingxing ji minzhong buxi jiaoyu zhuangkuang(關於報送 1942 年 11、12 月份地方自治實施情形及民眾補習教育狀況 Report on the implementation of self-governance and mass supplementary education during November and December of 1942),” Chongqing Municipal Archive, cited by catalogue and file number, 65-3-187. 149

Number of Students Number of literacy enrolled in students enrolled classes each class Center school 114 50 5700 Baojia school 57 50 2850 Mass Educational Institute 200 Chamber of commerce and 50 50 2500 guild Labor union 40 50 2000 Private schools 30 50 1500 Party and government 30 50 1500 bureaus “Little teacher” 5-10 10,000 Table 5. Chongqing government’s plan on schooling uneducated adults in 194648

Nonetheless, these institutions, at most, could accommodate 16,250 adults, only slightly over half of the planned figure. Literacy learning of the remaining

10,000 people resorted to motivated individuals, mostly primary and middle school students, who were respectfully addressed as “little teacher.”49 Public social spaces, such as those at temples, tea houses, and restaurants, and private homes were recommended teaching sites. This outside school learning focused mainly on reading, writing, and arithmetic. Music and physical educational classes, a part of

48 “Chongqingshi sanshi wu niandu puji shixue minzhong shizi jiaoyu shishi jihua(重慶市三十五年度普及失學民眾識字教育實施計畫 Implementation plan on mass literacy education in Chongqing in 1946),” Chongqing Municipal Archive, 65-1-26. 49 Tao Xingzhi introduced the method of using school children to teach reading and writing to their family members and neighbors in the 1920s. This method was adopted and promoted by the GMD government in their literacy campaign in the 1930s and 1940s. 150 the mass school curriculum, were omitted. Also, the class period was condensed into one hour every day or every other day for four months, shortened in half from the standard two hours per day schedule in institution-based literacy classes.50

Relying heavily on non-institutional channels, in turn, indicated the ineffectiveness of the GMD’s schooling-centered mass literacy education implemented since 1936. In Chongqing, among the primary schools that actually followed the order offering literacy training to adults, few could recruit fifty students in each class. The center school of Shangqiao town (上橋鎮), for instance, reported that thirteen males and thirty-seven females eventually enrolled after being exhorted by baojia leaders and urged by police.51 Even these enrolled students could not promise full attendance. For some of them, hot weather was a sufficient reason for absence.52 While the central schools located in large towns struggled to attract illiterate adults, baojia schools in remote villages encountered even more difficulties to attain students. Villagers, either occupied with farming or

50 “Chongqing shi guomin jiaoshi zhongxiaoxuesheng ji ge jiguan tuanti zhishi fenzi wei puji shixue minzhong shizi jiaoyu shixing xunhui fenzu jiaoxue banfa(重慶市國民教師中小學生及各機關團體智識份子為普及失學民眾識字教育施行巡迴分組教學辦法 Group-based itinerant education method for national school teachers and students, as well as educated persons of various organization and official organs to promote literacy education among unschooled populace in Chongqing),” Chongqing Municipal Archive, 65-1-542. 51 “Baosong tuixing minzhong shizi jiaoyu qingxing (報送推行失學民眾識字教育情形 Reports on literacy education for unschooled masses),” Chongqing Municipal Archive, 65-1-708. 52 Chongqing Yiaici zhongxin guomin xuexiao (重慶遺愛祠中心國民學校 Chongqing Yiaici center national school), “Baosong minjiaobu banli qingxing ji xuesheng mingce(報送民教部辦理情形及學生名冊 Reports on mass literacy education work and student’s register)” (June 1946), Chongqing Municipal Archive, 65-1-692. 151 working as vendors and daily laborers, had no spare time for attending schools, local educational officials complained.53

“Little teachers,” in contrast, worked on a more flexible schedule and in more diversified settings. Plus, teachers’ work loads would not increase dramatically.

Therefore, this approach was preferred by some primary schools. The center school of Nanping (南坪) in Chongqing, for instance, adopted the approach of “little teachers.” Students at fourth grade and above were dispatched to teach at least three of their family members and neighbors how to read and write for four months.

With 374 of them, school officials estimated that more than 1120 adults would be educated. These pupils’ performance would then be supervised and evaluated by their teachers. The best ones would receive awards. According to the school’s report, this system of supervision and reward made a noticeable impact, and resulted in satisfactory improvement of mass literacy locally.54

Nanping’s case, however, hardly represented the general outcome of the little teacher approach. The fact that the Chongqing Education Bureau singled it out for a special honor indicated that what happened in Nanping was exceptional. Narratives of contemporary school students confirmed the presence of striking regional variations. A former school student in Chongqing’s suburb, Mr. He, revealed that he

53 Dishisiqu disibao guomin xuexiao (第十四區第四保國民學校 National school of the Fourteenth district forth bao), “Baosong banli minjiao qingxing (報送辦理民教情形 Reports on mass education work)” (July 1946), Chongqing Municipal Archive, 65-1-692. 54 Dishierqu Nanping zhongxin guomin xuexiao (第十二區南坪中心國民學校 The central national school of Nanping in the twelfth district), “Guanyu shixing xiaoxiansheng zhi de cheng (關於施行小先生制的呈 Report on the use of little teachers approach in mass education)” (June 1946), Chongqing Municipal Archive, 65-1-692. 152 was never involved in teaching adults.55 Neither had Mr. Wang from Xichang (西

昌)56 in southern Sichuan, nor Mr. Li from Bishan (壁山)57 county west of

Chongqing heard about the little teacher project while they were at school in the

1940s. The only informant who ever participated in this effort achieved nothing. Mr.

Shi was instructed to teach his family members how to read and write when studying at a public middle school in Sichuan Mianyang (綿陽). After his mother, the only illiterate person in his family, rejected his offer on the ground that literacy learning was meaningless to her, Mr. Shi simply gave up. Neither did he attempt to approach his neighbors.58

Conclusion

These individuals’ experiences and memories, to a certain extent, reflected the place of mass literacy education in GMD-ruled China. As seen above, though the official rhetoric repeatedly emphasized the significance of universal literacy in the constitutional polity before and after the war, and for national survival during the

55 Interview with Mr. He, Chongqing, Summer 2010. Mr. He was born in 1931 in a village affiliated to the seventh bao of Chongqing Jiangkou (江口) town. He studied at Jiangkou center school from 1945 after graduating from the baojia school in Maxingmiao (馬興廟) village. 56 Interview with Mr. Wang, Chongqing, Summer 2010. Mr. Wang was born to a literary family in Sichang of Sichuan province in 1927. His father and grandfather were school teachers. Mr. Wang spent his early education years in a family-run tutor studio and then enrolled in public schools. 57 Interview with Mr. Li, Chongqing, Summer 2010. Mr. Li came from a peasant family living in a village of Bishan county, 24 miles west to Chongqing. He was born in 1931 and received his education from a baojia school. 58 Interview with Mr. Shi, Xi’an, Summer 2010. Mr. Shi was born in Shandong province in 1927 and attended private school there. After the Japanese troops intruded his village, the family moved to Xianyang (咸陽) of Shaanxi province where his father taught at a middle school. In 1943, Mr. Shi began to study at a state-funded public school at Mianyang, Sichuan province and graduated in 1946. 153 war, mass education was still secondary to compulsory schooling for children. Most of the people interviewed attended primary and middle school in the 1930s and

1940s. None of them claimed having witnessed large-scale literacy campaigns among adults in their locale, no matter whether it was a county town or small village.

Even the existence of the Mass Education Institute, the key bureau the GMD used to organize social education, sounded unfamiliar to some of them. Despite ambitious plans and rhetoric, the GMD government was never able to launch a sweeping nationwide campaign that got the majority involved.

To promote adult literacy learning, the GMD stubbornly focused on administrative adjustment, such as merging two separate departments—adult social education and children’s general education—into one in 1946. Unsurprisingly, institutional changes alone could not get improve adult literacy education. On the contrary, these administrative reforms further weakened the status of adult literacy education, which, to a great extent, became a secondary duty of primary schools that prioritized children’s studies. No separate personnel and funds were reserved for adult literacy learning, which easily slipped off of local governments’ executive agendas.

The GMD’s belief in the power of a strong state to achieve universal literacy also marginalized local elites and professionals in the realm of education. Literacy education became an essential vehicle for extending state control over society. In

1936, after defining schooling as the state-sanctioned and credentialed way to becoming literate, the GMD government devoted itself to institutional expansion 154 during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) that began soon after. Public schools attached to the baojia system became the central institutions on which the state relied to access local finance, education, and administration. Local elites were asked to surrender their rights of management over educational funds. Bureaucrats replaced educational professionals in running school affairs. When the institution-based instruction fell short, public school students were mobilized. To the Nationalist leaders, such personnel would broaden the state’s influence down to the local level since the state-sponsored education they received would guarantee that correct literate knowledge was being instructed.

This chapter has focused on the interplay between the GMD’s conception of literacy’s place in Sun Yat-sen’s state- and nation-building prescriptions and its approach to achieving universal literacy. Theoretically, the Nationalists perceived mass literacy in their construction of a constitutional polity. Literacy learning was presented as a state-imposed civic duty. Relying on institution-based methods, the

GMD government depended primarily on its bureaucrats to implement its literacy education plan for school-aged children, youth, and adults. Implicitly, the GMD believed competent officials would guarantee popular compliance. However, as

Bradley Geisert suggests, the GMD regime was “an entity of almost baroque complexity;”59 as such, one could hardly expect a high degree of compliance and conformity across different bureaucratic sectors and administrative levels. In

59 Bradley K. Geisert, Radicalism and Its Demise: The Chinese Nationalist Party, Factionalism and Local Elites in Jiangsu Province, 1924-1931 (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 2001), 4-5, quoted in Christopher A. Reed, “Propaganda by Book,” 103. 155 addition, as a regime plagued by civil war (1927-1936 and 1946-1949) and the

Second Sino-Japanese War, it is not surprising to see a lack of substantial improvement on mass literacy rate in GMD China.

Meanwhile, the GMD’s obligatory ideological loyalty to Sun’s Three Principles of the People mandated concrete proof of its commitment to improving mass literacy. Recurrent governmental directives and plans regarding mass education was a product of comprise. These plans demonstrated the Nationalists’ understanding about the urgency of mass literacy. They sustained morale for the

GMD’s literacy myth, a belief that the Nationalists were devoted to improving mass literacy as a prerequisite for a constitutional polity under Sun’s design. In practice, cultivating mass loyalty to the GMD regime and fomenting anti-Communist sentiment were the pressing concerns for the Nationalist literacy programs, as the next chapter will show.

156

Chapter 4: Reading the Three Principles of the People

Introduction

How was the Three Principles of the People introduced by literacy primers?

And what were commoners’ responses to the GMD’s literacy initiatives? This chapter seeks to address these questions by examining the official textbooks for mass literacy learning produced by the GMD governments, literacy school activities in its wartime capital Chongqing and Hengshan(橫山), a county under the sway of the CCP in Shaanxi, as well as students’ personal experiences during the 1930s and

1940s.

The GMD intended to mold the populace’s mind from the perspective of ideology. “Having villagers understand and embrace the Three Principles of the

People as the ONLY ideology that could save China”1 was pronounced to be the core of its literacy education. Unfortunately, as a theoretical construction that the

Nationalist statesmen struggled to render into a definite shape, the Three Principles of the People was elusive. It was extremely challenging, if not impossible, to be given a plain explanation within the space that a literacy primer typically allowed.

1 Jiangxi sheng tezhong jiaoyu yanjiu bu (江西省特種教育研究部 The research department of special education in Jiangxi), Tezhong jiaoyu ertong duben (特種教育兒童讀本 Children’s reader of special education) (Shanghai: Zhonghua Book Company, 1935-36), flyleaf. 157

Alternatively, it was described as devotion to egalitarianism: the principle of nationalism pursued for China’s international status to be equal with other countries; and the principle of the People’s power and the People’s livelihood strived for political and economic equality among the masses.2 An over generalization, however, did not improve clarity. The Three Principles of the People was reduced into inane political slogans but deprived of practicability. Far detached from an individual’s life, it hardly attracted common followers.

This way of presenting the Three Principles of the People, to a certain extent, probably was an intended result. After its Third National Congress held in May 1929 that excluded its left-wing leaders at the center,3 the GMD went through

“astonishingly rapid ideological realignment” that transformed it into an anti-communist Nationalist Party. This change, Christopher A. Reed argues, appeared on the provincial and lower levels as well.4 Literacy primers that the GMD government edited corresponded to this ideological realignment. Compared with the dry and abstract lessons on the Three Principles of the People, texts about anti-communism frequently were narrated through personal stories that attempted to link with daily experiences. The Party was keen about getting its anti-communist message across.

2 See Junshi weiyuanhui weiyuanzhang Nanchang xingying, comp., Shibing shizi keben (Shanghai: Zhonghua Book Company, 1935). 3 Lloyd E. Eastman, “Nationalist China during the Nanjing Decade, 1927-1937,” in Cambridge History of China, vol. 13, part 2, Republican China 1912-1949, ed. John K. Fairbank and Albert Feuerwerker (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 120. 4 Christopher A. Reed, “Propaganda by the Book: Contextualizing and Reading the Zhejiang GMD’s 1929 Textbook Essentials for Propaganda Workers,” Frontiers of History in China 10, no. 1(2015, forthcoming): 96-125. 158

The GMD’s literacy projects purported to influence the populace’s political inclination, an impact beyond the skill of reading and writing per se. Under cover of the Three Principles of the People—an ideological hallmark of the Party—and the literacy myth associated with it, the GMD sponsored mass literacy primarily to cultivate political loyalty and anti-Communist sentiment. This emphasis was also justified by the varying levels of attention the GMD regime devoted to mass literacy in its firmly grasped political center and political frontier areas, especially those contiguous to the Communist-controlled regions.

Early in the 1930s, the GMD organized special education (特種教育 tezhong jiaoyu) in Jiangxi, Fujian, Hubei, Anhui, and Henan provinces, to facilitate its military campaign against the CCP’s Jiangxi Soviet regime. This special education continued into the Second Sino-Japanese War. Though the theme of patriotic and nationalistic training against the Japanese colonizers was eventually introduced, the anti-Communist tone remained constantly in place.

Exploring the GMD’s literacy education in its war-time capital Chongqing and

Hengshan, a county bordering the CCP’s central Shaan-Gan-Ning base area in northern Shaanxi, this chapter takes a close look at the activities and students involved in the GMD’s literacy training. It offers a nuanced view towards the GMD’s governance in China in the 1930s and 1940s, which was otherwise overshadowed by the general impression of being cut off from the masses.

In the realm of literacy, we will see that the Nationalist Party was capable of summoning a degree of popular involvement in its politically sensitive margins 159 where administrative power was typically assumed to be stretched to the limit.5

The Second Zhongshan Mass School in Hengshan County (橫山縣第二中山民眾學校

Hengshan xian di’er Zhongshan minzhong xuexiao) was established in 1939 with the primary goal of educating illiterate adults. It persisted in recording its daily activities in detail for higher authorities’ scrutiny at least until 1941, according to the available archival materials. In contrast, in its wartime capital Chongqing, not every local primary school followed the directive of setting up adult literacy training classes. Neither did the government possess succinct interest in preserving detailed daily records of school activities in the political core region. This disparity precisely demonstrates that literacy was not the absolute goal, but anti-Communism was the pressing concern.

Examining literacy education implemented in local society, this chapter suggests that the Nationalist official discourses perpetuated a myth of illiteracy in

China, a belief that dated back to the late Qing educational reform, which considered that poverty and ignorance of the general populace, especially those living in the countryside, were the fundamental reasons for mass’s lack of interest in state-sponsored schooling. This view was plausible as literacy acquisition, a

5 Recent scholarship gives credit to the GMD’s special education campaign in Jiangxi during the 1930s and 1940s in terms of securing local control and mobilizing mass support during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945). See Zhou Xiaodong (周晓东) and Wei Jingchun (卫静春), “Tezhong jiaoyu yu kangzhan shiqi Guomindang de zhengzhi dongyuan—yi Jiangxi wei zhongxin (特种教育与抗战时期国民党的政治动员—以江西为中心 Special education and the Nationalist Party’s political mobilization during the Second Sino-Japanese War, a case study in Jiangxi),” Hunan keji xueyuan xuebao 29, no. 2 (February 2008): 60-63. Song Qinghong (宋青红), “Nanfeng Baishexu tezhong jiaoyu shiyanqu yanjiu, 1934-1937 (南丰白舍圩特种教育实验区研究 A study of the special education experimental area in Baishexu in Nanfeng County)” (M.A. thesis, Jiangxi Normal University, 2007). 160 time-demanding activity, oftentimes was sacrificed in order to prioritize employment. However, such a diagnosis was not as clear and lucent as it might sound. A simple word—poverty—overshadowed nuances and complexities that concretized the circumstances of resource scarcity, which were the key to mapping an individual’s perception of literacy’s place in his/her daily life.

As this chapter will show, the degree of poverty also covered a wide spectrum and was subject to different personalized measurements. Some villagers still managed to receive basic education even in dire straits as perceived by the contemporary social elites, and/or themselves. Furthermore, ignorance was also analytically inadequate in deciphering the masses’ cold feelings towards state-sponsored schooling. Even with the exemption of tuition, government-funded schools sometimes were not the first choice for ordinary people to educate their children. Instead, they preferred sishu (私塾) or other privately operated educational facilities, which were close-by and taught by someone they knew.

Government-funded schools were just one, but not the only, venue for the lesser folk to educate their children. The official statistical data on popular literacy rates based on the enrollment records of registered schools, thus, was potentially marred by being partial.

In contrast to official rhetoric, cases in wartime Chongqing indicated that popular demand and zeal for basic education was sometimes dampened by the shortage of educational facilities provided by the government. The GMD’s compulsory schooling policy was part of its myth-making efforts, advocating its 161 commitment to mass education. It was simply an idealistic fantasy and virtually infeasible. Local leaders responsible for mobilizing the masses frequently chose to ignore this dictate, an action that rarely jeopardized their political career. As a result, literacy learning remained largely a personal and familial choice leveraged by the roles that reading and writing played in daily life. The GMD’s literacy texts loaded with the state agenda of cultivating nationhood and political allegiance to the regime would, predictably, have difficulties arousing an echo with the populace.

Civic Literacy in the GMD’s Republic: A Dance

between Confucian Ethics and Fascist Militancy

Similar to the Qing court, the GMD government carefully designed and censored the texts used in literacy education.6 In 1936, the Minister of Education edited and published Minzhong xuexiao keben (民眾學校課本 Textbook for Mass

School) to facilitate its first schooling campaign. Distributed freely, this textbook became the orthodox text to be adopted for popular literacy learning across the country. Featuring the Nationalists’ reinterpretation of Confucian ethics, it was employed to cultivate patriotic, devoted, and loyal citizens. In essence, it invoked the primacy of the GMD party-state and its sense of national identity. In this way,

6 Like the Qing and Beijing government, the GMD regime continued to heavily rely on the private publishers for producing textbooks for general education. Different from its predecessor, the GMD tightened the review process in an effort to standardize textbooks based on the curriculum prescribed by the Nationalist state. See Robert Culp, Articulating Citizenship: Civic Education and Student Politics in Southeastern China, 1912-1940 (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007), 47-52; Christopher A. Reed, Gutenberg in Shanghai: Chinese Print Capitalism, 1876-1937 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2004), chap. 5; Florence Chien, “The Commercial Press and Modern Chinese Publishing: 1897-1949” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1970). 162 literacy training prepared the masses for political mobilization. In addition, special editions were also issued. They were tailored for distinct learning groups with an effort to involve them in the party’s campaigns against its enemies, whether they were the Chinese Communists or the Japanese colonizers.

The Republic of China Minister of Education compiled the Textbook for Mass

Education according to the teaching schedule designed for mass schooling in 1936.

It was divided into four volumes with twenty-four lessons each. Beginning with the instruction of phonetic symbols, the first volume introduced 80 characters. The number then increased to 150 for the second volume, 200 for the third, and 240 for the last. Each lesson taught seven to fourteen new characters on average. Students were expected to complete their study in four months, one volume per month.7

Compared with the textbook assigned for one-year primary schools,8 these texts demanded a more intensive schedule. The illiterate adults were expected to learn

670 characters, twice as many as what were assigned for children, but with less than half the time allowed for children. On top of that, the pace of learning accelerated along the way.

The Nationalists’ confidence in the role of phonetic symbols might partially explain this accelerated program schedule. Having all the texts notated with these symbols, this textbook attempted to bridge orality with literacy. Based on the

7 Jiaoyubu, Minzhong xuexiao keben (民眾學校課本 Textbook for Mass School), 2nd ed. (n.p.: Xinguang yinshua gongsi, 1937), flyleaf. 8 See Jiangxi sheng tezhong jiaoyu yanjiu bu (江西省特種教育研究部 The research department of special education in Jiangxi), Tezhong jiaoyu ertong duben (特種教育兒童讀本 Children’s reader of special education) (Shanghai: Zhonghua Book Company, 1935-36). 163 assumption that the adult already knew the meaning of each character, literacy learning simply meant to associate pronunciation with spelling. The Ministry of

Education alleged that with the aid of phonetic symbols, literacy acquisition could be accomplished in a short period, even within two months. People could learn characters through reading books and newspapers (reading here simply referred to knowing how to pronounce).9 To make the goal of mastery of 670 characters within four months practicable, the Ministry of Education selected characters and terms that were basic and commonly used. The only exception involved words related to political ideology, such as the Three People’s Principles. These were the terms key to conceptualizing an individual’s place in the sociopolitical community led by the

GMD.

As the Minister of Education articulated, the keystone of the Textbook for

Mass Education was to equip the masses with the essential knowledge and skills of citizenry. The consciousness of nationhood and patriotic ideas was the gist. “I am

Chinese; you are Chinese; he/she is Chinese; we are all Chinese. We should all love

China.” This was the first text students would learn in class. It asserted the primacy of national identity, which overrode the differences of class, gender, ethnicity, and region. Being Chinese was a unifying concept that created national solidarity, a strong sense of the inner group of “us.” China was not simply the name of the birth

9 “Zhuyin shizi xuanchuan gangyao (注音識字宣傳綱要 Publicity outline for literacy learning with the aid of phonetic symbols)” (March 1944), Chongqing Municipal Archive, 65-1-16. 164 place of its people. Rather, it embodied a political entity represented by a national flag, a subject introduced in lesson two.

Titled “National flag,” the second lesson read “National flag, national flag, how beautiful you are! We love our country, also the national flag; we (ought to) salute the national flag quite often.” This text simply indoctrinated that people should place their love for the country onto the national flag. Or, the other way around, reverence for the national flag embodied physically the patriotic spirit. It is important to note that the national flag was not politically neutral and non-historically static. Rather, it was an emblem of the polity the GMD established.10

Right above the text in the center was an image of the flag of the Republic of

China used by the GMD since 1917. This visual representation objectified the word

“national flag (國旗 guoqi).” Instead of providing visual aids for character recognition, it actually defined the meaning of the word—national flag, monopolizing it exclusively to the Nationalist government’s flag. Printed in black and white, the flag was rendered in bold outline. Only the canton was filled with black ink but leaving blank the shape of a sun with twelve triangular rays, rendered

10 The Republic of China when established in 1912 adopted the Five Color Flag, which consisted of five horizontal strips of red, yellow, blue, white, and black. This flag had been used by the Qing Navy and by revolutionary leaders in Nanjing and Shanghai during the 1911 Revolution. The national flag adopted by the Nationalist government is commonly described as “blue sky, white sun, and a wholly red earth (Qingtian bairi mandihong 青天白日滿地紅 ).” It is red with a dark blue canton in the upper-left quadrant. A white sun with a twelve triangular ray lies in the center of the canton. This flag had been used by Sun Yat-sen for his revolutionary groups since 1906 but lost to the Five Color flag in the competition for national ROC flag in 1912. When Sun Yat-sen established a regional government in Guangzhou in 1917 contesting the Beiyang government, he continued employing this design. Eventually it became legitimate national flag in 1928 when the Nationalist government replaced the Beiyang government in 1928. See Henrietta Harrison, The Making of the Republican Citizen: Political Ceremonies and Symbols in China 1911-1929 (Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 2000), 100-103. 165 in the way of inscription rubbing. Such a stark contrast successfully highlighted the distinctive white sun against a dark background; an image that also symbolized the

Nationalist Party. Combining the texts and the image, this lesson intended to impose a deep, vivid imprint on learners’ minds that identified the country with the

Nationalist state. Chinese national identity mixed with the citizenship of the

Republic of China.

Furthermore, the last sentence of this lesson advocated a ceremonial salute to the national flag to be practiced by the populace on a regular basis. This demand might remind us of Japanese practices during the same period. People in Japan and its Korean and Manchurian colonies were obligated to bow to the Japanese flag and the sacred words of the Japanese Emperor.11 In the Nationalists’ mass schools, a similar spirit was indoctrinated. The image of the GMD’s national flag served as a medium, through which the general populace could practice their salutes, imaginarily and physically.12 Literacy acquisition programmed and consolidated individuals’ submission to the country as a nation-state headed by the GMD.

11 Hildi Kang, Under the Black Umbrella: Voices from Colonial Korea, 1910–1945 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001), 99-101, 114-116; Da Riben jun (大日本軍), comp., Kewai duben: chuji diyice (課外讀本 After school reader for lower primary schools: vol. 1) (N.p.: [1938?]), 42-43; Shin'ichi Yamamuro, Manchuria Under Japanese Dominion, trans. Joshua A. Fogel (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 212-213. 12 David Yen-Ho Wu, “The Construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese Identities,” in China Off Center: Mapping the Margins of the Middle Kingdom, ed. Susan Debra Blum, Lionel M. Jensen (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002), 171. A standard GMD salute to the flag is holding the right hand flat to the right eyebrow. For discussion of political uses of public ceremonies during the 1910s see Peter Zarrow, “Political Ritual in the Early Republic of China,” in Constructing Nationhood in Modern East Asia, ed. Kai-wing Chow, Kevin M. Doak, and Poshek Fu (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001), 161-172. 166

Besides observing customary ceremony, the Chinese national identity was also incarnated in daily production and consumption activities.13 Lesson three first explained the meaning of “Chinese products (中國貨 Zhongguohuo),” which were the goods produced and made in China. Then it called for “Chinese people, love

China; we all ought to use Chinese products.” Apparently, patriotism in Nationalist

China entailed individuals’ contribution to the development of national industry.

Personal consumption behavior became subjected to scrutiny through the prism of nationalism. Moreover, frugality and hard-work were enshrined through the following lessons.14 It praised that being economically independent and responsible established an individual in the society. Meanwhile, considering the fact that this textbook was written for unschooled adults, most of whom came from working backgrounds, it is also plausible to argue that this discourse ascribed a noble attribute to the populace’s mundane back-breaking jobs. Literacy learning worked to transform individuals’ perceptions of their daily conduct into a context of fulfilling their civic role, politically and economically.

Chinese national identity was further reinforced through the narrative of the

Nationalists’ revolutionary history threaded by an anti-imperialist theme. In this account, China as a nation was detached from the Qing government, whose military and diplomatic failure caused China to fall victim to the whip of foreign imperialism.

Enraged by the Qing’s incompetence, Sun Yat-sen led a revolution overthrowing the

13 E.g. Karl Gerth, China Made: Consumer Culture and the Creation of the Nation (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2003). 14 See lessons five, six, and seven, volume one of Minzhong xuexiao keben, 2nd ed. (n.p.: Xinguang yinshua gongsi, 1937), 13-17. 167

Qing government with the aim to make China prosperous and strong. This revolutionary narrative was not a story of regime changes. It avoided introducing the Republican government as a replacement for the Qing. Instead, state and government was lumped under one unit—China following the demise of the Qing.

The 1911 Revolution was portrayed purely as an effort to strengthen China from within. Thereafter, the main revolutionary task was to fend off intrusion from without.15 For mass mobilization, this textbook also introduced the concept of

“national humiliation (國恥 guochi)” in the last volume. It detailed a series of unequal treaties China signed before 1911. A list of foreign imperial (mainly

Japanese) incursions after 1911 rendered the sense of urgency for national survival.16 Beginning with the cultivation of national identity and concluding with the concept of national humiliation, this four-volume textbook worked its way to engage the masses in its political and military struggle against foreign imperialist powers.17

In the meanwhile, the implication was that individuals would unconditionally subordinate themselves to the GMD’s authority. As the head of the central

15 See Lesson eight, volume two of Minzhong xuexiao keben, 2nd ed. (n.p.: Xinguang yinshua gongsi, 1937), 9. 16 See lessons eleven, twelve, and thirteen, volume four of Minzhong xuexiao keben, 2nd ed. (n.p.: Xinguang yinshua gongsi, 1937). 17 The textbooks for secondary schools also featured anti-imperialist message and attempted to invoke shared feeling of national humiliation, which were embodied as the Qing’s loss of territories into the hands of foreign imperialist powers. See Robert Culp, Articulating Citizenship, 80-84; In addition, scholars have discussed the concept of national humiliation as a rallying point for active mass protest, as the commemoration on the May Ninth Memorial Day of National Humiliation demonstrated. See Paul Cohen, “Remembering and Forgetting National Humiliation in Twentieth-Century China,” Twentieth-Century China 27, no. 2 (April 2002): 1-39; Robert Culp, Articulating Citizenship, 217-220; Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, Student Protests in Twentieth-Century China: The View from Shanghai (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991). 168 government, the GMD’s leadership in this national effort was taken for granted. In addition, the Nationalist’s legitimacy derived from the legacy of Sun Yat-sen, who was praised as the founding father of the Republic of China. Citizens of the

Republican state, therefore, should hold him in the greatest esteem.18 Observing his commemoration ceremonies served to fortify the Nationalist’s authoritative position in building an independent and strong nation.

Individuals’ relative place to the nation in this new political community under construction was also defined through civic rights and duties. The textbook offered a straightforward list of the responsibilities citizens bore, but was vague regarding the political rights that the populace enjoyed. Observance of law, paying taxes, serving in the army, and receiving education composed the basic duties, the meaning of which seemed apparent. In contrast, the terms for the populace’s rights were involved and abstruse. Public and private were the two major categories distinguishing the populace’s political rights. The former referred to “the uses of four political powers to manage national affairs,” the textbook explained, but left out any concrete information about what these four powers meant and how to employ them.19 Similarly, the textbook offered no clarification on how to put private rights into use, either. It simply addressed them as the freedom over one’s personal body,

18 See Lesson sixteen, volume one of Minzhong xuexiao keben, 2nd ed. (n.p.: Xinguang yinshua gongsi, 1937), 16-21. 19 The four powers were election, recall, initiative, and referendum, as regulated by the Three People’s Principles. 169 household, and property, and the right of petition towards law and politics.20 The

Nationalists’ sponsored literacy education displayed no explicit intention to train the populace how to exercise their political rights. Rather, the populace was only informed what they were entitled to nominally. In short, its literacy education did not prepare the populace for constitutional polity as the Three Principles of the

People discourse dictated.21

What the literacy primer contextualized were the ethics that guided an individual’s social life, as defined in the “New Life Movement”(1934-1949). Sense of propriety (禮 li), integrity (義 yi), frugality (廉 lian), and sense of shame (恥 chi), virtues that were embedded in traditional Confucian culture were adopted. The textbook continued to offer further explanation: li regulated interpersonal interaction, yi guided the way people handled affairs, lian was the attitude for consumption, and chi reminded everyone about both personal and national shame.

