Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 January 1876 — Educating Chinamen. [ARTICLE]

Ed ucating Chinamen.

** John” Chinaman has come to California to make a foftune. Bis idea of a fortune »# that of a few thousand dollars •aved on which he can go back to China and live m his native vjllage without work. To make money he wishes to speak like “Mclican man.” “John” can’t pronounce,our “r,” so he gives it the sound of “1.” Some pious people, taking advantage of the desire of the California Chinese to learn English, have gathered them into] Sunday-schools. “John” readily goes, not that he cares for the religious instruction, but that it is a good place wherein to learn to read: and speak the language in which lie must tracle and bargain. He is taught something about Christianity, but his religious education is a slow process until he and -the teacher can use a common language; A newspaper-published at Vallejo, Cal.,, thus describes how “ John” is educated: The method of instruction adopted is not the teaching of pupils to translate from one language into the other, as languages are usually taught in the publicschools, but, beginning with the alphabet, the written language is taught in the same way as to young children in the primary schools. Most of the Chinese display great, not to-say wonderful, aptitude for learning the alphabet and the first reading lessons and acquiring correct prounciation. It is pretty well known that an educated China, mao will pronounce English better than almost any other foreigner, which is the result of certain similarities' in sound of English and Chinese. In. learning lessons which must be committed to memory the Chinese display the greatest quickness, which, however, is not so surprising when it is known that the acquirement of a Chinese education, according to the native method of teaching, is a mere exertion of the memory. Thousands and perhaps tens of thousands of words are memorized before the student is informed what they signify. Colloquial and written Chinese are two entirely different languages, and after learning either one it is a work of full as much difficulty to learn the other. For persons who have had such a discipline as these Chinamen have, it is not a performance that need create surprise to learn their a-b-c’s and a-b ab's in two or three lessons of an hour’s duration. Neither is it surprising that their after progress, when mastering difficulties which require an exercise of judgment, is slower. But if learning to read and speak English is an object of earnest desire with the Chinese, learning music is none the less so. They learn to sing by ear with precision after a short practice, and evidently take great pleasure in exercising their musical powers. A short time since a part of the Chinese who had attended the Presbyterian Sunday-school left it for the Baptist school, amt upon inquiry it was found that their principal reason for doing so was that in the latter the teachers sang several pieces every Sunday, while in the former they were accustomed to sing only a few stanzas. But the Sunday-schools are not the only places to which- our Vallejo Chinamen, who seem to have been inoculated Just now with a mania to learn English, are resorting. There are a number of persons in town, who are mostly young ladies, teaching Chinese classes.