Nurseries emerged to allow educated, specialized women to continue their careers, and educators to focus on raising children.
Text/Qi Hao
Dashugen, located in the north of the main city of the ancient capital of Nanjing, adjacent to the former royal garden Xuanwu Lake, the 600-year-old Ming City Wall is passing by. Legend has it that at the end of the Qing Dynasty, it was a mile lane, named after a large tree at the entrance of the alley that three people could not hold together. Today, as a residential community, it brings fireworks to the historical sites.
What is less well known is that it was the birthplace of the first private public nursery in modern China.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > fire tragedy shocked the world, and women's associations organized kindergartens</h1>
On September 5, 1934, it was an ordinary Wednesday, and the morning was sweltering and the passers-by were rushing. Suddenly, a sharp bang of a gong broke the brief silence. It turned out that a flame had burst out of a bungalow at The Eastern Pass! Zhu Rong raged, and brick and wood houses quickly ignited the thatched shantytowns around them.
When the fire police officers and nearby residents struggled to extinguish the fire, a heartbreaking scene was presented: in the blackened ruins, the four young siblings huddled tightly in the corner, but had long stopped breathing. It turned out that their parents went out early in the morning to make a living, only to lock their unattended children at home, and the disaster suddenly struck, and the children could not escape in time, and finally fell into the thick smoke and flames.
This rare human tragedy occurred in the downtown area of the capital of the Republic of China, and public opinion was in an uproar. In addition to calling on the authorities to continue to strengthen fire police and safety education, the long-dormant discussion on the establishment of public childcare institutions has once again begun in major newspapers. However, at this time, the National Government in Nanjing, which had recently achieved formal reunification, was faced with a grim situation of foreign aggression and warlord division, and had no intention and was unable to engage in child welfare work.
Ms. Li Zhishan, founder of Nanjing First Nursery
As a result, the National Children's Affairs were handled by the Chinese Salesian Children's Association, with Kong Xiangxi as the president. However, at that time, the primary task of the China Salesian Children's Association was to carry out relief for disaster children, refugee children and rescue of abused children, centered on Shanghai, where the association is located. Providing infant and toddler care to "duplex" families is not a core issue.
On the streets of Nanjing, a woman is running for the planning of "public kindergartens" and is working hard. She was Born in 1897 in Yanshan County, Hebei Province, she was born in 1897 in a poor peasant household in Yanshan County, Hebei Province, and was the only daughter in her family. At the age of 18, she entered the Tianjin Girls' Normal School and after graduation became a teacher in the primary school attached to the school.
At that time, China was on the eve of the May Fourth Movement, and various new ideas and new cultures were spread everywhere in society through magazines such as "New Youth" and "New Wave". Beginning with the "abolition of foot binding and the revival of women's studies" at the end of the Qing Dynasty, to the call for equal rights of women during the Xinhai Revolution, progressive intellectuals are sparing no effort to criticize the feudal ritual system that has lasted for thousands of years and the various decadent ideas that oppress women.
All this opened Li Yitao's eyes and was greatly encouraged. Her mother's tragic experience of being bullied by her grandfather and father made her firm in her belief in fighting for women's liberation. After the outbreak of the May Fourth Patriotic Movement, she actively threw herself into it and participated in the "Tianjin Women's Patriotic Comrades Association" organized by Deng Yingchao, Liu Qingyang and other female leaders, and repeatedly gave public speeches on behalf of the association. In order to further unite the vast number of patriotic young students, at the initiative of Zhou Enlai, the Tianjin Federation of Students merged with progressive groups such as the Women's Comrades Association to form the Awakening Society. Li was code-named "Forty-Three" in the society, so he changed his name to "Shi Shan" and later changed it to "Zhishan".
After that, Li Zhishan served as a teacher in the Beiping Xiangshan Kindergarten and the Daren Girls' School, while participating in the women's liberation movement. She founded women's daily, actress magazine, and actress adult tuition school in Tianjin. In 1927, she was transferred to the executive committee of the Kuomintang Shanghai Special City Party Department and minister of women, and during her time in Shanghai, she founded the semi-monthly magazine "Women's Resonance" with Tan Sheying, and later transferred to the People's Training Department of the Central Party Department as an officer.