Obeying these principles, the masses “worked to get rid of old habits and cultivate new social customs.” Through self-transformation in social life, the masses could contribute to rejuvenate the nation.22

20 See Lesson seven, volume three of Minzhong xuexiao keben, 2nd ed. (n.p.: Xinguang yinshua gongsi, 1937), 11-12. 21 Christopher A. Reed’s study on the GMD’s instructional manual for propaganda workers issued in 1929 offers an explanation for the absence of interests in instructing the masses in the four basic political rights. He suggests that already in 1929 “political tutelage and local self-government was no longer a pressing concern for Nanjing.” The emphasis, instead, was placed upon ensuring the party members understood their political obligations. Ensuring ideological unity within the Party and transforming revolutionary party members into a reliable state bureaucracy became the main concerns. See “Propaganda by the Book,” Frontiers of History in China 10, no. 1(2015, forthcoming): 96-125. 22 See Lesson six, volume four of Minzhong xuexiao keben, 2nd ed. (n.p.: Xinguang yinshua gongsi, 1937), 8-9. 170

However, since all the terms and the meanings of these virtues were inherited from the past, it could be challenging to render the sense of “new” life by enacting these principles. Additionally, this textbook endorsed a version of traditional Chinese morality, including loyalty and filial piety (忠孝 zhongxiao), benevolence (仁愛 renai), good faith (信義 xinyi), and love of peace (和平 heping).

It advocated these indigenous values as defining the Chinese national spirit.23 If the fundamental beliefs shaping an individual’s mind remained intact, changes to living habits, such as stopping littering and spitting on the floor,24 could hardly deeply engrave a sense of “new” into the populace’s heart.

Certainly, the Nationalist literacy training did not attempt to subvert the social order. Neither did it intend to empower the masses politically. Acquisition of the skills of reading and writing did not expand personal access to new social and political resources in the textbook. The importance of literacy was loosely described as “enriching one’s knowledge.”25 For students, the function of literacy remained largely construed in the traditional ways—capabilities of handling daily documents, such as accounts, correspondence, contracts, and loan certificates.26 Incorporating the training of these practical skills, the Nationalists’ literacy classes appeared to pay attention to ordinary people’s needs. These daily demands for literacy skills had

23 See Lesson seven, volume four of Minzhong xuexiao keben, 2nd ed. (n.p.: Xinguang yinshua gongsi, 1937), 9-11. 24 These were part of the reforms the New Life Movement intended to bring to local society. 25 See Lesson four, volume one of Minzhong xuexiao keben, 2nd ed. (n.p.: Xinguang yinshua gongsi, 1937). 26 See lessons eight and twelve of volume one, sixteen and seventeen of volume three, and ten of volume four of Minzhong xuexiao keben, 2nd ed. (n.p.: Xinguang yinshua gongsi, 1937). 171 long existed in China. Yet, local society was able to survive with 20-25 percent of the population possessing some ability to read and write in late imperial China.27 Hence, it was reasonable to doubt that the Nationalists’ mass education program would be able to increase the popular appeal of literacy in any significant way.

It was obvious to the Nationalists as well that the Textbook for Mass School was not sufficient to involve the populace in any particular political movement. To facilitate its campaigns against the Chinese Communists and Japanese colonizers, the GMD published special versions of the literacy learning materials. Early in the beginning years of the 1930s during its military campaign against the CCP’s Jiangxi

Soviet regime, the Nationalists launched a literacy movement among its soldiers and people living in the Communist-influenced areas in south China. These literacy primers featured the message of “suppressing the Communist bandits (剿匪 jiaofei).”28

The GMD’s Special Literacy Education

“Bandit,” a term familiar to the masses, bridged the CCP’s activities with popular memories about vicious local order disturbers and avaricious robbers. The

27 Wilt L. Idema, review of Evelyn Rawski, Education and Popular Literacy in Ch’ing China [untitled], T’oung Pao 66, nos.4-5 (1980): 314 -324. Also see Cynthia Brokaw’s discussion of literacy registers which highlights the varying level of literacy among the masses, Commerce in Culture, The Sibao Book Trade in the Qing and Republican Periods (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007), chap. 14. 28 Junshi weiyuanhui weiyuanzhang Nanchang xingying (軍事委員會委員長南昌行營 Nanchang field office of Generalissimo of military committee), comp., Shibing shizi keben (士兵識字課本 Literacy primer for soldiers) (Shanghai: Zhonghua Book Company, 1935); Jianxisheng tezhong jiaoyu yanjiu bu, ed., Tezhong jiaoyu ertong duben (Shanghai: Zhonghua Book Company, 1935-36). 172

Nationalist literacy classes then served to colloquialize the word “Communist bandit

(共匪 gongfei)” or “Red bandit (赤匪 chifei).” Learning the word shed influence on how people understood the world. Referring to the Communists as outlaws, the populace would naturally tend to accept the legitimacy of the GMD anti-Communist campaign. To further justify the necessity of the struggle against the CCP, the

Nationalist literacy primers offered personal narratives and confessions portraying the evil deeds committed by the Communists.

In the form of a letter, the literacy primer intended to present a first-person narrative about the situation in the Communist-controlled areas. The story was told by a refugee named Big An (大安), who said the Red bandits would first marshal local hoodlums and ruffians into the Red Army wherever they went. Killing, burning, and looting then ensued. A typical plot of bandit forces involved raiding villages. On the second day, the Red bandits would hold a worker and peasant convention, advocating expropriating landlords’ properties and dividing them among the peasants. In the eyes of Big An, this was a strategy used to delude the masses into joining their rebellion. Then, on the third day, villagers would be forced to “donate” grain and money. Adult men would be conscripted, oftentimes against their will.

Under such circumstance, it was impossible to live and work. Therefore, Big An chose to flee. This letter then closed with a summary sentence: “The crimes committed by Red bandits were so severe. We should never forgive them at any

173 rate.”29 Included in the primer for soldiers, this didactic text aimed to agitate for a resolute attack on the Communists.

To carry out its military campaign against the Communists, the GMD understood clearly that military discipline and training were the key. Literacy studies served this purpose with a concentration of consolidating loyalty and preventing defection. It introduced to the soldiers the notion that Generalissimo

Chiang Kai-shek was the supreme leader and demanded their absolute obedience.

Chiang’s words were frequently quoted, just as those of ancient sages were widely cited in popular literacy readers. The textbook also presented to the Nationalist soldiers the miserable life “Red bandits” suffered in the form of a confession by a

Communist captive. This POW claimed that he was an innocent commoner but forced to join the “Red bandits.” Life was extremely rough while serving in the Red

Army. He rarely had enough to eat, nor was he amply clothed during winter.

Medicine was unavailable. Even salt was scarce. What made the situation even worse were the long marches every day. Contrary to the rumor that Red Army soldiers were paid equally with 20 yuan per month, this captive testified that the

Communist soldiers received no payment but allowance for straw sandals in the amount of 0.3 yuan per month. Equality across ranks was untrue, the book claimed.

While the soldiers and low-rank field officers struggled in deprived circumstances, high-level commanders made a mint.30

29 Junshi weiyuanhui weiyuanzhang Nanchang xingying, comp., Shibing shizi keben (士兵識字課本 Literacy primers for soldiers) (Shanghai: Zhonghua Book Company, 1935), 4:25-26. 30 Ibid., 4:23-25. 174

It seems, in the Nationalists’ eyes, that basic needs were the key factors to motivate people joining the military when they were being unmet otherwise. By showing that the Red Army had no resources to fulfill these needs, the GMD’s literacy training persuaded its soldiers not to consider changing sides. Discussion of the Red bandits’ deficiency of material and financial supplies in turn was intended to stabilize the morale of the GMD troops, who should be content with their treatment.

The literacy study was not purely a program of learning to read and write, but a soft approach of disciplinary training and cultivation of loyalty. It fed soldiers with hatred and disgust towards the Nationalists’ enemies. These sentiments would galvanize soldiers on the battlefield, it was hoped.

After the Second United Front between the GMD and CCP forged after the

Xi’an Incident in late December 1936, the GMD officially suspended its military campaign against the Communists. Its literacy learning materials for soldiers changed accordingly. Issued in April 1937, the new edition clearly identified Japan as the national enemy. And Generalissimo Chiang was the ONLY revolutionary leader of the country. However, against the official United Front discourse of

“uniting with the Communists, fighting against the Japanese,” the literacy primers persisted in instilling anti-Communist ideas. The Nationalist soldiers still learned to call the Communists “Red bandits.” Their literacy textbook even drew an analogy between “Red bandits” and houseflies. It classified both as detrimental public enemies and therefore should not be distinguished. “To save China, we must annihilate the evil Red bandits! For the sake of public health and hygiene, we must 175 exterminate squalid flies!”31 These were the slogans soldiers were supposed to read aloud. A definite understanding about who were clearly enemies was a goal of great importance for soldiers’ literacy acquisition. Demeaning the Communists, the words soldiers learnt encouraged them to fight against the Reds relentlessly.

The parallel between “Red bandits” and houseflies that the GMD cited was not only intended to stir hostile sentiments towards the Communists, but also reflected the adjusted agenda of literacy training during the war. As mentioned earlier in chapter 3, literacy education was requested to be unified with local administration, production, and improving public health. This was the core of rural reform that the Nationalists proposed during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The slogans cited above might have been a trial-run for such a combination. Soldier students were expected to fight on both political and social fronts.

As the presence of the CCP forces haunted the Nationalists, it was in the regions vulnerable to Communist permeation where we see the most dynamic literacy programs the GMD ever organized. In Shaanxi province, home to the CCP’s central base area, the GMD carried on special education policies inherited from its campaign against the Jiangxi Soviet. Hengshan County (橫山縣) was among the regions that the GMD characterized as ideologically sensitive. Located in northern

31 Junshi weiyuanhui zhengxunchu (軍事委員會政訓處 Military Committee political education department), ed., Shibing shizi keben (士兵識字課本 Soldiers’ literacy primer) ([Hankou?]: Saodang baoshe, 1937), 3:24. 176

Shaanxi, it was embraced on three sides (east, west, and south) by

Communist-controlled counties.32

Special education in Hengshan began with a name change. Zhongshan, Sun

Yat-sen’s Chinese given name, was endowed to Mass Education Institutes and mass schools, the main institutions responsible for special education. The message was clear: the GMD attempted to make sure that the populace understood the literacy training they received was granted by the Nationalists.33 The GMD chose to set up

Zhongshan mass schools in large towns with wide accessibility to people living in the region. The Second Zhongshan Mass School in Hengshan County, for example, recruited thirty-two students from forty villages in early 1939. Apart from attracting students from Hengshan, this mass school also managed to get students from its neighboring counties controlled by the Communists, for example, Mizhi and Suide.34

The anti-Communist agenda defined the nature of literacy instruction in

Zhongshan mass schools. “To rectify people’s thought (Jiuzheng minzhong sixiang

糾正民眾思想),” in the Nationalists’ own words, was the focal point.35 For this end,

32 Hengshan is north of Yan’an, contiguous to Mizhi (米脂) and Suide (綏德) county to the east, Zichang (子長) and Ansai (安塞) county in the south, and Jingbian (靖邊) county in the west, all of which were affiliated to the Chinese Communists’ Shaan-Gan-Ning border government. 33 “Zhongshan jiaoyuguan shezhi banfa (中山教育館設置辦法 Regulations on the establishment of Zhongshan Mass Education Institute),” Shaanxi Provincial Archive (cited by catalogue and file number), 1-7-96. 34 “Hengshanxian dier Zhongshan minzhong xuexiao 1939-1941 nian chengnian funǚ ertong ban xuesheng mingce (橫山縣第二中山民眾學校 1939-1941 年成人婦女兒童班學生姓名冊 Adult, woman, and child student registrars of the Second Zhongshan Mass School in Hengshan County, 1939-1941),” Shaanxi Provincial Archive, 1-15-68. 35 “Shaanxisheng tongban tejiao xianfen Zhongshan jiaoyuguan gongzuo dagang (陝西省統辦特教縣份中山教育館工作大綱 Zhongshan Mass Education Institute work plan in the counties designated for special education in Shaanxi province),” Shaanxi Provincial Archive, 1-7-96. 177 political training was given to teachers assigned to the posts,36 and their thought was continuously under surveillance. They were required to submit reading notes regularly.37 And their reading list was assigned by the central government, including Tejiao congkan (特教丛刊 Special education collection) and Tejiao tongxun (特教通讯 Special education newsletter).38 In order to counter the increasing influence of Communists among primary school teachers during the

1930s,39 the Nationalists managed to tighten ideological control over the instructors, especially those serving for special education.

Teachers also acted as Party agents at Zhongshan mass schools. One of their major duties was to recruit students and local people to the Nationalist Party and its

Sun Yat-sen Three Principles of the People Youth League.40 Literacy education served for ideological indoctrination. More importantly, it created a chance for teachers to build personal ties with students, their families, and local society. These localized connections enabled the teachers to gain access to and collect information pertaining to the Communists. For instance, teachers of the Second Zhongshan Mass

36 “Shaanxisheng zhengfu guanyu tejiao gongzuo renyuan xunlianban ji jingli renyuan xunlianban de youguan cailiao (陝西省政府關於特教工作人員訓練班及經理人員訓練班的有關材料 Materials about the training for special education teacher and administrative personnel by Shaanxi provincial government),” Shaanxi Provincial Archive, 1-7-16. 37 “Shaanxi tezhong jiaoyuan yuedu biji (陝西特種教員閱讀筆記 Shaanxi special education teachers’ reading notes),” Shaanxi Provincial Archive, 1-5-67. 38 “Hengshanxian geji tejiao jiaolianfa (橫山縣各級特教教練法 Teaching methods for special education in across Hengshan County),” Shaanxi Provincial Archive, 1-15-71. Tejiao congkan was a collection of various titles designated for special education. It was published by Zhengzhong shuju (正中書局) founded in 1931 by Chen Lifu (陳立夫 1900-2001), who served as the Minster of Education during 1938-1944. Tejiao tongxun was a monthly journal issued by the Ministry of Education. 39 See Xiaoping Cong, Teachers’ Schools and the Making of the Modern Chinese Nation-State 1897-1937 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2007). 40 Hengshanxian teji tejiao jiaolianfa, Shaanxi Provincial Archive, 1-15-71. 178

School in Hengshan County once reported that about a hundred Communist scouts visited Shiwan (石灣), the town where the school was located. They further detailed the items these Communists spies brought to make marks, including eighty-three matches, three big copper coins and five small ones, as well as a button.41 It was unknown how these mass school teachers managed to obtain this information.

Nevertheless, it was clear that they carried out their responsibilities to keep the local society under strict political surveillance.

Relying on these specially trained teachers, the Nationalists’ mass school in its political frontiers served to militarize local society. Self-defense training was offered alongside literacy instructions, which featured the Nationalists’ discourses on nation-building during the anti-Japanese war. Those military-eligible individuals were then organized into local militia, who were placed on guard against their

Communist neighbors. Furthermore, the mass school in Henghan devoted great efforts to ensure that each villager and household registered in the baojia system.42

Absorbing villagers into its administrative and military organizations, the

Nationalists attempted to grasp firm control over the local community.

Literacy education in general mass schools prepared students for potential political mobilization. Those in these special education schools involved students directly in the Nationalists’ local management. Similar to the rural reconstruction

41 “Henshanxian dier Zhongshan minzhong xuexiao gongzuo ribao (橫山縣第二中山民眾學校工作日報 Daily work report of the Second Zhongshan Mass School in Hengshan County),” Shaanxi Provincial Archive, 1-15-67. 42 “Hengshanxian dier Zhongshan minzhong xuexiao gongzuo yuebaobiao (橫山縣第二中山民眾學校工作月報表 Monthly work report of the Second Zhongshan Mass School in Hengshan County),” Shaanxi Provincial Archive, 1-15-70. 179 project organized by liberal scholars like James Yen, the Second Zhongshan Mass

School in Hengshan extended education into the rural society through teacher and students’ community service. Conciliation of conflicts, land reclamation, tree planting, instruction in raising livestock, as well as campaigns against opium smoking, were all part of the school’s mission.43 What made the GMD’s education distinct was its political agenda, which strived to establish and maintain the social and political structure the Nationalists prescribed.

The GMD’s Illiteracy Myth

In its official rhetoric, the GMD attributed the lack of popular interest in its basic education program not to its irrelevant content, but rather, to the masses’ ignorance. The general populace was charged as unable to understand the importance of literacy, especially as an irreplaceable means to knowledge and national prosperity. Hence, the government had to force the populace into schooling.

Contradictory to the GMD’s version of the illiteracy myth in China, forced-schooling

(強迫入學 qiangpo ruxue) was merely tokenism. The GMD’s bureaucracy barely managed to implement this policy. More importantly, it concealed the fact that the

GMD government had no resources sufficient to schooling all, if forced-schooling was indeed put into practice. Apathy to the state-sponsored schooling was not necessarily equal to indifference to literacy acquisition. Ironically, it was its political

43 Ibid. 180 undertone and inconvenient location that disfavored the state project against private initiatives.

Forced-schooling was deemed necessary and legitimate because receiving education was defined as a civic duty in the GMD’s Republican China. Regulations on literacy campaigns at both the central and local level incorporated the rule of forced-schooling. It is important to know that forced-schooling meant to enroll the masses into schools sponsored by the government. Under the New County System installed by the GMD in 1939, local government officially substituted for local communities in managing collectively owned educational funds. As a result, the previous tripod system of schools—funded by the government, public, and private respectively in the late Qing, was replaced by a polarized structure: private vs. public, with the latter now referring to those established and sponsored by the government.44

Baojia leaders were the new executive personnel, who were expected to visit each household and persuade the illiterate, both school-aged children and adults, to attend schools. In large towns and urban areas, the Nationalist Party organs and police forces also got involved to assist baojia leaders. However, oftentimes, baojia leaders appeared not quite cooperative.45 Without their help, the rule of forced-schooling could hardly be executed.

44 Based on level of their affiliated governments, public schools were then divided by guoli (國立 state-funded), shengli (省立 province funded), shili (市立 prefecture funded), xianli (縣立 county funded). 45 See Jiaoyubu, “Xueling ertong ji shixue minzhong qiangpo ruxue banfa(学龄儿童及失学民众强迫入学办法 Regulations on forced-schooling for school-aged children and unschooled masses),” 181

Baojia leaders’ noncompliance might have reflected their lack of power over the local community. In the cases where forced-schooling was indeed imposed, baojia leaders either relied on the aid of local police, or were capable to apportion the quota among each village household.46 Forced-schooling was also actualized in literacy schools affiliated with factories. The owners were able to have selected workers to enroll in the literacy classes.47 The absence of authority among local baojia leaders could partially account for the forced-schooling policy being unfulfilled in most parts of rural China, a situation to which personal experiences concurred. Among the 12 people the author interviewed able to remember this era, none reported that forced-schooling was carried out in their locale. Rarely were there individuals mobilizing the masses for attending schools, let alone coercing.48

The incompetence of baojia leaders in pursuing forced-schooling actually did not bother the local government, as there would be not enough schools available if

Shaanxi Provincial Archive, 1-15-66; “Shaanxisheng zhanshi tuixing minzhong buxi jiaoyu jihua dagang (陝西省戰時推行民眾補習教育計畫大綱 Outline for promoting mass supplementary education in wartime Shaanxi),” Shaanxi Provincial Archive, 1-15-108; “Guanyu baosong tuixing shixue minzhong shizi jiaoyu qingxing (關於報送推行失學民眾識字教育情形 Reports on promoting literacy education among unschooled masses),” Chongqing Municipal Archive, 65-1-708; “Hengshanxian zhengfu guanyu sheli baoxue de xunling (橫山縣政府關於設立保學的訓令 Instructions on establishing baojia schools),” Shaanxi Provincial Archive, 1-15-108. Baojia leaders who went to great lengths to implement forced-schooling were quite rare. 46 See Guanyu baosong tuixing shixue minzhong shizi jiaoyu qingxing, Chongqing Municipal Archive, 65-1-708; Wang Xingnong (王兴农), ed., Hengshanxian Shiwan xiaoxue bannian xiaoshi, 1906-2006 (横山县石湾小学百年校史 Hundred-year history of Shiwan primary school in Hengshan County) (Hengshan: Hengshanxian Shiwan xiaoxue Xiaoshi bianweihui, 2006), 12. 47 “Guanyu xuban gongren shizi ban bing fagei jiazhong jiaocai zhi Chongqingshi jiaoyuju de han (關於續辦工人識字班並發給甲種教材致重慶市教育局的函 Letters to Chongqing Education Bureau regarding continuation of worker literacy classes, and requests for distributing textbooks)” (1946), Chongqing Municipal Archive, 65-1-692. 48 Interviews with elderly citizens who were born in the 1930s and 1940s, Chongqing, Xi’an, and Guiyang, Summer 2010. 182 these local leaders were able to carry out their tasks successfully.49 In some cases, local community’s requests for expanding the scale of schools were even rejected by the government, on the grounds of deficiency of sustainable educational resources.

Baojia schools in Chongqing, for instance, tended to be excessively overenrolled during wartime.50 These local schools’ demands for increases in the number of classes, however, were denied. The “excuses” the Chongqing government adopted included “not enough classrooms were available.” The fundamental reason, however, rested on the fact that an increase of classes would have put pressure on already strapped local budgets. Adding classes meant hiring more teachers, whose salaries were paid in both cash and grain by the local government. Running short of grain was the reason cited frequently by the Chongqing government. Some of the expansion requests got approved only under the condition that the local baojia community would be responsible for the grain paid to new teachers.51 The conundrum was not the masses’ indifference to schooling. Rather, it was the institutional and material insufficiency that could not accommodate the popular demand for schooling in wartime Chongqing.

49 Interview with Mr. Shi, Xi’an, Summer 2010. Jiangjinxian jiaoyuju (江津縣教育局 Jiangjin County Bureau of Education), “Tuixing chengren shizi yundong puji guomin jiaoyu shifan xiang shishi banfa de cheng(推行成人識字運動普及國民教育示範鄉鎮實施辦法的呈 Petition on the implementation methods for establishment of model towns in order to promote the adult literacy movement and popularize national education),” Chongqing Municipal Archive, 55-6-61. 50 Some classes even had over a hundred students. 51 “Guanyu baosong 1943 niandu shangxueqi minzhong shiziban xuesheng mingce bing zengjia bianci de cheng (關於報送一九四三年度上學期民眾識字班學生名冊並增加班次的呈 Reports of student register of mass literacy class in the first semester of 1943 and petition on increase of number of classes)” (1943), Chongqing Municipal Archive, 65-3-136. 183

Commoners’ over-enthusiasm in literacy learning was not unique to

Chongqing. Villagers in Jiangjin (江津), a neighboring county to Chongqing, presented a strong interest in education as well, as observed by local educational officials.52 So did peasants in the GMD’s political frontier—Hengshan County in

Shaanxi, where we see an appeal made by several villagers for establishing a private school to serve local youth, as the public school was far away.53 A long-distance commute indisputably composed a primary deficit for a public school. It was quite normal for some students to walk three to six miles to school.54 Despite most public schools being free of tuition charges, villagers might still favor private ones due to their convenience.

In addition, not all public schools exempted students from tuitions and fees.

Only those sponsored directly by the central government lived up to the name of free education. There was no charge of tuition, room and board, and textbooks.

Students would share learning materials owned by the school. Schools funded by prefecture and county government, in contrast, might collect textbook costs and accommodation fees from students. Some local baojia schools had to charge students for tuition in order to sustain themselves. Pupils in Maxingmiao (馬興廟)

52 Jiangjinxian jiaoyuju, “Tuixing chengren shizi yundong puji guomin jioayu shifan xiang shishi banfa de cheng,” Chongqing Municipal Archive, 55-6-61. 53 Hengshanxian zhengfu guanyu sheli baoxue de xunling, Shaanxi Provincial Archive, 1-15-108. 54 Interview with Mr. Wang, Chongqing, Summer 2010. 184 primary school in Chongqing’s suburb, for example, had to pay both in cash and grain. Without either, admission would not be granted.55

Students’ tuition, in turn, confirmed that rural communities paid teachers appointed by the government in village public schools, as cash and grain were exactly the kinds of payment teachers would receive during the wartime. Under such circumstances, it was likely that villagers preferred private schools (sishu) for basic literacy learning. In this way, parents attained control over the appointment of teachers, as they distrusted public school teachers’ cultural credentials.56 Parents also were able to negotiate the contract with private tutors individually, another advantage over the public schools which imposed tuitions unilaterally. The one-to-one teaching style offered by sishu appeared to be welcomed more by villagers than class teaching.57

If literacy learning in most situations would cost villagers financially, who could afford such learning would be a question of significant importance. Poverty had long been accused as the reason for illiteracy. The elite normally cited a Chinese adage “only after people are well-off, could culture become a necessity (Canglin shi er zhi lijie 倉廩實而知禮節).”58 It considered ample food and clothing a prerequisite

55 Interviews with Mr. Shi and Ms. Zhao, Xi’an; interviews with Mr. Wang, Mr. Li, and Mr. He, Chongqing; interview with Mr. Deng, Guiyang, Summer 2010. Ms. Zhao was born in 1933 in Xi’an, Shaanxi province. She attended both public primary and middle schools in Xi’an. Mr. Deng was born in a small village in Zunyi, Guizhou province in 1926. He began his education from sishu run by his father and transferred to a baojia school in the local town. He then studied at public middle and high school in the city. 56 Jiangjinxian jiaoyuju, “Tuixing chengren shizi yundong puji guomin jiaoyu shifan xiang shishi banfa de cheng,” Chongqing Municipal Archive, 55-6-61. 57 Interview with Mr. Deng, Guiyang, Summer 2010. 58 This adage originated from the first chapter Mumin (牧民 On shepherding the people) of Guanzi 185 to literacy learning. Mr. Li’s story revealed this was not necessary true. Born into a tenant family, Li considered that his family was “quite poor.” Though food could be guaranteed, they must weather the winter with only a pair of unlined trousers and bare feet, even during snowy days. Nonetheless, all of his seven siblings graduated from primary schools.59

In other situations, children strived to work their way through basic education. Both of Mr. He’s parents worked as hired labors. His father was a cook and his mother washed clothes to make a living. Mr. He was the only one of three children in the family able to enroll in primary school. To do so, he had to work in the coal-pit before school in the morning and go to dig wild vegetables after school in the afternoon.60 The situation in large cities bore similar features. In Ms. Zhang’s account, her parents were coolies—looking for odd jobs on the street in Chongqing.

Taking pity on her parents, she chose to stay at home helping out, while her brothers and sisters were still able to attend school.61 These individual experiences show that some families even in dire financial straits still managed to have their children receive basic literacy education.

The affordability of literacy learning was not necessarily divided absolutely by financial status, as the GMD officials and social elites believed, or along class-lines,

(管子), writings of Chinese philosopher Guan Zhong (管仲). For the English translation, see Guanzi: Political, Economic, and Philosophical Essays from Early China, a Study and Translation, trans. W. Allyn Rickett (Boston: Cheng & Tsui, 2001), 51-52. Mencius also elaborates similar ideas in chapter 1, Liang Huiwang (梁惠王) part one. See Mencius, trans. Irene Bloom and ed. Philip J. Ivanhoe (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), Book 1 A. 59 Interview with Mr. Li, Chongqing, Summer 2010. 60 Interview with Mr. He, Chongqing, Summer 2010. 61 Interview with Ms. Zhang, Chongqing, Summer 2010. 186 as the Chinese Communists proposed. It was not confined exclusively to certain professions, either. Students usually came from diverse family backgrounds, including merchants, vendors, peasants, and drudges. This was true for pupils in primary schools, but also for adults enrolled in literacy classes.62 Family financial power might loom more prominent in higher education beyond the basic level. In the realm of literacy acquisition, it did not appear to be an independent, decisive variable.

The gap of mass education between rural and urban, to a great extent, was a result of unequal allocation of institutional resources, and less about peasants’ indifference to literacy. The existing village schools appeared to be too sparse in the vast countryside. Among those enrolled in Hengshan Zhongshan Mass School, for instance, some had to take one or two days off to go home to get their provisions.63

Scattered housing in rural parts challenged group-based concentrated classroom teaching. Some villagers gave up schooling simply because of the strain of living extremely far away from school.64

Gender appeared to be an evident factor that separated populace attitudes towards literacy learning. As in late imperial China during the Republican period, girls, comparatively speaking, had less chance to learn how to read and write than

62 “Guanyu baosong xuesheng mingce bing qing fagei minjiao keben shang Chongqingshi jiaoyuju de cheng(关于报送学生名册并请发给民教课本上重庆市教育局的呈 Reports on student register and petition to Chongqing Education Bureau for granting mass literacy education textbook)” (1944), Chongqing Municipal Archive, 65-3-6. “Hengshanxian dier Zhongshan minzhong xuexiao 1939-1941 nian chengnian funü ertong ban xuesheng mingce,” Shaanxi Provincial Archive, 1-15-68. 63 “Hengshanxian dier Zhongshan minzhong xuexiao 1939-1941 nian chengnian funü ertong ban xuesheng mingce,” Shaanxi Provincial Archive, 1-15-68. 64 Interview with Mr. Li, Chongqing, Summer 2010; “Hengshanxian zhengfu guanyu sheli baoxue de xunling,” Shaanxi Provincial Archive, 1-15-108. 187 boys.65 Adult women felt uncomfortable being instructed by a man unknown to the family. This was the challenge mass schools usually encountered initially.66 But exceptions did exist. People’s perceptions toward women’s literacy learning were subject to change. Though separate women’s schools and literacy classes persisted, co-educational primary schools gradually became acceptable. When teaching in the public elementary school developed into a ready career for girls, parents fostered raising interest in schooling their daughters, because this investment would soon pay off handsomely.67

Overall, common peoples’ views toward literacy were largely situated in its role in serving immediate daily needs. Literacy facilitated secretarial tasks, but was not indispensible for careers accessible to commoners besides teaching. Even baojia leaders were not necessarily literate. During the war, illiteracy was quite common among police, factory workers, and soldiers.68 Disfavoring radical systematical

65 Interviews with Mr. He and Mr. Li, Chongqing, interview with Mr. Deng, Guiyang, Summer 2010. 66 “Hengshanxian di’er Zhongshan minzhong xuexiao gongzuo ribao”(1940-41), Shaanxi Provincial Archive, 1-5-67. 67 Liu Jinan(劉濟南) and Cao Zizheng (曹子正), eds., Hengshan xianzhi (橫山縣誌 Hengshan gazetteer) (1929; repr., Taibei: Chengwen chubanshe, 1969), 285. For discussions of female education, see Paul John Bailey, Gender and Education in China: Gender Discourses and Women's Schooling in the Early Twentieth Century (New York: Routledge, 2007). For changes to women’s status, see Diana Lary, The Chinese People at War: Human Suffering and Social Transformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Louise Edwards, Gender, Politics, and Democracy: Women’s Suffrage in China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008); Danke Li, Echoes of Chongqing: Women in Wartime China (Urbana and Chicago: Illinois University Press, 2010). 68 “Guanyu chabao shangbu shizi zhi baojia renyuan de cheng (關於查報尚不識字之保甲人員的呈 Reports on the investigation of illiterate baojia leaders)” (1944), Chongqing Municipal Archive, 57-9-27; “Guanyu zengjia shizi jingcha yuexiang de gonghan (關於增加識字員警月餉的公函 Official documents on increasing the salary for literate police),” Chongqing Municipal Archive, 61-3-427; “Guanyu xuban gongren shizi ban bing fagei jiazhong jiaocai zhi Chongqingshi jiaoyuju de han” (1946), Chongqing Municipal Archive, 65-1-692; Junshi weiyuanhui (軍事委員會 Military committee), “Guanyu fagei minzhong shizi keben de wanglai gonghan (關於發給民眾識字課本的往 188 social changes, the Nationalists fell short in rendering new meanings to literacy.

