A School in Every Village: Educational Reform in a Northeast China County, 1904–1931, by Elizabeth R. VanderVen

Abstract

A School in Every Village: Educational Reform in a Northeast China County, 1904-1931, by Elizabeth R. VanderVen. Contemporary Chinese Studies Series. Vancouver, University of British Columbia Press, 2012. xvi, 222 pp. $37.95 US (paper). Beginning in the mid nineteenth century, the Qing Dynasty faced a collection of imperial powers from Europe and Japan that were bent on carving China up into their own spheres of interest. The Qing proved completely incapable of resisting these encroachments, which gradually convinced a large number of Chinese by the dawn of the twentieth century that major reforms in all walks of life were a prerequisite for national survival. Education thus became one of many battlegrounds for a new generation of reformers seeking to bring modernity to China. A School in Every Village explores the establishment of a modern, state-led primary education system in Haicheng County, viewed by most contemporary Chinese as a remote backwater near the frontier with Korea. Though the main text of this work comes in at a crisp 169 pages, VanderVen has made excellent use of hitherto unexplored local archival materials from Haicheng County in her rich study. This title is part of UBC Press's Contemporary Chinese Studies Series, a long-running collection of high-quality works. At the dawn of the twentieth century, primary education in this corner of rural northeast China was a disorganized affair in the few villages where it existed, which was typical of the country as a whole. VanderVen drew the title of her work from the wish of Song Dynasty philosopher Zhu Xi--unfulfilled for 700 years--to bring education to children of all under heaven (p. 2). The Qing, and several other dynasties before it, had previously attempted to bring public education to mral areas such as these without success. Thus, the significance of the process that VanderVen examines is that it marked the first time that the Chinese state provided open, mass education through the entire country. Though typically derided as conservative, reactionary, and crippled by indecision in its final years, the Qing in actuality was relatively progressive on educational reform beginning in 1904. High-profile administrators tasked with the education file introduced a new three-tiered system and did away with the antiquated civil service exams that required candidates to study the Confucian classics. A Ministry of Education was set up in 1905 and given authority to push sweeping reforms that included standardization, state oversight, and the introduction of western subjects, including both hard and soft sciences and physical education. …