Chapter 229: 227 Luling County Middle School

The first cohort of students to receive compulsory education had long since graduated.

The older ones were fifteen or sixteen, the younger ones eleven or twelve, and those with outstanding marks were assigned to village and town elementary schools as mathematics teachers.

As long as your math marks were good, you could become a teacher at eleven or twelve!

A very few with the highest marks were recruited to Ji'an Prefecture for advanced study and could serve as middle-school mathematics teachers.

For the moment, the education reforms could only be rolled out across seven counties — Luling, Jishui, Anfu, Taihe, Xiajiang, Xingan, and Yongxin. The main reason was a shortage of mathematics teachers; before, instruction had been haphazard, and many village and town schools had never offered mathematics classes at all.

This situation would ease in another year or two, and by then qualified mathematics teachers would surely emerge in batches.

At the very least, they would be sufficient for teaching elementary school.

In the elementary education of New China, many mathematics teachers taught students while learning the subject themselves. Especially in rural areas — a dilapidated temple, a blackboard, one teacher, a flock of students: that was a school.

Under such educational conditions, hundreds of millions of peasant workers who could read, write, and do arithmetic were produced.

Under Zhao Han's rule, things were much the same. It was called three-year compulsory education — it had been four years before, but that proved unsustainable — yet the teaching was actually a mess. Many old scholars taught students while learning the material themselves. After several years, the quality of the students was nothing to boast of, but the scholars themselves had managed to learn mathematics.

Luling County School was formally renamed Luling County Middle School.

It should have opened in the eighth month — by the lunar calendar — but the floods delayed everything, and many matters were not ready, so it dragged on until the end of the ninth month.

Zhao Han attended the opening ceremony in person. The scene was not lively, because the school had very few teachers and students.

Across the county's six towns, the town chiefs administered the graduation examinations; the top ten scorers could advance to the county middle school and study free of charge. The entire county had only one middle school, with a total of sixty publicly funded students; all other students had to pay their own way.

At present there was only a first-year middle-school class: 187 students and eight subject teachers.

It must be acknowledged that in these major examination counties of Jiangxi, the atmosphere of scholarly pursuit was truly intense. In the middle school's first year of enrollment — a very novel thing — 127 students were self-funded. Some of those self-funded students even came from ordinary farming households, scrimping on food and clothing to send their children to middle school.

In the future, self-funded students would certainly grow more and more numerous, and then a second county middle school would have to be opened. The school site had already been chosen in advance at Wuxing Town — one east, one west with the county seat, so that students from the whole county could be accommodated.

"Respectfully welcome Mr. Zhao!"

When Zhao Han appeared, the headmaster led all the teachers and students in bowing with clasped hands.

Zhao Han immediately returned the bow and said in a clear voice, "From now on, let it be changed to 'welcome,' not 'respectfully welcome.' I do not need your reverence; I only wish that when you see me, you feel glad!"

The headmaster at once bowed again: "Welcome, Mr. Zhao!"

This headmaster was named Zhang Chunqin, an old child student who had still not passed the xiucai examination past the age of fifty. To support his studies, his entire family had nearly starved to death. After Zhao Han seized the prefectural seat and the Luling county examinations were suspended, Zhang Chunqin simply went to be a teacher in a village school.

Zhang Chunqin understood traditional arithmetic, so he picked up mathematics very quickly on his own; he was the only teacher in his entire village.

In this year's graduation examinations, four of Wuxing Town's top ten were mountain children taught by Zhang Chunqin. When Zhao Han learned of this, he immediately summoned him in person, encouraged him to continue his self-study, and appointed him the first headmaster of Luling County Middle School.

At this moment, Zhang Chunqin stood closely behind Zhao Han, then raised his head and puffed out his chest as he looked upon all the teachers and students.

This was the crowning moment of his life. Zhang Chunqin had thought he had no hope of passing the xiucai exam; never had he imagined that one day he would become a county school instructor. He did not think his own ability was too poor — rather, the old examination system was flawed. He supported the education reforms with boundless enthusiasm and had firmly concluded that Zhao Han would certainly become Emperor one day.