Established social customs and relations continued regulating daily life. There was no demand for new literacy skills of the Three Principles of the People for individuals to function in the local community. Literacy learning in the programs sponsored by the GMD barely expanded personal access to social and political resources. They predominantly served to subject individuals to state efforts of fighting against the imperialists and Communists.

The GMD’s political agenda was not well-received by commoners, and sometimes, not even by the teachers. Villagers suspected that public schooling served for conscription. Therefore, it happened that the rich hired others to take their place in public schools.69 Activities organized by public schools actually verified people’s assumptions. Mass school students in Hengshan directly engaged in maintaining local safety, among which monitoring the CCP’s activities claimed an important place.70 Also, middle school students were a target group for conscription during the war. To this end, the GMD usually dispatched special mobilization teams to schools. These teams appeared able to attract the young, and some eventually decided to be recruited. But it did not necessarily mean that students were swayed by the Nationalists’ political pronouncements. A female student would choose to join the army in order to escape from an arranged

來公函 Official letters on distributing mass literacy textbook)” (1946), Chongqing Municipal Archive, 65-1-692. 69 Wang Xingnong ed., Hengshanxian Shiwan xiaoxue bannian xiaoshi, 1906-2006 (Hengshan: Hengshanxian Shiwan xiaoxue xiaoshi bianweihui, 2006), 12. 70 “Hengshanxian Zhongshan Minzhong xuexiao yewu rizhi (橫山縣中山民眾學校業務日誌 Hengshan County Zhongshan mass school daily log)”(1941), Shaanxi Provincial Archive, 1-5-69. 189 marriage, as revealed in a public school teacher’s diary. This teacher himself, however, disagreed strongly with enlisting middle school students for the army. He believed it was worthless for the teens to sacrifice their lives protecting corrupt officials, who were actually the causes of all sociopolitical problems and national calamities, in his view.71

Teachers’ grudges against the Nationalist government, to a certain extent, explain why political indoctrination in public schools appeared to be perfunctory.

Students recalled that they recited Sun Yat-sen’s testament, but these routinized behaviors did not carry political meaning for them. Teachers’ backgrounds also brought varying educational experiences. Although students in state-sponsored schools had classes on civics and politics, those taught by former Qing scholars had no contact with the Nationalist ideologies. Further, the ideas students learnt from the class were not reinforced through social practices. Not only teachers, but neither did the Nationalist Party branch within schools organize student activities regularly.

The student members of the Youth League of the Three Principles of the People usually had no clear understanding about what organization it was. Some even did not know they became a member, as their names were recorded by their teachers simply for fulfilling the quotas assigned by a higher authority.72

71 Ma Yide(馬義德), Ma Yide riji (馬義德日記 Ma Yide’s dairies), vol. 9 (1944), Shaanxi Provincial Archive, 1-15-564. Ma received the GMD Ministry of Education’s training for primary and middle school teachers in the war zone. Afterwards, he worked in the educational service team in Shaanxi and was in charge of editing the journal Jiaozhan banyue kan (教戰半月刊 Education and war bi-weekly journal). He also taught in public middle schools in Shaanxi in the 1940s. 72 Interviews with Mr. Shi and Ms. Zhao, Xi’an, interview with Mr. He, Mr. Li, and Mr. Wang, Chongqing, Summer 2010. 190

Students’ experiences contrasted sharply with the Party’s expectations. The

Nationalists intended to influence individual political inclinations through literacy learning. Schooling was used to socialize students politically with an affiliation to the Party. This political agenda, however, was mediated through teachers, and contingent upon the interplay between what students read and wrote and what they internalized. Internalization involved the process of contextualizing the content of literacy learning in daily life. The transformative power of literacy did not act in a direct and straightforward way. For students to embrace and believe in the GMD’s political ideologies, it was essential that related literacy learning could generate new social roles experienced by individuals in local environments.

Conclusion

With a focus merely on the cultivation of nationhood and national identity, the GMD’s general literacy education program proved to be weak at identifying itself with immediate daily conditions. Mass schooling in the rear areas was largely stranded within the classroom. Only in its special education zone did the GMD’s literacy program directly involve students in its political endeavors. The masses learned to read the Communists as “Red bandits,” a threat to local safety. This recognition then was practiced and actualized while they investigated Communist suspects among travelers and hotel guests. In those political frontiers, literacy learners also applied their knowledge of public health to inspect local hygiene

191

“blackholes” as part of the GMD’s New Life Movement.73 Through these activities, individuals were absorbed into the state agenda. In other words, peasant students acted on behalf of the government to impose influence over the locale. The link between literacy learning and grass-root needs was still weak.

The non-elite perceived the role of literacy in relation to accessing and creating information pertaining to local life. The GMD’s basic education program introduced the Three Principles of the People to individuals. Unfortunately, this political theory failed to build direct connections to individual life in the lower sectors. In addition, the Nationalists were ideologically opposed to radical social reforms. Power structures in the local society were not fundamentally different from the previous regimes. Therefore, the urgent need for acquiring literacy through the Nationalist project was absent. Instead of accusing the masses of being ignorant about the importance of literacy, it would have been more appropriate to argue that the skills of reading and writing had not claimed an irreplaceable place in individuals’ lives. The Nationalist government was nowhere close to creating such a circumstance in the 1930s and 1940s.74

Relying on Sun’s Three Principles of the People to brand its literacy education programs made the GMD regime vulnerable to criticism. The GMD constructed its political legitimacy on the idea that it would lead China to eventually realizing constitutionalism, to which mass literacy was a prerequisite. The majority

73 Hengshanxian Zhongshan Minzhong xuexiao yewu rizhi (1941), Shaanxi Provincial Archive, 1-5-69. 74 Lloyd E. Eastman, The Abortive Revolution, China under Nationalist Rule, 1927-1937; and Seeds of Destruction: Nationalist China in War and Revolution, 1937-1949 (Stanford University Press, 198 4). 192 being illiterate also justified the necessity of contemporary political tutelage, in which the GMD claimed absolute authority. These blueprints along with statistical data on the schooling of adults worked to chart the milestones leading to a promising democratic polity to be realized in the future. However, tardiness in progress could backfire. It posed doubts towards the GMD’s capabilities in achieving universal literacy, and thus a prosperous China afterwards. The legitimating power of the Nationalist discourses on popular literacy got shredded. The Chinese

Communists, in contrast, posited a Communist political revolution prior to universal literacy, as shown in the next chapter. The presence of illiteracy, therefore, constantly supplied rhetorical power engineering political change.

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Chapter 5: Revolutionary Literacy

The moon is shining, as if burning. We bear hardship, while others are happy. Little to eat, little to wear. Year after year of work, always living in a dilapidated house. I’ve no money to obtain a pretty wife; I’ll grow old alone. With no schooling, we’re blind even though we have eyes. Oh, God! How bitter is our lot! … Being aggrieved, let us poor brothers be united and of one heart. Let’s join the Red Army and kill our enemy. —A call-to-arms folk song in Xunwu, Jiangxi1

Introduction

In May 1930, six months after this call-to-arms song incited a massive peasant revolt, Mao Zedong arrived at Xunwu (尋烏), a county located at the tri-province border area of Jiangxi, Fujian, and Guangdong. Excited at the burst of peasant power in making a rural revolution, Mao conducted a two-week long investigation, meeting with eleven locals, young and old, with a desire to better understand China’s rural realities. Education was one of the key issues that Mao strived to comprehend.

1 Mao Zedong, Report from Xunwu (尋烏調查 Xunwu diaocha), trans. Roger R. Thompson (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), 164. According to Mao’s record, this song was popular among peasants and children during the land struggle in the southern half of Xunwu County, a local initiated mass revolution that had been going on for six months before Mao’s arrival. 194

In his summary Report from Xunwu, Mao interpreted education as a terrain of conflict and contestation where a profound revolution could be generated. Mao’s investigation asserted the view that the modern school system initiated in 1904 by the Qing court and inherited by the GMD had failed to solve the persistent problem of educational inequality. This inequality was reflected in the imbalanced distribution of educational resources, which left rural society populated by an illiterate majority.2 More importantly, the Qing and GMD school system did not revoke, but rather, to a certain degree, perpetuated the correlation between levels of literacy and social hierarchy established during the imperial era. As observed in

Xunwu, diplomas from state-sanctioned modern schools supplanted imperial degrees, but continued to claim superiority over literacy obtained through other private and communal venues affordable for the lower class, such as sishu (私塾 private schools) and charitable schools. By capitalizing on the opportunity to tackle these problems, a Communist revolution might be able to acquire legitimacy. This conception composed the core part of the revolutionary literacy myth embraced by the CCP.

Mao had a long interest in teaching commoners how to read and write.

Having participated in James Yen’s mass education movement in Hunan in the early

1920s, he became familiar with small-scale, flexible, and non-institutional literacy

2 Suzanne Pepper discusses the persistent critiques toward modern school system, which is “as old as China’s modern school system itself.” The main critiques included the formation of an urban-oriented elites indifference to rural realities, mechanical adoption of Western models ignoring its suitability for China, and widening the gap between the urban and rural, as well as the rich and the poor in terms of accessibility to educational resources. See Radicalism and Education Reform in 20th-century China (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 518. 195 classes that were better accommodated to commoners’ schedules than formal schooling. Now, after almost a decade of making mass revolution, Mao started to instill a class perspective into literacy efforts. Report from Xunwu, a detailed, locally oriented investigation, was part and parcel of Mao’s effort to reconcile Marxist theory with Chinese reality. Literacy education claimed a crucial place in his conceptualization of waging a Communist revolution in China. The revolution prior to 1949 mostly took place in the competition against the Nationalists for control of the national polity.

Throughout the course of its struggle for national leadership in the early 20th century, the CCP invested in both the rhetoric and practical value of literacy. This chapter begins by exploring Mao’s and the Party leaders’ perceptions of literacy and its place in revolutionizing China. Their understanding was based on two major sources of information: Mao’s rural investigations and awareness of literacy campaigns in Soviet Russia. The former contextualized literacy in the rural power structure delineated by classes. It justified mass education as an imperative part of egalitarian social reform. The latter presented a relatively recent case in which universal literacy would be achieved within a couple of decades. Soviet Russia’s success also legitimated a socialist revolution in China for the sake of universal literacy.

The CCP understood and exercised literacy’s rhetorical power. Capitalizing on literacy’s modernization myth, the Chinese Communists expended great effort in widely publicizing its literacy programs. The Party adjusted its discourses to capture 196 the national attention by responding to changes in the political environment, both domestic and international. During the Jiangxi period, the CCP used its literacy programs to create an impressive showcase of its Soviet polity being superior to the

GMD’s. To make this statement, the Party depicted its ability to address the issue of popular illiteracy in the countryside in an effective and devoted way, while at the same time criticizing the GMD government’s incompetence administration. This rhetoric spoke to a national audience concerned rural backwardness in the early

1930s. Later, when the breakout of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 jeopardized individual life and safety, the CCP publicized its literacy programs to show itself capable of sustaining a secure, ever-improving life during a turbulent time. The voice of class struggle was subjugated to advocacy of a new democratic society. The Chinese Communists actively patronized a revolutionary literacy myth that granted credits for teaching the masses to read and write exclusively to their political leadership.

The CCP, like both the Qing court and the GMD, was inclined to be ambitious in planning its literacy education. Similarly, its literacy projects also faced difficulties in organization and involving the masses. During the Jiangxi Period, the

Communists experimented with different ways besides formal schooling, providing literacy education with a wide range of flexibility in terms of schedule, location, and class size. The Jiangxi era also formulated the CCP’s tradition of relying on mass

197 organizations to mobilize individuals, rather than on bureaucracy. This approach was carried into and refined during the Yan’an period (1936-1947).3

This chapter sets to examine the CCP’s notions of literacy that developed during the Jiangxi Soviet and were transformed during the Yan’an period. The central Party’s policies and theoretical pronouncements will be the focus. By doing so, this chapter will provide a conceptual reference to be compared and tested by the concrete literacy activities that local Party offices sponsored during the Second

Sino-Japanese War, as discussed in the next chapter.

Conceptualizing the Place of Literacy

Mao Zedong justified his understanding of the place of literacy through investigation of the local community. Meanwhile, his inquiries on literacy were tied closely to his search for a route to Communist revolution in China. This quest explained why Xunwu attracted his attention. It was a county where local revolutionaries, with the aid of peasants, successfully defeated their political competitors under the influence of the GMD. Mao wrote Report from Xunwu to bolster his struggle against Comintern-influenced central Party leaders, with the intention of proving that the worst class exploitation in China existed in the countryside (not in the cities, as the Comintern often suggested). The right to

3 The CCP was chased out from its Jiangxi base by the Nationalists and embarked on a grand retreat knowan as the Long March that ended in northern Shaanxi Province in 1935, where the Party established its headquarters first at Bao’an and then at Yan’an. It stayed in Yan’an until 1947. 198 education reflected this class structure in a clear way. Therefore, to wage a

Communist Revolution, the CCP had to invest in mass literacy.

As the Xunwu case showed, educational ties were figured prominently in organizing collective political actions. The two political factions in Xunwu, influenced by the CCP and GMD respectively, both expanded local influence by sponsoring schools.4 Schooling not only served as an important venue for forming local connections, but also opened the door for sharing income in the form of cash, grain, and meat from corporate land, which, according to Mao’s investigations, comprised 40 percent of all land in Xunwu.5

Educational credentials conferred by the state were the decisive keys in delineating eligibility for sharing communal educational funds. In early twentieth century China, it meant an imperial degree via the civil service exams or a post-1905 formal school diploma from a local upper primary school or above. However, in contrast to former degree-holders who validated their knowledge and talents by passing the imperial exam system, primary school graduates, in the eyes of the locals, seemed to tread a much easier path by obtaining their diplomas through

4 Xunwu’s local Communists under the lead of Gu Bo (古柏 1906-1935) sponsored the Sun Yatsen School, opposing the GMD-influenced New Xunwu Society (新尋派 Xin Xun Pai) and the school associated with it. 5 Mao detailed various benefits attached to accredited literacy. First, there was a one-time award given by ancestral halls for obtaining degrees, which was referred to as “grabbing the bonus (qiang huahong 搶花紅).” Second, the educational allowance (lit. “study grain”) was distributed evenly each year among the imperial degree-holders and graduates of the new post-1905 schools. Third, these two groups would also receive a part of the sacrificial meat annually after ancestral ceremonies. In addition, a travel allowance of 30 yuan per person was also granted to graduates from the No. 2 Normal School in Ganzhou (贛州) for their visits to Jiangsu and Zhejiang to broaden their knowledge. Students who went to study in Japan received 360 yuan for travel expenses. Mao Zedong, Report from Xunwu, trans. Roger R. Thompson, 88, 130. 199 three years of formal schooling. People at Xunxu ridiculed the Xunxu City East

Primary School as a “diploma mill (biye gongsi 畢業公司).” In their eyes, “the children of landlords throughout the county, ostentatious but without prospects, spent money to go to this ‘mill’ for three years, obtained a diploma, and then put on airs.”6 Different from imperial degrees, a formal school diploma, in the eyes’ villagers, spoke less about intelligence or literacy skills than it did about a family’s financial status. The state-sponsored formal schooling after 1905 helped the locally wealthy more easily translate their wealth into social prestige, which then further increased their financial gains by tapping into community-owned resources designated for education. This mentality, to a certain extent, made it apparent to the locals that educational rights were a matter of class exploitation. If they did not grasp this truth on their own, the CCP would help them see it.

Interested in the correlation between economic standing and access to formal schooling, Mao speculated on the power structure through the lens of

Marxism. Xunwu’s reality seemed to confirm to him that formal schooling was a tool for class dominance. In Xunwu, there was an array of venues for literacy acquisition.

Besides formal schooling, sishu contributed substantially to basic education.

According to Mao, 40 percent of people in Xunwu had mastered certain skills in reading and writing. Less than 10 percent possessed a state-sanctioned degree from an upper primary school or above (see Table 6). Only this small group of degree holders could reap profits from corporate land.

6 Ibid., 88. 200

Based on the information Mao acquired, the majority of upper primary school students came from small landlord families. The rest were children of large landlords and rich peasants.7 This could be explained by the fact that small landlords accounted for more than 80 percent of the entire landlord group (see

Table 7). Although rich peasants, who were defined as having surplus grain and capital to loan, slightly outnumbered small landlords, their financial situation probably could not allow most of their children to go to upper primary schools.

Illiterate 60% Literate 40% can read 200 characters 20% can keep accounts 15% can read the Romance of 5% the Three Kingdoms can write a letter 3.5% can write an essay 1% lower primary students 5% (5,000 people) upper primary students 8% (8,000 people) middle school students 500 people college students 30 people returned students 6 people xiucai* 400 people Juren** 1 person Table 6. Illiteracy and literacy rates and numbers of students in Xunwu County, Jiangxi province8

*xiucai (lit. distinguished talent)referred to entry-level licentiate who passed the local level of civil service exam. **Juren (lit. recommended man) was the title bestowed to those who passed provincial level of exam.

7 Ibid., 192. 8 Ibid., 191. 201

Large landlords (receive more than 500 dan* of rent) 0.045% Middle landlords(receive 200-499 dan of rent) 0.4 Small landlords (receive less than 200 dan of rent) 3.0 Rich peasants (have surplus grain and capital for loan) 4.0 Middle peasants (have enough to eat and do not receive 18.255 loans) Poor peasants (insufficient grain and receive loans) 70.0 Manual workers (craftsmen, boatmen, porters) 3.0 Loafers (no occupation) 1.0 Hired hands (permanent and day laborers) 0.3 Table 7. Rural population of Xunwu County, Jiangxi province in 19309

*dan, a traditional use of volume to measure grains. One dan of rice is about 70kg.

Xunwu’s situation suggested that an upper primary school education was usually beyond the reach of common peasants. However, such was not necessarily the case for a rudimentary level of education. According to Mao’s categorizations, the landlords in Xunwu (small, medium and large) only accounted for 3.445 percent of the total population. Even if all the members of their families were literate, the number still fell far short of 40 percent—the literacy rate Mao deduced for Xunwu.

Obviously, by implication, some peasants possessed a certain level of literacy.

Tension arose because peasant literacy acquired outside modern schools could not be converted into political or financial power.

9 Ibid., 122. 202

Conditions at Xunwu, to certain extent, substantiated Mao’s claim that under the rule of the GMD, modern schools served the interests of landlords. To counter this formal schooling structure, the Jiangxi Soviet developed an educational policy giving priority to children from poor-to-middle peasant families. To undermine the institutionalization of schooling and literacy learning, the CCP fervently advocated informal schooling among both the youth and the adult. Meanwhile, in their rhetoric,

Communist leaders tended to overgeneralize the correlation between literacy and class dominance.

The typical rhetoric used in the Party’s documents was that “more than 80 percent of China’s population were illiterate,”10 a number unsubstantiated by Mao’s

Report from Xunwu. The causes of such mass illiteracy, the CCP explained, were that the landlords and the bourgeoisie monopolized all cultural and educational institutions under the GMD regime. They intended to “keep the general populace in ignorance” and “extinguish the revolutionary flame among the suppressed.”11 This claim ironically contradicted the reality that many of the early Party leaders themselves were also trained in the Republic’s schools that privileged landlords and the capitalist class. Mao himself came from a well-off peasant family in Hunan and managed to receive a higher education. Instead of suffocating rebellious voices, the

10 Mao Zedong, “Suweiai de wenhua jiaoyu (蘇維埃的文化教育 Culture and education in the soviet) (January 1934),” in Jiangxi suqu jiaoyu ziliao huibian (江西苏区教育资料汇编 Collection of educational documents of the Jiangxi Soviet), comp., Gannan Teacher’s College and Jiangxi Academy of Educational Science (1985), 12; Kai Feng 凱豐, “Zai quan Suqu jiaoyu dahui de qianmian (在全蘇區教育大會的前面 Before the educational conference of the entire Soviet areas) (October 1933),” in Jiangxi suqu jiaoyu ziliao huibian, 27; A Wei 阿偽, “Lun xiaomie wenmang yundong (論消滅文盲運動 Comments on anti-illiteracy campaign) (November 1933),” in Jiangxi suqu jiaoyu ziliao huibian, 57. 11 Mao Zedong, “Suweiai de wenhua jiaoyu (January 1934),” in Jiangxi suqu jiaoyu ziliao huibian, 12. 203 educational institutes operating under the GMD regime appeared to nurture revolutionaries during the 1920s and 1930s.12

Nonetheless, oversimplified generalizations about the correlations between literacy and class dominance composed the Chinese Communist revolutionary literacy myth. This myth served to solicit support for a communist revolution.

Xunwu’s success in mobilizing a mass revolution demonstrated the importance of identifying the plight of the working class and investing in its amelioration. The ability to read and write, access to affordable schooling, and accessible education-related benefits, were all tangible and current realities for villagers.

Extending literacy education to adults and providing basic schooling for the young thus constituted an essential means of establishing a rapport with and soliciting loyalty from the poor, which, in turn, justified the position that the Communist regime, in contrast to the GMD, was controlled by and served the needs of the masses.

While Mao actively proclaimed his assessment of China’s revolution through local, Chinese experiences, returning students from the Moscow Sun Yat-sen

University, including Zhang Wentian (張聞天 1908-1976, aka Luo Fu 洛甫),13

12 Scholarly studies on the early Communist activities in the 1920s have suggested that it was the radical young intellectuals at higher educational institutes who were first drawn to the Communist causes. See Arif Dirlik, The Origins of Chinese Communism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Hans J. van de Ven, From Friend to Comrade, The Founding of the Chinese Communist Party, 1920-1927 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991); Wen-hsin Yeh, The Alienated Academy, Culture and Politics in Republican China, 1919-1937 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990); and Stephen Averill, Revolution in the Highlands: China’s Jinggangshan Base Area (New York: Roman & Littlefield Publisher, 2006). 13 Zhang Wentian was appointed to the Politburo and became the secretary in charge of propoganda after returning from Moscow in 1930. In 1933, he arrived at the Jiangxi Soviet and served as head of 204 eagerly drew inspiration from Soviet Russia. Literacy campaigns during the Russia

Civil War (1917-1921) and the first Five Year Plan (1928-1933) composed the other repertoire informing the Jiangxi-era Party leaders’ vision of mass education. USSR’s experiences strengthened and appeared to validate the CCP’s belief in the revolutionary literacy myth. Despite the different sources of information, a basic consensus developed that literacy was to become a key part of the Party’s on-going military and political struggle against the Nationalists. In addition, this prioritization foretold a brand-new society and regime yet to be built. This two-fold agenda directed the CCP’s literacy efforts that began in the late 1920s and continued throughout the Jiangxi Soviet period (1931-1934).

Although the military retreat known as the Long March spelled an end to the

Jiangxi Soviet, the Party never lost its faith in the transformative power of literacy education. The survivors of the Long March, to whom Mao called a revolutionary elite (革命的精華 geming de jinghua),14 testified to the success of literacy education during the Jiangxi period by cultivating loyalty to the Party’s cause. In

1936, during his visit to the Communist base in Yan’an, the American journalist

Edgar Snow asked a seventeen-year-old soldier nicknamed “Old Dog” why he had joined the communist movement. Old Dog, who came from the Fujian Soviet district and had joined the Reds in the early 1930s, was surprised by the question because it the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party and the President of the Democratic Government of Workers and Peasants in Ruijin. From 1935 to 1943, Zhang was General Secretary of the Communist Party of China. Cheng Zhongyuan (程中原), Zhang Wentian zhuan (张闻天传 Biography of Zhang Wentian) (Beijing: Dangdai Zhongguo chubanshe, 1993). 14 Nie Rongzhen (聶榮臻), “Nie Rongzhen huiyilu: hongjun shiqi (聶榮臻回憶錄: 紅軍時期 Nie Rongzhen’s memoir: The Red Army period,” Zhonggong dangshi ziliao 5 (1983): 171-172. 205 had never occurred to him that anyone could not like the Red Army. Old Dog’s response was stunning in its simplicity. He declared, “The Red Army has taught me to read and to write.”15 The Jiangxi-era’s revolutionary literacy myth survived military defeat and continued to echo down the Yan’an period via the Long March survivors. Besides allowing the party to retain loyal devotees, the legacy of the

Jiangxi Soviet’s mass literacy efforts also allowed the CCP to sustain its effort to teach people how to read and write during the Yan’an period. Popular literacy, first and foremost, served to legitimize a mass revolution under the lead of the CCP.

Spectacles and the Legitimating Power of Mass Literacy

Similar to the Qing court and the Nationalists, the Chinese Communists also invested in early 20th-century China’s literacy myth that considered mass literacy as a prerequisite for China’s national independence and modernization. As a revolutionary force challenging the established order, the CCP also benefited from rhetoric that claimed the majority of Chinese were still illiterate by the 1930s, in spite of the mass education projects initiated by the ruling governments since the turn of the 20th century. The persistent problem of illiteracy and the presence of foreign imperialism16 unfailingly undermined the authority of the ruling party, and also empowered the CCP to proclaim itself as the only leader capable of enlightening

15 Edgar Snow, Red Star over China (1938; repr., New York: Grove Press, 1968), 83. 16 The unequal treaties and their products— such as treaty ports – were the symbol of foreign imperialism in China at the time. Great Britain, the United States, and France were the three major treaty powers in China. While Britain and the U.S. relinquished their treaty rights during the Second World War in 1943, France did not give up its claim until 1946. 206 the masses. Such an assertion was exclusive to the CCP but unavailable to both the

Qing Court and the Nationalists.

Teaching the masses, especially those in the countryside, how to read and write supported the Communists’ image as radicals who strived to bring profound changes to Chinese society. The CCP sought to remedy the negative effects of the modern school system, such as the widening gap between urban and rural dwellers, as well as the rich and the poor, in regards to access to educational resources. The persistence of these unresolved issues created momentum for the CCP’s radical education reforms, which had their roots in the Jiangxi period, and eventually came to a climax during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).17

It is important to note that the CCP was not alone in this endeavor. As mentioned in an earlier chapters, liberal scholar-activists, including James Yen and

Tao Xingzhi, were also dedicated to mass literacy education in the 1930s. Although offering different solutions, their shared concerns and ambitions of eliminating illiteracy enabled the Party to engage in dialogue with other groups of social activists across the country. Such interactions thus moved the Party’s efforts beyond the boundaries of its own regime and adherents.

The CCP proposed to build a Soviet polity as a solution to educational inequality that disadvantaged the poor. This proposition was an approach dictated by the Marxist interpretation of the relationship between education and politics. As the Communist educator Yang Xianjiang (楊賢江 1895-1931) pointed out in the

17 Suzanne Pepper, Radicalism and Education Reform in 20th-century China. 207 early 1930s, access to education depended on property rights; education was the vehicle for class dominance.18 Therefore, the only way for workers and peasants to achieve literacy that served their class interests was through class struggle, communist revolution, and the establishment of a proletarian state. In short, the ruling or dominant class determined the availability and nature of education.

The Comintern-trained Zhang Wentian turned to Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924) for theoretical authority. He quoted Lenin’s words that all educational institutions under the old regime “served the interests of the bourgeoisie and their offspring,” and “children of workers and peasants were trained to be docile slaves.” It was in the interests of the ruling class—the capitalists—to keep the masses ignorant and illiterate.19 Soviet Russia’s polity, in contrast, was controlled by the working class.

Naturally, their cultural institutions aimed at providing general education to the proletariat in an effort to awaken their political and class consciousness. To make their interpretation more persuasive, the Chinese Communists actively grounded their theories in empirical evidence, both domestically and internationally.

First of all, the CCP tried to demonstrate that the Nationalists had no real interest in teaching the populace how to read and write. Zhang Wentian cited the financial budget of the Nationalist government to prove this point. In 1933, the

Nanjing government published its annual budget as 161.5 million yuan, among

18 Yang Xianjiang, Yang Xiangjiang jiaoyu wenji (杨贤江教育文集 Yang Xianjiang’s anthology on education) (Beijing: Jiaoyu kexue chubanshe, 1982), 418-420. 19 Luo Fu (洛甫), “Lun Suweiai zhengquan de wenhua jiaoyu zhengce(論蘇維埃政權的文化教育政策 Comments on the cultural and educational policies of the Soviet regime) (September 1933),” in Jiangxi suqu jiaoyu ziliao huibian, 16. 208 which only 1.06 million was allocated to education. The actual funding for schools was probably even less, Zhang suggested, as educational subsidies were usually appropriated for other purposes.20

While condemning the limited financial support the Nationalist government gave schools, however Zhang did not reveal the Jiangxi Soviet education budget for comparison. Considering the fact that the CCP was overwhelmed by the GMD’s military encirclement and economic blockade in the early 1930s, it is highly doubtful the Jiangxi Soviet government was itself able to devote a substantial portion of its money to schools.21 On the contrary, complaints about local cadres’ repeated neglect of general education circulated in the correspondence between local and central Party organs.22 The narratives on literacy were selective, rather than in accordance with reality all around. For the CCP during the Jiangxi era,

20 Ibid. 21 During the Yan’an period, the CCP’s local government was able to endow education with noticeable financial support in the Shaan-Gan-Ning border region. In 1943, the government of the Suide area (綏德專區 Suide zhuanqu), a culturally well-developed place, spent more than 11 percent of its entire budget on education. In Qingjian (清澗) County, a county under the jurisdiction of the Suide area, 15.4 percent of the governmental budget was granted to education. See “Shaan-Gan-Ning bianqu guomin jiaoyu gaikuang (陝甘寧邊區國民教育概況 An overview of national education in the Shaan-Gan-Ning border region),” Shaanxi Provincial Archive (citied by catalogue and file number), 10-183. 22 Shaogong zhongyang, Zhongyang jiaoyu renmin weiyuanhui lianxi huiyi (少共中央、中央教育人民委員會聯繫會議 Joint meeting of the Youth League Central Committee and the Central Committee of People’s Education ), “Guanyu muqian jiaoyu gongzuo de renwu yu tuan dui jiaoyubu gongzuo de xiezhu de jueyi (關於目前教育工作的任務與團對教育部工作的協助地決議 The decisions on the current task for educational work and the League’s assistance to the work of the education department)” (September 1933), in Shisou ziliaoshi gongfei ziliao, microfilm; Kai Feng(凱豐), “Kai Feng tongzhi zai Suqu jiaoyu dahui shang de zongjie baogao (凱豐同志在蘇區教育大會上的總結報告 Comrade Kai Feng’s final report on the educational conference of the Soviet area)”(October 1933), in Jiangxi suqu jiaoyu ziliao huibian, 39-40. 209 rhetoric about literacy education served specific purposes, namely, undermining the legitimacy of the GMD regime.

