Beiyang reactionaries

At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China.

Western learning was spreading eastward, and because of the invasion of foreign powers, Chinese scholars began to reflect.Reflect on why our country is backward and why our country has repeatedly fought and failed.

Chinese scholars began to think, began to consider a road to a strong country.Various ideas of strengthening the country came out, and some people thought it was the fault of the Manchu Qing court, so a revolutionary party came out, which was bound to overthrow the Manchu Qing.Some people think that China's economy is poor, so it is bullied by foreign powers.If China wants to develop, it needs industry to save the country, so it began to take the road of industry serving the country.

However, mainstream scholars believe that it is mainly because of poor education.

They believed that science and education must be revitalized to make the country prosperous and strong.To revitalize science and education is to popularize education, and the most urgent task is to solve the problem of literacy among the people.In order to increase the literacy rate of the Chinese people, various programs have been proposed.

Simplified Chinese?

In fact, it was under this trend of thought that some people began to call for it, including the Latinization of Chinese characters and pinyin.

The purpose is simple.

It is to simplify the writing of Chinese characters and popularize education.In this regard, the group of scholars in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China still did a lot of work.

And Qian Xuantong is definitely the best in this respect.

Can't be said to be the first to call for these.But Qian Xuantong is definitely the most influential and most brilliant expert professor in the promotion of simplified Chinese characters, Mandarin Chinese, and Chinese Pinyin among these people.

After the founding of the Republic of China, he has been a member of the National Language Research Association of the Republic of China, and Cai Yuanpei is the president.Later, he served as the resident officer of the Preparatory Committee for the Unification of Mandarin of the Ministry of Education.

They have also been calling on the government to use simplified characters.

"Then what does your Ministry of Education mean?"

"According to the opinions of several professors like Qian Xuantong, we have preliminarily sorted out a plan. The first step is to simplify the current Chinese characters. In this regard, Professor Qian Xuantong and some experts and professors have achieved certain results. They started from the inherent He selected about 1920 commonly-used characters from his "Analogic Characters" and hoped to turn them into standards. As early as the ninth year of the Republic of China ([-]), he had already published them in "New Youth", and the Ministry of Education generally agreed with his selection. Therefore, after our Ministry of Education plans to get the approval of the cabinet, we will promote a batch of characters with simple strokes throughout the country, which will be universally used throughout the country, which will greatly reduce the difficulty of everyone's writing."

"Simplify Chinese characters?"

"Yes."

Tang Erhe nodded.

The simplification of Chinese characters has a lot of opposition, but there is also a lot of support.A large number of leaders of the "New Culture Movement" basically support the simplification of Chinese characters.Even among some radical people, it can even be said that more than half of them support the abolition of Chinese characters.In their view, the decline of modern China is because of Chinese characters.

Abolishing Chinese characters is the right way.

"Go on."

"Second, it is to promote the pinyin of Chinese characters, so as not to make it difficult to recognize and read Chinese characters. There are too many Chinese characters in our country. If you want to learn them one by one, it is too difficult. And the several recognition methods used in our country all the time , such as Zhiyin, Duruo, Fanqie, etc., are not suitable for rapid character recognition, and have great limitations. Including the Zhuyin announced in the seventh year of the Republic of China (1918), the promotion during this period was not very smooth, everyone The general response is not very good. So we hope to adopt a more concise pinyin method."

"A more concise pinyin? Which one is the Ministry of Education going to choose?"

"Latin pinyin. As early as the Wanli year, those Western missionaries who came to China had already started to use the Latin alphabet to give Chinese pinyin. In the past few decades, many linguists have made very fruitful achievements in this area."

"kindness."

Duan Xun nodded.

It seems that the Ministry of Education has really done some work.

In fact, the new China’s text simplification scheme and the pinyin of Chinese characters already had a preliminary scheme as early as the early 20s, and it should even be said to be a relatively complete scheme.It's just that the Beiyang government was fighting every day at that time in history, and there was no time to complete this plan.

So Qian Xuantong and the others placed their hopes in the hands of the national government.

pity.

Lao Jiang wanted to promote this plan, but he received too many voices of opposition, so he did not dare to continue to promote it.Therefore, it was delayed until the new China was implemented.

Now Tang Erhe came up with this plan again.

"What about your promotion plan?"

"Our plan is to unify the national primary school textbooks and popularize them from primary school education. Then we will make changes in this regard from government documents and newspapers across the country."

"Too slow."

Fan Xudong is really in a hurry today.

Speak again.

"Mr. Tang, according to the plan of the Ministry of Education, isn't that the same as it is now? If such steps continue, there will be no effect in less than ten years. What we want is literacy, for those workers, or for the group of people who are going to become workers Literate."

"Minister Fan, you are too anxious. Education will not be able to achieve results in a short period of time, and similarly, literacy work will not be completed in a short period of time. He needs to proceed step by step. The literacy program cannot be planned today and completed tomorrow. He needs a process, and we need enough teachers."

"But……"

"Minister Fan, don't worry."

Fan Xudong was too anxious.

Duan Xun interrupted him several times.Then he said: "Illiteracy is not just a matter of the Ministry of Education, every department must participate. Now our government departments also need a lot of staff, and there are many illiterate people among our grassroots staff. Therefore, this is the A major issue for the government is also a major issue for the country. Let’s brainstorm and see how to promote literacy work.”

"Prime Minister, he said that there is a shortage of teachers, but in fact there is no shortage of teachers."

Zhang Lan spoke again.

"President Zhang, what can you do? Tell me."

Lack of teachers?

definitely.At present, there is actually a shortage of teachers all over the country.In the past few years, primary and secondary schools have developed rapidly, adding more than 200 million students and requiring tens of thousands of teachers.

But at present, how many normal university graduates are there every year in the country?

Not even a fraction of what is needed.

How can there be no shortage of teachers.

Needless to say, the literacy campaign needs more teachers.How many teachers are needed to eliminate illiteracy nationwide.Even if it is just to teach them literacy, it will require a large number of teachers.

This teacher, as Tang Erhe said, cannot be changed.

It needs to be cultivated step by step slowly.

"Prime Minister, you also said that this is a major issue for the government and the country. Since it is a major issue for the country, the people of the whole country should be involved, and everyone should work together to eradicate the high level of illiteracy in our country. We There are so many national institutions of higher learning (national universities), provincial institutions of higher learning (provincial universities), and so many middle schools, how many students are there. Regarding the literacy campaign, the enthusiasm of the students is higher than ours. I often talk to some Old friends exchanged, they said in the letter to me that many students in higher schools now form groups independently, run night schools, run literacy schools, etc., and the effect is very good. It can help hundreds of people learn to read. Why don’t we mobilize these students, Let them take turns, let them participate during the holidays. It’s just a simple literacy campaign, and those who are in the middle school are fully qualified. Even those who have graduated from the elementary school, they are eligible to participate.”

"Mobilize the students?"

"Yes."

Zhang Lan nodded.

He said with certainty: "Prime Minister, students are the future of the country. It is also a good thing for them to join such social activities before they graduate. It will not only let them understand that there are still so many illiterate people in our country Let them realize that there are still so many poor people in our country early, so that they can understand Chinese society more directly."

"kindness."