Some people thought Zhao Han's education was a reckless mess; naturally, there were also die-hard supporters like Zhang Chunqin.

Zhao Han began his address: "Students all, congratulations — you have become the first cohort of scholars at Luling County Middle School. The civil examinations are an excellent thing, but how to conduct the examinations, and how to conduct culture and education, are matters worth discussing. That Chongzhen Emperor in Beijing, and all the eminent lords at court, all believe that selecting officials through the examinations has gone wrong. So they have added military strategy to the provincial and metropolitan examinations, and even revived the recommendation system from the early days of the dynasty. They are all mistaken!"

"You must know that this year, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Henan, the Southern Metropolitan Region, and Zhejiang all suffered famine. Even wealthy Zhejiang has seen men eating men! How could it come to this? Not natural disaster alone, but man-made calamity as well. Many officials in Zhejiang are guilty of monstrous crimes. In a year of great famine, instead of thinking of disaster relief, they still exploit and fleece the common people. Of the teachings of Confucius and Mencius, benevolent governance is foremost — these officials have read the books of the sages straight into a dog's belly!"

"Of the officials the court selects, one or two in ten can get things done; eight or nine in ten can only spout empty talk. And the officials of empty talk often prevent the officials who get things done from accomplishing anything. I reform culture and education, I reform official governance, precisely to select officials who can get things done. You are the first cohort of students under the new culture and education; in the future you will surely achieve great things, surely sweep away the filth, and seek the people's welfare..."

"You read the Four Books and Five Classics, you study mathematics — all of these can be used to get things done. Once you have attended middle school, you should know that even students who do not advance to middle school, even if they cannot become teachers, are still gladly taken on as apprentices by merchants. Why is that? Because they are literate, they know mathematics, they are more convenient to employ, and no further effort need be spent teaching them..."

"In the future, even if you do not become officials, nor teachers, nor pursue scholarship, you can still easily earn a livelihood..."

"In matters of culture and education, becoming an official is not the sole purpose. A person who studies must first learn to be a proper human being, and second must learn to get things done. Know how to be a proper human being, know how to get things done — where under Heaven can you not go?"

It was truly as Zhao Han said: many students with poorer marks were very willingly taken on as apprentices by merchants, because it saved a great deal of training cost.

These students, after graduating from elementary school, were roughly ten to thirteen years old, possessed a foundation of literacy, and picked up anything they studied very quickly.

Had it been in the past, either a great household would train its own household slaves and then throw them into shops and workshops as apprentices, or apprentices would be recruited from society at large, and training one would take five or six years — nothing like the convenience of today.

Children from the countryside, especially from mountain villages, were very willing to go into the city to become apprentices.

Even if the family had been allotted land, other family members could manage it. If they could not farm it all, they could also spend money to hire short-term laborers; the income from working in the city was more than enough to hire short-term laborers for the farm work.

This was the advantage of the new-style education system: it allowed students to integrate better into society.

Of course, the prerequisite was three years of compulsory education; otherwise, the cost of educating children from the lower classes was too high, and they would not necessarily be willing to go into the city to work as apprentices.

Moreover, a stable social environment was necessary. Under Ming governance, to become an apprentice one had to entreat connections and send gifts, and also needed three or more respectable citizens to stand guarantor. Under Zhao Han's rule, none of that mattered — produce your elementary school graduation certificate, and that was more reliable than any guarantor. Even if something went wrong, such as absconding with funds, the authorities could go to the school to investigate the family's information.

Zhao Han finished his speech, bowed to the teachers and students, and the teachers and students bowed in return.

Among these hundred-odd students, there were actually several older youths — or rather, young men, around twenty years of age. They were certainly self-funded students, from families of decent means; their clothing did not look like that of commoners.

Eight teachers, six classes — two resting while the others rotated through lessons.