Besides criticizing the GMD’s lack of sincerity at educating all, the CCP strived to present itself as capable of making progress. Comparing popular literacy rates was a strategy the Communists often used for self-promotion. To this end, the CCP always discussed mass literacy under the rule of the GMD in a general, static way, but depicted the situation in the Jiangxi Soviet with concrete numbers and regional diversities. For instance, Mao asserted, less than 10 percent of children in Xingguo

(興國) were able to go to school in the past during the GMD’s reign. The situation changed dramatically after the CCP took over in 1930. Within less than three years of the establishment of Communist rule in the area, more than of sixty percent

(12,806 out of 20,969) of school-aged children attended schools. This achievement contributed to earning Xingguo the title of a model county in the Jiangxi Soviet.23

In some cases, Party leaders ventured to make claims by mixing some data and their imaginations. For example, in July 1933, the CCP concluded there were

51,286 Lenin primary school students and 68, 146 night school students from its 13

Soviet counties.24 Kai Feng (凱豐 1906-1955), the general secretary and head of propoganda of the Chinese Youth League (CYL) (Gongchan qingnian tuan 共產青年

團) Central Committee, then even without accurate demographics estimated that

23 Mao Zedong, “Suweiai de wenhua jiaoyu” (January, 1934), in Jiangxi suqu jiaoyu ziliao huibian, 13. 24 Kai Feng, “Kai Feng tongzhi zai Suqu jiaoyu dahui shang de zongjie baogao,” in Jiangxi suqu jiaoyu ziliao huibian, 38-39. The 13 counties included Xingguo (興國), Wantai (萬泰), Shengli (勝利), Bosheng(博生), Gonglue (公略), Shicheng (石城), Yongfeng (永豐), Yihuang (宜黃), Longgang (龍崗), Yangyin (楊殷), Tailei (太雷), Luokou (洛口), Changsheng (長勝). 210 eight percent of the population received a certain degree of schooling.25 Eight percent did not seem impressive at all considering the aforementioned Party’s general rhetoric of the literacy rate in Republic China being between ten and twenty percent. Nonetheless, Kai Feng exulted that the eight percent schooling rate in the

Jiangxi Soviet surpassed by half that of the Nationalist-controlled areas.26 But no clue was given as to how Kai Feng arrived at this comparison. This use of quantitative data clearly lacked consistency and scientific discipline. Even if he was suspicious about the accuracy of the local cadres’ report that “ninety percent of the illiterate had learnt how to read and write in Xingguo,” Kai Feng still asserted that

Xingguo had wiped out illiteracy “in a substantial way.”27 The discussion of the literacy rate was not value free; rather, it served to show that the CCP acted more efficiently in improving mass education than the GMD. It also reflected the craft of literacy myth, oftentimes, based on unsubstantiated constructed “facts.”

Exaggeration and distortion were an integral part of this myth-making process.

Besides literacy rates, the Communist leaders also capitalized on women’s literacy to show their devotion to educating the disadvantaged. The Party

25 Kai Feng estimated there were 3 million people living in the central Soviet area excepting Yue-Gan and Fujian provinces, and deduced the population in those 13 counties to be 1.5 million. See Kai Feng, “Kai Feng tongzhi zai Suqu jiaoyu dahui shang de zongjie baogao,” in Jiangxi suqu jiaoyu ziliao huibian, 38-39. Since April 1933, the central Soviet areas expanded into five provinces including Jiangxi, Fujian, Min-Gan (閩贛), Yue-Gan (粵贛), Gannan (贛南) and Ruijin counties directly under the central (communist) government. There were 22 counties under the jurisdiction of Jiangxi, 15 under Fujian, 25 under Min-Gan, 7 under Yue-Gan, and 8 under Gannan. However, there was much overlap among these counties. See Lin Qiang (林强), “Zhongyang Suqu de fanwei daodi you duoda (中央苏区的范围到底有多大 How large the central Soviet area actually was),” Zhonggong dangshi yanjiu, no.5 (2008): 117-119. 26 Kai Feng, “Kai Feng tongzhi zai Suqu jiaoyu dahui shang de zongjie baogao,” in Jiangxi suqu jiaoyu ziliao huibian, 39. 27 Ibid. 211 participated in the general rhetoric in early 20th century China28 that portrayed women as a symbol of the suppressed, exploited, and vulnerable groups under the old sociopolitical system. Few of them were literate. Beginning in the Jiangxi period, the CCP had paid considerable attention to female students in literacy classes. Mao

Zedong reported that women in the Jiangxi Soviet areas learned to read and write with unprecedented zeal. Female students were the majority in both night schools and literacy groups (識字組 shizizu) in Xingguo.29 Celebrating its contribution to women’s literacy, the Party leaders hoped to prove their capabilities of transforming the society.

Changing women’s social roles epitomized this transformation. Although women’s literacy had drawn public attention from the turn of the 20th century,30 the image of the “modern girl” tended to be framed in an urban setting, which allowed them to engage in new careers sprouting from the establishment of new institutions, such as modern schools and hospitals. The CCP depicted a parallel picture in rural China.

28 Paul Baily points out that “the female students became a highly visible discursive object” and the symbol of modernity in the early 20th century. See Paul Baily, Gender and Education in China: Gender Discourses and Women’s schooling in the Early Twentieth Century (New York: Routledge, 2007), 10-11. 29 Numbering more than 10,000, women accounted for 69 percent of the students in night schools; among the members of literacy groups, 60 percent were female, (of 13,519 total). See Mao Zedong, “Suweiai de wenhua jiaoyu (January 1934),” in Jiangxi suqu jiaoyu ziliao huibian, 13. 30 Joan Judge, “Reforming the Feminine: Female Literacy and the Legacy of 1898,” in Rethinking the 1898 Reform Period: Political and Cultural Change in Late Qing China, ed. Rebecca E. Karl and Peter Zarrow (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2002), 158-179. Joan Judge proposes that the reformists responsible for the 1898 reform movement advocated literacy as the prerequisite for qualified mothers of citizens. The first generation oversea women students argued that literacy granted women’s political autonomy as citizens. Both defined female literacy in nationalist terms. 212

In the Jiangxi Soviet, women not only enjoyed larger social visibility than their counterpart in the past, but, more importantly, assumed leadership in literacy learning and other cultural activities. In Changgang (長岡), a model town of Xingguo

County, five out of nine night school principals were female, while all teachers were male.31 In addition, women also served as primary school principals and members of educational committees.32 The formerly culturally oppressed group now occupied leadership positions in education in the Jiangxi Soviet. In this way, the sense of fanshen (翻身 lit. “turning over”) was presented empirically. This image made up part of what was called “a liberal and promising new world”33 that the

Jiangxi Soviet presented to a national audience.

Proclaiming the improvement of the lower sector’s literacy as a new phenomenon, the CCP endeavored to create national appeal for its solution to mass illiteracy, that is, through the establishment of a Soviet regime. The Party asserted that “only under the Soviet regime, can each individual of the working class receive education and get rid of cultural backwardness.”34 Soviet Russia’s literacy campaigns were presented to offer testimony to the Party’s claim.

Central Party leaders passionately depicted Soviet Russia as a paradise for mass education. In their narratives, Soviet Russia wiped out illiteracy completely

31 Mao Zedong, “Changgang xiang diaocha (長岡鄉調查 Investigation at Changgang town) (December 1933),” in Jiangxi suqu jiaoyu ziliao huibian, 10. 32 Mao Zedong, “Suweiai de wenhua jiaoyu (January 1934),” in Jiangxi suqu jiaoyu ziliao huibian, 13. 33 Ibid., 12. 34 Luo Fu, “Lun Suweiai zhengquan de wenhua jiaoyu zhengce (September 1933),” in Jiangxi suqu jiaoyu ziliao huibian, 19. 213 during its first five-year plan after establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat.35

People in Soviet Russia were said to have gotton access to education at all levels free of charge. All schools, especially those of higher education, were claimed to have granted preference to workers. Working class people were shown to have gotten the chance to choose whatever professions they liked and received an appropriate education. For instance, Kai Feng said“if you want to become a doctor, please go to the medical school; if you want to be an engineer, a variety of schools of engineering are available; if you prefer to be an expert on agriculture, then enroll in an agricultural institution.”36 This supreme system, Kai Feng declared, set up a

“glorious” model for the Jiangxi Soviet to formulate its educational policy.37

Following the path of USSR, the Jiangxi Soviet was making progress in improving mass education. Central leaders excitedly reported that they had established more than 3,000 primary schools, a number far exceeding that under

Nationalist rule. Further, a variety of informal educational facilities, such as clubs, reading rooms, and night schools, were provided. The enrollment of school age

35 Based on the Soviet Union’s authoritative report, the majority of illiterates (however, not all of them) obtained skills in reading and writing by the end of the First Five-Year Plan (1928-1932). Estimates vary over the number of illiterates educated in literacy schools during this period. Gosplan statisticians reported that 45 million adults had gained literacy, which raised the literacy rate in Soviet Russia to 90 percent. Other claims state 38 million illiterates, or 29 million illiterates and 17.7 million semi-literates were instructed during the First Five-Year Plan. The USSR’s 1939 census reported that the general literacy rate was 81.2 percent. The figure was higher among those between nine to forty-nine years old, which was 89.1 percent. See Ben Eklof, “Russian Literacy Campaigns,” in National Literacy Campaigns in Historical and Comparative Perspective, ed. Robert F. Arnove and Harvey J. Graff (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2008), 141. 36 Kai Feng, “Suweiai de jiaoyu zhengce (October 1933),” in Jiangxi suqu jiaoyu ziliao huibian, 31. 37 Ibid. 214 children increased. A general anti-illiteracy movement was underway.38 Based on

Soviet Russia’s experience and riding a wave of momentum, universal literacy in the

Jiangxi Soviet should have been just around the corner.

The picture of a progressive Soviet regime in Jiangxi, along with a promising future reflected through Soviet Russia, was used to impress audiences across the country. The discourse surrounding literacy and literacy acquisition helped legitimate a Communist revolution nationwide. Furthermore, within the boundaries of the Jiangxi Soviet, the rhetoric of mass literacy served to consolidate popular loyalty to the Party’s cause. The CCP explained that the class background of the majority of students revealed the nature of education, which then indicated which class took charge politically. In the Jiangxi Soviet, the Party obsessively publicized data that showed how descendants of the working class dominated education. These numbers were utilized as evidence to support the notion that workers and peasants were the ruling class. Such self-justification worked well for the Party in attracting popular support for its initiatives, which the Party leaders labeled as “participation in governance.”39

The CCP worked to adjust its literacy rhetoric to correlate with changing national concerns in order to sustain the legitimating power of their literacy narratives. When China’s national independence was at stake in the wake of the

Japanese intrusion during the Second Sino-Japanese War, the CCP took a more subtle approach in competing with the Nationalists for political leadership. The

38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. 215

Party now toned down its discourse on Soviet education. Instead, the Communists claimed to be devoted to national education (國民教育 guomin jiaoyu), a GMD term.

Such claims demonstrated the CCP’s commitment to the national cause and the

Second United Front (1937-1941) between the two parties.40 Instead of emphasizing the Soviet nature of its regime, the CCP emphasized that a new society was under construction in its base areas during the Yan’an era.

Creating a New Culture during the Yan’an Period

Creating a “New Culture” (新文化 xin wenhua) and “New Democratic Culture

(新民主主義文化 Xin minzhu zhuyi wenhua)” were the featured slogans used by the CCP to advertise and label its mass literacy projects during the Yan’an period.

The term “New Democratic Culture” was coined by Mao Zedong during the First

Congress of Cultural Associations at the Shaan-Gan-Ning border region (陝甘寧邊區

第一次文化協會代表大會 Shaan-Gan-Ning bianqu diyici wenhua xiehui daibiao dahui) in January 1940.41 “New Culture,” as an abbreviation of “New Democratic

Culture,” was widely adopted in the Party’s documents and propaganda. The term

40 The Second United Front between the Chinese Communist Party and the Nationalist Party was established in order to resist the Japanese invasion during the Second Sino-Japanese War. It temporarily marked an end to the Communists’ effort to overthrow the rule of the Nationalist government, rural landlords, and the urban bourgeoisie as was conducted during the Jiangxi Soviet period. 41 Mao Zedong, “Xin minzhu zhuyi lun (新民主主義論 On new democracy) (January 1940),” in Mao Zedong xuanji (毛泽东选集 Selected works of Mao Zedong) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1991), 2:662-711. 216 contributed to fostering an image of the Party’s being capable of improving people’s life during times of hardship.

In Mao’s definition, New Democratic Culture was a national, scientific, and mass culture under the leadership of proletarian workers and the Communist Party.

A national culture highlighted an anti-imperialist agenda that opposed “imperialist oppression,” and upheld “the dignity and independence of the Chinese nation;” a scientific emphasis acted as a counterbalance to “all feudal and superstitious ideas” and “reactionary idealism;” a mass culture gave a democratic face to the new culture that was yet to be built. Mao’s interpretation of cultural democracy was much different from that construed in Western liberal society, which generally promoted cultural diversity and emphasized equitable access to cultural resources and support. Instead, Mao justified mass culture as being democratic by arguing that it belonged and served the majority of Chinese—“the toiling masses of workers and peasants who make up more than 90 percent of the nation’s population.”42 The interests of the working and peasant classes as an entity, rather than the interests of individuals, were emphasized.

The Party’s discourse on mass literacy focused on highlighting the massive scale and limited time-frame of anti-illiteracy campaigns the Party was able to pull together during the turbulent time. In 1939, the Central Party’s organ—Xin

42 Mao Zedong, “On New Democracy,” in Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, official translation by People’s Republic of China, http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-2/mswv2_26.htm (accessed March 4, 2014). 217

Zhonghua bao (新中華報 New China)43 publicized an editorial stating that the government of the Shaan-Gan-Ning border region determined to teach 30,000 people how to read and write. Such an endeavor, the editorial effused, was “not only a pioneering work in the border region, but also a spearhead across the county.”44

Through the lens of literacy, the CCP aimed to impress a national audience with its effective leadership in securing social progress even during wartime.

Thus, the CCP extended efforts to depicting a new Yan’an blessed with improvements in mass literacy despite the devastation of war. An article in the

March 3, 1940 Xinhua Daily, a newspaper issued by the CCP and distributed nationwide during the Second Sino-Japanese War, provides an illustrative example.

This article ardently propounded that it only took the CCP about six months to involve more than half of the illiterate and semi-illiterate (people who knew less than 500 characters) at Yan’an in basic education. All of this was achieved, the article emphasized, after the local peoples’ lives were disrupted by Japanese air raids in November 1938.45 Discussing its literacy projects, the Party tended to demonstrate its ability to restore social order and transform the masses during war.

43 Xin Zhonghua bao was the organ for the Central Committee of the CCP and the Shaan-Gan-Ning border region government. It was formally named Hongse Zhonghua (紅色中華 Red China) before January 29, 1937 and changed into Jiefang ribao Yan’an (解放日報(延安) Jiefang Daily Yan’an) on May 15, 1941. 44 “Wei saochu sanwan wenmang er douzheng (為掃除三萬文盲而鬥爭 Fighting for eliminating 30,000 people’s illiteracy),” Xin Zhonghua bao, April 19, 1939. 45 Bi Kai (畢凱), “Xin Yan’an de minzhong jiaoyu (新延安的民眾教育 Mass education in new Yan’an) (January 1940),” in Shaan-Gan-Ning bianqu jiaoyu ziliao, shehui jiaoyu bufen (陕甘宁边区教育资料社会教育部分 Education materials of the Shaan-Gan-Ning border region, on the section of social education) (hereafter SGNBJZ), ed. Shaanxi shifan daxue jiaoyu yanjiu suo (Beijing: Jiaoyu kexue chubanshe, 1981), 113. This article reported that there were 1,478 illiterate and 359 semi-illiterate 218

This article also stressed that education in new Yan’an corresponded to

China’s circumstances. Education in Yan’an was better in training patriotic and useful citizens, an urgent need for China while fighting a national war against Japan.

The words of a putative shop assistant, who was quoted to say, “many middle school graduates from outside could not do better than ordinary people in Yan’an,” introduced this perspective. The shop assistant elaborated with a concrete example.

A middle school graduate from his home province of Henan came to Yan’an and applied to Kangda.46 To his surprise, this “well-educated” young man could not even distinguish just wars from unjust wars, a basic knowledge widely known to each Yan’an resident. Adding to his political ignorance, this middle school graduate was also unfamiliar with public work. In contrast, Yan’an inhabitants were experts in this regard. Every single “mass project (民眾工作 minzhong gongzuo)”47 was accomplished via Yan’an populace initiatives.48

The reason why people in Yan’an were so enthusiastic about education, this article continued, was because of changes in politics. New Yan’an exercised full democracy, which greatly improved people’s lives. People at Yan’an formerly had rags on their backs and little in their bellies. In the new Yan’an, meat and flour appeared more frequently on family tables. People could afford new clothes as well.

people at Yan’an, among whom 209 attended either night school or winter school, and 742 joined a literacy group. 46 Kangda (抗大) is the abbreviation of Zhongguo renmin kangRi junzheng daxue (中國人民抗日軍政大學 Chinese People’s Anti-Japanese Military and Political University), which was established by the CCP to train military and political cadres during the Second Sino-Japanese War. 47 Mass work referred to activities that involved the masses. 48 Bi Kai, “Xin Yan’an de minzhong jiaoyu (January 1940),” in SGNBJZ, 113-114. 219

Most importantly, the general masses, formerly an oppressed group, now had a say in governance.49

The Chinese Communists viewed literacy as carrying distinctive political value. Literacy indicated the preferred ways in which the Party intended to interact with the masses, including both inhabitants within its base areas and those beyond.

Their discourse on literacy aroused a revolutionary literacy myth in which the Party was portrayed as full of capable political, cultural, and social leaders. In practice, their literacy programs absorbed the populace into the political community under its design. Contingent upon the changing political and social context, the emphasis and goals of the Party’s literacy projects varied accordingly.

Defining Literacy—The Criteria

Literacy, in the Communist Party’s perception, was never politically neutral.

Literacy education was an essential way to cultivate a reading public that was receptive to the Party’s political and cultural propaganda. The criteria of literacy reflected this agenda clearly.

Literacy movements during the Jiangxi Soviet aimed to enable villagers to read and understand the documents printed and distributed by the Party and government. The Party dictated that literacy meant being able to read general books and newspapers, as well as political documents, and to write letters, rather than mastery of a fixed number of characters (such as one or two hundred characters) or

49 Ibid., 116. 220 the ability to write one’s own name.50 In this context, the objects of reading and writing were explicitly defined, and included political documents, books, newspapers, and letters. Literacy was not simply possessing the skills of reading and writing; rather, it was defined as the ability of individuals and political authorities to communicate via written or printed documents. Promoting literacy among the populace offered one solution to the administrative problem the Party faced in the early 1930s Jiangxi Soviet, that is, tardiness and ignorance of the directives from higher authorities.51 Essentially, local cadres’ ability to understand written orders, whether independently or having someone else read the orders to them, preconditioned the effective operation of government from top to the bottom.

This standard was carried into the Yan’an period, with a new motivation added. Commoners’ perception of literacy was taken into consideration. Literacy was a source of prestige in the eyes of the locals. The Party observed that candidates from well-to-do families frequently capitalized on their literacy skills to convince voters during the village elections that the Party encouraged in its base areas.

Illiterate local cadres, mostly from middle-poor peasant families, were criticized.52

50 Luo Pu, “Lun Suwei’ai zhengquan de wenhua jiaoyu zhengce (論蘇維埃政權的文化教育政策 Comments on the cultural and educational policies of the Soviet regime) (September 15, 1933),” in Jiangxi suqu jiaoyu ziliao huibian, 21. 51 Xingguoxian sufu wenhuabu (興國縣蘇府文化部 The department of culture of the Soviet government in Xingguo County), “Wei buqu zhixing gongzuo zhishi de yanzhong cuowu gei geji Suwei’ai zhengfu wenhuake de xin (為不去執行工作指示的嚴重錯誤給各級蘇維埃政府文化科的信 A letter to the cultural office at all levels regarding the serious mistake of not implementing work instructions) (April 22, 1931),” in Shisou ziliaoshi gongfei ziliao), microfilm. 52 “Cunxuan (村選 Village elections)” (December 1941), Shanxi Provincial Archive (citied by catalogue and file number), A22-1-4-1. 221

In response, the Party promoted exemplary cadres in cultural learning (文化學習模

範 wenhua xuexi mofan) (see Appendix I).

These role models provided an instructive example that local cadres, if not literate already, were able to achieve an above-average level of literacy after a period of study. At the same time, they proved to the commoners that basic literacy, in the way the CCP defined it, could potentially help them gain increased influence over local communities. Though with varied writing skills – from writing simple letters and work reports, to writing newspaper articles – these role models eventually acquired reading skills consistently defined as reading newspapers.

These skills were also work-oriented and helped these local cadres to govern and administrate.

In comparison, the general populace – though being encouraged to learn from these model cadres – was expected to attain a lower standard of literacy, with a focus on reading, not writing. The minimum standard for mass literacy education was to read slogans and posters, to fill out a personal résumé, and to use the

CCP-sponsored phonetic script Sin Wenz.53

Popular literacy was further gauged simply by the numbers of characters mastered, a standard that changed over time. Those vanguards in literacy learning in 1937 who had mastered 500 characters slipped into the category of semi-illiterate in 1939. Mao Zedong proposed in early 1939 that a literate person

53 “Guanyu qunzhong de wenhua jiaoyu jianshe caoan (1937),” in SGNBJZ, 4-5. See chapter 1 for disuccsion about Sin Wenz. 222 should know 1,000 characters, a criterion broadly adopted in China during this period. The difference was that the Party made it clear that these 1,000 characters were to come from the four volumes of the New Thousand Character Classic (新千字

文 Xin qianzi wen) edited by the Shaan-Gan-Ning central border government.

Mastery of only the first two volumes, approximately 500 characters, was defined as semi-illiterate.54 The bar was raised again in 1944. When Mao called for mastering at least 1,000 characters, but hopefully more. “It would be better if general populace could learn 1,500, 2,000, or 3,000 characters,” he continued.55 This change was a prelude to the enhanced standards issued after 1949.56

The CCP defined basic literacy in ways that accommodated its needs for administrators and reaching the general population with the Party’s political propaganda. The criteria for basic literacy was not fixed and was not applied uniformly to everyone. Similarly, the Communists worked to define and delineate

54 “Shaan-Gan-Ning bianqu zhengfu jiaoyuting tongling (陝甘寧邊區政府教育廳通令 A general order issued by the education department of Shaan-Gan-Ning border government)” (March 1939), in SGNBJZ, 81-82. 55 Mao Zedong, “Zai Yan’an daxue kaixue dianli shang de jianghua (在延安大學開學典禮上的講話 A talk at the opening ceremony of Yan’an Univeristy) (May 1944),” Mao Zedong wenji (毛泽东文集 Collected works of Mao Zedong) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1996), 3:154. 56 The standard of literacy continued evolving after 1949. In 1950, mastery of 1,000 characters was considered literate and knowing less than 300 characters was deemed entirely illiterate. In the end of 1953, new criteria were issued. For workers and cadres, mastery of 3,000 characters was required. But for peasants, 2,000 characters was good enough. Those recognizing less than 500 characters were considered illiterate. The standard changed once again in 1956 by reducing the number of characters to 2,000 for workers and cadres and 1,500 characters for peasants. Although during the Great Leap Forward movement a higher standard was used, it was abandoned shortly afterwards. In 1978, the government reaffirmed the 1956 criteria of literacy. See Vilma Seeberg, Literacy in China: the Effect of the National Development Context and Policy on Literacy Levels, 1949-79 (Bochum: Brockmeyer 1990), 20-21. 223 the desirable target groups and to design its literacy programs to suit these different units.

Formulating Mass Literacy Education: Who Are the MASSES?

Early twentieth-century China’s literacy programs all aimed for universal literacy. But none of them targeted the entire population. School-aged children, youths, and middle-aged adults were the main demographics defining the masses, in spite of each group with varied preference. The elderly were not as much of a target.

The Communists were no exception to this trend. Primary schools for children and literacy campaigns aimed at youths and adults composed the two main forms of literacy education. This strategy was partly due to the fact that the CCP, similar to the GMD, was caught in a dilemma between overstretched governmental resources and the ambitious goal of mass education. To solve this problem, the CCP, like the GMD, too, mobilized local communities to take responsibility for organizing and financing basic education. Meanwhile, it budgeted pragmatically. For example, under dire circumstances, the Communists might choose to narrow their literacy program to a focused group that the Party evaluated essential to furthering its cause.

In 1930, when the Party was desperately trying to survive the GMD’s suppression, the Red Army was the targeted group. Only after the CCP successfully evaded the

GMD’s first encirclement campaign (圍剿 weijiao) was a literacy movement organized among the general populace in April 1931, in addition to institutionalizing general education for school-aged children. 224

The Jiangxi Soviet adopted a policy of compulsory primary education.

Although the Central Party advocated the principle of providing free education to all children up through age seventeen, constrained by war, it reduced compulsory education to five years in October 1933. All children from age seven to thirteen were required to enroll in elementary schools, which consisted of three years in Lenin junior primary schools (列寧小學 Liening xiaoxue), and two years of senior primary school (高級小學 Gaoji xiaoxue). The length of schooling was flexible depending on circumstances and could either be reduced or extended.57

To supplement compulsory education, the Jiangxi Soviet provided basic education to those above age thirteen through night schools and Sunday schools.

The primary goal was to eliminate illiteracy. By 1934, there were 6,462 night schools with 94,500 students. For those such as childbearing women, elderly, and individuals living far away from schools and thus unable to attend night schools, the

Party organized literacy classes or literacy groups. Each literacy group possessed a headman (組長 zuzhang) and three to ten members who lived nearby. Often, the night school students served as headmen. They chose characters to teach his or her fellow villagers whenever and wherever possible. Within the two provinces of

Jiangxi and Yue-Gan of the Jiangxi Soviet, 32,388 literacy groups were organized by

1934, which enrolled 155,371 members.58 Unfortunately, these impressive

57 “Zhongyang wenhua jiaoyu jianshe dahui jueyian (中央文化教育建設大會決議案 Decisions on the central conference on cultural and educational construction)” (October 20, 1933), in Jiangxi suqu jiaoyu ziliao huibian, 96, 98. 58 Mao Zedong, “Suweiai de wenhua jiaoyu (January 1934),” in Jiangxi suqu jiaoyu ziliao huibian, 12. 225 numbers were not always indicative of the actual impact of literacy learning on the populace. The Party itself also admitted that the achievement existed in name only in some places. The major reason, the Central Committee concluded, was that township educational committees often slacked off and failed to check literacy learning on a regular basis.59

To circumvent bureaucratic ineptness, the Party resorted to mass organizations. A Literacy Movement Committee(識字運動委員會 Shizi yundong weiyuanhui) was established in each xiang (鄉 township) to preside over literacy learning. These locally based committees, unfortunately, appeared to be insufficient to coordinate with each other and respond to the central directives. As a result, the

Party set up the Association to Eliminate Illiteracy (消滅文盲協會 Xiaomie wenmang xiehui) from the xiang level up to the central government. It replaced the old

Literacy Movement Committee and unified the network of literacy campaigners under the education department at all levels of the CCP. In this way, the Party attempted to subjugate mass organizations to governmental supervision, while continuing to encourage local initiatives. This approach to mass mobilization became a standard strategy for the CCP in waging other social campaigns as well.

Based on its experiences in the Jiangxi Soviet, the CCP managed to develop an organized literacy movement systematically from the top to the bottom during the

Yan’an period. The CCP explained that formal schooling was the main approach for

59 “Zhongyang wenhua jiaoyu jianshe dahui jueyian (中央文化教育建設大會決議案 Decisions made on the central conference of cultural and educational construction)” (January 1934), in Jiangxi suqu jiaoyu ziliao huibian, 99. 226 educating children, who were clearly defined as being between ages seven and fourteen in 1937.60 Standardizing primary schools and increasing attendance were the primary concerns. The general goal was to establish one basic primary school wherever there were 30-40 school-aged children living no more than about three li

(里, about 0.3 mile ) apart from each other. In the village where the school was located, the Party aimed to mobilize at least eighty percent of eligible children to register.61 Among these enrolled, the Party sought to ensure sixty-five percent regularly attended school.62 During wartime, and with increased mobility of local population, these objectives were not easy to accomplish. Nevertheless, the Party expected standardized primary schools to help provide a continuous supply of young teachers for illiterate adults and thus help prevent the prolonging of illiteracy into the later generations. Moreover, pupils were also encouraged to pursue higher education upon graduation.63

As in the Jiangxi Soviet, the CCP strived to maintain a diverse array of literacy training programs: literacy classes, night schools, and half-day schools for the populace throughout the year. In addition, the Party launched a social

60 “Guanyu qunzhong de wenhua jiaoyu jianshe caoan (關於群眾的文化教育建設草案 A draft on developing mass culture and education)”(1937), in SGNBJZ, 3. 61 The number should be expected to be lower in villages that were not the location of the school. 62 “1941 niandu difang jiaoyu gongzuo jihua dagang,” in Jin-Sui geming genjudi jiaoyushi ziliao xuanbian (晋绥革命根据地教育史资料选编 Selected materials on educational history in Jin-Sui revolutionary base area) (hereafter JSGJZX), comp. Shanxisheng jiaoyushi Jin-Sui bianqu bianxiezu (山西省教育史晋绥边区编写组 The Shanxi editorial board on educational history in Jin-Sui border region) and Neimengu zizhiqu jiaoyu shizhi bangongshi (内蒙古自治区教育史志办公室 The office of educational gazetteers in Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region)(1986), 1: 68. 63 Ibid. 227 movement-oriented literacy program that met only during the winter for three months(and was thus named winter school [冬學 dongxue]).64

Winter school was an essential way for the Party to eliminate illiteracy during wartime, a principle promulgated by the Central Committee on October 13,

1937.65 The preparation work usually began in November, with the first two weeks used for publicity and the rest of the time used for teacher training and mobilizing villagers to participate. From the beginning of December to the end of February or early March, villagers sat together for literacy classes for two hours each day for seventy days, with twenty days off for the Spring Festival.66 In March and April, the county-level governments were required to summarize and report the results, existing problems, and experiences of that year’s winter schools for future reference.67

While local governments, theoretically speaking, carried the responsibilities of organizing both school education for children and informal schooling for people beyond school age, they tended to focus on the former, but neglected the latter. The

64 Some well-organized winter schools converted into literacy classes, night schools, and supplementary schools for the general masses (大眾補習學校 dazhong buxi xuexiao) and normalized literacy studies throughout the year. 65 “Guanyu dongxue de tongling (關於冬學的通令 A General order on winter schooling) (October, 1937),” in Laojiefangqu jiaoyu ziliao xuanbian (老解放区教育资料选编 Selections on educational materials of the long-established liberated areas), ed. Zhongyang jiaoyu kexue yuanjiusuo (中央教育科学研究所 National Institute of Education Sciences) (Beijing: Jiaoyu kexue chubanshe, 1986), 2:1. 66 “Guanyu dongxue de zhishixin (關於冬學的指示信 An instructional letter on winter schooling)” (November 1940), in JSGJZX, 1: 40. 67 Shanxisheng shizhi yanjiuyuan ed., Jiaoyu zhi, vol. 37 of Shanxi tongzhi, 613-614. 228 central Party identified this problem early in 1938 in its central base area.68 Again, as in the Jiangxi period, the Party relied on temporary task forces to address the issue. The Winter Schooling Committee (冬學委員會 Dongxue weiyuanhui) was an example. This committee usually was chaired by the village head and staffed by delegates of mass organizations, such as the Women’s Federation (婦聯 Fulian), the

Youth League (共青團 Gongqingtuan), National Salvation (救國會 Jiuguohui), and village militia, as well as individuals who were interested in education.69 The committee collectively formulated detailed plans about how to organize winter schools in local areas. Each social organization and group then used their networks to mobilize villagers and ensure the implementation of winter schooling. For example, the Women’s Association for National Salvation (婦救會 Fujiuhui) was responsible for designing concrete, specific methods to engage village women.70

The most successful case was to combine literacy learning with the study of

68 “Shaan-Gan-Ning bianqu jiaoyuting zhishixin, guanyu shehui jiaoyu gongzuo wenti (陝甘寧邊區教育廳指示信, 關於社會教育工作問題 A letter of instruction from the educational department of the Shaan-Gan-Ning border government, on the problems of social education)”(June 1938), in SGNBJZ, 20. 69 “Shanxisheng di’er youjiqu shehui jiaoyu zuzhi zanxing tiaoli (山西省第二遊擊區社會教育組織暫行條例 Provisional regulation on social education organizations in the second guerilla zone in Shanxi)” (May 1941), in JSGJZX, 1: 65. 70 Shanxisheng jiaoyuzhi biannian weiyuanhui (山西省教育志编年委员会 The editorial committee of educational history in Shanxi province) and Neimenggu zizhiqu jiaoyu shizhi bangongshi (内蒙古自治区教育史志办公室 The office of educational gazetteers in Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region) eds., Jin-Sui geming genjudi jiaoyu jianshi (晋绥革命根据地教育简史 A brief educational history in Jin-Sui revolutionary base area)(hereafter JSJYJS), vol.1-2, draft, chapter 6, 12-13. Also see Shanxisheng shizhi yanjiuyuan ed., Jiaoyu zhi, vol. 37 of Shanxi tongzhi, 613, and also “Guanyu dongxue de zhishixin” (November 1940), in JSGJZX, 41. 229 spinning and weaving,71 an approach that allowed winter schooling to fit into villagers’ daily activities and not conflict with their economic production.

