"How to Teach Children"

(Kyôshi hô)

In the education of children, there is a difference between young children (yôshô) and adults (seijin). When children are very young, they learn from the beliefs and behavior of their parents, wet nurses, and so on.

In order to avoid stimulating bad ideas in a child so that he does not become a bad person, it is most important to take care to leave childish behavior such as playful mischief up to the child himself, and not to force your own opinions on him. No matter what happens, childish behavior is resolved with age and disappears on its own. Even they who understand a little about teaching children still do not know how to teach the heart, and by making a very young child exhibit adult behavior, they may make the child become bitter and depressed.

Seeing that this happens, some parents are reluctant to lecture their children, thinking it wrong, and as a result, they give their children too many favors, or let them have their own way in everything, indulging in pleasure. To do so is to allow them to learn to be vulgar, careless, and loose. That is a mistake in raising children. Leave childish things and playful mischief to the child in question, but warn them about the depravity in our hearts.

This way of teaching requires parents and nurses to be cautious about everyday jokes . . . . When parents line up and compare brothers, they joke that this one is my child and that one is not, and thus they instigate quarrels and jealousy between brothers.

Or else, when giving out food and clothing, adults say jokingly, "You may have it, you may not," which stimulates avarice.

Or else, when a child shows resistance to an adult and yells and cries, the parents try to stop his crying by taking his side no matter what, and by blaming the other party. This rewards an attitude of blaming other people, and stimulates a twisted attitude that leads to picking quarrels.

Or else, they readily deceive him, which stimulates in him the idea of opportunistic cheating.

Or else, they readily make up scary stories, which fosters a cowardly personality that is intimidated by threats and scare tactics.

In this way, without being aware of it, parents and nurses stimulate bad attitudes that will cause children to lose their innate virtue.

There are countless cases of this. Understand the reasons why and make it your number one concern not to let children learn avarice, excessive patience, a twisted mentality, and an aggressive, competitive attitude, or a tendency to cheat and degrade others. Even unintentional teasing should involve some kind of teaching, such as how to serve older family members with respect and to nurture the virtue of humility.

Why I Taught the Source

At the beginning of a lecture on the daily life of townsmen in Edo (Tokyo), I first presented an image of Tokugawa-period (1600–1868) Japanese children. This detail from an ink painting by Hanabusa Itchô (1562–1724) shows a childhood experience common to both sexes: watching a puppet show. From this unusual starting point, I aimed to address the issue of social class.

In my history of Japan course, which partially fulfills foreign culture or world history requirements for non-history majors, I later discuss how attitudes towards children and their education changed with Japan's modernization. I believe this source would also work well in a world history class on East Asian social history in the 18th century. In such a class, I would discuss women, children, and the family in Qing China and Tokugawa Japan, making occasional comparisons with a Western country, such as France.

I decided to use an image rather than a text because Edo-period paintings and woodblock prints portray both boys and girls from the commoner classes. Texts on children were mainly Confucian treatises on education, health, and wet-nursing. Fiction and autobiographical writing of that era typically did not dwell on childhood. Therefore woodblock prints provide more opportunities for discussion.

How I Introduce the Source

Of course, images from Japan are difficult to introduce without some kind of background knowledge. Before presenting this image, I emphasize that Tokugawa society was divided into four official classes: warriors (samurai), peasants, craftsmen, and merchants. Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542–1616), founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate, made all family heads register as one of the four classes in the official census. Landowners who chose to register as warriors (samurai) gained status, but they had to give up their hereditary lands in exchange for a stipend and move to a castle-town. Intermarriage between classes was officially forbidden, although by the end of the 18th century, marriage and adoption between classes was not uncommon. In fact, rich merchants were able to buy samurai status.

Young people grew up with a strong class consciousness, but children of all classes enjoyed play and games, songs and folktales, traveling entertainers and shrine festivals (selling sweets and paper toys), and celebrations for children, such as Boys' Day (Iris Festival or Tango no sekku, May 5) and Girls' Day (Doll Festival or Hina matsuri, March 3). Finally, all children did house chores or learned the family trade in the manner of an apprentice.

Reading the Source

I asked my students to start by describing the scene. They immediately noticed the puppeteers on the right before turning their gaze to the children running towards them. From the postures of the children, we recognize eager anticipation. Are they boys or girls? It is hard to tell, although an obi (belt) with a long sash usually indicates a girl. My students decided that the child closest to the puppeteers is definitely a girl. For one thing, she has more hair. Students also asked why the other children were bald with small tufts of hair. I explained that it was a Chinese fashion (believed to minimize lice and skin ailments) made popular in Japan through art depicting Chinese children at play.

Several students wondered about the half-hidden figures watching from a casement window in a gated building and offered different ideas. One suggested that the figures represented upper-class girls who were perhaps more sheltered than the children in the street. The fine gate suggests a well-to-do merchant house.