In addition, several school workers had been hired, specifically responsible for miscellaneous tasks, and the school canteen was contracted out to a merchant. If it were not contracted out, it would surely be a foul mess, and meal costs would shoot straight up.

As for the merchant cutting corners on the food — ha, scholars in the old days were treasures. Did you think they wouldn't march straight to the county yamen to petition?

Zhao Han stood outside a window and looked in; this class was being taught Geometry.

This was also the reason only seven county middle schools had been established for the time being — because there were only seven people who understood Geometry and were willing to be teachers. And even these seven were half-baked, teaching while learning on their own, since they had only obtained Euclid's Elements the year before.

But once these seven seeds were sown, three years later, there would be several hundred, nearly a thousand graduates who knew Geometry.

Passing the torch from one generation to the next!

Zhao Han went to another classroom. Here they were teaching the first of the Four Books, the Great Learning, which opens with "cultivate oneself, regulate the family, govern the state, and bring peace to all under Heaven" — establishing a proper outlook on life for the students.

After observing quietly for a moment, Zhao Han departed in silence. His mood was excellent, more satisfying than routing government troops and expanding territory.

When he could find the time, he would also put together Physics.

The very advanced stuff he had forgotten, but he still remembered the fundamentals of middle-school mechanics. Newton's first and third laws of motion he could never forget in this lifetime, though the second law was a bit hazy.

No matter — remembering two already put him at the forefront of Europe, since Newton had not even been born yet.

The school was very close to the Regional Commander's headquarters — merely a walk from the south side of the city to the north side.

Zhao Han strolled slowly back and, quite unexpectedly, ran into someone: Xu Xiake, who had passed through the year before, had returned.

Historically, Xu Xiake had done many unscrupulous things on this journey.

Before the fellow had even reached Jiangxi, he was nearly out of money and borrowed ten taels of silver from a friend along the way. In Huguang, bandits robbed him clean; all he had left on his person was a single silver ear-pick. He then went to Hengyang to borrow money from a friend's son. But the friend's son had no money either and could only help him contact the local mutual-aid society, mortgaging the land rent from twenty mu of the Xu family fields to borrow twenty taels of silver. At the same time, the head eunuch of the Prince of Gui's estate mobilized the eunuchs to donate fourteen taels.

In Guangxi, an official gave him a set of travel horse-tallies.

With this horse-tally, one could commandeer post-station horses and carts, eat and drink for free at the stations, and even conscript commoners to labor without pay.

And so Xu Xiake began to abuse it, frequently using the tally to conscript villagers to carry his sedan chair. With his luggage, he needed seven or eight bearers at a time, and once, when the able-bodied men had fled, he even made two women carry his chair. The villagers also had to provide him food and drink, and it could not be too poor — in his own words, they had to "boil eggs and offer broth"; at the very least, he had to have eggs.

This tally was only valid within Guangxi; after entering Yunnan, Xu Xiake was on his own again. Once, he stripped naked and wrapped himself in a quilt, hanging out all his clothes, shoes, and socks for sale because he was utterly penniless. In the end, he barely managed to sell an outer skirt.

"Why has the gentleman returned?" Zhao Han asked.

Xu Xiake sighed mournfully. "Southern Huguang is in chaos; one cannot take a single step. My servant is dead, my travel funds were robbed, the silver I borrowed was robbed again, and I have even sold my clothes — only this tattered, unsellable garment remains on my back. To be honest with you, I... I begged my way back the entire journey. The lands under Mr. Zhao's governance are truly prosperous. In southern Huguang, begging was near impossible; one had to pick wild fruit and eat wild grasses. After entering Jiangxi, many commoners were willing to give alms."

Zhao Han forcibly suppressed a smile and asked, "In what way is southern Huguang in chaos?"

Xu Xiake said, "Hengyang has already been seized by rioting people. Every county in Hengzhou Prefecture is infested with bandits, and the southern prefectures also have Miao uprisings. I scraped together a little silver with great difficulty, and it was robbed clean three times."

Zhao Han's expression immediately turned grave. "Tell me in detail."

(End of Chapter)