Mass Education Movement and JCRR

Abstract

derdeveloped peoples. Among numerous articles on the subject is Mr. Melvin Conant, Jr.'s JCRR: An Object Lesson in the May 2, 1951 issue of the Far Eastern Survey. This article referred several times to the Chinese Mass Education Movement (MEM). This is only natural, because the MEM not only worked very closely with the Joint Commission on Rural Recon? struction (JCRR) on the mainland of China, but furthermore the MEM was mainly responsible for bringing the JCRR into existence. Unfortunately, how? ever, Mr. Conant made several erroneous or misleading statements which ought to be corrected on behalf of the American-Chinese Committee1 which sponsors the Mass Education Movement in this country. The idea of educating the illiterate masses of China came to Y. C. James Yen when he worked with the 200,000 illiterate Chinese peasant laborers in France dur? ing World War I. After the war he returned to China and organized the Chinese Mass Education Movement.2 It spread throughout China and laid the foundation for a nation-wide movement for mass education and