In the 1930s, the Chinese women's movement entered a relatively low stage. The female students of the "May Fourth" generation bid farewell to the ivory tower and successively entered the "besieged city" of society and family. After the "9.18" and "1.28" incidents, the Chinese nation's efforts to save the Chinese nation and survive became the focus of social attention. The "New Life Movement" launched by Chiang Kai-shek and Soong Mei-ling used official discourse to regulate and control the image of women entering the public sphere. Local government-run women's associations also advocated retro arguments such as "new wives and mothers" and "women going home."
Under such circumstances, Li Zhishan decided to unite with Cao Mengjun (an underground member of the Communist Party of China), Tan Tiwu, Deng Jiyi and other patriotic women from intellectual circles to form the Nanjing Women's Culture Promotion Association. The purpose is "to study women's issues, promote women's culture and revolutionize women's lives". At the beginning of the establishment, she petitioned the "Central Party Department to actively guide women to participate in political activities" in response to the "theory of women returning home". At the same time, she proposed the establishment of "children's sustenance houses" and women's remedial schools, hoping that through these efforts, women and children would solve practical problems and promote the continued development of the women's movement.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > swaddling career had a difficult start, and there were controversies over children's public education</h1>
The establishment of a childcare institution originated from the arduous experience of Li Zhishan and his young daughter traveling to Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Nanjing in the early years, while working hard in the workplace and taking care of the family. In her view, "women are so burdened with the responsibilities of housewives and mothers that they are unable to freely embark on the path of women's movement".
To solve all this, a centralized way of living can be established: five or ten households as a unit to implement "household cooperation" in terms of diet, childcare, and domestic workers, so as to achieve the purpose of reducing domestic work and liberating women. This is a vision that is distinctly utopian.
At this time, in foreign countries, the nursery movement that was born with the roar of the machine in the industrial revolution has quietly passed nearly a hundred years. The British utopian socialist and industrialist Robert Owen, after hosting the first pre-school institution in modern times in the New Lannack Textile Factory in Scotland in 1816, on November 4, 1844, the French lawyer Fairman Mabo founded the first professional nursery in Paris. Known at the time as crèche (meaning cot), the institute catered to young children between the ages of 15 and 3, which became the biggest difference between nurseries and kindergartens (mostly 3 to 7 years old).
Ms. Deng Jiyi, Director of Nanjing No.1 Nursery
In the far East, Chinese children follow the tradition of thousands of years and live at home with their elders. At the age of seven or eight, they entered a private school to enlighten, and began a long road of examination at the boy's test, or they learned to work as farmers. The opium war began, the door of the country was opened, and the restoration of foreign affairs in the late Qing Dynasty and the import of advanced Western civilization objectively accelerated the modernization and transformation of China's culture and education. From the beginning of the Republic of China to 1930, there were 22 public/private kindergartens in the capital Nanjing, but the nursery schools for infants and young children were still blank.
In Shanghai, which has been open for many years and has been "a miscellaneous place in China and the Ocean", a number of public childcare institutions that imitate Europe and the United States have successively appeared in the concession. In January 1925, the "Santa Monica Nursery" on Beihe South Road began to admit overseas Chinese children aged 0 to 6. The Charity Association under the Consulate General of France in Shanghai also opened a nursery on Luban Road.
In view of this, in August 1934, the "Children's Happiness Committee" of which Shanghai Mayor Wu Tiecheng was the president, planned to open a "general nursery" in Yujia Lane 72 to recruit young children who had just been born to 6 years old. Like the concept of "child public education", which was puzzling to the Chinese people at the time, the infancy of the career soon fell into controversy.
As soon as the admissions advertisement was published, the "Declaration" published a comment by the signed teacher Shi", "On Nursery Schools and Children's Public Education", which held that China and the United Kingdom and the United States have different conditions and different cultural economies. Compared with acting as a "vase" in government organs and shopping malls, it is the "natural duty" for women to raise children at home after marriage. Moreover, entrusting the "weak baby" to an unrelated "third party" is a completely irresponsible and cruel act...
In this regard, the newspaper published a refutation of Zijiu a few days later, pointing out that the emergence of nurseries is the embodiment of social division of labor and cooperation, which allows educated and specialized women to continue their careers, and educators concentrate on raising children. In addition, unlike the "nursery" where abandoned babies are adopted, how can a childcare be reunited with his family at any time. Both sides support you back and forth, writing several rounds of battle. The "lawsuit" was not won or lost, but this short-lived nursery was forced to close due to a shortage of funds.
