Textbooks 100 years ago
According to the book Vietnam historical events 1858 - 1918, after occupying our country, on September 21, 1861 in Cochinchina, Vice Admiral Charner established the Interpreter School (Collège des Interprètes).
During this time, the French also issued a decree to establish a number of primary schools in the provinces to teach the national language and math.
In the book "Old Scenes of Go Cong and Old People" (published in 1969 in the South), Mr. Viet Cuc said that since the 1870s, the authorities ordered teachers of Chinese characters to study Quoc Ngu and Western characters. They had to throw away their brushes and replace them with iron pens and use their tongues to spell: a, b, c, d, đ... a sắc á, ơ sắc ố... Of course, at that time, the compilation of textbooks (SGK) had not yet unified the teaching program, so village teachers compiled their own to teach their students.
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| Book cover of Childhood Etiquette, Practical Etiquette, and Mongolian Etiquette |
Pioneers in textbook writing
Phan Trong Bau's book Vietnamese Education in Modern Times (Education Publishing House - 2006) page 73 states: "Until the 1880s, Truong Vinh Ky and some French people from the Southern Education Agency compiled a number of textbooks to teach in primary schools". The lessons in Mr. Truong Vinh Ky's textbooks generally focused on educating children about human morality, being grateful to parents, being grateful to teachers, doing good deeds, living a useful life... For example, the lesson Encouragement to Study: "Delicious is honey, fat, gold, and silver/Because of studying, children/Classics, history, poems, and songs are good things/Literature and words have a delicious smell/Father's rice and mother's clothes are as deep as the sea/Debt to the country and family are like mountains and rivers/With the two words "fame and fame", we must strive/I am a good son, so that the country will survive".
Besides, there were also Mr. Truong Minh Ky, Tran Phong Sac, Huynh Tinh Cua... Teacher Tran Phong Sac alone composed the book "Au vien tat doc" (1924) to teach female students: "Female students, do not give up on your ambitions, because boys and girls are the same, perseverance and hard work are better, what others can do, you must do", the book has Chinese characters, along with phonetic transcription and translation.
In particular, there are some other teachers who have compiled and printed textbooks using modern technology. Here is Morale pratique à l'usage des Élèves des Écoles de l'Indochine (Practical ethics used (to teach) to students in schools in Indochina). Above is written the Chinese text Phong hoa thực hành, size 15 x 24 cm, published in 1914, compiled by Mr. JCBoscq - professor of Oriental languages - with the collaboration of Mr. Nguyen Van Tam - professor of My Tho High School. The book includes 108 reading exercises, at the end of each lesson there is a conclusion: "The book has a saying" or: "It is customary to say that" with a Chinese sentence with transcription and translation; at the end of each lesson is the "Response Exercises" section.
The Children's Education Textbook was written on the cover: "New textbooks for use in schools in Indochina - compiled by Henri le Bris, Director of the French-Vietnamese School in Thua Thien. Revised in the Southern dialect for use in village and district schools". The book was 13 x 21.5 cm, 136 pages, printed by Imprimerie Commerciale, C.Ardin et Files in 1916 in Saigon, including 160 lessons, divided into 8 parts: Body, hygiene; Animals; Trees; Earth, rocks, metals; Heaven, earth, globe; Cochinchina and neighboring countries of Great France; Cochinchina, population, history; Talking about politics in Cochinchina. At the end of each easy-to-understand, concise article, there were questions for students; the geography lessons all had maps printed on them.
Textbook Morale et lecons de choses a l'usage des élèves des écoles de l' Indochine (Ethics and lessons of wisdom used (taught) to students of schools in Indochina) by JcBoscq, printed by Imprimerie de l'Union at 157 Catinat Street, Saigon in 1919, 51 pages thick, teaches filial duties; domestic animals, the earth, the human body, clocks, the sea... The writing style is concise and easy to understand and has beautiful illustrations, taken from French textbooks.
Confucian scholar Nguyen An Khuong, father of revolutionary Nguyen An Ninh, also compiled the textbook Mong Hoc The Giai, with the title "Cours de morale et lecons de choses à l'usage des écoles et des familles Annamites" (Moral lectures and common knowledge lessons used in schools and families of Annamites), printed by Phat Toan, Libraire - Imprimeur, 55 - 57 - 59 Ormay Street, Saigon, October 1910.
Learn both practical and technical skills.
Not only learning about morality, students also learned very new subjects from the French education system: mathematics and practical engineering. For example, the textbook Practical Electromechanics by Alexis Lan, compiled by Ingénieur Electricien, and printed by Imprimerie FH Schneider in 1917 in Saigon, stated: "The book teaches essential things for Annamese workers who make electromechanical machines and students of polytechnic schools." The book was printed in both French and Vietnamese, teaching relatively complete information about electricity that students needed to know. Due to lack of vocabulary, most of the terms were in French.
Although the national language “prevailed”, the need to learn the Nhu (Confucian) script still remained. That trace is still recorded in folk songs of the South: “The lights of Saigon have some green and some red/The lights of My Tho have some bright and some dim/I came back to study the Nhu script/I waited for nine moons, I waited for ten autumns”. According to the General Regulations on Education in Indochina signed by Governor-General of Indochina Albert Sarraut on December 21, 1917, the Chinese script was not a compulsory subject. Any school that wanted to teach it had to have the agreement of the students’ parents, the council of elders of the commune and the principal. Teachers were only allowed to teach for one and a half hours per week, scheduled on Thursday mornings.
On June 14, 1919, the Nguyen Dynasty issued an edict declaring the complete abolition of Chinese schools and replacing them with the French-Vietnamese education system. The "reform" of the French colonialists at that time had truly completed its mission - of course only on the official and legal side.
Textbooks in Saigon laid the foundation for the National Literature textbooks. In the 1920s, the French Indochina Education Department assigned teachers Tran Trong Kim, Nguyen Van Ngoc, Dang Dinh Phuc, and Do Than to compile the National Literature Textbook for elementary, preparatory, and preschool classes; teachers Nguyen Hiet Chi and Le Thuoc compiled the New Chinese Literature Textbook for preschool, intermediate, and college classes for official use in Vietnamese schools throughout the years of the first half of the 20th century. Regarding textbooks, this event was noted: "Up to this point, it has been completed and put into unified teaching throughout the country" (Education in Vietnam in modern times - Phan Trong Bau - Education Publishing House - 2006, p.166). When compiling, the above teachers also compiled according to the textbooks that were popular in the South. That is, the reading exercises for students were written concisely and easily understood, and the stories in the books sometimes had characters talking back and forth to clarify the educational meaning. And it cannot be denied that such stories have deeply influenced many generations of students. Many people who have gray hair now still remember the lessons in the National Literature Textbook are a proof. |
According to TNO
