Chapter 2583: Mass Line, Educational Development

Continuing northward.

What Xia Duo saw remained stretches of wheat fields and villages nestled in between; although it was only a few villages away from New Seven Village, the wheat in the fields was visibly less plump and mature than what he had seen before.

Perhaps it was due to the insufficient fertility of the newly reclaimed land, or perhaps the climate in the south was warmer, leading to earlier maturation—these thoughts flashed through Xia Duo's mind as he passed by.

Although one could not see people working in the fields here, there were still quite a few people to be seen in the villages and on the roads.

Xia Duo did not cast any divination spells; he simply looked from afar with his naked eyes. The people in the village seemed to be gathered in an open space chatting about something, completely ignoring the scorching sun overhead.

As for the people on the road, when Xia Duo passed by them, he could occasionally hear some talking about going to the tavern in the south for a drink, others mentioning going to the Cultural Center to see the Elves, and most were discussing what exactly this upcoming Cultural and Arts Festival was supposed to be.

Although Lawrence had already sent out propaganda teams more than once, and the territory residents knew how this cultural festival was to be played out, they were still not very clear about the purpose of the territory hosting such a festival.

Some were quite puzzled: was it just to let the residents have a good time after finishing a season of harvest? But if that were the case, why not just hold a more familiar celebration?

Others felt that the territory might be holding the cultural festival for the sake of those Elves who had been appearing from time to time all over the territory; after all, what did culture, art, and the like have to do with a group of farmers who tilled the land? Wouldn't letting them participate just make them a laughingstock in the eyes of the Elves?

Of course, what Xia Duo heard most from the common people regarding the Territory Cultural Arts Festival was: whatever the Lord does must have a deep meaning, and the residents only need to follow.

Regarding this viewpoint, Xia Duo felt both gratified and somewhat dissatisfied.

What gratified him was the trust and support most residents had for him; what dissatisfied him was that this trust and support seemed somewhat blind.

He did not want the residents' decisions to be based on "just because" or "must do," but rather on "because of" and "therefore"; he hoped more that the residents would know that the various policies of the territory were for their own good, and most importantly, why doing so could be better than the past.

In Xia Duo's hometown, a great man once said, "Six hundred million people of Shenzhou are all Yao and Shun," using this to highly praise the wisdom of the masses, and one of the greatest treasures that old man left for future generations was the mass line.

Do not treat the masses as fools, but actively teach them, guide them, and let everyone know the necessary processes of how society functions, allowing each of them to participate through their own labor and Wisdom.

Civilization, of course, is not the civilization of one person, but a civilization built and shared by everyone together.

……

Walking through the villages one by one, Xia Duo saw that almost every village had idle children. Besides the current break for the busy farming season, the main reason was that the territory's School was insufficient to accommodate all the children.

Currently, children in the territory over the age of sixteen would directly enter the Tower of Time to study Magic, while those under sixteen would receive pre-school education in the territory, such as literacy, common knowledge, law, geography, arithmetic, Magic, and so on.

But the demand for Teachers to teach so many subjects was undoubtedly huge. According to Xia Duo's understanding, the vast majority of Teachers at the Linshui Village University were currently teaching several subjects simultaneously.

Furthermore, while one group of students attended class, the other group had to be on break, yet the Teachers never had a vacation.

Not long ago, the territory had just accepted over two hundred thousand new residents from the Sweetwater Three Planes, and children under sixteen accounted for nearly one-third of them! This once again placed demands on the number of Teachers in the territory.

To this end, Laidun's approach was to recruit people from the residents who had already mastered literacy, law, and some basic common knowledge, with each person responsible for one item, to first build the framework and then gradually improve it later.

However, Xia Duo did not approve of this approach. Admittedly, many people in the territory had already passed the literacy and even the law requirements, but using them for teaching, even if just to teach young children, was still somewhat insufficient.

Xia Duo hoped more that every Teacher would be a Mage, or at least a Mage Apprentice; if they were also skilled in teaching, that would be even better.

The reason for wanting Teachers to be Mages was, on one hand, to provide children with an opportunity to come into close contact with Magic. Children were in a developmental stage, and their thoughts were also budding; early contact with Magic could stimulate their interest.

On the other hand, it was to provide a new outlet for the increasing number of new Mages in the Tower of Time. In the future, Magic would of course be something everyone had to learn, but not everyone had the potential for Magic research.

Through various selections, those with research potential would be concentrated, while the remaining people could still promote the development of Magic without necessarily needing to engage in specialized research work.

So what would those who had studied Magic do?

For the new Mages in the Tower of Time now, Xia Duo mostly used them as Magic Technicians; some directly joined the Magic Technician Department, and some of the more outstanding ones were absorbed by various Independent Research Labs.

There were also some who joined the Academic Affairs Office of the Tower of Time to engage in teaching work, but the objects they taught were Mage Apprentices, and the content they taught was Magic.

Almost all work was directly related to Magic; even the territory Magic Affairs Officer, which seemed more like "secular" work, was engaged in the research, promotion, and popularization of civilian Magic equipment.

Letting a Mage teach literacy, geography, or law—there might be parts involving Magic, but Magic definitely could not be considered the lead. In other words, from the perspective of ordinary people, this was a great waste of Mage talent.

But if one considered the importance of education to a civilization and the degree of future Magic popularization, this could not be considered a waste.

This was a relatively difficult beginning, but it was also a beginning that had to be made. If it were any other territory, letting Mages teach ordinary people content unrelated to Magic would be almost impossible to accept.

Not only the Mages themselves, but even those being taught would find it hard to accept.

But in Daxia Territory, these were all possible to realize. First of all, the residents knew what could be done and what could not be done through the Daxia Code, a written law that clearly defined rights and obligations.

Receiving education was a right everyone possessed; the law did not stipulate what the identity of a Teacher should be, so why couldn't it be a Mage?

As for the new Mages of the Tower of Time, they grew up in an atmosphere different from the traditional apprenticeship system of the past, and Xia Duo consciously spread ideas such as "Mages are also ordinary people" within the Tower of Time through the Progress Society.

These new Mages who grew up in the Tower of Time were very different from those Mages outside who were detached from the masses, not to mention that the Tower of Time had special moral education classes and specifically set aside time for Apprentices to go home to help their families and help the village with work.

Having grown up like this, how could these new Mages treat ordinary people as nothing? Perhaps they might look down on ordinary people due to so-called "intellectual self-importance," but they would definitely not think that they and ordinary people were not the same species.

(End of chapter)