Li Zhishan, who is busy with his own nursery all day, has no time to pay attention to these. The funds are also limited, she carries the self-printed "Donation Qi", visits the big guys from all walks of life to "change the fate", and actively declares subsidies to the municipal government. The management team's Deng Jiyi, Cao Mengjun and others inspected many parties, and finally rented a two-storey house located at No. 80 Dashugen to run a school, which is surrounded by mountains and rivers, and the courtyard is open, and large equipment can be placed for young children to carry out sports.
Under the careful planning of Li Zhishan, the private house has gradually been transformed into a modern nursery with multiple teaching, accommodation, games, washing, inspection and milk powder operation rooms, as well as small beds, tables, chairs, bedding for young children. This is the first private nursery in the history of modern Chinese education, named "the first nursery", and Deng Jiyi is the full-time director.
Kindergarten teachers and nursery staff employ more than ten people with kindergarten education experience and "physical fitness and kindness" who love the cause of young children. At the same time, pediatricians are employed to take charge of health and hygiene matters. Each meal of the child is also prepared by a full-time dietitian supervised by a chef. Toys, books, musical instruments, etc. used every day are especially carefully selected to exercise children's bodies, inspire thoughts, and cultivate temperament.
In addition, there is a "Mother's Association" to maintain communication with the parents on behalf of the parents. According to the plan, a daycare and a full daycare are first piloted, and 60 children aged 10 months to 5 years old are planned to be enrolled in batches. If the operation is smooth, other branches (institutes) will be opened one after another. The institute's fans apparently underestimated the enthusiasm of the public, and even though the fees for childcare were higher, after the announcement of the admissions notice through the JoongAng Daily, there was still an endless stream of visitors to the consultation, with the largest number of children of public officials in the Central Party Department not far away.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > raising young children, and the reputation of half-year operation has risen</h1>
Until her later years, Sun Jinfang still liked to paint and tell what she saw and heard in the nursery. At the beginning of 1935, the 16-year-old Yangzhou girl was preparing to follow her grandfather and father to xuzhou Jiawang Coal Mine to make a living, and by chance, she met Tan Tiwu of the Women's Promotion Association, and Tan saw that he was well-behaved and cultured, so she arranged for Sun Into to be a nurse.
That year, the Nationalist government, which was still suffering from internal and external troubles, finally responded to the Chinese Salesian Association's repeated petitions to establish a "Year of the Child." Set August to July of the following year as the Year of the Chinese Child, and promised to actively "arouse the attention of the whole country to the cause of children" at the national level.
In October 1936, all members of the Nanjing Women's Cultural Promotion Association took a group photo in front of the teaching building of the Dashugen Campus of the First Nursery.
On Children's Day on April 4, the first nursery school welcomed the first batch of 24 "little masters" aged 2 to 3 in the form of a parent-child party. The children and parents attending the meeting were attracted by a variety of novel recreational facilities and fun toys inside and outside the nursery, and one by one they were full of excitement and fun. The first day of "school" ended smoothly in the joy and laughter of everyone.
The next day, some daycare students began to enter the kindergarten alone, and although the children occasionally made some small noises, their performance was basically satisfactory. Just when Teacher Xiaosun and his colleagues were secretly glad to have met a group of gentle and obedient "cute babies", the scene on the third day was greatly unexpected by the teachers. Early in the morning, parents came to report that the children were crying at home and refused to go to school; and the children who had already arrived at the school actually acted in unison, expressing their inner dissatisfaction with crying and various postures that did not allow parents to leave.
Two-year-old Wang Linglin, afraid of sending her to school, dragged the corner of the maid's clothes tightly with her small hand. When the teacher forcibly separated the two, Wang Linglin lay down on the floor and howled for a whole morning. The nurserymen took turns, but they failed to calm her down. This situation lasted for several days, and finally only the nurse Wang Ma was able to "surrender" him. New problems soon came: Xiao Linglin usually wanted Wang Mama to hug, eat to Wang Mama to feed, take a nap to Wang Mama, and almost every moment to monopolize Wang Mama. Once Wang Mama turned around to take care of the other children, Ling Lin repeated the same trick, changing from a smiley face to a crying face for a second.
The faculty and staff of Nanjing No.1 Nursery took a group photo with the visiting foreign guests.
