The Washburn leader. [volume] (Washburn, McLean County, N.D.) 1890-1986, 1899-04-29
I'M CHINESE SCHOOL.
MOST WONDERFUL ALPHABET
IN THE WORLD.
1t Has 2l4 Characters and che Pupils
Have to struggle with Conflicting
Sounds-Almost . Lifelong Study to
Understand It. q

yOungster finds writing the most en-
joyable, says the Liverpool Chronicle.
They use a small brush instead of a
pen, and daub on the ink with a lavish
ness dear to the juvenile heart. They
write one letter over another till the
page is black as a cooking stove, and
the copybooks become SO wet that 1t.
is necessary to hang them over the
fence to dry. A comical sight, truly,
and one which proclaims to the passer-
by his proximity to a schoolhouse. 1t
may be remarked that plotting paper Is
unknown in the f1owery land.
There r no public schools in
China, or, indeed, schoolhouses of any
kind. But the boys and girls of the
flowery land repair to the house of
their teacher to pursue their studies.
They do not sit upon the floor, as is
commonly supposed, for, although they
have no school furniture such as is
used in this country, they are provided
with common chairs, upon which they
sit while studying. During Rotations
they stand around their teacher.
Long before reaching the schoolroom
visitors may hear the pupils vocifer-
ously shouting their lessons and max
ing a din which is, to say the least,
confusion to n unaccustomed to their
method Of study. But when one real
ICES what an arduous task it is to learn
ones A B C's in China, 1t is no longer
a matter Of surprise that studying
aloud is permitted. Think of commit
ting to memory PA elementary char
acters! (These characters take the
place of u alphabet, for the Chinese
language has no alphabet like ours.)
That is what the Chinese boys and
girls must do, and this is only the be-
ginning of the trouble, for these char
acters are grouped together to form
words, of which there are more than
$4,000 in the Monaghan language.
Moreover, some of these words have
forty different meanings, the signif-
canoe of a word varying with its in
Election. Another popularity of the
Chinese written language is that the
beginning Of the book corresponds to
the end of one of ours. so that the
pupil appears to us to begin at the end
of the last line on the last page and
to be reading backward.
In studying arithmetic, Chinese pu-
pills use the abacus, or counting ap-
paratus, a frame strung with wires on
which are gayly colored balls, such as
we see In the primary schools in u
country, and which we have copied
from the Chinese.
Theysdo not study geography, for
the reason that the Chinese think
there is no country besides their own
that is Of any Importance. On their
maps China is represented as occupy
ing the greater part of the earth;
other countries being grouped around
the middle Kingdoms the Chinese
are accustomed to speak of their coun-
try-and made to appear as Insignificant
as possible.
Girls and boys dress exactly alike,
except that the boys wear their hair
in a pigtail, while the girls have a fun
ny little wisp on the top of their heads.
In some parts Of China it is very cold,
and as the houses are not warmed like
ours in winter the children-and
grown people, too-keep comfortable
by putting on n dress over another
till they are so bundled up they can
scarcely move. Possibly this may
seem a very uncomfortable way of
keeping comfortable, but the Chinese
little folks are not given to complain
ing.