Depending on temporary committees for leadership also had certain noticeable drawbacks, as committee members were frequently distracted by their other responsibilities. Some village heads complained that “winter schooling just meant learning to read and write and singing songs which had nothing useful, but only interrupted other work.”72 Consequently, villagers’ literacy education was neglected in some places.

To urge a stronger commitment, the Party tried to be clear about the target group that local committees were expected to mobilize. It bracketed this group by age first. In early 1937, the CCP’s Central Committee ruled that mass literacy education targeted adults below age 40.73 This cap fluctuated by a range of five years over time and across different regions. Whatever age limit was chosen, the basic principle was clear: the Party focused its literacy campaign on young and middle-aged (青壯年 qingzhuangnian) men and women, just as the GMD did.

At what pace the Party should extend education to this group? About this question, the Party had less centainty. As Suzanne Pepper points out, the dichotomy between regularity (正規化 zhengguihua) and the mass line has been at the center

71 “Chaijiagou dongxue gongzuo zongjie (柴家溝冬學工作總結 Summary of winter schooling in Chaijiagou),” Shanxi Provincial Archive, A147-1-27-5. 72 JSJYJS, vol.1-2, draft, chapter 6, 25. 73 Ibid. 230 of Chinese Communist educational policies since the 1930s.74 Initially, Party leaders favored rapid popularization of mass literacy. Numbers of literacy groups soared to

3,852 in 1939, almost triple the amount from the previous year (see Table 8).

However, as early as 1938, concerns began to mount over the low educational quality.75 Advocates of regularity and improving quality gradually strengthened their cause thereafter, at the expense of mass education. The slight decrease in 1940 and drastic decline in number of literacy groups in the following two years (see

Table 8) corresponded to policy changes taking place. The shrinking numbers of literacy groups and students portrayed a different image, diverging from the one presented in the Party’s propaganda, which unilaterally used large enrollment numbers to impress a national audience.

Year Number 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 Literacy groups 1,312 3,850 3,580 1,973 281 Students 11,326 24,107 23,725 12,259 2,438 Table 8. Numbers of literacy groups and students in the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region (1938-1942)76

74 Suzanne Pepper, Radicalism and Education Reform in 20th-century China, 129-130. 75 Ibid. 76 “Guomin jiaoyu gaikuang (國民教育概況 A overview of national education),” Xin Zhonghua bao, August 10, 1938. 231

Not only was the number of winter schools reduced, but the definition of the

“masses” also shrank. Starting with the 1944-45 academic year, “local cadres and activists” became the main target students of winter schooling, which included labor heroes, leaders of production teams, leaders of mutual-aid working teams (變工組 biangong zu), headmen of textile teams, activists from cooperatives, militiamen, and village cadres. After the enrollment of these local leaders, it was acceptable to absorb ordinary people as well, but purely on a voluntary basis.77

This shift in focus corresponded to the changes on the battlefield in the war against Japan. As the balance of the war began turning in favor of Chinese forces, along with the Allies worldwide in 1944, the CCP acted with forethought. Cultivating loyal local leaders became the key to securing and expanding the areas under its influence. Political education was emphasized more in the literacy classes.78 Even as the scope of winter schooling bounced back, in a noticeable way, to incorporate the common populace beginning in the winter of 1946-47, the emphasis was placed upon fostering good relations between local cadres and common masses. Winter schooling provided an opportunity for local Party leaders to review their work with villagers, thus offering them a chance to encourage self-criticism, strengthen unity, and build empathy for the Communists.79 In other words, winter schools became

77 JSJYJS, chapter 6, 15-16. 78 JSJYJS, chapter 6, 15-16, also see “Renzhen banhao dongxue (認真辦好冬學 Organizing winter schooling carefully),” Jin-Sui ribao, November 8, 1946, reprinted in JSGJZX, 1:297; “Bianqu shehui jiaoyu yinianlai de xin fazhan,” Kangzhan ribao, July 9, 1945, reprinted in JSGJZX, 1:258. 79 “Gankuai jiaqiang dongxue gongzuo (趕快加強冬學工作 Enhancing winter schooling quickly),” Jin-Sui ribao, December 17, 1946, reprinted in JSGJZX, 1:300. 232 the arena for local leaders to cultivate their authority. Training capable local cadres with influence over village affairs was still the fundamental goal.

Conclusion

Branding its literacy education as a mass project, the Party invested in the modernization literacy myth that universal literacy was the precondition for strengthening national power. In order to prove its qualifications as a national leader, the Party vigorously reported its literacy projects, highlighting their ability to improve mass literacy significantly within a short period, while criticizing its political competitor—the GMD—for failing to do so. However, the masses, a vaguely defined term, also granted room for the Party to adjust the scope of its literacy projects. “The masses” were a relatively focus group, whether a broad one—the young and middle-aged adults, or a smaller one—local cadres and activists, upon whom the Party intended to devote their energy of the moment.

In the meantime, the Party had in mind a definite object in regards to the meaning of literacy. The CCP perceived literacy as a weapon in its power struggle with the GMD. Its discourses on literacy served to promote its political regime as superior to that of the Nationalists. By introducing a class perspective to analysis of the reasons for China’s mass illiteracy, the CCP attempted to justify a Communist revolution in China. Seeking popular support for this political revolt, Party leaders tried to understand commoners’ notions of literacy and capitalize on them. The

Communists realized that commoners evaluated literacy in relation to access to 233 political and economic power. Hence, the CCP tended to present a literacy obtained through their training projects that could help villagers seek a larger visibility in the local communities ruled by the Party. The Party’s agenda was carried through by local cadres and responded to by the masses, while both groups added their interpretations. As the next chapter will show, the function of literacy actually took shape through a dialectical interaction between individuals and local cadres involved in the learning process.

234

Chapter 6: Constructing a Literacy in Rural Shanxi

As the February moon rises in the East, 二月裡來月正東, The candlelight shines on my sewing work; 高照山燈做針工. Making the army’s boots stronger and stronger, 軍鞋做得壯又壯, For the Eighth Route Army to put them on and go to war. 八路軍穿上好打仗.

It is now the third watch, already deep into the night, 三更裡來夜已深, Let me add a few more stiches; 再把軍鞋做幾針. With this pair of boots done, 這一雙軍鞋做完成, By day, learning to read will not fail. 白天識字不落空.

Introduction

This labor song, popular among villagers in Shanxi Province during the

Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), renders a vivid image of a diligent woman working late into the night to make shoes for the Eight Route Army, while also looking forward with enthusiasm to the literacy class in the coming day. This narrative also embodied the literacy myth that the CCP advocated during wartime, which presented villagers as the beneficiary of the Chinese Communists literacy education lived a proactive, political life driven by national interest. “For a myth to gain acceptance, it must be grounded in at least some aspects of perceived reality

235 and can not explicitly contradict all ways of thinking and expectations.”1 Hence, the question would be in what ways this myth clarifies and clouds our vision. In a province constantly subjected to military confrontation, when villagers were mobilized for the Chinese Communist Party’s war effort, how could they also delve into literacy learning with such zeal? What did literacy and literacy learning mean to the local cadres and the villagers struggling to live through the hardships of wartime?

These questions frame this chapter’s inquiry into the Chinese Communists’ literacy projects in rural Shanxi with a focus on the Northwest base area (晉西北根據地

Jinxibei genjudi)2 where, the Party claimed, 90 percent of the population was illiterate prior to 1937.3

In wartime Shanxi, local cadres executed the Party’s agenda of literacy education, that of influencing the popular political inclination in favor of the

1 Harvey J. Graff, “The Literacy Myth at Thirty,” Journal of Social History 43, no.3 (Spring 2010): 638. 2 The revolutionary base area in northwest Shanxi extended into the southeast of Suiyuan (绥远). In November 1943, the name of this base area was changed into Jin-Sui base area (晉綏根據地 Jin-Sui genjudi). Suiyuan is located in the central southern part of present-day Inner Mongolia. It was part of Shanxi Province during the Qing, established as a separated province in 1924, and then merged into Inner Mongolia in 1954. In November 1943, the name of this base area was changed into Jin-Sui base area (晉綏根據地 Jin-Sui genjudi). Suiyuan located at the central southern part of nowadays Inner Mongolia. It was part of Shanxi Province during the Qing, established as a separated province in 1924, and then merged into Inner Mongolia in 1954. For the history of Suiyuan during the Republican era, see Justin Tighe, Constructing Suiyuan: The Politics Of Northwestern Territory And Development in Early Twentieth-Century China (Leiden: Brill, 2005). 3 For example, the illiteracy rate in Lin County (臨縣) prior to the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) was 95%, and 83% for Baode County (保德縣). See JSJYJS, vol. 1-2, draft, chapter 6, 1; also see Mu Xin 穆欣, “Jin-Sui jiefangqu wenhua jiaoyu niaokan (晉綏解放區文化教育鳥瞰 Overview of culture and education in Jin-Sui liberated area)” (April 1946), in Jin-Sui geming genjudi jiaoyushi ziliao xuanbian (晋绥革命根据地教育史资料选编 Selected materials on educational history in Jin-Sui revolutionary base area) (hereafter JSGJZX), comp. Shanxisheng jiaoyushi Jin-Sui bianqu bianxiezu (山西省教育史晋绥边区编写组 The Shanxi editorial board on educational history in Jin-Sui border region) and Neimengu zizhiqu jiaoyu shizhi bangongshi (内蒙古自治区教育史志办公室 The office of educational gazetteers in Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region)(1986),1:272. 236

Communists. To this end, they contextualized and explained the Party’s New

Democratic Culture according to local conditions. They also designed the content of their literacy classes to foster broad recognition of the Party’s political authority.

Literacy education served as a channel for the Party to absorb villagers into its cultural and political community under construction. However, common people simply hoped to acquire the knowledge essential for making life adjustments under the governance of a new regime during turbulent times. Divergence anticipated tensions and conflicts, but by no means implied being incompatible.

To make their literacy programs attractive to villagers, local cadres in Shanxi worked to accommodate daily needs. Villagers received limited training in writing and arithmetic that enabled them to perform basic tasks, such as calculating tax payment and negotiating contracts better with landlords. The CCP’s literacy programs addressed these concerns. More importantly, local cadres transformed literacy learning into a social realm through which villagers exchanged and shared information among themselves and with government agents. To both political authorities and villagers, acquiring the skills of reading and writing per se was not the fundamental goal. Rather, literacy learning allowed program designers to name the world according to its understanding. Mastery of the vocabularies sanctioned by political authorities also granted students to pronounce their requests in a legitimate way. Literacy provided a meeting ground for the CCP and villagers to negotiate their relations. This shared interests in this negotiation process composed a part of the “perceived reality” that nurtured the literacy myth the Party promoted. 237

In the 1930s and 1940s, people living in Shanxi not only waged a fierce national war against the Japanese, but were also involved in the intense political competition between Chinese Communists and Nationalists for local leadership.4

In contrast to Yan’an—the Communists’ political center in the rear area where the

Party enjoyed hegemony—Shanxi was distinguished as being a politically sensitive and militarily vulnerable frontier to the CCP. Surprisingly, it was in this border region that the Party staggered along and established vigorous, inventive, and diverse literacy projects.

The ways in which the CCP engaged local people in Shanxi emphasized mobilizing the masses to respond on their own initiative, as any scent of compulsion and imposition had the potential to push the masses away to the CCP’s rivals. The monstrous violence that the Japanese army perpetrated in the countryside was a

4 The Japanese began its Shanxi expedition in early September 1937, two months after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident that triggered the Second Sino-Japanese War, where it encountered stubborn resistance from the Chinese forces. The fighting appeared to settle into a stalemate around February 1938, with Japanese troops controlling large cities and areas along the railways located in the basins enclosed by the Lüliang and Taihang Mountains and Chinese forces occupying the mountainous areas in the margins. Under the command of He Long’s (賀龍 1896-1969) 120th division, the CCP’s Northwest base area that expanded into Jin-Sui base area (晉綏根據地 Jin-Sui genjudi) in late 1943 functioned much more as the frontier for the CCP’s central base areas surrounding Yan’an in Shaanxi Province. In the northeast, the 115th division led by Lin Biao (林彪 1907-1971) of CCP’s Eighth Route Army infiltrated Japanese lines and established a base area in the three-province-border area of Shanxi, Chahar and Hebei— the Jin-Cha-Ji base area (晉察冀根據地 Jin-Cha-Ji genjudi). The 129th division under the command of Liu Bocheng (劉伯承 1892-1986) opened up Taihang and Taiyue as two base areas in the southeast. In the southwest resided local Nationalist forces—the Jin-Sui Army (晉綏軍 Jinsui jun) led by the former warlord Yan Xishan. Although the Nationalist Central Army initially established a foothold among the Zhongtiao mountain range in Shanxi’s southern border, it retreated after a major defeat in May 1941. See Guo Xiayun (郭夏云), Jiaoyu de geming he geming de jiaoyu, dongxue shiye zhong de genjudi shehui bianqian (教育的革命和革命的教育—冬学视野中的根据地社会变迁 Educational revolution and revolutionary education, social changes in the revolutionary base areas from the perspective of winter schooling) (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 2009), 25-31. 238 living reality for the local people in Shanxi.5 Although it is feasible to argue that the survival crisis in the face of the brutal destruction of the Japanese invasion could foment patriotic feelings and make villagers more open to nationalistic military and political mobilization, we should also realize that Japanese surprise attacks and mopping-up operations could also deter the masses from joining the resistance forces.

Furthermore, the CCP was not the only present and available political power to which the peasant looked to for leadership. With both former local governor Yan

Xishan (閻錫山 1883-1960) and his Jin-Sui Army,6 and Chiang Kai-shek and the

Nationalist central troops also in the area, the CCP carefully carved out a space to claim its military distinctiveness and political legitimacy through literacy. Local cadres in Shanxi vigorously advocated the Party’s slogan that their literacy programs create a new culture. They strived to prove this new culture beneficial to masses across different social sectors.

5 Prasenjit Duara, Culture, Power, and the State: Rural North China, 1900-1942 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), 254. 6 The competition between the CCP and Yan Xishan for local leadership climaxed in December 1939. Yan launched a military campaign against the CCP-influenced Shanxi New Army (新軍 Xinjun). These open clashes were called Jinxi Incident (晉西事變 Xi’an shibian). Hereafter, the CCP and Yan reached an agreement that the Northwest of Shanxi was to be the CCP’s sphere of influence, including areas to the east of the Yellow River, west of the Tong-Pu railway (大同—蒲州鐵路 Datong-Puzhou tielu), south of the Great Wall, and north of the east of the Yellow River, north of south of the Great Wall, and south of Fen-Li Road (汾陽-離石公路 Fenyang-Lishi gonglu). In turn, the CCP respected Yan’s control over the southwestern part of Shanxi that demarcated by Fen-Li Road in the north. See Guo Xiayun, Jiaoyu de geming he geming de jiaoyu, 28-29. 239

Defining a NEW Culture

Following the call by the Party’s Central Committee to create a new national, scientific, and mass culture, administrative offices in revolutionary base areas devoted significant effort to promoting mass literacy education along with other cultural activities. When this ideological framework was employed by local cadres in

Shanxi to guide their educational and cultural practices, it aimed to cultivate general patriotic feeling.

Enlisting local support for the Party’s guerilla warfare figured prominently for consolidating its revolutionary bases. To serve this end, Communist agents in

Shanxi resorted to mass literacy education with a focus on promoting national consciousness and integrity in order to repel Japanese military attacks and cultural assimilation.7 Literacy education served a direct military and political agenda. As

Yang Zhilin (楊植霖 1911-1992), a Communist leader in Suiyuan recalled, the anti-Japanese theme occupied a substantial space in the literacy primers prepared by local cadres. Instead of talking about abstract ideas, the primers used concrete examples drawn from daily life. Referring to villagers’ experiences with Japanese troops’ thefts of grain, local Communists demonstrated that Japanese promotion about the goodwill between China and Japan (中日親善 Zhong-Ri qinshan) was a lie.

7 “Jinxibei ernianban de wenhua jiaoyu jianshe baogao (晉西北二年半的文化教育建設報告 Report on the cultural and educational development in northwest Shanxi in the past two and half years)” (October, 1942), in JSGJZX, 1: 238-239. 240

Weeding out traitors and spies was another major topic in literacy primers.

The compilers demonized Chinese collaborators and spies by vividly portraying them with ugly and disgustful appearances and evil deeds. With these literacy primers, according to Yang, villagers not only learned to read and write, but also developed bitter hatred towards traitors and spies, whom they described as

“inhuman and losing all the virtues inherited from ancestors.”8

In peasant students’ eyes, traditional cultural heritage defined and inspired patriotism. This interpretation differed from the official version propagated by the

Party, which attributed the upsurge of general nationalism to acceptance of

Communist revolutionary ideas. Interestingly, local cadres did not sense any thread of contradiction on this point, although they actively presented the culture they promoted as being new to the local.

Labeling New Democratic Culture as a new one carried significant practical values for the Party. Local cadres tended to describe people living in Shanxi as culturally backward, superstitious, and ignorant.9 The low literacy rate was frequently cited to justify their claim. They grouped all traditional practices that did not fit into the Party’s cultural conception into one single package—“old culture”—

8 “Shiji liude xiangxu ji qianqiu youji ju gaojing, fang geming laoqianbei Yang Zhilin tongzhi (史籍留得庠序跡千秋猶記舉高旌—訪革命老前輩楊植霖同志 Historical record keeping the traces of schools, memories about raising up highly the flag lasting for thousands of years, a interview with revolutionary veteran Yang Zhilin),” in JSGJZX, 2:316. 9 Fang Zhengzhi 方正之, “Shitan muqian dongxue yundong zhong de jige wenti (試談目前冬學運動中的幾個問題 Comments on the issues involved in current winter schooling)” (December, 1941), in JSGJZX, 2:529; Mo Chuan (莫川), “Yiyuelai de Baode dongxue gongzuo (一月來的保德冬學工作 Report on winter schooling in Baode County in the past month)” (January, 1945), JSGJZX, 2:533. 241 including dishonesty, concubinage, poor hygiene, and superstitious beliefs.10

Furthermore, local cadres also attributed villagers’ indifference to the Party’s military, political, and social mobilization to cultural backwardness.11 By using “old

(jiu 舊)” and “new (xin 新),” two words that could be visualized and comprehended easily, local cadres intended to convince villagers that their cultural and educational initiatives were good, advanced, and progressive. A polarized image between illiteracy and literacy was mobilized as the symbol to distinguish the old culture from the new one.12 In this way, the Party seized cultural authority and assumed the responsibilities to enlighten people in cultural matters. The villagers’ new capabilities of reading and writing gained through the CCP’s literacy programs, in turn, served as the proof of Communists’ ability to transform people’s lives. This rhetorical tactic facilitated the acceptance of the Party’s literacy myth.

During the process of literacy learning, the scientific aspect of a New

Democratic Culture acquired a concrete form as well. It was the scientific knowledge associated closely with villagers’ lives that was taught. Students were instructed in general scientific knowledge about natural phenomena in an effort to counter superstitions. The emphasis was placed upon providing a scientific perspective in understanding the nature and human body. Under the pen of local cadres, popular mysticism was presented through folk sayings, such as “thunder was the shout of

10 Kang Chongtang (康崇唐), and Huang Wenruo (黃文若), “Women ruhe zibian xiaoxue keben (我們如何自編小學課本 How we complied textbooks for primary schools on our own,” in JSGJZX, 2: 434. 11 “Ruhe jinxing dongxue yundong (如何進行冬學運動 How to organize winter schooling)” (October 1940), in JSGJZX, 1:285. 12 Chen Liangpeng (陳良鵬) and Wang Chong (王充), “Women zai xinjiaoyu xia chengzhang (我們在新教育下成長 Growing under the new education)” (May 1946), in JSGJZX, 2:377. 242 the Thunder God,” “rain was the urine of the Dragon King (the God of Rain),” and

“the Plague God in charge of children’s lives.”13

To refute such beliefs and reduce infant mortality, local cadres offered lessons particular to village women about pregnancy, childbirth, and newborns.14

Meanwhile, more general classes on hygiene were provided to all villagers.15

Through improvement of health conditions and reduction of diseases such as typhoid, attainment of knowledge on hygienic practices, local cadres proclaimed, would contribute to preserving “the most valuable capital for the warfare and nation-building—the human resources.”16

To local cadres, finally, a democratic and mass culture meant getting the general populace involved in, or at least holding a positive attitude towards the political and cultural activities the Party sponsored. In their eyes, the masses tended to be unconcerned about politics. This “weakness” was illustrated in the following popular sayings: “Whoever is the emperor, we still have to pay taxes;” “We, humble common people, do not concern ourselves with the affairs of the state;” and “A great number of good deeds out there are left for you to do. (Emphasis added).”17 The

13 “Dongxue xuanchuan dagang (冬學宣傳大綱 The propaganda outline for winter schooling)” (November 1941), in JSGJZX , 2:527. 14 “Guanyu 1945 nian dongxue gongzuo de zhishixin (關於 1945 年冬學工作的指示信 Instruction on winter schooling in 1945)” (September 1945), in JSGJZX, 1: 119. 15 “Minguo sanshi niandu dongxue gongzuo jihua (民國三十年度冬學工作計畫 Working plan for winter schooling in 1941),” in JSGJZX, 1:97; “Jin-Sui bianqu guomin jiaoyu gaikuang (晉綏邊區國民教育概況 Survey on the national education in Jin-Sui border region)”(1944), in JSGJZX, 1:251; “Jinxibei ernianban de wenhua jiaoyu jianshe baogao,” in JSGJZX, 1:244. 16 “1941 niandu difang jiaoyu gongzuo jihua dagang (1941 年度地方教育工作計畫大綱 The outline proposal for local educational works in 1941),” in JSGJZX, 1: 70. 17 “Ruhe jinxing dongxue yundong” (October 1940), in JSGJZX, 1:285. 243 main task for local cadres, therefore, lodged principally in convincing villagers that the regime the CCP proposed to build differed from the despotic dynasties of the past. The CCP’s government would be selected by and serve the people. All the

Party’s policies aimed to benefit the general populace. It was in the people’s interest to comply with these resolutions and regulations. Local cadres also expected that villagers would join the Party in fighting against local bullies and making sure that governmental policies were enforced.18 In order to have villagers become receptive to the Party’s political messages, literacy education figured prominently.

Because literacy appeared to be a neutral social good that embraced practical functions, literacy served as an importance channel for the Party to engage villagers politically and culturally. When promoting their literacy programs to villagers, the local cadres emphasized how the skills of reading and writing could serve the individual’s life. Illiteracy was portrayed as a social stigma that suffering villages bore out of their choice. It also made people vulnerable to deceit and harm. In contrast, attainment of literacy not only enabled people to carry out basic literary related tasks (such as letter-writing and record keeping), but also produced social respect that protected them from frauds and bullies.19

Local cadres noticed that how literacy was valued varied among different social groups, and adjusted their advertisements accordingly. For merchants, the emphases were placed upon numeracy and the skills of keeping accounts and

18 “Jinnian dongxue de renwu (今年冬學的任務 Winter school’s goals of this year)”(December, 1942), in JSGJZX, 1:293. 19 “Dongxue xuanchuan dagang” (November 1941), in JSGJZX , 2:527. 244 reading brand names; for women, local cadres drew sympathy from their limited career choices beyond the domestic sphere. They then painted a promising future for women who acquired the abilities of reading, writing, and calculating, in which villager women would be able to “handle everything in daily life.” Consequently, their husband “would not dare to call them useless.” As for the elderly, the local

Communists focused on the issues that concerned them most, that is, contacting their children who were away from home. Literacy, it was emphasized, facilitated long-distance communication via letters.20 Through these narratives, local Party members weaved a set of literacy myths that asserted literacy’s irreplaceable value in individual’s day-to-day life.

Apparently, local party members managed to define the meaning of literacy within an individual’s occupational and family life in order to motivate the populace.

Without this practical skill training, the Party’s literacy programs hardly sounded attractive. Meanwhile, the Party valued literacy education as a way to influence people’s political inclination. Literacy/cultural class and political class, then, composed the dispensable parts of their rural educational program. How to balance these two within limited school time became a challenging issue. Among the critiques the Party summarized towards their literacy learning programs, the following were frequently found: “failure to reinforce the importance of literacy education,” “emphasis solely on political education,”21 and “stressing literacy

20 Ibid. 21 Fang Zhengzhi, “Shitan muqian dongxue yundong zhong de jige wenti” (December, 1941), in JSGJZX, 2:529; 245 learning at the expense of ideological education.”22 Still, although the skills of reading and writing applied to practical values in daily life, there were other factors of significance that was taken into consideration by villagers over whether to accept literacy training offered by the CCP. Commoners’ perceptions sometimes undermined the Party’s narrative of literacy myth that endowed literacy with an indispensable quality in day-to-day life.

Literacy—A Necessity for the Villagers?

As in the Jiangxi Soviet (1931-1934), the CCP in Shanxi strived to maintain the diversity of literacy training programs with flexible location and time schedule.

Some were institution-based permanent programs, such as mass education institutes (民眾教育館 minzhong jiaoyuguan), supplementary schools for the general masses (大眾補習學校 dazhong buxi xuexiao), and literacy classes attached to primary schools. They provided literacy training throughout the year but without strict requirement on attendance. Others, like winter schooling, were only organized during agriculture slack season, which might be converted into full-year schools if villagers required so. After being established in early 1940, the Administrative

Office in Northwest Shanxi (Jinxibei xingzheng gongshu 晉西北行政公署 abbr.

Jinxibei xingshu 晉西北行署)23 echoed the call from the central Party and

22 Mo Chuan, “Yiyuelai de Baode dongxue gongzuo” (January, 1945), JSGJZX, 2:535. 23 The name for the administrative office in the northwest of Shanxi changed over time. It was called Shanxi di’er youjiqu xingzheng gongshu (山西第二遊擊區行政公署 The administrative office for the second guerilla zone in Shanxi) when it was established on January 5, 1940. In 1942, it was renamed 246 reinforced winter schooling as a task of crucial importance for popularizing education and consolidating its base area.24

Although the skills of reading and writing applied to practical values in daily life, there were other factors that villagers took into consideration over whether to accept literacy training offered by the CCP. To some villagers, education was useful only to those oriented towards officialdom or academic professions and had little to do with farming. Short-term literacy training at winter schools, in their eyes, could not help them turn into someone important (成龍成虎 chenglong chenghu).25 Some took a fatalist perspective by considering literacy as being beyond reach of the poor.26 Even for those who believed that reading and writing skills were beneficial for daily life, literacy learning was not their main concern during wartime. Driving off the Japanese troops to regain a peaceful life was the primary task. Many cared little about learning to read and write.27 In addition, fears that winter schooling would interfere with farming and other productive works caused villagers’ doubts.

Some commented that “it is awkward and uncomfortable to stay indoors and study.”28

as Jinxibei xingzheng gongshu, which then changed into Jin-Sui xingzheng gongshu (晉綏行政公署 Shanxi-Suiyuan administrative office) in November 1943. 24 See JSJYJS, chapter 6, 6. 25 “Fenyang zhuanqu de dongxue yundong (汾陽專區的冬學運動 Winter schooling movements in Fenyang prefecture),” Shanxi Provincial Archive (citied by catalogue and file number), C61-5-2. 26 “Dongxue xuanchuan dagang” (November 1941), in JSGJZX , 2:527. 27 JSJYJS, vol.1-2, draft, chapter 6, 25. 28 “Shagoucun dongxue shiyan zongjie (沙溝村冬學試驗總結 Report on experimental winter schooling in Shagou village),” Shanxi Provincial Archive, A152-1-86-3. 247

Attending literacy classes was sometimes considered a burden. Local cadres were not all enthusiastic about committing to the Party’s directions, either. Some used their power to “protect” their own children and relatives from winter schooling. They sought to fulfill the quota issued by higher authorities by writing enough names on the roster, without caring whether those villagers could spare time to attend literacy classes while also busy with household chores or making a living. In order to avoid this burden, some villagers even hired someone to attend winter school for them. Skipping classes, malingering, and running were frequent occurrences.29

Literacy training was also employed as a form of punishment for those lacking in discipline. For local cadres, mobilizing villagers to attend winter schools was a challenging job. Sending individuals for teacher training was harder, since it was a full-time job and usually meant being away from home. The least likable persons in local communities, were usually picked for this assignment. In winter

1941, for instance, a local district leader picked a loafer (二流子 erliuzi) for winter school teaching training class (冬學教員訓練班 dongxue jiaoyuan xunlian ban).

This loafer had the worst reputation locally. The district head had been planning to deliver him to a police station or the local court. The request for candidates for winter school teachers came in time to relieve him of the trouble. Already short of trainees, the teacher training program had no way to shut the door on this loafer.

29 “Genju qunian jingyan jiaoyuting fachu dongxue zhishi (根據去年經驗教育廳發出冬學指示 Directive on winter schooling issued based on last year’s experience),” Jiefang ribao, September 9, 1942. 248

Interestingly, the training program’s generous admission was not appreciated at all by the loafer, who preferred to be put into jail than learn to read and write. In a conversation with a cadre, he complained tearfully about the plight of his family and then cursed furiously the person who sent him for schooling.30 Apparently, the loafer felt that he had been framed and did not deserve such a severe punishment—literacy training, to him, was even worse than imprisonment.

Villagers were also conscious of the political value attached to literacy learning. They had suspicions about the motivations behind the educational programs sponsored by political entities (whether Communist, Nationalist, or otherwise). It was clear to villagers that literacy programs sponsored by political entities differed from those offered by private institutes. Before the political authorities introduced their programs, local residents had used the winter time to attend private schools for basic literacy training. When Yan Xishan, the former governor, employed winter schools for rural social reform in the 1920s and early

1930s, his programs were criticized by the villagers for being “a waste of time,” as it did not “teach how to read and write.”31 During the Second Sino-Japanese War, rumor had it that the CCP’s winter schooling was a front for recruiting soldiers.

Some local residents were concerned that literacy attainment would turn them into

30 “Shui shuo laobaixing bu jieshou jiaoyu (誰說老百姓不接受教育 Who said the masses refused to accept education),” Jiefang ribao, April 22, 1942. 31 Fenyang zhuanqu de dongxue yundong, Shanxi Provincial Archive, C61-5-2. 249 potential candidates to be enlisted for government labor or service, a responsibility some villagers tried to avoid.32

In addition, by having little control over the appointment of teachers in the government-initiated program, local people also had concerns about entrusting their children and female family members to be taught by someone unknown.

