Missionary 's Translation Of Children' S Literature And Modern Urban Children 's Education

Throughout the history of China, a child was always treated as a “little adult”rather than an independent person in old times. In late Qing Dynasty, children were“rediscovered” as an independent group, and they received unprecedentedattentions. Therefore, new concepts of Chinese children were established. At thesame time, China was taking the road of its urbanization, thus more attention hasbeen given to the city children and their education. Some western missionaries alsocame to China and made contributions to children’s education, they not only builtsome religious schools in cities along the rivers and the coasts to promote children’seducation, but took literature as a main method to spread the advancededucational ideas and teaching methods from the western world. The essay is basedon a novel named Heroine. It is an American children’s fiction translated by amissionary in1929, Literature provides a lens through history. Therefore through thisnovel, we can examine how the missionaries used the translated children’s literatureto spread the modern views of children and the approach of children education. Bycomparing the basic situation of children’s education in China and that in the West inmodern times, we can make an in-depth analysis through these children’s literaturewhich were translated and adapted by the missionaries, for they influenced Chinesechildren’s education potentially, especially girl’s education.The essay has three chapters. Chapter one first reviews ancient Chinese childrenfigures, then it discusses a new trend that the missionaries adopted: they usedchildren’s literature ways to spread the modern views of children and educationaltheories, and they pushed the commencement of Chinese modern view on children.It further discusses the chief reason we selected Heroine, is that Heroine is anexcellent children’s fiction translated by a missionary which also influenced parentsand children potentially. Chapter two focuses on the family education in Heroine. Itshows some demonstrative values to the Chinese urban children’s family education.The first value is that, China was speeding up its urbanization during the late19thand the early20th period while the living conditions for the urban children were superior. In need of more education, literature became an important tool for them.Second, the book discusses the influence of the western education reform at thesame period of time, at last I analyze the excellent family education and inspirationmanifested in Heroine in details. Chapter three focuses on the descriptions of thewestern girls in Heroine, First I investigate the situation of the girls in the history ofChina and then I analyze the cultivation of the “new girls” in Heroine and also pointout that this fiction sets some good examples for the girls’ education in modernChina.Up to now, there are many academic research talking about modern views ofchildren and children’s education, but among them there are relatively insufficientessays focuing on children in the city. This essay takes one of the children’s fictionswhich was translated by a missionary: Heroine as an entrance to, explore theirinfluence on modern view of children and urban children’s education from aparticular direction. It also reflects the transformation of the children’s education inmodern times, and presents some academic value at present.