Reflections

Following our discussion of the image, I provided some further context. I explained that this kind of "old-fashioned" scene led Harvard Zoologist Edward Sylvester Morse (1838–1904) to describe the Japan he visited in the 1870s as the "paradise for children." Pointing to the boy carrying a baby on his back, I remarked that Morse thought it healthy for babies to be taken on rides by older brothers and sisters, instead of being left to cry alone in cribs. Yet Morse was unaware that the children carrying babies could be servants from poor families, entrusted with baby care and house chores in exchange for room and board (so that the master's wife could assist in the shop or the fields). These baby-sitters (komori) had their own mournful songs complaining of abuse and neglect. I also pointed out that itinerant puppeteers were generally social outcasts.

At this point, one may ask whether everyone enjoyed childhood. In this picture, the artist conveys a pleasure of childhood that transcends class, gender, and time period. Some students can relate to the scene. However, when students learn about komori, they begin to see the image in a different light, becoming aware of class inequities that may lurk beneath the surface of an innocent childhood scene.

Stefan Landsberger's Chinese Propaganda Poster Pages offers a rich collection of Chinese propaganda posters assembled by historian Stefan Landsberger (Leiden University) from his own collection of over 2,000 images. The website presents images in multiple categories related to the broader themes of politics, society, and culture. The images span a period of time ranging from 1937 to the present day, though the majority originate in the 1970s and later decades. While brief at times, Landsberger offers written introductions to the specific thematic groupings of images at the site, providing a bare-bones but useful background that illuminates their historical context. Bibliographic references and external links are also provided for sources and related readings.

The images presented offer a wonderful set of primary sources for the study of youth, children, and childhood. The category of childhood here intersects with an imagery associated with revolution, national identity, economic development, as well as themes of gender and inter-generational relationships. Both the visual imagery and the Chinese texts printed upon the posters are readily accessible with translations of the Chinese available by holding the computer cursor over the image.

The presentation of thematic categories at this site focuses upon dominant themes within state propaganda and children can be seen as both an intended audience and a primary figure within the imagery itself. Among the collections, the posters associated with "Socialist Spiritual Civilization" offer a rich sample for discussion. Here, we find the imagery of a movement that was introduced amidst the Chinese market reform of the 1980s and 1990s as an effort to instill discipline, "good character," and loyalty among school children.

While Landsberger's own discussion of childhood and the lives of Chinese youth is limited, the images and slogans themselves offer a useful case study. This selection serves explorations of childhood themes of discipline, notions of community, and the link between the child and the modern state. These posters also encourage creative insight when juxtaposed with imagery appearing in comparative settings (e.g. Boy Scout and Girl Scouts of America, Guiding organizations of the United Kingdom.)

Related themes can be found in a collection entitled "The PLA [People's Liberation Army] and Children." These images feature children in overlapping martial and domestic frames from the 1960s-1980s, inviting analysis of representations of gender, masculinity, and nation. See, in particular, the warm image of a soldier cutting his young friend's hair and the celebratory presentation of cheering children and artillery.

The collection of "New Year Prints (and Chubby Babies)" meanwhile presents images of roly-poly infants posted in households and on doorways to celebrate the hopes of prosperity, auspicious fortune, and happiness at the new year holiday. This collection nicely serves an exploration of the ways in which the image of the child (here, the infant or toddler) is framed within popular culture and then appropriated by a Chinese Communist state that sought to utilize imagery of the child to promote revolutionary themes.

Landsberger provides a background discussion of the appropriation of that genre by the state in the 1940s, as well as the 1980s and 1990s resurgence of the genre during the reform period. Comparisons of these images across time offer an opening to discussions of the ways in which the image of the child is used to present definitions of the good life, of the united concerns of a household economy and national strength, as well as a new culture of middle-class consumption. Other relevant images at the site can be found by utilizing the search terms "children" and "education."

Using these images in conjunction with other resources in Chinese history allows for sophisticated explorations of the visual culture of childhood. Further examples of Chinese propaganda imagery can be found online in a childhood collection at the University of Westminster, and in clips from animated features ("Heroic Little Sisters on the Grassland," "The Ferry Port") available amidst the multimedia samples at the Morning Sun website. See also Stephanie Donald's "Children as Political Messengers: Art, Childhood, and Continuity," in Harriet Evans and Stephanie Donald, eds., Picturing Power in the People's Republic of China: Posters of the Cultural Revolution (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999): 79-100.

The original is a color ink painting on a paper scroll (that would be stored rolled up), showing two puppeteers entertaining children in the street.

One of a pair of woodblock prints from Japan's Tokugawa Period (1600–1868) depicting popular children's games for girls.