Stories of love affairs between winter school teachers and female students further tainted the reputation of government-sponsored mass literacy programs. Fearing the potential risks of “being seduced by a bad person (被壞人勾引),” rural women frequently resisted attending winter schools.33 Another issue that concerned parents was the likelihood that girls would not be content with being housewives after receiving an education. And they probably would want to decide on their own marriages. Some even had their daughters married young in order to deter the

“pollution” of school education upon their views towards marriage. Parents and parents-in-law’s concerns were confirmed by the many petitions of divorce filed by female students.

A case occurring in 1942 offers a glimpse into this issue. Five female students, instead of going home, went directly to the local government and sued for divorce after winter schooling. Although their petitions did not get approved, local residents

32 “Dongxue xuanchuan dagang” (November 1941), in JSGJZX , 2:527-528. Gregor Benton also comments on villagers’ ambiguous attitudes towards being selected as local office holders in south China in the 1930s. The local official holders were usually the people of no great wealth, social standing, or political commitment. Most of them were forced into local office, as holding local office meant being on the front line of the straggle to maintain local order and security. See Gregor Benton, Mountain Fires: The Red Army’s Three-Year War in South China, 1934-1938 (Berkeley: Univ of California Press, 1992). 33 Fenyang zhuanqu de dongxue yundong, Shanxi Provincial Archive, C61-5-2. 250 still believed it was the Party’s literacy project that created a bad influence on women.34 Clearly, the Party’s efforts in liberating women politically and culturally did not necessarily win support on all fronts.

Schooling for their children was not necessarily a positive in the eyes of local residents, either. “It is useless to go to school,” some parents commented, as children only learned things irrelevant to their daily life in the countryside.35 The perceived absence of practical use resulted in some parents deeming school learning to be quite a burden36—a burden, it should be noted, that was less about the family’s ability to afford tuition,37 and more about the affordability of losing a child laborer. In rural Shanxi, boys got involved heavily in agricultural production and herding sheep, and girls were valuable helpers around the house. During the busy farming season, “without the help of kids, adult would have their hands full.”38

In such situations, schooling that demanded substantial time and the absence of

34 “Yan’an xian 1942 nian xiaxueqi dongyuan xuesheng kaixue ji kaixue qingxing baogao (延安縣 1942 年下學期動員學生開學及開學情形報告 Report on school enrollment mobilization at Yan’an County for the second academic term in 1942 and the enrollment situation)” (October 1942), Shaanxi Provincial Archive(citied by catalogue and file number), 10-224. 35 Kang Chongtang and Huang Wenruo, “Women ruhe zibian xiaoxue keben,” in JSGJZX, 2: 433. 36 Feng Qi (鳳起), “Shenfu de gongban xiaoxue yu minban cunxue (神府的公辦小學與民辦村學 Government sponsored primary schools and public-funded village schools at Shenfu County)” (June 1945), in JSGJZX, 2: 429. 37 Mo Chuan (莫川), “Jieshao Liushugou minban xuexiao (介紹柳樹溝民辦學校 Introducing the public-funded school at Liushugou)”(March 1945), in JSGJZX, 2: 426-428. Both government-sponsored and public-funded schools in Communist revolutionary base areas did not charge tuition. The villagers were responsible collectively for office expenses and providing charcoal and firewood. Similar to how community schools were funded during the Qing, village schools in the revolutionary base areas relied substantially on financial income from investments in school lands. Schools also received income by organizing agricultural and handicraft production among students. See “Shanxisheng di’er youjiqu gexian jiaoyu jingfei choucuo zanxing tiaoli (山西省第二遊擊區各縣教育經費籌措暫行條例 Temporary regulation on the ways to collect educational funds in the second guerilla zone in Shanxi)”(May 1940), in JSGJZX, 1: 57. 38 Mo Chuan, “Jieshao liushugou minban xuexiao” (March 1945), in JSGJZX, 2: 247-428. 251 children from the family and the fields, was not a plausible choice for villagers. This practically oriented attitude helps explain the observed fluctuation in student attendance and school enrollment through the years. In 1940, the student dropout rate reached 60 percent in northwest Shanxi. Although the number fell to 36 percent the following year, it still was a significant phenomenon.39

It could be highly risky to have children educated by the CCP during the war, especially in areas that endured the fierce military contest between Chinese and

Japanese forces. Large, group-based schooling could make it difficult to protect children in a skirmish. A village teacher, Zhang Yunyu (張允玉), recalled that she taught about 30 children in one class at a residential house. Students took turns standing sentry while others taking class. Once the sentry caught sight of Japanese troops approaching, the whole class would disperse and move to safe places. On one occasion, the Japanese launched a surprise attack leaving the whole group no time to find a shelter. Their lives hung by a thread. Without mentioning casualties, teacher Zhang recalled that her students, terrified by the bullets flying by, lost control and run helter-skelter leaving behind their shoes and bags. When she visited students’ homes afterwards in order to get them back to school, most parents rejected. The reason was clear. “The situation is so intense. Schooling should wait until peace resumes.”40

39 “Jinxibei ernianban de wenhua jiaoyu jianshe baogao” (October, 1942), in JSGJZX, 1: 244. 40 Zhang Yunyu (張允玉), “Zai fan qingxiang douzheng zhong jianchi jiaoxue (在反清鄉鬥爭中堅持教學 Education persisted during the struggle against mopping up operation),” in Laojiefangqu jiaoyu gongzuo huiyilu (老解放区教育工作回忆录 Memories about educational work in the long-established 252

Basically, villagers evaluated the importance of literacy in relation to its uses in their daily life, while the Party tended to employ literacy to create political consensus under its lead. Although distinct from each other, these two goals were not necessarily exclusive or in conflict. During the process of constructing its revolutionary base areas, the Party implemented land tax reforms and organized teams of mutual-aid labor exchange. These changes created an urgent need for knowledge acquisition by villagers. By using governmental policies and information on contemporary political and military affairs as learning materials, the Party’s literacy programs became instrumental for villagers to make life adjustments, a function far exceeding the simple attainment of a new set of skills per se.

Building a New Political and Cultural Community

During the Second Sino-Japanese War, rural residents in Shanxi faced a new challenge in their life—the Japanese invasion. It is reasonable to assume that the social turbulence brought by the war frequently interrupted literacy learning. It usually took about two months for primary schools to resume after Japanese military operations in the late 1930s. The Japanese invasion also forced the Party’s local administrative offices to close their winter schools in most of Northwest

Shanxi in 1940.41

liberated areas), ed. Shanghai jiaoyu chubanshe (上海教育出版社 Shanghai Education Press) (Shanghai: Shanghai jiaoyu chubanshe, 1979), 41-42. 41 Ibid. 253

However, the war also stimulated the impulse to access information.

Up-to-date reports on the war became essential to their plans for survival. During a time when the newspaper was the main formal source of information [as opposed to gossip], villagers wanted to be able to read the news or at least have someone else read for them.

Selecting pieces from newspapers to teach villagers how to read was a common practice among local cadres at the beginning of the war. This form of instruction, although partially resulting from the lack of textbooks available for adult literacy education, actually received an enthusiastic response from the populace. In the contested zones between the Japanese troops and the CCP’s forces, village cadres organized literacy classes at night with the help of a variety of anti-Japanese mass associations.42 Although those mass organizations suspended their activities when Japanese forces dominated those areas, the literacy learning kept carrying on secretly.43 Without the masses’ ardent support, it would have been impossible.

After establishing administrative offices in northwestern Shanxi in 1940, the local Party actively sponsored the publication of local newspapers, which increased the rural populace’s accessibility to this print media. On September 18, 1940, the

42 Mass organizations included Renmin wuzhuang weiyuanhui (人民武裝委員會 The Committee of Local Militia, abbr. Wuweihui 武委會), Qingnian kangri jiuguohui (青年抗日救國會 The Young Anti-Japanese and National Salvation Association, abbr. Qingjiuhui 青救會), Funü jiuguohui (婦女救國會 Women’s National Salvation Association, abbr. Fujiuhui 婦救會), and Nongmin kangri jiuguohui (農民抗日救國會 Peasants’ Anti-Japanese and National Salvation Association, abbr. Nongjiuhui 農救會). 43 “Shiji liude xiangxu ji qianqiu youji ju gaojing, fang geming laoqianbei Yang Zhilin tongzhi,” in JSGJZX, 2:317. 254

Administration Office of Northwest Shanxi issued Kangzhan ribao (抗戰日報 Daily news on the Anti-Japanese War) as its organ.44 Its subjects ranged from war-related topics, such as troop training, supplying the front, and the Chinese soldiers’ and citizens’ heroic deeds on the battlefield, to reports on political, cultural, and social events in the base areas.45 Most of the source materials came from local peoples’ daily lives, thus conveying a sense of immediacy and realism that made the newspaper more appealing to villagers and, in turn, helped the government to propagate its policies.

Besides this official newspaper, the Administration Office of Northwest

Shanxi sponsored Jinxi dazongbao (晉西大眾報 Popular newspaper of western

Shanxi) with the initial issue published on October 26, 1940. Oriented specifically towards local commoners, this paper featuring vernacular languages of local dialect that could be easily understood by villagers. News on the latest political and military situations, both domestic and international, still occupied substantial space in the paper, which also published stories of local people participating in the war effort and building a new life under the lead of the CCP government. With the appearance of these relatively easily understandable and accessible newspapers, rural people became more inclined to accept the Party’s initiatives for literacy studies during the

44 Kangzhan ribao initially was published every three days, which then became every two days beginning on New Year’s Day 1942 and was issued on a daily basis in 1944. 45 Shanxisheng chuban shizhi bianji weiyuanhui (山西省出版史志编辑委员会 The editorial committee of Shanxi publication history), and Neimenggu Jin-Sui bianqu chubanshi bianji weiyuanhui (内蒙古晋绥边区出版史编辑委员会 The Inner Mongolian editorial committee of publication history in the Jin-Sui border region), eds., Jin-Sui bianqu chubanshi (晋绥边区出版史 Publication history in the Jin-Sui border region) (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1997), 37-40. 255 winter. Winter school students usually organized themselves into small newspaper reading groups. Group reading activities also became a popular theme in woodcut prints created by Communist artists.46

Practical knowledge useful for daily life was another factor that aroused villagers’ interests in reading newspapers. Chaijiagou (柴家溝), a remote village located in the hills of Lin County (臨縣 Linxian), had no access to newspapers before they were introduced by the winter school sponsored by the Party. Articles about thirteen different treatments for cattle diseases, as well as new verses for

Spring Festival couplets, however, caught villagers’ eyes. Responding to requests, the village’s Committee of Winter Schooling decided to purchase one copy each of

Kangzhan ribao and Jinxi dazongbao. Local peasants then formed several newspaper-reading groups (讀報組 dubao zu), which extended their reading habits from winter time to year-round, from schools to the edges of fields.47 Villagers valued the knowledge gained through newspapers for their usefulness and applicability in their rural environment, rather than judging whether they were scientific or not. However, this particular case was employed by the local cadre as an example illustrating how their literacy projects contributed to planting the seeds of

46 See Gu Yuan (古元), Dongxue (冬學 winter school), 1940, woodblock print; Qi Dan (戚單), Xuexi wenhua (學習文化 Cultural learning), 1944, woodblock print; Xia Feng (夏風), Nongmin dubao (農民讀報 Peasants reading newspaper), 1944, woodblock print; Zhang Qun (張群), Wenhua huolangdan (文化貨郎擔 Peddler with cultural commodities), 1945, woodblock print. For a later period see Xuexi wenhua (學習文化 Cultural learning), ca. 1948-1949, New Year’s picture, printed by Dazhong meishushe (大眾美術社 The popular art society). 47 “Chaijiagou dongxue gongzuo zongjie,” Shanxi Provincial Archive, A147-1-27-5. 256 science into a culturally backward village.48 In the end, the CCP’s literacy programs did introduce new information and new activities to the countryside in Shanxi.

Besides the newspaper, printed government policies were also used as learning materials in literacy classes, an approach which local cadres considered as being key to the success of the exemplary winter schools in engaging the populace.

The Regulations on Public Grain (公糧條例 Gongliang tiaoli) was one of the commonly used texts. Public grain (公糧 gongliang) referred to the main agricultural tax the border government collected from the villagers based on a progressive system. In order to smooth the collecting work, winter school teachers used class time to explain the regulations in detail and instruct villagers in how to calculate the amount of taxes they needed to pay. The literacy primer issued by the

Northwest Shanxi government in 1944 spent three lessons on this subject by offering the following example:

Lesson one on public grain: The first step to calculate public grain each household owes is to measure its income (富力 fuli, lit. property and material capabilities). [For example,] Old Master Bai (白老大) has a family of three. They received 3 dan (石 about 60 kg) and 6 dou (鬥 10 dou=1 dan) whole grain from self-cultivated land. They also got 4 dan and 5 dou from rented-land but needed to pay 1 dan and 5 dou as rent. One dou of refined grain is counted as one unit of income, which equals two dan of whole grain collected from self-cultivated land, or 2 dan and 5 dou of whole grain from rented-land. Therefore, Old Master Bai’s 3 dan and 6 dou of whole grain from self-cultivated land will be converted to 1 dan and 8 dou of refined grain. After deducting the 1 dan and 5 dou of rent, Bai eventually collected 3 dan from rented-land,

48 Ibid. 257

which would be calculated as 1 dan and 2 dou of refined grain. Adding these two parts together, there are 3 dan of refined grain, which meant Old Master Bai has 30 units of working income.

Lesson two on public grain Next, calculate property income. Old Master Bai harvested 6 dan of whole grain this year from reclaimed land. Individual-owned land is calculated into property income. 5 dou of refined grain is counted as one unit of property income. Old Master Bai has self-cultivated land producing 3 dan and 6 dou of whole grain, which is converted into 1 dan and 8 dou of refined grain and then calculated as 3.6 units of property income. The 6 dan of whole grain collected from reclaimed land is converted into 3 dan of refined grain, and then into 6 units of property income. Together, there are 9.6 units of property income, which adds 30 units of working income to get 39.6 units. This is the overall income of Old Master Bai for tax purpose.

Lesson three on public grain After getting Old Master Bai’s overall income, next step is to calculate the per capita income of his family. There are three people in Bai’s family. By dividing three into 39.6, we get 13.2. 13.2 is the per capita income for Old Master Bai’s family. Finally, let’s calculate how much public grain Bai should pay. The per capita income for Old Master Bai’s family is 13.2, which determines the tax rate for his family is 13.2 fen (分 monetary unit, 100 fen= 1 yuan). Bai’s family total income unit of 39.6 multiplied by 13.2 is 522.72. Hence, Old Master Bai need to pay 5.2272 fen. 49

This is not simple arithmetic. The primer devoted great effort to making it easy, including using a concrete example, breaking down the process step by step, and repeating important information. Even so, it would still have been a daunting task for villagers. However, it was still in their interest to figure out the rules of tax

49 Dongxue shizi keben (冬學識字課本 Literacy primer for winter schooling) (Xingxian, Shanxi: Jin-Sui bianqu xingzheng gongshu, 1944). Besides fen, the lessons on public grain also teach other monetary units below fen, including li 厘, hao 毫, and si 絲. To ease understanding, the author has converted them into fen in translation. 258 payment and deal with it. In the following exercise section, the assignment was to calculate each household’s income in various categories working, property, overall, and per capita. These numbers were then used to measure their taxes.

During this process, villagers learned the characters pertaining to land productivity and also acquired numeracy or number literacy. Their skill in numeracy also was tested by comparing the agricultural taxes they paid to the

Communist government to those they paid to the former regime. The goal was to lead villagers to the conclusion that they were less burdened under the Communist regime. Further, winter school teachers taught the villagers that the public grain was used to support the Communists Eighth Route Army. Without the protection of the army, both the border government’s and people’s peaceful lives would be in danger. Apparently, local cadres utilized literacy learning to enlist popular cooperation with the government.

Meanwhile, using such an approach to teach also attracted villagers to the schools. “Attending winter schools could help us learn about governmental policies and regulations. We are quite willing to attend such kinds of winter schools,” some villagers commented.50 In addition, literacy classes provided an outlet for villagers to express their own opinions and concerns about how much taxes they paid. By exchanging information with their fellow villagers, local residents sought to make sure that their agricultural taxes were collected in a fair and reasonable way.51

50 Shagoucun dongxue shiyan zongjie, Shanxi Provincial Archive, A152-1-86-3 51 “Wuzhai Hekoucun de dongxue baogao (五寨河口村的冬学报告 Reports on winter schooling in Hekou village in Wuzhai county),” Shanxi Provincial Archive, A90-3-30-5. 259

Meaningful literacy learning, in the eyes of some villagers, was to acquire the reading skills needed to understand life-impacting governmental policies, and the ability to communicate that information to both government agencies and fellow countrymen.

Similarly, both the Party’s agenda and the villages’ needs were brought into play in shaping the writing activities of the CCP-sponsored mass education program.

During the war, securing local safety was the shared concern of both the Party and local residents. To this end, villages set up checkpoints to monitor travelers. Only people with a legitimate travel permit (路條 lutiao) were allowed to pass through.

Learning to read and write travel permits, hence, became a major task in the literacy learning classes. This was also an important criteria in evaluating the effectiveness of education, as seen in the text administrated by the publicly-funded primary school at Liushugou (柳樹溝).52

The primer used in winter school usually offered an example of a travel permit.53 The document reads from top to bottom, and left to right, with the header of travel permit. It begins with introducing the traveler’s home address and name and then followed by travel purpose and destination. The template the literacy primers offered says “Villager Wang Shusheng, from so-and-so natural village of so-and-so administrative village, hereby, goes into town with a donkey to sell rice.

Each checkpoint along the way, both military and civilian-administered, please

52 Mo Chuan, “Jieshao liushugou minban xuexiao” (March 1945), in JSGJZX, 2: 428 53 Dongxue shizi keben (Xingxian, Shanxi: Jin-Sui bianqu xingzheng gongshu, 1944). 260 check this travel permit and let him pass.” Importantly, this permit also has a provision concerning the limitation of time—two days. On the far left, there are spaces for both the village head and the militia commander to sign and date. With this template, issuers could simply copy this format and fill in personalized information.

Based on the records of several village winter schools organized during 1942 in Northwest Shanxi, the number of villagers able to write travel permits and short sentences varied between 25 and 50 percent of the winter schools students in total

(see Table 9). To local party functionaries, this result was not disappointing, but rather, was worthy of praise.54 The need for only a limited number of clerks in each village to issue travel permits, to a certain degree, explains why an average of 35.9 percent of students identified attaining this limited skill satisfactory.

Village A B C D E F G In total Male 8 16 13 8 4 8 15 72 Female 12 10 9 9 6 N/A 6 52 % 48.7 46.4 37.2 25.1 30 30 33.8 35.9 Table 9. Number of students able to write travel permits and short sentences55

The local party office judged that mastery of 1,000 characters defined basic literacy. Villagers were expected to learn at least 100 characters in 70 days of winter

54 “Jinxibei ernianban de wenhua jiaoyu jianshe baogao” (October, 1942), in JSGJZX, 1: 244. 55 Ibid. 261 schooling. The actual result, however, varied greatly among villagers. And the pace of learning to write was even slower than that of learning to recognize characters.

Relying on statistics regarding mass education during winter 1940-1941 in

Northwest Shanxi, the most successful winter schools might have some students recognizing 100 characters, but only able to write 70 characters at most (sometimes the number could be as low as 20). In the worst situation, students were only able to recognize 25 characters and write 10 (See Table 10). Although the Party claimed that winter schooling was an effective tool in combiting illiteracy, it is doubtful as to how effective it might have been. Considering the fact there was a nine-month gap between classes, it is questionable how many characters peasant students would be able to retain when they enrolled in winter schools the following year. Even in the best scenario, if villagers were able to add 100 characters to those they had already learned, it would still take 10 years to get rid of the stigma of illiteracy according to the standard set up the Party itself during this period (mastery of 1,000 characters was considered as being literate).

Hence, it is reasonable to argue that it was not the objective literacy standards that mattered to the Party and local residents. After all, the standard was arbitrary. Rather, it was the application of the skills of reading and writing, even at a fairly rudimentary level, that was important to both sides. This situation contrasts strongly with the ways that the Nationalists viewed literacy. For the Nationalists, mass literacy served to justify the practicability of constitutional politics. The

262 statistical data of literacy rates carried much more political meaning for the

Nationalists; the actual literacy skills acquired by the populace mattered less.

Besides reading and writing, numeracy loomed large in the Communist base areas. The Party organized mutual-aid working team to share and maximize efficiency in the utilization of resources. Villagers could contribute labor, working animals, or farming utensils and also exchange these with other team members. For example, peasants could use the labor exchange to borrow draft animals owned by other households. The whole team worked corporately and calculated each one’s input by workpoints. As a result, local residents urgently needed to calculate how many work points they earned and/or owed to the team. Numeracy turned to be a vital skill for villagers adjusting to the new rural order.

Wuzhai Lanxian Baode Hequ (五寨) (嵐縣) (保德) (河曲) Characters instructed 180 N/A 300 180 The best Recognized 100 100 100 100 Able to write 20 N/A 70 55 The worst recognized 30 30 50 25 Able to write 10 N/A 36 10 Average Recognized 54 N/A N/A 55 Able to write 25 N/A N/A 30 Table 10. Numbers of characters that were taught to peasant students, and that they were able to recognize and write in winter schools in 194156

56 Du Xinyuan (杜心源), “Dongxue chubu jiandao (冬學初步檢討 A preliminary review on winter schooling)” (April 1941), in JSGJZX, 1: 224. 263

Learning to calculate on an abacus proved to be a well-received subject in both adult literacy classes and village primary schools. A villager named Xu

Liangyong (徐良永) was thrilled at his son’s ability to calculate his work points. He said “my kid used to dislike studying and just goofed around. Now he has learned how to use an abacus at school and helps me work out the accounts. How capable he is!”57 The populace’s attainment of numeracy, in turn, stimulated further interest in joining the labor exchange team. Villagers at Songping (松坪) in Xing County(興縣) concluded that working cooperatively through labor exchange saved them tremendously in labor costs.58

The CCP’s mass education projects not only promoted cooperative production, but also provided a platform for collective action. Local cadres encouraged villagers to sit together and brainstorm solutions to solve conflicts among villagers, an exercise they perceived as involving the masses in political and class struggle. From the villagers’ perspective, however, it was much more about finding an alternative way to resolve a problem that could not be worked out individually.

In the countryside, land rent counted as one of the most contentious problems. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Party adjusted its land reform rules to focus on reducing the land rent rather than redistributing lands among

57 Mo Chuan, “Jieshao liushugou minban xuexiao” (March 1945), in JSGJZX, 2: 427-428. 58 “Xingxian sisi nian dongxue gongzuo zongjie (興縣四四年冬學工作總結 Summary of winter schooling in Xing County in 1944),” Shanxi Provincial Archive, A141-1-22-2. 264 villagers. However, implementing this policy required the cooperation from the landlords who, in most of the cases, would not voluntarily comply since it was against their own interests. Conflicts between peasant villagers and landlords were quite common. For instance, Wu Aihe (鄔埃河), a peasant in Hequ (河曲) County’s

Wuhua town (五華城), asked his landlord Wu Qinghe (鄔清河), nicknamed Wu the

King of Hell (鄔二閻王 Wu er yanwang), to reduce the land rent for him. But the

King of Hell rejected Peasant Wu’s request. To make matters worse, the landlord accused Peasant Wu of not paying off his debts. That night, Wu Aihe shared his bitter experience with his classmates at winter school. After fervent discussion, the whole class decided to go together with Peasant Wu to reason with the landlord. In the face of pressure from such a group of peasants, the King of Hell not only agreed to reduce Peasant Wu’s rent. He also admitted that he had trumped up the unpaid

debts owed by Wu Aihe.

The Communist woodcut

artist Gu Yuan’s (古元 1919-1996)

work, The Masses Fight to Reduce Rent

(減租會 Jianzuhui) (fig. 1), depicted

one of this kind of event. Gu’s work

takes a narrative approach to show the

Figure 1. Gu Yuan, The Masses Fight to peasantry waging their struggle Reduce Rent, 1943, woodblock print, 13.4×19.6cm against a local landlord. It sets up a

265 theatrical stage by leaving the front open to the audience. The center of his work is the landlord in the middle left. His landlord cap, long robe, decorated shoes, and pot belly all distinguish him from the peasants. The chair behind the landlord on one side of the table, and the bench behind the peasant on the other side indicate the unequal relation between these two classes. The abacus on the table and account book held by one peasant, as well as the measuring bin for grain on the ground, all point to the theme that they are arguing about rent. Gu Yuan captures the moment when the conflict comes to a climax and depicts the intense atmosphere through precise depiction of motion and facial expression of the figures.

Used as a propaganda piece, Gu’s work symbolized the debate over land rent as a form of class struggle. Putting aside the political message attached, Gu’s work also demonstrates the role of literacy and numeracy in the negotiation of land rent.

The ability to interpret account books, to measure, and to calculate empowered villagers to stand up for themselves. In Wuhua, upon viewing Wu Aihe’s success, villagers spoke highly of the Party’s winter school for its lessons on the rent reduction policy and ways to calculate rent. In their words, “but for the new regime issuing the decree on reducing the rent and winter schools making us understand the law, who could prevail over Wu the King of Hell?” Having the problem solved, those who had never attended winter schools began to join the classes. They said

“we thought winter schooling was just learning to read and did not realize it is actually a place to discuss and talk over issues (that matter to us).” The number of students at the village’s winter school consequently expanded from 20 to 40 and 266 then to 70. Peasants used the mass learning program to negotiate rent with landlords. Eventually, 17 poor peasant (貧農 pinnong) and 28 middle peasant (中農 zhongnong) families in Wuhua reduced the rent in an amount of about 80.7 dan (石 about 60.453 kilogram) from 14 landlords and four rich peasant (富農 funong) households.59

Group activities organized through literacy learning programs were not oriented exclusively towards contentious issues. Mass entertainment also played a crucial role in the process of literacy learning. Learning to sing revolutionary songs was listed as part of the winter school curriculum. The goal was to learn six songs selected from the Xinge ji (新歌集 Collection of New Songs) published by the

Administrative Office of Northwest Shanxi, with two of them being

“well-mastered.”60 Famous patriotic songs—“Dadao jinxingqu (大刀進行曲 The

Dadao March)” and “Youjidui ge (遊擊隊歌 The Guerrillas’ Song)”—were widely disseminated. Other songs with various themes that tied closely to the Party’s military and political propaganda also became popular, including “Canjia Balujun

(參加八路軍 Joining the Eight Route Army),” “Songlang canjun (送郎參軍 Sending

Husbands to the Army),” “Chungeng ge (春耕歌 The Spring Ploughing Song),” and

“Xuan cunzhang (選村長 Electing the Village Head).”61

59 “Jin-Sui bianqu di’er fenqu 1944 nian dongxue zongjie cailiao (晉綏邊區第二分區一九四四年冬學工作總結材料 Summaries on winter schooling in the second sub-area in Jin-Sui border region),” Shanxi Provincial Archive, A27-1-5-4. 60 “Guanyu dongxue de zhishixin,” in JSGJZX, 41. 61 Shanxisheng shizhi yanjiuyuan ed., Jiaoyu zhi, 618; JSJYJS, chapter 6, 20. 267

Yangge, a form of Chinese musical theater, was another form of communal recreation that winter schools sponsored. Within the 32 administrative villages in

Baode County, for example, there were organized 33 Yangge troupes involving

1,149 villagers, including 878 men and 271 women in 1941. In 1944, the number of troupes expanded into 43, which provided a total of 180 performances.62 Similar to songs, the Yangge drama also featured themes related to the heroic deeds of the

Eighth Route Army and village militia. But in contrast to the generic lyrics of the songs, the plots of Yangge dramas embodied prominent local characters and were based on real local events.

Composing the theatrical stories based on their own experiences created a sense of familiarity that contributed to the dramatic effect by echoing the real-life experiences of the audience. To villagers, these cultural activities enriched their social life. At the same time, the Party reinterpreted these cultural activities to serve its own ends. It used Yangge to mobilize the populace’s support for the war effort by telling stories about the cruelty of Japanese troops, such as one performed by Renjia

Village (任家村) in Jingle (靜樂) County.63 Yangge drama was also used as a showcase to present new cultural lifestyles emerging in the countryside. Local cadres reported a Yangge drama produced by Nangou Village (南溝村) that made fun of local loafers. They praised it valuable for reforming dawdlers. And they made a further claim that this Yangge drama depicted a new society full of responsible and

62 “Jin-Sui bianqu dier fenqu 1944 nian dongxue zongjie cailiao,” Shanxi Provincial Archive, A27-1-5-4. 63 “Jinglexian disanqu dongxue cailiao,” Shanxi Provincial Archive, A140-1-28-3. 268 productive individuals under construction under the lead of the CCP.64 However, it is hard to know whether it truly reflected the local populace’s intention.

Literacy learning was open to contributions from different participants with their own distinctive agenda. Neither the sponsoring CCP nor village students deemed literacy as an independent goal. The meaning of literacy lay precisely on its role as a mode of communication and socialization, by connecting villagers with the outside world via written texts that transcended spatial and temporal limits, fashioning mutually understandable language to interpret governmental policies, or bonding with fellow villagers, physically, politically, and culturally, through group activities. More directly, literacy learning offered an opportunity for villagers to mediate interpersonal difficulties. The following chart (Table 11) offers us a glimpse of the variety of social problems addressed during winter schooling. Disputes over rend, land, and salary ranked as the top three.

Of course, not every literacy program ran successfully. Ones that failed to handle daily social conflicts hardly stirred public interests.65 Neither all social problems addressed in winter schooling were warmly received by the villagers. The

Party’s own satisfaction survey collected from 80 winter schools in Northwest

Shanxi (Table 12) reflected such variations. There were a substantial number of cases (27.1 percent) towards which villagers felt neither satisfied nor dissatisfied.

64 “Jin-Sui bianqu dier fenqu 1944 nian dongxue zongjie cailiao,” Shanxi Provincial Archive, A27-1-5-4. 65 “Wuzhaxian dongxue zongjie baogao (五寨縣冬學總結報告 A summary report of winter schooling at Wuzhai County),” Shanxi Provincial Archive, A138-1-32-5. 269

On top of that, students were silent upon a few other issues, which very likely indicated they were somewhat dissatisfied.

