Exhibition on textbooks traces evolving education

Textbooks serve as "living fossils" of China's educational development, offering a window into how education has evolved and shaped generations of Chinese people.

That idea is at the heart of a basic education textbook exhibition at the Beijing Normal University Library, which began collecting textbooks in the 1930s and now holds more than 80,000 titles and 240,000 volumes covering various levels and types of education.

Wang Xianfang, director of the library, said textbooks are the foundation and an important carrier of education.

"They reflect the interaction between the state and the people," Wang said. The state hopes to shape a certain kind of person, and textbooks play a role in shaping that person, he said, describing textbooks as "fossils" in the history of education.

For Beijing Normal University, a pioneer of modern teacher education in China, preserving and studying textbooks is part of its mission.

"Teacher education is our foundation. Studying the history of teacher education and textbooks, and gaining a deeper understanding of educational history, is the mission and responsibility of BNU people," Wang said.

The library has followed a principle of "collecting all that should be collected", with particular emphasis on textbooks dating to the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and the Republic of China (1912-49) era. Such textbooks are scarce, and few teacher-training universities have comparable collections, Wang said.

The physical exhibition uses representative holdings to trace the development of modern textbooks in China, from ancient primers such as the Three Character Classic, Hundred Family Surnames and Thousand Character Classic, to modern textbooks produced during the late Qing Dynasty and early Chinese-authored textbooks, and then to textbooks from the era of the Republic of China.

The exhibition also features textbooks compiled during the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45) and those produced throughout the War of Liberation (1946-49), as well as textbooks published after the founding of New China.

Among the exhibits are textbooks printed on coarse Malan paper produced in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia border region in northwestern China, the cradle of New China.

"The history of textbooks is closely tied to the nation's history," said Hu Shenqiu, an associate research librarian at the library.

BNU, a century-old teacher-training university centered on teacher education and basic education, has long placed importance on collecting textbooks, Hu said.

Textbook research is not limited to education and teaching, but is also significant for historical and multidisciplinary research, she said.

In 2022, the library launched an online database of textbooks from the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China era, based on its own collection and contributions from other institutions, Hu said.

The database covers six categories, including traditional elementary education, primary and middle schools, higher education, teacher training, vocational schools and other materials. Access is currently limited to campus IP addresses, but the database has attracted considerable use, she said.

The library digitized the textbooks because many of the paper copies are old and unsuitable for frequent handling, while their contents are valuable. The aim is to make these materials more accessible to researchers, students and textbook enthusiasts.

Asked whether textbooks remain important in the AI era, Hu said artificial intelligence cannot easily access many ancient textbooks.

Knowledge acquisition depends on one's foundation, and such reading materials remain important, she said.

"Some say textbooks shape a person," Hu said. "What kind of person you become is closely related to what textbooks you use."

For teacher-training students, Hu said the exhibition helps them understand the history and stories behind textbooks, including those printed on Malan paper in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia border region.

"When they learn this, they will feel emotionally connected to history and textbooks, and it will inspire further research and influence their thoughts," she said.