SIDELIGHTS-ON CHINESE ADULT EDUCATION

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 209, 20 September 1937, Page 11

SIDELIGHTS-ON CHINESE ADULT EDUCATION

Acfiilt education* in country distriets of South China does not get much beyond the stage of learning to read. An Englishwomau teacker who lived there for over twenty years tells? a grapkie story of the fight against illitcracy. Fortnightly sehools aro arranged in the villages, the teacher travelling out in a springless ox-cart or doing the .louiney in an old bus guarded by two cr three soldiers in case of a bandit uLcack. The school may meet in a disused temple court or in a little chapel atiached to oue of the missions. In the school described, the scholars were mostly women and girls, who sat on the bare carthen floor. Some fwenty of them came,' and the teacher had the assistance of an old Chinese preacher. Owing to the various stages at which the scholars were in th'esr ability to read, it was difficult to arrange them mto classe.s. They all liked to be together. Those who could read a little shouted their bit aloud from the lesson sheets con'taining simple senteuces. To teach the others the two teachers went round drilling individuals in ' 1 the thousand characterjss" to which Chinese has been roduced for practical everyday purposes. Some others found the romanised script much easier to follow. Usually after a week's lessons of two hours each day the beginners managed to read a few simple lessons. Some of the older. women do not get beyond a droning recital of the alphabet, and they tend to hold the class baek. In the afternoon, as a change from learning to read, there is a singing lesson. There is no organ or piano in any of the country schools, and the teacher has to sing a solo over and over again until the tune gets familiar. The most popular story recital is "Pilgrim's Progress," which is given with Chinese characters and is always demanded again. Evening lessons are not praeticable owing to lighting difficulties'. Some of the women bring electric torehes, and there is usually an odd lantern or two. The old-fashioned magie lantern is enormously popular, and whatever tlie story or lecture for the nighfc, the first slides put on are ones about hygiene. There are slides which show the result, s of flies being allowed to settle on food and why it is not good to throw refuse in the streets. In this way a lesson gradually sinks in, and in one village a cleaning-up campaign started after one school had been held.