District 1st 2nd 3rd 4th Totals categories Land dispute 87 43 65 36 231 Rent reduction 96 44 73 11 224 Public Grain 50 11 29 12 102 Marriage 12 9 21 2 44 Family dispute 58 14 21 26 127 Salary dispute 46 30 58 48 182 Other 81 17 45 36 179 Total 430 168 320 161 1089 Table 11. Social problems solved in winter schools in Baode County, Shanxi province during winter 1944-45 (based on the statistics of 89 winter schools)66

Pondering its own experiences, successes and failures, the Party in

Northwest Shanxi concluded in 1945 it was important to mobilize villagers’ initiative in literacy learning. It placed tremendous emphasis on teaching literacy skills applicable in daily life. Characters not included in the traditional three classic primers but key to village life,67 that included names of crops, vegetables, and livestock, now gained a space in the CCP-composed basic cultural learning

66 Ibid. 67 Three Character Classic, Hundred Family Surnames, and Thousand Character Classic were widely circulated and used literacy primers in late imperial China. 270 materials.68 The Party tried to incorporate the villagers’ world into literacy learning, but rendered in ways that influenced the development of the lower sector’s consciousness to further its political gain.69

68 See Dongxue shizi keben (Xingxian, Shanxi: Jin-Sui bianqu xingzheng gongshu, 1944), as well as Xin wuyan zazi (新五言雜字 New five-character words collection) attached in the back. Xin Anting (辛安亭), comp. Shizi keben (識字課本 Literacy primer) (n.p.: Taofen shudian, 1945); and Xin Anting, comp. Laobaixing riyong zazi (老百姓日用雜字 Collections of daily use words for the masses) (Shanxi: Taihang qunzhong shudian, n.d.) 69 Brazilian educator Paulo Freire discusses the mutal influence between “reading the word” and “reading the world.” A process oftentimes happens simultaneously. See Paulo Freire, The Politics of Education: Culture, Power and Liberation, trans. Donaldo Macedo (South Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey, 1985). 271

Table 12. Mass satisfaction survey towards the social problems resolved in winter schools, winter 1944-45 (based on reports of 80 winter schools from five counties)70

70 Source: “Jin-Sui bianqu di’er fenqu 1944 nian dongxue gongzuo zongjie cailiao,” Shanxi Provincial Archive, A27-1-5-4. 272

County Baode Hequ Kelan Wuzhai Shenchi Totals (保德) (河曲) (岢嵐) (五寨) (神池) Winter schools 20 15 20 17 8 80 Problems Land 30 8 6 35 35 114 solved in dispute winter Rent 37 N/A 13 25 17 92 schools reduction Public 8 2 25 9 8 52 Grain Marriage 14 2 11 3 3 33 Family 38 17 2 17 16 90 dispute Salary 59 15 22 57 21 174* dispute Other 40 25 42 34 84 225 Sum 226 69 121 176 184 776 Villagers’ Satisfied 81 N/A 70 146 145 442 response Neither 73 N/A 45 28 28 174 satisfied nor dissatisfie d N/A 13 N/A 1** 2 11 27 Sum 167 N/A 116 176 184 643 Note Some winter schools did not collect information about students’ comments on how well winter schools handling disputes. Therefore, the section on villagers’ response is based on the data available.

* Corrected number. The figure in the original document is 170, which should be a calculation mistake. ** Corrected number. Based on the sum at the bottom row, the figure in this box should be 11 rather than 1 as listed in the original document, which probably is in error.

273

Conclusion

Inheriting the practices in the Jiangxi Soviet, the Communist Party valued greatly the function of cultural learning as an effective way to organize people, and to foster the sense of individual and group identity. The literacy primer edited by the Northwest Shanxi administrative office in 1944, for instance, introduced how to write one’s family and given names in its first two lessons. In the immediately following section, peasant students learned to write the name of their village. Their place of residence is further defined within the jurisdiction system. The textbook taught basic sentence structure and left blanks for students to fill in their personal information.71

Although individual information varied greatly, the basic formula was pre-programmed. This identity formation process was concluded with “we [villager students] are members of an administrative community, that of Jin-Sui border region government,” politically labeled as an anti-Japanese revolutionary base area.

Personal names and home address helped villagers construct their world in words.

Meanwhile, reading the words played a role in re-shaping villagers’ concept of their place of residence, which was no longer simply a geographic location, but also an administratively defined space under the governance of the CCP.

What villagers read and wrote assisted them in interacting and connecting with fellow countrymen in a transformative way. For instance, the workpoint

71 Dongxue shizi keben (Xingxian, Shanxi: Jin-Sui bianqu xingzheng gongshu, 1944). 274 accounts sustained the operation of the mutual-aid working team, which made each individual’s contribution accountable. In addition, the Party in northwest Shanxi mandated that villagers establish producers’ cooperatives. Everyone had a stake, in return for which they received an annual bonus. The share certificate, hence, regulated an individual’s financial gain in his/her relations with others. Essentially, the organization of producers’ cooperatives necessitated learning the skills of understanding and issuing shares. Villagers’ literacy, in turn, fostered the imagination of the economic community to which they belonged.

Besides being a living and working space, this new community was foremost a political concept. Villagers were indoctrinated with the ideas that Chairman Mao was China’s great leader and that the CCP led the masses to establish anti-Japanese democratic base areas.

“Chairman Mao is Chinese people’s saviour. He leads us defeat the enemy, calls us to be organized together, to form mutual-aid working term, to expand production, to reduce rent and lower the interest rate, and to establish cooperative. [He] helps us gain deliverance and liberation.”72

By using “we/us (咱們 zanmen)” in its narrative, the text intended to arouse a common consensus among readers. Being confirmative and assertive, it also aimed to imprint this belief on peasant students’ minds when they read and recited it.

Chairman Mao, a heroic person, rather than an abstract political entity, worked like

72 Dongxue shizi keben (Xingxian, Shanxi: Jin-Sui bianqu xingzheng gongshu, 1944). 275 a charm to attract emotional attachment. To further personalize this bond, some literacy primers, like the one used in eastern Shanxi, also accompanied Mao’s portrait with the text entitled “good leader.”73 Identifiable visual images, to certain extent, forged a sense of intimacy, but maintained ample space for individualized imagination, which played a fundamental role in internalizing the information received.

The CCP’s literacy program obviously was loaded with a strong political agenda. It was dedicated to absorbing villagers into a new community and identifying with the CCP politically. However, transformation of consciousness does not occur in a linear straightforward way. The degree of receptiveness varied greatly among villagers, as seen in the results of the test administered at the end of winter schooling. Among 80 male and 62 female winter school students, only 3 men and 14 women got full points, which accounted for about 12 percent all together.

Women performed, comparatively speaking, much better than men. 63 percent of women could get 80 points or above, while only 42 percent of male students could do the same.74

In wartime Shanxi, with both individuals and the Chinese Communist Party having distinctive interests in literacy, it is helpful to consider literacy as a learning process embedded with social relations involving authority and power. In this process, the Party held sway over the organization and content of literacy

73 Xin Anting, comp. Shizi keben (識字課本 Literacy primer) (n.p.: Taofen shudian, 1945). 74 “Yushexian Yutou cun dongxue zongjie (榆社縣魚頭村冬學總結 A summary report of winter schooling at Yutou village of Yushe County),” Shanxi Provincial Archive, A165-1-59-7. 276 instruction. Individual agency, to a great extent, was reflected in its influence over the ways in which literacy was taught and practiced. In order to engage villagers, local cadres had to experiment with innovative approaches to teach reading and writing in order to meet local needs and tastes. Meanwhile, literacy granted tremendous symbolic and rhetorical power to the Party.

By naming literacy acquisition and the cultural activities associated with it as parts of the “New Culture,” the CCP proclaimed the transformative power it was able to bring to rural society. This discourse formed the core part of the literacy myth the

Party proclaimed in wartime Shanxi. In addition, the new capabilities villagers obtained through literacy learning kept them informed and knowledgeable politically. However, becoming informed literately did not necessarily mean being reformed culturally in the sense that the Party proclaimed. While employing their literacy skills, villagers redefined and altered the meaning of new culture and the literacy myth as proposed by the Party.

To villagers, literacy was meaningful only if it could open doors to (re)define their places in the rural community’s political, economic, social, and cultural life.

Attaching with other social movement, the CCP’s literacy programs provided a platform for peasants socializing with fellow villagers in diverse ways. Village women, for example, would no longer define themselves narrowly within familial relations, as daughter, wife, daughter-in-law, mother, and mother-in-law, etc.

Instead, they acquired new social identities, such as members of textile production teams, students of literacy learning classes, exemplary women in supporting the 277 army, and actresses in Yangge troupes, etc. The increasing appreciation of having individual value renowned in social settings (to a certain degree) could explain why village women were so enthusiastic about literacy learning, as indicated by the labor song cited at the beginning of this chapter.

278

Conclusion

“No worker had any use for education. A good pair of hands was enough,” is what a

Changsha Shale Oil Factory manager told an ambitious young Chinese man who aspired to further his education in college in 1976.1 Though it is impossible to tell from the anecdote the factory boss’s real motivation, the fact that this rationale was used as a rightful pretext to retain a worker reveals some general attitudes toward literacy learning. The idea that industrial workers had no use for increased literacy was still widespread well more than half a century after Chinese cultural and political leaders had began to argue that literacy was essential for cultivating a modern citizenry. The proposition of early 20th century elites, such as the Qing court, the Chinese Nationalist Party, and the Chinese Communist Party, about the importance of literacy seemingly had failed to prevail over those of commoners.

Further, if we consider this statement as a new development in the post-1949 era, it then invalidates the Chinese Communists’ literacy myth asserted in the 1930s that universal literacy would be guaranteed after establishing a

Communist regime. Even people of the generation who had experienced the national literacy campaigns of the 1950s and 1960s continued to endorse the idea that

1 Liang Heng and Judith Shapiro, Son of the Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1984), 256. 279 literacy was not essential in daily life for the working class. This instance challenges political authorities’ claim that they had fought on behalf of the masses for broad access to education. Mass literacy movements in early 20th century China were not driven by the masses’ desire, but the elites’ aspiration to strengthen the nation.

Literacy sponsors’ agenda diverged from that of students.

Contradicting popular notions of literacy as a neutral social good, this study highlights the political stakes embedded in early 20th century Chinese literacy movements. First of all, educated elites perceived literacy in relation with national interests. Striving for an equal national status with foreign imperial powers, Chinese educated leaders adopted a range of Western values and ambition, including the

Western notion of literacy, which identified literacy with individual and societal progress.2 This notion had gained mainstream dominance in the West by the end of the 19th century along with schooling being seen “as a virtually universal phase in the individual life course, and as the basis for collective socialization.”3 The great divide between literacy and illiteracy conflated with the dichotomy that separated the civilized from the uncivilized. Literacy, hence, entered the colonial discourses.

China, like other colonized countries, in order to obtain global recognition of its full national sovereignty, was propelled to prove its civilized status. Improving mass literacy thus became an imperative. In the Western-dominated world, this type of literacy was associated with Western learning and needed to be branded with

2 Harvey J. Graff, The Literacy Myth: Cultural Integration and Social Structure in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Academic Press, 1979), xxxvii. 3 Mary Jo Maynes, Schooling for the People: Comparative Local Studies of Schooling History in France and Germany, 1750-1850 (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1985), 3. 280 abstract Western values—particularly modernity and democracy. In this way, early

20th century Chinese elites, including both political authorities and liberal scholars, were able to employ rhetoric on China’s improvements in mass literacy to promote national prestige. International circumstances nurtured and defined the nature of

China’s literacy myth in the early 20th century. The modernization thesis and the ineffable qualities attached to literacy granted Chinese national leaders the legitimate vocabularies to pursue national independence through elevated literacy rate.

China’s educated leaders were also invested in the outcomes of mass literacy.

The apparent success of many Western countries, as well as the rapid rise of neighboring Japan in the latter half of the 19th century, appeared to justify the assumed connection between universal literacy and national strength. The conviction that literacy could foster a national community with a unified commitment to collective ends keynoted China’s literacy myth. With this belief, early 20th-century China’s literacy movements aimed to transform the national community into a qualitatively different one. Neither liberating individuals nor producing pluralism developed into a strong voice. Endorsing the idea of modernity,

Chinese elites defined it mean primarily to building a nation-state, whether the Qing court’s constitutional monarchy, the GMD’s Republic of China, or the CCP’s Soviet of

China in the early 1930s and post-1949 People’s Republic of China. State-sponsored schooling became a primary approach to mass literacy, a principle established since the late Qing’s education reform. 281

The Qing court’s education reforms contemplated since 1902 laid out the initial framework for a modern school system in China. Compulsory education was introduced into China, about a couple of decades later than after it had become a social norm in major Western countries.4 The concept of school-aged children started to gain legitimacy. Individuals were increasingly expected to spend a considerable portion of their young lives in school usually at public expense.

Schooling obtained an abstract cultural endorsement and conflated with literacy.5

All subsequent literacy movements in China delineated their students by ages.

Usually those below age 15 were sent to the classroom for full curriculum training for an extended period. Older youth and adults below age 50 were asked to make up what they had missed.6 Part-time short-term programs for basic literacy skills were provided. Schooling became an integral part of personal life and somehow defined

4 As discussed earlier in this chapter, Mary Jo Maynes suggests “proponents of schooling had won the day in most of Western Europe by the last quarter of the nineteenth century. By that time, parents had chosen to send their children into the classroom, or had been coerced into sending them, to spend a considerable portion of their young lives.” See Mary Jo Maynes, Schooling for the People, 3; Harvey J. Graff also points out that “the equation or synonymy of literacy acquisition with institution that we call schools and with the ages we term childhood is itself a fairly recent development.” Changes took place mainly during the 19th century in the West. See Harvey J. Graff, “Introduction,” in Literacy and Historical Development, A Reader, ed. Harvey J. Graff (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2007), 3-4. 5 This worldwide general trend to equate literacy with schooling over the last two centuries is also discussed in Robert F. Arnove and Harvey J. Graff, “Introduction,” in National Literacy Campaigns and Movements, Historical and Comparative Perspectives, ed. Robert F. Arnove and Harvey J. Graff (New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 2008), 6. 6 The upper age limit for people deemed as the target for literacy education changed over time. The Nationalist Government capped it at age 50 in 1931, see “Minzhong xuexiao banfa dagang (民眾學校辦法大綱 Principles for organizing mass school),” Zhonghua jiaoyujie 19, no. 3 (1931): 155; In 1936, only those below 30 were required to enroll in literacy classes, see Jiaoyubu, “Shishi shixue minzhong buxi jiaoyu banfa (實施失學民眾補習教育辦法 Methods for implementing supplementary education for unschooled populace),” Zhonghua jiaoyujie 24, no. 5 (1936): 100. 282 childhood. No one was entitled to skip this important step. The absence of schooling was considered as a personal as well as societal loss.

This notion of schooling as well as its relation to literacy was a historical development in the early 20th century. In the late imperial period, ways to acquire literacy were diversified and a choice of the individual family. The rich usually hired private tutors; less well-to-do families chose to send their kids to schools run by teachers in their own homes; those who could not afford either of these options hoped for chances to go to charitable schools in the local community.7 None of these educational facilities imposed an age limit for their students. Neither did they insist on strict attendance or progress at the same pace for all students. Being flexible with schedule and class size in addition to its convenient location, private schools continued gaining favor from villagers, who usually simply wanted to have their children master a basic degree of literacy, well into the 20th century.

Prior to the national drive for mass schooling in the early 20th century, literacy was a quality valued in specific contexts. There was a wide continuous spectrum of levels of reading and writing skills. Proficient in classical Chinese, prior to 1905 literati-scholars had a chance to convert their literate skills into cultural and political capital by passing the competitive civil service exams. The imperial degrees, not literacy of classical Chinese alone, were essential to defining the status of literati.

In other words, reading and writing in classical Chinese was valued as a vehicle to an elite world, not a universally desired common virtue. Literacy in vernacular

7 Evelyn Rawski, Education and Popular Literacy in in Ch’ing China (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1979), 37. 283

Chinese was viewed in pragmatic terms. It was useful in terms of facilitating concrete daily practices. As a set of skills, literacy could be sold on the market. Only in the early 20th century did Chinese leaders begin to argue that literacy was an inalienable quality that defined a modern citizenship. An idea undergirded China’s literacy myth during this period.

Literacy program designers took a dominant role in deciding what modern

Chinese citizenry entailed. As seen in other literacy campaigns around the world in the past two centuries, Chinese educated leaders, too, feared that “unbridled literacy would lead people to new visions, to new ways of perceiving and naming the world that were not acceptable.”8 To create a national conformity to the vision of modern

China they sanctioned, educational reformers and political authorities dedicated themselves to penetrating educational institutions and/or designating the content of literacy learning.

Both the Qing court and then the GMD chose to subjugate all private-run educational facilities to the official order. In order to establish a widely distributed school network, the Qing court relied on local resources. It encouraged all private schools to adopt the curriculum promulgated by the state. Local educational elites were allowed to run local schools. Relying on local finance and local elites for administration, to a great extent, undermined the ability of the state to exert its

8 Robert F. Arnove and Harvey J. Graff, “Introduction,” in National Literacy Campaigns and Movements, 7. 284 influence over local educational issues.9 The GMD, in comparison, after it established its central government, banned private schools and demanded all schools to be registered at the government level. In the late 1930s, it made a further step to assimilate community-owned educational funds into the government, which alienated local elites from the GMD regime. Despite the state leaders’ nationalization efforts, private schools persisted. The Qing and the GMD’s centralization efforts often failed to win local compliance.10

The liberal scholars and CCP’s literacy programs in this period, in contrast, sought cooperation from local initiatives. Instead of institutional transformation, they tried to exert impact upon private schools through personal influence over teachers. Since the Jiangxi Period, the CCP had adopted the small scale and flexible popular school organization to extend their literacy efforts, an approach proposed by James Yen’s Mass Education Movement in the early 1920s. Later, during the

Yan’an period, the CCP encouraged the local community to establish and fund their own primary schools. This approach not only alleviated the financial strain on the

Communist government, but also helped to draw support from local leaders who used to seek greater than ordinary influence over local affairs by sponsoring education. In the meantime, the Chinese Communists sponsored and directed the formation of various mass organizations, leaders of which became the new elite in

9 Marianne Basid, Educational Reform in Early Twentieth-Century China, trans. Paul J. Bailey (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, the University of Michigan, 1988), xii, chap. 3. 10 For the impact of the GMD’s centralization effort on local schools see Helen R. Chauncey, Schoolhouse Politicians: Locality and State during the Chinese Republic (Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 1992), chap. 6. 285 local society loyal to the Party. Depending on this new group of local leaders, the

CCP managed to extend their influence over local basic education through decentralized institutions.

The content of literacy learning was another key aspect through which designers aspired to influence the results of such training. Chinese leaders were not alone in this matter. It is common that “reformers advocating the extension of education to the populace have attempted to restrict the ability to read to learning a particular text or doctrine.”11 The Qing court favored Confucian classics, through which the imperial government endeavored to consolidate a political consensus surrounding the monarch. Confucianism in this context was able to serve a modern purpose—cultivating a cultural conformity within the framework of constitutional monarchy. It is from a biased perspective that the intellectuals rising in the May

Fourth era simply criticized the Qing literacy programs as counter-progressive.

From the May Fourth Movement (1915-1921) onwards, scholars in the

Republican period often condemned Confucianism for the sake of promoting their interpretation of modernity, which was epitomized by science and democracy.

Hereafter, not only was literacy considered essential for transmitting scientific knowledge, but the ways to define and teach literacy also became subjected to scientific scrutiny. Championing empirical reasoning, scholars argued that mastery of the vocabularies that enable individuals to function in daily life defined basic

11 Robert F. Arnove and Harvey J. Graff, “Introduction,” in National Literacy Campaigns and Movements, 7. 286 literacy. Vernacular language hence attained absolute validity as the medium for reading and writing for the masses.

Scholars also recognized that learning to read and write involved an array of oral, aural, and print experiences. Therefore, they dedicated themselves to transcribing and standardizing spoken language with notations, through which to facilitate the learning of written language or reform it. The GMD and CCP both subscribed to scholars’ pronouncements on language reforms. Each sponsored a set of phonetic symbols in their literacy programs. Each, however, outlined the distinctive everyday life they thought the masses should conduct, which also differed from that conceived by liberal scholars.

Liberal scholars both in China and abroad gave substantial emphasis on scientifically informed and economically productive life. Literacy was valued as a channel accessing the information and technology useful for improving one’s personal lot. In this regard, both the Chinese Nationalists and Communists gave their consent. The fundamental differences lay in their interpretations of democracy and literacy’s relation with it. The liberal view of democracy appreciated literacy for allowing individuals to express, publicize, and exchange opinions. The early 1930s witnessed this view being aired by some Chinese mass education activists in educational journals.

The Nationalists, similar to the Qing court, equated democracy with constitutional polity. Literacy was required for participating in elections and organizing a national assembly. The GMD would rule the country prior to universal 287 literacy being attained and lead the nation to achieve constitutionalism. This stage was termed as political tutelage by Sun Yat-sen, a word the GMD used to define their government in most part of the 1930s and 1940s.12 The statistical date of a universal literacy rate and progress toward democracy, the GMD proposed, moved in tandem. This rhetoric created a conundrum making their literacy programs vulnerable to critiques.

The Nationalist government was obliged to achieve mass literacy, an essential task as defined in the state- and nation-building blueprint prescribed by

Sun Yat-sen. “All Nationalist factions treated Sun’s writing as holy text in order to legitimate their own political views.”13 Confined by this narrative, the Nationalist government assumed the sole responsibility to eliminate illiteracy in an effort to establish constitutional polity. The urgency to win national independence then imposed a limited time frame for realizing this goal. Failing to do so would undermine its political legitimacy. However, during the 1930s and 1940s, a period when China was plagued by political instability and wars, it was hard to imagine that any substantial increase in the mass literacy rate could be possibly attained, by any regime.

12 The political tutelage began in 1928, after the military success of Northern Expedition. The political tutelage was supposed to last six years. In the meantime, a permanent constitution would be drafted. A draft, known as “Double Fifth Draft Constitution” was issued on May 5, 1936 but not adopted because the failure of convening the People’s Congress, “in part due to the Japanese invasion which started in September of the same year.” A formal constitution was promulgated and adopted on December 25, 1946, which formally declared the end of political tutelage period in China. See Jianfu Chen, Chinese Law: Towards an Understanding of Chinese Law, Its Nature and Developments (Hague: Kluwer Law International, 1999), 62-64. 13 S. C. M. Paine, The Wars for Asia, 1911–1949 (London: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 58. 288

Further, the GMD rhetoric of the importance of literacy diverged with the intended results of their mass education program. Sun’s revolutionary formula of political tutelage mandated to train the masses to use their political rights. However, after the Third Party Congress in March 1929, the GMD prioritized its anti-Communist agenda. Mass literacy schools subsequently were intended to be apolitical.14

The GMD’s literacy programs purported to invoke the primacy of the

Nationalist party-state and sense of national identity. The general theme in their literacy primers in the 1930s and 1940s attempted to instruct people how to function in a society that strived for national independence and prosperity.

Patriotism conflated with loyalty to the Nationalists, who were described as the legitimate leader for the national struggle against imperialist powers. In order to be in line with the idea of modernity, the Nationalists endeavored to give a new meaning to Confucian ethics that endorsed hierarchy and compliance with authority during the New Life Movement (1934-1949). They asserted these indigenous values as defining China’s national spirits. Embracing these native ethics, the Nationalists attempted to differentiate from and demean their competitor—the Chinese

Communists—who they referred to as heretical Red bandits. Anti-Communist ideas were injected into the curriculum during this time period as well, especially in the

14 Robert Culp, Articulating Citizenship: Civic Education and Student Politics in Southeastern China, 1912-1940 (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007), 256. 289 special education (tezhong jiaoyu 特種教育) zones, regions contiguous to the

Communist-controlled areas.

While the GMD’s own rhetoric regulated the ways to evaluate their literacy projects, that is, in terms of improving the mass literacy rate and promoting popular political participation, their own literacy projects were unfolded, intentionally, in an opposite direction. Hence, their literacy practices were unable to substantiate the

Party’s promises of improving political democracy. The dramatic divergence between the GMD’s narratives and practices cast a negative light on its literacy efforts.

The Communists, in comparison, argued that democracy meant the majority of population—the workers and peasants—were in charge. The mass participation in the political movement they fermented was considered as a demonstration of democratic practices. Their literacy education served to awaken people’s political and class consciousness. In this way, political authorities justified in their official rhetoric their literacy program preparing the masses for democratic practices. In practice, they used literacy to absorb individuals into the political community under their lead.

Soliciting mass support for its regime was the primary goal of the CCP’s literacy education. During the Jiangxi Soviet period, the Communists attempted to teach the populace to interpret the world through a class perspective. Presenting itself as the defender of working class’ interests, the CCP strived to agitate mass involvement in its political revolution against the GMD. Literacy learning served to 290 make individuals act in a world driven by class exploitation and struggle. Later, during the Yan’an period when the national war against Japan outweighed the civil war, the CCP, during the Yan’an period, adjusted its strategy. Literacy acquisition became associated with fostering a general commitment to the anti-Japanese base area. Local residents were expected to read this anti-Japanese base area as a community demanding their involvement, including supporting the CCP’s army, building a self-reliant economy, and forming a new local government. While constructing its power base, the CCP endeavored to stress the local distinctiveness of the rural anti-Japanese base area as an alternative haven during the turbulent time. Literacy education was not only used to generate a new local life and culture; the presence of popular involvement in literacy learning during the wartime seemed to make a statement. The CCP’s literacy programs in its base areas was supposed to marshal a nationwide appeal as well, drawing people to come under its command to fight against Japan.

The ways the CCP defined democracy and literacy’s relation with it meant that its rhetoric and practices of literacy mutually reinforced each other. The

Communists’ literacy projects aimed to solicit proactive participation in the sociopolitical movement they organized. Individuals’ literacy learning was closely tied with their transformative experiences socially and politically, which allowed the

CCP to claim the credit of helping the people learn to read and write. Anecdotes about personal transformation served as more powerful evidences of the CCP’s success in nurturing mass political participation than numbers of literacy classes or 291 school enrollment. Aiming at converting individuals, the CCP’s literacy programs conveniently helped the Party assert its capacities to change society. Its expression of the literacy myth, in terms of furthering democracy, was relatively easy to draw support from its actual practices, and thus gained a favorable public impression.

The outcomes of these literacy movements, however, largely depended on how their targets responded to the program designers’ initiatives. The common value attached to literacy as a cultural token or a tool for accessing and processing information generated broad appeal. This view of literacy explains why political authorities resorted to literacy for their quest of power. However, this skills view of literacy does not mean that commoners would unconditionally be attracted to literacy programs sponsored by political authorities.

Literacy learning does not automatically cultivate popular loyalty to a political regime, either. Commoners assessed literacy in their daily contexts, which in turn was structured by social, political, cultural, economic, and institutional forces.

If a literacy program played a role in arousing popular interest, it was conditioned on there being opportunities available for villagers to further personal gains via literacy skills or schooling. The literacy learning itself was an interactive process, in which students developed relations, proactive or inactive, with program organizers and among themselves.

Institution-based schooling, an approach adopted by the Qing court and the

GMD, generally appeared to be not well received by the populace, especially by the lower sectors in the countryside. The reason for the lack of popular interest in their 292 literacy program, Qing and GMD officials argued, was poverty and ignorance. True, poverty could affect people’s attitudes towards their studies, but it was by no means the predominant factor precluding non-elites from acquiring literacy. Individual experiences showed that some villagers still managed to receive basic education even in dire straits as noted by the contemporary social elites, and/or themselves.

There were profound reasons other than poverty for the popular apathy toward the

Qing and Nationalist-sponsored schooling.

The Qing’s advocacy of modern schools could not form a concord with the masses. In the eyes of local residents, the modern school curriculum was detached from day-to-day practical needs but was more time-demanding than private schools, which they had been used to and satisfied with for generations for basic literacy acquisition. Though direct complaints about the school subjects gradually waned during the GMD period, the one-on-one teaching style offered by private schools appeared to enjoy continuous advantage over modern group teaching in rural areas.

In the case of private schools, parents could control the appointment of teachers and also were able to negotiate the contracts individually. Further, scattered housing in rural areas challenged group-based concentrated classroom teaching. Inconvenient school locations weakened the state project against private initiatives.

More importantly, neither the Qing nor the Nationalists had made the case to the lower sectors that literacy could make an important contribution to their daily lives differing from the accustomed way. As the established rulers, they had no interest in subverting the established power structure in local society. Their literacy 293 programs were not designed to empower the commoners politically in domestic and local affairs. Hardly could their projects spur a surge of new interest among the populace towards literacy learning. Due to the disruption brought by the demise of the Qing in 1912, even less could be said about the impact of Qing literacy programs upon their students. Its inheritor—the Republican government under the rule of the

GMD—insisted on institution-based schooling for mass literacy from 1936. Their projects remained largely stranded within the classroom and were driven chiefly by state initiatives. The link between literacy education and grass-root needs was weak.

In contrast, the CCP’s rural revolution since the late 1920s generated new conditions that granted novel meanings for acquiring a form of literacy that the

Party instructed. During the Jiangxi period, the Communists strived to establish a

Soviet regime that empowered the poor. Able to read, write, and communicate in the ways the Party sanctioned allowed villagers to pursue a political and public career.

Though not openly intending to overthrow the established societal structure, the

Communists’ projects during the Second Sino-Japanese War directly involved students in its political endeavors. Working in tandem with other social movements, the CCP’s literacy programs provided a platform for peasants socializing with fellow villagers in diverse ways. By using governmental policies and information about contemporary political and military affairs as learning materials, the Party’s literacy programs became useful in aiding villagers to make life adjustments. In this way, the

294

CCP’s literacy education managed to reconcile the Party’s agenda with the desires of a significant number of peasants.

The relationship between literacy and sociopolitical changes takes shape in real contexts defined by history, institutions, and people, not in a direct, linear manner but in a multivalent and contingent way. This dissertation has posited literacy acquisition as situated within the negotiating process between ordinary people and dominant groups and views both sides as active historical agents.

Literacy is not an exclusively controlling or liberating variable. Oftentimes, Chinese elites used literacy to control as well as to liberate; meanwhile, non-elites often managed to extend their own interests while submitting to the established order.

Chinese educated leaders aimed to use literacy education to transform the populace’s daily life. At the same, the meanings and functions of literacy were transformed by daily life.

Despite existing beyond empirical evidence, early 20th-century China’s literacy myth—the belief that mass literacy was a precursor to national strength and prosperity—has remained a driving force behind the state’s literacy education efforts in the post-1949 era. The international community’s support for the idea that associates literacy with civilization, and illiteracy with poverty and underdevelopment, further reinforces Chinese national leaders’ obsession with basic education. On July 1, 1986, China promulgated its Compulsory Education Law.

Compulsory schooling, however, does not necessarily result in universal literacy as the state expects. In the beginning of the 21st century, China’s government, like 295

Western countries, has been gripped by fears of the declining literacy rate caused by digitization, poor schooling, etc.,15 and has responded with an intensified drive for promoting literacy and educational reforms, the outcomes of which will have to be examined and tested by history.

15 Harvey J. Graff, Literacy and Historical Development (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2007), 1. 296

Bibliography

Interviews

Mr. Deng, born 1926, Summer 2010, Guiyang.

Mr. He, born in 1931, Summer 2010, Chongqing.

Mr. Li, born in 1931, Summer 2010, Chongqing.

Mr. Shi, born in 1927, Summer 2010, Xi’an.

Mr. Wang, born in 1927, Summer 2010, Chongqing.

Ms. Zhao, Xi’an, born in 1933, Summer 2010, Xi’an.

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______. “Chongqingshi guomin jiaoshi zhongxiaoxuesheng ji ge jiguan tuanti zhishi fenzi wei puji shixue minzhong shizi jiaoyu shixing xunhui fenzu jiaoxue banfa(重慶市國民教師中小學生及各機關團體智識份子為普及失學民眾識字教育施行巡迴分組教學辦法 Group-based itinerant education method for national school teachers and students, as well as educated persons of various organization and official organs to promote literacy education among unschooled populace in Chongqing).” 65-1-542. (n.d.)

______. Chongqing shi Jiaoyuju Shehuiju (重慶市教育局社會局 Bureaus of education and of social affair). “Guanyu baosong banli gongren shiziban banfa shang Chongqingshi zhengfu de cheng (關於報送辦理工人識字班辦法上重慶市政 297

府的呈 A memorial to Chongqing municipal government about how to organize literacy class for workers).” 53-1-425. (1946).

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______. “Guanyu baosong tuixing shixue minzhong shizi jiaoyu qingxing (關於報送推行失學民眾識字教育情形 Reports on promoting literacy education among unschooled masses).” 65-1-708. (1945).

