71-18,04-1 LEE, Hsiang-po, 1919- RURAL-MASS EDUCATION MOVEMENT IN CHINA, 1923-1937. The Ohio State University, Ph.D. , 1970 Education, general University Microfilms, A XEROX Company , A nn Arbor, Michigan THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED RURAL-MASS EDUCATION MOVEMENT IN CHINA, 1923-1937 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Hsiang-po Lee, B.A., A.M, # # sjc * * * The Ohio State University 1970 Advisor College of Education ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In preparing this thesis* the writer has received valuable advice and help from many persons. It would be better to thank them all here collectively. But the writer should like to express his deep gratitude individually to the members of his dissertation committee* Professor Robert B. Sutton* Professor Donald P. Cottrell, Dean Emeritus of the College of Education of this university, Professor Paul R. Klohr, and Professor Tien-yi Li, and especially to Professor Sutton, who made it possible for the writer to continue his studies, of which this dissertation is the result. ii VITA December 12, 1919 • • • Born-Peking, China 19^3................. B.A., National Northwestern Teachers College, China 1957................. M.A., Columbia University, New York City i960................. Professional Diploma, Teachers College, Columbia University 1960-1965 ........... Instructor, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 1965-1967 ........... Lecturer, East Asian Languages and Literatures, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1968- ........... Instructor, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut PUBLICATIONS The Use of Particles in Modern Chinese. East Asian Languages and Literatures, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, 1966. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field* Education Studies in Comparative Education. Professor Robert B. Sutton Studies in Philosophy of Education. Professor Everett J. Kircher Studies in Curriculum and Instruction. Professor James K. Duncan and Professor Paul R. Klohr iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.............................. ii VITA ........................................... iii INTRODUCTION ......................... ..... 1 PART ONE THE BACKGROUND OF THE RURAL-MASS EDUCATION MOVEMENT Chapter I. A PROFILE OF NEW C H I N A ................ 8 Political Situation Economic Conditions Social and Cultural Trends II. PERSPECTIVES OF THE NEW EDUCATION....... The Rise of the New Education In Search of Aim and Policy for the New Education The Administration of the New Education and the School System The Curriculum and the Instruction The Figures and the Facts III. THE NEW EDUCATION IN NEW CHINA— AN ECOLOGICAL REVIEW AND SUMMARY .... 9^ The Environmental Crises The Inherent Problems of the New Education The Consequences Summary and Conclusions PART TWO THE RURAL-MASS EDUCATION MOVEMENT A GENERAL REVIEW OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MOVEMENT ....................... The Beginning of the Movement The Growth of the Movement The Climax of the Movement SIX MODELS OF THE MOVEMENT (I) ......... The Tinghsien Experiment The Hsiao-chuang School and Tao's Other Programs The Shantung Rural Reconstruction Research Institute and Its Experiments SIX MODELS OF THE MOVEMENT (II) ....... The Chinese Vocational Education Association and Its Rural-mass Education Programs The Kiangsu Provincial College of Education and Its Mass Education Programs The Kwangsi Peonle's Fundamental Education Research Institute and the People's Fundamental Education Programs THE THREE LEADERS OF THE MOVEMENT .... James Y. C. Yen (1893- ) Liang Shu-ming (1893-1966?) Tao Hsing-chih (1892-19^-6) THE PROBLEMS AND THE PROMISE OF THE MOVEMENT ........................... The Protiems The Promise Summary and Conclusion EPILOGUE 285 APPENDIX 1.......................................... 291 II.......................................... 292 III.................. 296 IV.................................... , . 301 V .......................................... 3 0 ^ VI.......................................... 305 VII.......................................... 307 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................. 309 Introduction Mass education is usually conceived of as a program of literacy campaign in a country where the rate of illiteracy of the population is high. But the rural-mass education movement in China forty years ago was an attempt to create a new pattern of education universally available and practically useful to the people to replace the current system which was considered dysfunctional and ineffectual, and which is referred as the "new education" in this study. Generally, literacy is an indicator of the quality of the population of a nation; but, as far as the people’s welfare is concerned, according to the experience of China in the programs of mass education, literacy alone is not enough. Strictly speaking, "literacy is not education; it is but a tool for education." The efforts made to reform China's educational system in the 1920’s and the 1930's were an attempt to combine the literacy programs of mass education with the life-improvement programs of rural reconstruction. To represent, in a precise way, the meaning of the movement, the term "rural-mass education" is therefore coined and used in this study. China, early in this century, was the largest, the most populous and probably the poorest country in the underdeveloped world. Poverty, illiteracy, ill-health and political chaos 1 2 were the reality of the conditions under which the people desperately struggled for survival. In order to make a change for the better, but acting under a wrong assumption that to borrow the educational system from a prosperous country would enable a poor country like China to become equally prosperous, the American system of education was then borrowed. Unfortu­ nately, the high expectation was met with a series of frustrations. The system, in a period of more than one decade, failed to produce what it had done on its native ground. Con­ sequently, the new education greatly burdened the progress of the nation and helped very little to relieve the people from their miseries. Against such a background, the programs of rural-mass education were initiated. In the course of its development, the rural-mass education movement exhibited a great variety of underlying philosophies and programs, and, finally, under the influence of its three most outstanding leaders, it became a "troika" with three leading forces moving not as a harmonious team but in three diverging directions. So the movement failed to bear any significant result before the disruptions of the second Sino-Japanese War. The expressed goals of the movement were to change the nature of education from elite-making to peasant-training and to democratize education. The rapidity of the development of the movement and the extent to which it spread demonstrated its general acceptance. So,even though it lacked success, the 3 rural-mass education movement in China is a subject of significance, worthy of thorough study. This study is an attempt to make a critical but objective assessment of the outcomes as well as the shortcomings of the rural-mass education movement. The findings of the study may imply hypotheses regarding the construction of an educational program appropriate to other countries struggling for survival under such difficult conditions as were encountered by China half a century ago. At the same time, by presenting a detailed analysis of some major programs in the movement, it is hoped that a basis can be provided for subsequent studies of the educational development in contemporary China as rural and mass education has so far been the dominant theme in education on China mainland. Due to the complexity of its development and the variety of programs, an exhaustive study of the movement is hardly possible. The scope of this study is therefore limited tem­ porally to a period of fourteen years, from 1923 when the Chinese National Association of the Hass Education Movement was organized in Peking, to 1937» the first year of the second Sino-Japanese War (1937*-19^5). Further, although a general view of the relatively impressive programs scattered across the country will be presented, close analysis will be made only of the six leading programs as six models of the movement. In order better to provide a comprehensive view of the "background against which the movement took place, a panoramic picture of New China in the early twentieth century and her educational system of that time will be presented in Part One of this study. In Part Two, there will be a general review of the development of the movement, followed by an account of the six representative models of the movement. Some educational critics in China thought that the appearance of the rural-mass education movement had opened a new prospect for the future development of China's education, and that accomplishments of the movement must be credited to the three leaders* James Y. C. Yen, Liang Shu-ming and Tao Hsing-chih. Others held these three men responsible for making China's educational system more confusing as they had worked out divergent programs based on their own personal preferences without relevance to the real problems of China's education at the time. The remarks, both favorable and unfavorable, somehow served to show the impor­ tance of each of the three men to China's educational reform in the 1920's and the 1930*s. A study of the rural-mass edu­ cation movement in