In addition to crying, another "trick" for children is not to eat well. 3 years old and 9 months old, McLough is the oldest child in the firm, usually smart and clever, with a small mouth that can speak the Tao. But it also requires her mother to accompany her to school every day, and when her mother leaves, she cries incessantly. One day, the intolerable Mai Mu finally brought him home, beat him badly, and then sent him back to the nursery. Since then, Luo Sheng no longer asked her mother to take her home, nor did she cry, but instead carried out "resistance" in the form of hunger strike.
Whether it was beef stew for lunch or soy milk biscuits between classes, the delicious and seductive food could no longer pique her interest. Huang Jie, a kindergarten teacher, poured the most effort into Xiao Luosheng, saying all the good things and saying nothing he could do. In the end, she only had to make up her mind, if she did not eat, she would let her watch everyone eat on the side, and no one was allowed to take care of her. In the end, hunger still triumphed over stubbornness, and McLoughson took the initiative to go to the teacher and whispered requests for food and games. And such a battle of wits and courage has been staged almost every day in the more than a month since the beginning of the school.
In addition to individuality, discipline, and group integration, young children also need to learn the regular schedule of primary school students. Full daycare students staying in the park are required to get up at 7 o'clock every day to wash up and then go out to exercise. Daycare students arrive before 9 o'clock, enter the classroom after a simple physical examination, and then follow up with one hour of class activities such as reading, stories, and crafts. At 11:00 a.m., I start washing and eating snacks between classes. At 12 o'clock, I sorted out my books and toys, went to the restaurant for lunch, and took a nap after dinner. Singing and entertaining at 3 p.m., washing and eating snacks at 4 p.m. After that, the daycare students left the house to go home, and the full daycare students were free to move until dinner at 6 o'clock, and after bathing and changing clothes at 7 o'clock, they went to bed peacefully with the sound of the piano played by the teacher.
Midsummer turns to autumn, under the scientific care and meticulous care of all the teachers and staff of the nursery, the children survive the summer and thrive. This was not easy in the 1930s, when sanitation was limited, childcare concepts were backward, and infant and young child mortality rates remained high.
The firm expanded the scale of enrollment on the one hand and expanded the scope of business on the other hand. On the basis of the original day care and full day care, an additional kindergarten class is opened to implement kindergarten education; at the same time, parent talks, public open days and other activities are held at the same time to comprehensively display the learning and life of young children in the school. Deng Jiyi, who is a lawyer by training, has used his deep contacts accumulated in the newspaper and periodical circles to invite Chinese and foreign reporters from well-known major newspapers such as "Central Daily", "Zilinxi Bao", and "Dongyang Economic New News" to visit and report, further convey the concept of "children's public education" and expand their influence.
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the grand plan of relocation and expansion began to appear, and the outbreak of the War of Resistance was forced to be suspended</h1>
Winter came to spring, and on a sunny and sunny morning in early March, Sun Jinfang, who was leading the children in the playground activities, happened to meet Ding Ling, a writer who was famous in the literary world at that time for her novels "Mengke" and "Ms. Shafi's Diary". Ding Ling's trip was to handle the formalities for her and Jiang Zuhui, the daughter of Feng Da. Little Zuhui, who was only more than one year old, obviously could not accept her mother's sudden departure, cried day and night, and was sent to the hospital for sudden measles a few days later, and finally left the hospital to return to her hometown in Hunan.
The children in the institute are active.
The three years of captivity in Nanjing were the darkest moments in Ding Ling's life. For Li Zhishan and the First Nursery, the late autumn of 1936 was also a time of thorns. Because she charges a childcare fee of 15 yuan per child per month, she was criticized by public opinion for running an "aristocratic house"; the municipal authorities also interrupted the subsidy for a while and said that it would be "fully taken over". The most distressing thing was the unfortunate death of a young child, although it was finally confirmed that the cause of death of the child was syphilitic meningitis by the family, but it undoubtedly had a huge impact on the reputation of the nursery.
Of course, the problem of serious funding shortages has always been plagued. Therefore, when the Women's Steering Committee, of which Song Meiling was the chief instructor, sent personnel to investigate the institute, Li Zhishan couldn't help but pour bitter water: the monthly expenditure of the institute was about 1,000 yuan, and the income was only half; the fund raised at the time of opening the institute was basically exhausted after this year and a half, so it had to reduce the staff and staff and cut the expenditure; the classrooms in the Dashugen campus were old, the outdoor equipment was damaged, and the renovation and repair would be a huge expense...
