Pocket Picks: New Resources in PocketKnowledge (March)

The Gottesman Libraries is pleased to promote access to unique collections in PocketKnowledge, the social archive and digital repository for Teachers College.

Chinese Textbooks are featured, representing the success of a recent digital project to convert a set of Chinese history textbooks published mostly in 1920 for the primary, middle, and normal school levels. Titles within the set include Chinese History for Higher Primary Schools, v.1-6, by Yanyin Wu (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1920); Chinese History for Higher Primary Schools, for Self Study, v.1, by Yanyin Wu (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1920); Chinese History Reference Book for Higher Primary Schools, v.1, by Yanyin Wu (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1920); Textbook on Chinese History for Middle Schools and Normal Schools, by Wu Pan (Shanghai: Chung Hwa Book Co., 1920); Lectures on the History of China for Normal Schools, by En-chung Chai (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1920); Hung Hwa Historical Readers for Higher Primary Schools, by Chi Yang and Chi-ch'uan Chuang (Shanghai: Chung Hwa Book Co., 1920); Chinese History for Higher Primary Schools, v.1-6, by Yün-shen Fu (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1920); and History of the Eastern Countries, by Bingjun Li (Shanghai: Chung Hwa Book Co., 1919).

The Library’s holdings of materials relating to education in China are connected to the history of Teachers College’s interaction with Chinese educators. In the early 1900s the College began to attract a large number of international students, including substantial numbers from Asia, who were interested in learning the most modern western educational ideas and practices, as they were presented here. The College also attracted a significant group of American students preparing for missionary work in China. Both groups worked with the special guidance of Professor Paul Monroe, who served as an official and an advisor for several agencies providing direct assistance to education in China.

Beginning in 1923, these groups of students, and some of the technical assistance activities, came under the aegis of the International Institute of Teachers College, of which Monroe was the Director. The students, their advisors, and the Institute, all recognized the need to collect Chinese publications related to education, including historical and theoretical works, school textbooks and curricula, government reports, and similar materials, to support their comparative education studies and technical assistance work. In 1920, a committee of Chinese graduate students acquired a significant group of Chinese publications and contributed them to the Library. The International Institute, building on Monroe’s several trips to China, developed a library of its own, which included extensive sets of Chinese textbooks and other publications; this collection was transferred to the Teachers College Library in the 1930s.