______. “Guanyu baosong xuesheng mingce bing qing fagei minjiao keben shang Chongqingshi jiaoyuju de cheng(关于报送学生名册并请发给民教课本上重庆市教育局的呈 Reports on student register and petition to Chongqing Education Bureau for granting mass literacy education textbook).” 65-3-6. (1944).

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298

______. “Guanyu xuban gongren shizi ban bing fagei jiazhong jiaocai zhi Chongqingshi jiaoyuju de han (關於續辦工人識字班並發給甲種教材致重慶市教育局的函 Letters to Chongqing Education Bureau regarding continuation of worker literacy classes, and requests for distributing textbooks).” 65-1-692. (1946). (n.d.)

______. “Guanyu zengjia shizi jingcha yuexiang de gonghan (關於增加識字員警月餉的公函 Official documents on increasing the salary for literate police).” 61-3-427. (1939).

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299

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______. “Hengshanxian dier Zhongshan minzhong xuexiao gongzuo yuebaobiao (橫山縣第二中山民眾學校工作月報表 Monthly work report of the Second Zhongshan Mass School in Hengshan County).” 1-15-70. (1939-1941).

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______. “Hengshanxian Zhongshan Minzhong xuexiao yewu rizhi (橫山縣中山民眾學校業務日誌 Hengshan County Zhongshan mass school daily log).” 1-5-69. (1941).

______. Jiaoyubu. “Xueling ertong ji shixue minzhong qiangpo ruxue banfa(学龄儿童及失学民众强迫入学办法 Regulations on forces-schooling for school-aged children and unschooled masses).” 1-15-66. (January 1943).

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______. “Shaanxi tezhong jiaoyuan yuedu biji (陝西特種教員閱讀筆記 Shaanxi special education teachers’ reading notes).” 1-5-67. (1939-1941).

______. “Shaanxisheng tongban tejiao xianfen Zhongshan jiaoyuguan gongzuo dagang (陝西省統辦特教縣份中山教育館工作大綱 Zhongshan Mass Education Institute work plan in the counties designated for special education in Shaanxi province).” 1-7-96. (1940?)

______. “Shaanxisheng zhanshi tuixing minzhong buxi jiaoyu jihua dagang (陝西省戰時推行民眾補習教育計畫大綱 Outline for promoting mass supplementary education in wartime Shaanxi).” 1-15-108. (1940).

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______. Shaanxisheng zhengfu (陕西省政府 Shaanxi provincial government). “Guanyu jinyong jianti ji guaiyi wenzi an (关于禁用简体及怪异文字案 Proposal on banning the use of simplified and strange characters).” 1-12-76. (n.d.)

______. “Shaanxisheng zhengfu guanyu tejiao gongzuo renyuan xunlianban ji jingli renyuan xunlianban de youguan cailiao (陝西省政府關於特教工作人員訓練班及經理人員訓練班的有關材料 Materials about the training for special education teacher and administrative personnel by Shaanxi provincial government).” 1-7-16. (July 1940).

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______. “Zhongshan jiaoyuguan shezhi banfa (中山教育館設置辦法 Regulations on the establishment of Zhongshan Mass Education Institute).” 1-7-96. (1940?)

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______. “Cunxuan (村選 Village elections).” A22-1-4-1. (December 1941).

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______, ed. Shishi shixue minzhong buxi jiaoyu gexiang fagui (實施失學民眾補習教育各項法規 Regulations on implementation of educating illiterate masses). September 1936.

Jiaoyubu shehui jiaoyu shi (教育部社會教育室 Ministry of Education social education office), comp. Zhongguo shehui jiaoyu gaikuang (中國社會教育概況 A overview of social education in China). N.p.: Jiaoyubu shehui jiaoyu shi, 1938.

Jiaoyubu shehui jiaoyu si (教育部社會教育司 Social education department of Ministry of Education), comp. Shixue minzhong buxi jiaoyu fagui (失學民眾補習教育法規 Regulations on supplementary education for unschooled populace). N.p.: Jiaoyubu shehui jiaoyu si, 1936.

Junshi weiyuanhui weiyuanzhang Nanchang xingying (軍事委員會委員長南昌行營 Nanchang field office of Generalissimo of military committee), comp. Shibing shizi keben (士兵識字課本 Soldier’s literacy primer). 4 vols. Shanghai: Zhonghua Book Company, 1935.

Junshi weiyuanhui zhengxunchu (軍事委員會政訓處 Military Committee political education department). Shibing shizi keben (士兵識字課本 Soldiers’ literacy primer). 6 vols. [Hankou?]: Saodangbao she, 1937.

Kang Youwei. Kang Youwei zhenglunji (康有為政論集 Collections on Kang Youwei’s articles on politics). Edited by Tang Zhijun. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1981.

Kangzhan guowen (抗戰國文 National language textbook of the War of Resistance). N.p.: [1940s?].

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Li Jianxing (李建兴). Zhongguo shehui jiaoyu fazhanshi (中国社会教育发展史 The history of social education development in China). Taipei: San Min Book Company, 1986.

Li Jinhui (黎錦暉), ed. Ertong wenxue congshu, erge (兒童文學叢書——兒歌 Children’s literature series, Children’s Songs). 2 vols. Shanghai: Zhonghua Book Company, 1930.

Li Jinxi (黎錦熙). Guoyu yundong shigang (國語運動史綱 History of the national language movement). Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1934.

Li Qinggang (李庆刚). “Dayuejin shiqi saochu wenmang yundong shuping (‘大跃进’ 时期扫除文盲运动述评 Commentary on the campaign to eliminate illiteracy during the period of the Great Leap Forward).” Contemporary China History Studies 10, no. 3 (May 2003): 54-60.

Liang Qichao (梁啟超). Liang Qichao quanji (梁啟超全集 The collected works of Liang Qichao). Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 1999.

Lin Bonian (林伯年), ed. Shaan-Gan-Ning bianqu de tushuguan shiye (陕甘宁边区的图书馆事业 Libraries in the Shaan-Gan-Ning border area). Xi’an: Xi’an chubanshe, 1998.

Lin Qiang (林强). “Zhongyang Suqu de fanwei daodi you duoda (中央苏区的范围到底有多大 How large the central Soviet area actually was).” Zhonggong dangshi yanjiu, no.5 (2008): 117-119.

Liu Dewen (劉德文). “Pingjiao zonghui gaibian Qianzike jianzi gongzuo de jingguo (平教總會改編千字課檢字工作的經過 Character selecting procedure in re-editing Thousand Character Primer by the National Association of Mass Education Movements).” Jiaoyu zazhi 18, no.12 (1926):1-14.

Liu Jinan (劉濟南), and Cao Zizheng (曹子正), eds. Shaanxisheng Hengshan xianzhi (陝西省橫山縣誌 Gazetteer for Hengshan county of Shaanxi province).N.p.: 1929.

Liu Xianzeng (刘宪曾), Liu Duanfen (林端棻), eds. Shaan-Gan-Ning bianqu jiaoyushi (陕甘宁边区教育史 Education history of the Shaan-Gan-Ning border area). Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe, 1994.

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Liu Xiaohong (刘晓红). “Ershi shiji shangbanqi Zhongguo nongcun wenmang wenti ji qi zhengyin (20 世纪上半期中国农村文盲问题及其成因 The illiteracy issue and its causes in rural China in the first half of the 20th century).” Guangxi shehui kexue, no.2 (2008): 117-120.

______. “Nanjing guominzhengfu de saomang jiaoyu (南京国民政府的扫盲教育 Anti-illiteracy campaign during the Nanjing decade).” Journal of Xidian University (Social Science Edition) 14, no. 2(June 2004): 69-72.

______. “Qingmo de saomang jiaoyu (清末的扫盲教育 Anti-illiteracy education during the late Qing).” Journal of Shaanxi Normal University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition) 33, (October 2004): 191-193.

Lu Erkui (陸爾奎). “Lun jianyi shizi yi xian dingwei yiwu jiaoyu(論簡易識字宜先定為義務教育 Basic literacy education should be defined as compulsory education).” Yubei lixian gonghuibao (預備立憲公會報 Newspaper of preliminary constitutionalism society)1, no.8 (1909): 3-6.

Lü Ping (吕苹). “Nanjing guomin zhengfu qianqi Zhejiangsheng juban minzhong jiaoyu shuping (南京国民政府前期浙江省举办民众教育述评 Popular education in Zhejiang during the early years of Chiang Kai-shek Regime).” Journal of Zhejiang Normal University 29, no. 4 (2004): 95-98.

Ma Lingya (马玲亚). “Yu Qingtang dui minguo shiqi minzhong jiaoyu de gongxian (俞庆棠对民国时期民众教育的贡献 Yu Qingtang’s contributions to mass education during the republic period).” Jiaoyu pinglun, no. 3(2003): 83-85.

Ma Qiufan (马秋帆), ed. Liang Shuming jiaoyu lunzhu xuan (梁漱溟教育论著选 Selections of Liang Shuming’s writings on education). Beijing: People’s Education Press, 1994.

______, and Xiong Ming’an (熊明安), eds. Yan Yangchu jiaoyu lunzhuxuan (晏阳初教育论著选 Selections of James Yen’s writings on education). Beijing: People’s Education Press, 1993.

Ma Yun (马云). “Ershi shiji wushi niandai Zhongguo nongcun saomang yuedong de tedian (20 世纪 50 年代中国农村扫盲运动的特点 The features of rural adult anti-illiteracy campaign in the 1950s).” Journal of Shangqiu Teachers’ College 20, no. 6 (December 2004):65-66.

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______, and Liu Jianping (刘建平). “Koushu shijiao xia de ershi wushi niandai Zhongguo nongcun saomang jiaoyu ji xiandai qishi (口述视角下的 20 世纪 50 年代中国农村扫盲教育及现代启示 The anti-illiteracy education in rural China in the 1950s from the perspective of oral narrative and its modern inspirations).” Theory and Practice of Education 24, no. 3 (2004): 54-56.

Mao Wenjun (毛文君). “Er shiji ershi sanshi niandai de Chengdu shi minzhong jiaoyuguan (20 世纪 20-30 年代的成都市民众教育馆 The Mass Education Institute in Chengdu during the 1920s and 1930s).” Journal of Literature and History, no. 1(2002): 10-12.

Mao Zedong (毛澤東). Mao Zedong xuanji (毛泽东选集 Selected works of Mao Zedong). Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1991.

Mao Zhongying (茅仲英), eds. Yu Qingtang jiaoyu lunzhu xuan (俞庆棠教育论著选 Selections of Yu Qingtang’s writings on education). Beijing: People’s Education Press, 1992.

National Institute of Education Sciences (中央教育科学研究院 National education and science research institute), ed. Taoxingzhi jiaoyu wenxuan (陶行知教育文选 Selections of Tao Xingzhi’s writings on education). Beijing: Jiaoyu kexue chubanshe, 1981.

______, ed. Xu Teli jiaoyu wenji (徐特立教育文集 Selections of Xu Teli writings on education). Beijing: People’s Education Press, 1986.

Ni Haishui (倪海曙). Ladinghua xinwenzi yundong shimo he biannian jishi (拉丁化新文字运动始末和编年纪事 The full story and chronicle of Latinization and Sin Wenz movement). Xi’an: Zhishi chubanshe, 1987.

Nie Rongzhen (聂荣臻). “Nie Rongzhen huiyilu: hongjun shiqi (聂荣臻回忆录: 红军时期 Nie Rongzhen’s memoir: the Red Army period.” Zhonggong dangshi ziliao 5, (1983):171-172.

Qian Xuantong (錢玄同). “ Zhongguo jinhou de wenzi wenti (中國今後的文字問題 Hereafter China’s language problems).” Xin qingnian 4, no. 4(1918).

______. “Hanzi geming (漢字革命 A revolution to Chinese characters).” Guoyu yuekan(國語月刊 National language montly)1, no.8 (1922):5-40

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Qin Tongpei (秦同培), comp. Chudeng xiaoxuexiao xinguowen jiaoshoufa (初等小學校新國文教授法 Lower primary schools methods for teaching national readers of China Republic). Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1919.

Qing Xuebu zongwu si (清學部總務司 Qing Board of Education general affairs department), comp. Diyici jiaoyu tongji tubiao,1907 (第一次教育統計圖表 The first statistics about education).

______. Di’erci jiaoyu tongji tubiao, 1908 (第二次教育統計圖表 The second statistics about education).

______. Disanci jiaoyu tongji tubia, 1909 (第三次教育統計圖表 The third statistics about education).

Qiu Zhonglin (邱鐘麟), comp. Fengbu xiuzheng shibing shizi keben, diyice (奉部修正士兵識字課本第一册 Revising soldiers’ literacy primer under the order of Guomin zhengfu xunlian zongjianbu 國民政府訓練總監部, vol.1). Beiping: Xiehua yinshuju, 1932.

Rui Jiarui (芮佳瑞), ed. Xiaoxue xingzheng ji zuzhi (小學行政及組織 Administration and organizations of primary schools). Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1924.

Sang Bing (桑兵). Wan Qing xuetang xuesheng yu shehui bianqian (晚清学堂与社会变迁 Schools and social changes during the late Qing). Taipei: Daohe chubanshe, 1991.

Shaan-Gan-Ning bianqu zhengfu bangong ting (陝甘寧邊區政府辦公廳 Shaan-Gan-Ning border region government general office), ed. Sige minban xiaoxue (四個民辦小學 Four local-run elementary schools). [Yan’an?]: 1944.

Shaanxi shifan daxue shehui jiaoyu yanjiusuo (陕西师范大学社会教育研究所 Shaanxi Teachers’ College Education Research Institute), ed. Shaan-Gan-Ning bianqu jiaoyu ziliao: shehui jiaoyu bufen (陕甘宁边区教育资料, 社会教育部分 Education materials in the Shaan-Gan-Ning border area: mass education section). Beijing: Jiaoyu kexue chubanshe, 1981.

Shaanxisheng danganguan (陕西省档案馆 Shaanxi Provincial Archive), and Shaanxisheng shehui kexueyuan (陕西省社会科学院 Shaanxi Academy of Social Science), eds. Shaan-Gan-Ning bianqu zhengfu wenjian xuanbian (陕甘宁边区政府文件选编 Selections of Shaan-Gan-Ning border area government materials). Beijing: Dang’an chubanshe, 1991. 311

Shaanxisheng difangzhi bianzhuan weiyuanhui (陕西省地方志编纂委员会 Shaanxi Province local gazetteer compilation committee), ed. Vol. 62 of Shaanxi shengzhi: funüzhi (陕西省志：妇女志 Gazetteer for Shaanxi province: women). Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe, 2001.

______, ed. Vol. 63 of Shaanxi shengzhi: jiaoyuzhi (陕西省志：教育志 Gazetteer for Shaanxi province: education). Xi’an: Sanqin chubanshe, 2009.

Shaanxisheng funü lianhehui(陕西省妇女联合会 Shaanxi Province Women’s Federation), ed. Shaan-Gan-Ning bianqu funü yundong wenxian ziliao: xuji(陕甘宁边区妇女运动文献资料: 续集 Materials of Shaan-Gan-Ning women’s movement: continuation). Xi’an: 1985.

Shaanxisheng zonggonghui gongyunshi yanjiushi (陕西省总工会工运史研究室 Shaanxi provincial labor union labor movement research office), ed. Shaan-Gan-Ning bianqu gongren yundong shiliao xuanbian (陕甘宁边区工人运动史料选编 Selections of labor movement materials in Shaan-Gan-Ning border areas). Beijing: Gongren chubanshe, 1988.

Shanghai jiaoyu chubanshe (上海教育出版社 Shanghai Education Press), Laojiefangqu jiaoyu gongzuo huiyilu (老解放区教育工作回忆录 Memories about educational work in the long-established liberated areas). Shanghai: Shanghai jiaoyu chubanshe, 1979.

Shanxisheng chuban shizhi bianji weiyuanhui (山西省出版史志编辑委员会 The editorial committee of Shanxi publication history), and Neimenggu Jin-Sui bianqu chubanshi bianji weiyuanhui (内蒙古晋绥边区出版史编辑委员会 The Inner Mongolian editorial committee of publication history in the Jin-Sui border region), eds. Jin-Sui bianqu chubanshi (晋绥边区出版史 Publication history in the Jin-Sui border region). Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1997.

Shanxisheng jiaoyushi Jin-Sui bianqu bianxiezu (山西省教育史晋绥边区编写组 The Shanxi editorial board on educational history in Jin-Sui border region), and Neimenggu zizhiqu jiaoyu shizi bangongshi (内蒙古自治区教育史志办公室 The office of educational gazetteers in Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region), eds. Jin-Sui geming gejudi jiaoyushi ziliao xuanbian (晋绥革命根据地教育史资料选编 Selections of Jin-Sui revolutionary base area educational history materials). Only for internal circulation. 1987.

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Shanxisheng zhengfu tongjichu (山西省政府統計處 Shanxi provincial government statistics bureau). Shanxisheng dijiuci jiaoyu tongji: 1924 niandu (山西省第九次教育統計 1924 年度 The ninth educational statistics of Shangxi province, 1924). Vol. 1053 of Minguo shiliao congkan (民国史料丛刊 Collections of Republic of China historical materials), edited by Zhang Yan, Sun Yanjing. Zhengzhou: Daxiang chubanshe, 2009.

______. Shanxisheng dijiuci jiaoyu tongji: 1925 niandu (山西省第九次教育統計 1925 年度 The ninth educational statistics of Shangxi province, 1925). Vol. 1053 of Minguo shiliao congkan (民国史料丛刊 Collections of Republic of China historical materials), edited by Zhang Yan, Sun Yanjing. Zhengzhou: Daxiang chubanshe, 2009.

Shen Baiying (沈百英), comp. Shizi keben (識字課本 Literacy primer). 4 vols. Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1929.

Shen Guowei (沈国威). “[A study] on Qing Board of Education’s compilation of the Simple Literacy Primer.” Wakumon 83 No.17 (2009): 83-100.

______, and Sun Qing (孙青). “厳復と清末学部編『国民必読課本初稿』(Yan Fu and An Essential Reader for the Citizen compiled and edited by the Board of Education in late Qing).” In Higashi Ajia ni okeru bunka jōhō no hasshin to juyō (東アジアにおける文化情報の発信と受容), edited by Akira Matsuura. Tōkyō: Yūshōdō Shuppan, 2010, 31-54.

“Shijie jiaoyu jie: Moxige litu wenmang saochu (世界教育界:墨西哥力圖文盲掃除 Education in the world: Mexico determines to eliminate illiteracy).” Zhonghua jiaoyu jie 20, no. 9 (1933): 99.

“Shijie jiaoyu xinchao: Erguo jiang shixing qiangpo jiaoyu (世界教育新潮俄國將實行強迫教育 International education news: Russia will implement compulsory education).” Jiaoyu zazhi 16, no. 5(1924): 21.

“Shijie jiaoyu xinchao: Meiguo zhi bushizizhe (世界教育新潮: 美國不識字者 International education news: The illiterate in the United States).” Jiaoyu zazhi (教育雜誌 The Education Magazine) 14, no. 6 (1922): 18.

“Shijie jiaoyu xinchao: Yindu shizi de renshu(世界教育新潮: 印度識字的人數 International education news: The literate population in India).” Jiaoyu zazhi 17, no. 3(1925): 37.

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“Shixing minzhu buxi jiaoyu an (實行民主補習教育案 A resolution on implementing democratic supplementary education).” Shaanxi jiaoyu zhoukan (陝西教育週刊 Shaanxi Education weekly) 2, no. 57 (1929): 18-21.

“Shui shuo laobaixing bu jieshou jiaoyu (誰說老百姓不接受教育 Who said the masses refused to accept education).” Jiefang ribao, April 22, 1942.

“Sulian xiaochu wenmang yundong (苏联消除文盲运动 Anti-illiteracy movement in the Soviet Union.” Minzhong jiaoyu tongxun (民眾教育通訊 Mass education dispatch) 4, no. 9 (1934): 15.

Shu Xincheng (舒新城), ed. Zhongguo jindai jiaoyushi ziliao (中国近代教育史资料 Educational materials of modern China). Beijing: Renmin jiaoyu chubanshe, 1961.

______. Wo he jiaoyu (我和教育 Myself and my education). Taibei: Longwen chubanshe, 1990.

Sichuan daxue malie zhuyi jiaoyanshi (四川大学马列主义教研室 Sichuan University Marxism-Leninism teaching and research office), and Chuan-Shaan geming genjudi keyanzu (川陕革命根据地科研组 Sichuan and Shaanxi province revolutionary base areas research group), eds. Chuan-Shaan geming gejudi ziliao xuanbian (川陕革命根据地资料选编 Material selection of Chuan-Shaan revolutionary base areas). Only for internal circulation. 1978.

Song Baozuo (宋寶祚). “Sijiao jianzi yu minzhong jiaoyu (四角檢字與民眾教育 The Four-Corner Method and Mass Education.” Jiaoyu yu minzhong 1, no.1 (1929): 110.

Song Qinghong (宋青红). “Nanfeng Baishexu tezhong jiaoyu shiyanqu yanjiu, 1934-1937 (南丰白舍圩特种教育实验区研究 A study of special education experimental area in Baishexu in Nanfeng County).” Master’s thesis, Jiangxi Normal University, 2007.

Sun Yat-sen. Jianguo dagang (建國大綱 The Bases of National Reconstruction). In vol. 9 of Sun Zhongshan quan ji (孫中山全集 Complete works of Sun Yat-sen). Edited by Guangdong Sheng shehui kexue yuan lishi yanjiushi (广东省社会科学院历史研究室 Guangdong Province Social Science Academy history research office), Zhongguo shehui kexue yuan jindaishi yanjiusuo Zhonghua minguoshi yanjiu shi (中国社会科学院近代史研究所中华民国研究室 314

Research office of Republic of China history at China Academy of Social Science Instiute of Modern History), and Zhongshan daxue lishixi Sun Zhongshan yanjiushi (中山大学历史系孙中山研究室 Sun Yat-sen research office at History Department of Sun Yat-sen University). Beijing: Zhonghua book company, 2006.

Sun Zhaohai (孙照海), ed. Shaan-Gan-Ning bianqu jianwen shiliao huibian (陕甘宁边区见闻史料汇编 Collections of accounts of Shaan-Gan-Ning border areas). Beijing: Guojia tushuguan chubanshe, 2010.

Tao Xingzhi (陶行知), comp. Laoshaotong qianzike (老少通千字課 Thousand character textbook for the young and the old). 4 vols. Changsha: Commercial Press, 1938.

Tian Tong (田彤). Zhuanxingqi wenhuaxue de pipan: yi Chen Xujing wei gean de lishi shidu (转型期文化学的批判:以陈序经为个案的历史释读 Criticism of cultural studies during the transitional period: a historical and analytical case study of Chen Xujing). Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 2006.

Wang Jianhua (王建华). “Kangri shiqi Shaan-Gan-Ning bianqu de shizi yundong (抗日战争时期陕甘宁边区的识字运动 The literacy campaign in the Shaan-Gan-Ning border region during the War of Resistance against Japanese).” Journal of Chinese Communist Party History Studies, no. 2(2010): 69-75.

Wang Xianming (王先明), and You Yongbin (尤永斌). “Luelun wan Qing xiangcun shehui jiaohua tixi de lishi bianqian (略论晚清乡村社会教化体系的历史变迁 Comments on the historical changes of rural social educational system in the late Qing).” Shixue yuekan, no. 3 (1999): 105-113.

Wang Xingnong (王兴农), ed. Hengshanxian Shiwan xiaoxue bainian xiaoshi (横山县石湾小学百年校史 One hundred years of history of Hengshan county Shiwan primary school), 1906-2006. Hengshan: Hengshanxian shiwan xiaoxue xiaoshi bianweihui, 2006.

Wang Yashan (王雅珊). “The Book Publishing and Reading Culture during Japanese Colonial Era in Taiwan: A Study of Social and Cultural History.” Master’s thesis, National Cheng Kung University, 2011.

Tseng Shiou-Ching (曾秀卿). “The research on development and practice of mass education theory in the early Republic of China, using James Yen, Tao Xingzhi,

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and Liang Shuming as example). PhD diss., National Taiwan Normal University, 1993.

Wei Bingxin (魏冰心), Dong Wen (董文), Dai Weiqing (戴渭清), Cao Zhiqing (曹芝清), comps. Qianzi keben (千字課本 Thousand character textbook). 4 vols. Shanghai: World Book Company, 1925.

“Wei saochu sanwan wenmang er douzheng (為掃除三萬文盲而鬥爭 Fighting for eliminating 30,000 people’s illiteracy).” Xin Zhonghua bao, April 19, 1939.

“Women duiyu tuixing xinwenzi de yijian (我們對於推行新文字的意見 Our opinions on promoting Sin Wenz),” Shenghuo jiaoyu (生活教育 Life and education), no.5 (1936): 195-197

Xue (雪). “Duanping: Jiaoyubu de shizi jiaoyu jihua (短評:教育部的識字教育計畫 Brief comment: the Ministry of Education’s literacy education plan.” Guoji jiaoyu (國際教育 International education) 1, no.3 (1936): 2.

“Xuebu zou Jianyi shizi keben bianjun zhe (學部奏簡易識字課本編竣折 Memorial on completion of compiling the Simple Literacy Primer).” Jiaoyu zazhi 2, no. 2 (1910): 4.

Xiao Kemu (蕭克木), ed. Zouping de cunxue xiangxue (鄒平的村學鄉學 Rural schools in Zouping). Zouping: Xiangyou shudian, 1936.

Xin Anting (辛安亭). Jiaocai bianxie suoyi (教材编写琐忆 Memories about textbook editing). Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe, 1981.

______, comp. Huitu laobaixing riyong zazi (繪圖老百姓日用雜字 Pictorial textbook of assorted Chinese characters for daily use by the masses). Taihang, Shanxi: Taihang qunzhong shudian, [1940s?]

______, comp. Shizi keben:dongxue minxiao yexiao xiaoxue shiyong (識字課本: 冬學民校夜校小學適用 Literacy primer for people’s school and night school of the winter school, and primary schools). 8 vols. Hebei.: Xinhua Bookstore, 1948.

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Appendix A: Level of Literacy Exemplified by 23 Models of Cultural Learning (1944)16

16 “Jiangli wenhua xuexi mofan (獎勵文化學習模範 Awarding exemplary persons in cultural learning,” Jiefang ribao, July 31, 1944. 335

Dong Fuling Position head of the second district of Chishui Original position and literacy level Tenant farmer, illiterate Started learning 1938 Current literacy level read newspapers (Guanzhong bao and `); wrote news report

Ren Huailiang Position Organization section chief of the fourth district of Chishui Original position and literacy level Two years of primary school education Started learning N/A Current literacy level wrote work and news report; equivalent to upper primary school graduate

Zhao Wenqian Position Cadre of the fourth district of Chishui Original position and literacy level Carpenter, illiterate Started learning 1940 Current literacy level Read newspapers (Guanzhong bao and Bianqu qunzhong bao)495; wrote diary

Zhao Jiyu Position Head of the first township of the third district of Xinning Original position and literacy level poor peasant, age 37, illiterate Started learning 1939 Current literacy level Read Guanzhong bao and Qunzhong bao; wrote basic work report and correspondences

495 Guanzhong bao (關中報 Guanzhong News), lithographically printed organ of the special committee of the Chinese Communist Party at Guanzhong, issued weekly beginning from April 12, 1940. It was published every three days starting on September 1, 1944 and then ran intermittently during the Civil War from January 1947 to May 1948. This newspaper ceased to appear in May 1950 following the abolition of the administrative district of Guanzhong. It featured local news and was praised as a model at the cultural and educational conference of the Shaan-Gan-Ning border region. Bianqu xunzhong bao (邊區群眾報 Populace News of the Border Region) (abbr. Qunzhong bao) began as a weekly paper since February 18, 1942 and then changed to a daily from January 1, 1948 with the new name of Qunzhong ribao (群眾日報 Masses Daily). On October 6, 1954, it was renamed as Shaanxi ribao (陝西日報 Shaanxi Daily). This paper targeted the general local rural populace by using local dialect. 336

Mi Shiying Position Head of the second district of Xinning Original position and literacy level Middle peasant; illiterate Started learning 1939 Current literacy level Read Guanzhong bao and Qunzhong bao; wrote reports; equivalent to upper primary school graduate

Yang Maosheng Position Work at Chunyao yishi village Original position and literacy level Illiterate Started learning 1938 (learning to write since 1940) Current literacy level Read Qunzhong bao; kept diary and wrote news reports on a regular basis; used the four operations with whole numbers; kept accounts, and filled out statistical tables

Guo Zhenying Position Head of the first township of the third district of Xinzheng Original position and literacy level age 37, illiterat Started learning 1939 Current literacy level Read Guanzhong bao and Qunzhong bao; took notes

Guo Shengjin Position Head of the second district of Xinzheng Original position and literacy level Illiterate Started learning 1938 Current literacy level Read Guanzhong bao and Qunzhong bao; wrote basic correspondences

Guo Dingbao Position Head of the second district of Xinning Original position and literacy level Peasant, illiterate Started learning 1936 Current literacy level Read Guanzhong bao and Qunzhong bao; took notes; summarized basic materials

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Du Lintang Position Head of the sixth township of the second district of Xinning Original position and literacy level Peasant, illiterate Started learning N/A Current literacy level Read Guanzhong bao and Qunzhong bao; wrote letters and work reports

Bai Yunting Position Worked at the organization department of Ansai County Party committee Original position and literacy level Formerly hired labor, 37 years old, illiterate Started learning 1937 Current literacy level Read Jiefang Daily; wrote simple essay

Liu Bucheng Position Head of the first district of Ansai County Original position and literacy level Middle peasant, 50 years old, illiterate Started learning 1936 Current literacy level Read Guanzhong bao and Qunzhong bao; wrote basic reports

Li Chengtong Position Head of the first township of Ansai County Original position and literacy level Formerly hired labor, illiterate Started learning 1940 Current literacy level Read Qunzhong bao

Zhu Zhengjiang Position Security assistant of the first district of Fu County Original position and literacy level Recognized a few characters Started learning 1942 Current literacy level Read Qunzhong bao; wrote simple letters

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Zhao Wei Position Security assistant of the first district of Fu County Original position and literacy level Recognized 400-500 characters Started learning 1942 Current literacy level Kept diary; wrote articles for Qunzhong bao

Qiu Shengyu Position District secretary of Ganquan second district Original position and literacy level Formerly hired labor, 29 years old, illiterate Started learning 1937 Current literacy level Wrote work reports

Liu Wande Position Worked at Ganquan Original position and literacy level Poor peasant, 44 years old, illiterate Started learning 1939 Current literacy level Read Qunzhong bao; wrote relatively clear and coherent articles

Shao Yunshan Position Head of the fourth district of Ganquan Original position and literacy level Illiterate Started learning 1943 Current literacy level Wrote letters and travel permits

Yang Wangui Position Messenger of Yan’an prefectural Party committee Original position and literacy level Formerly hired labor, 27 years old, illiterate Started learning N/A Current literacy level Read Qunzhong bao and Jiefang Daily; kept diary

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Ren Chengyu Position Secretary of Chishui County Party committee Original position and literacy level Peasant Started learning 1935 Current literacy level Wrote article for Jiefang Daily

Li Jicheng Position Head of Xinning County Original position and literacy level Formerly hired labor, illiterate Started learning 1935 Current literacy level Wrote thousands of characters-long work report

He Jucai Position Chief of organization department of Xinning County Party committee Original position and literacy level Formerly hired labor, age 38, illiterate Started learning 1937 Current literacy level Read Jiefang Daily; wrote work report

Hao Shengtian Position Worked at Yan’an prefectural Party committee Original position and literacy level Poor peasant, age 28 Started learning 1935 Current literacy level Reporter of Jiefang Daily

340