Bulletin of Catholic University of Peking

74 BULLETIN NUMBER FOUR

applied knowledge, but many-sided social contacts through common knowledge and common intellectual and emotional experiences in which the &sthetic plays a conspicuous part.”

The question of textbooks is very far from being settled in a satisfactory

manner. Most of the books on science

must be adapted or translated from other languages into Chinese. Upon examination, many of the textbooks now in use remind one of the automobile advertisements once issued by Mr. Henry Ford, which called attention to the fact that the first automobile had a whip-socket on the dash-board; the moral, of course, being that the modifications required in the presentation of the subject-matter have not been thoroughly grasped. The problem of teachers is doubtless a universal one, but it is particularly embarrassing in China where there are so few qualified to hold responsible administrative and pedagogical positions.

This statement of the nature of the obstacles which le in the way of quickly putting into effect a comprehensive educational program leads to the mention of the service to be expected from the Catholic University in overcoming them. This service directly concerns the making of a curriculum, the devising of textbooks, and the preparation of teachers.

To prepare a satisfactory curriculum is scarcely the work of a Middle School, whose scope is too limited for such an important task. Besides the cultural effect, which the curriculum must procure, there are dangers which must be avoided. For example, several educators have deprecated the tendency to westernize China. Professor Frederick K. Morris, formerly pro-

fessor of Geology at P’ei Yang University, Tientsin, states: “‘China is not peopled with New Englanders...They are a racially different people with their

’ own physical and mental character-

istics, their own talents, capacities and defects. ..Educate them, but don’t look for other than educated Chinese.” The research and experiment necessary to develop a curriculum in conformity with these requirements is only possible in a university by a staff thoroughly imbued with the philosophy of education, able to distinguish between the essential and accidental requirements of an education, and in a position to draw upon the experience of all the missionaries of the country. Regarding textbooks, it is true that little fault can be found with many now offered. Nevertheless, the same principles which apply to the making of a curriculum must be the guiding influence in the making of textbooks. Regarding translations: when they are made by persons only partially tfamiliar either with the subject-matter or with one or the other of the languages involved, they are bound to add to the troubles of educators instead of lessening them. In each branch, men who are thorough masters of the subject, must confer with other men who are thorough masters of Chinese. As a case in point, may be mentioned a work which is now going on in the Catholic University of preparing a textbook in logic. Dr. O’Toole, in cooperation with several Chinese associates, translates the text into Chinese which is both understandable and in exact accord with the original. Works prepared in this manner tend to standardize the technical vocabulary which must be employed in introducing west-