SHEN, Baiying.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Youzhiyuan duben ("Kindergarten Readers"). A scarce complete set of attractively illustrated educational readers offering two years of language instruction to young children. Although they were very popular in Republican China, few copies survive, with WorldCat showing one complete set and around a dozen copies of various individual parts.Across the series, readers progress from elementary vocabulary, such as "fire" and "bird," to basic phrases and sentences using these words. Each word and phrase is supported by an attractive illustration to aid retention.In Republican China, new opportunities for children to attend school created a growing demand for affordable learning materials. The present textbooks were designed in the late 1920s by Shen Baiying (1897-1992), an education editor at Shangwu yinshu guan ("The Commercial Press"), and became one of the publisher's most successful titles. By the late 1940s, each had been reprinted over one hundred times.

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