Nursery teachers conduct daily physical examinations for young children.
Fortunately, this complaint was finally "up to heaven". Under the direct supervision of the highest authorities, the Nanjing municipal government and the party department not only restored the subsidy for running the school, but also helped them rent a new campus at No. 13 Ninghai Road. On March 12, 1937, the First Nursery was relocated to a new location.
The reporter of the "JoongAng Daily" who was invited to visit noticed that the new building of the institute is a Western-style three-story building with windows on all four sides and sufficient light. There is an acre of empty space in front of the building, and there are swings, slides, and wooden horses on display. Visitors entering the main building are required to change the gown and slippers provided. The first and second floors of the building are respectively the teacher's office, teaching, childcare staff operation, and children's accommodation and living places. Young children live in 7 separate dormitories according to their age. The third floor is a dormitory for faculty and staff, and a storage room for teaching aids and equipment. There is also a large sundeck and a sick child isolation room at the back of the building. In the bathroom, the washbasins are white and flawless, and the toothbrush soap is displayed in an orderly manner.
The toddler teacher leads the toddler to play seesaw.
Walk into the toddler's bedroom, where the sun is shining, the walls are smooth, and it feels very comfortable to be in. There are many small iron beds with white paint in the room, and the futons are neat and soft. Some of the toddlers are awake and muttering to themselves; some are still sleeping. A card is posted at the head of the bed stating the child's name, gender, age, school number, and health status. Each dormitory is cared for by a nursery staff day and night.
When you move to the kindergarten classroom, the first thing that catches your eye are four groups of small desks and chairs built according to the height of the children, and the walls around them are hung with easy-to-understand social common sense charts and teaching tools. In the corner of the classroom, a young male teacher is playing the piano while making various funny and exaggerated expressions, and he is surrounded by young children, the eldest is only three or four years old, the small one can walk, and he also learns to sing with the sound of the piano. The warm afternoon sun set off the joyful atmosphere in the classroom and deeply touched the reporters who came to interview. At this time, the number of children has also reached the highest peak since its inception: there are 30 full-day care students, 10 infants, and 20 day-care students.
Li Zhishan, Deng Jiyi, and others who had temporarily shaken off the economic crisis were full of ambition. The original goals of "reducing the burden on working women and seeking the complete liberation of the women's world" and "cultivating children with sound physique, noble personality and strong will by scientific methods" are being realized little by little. Under the demonstration of The First Nursery in Nanjing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Qingdao and other places have also begun to hold kindergarten institutions, and more and more people of insight have devoted themselves to this swaddling career.
The artillery fire of the enemy invasion brought this promising cause to an abrupt end. After the outbreak of the "July 7 Incident", the situation became more and more severe, and the children in the school were successively taken back by their parents. On the eve of the outbreak of the Battle of Songhu, the First Nursery School in Nanjing had to announce the suspension of running schools, and the faculty and staff were dismissed.
"A little lonely light, scattered with river stars." During the most dangerous years of the Chinese nation, these elites scattered all over the country always practiced supporting the sacred cause of the War of Resistance with the women's liberation movement.
After the fall of Guangzhou, Li Zhishan initiated the organization of the Guangdong Provincial Women's Anti-Enemy Association, and later served as a trainer for the women's company of the Military Model Training Corps. Unfortunately, she died of illness in Qujiang in July 1939 at the age of 43.
Deng Jiyi joined the press, assisting his husband Chen Mingde in managing and running the Xinmin Bao, which had moved inland to Chongqing. During his time in Chongqing, Deng also founded a "Seven Seven Nursery". On behalf of the Chinese Women's Patriotic League, Tan Tiwu personally went to the Suiyuan front to comfort the soldiers and inspect the anti-Japanese battlefield.
In November 1937, Cao Mengjun came to wuhan to follow Deng Yingchao to engage in united front work in the women's circle. On March 10, 1938, the "China Wartime Child Care Association" was established in Wuhan, and Cao was elected as the executive director and director of the childcare committee. On the battlefield, she braved the enemy's artillery bombardment countless times, and sacrificed her life to find and shelter refugee children.