1850 American Gold Baron

Chapter 149 What did middle school students learn in the 19th century?

Willis brought the textbooks from Morrison School with him on board, and Liang Yao soon received the complete set of textbooks from Morrison School.

The most straightforward way to see how much private material is mixed in a set of textbooks is from the history textbooks.

The history textbook at Morrison School is "Unification of Great Britain" written by Morrison when he was in Malacca (Singapore). However, the book Liang Yao has is not the original version of "Unification of Great Britain" published by Malacca (Singapore) Publishing House.

It is the Hong Kong version of "The Unification of Great Britain" that has been edited.

"A missionary is a person who studies documents and teaches the people the right way. After studying for several years, he then enters the examination and becomes a scholar, a scholar, a scholar, or a scholar. He teaches the people the law, encourages them to be benevolent, and guides them to do good deeds.

Abandon evil.

The principle of their teaching is that there is a God in the sky, the Emperor, who is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent and benevolent, possessing all virtues. He created the heaven, earth and all things, and also made humans the spirits of all things.

The power of man cannot fulfill the nature of the Emperor God. Therefore, the Emperor God revealed: The Emperor God is the Father, the Emperor God is the Son, and the Emperor God is the Holy Spirit.

The duty of man is to honor the name of the Emperor and God, and to establish laws and regulations according to God.”

The first thing Liang Yao saw was a passage with Chinese characteristics about Christian doctrine and missionary responsibilities.

Apart from the fact that the vertical version of traditional Chinese characters is a bit unfamiliar, it is easy to understand this text based on Liang Yao's classical Chinese writing skills.

"The Unification of Great Britain" is not long, with only 17,679 words in total. After filtering out the information with strong religious overtones, Liang Yao still obtained a lot of practical information from the book.

Although the whole book "Unification of Great Britain" only has a few thousand words, it covers quite a lot of content, including British religious customs, physical geography, historical evolution, and political system. However, due to space limitations, there is a lot of content

It's all just a taste.

In general, "Unification of Great Britain" is qualified as an introductory book on British history. At least you can learn some British history from the book and have a general impression of Britain.

As for the remaining history textbooks, they are more religious history reading materials than historical textbooks. Even the Bible is included in the history textbooks.

Liang Yao was obviously not satisfied with this kind of history course.

From these history textbooks, students can only learn some sporadic historical knowledge about Britain, which is far from enough.

Liang Yao plans to re-edit three volumes of history textbooks, with himself as the editor-in-chief.

One is a Chinese history textbook, one is an American history textbook, and the other is a European history textbook to deepen students' understanding of world history.

The compilation of Chinese history textbooks and European history textbooks is relatively difficult and takes some time.

On the other hand, American history textbooks are easy to compile. As long as there are enough materials, they can be compiled in a day or two.

After all, it has only been more than seventy years since the founding of the United States. If the words were more refined, they might not be long enough.

Liang Yao obviously had no interest in reading those religious history books and the Bible. Liang Yao put down the "Unification of Great Britain" and skipped the history course directly to check the content of other practical subjects. This part of the content was also what Liang Yao was most concerned about.

of.

The contents of these natural sciences include:

Geography, anatomy, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, analytic geometry, trigonometry, surveying, navigation, calculus, water, aerology, optics, heat, electricity, mechanics, steam science, mechanics, printing, meteorology. These

It is a subject with relatively detailed teaching.

Unfortunately, the teaching content is also relatively superficial. Many subjects, such as optics, thermal science, electricity, etc. are not perfect in this era. The relevant knowledge that can be taught to middle school students is naturally very limited.

However, Liang Yao was pleased that the more mature practical subjects such as geography, mathematics, and navigation were taught in more detail.

Of course, in addition to these subjects, there are also subjects taught such as physiology, zoology, botany, philosophy, model casting, shipbuilding, international law, and official studies (introducing the titles and functions of officials in various countries).

The teaching of these subjects is very simple, basically only introducing some industry terminology. According to Liang Yao's point of view, these cannot be regarded as complete subject education, at most they can only be regarded as simple subject science popularization.

There is also a special subject that is taught in great detail, and that is theology, since this is a church school after all.

In addition, there are language subjects, which are also key teaching subjects, mainly teaching English, and French, Dutch and Spanish are also available for elective study.

According to Willis, these Morrison schools adopt a model of compulsory subjects + elective subjects to teach these students.

These subjects are quite serious, but the exercises are full of church colors.

For example, a geography question is: Priest Morrison sets out from Liverpool to preach in Guangzhou, the Qing Dynasty, by sailing boat. When is the best month to start? What major ports will he pass along the way? How long is the total voyage? Assume that the average speed of the ship is 6.5 knots per hour.

How long does it take to arrive in Guangzhou?

This exercise appears to be a geography exercise, but it actually contains some knowledge of navigation and mathematics.

For another example, the following question is a relatively pure mathematical question. The general idea is to assume that a missionary can develop 100 devout believers in his lifetime. These believers will become new missionaries after the missionary dies. Assume that there are 1000 million (ten) believers in the world.

With a population of 100 million), how many generations of missionaries will it take to make people all over the world become devout believers in the Lord?

In general, the knowledge taught in church schools basically met Liang Yao's psychological expectations.

After all, these are students who came here for free, so what kind of bicycles do they need? Just send them to a middle school in the east to study for a year or two and let them take the admissions exam for American University.

While Liang Yao was looking through these textbooks, Pan Zhengwei brought his two grandsons to Tingtao Garden to meet Liang Yao.

Liang Yao entrusted Wu Yuanhua to help persuade the old man of the Liang family to send his mother to California.

Wu Yuanhua told him that the Pan family had greater reputation and connections in the officialdom. He heard that the Pan family and Mr. Liang had a relationship in Beijing, so it was more appropriate for the Pan family to come forward.

Although both the Wu family and the Pan family had been general merchants of Guangzhou Hongshang, they took different paths.

The Wu family ranks first among all merchants for their wealth, while the Pan family ranks first among all merchants for their power.

After the Pan family became prosperous, it quickly underwent a transformation. In addition to making friends with the dignitaries of the dynasty, the Pan family also made their descendants study hard for the imperial examinations and gain fame, completing the transformation from a family of imperial merchants to a family of officials.

The descendants of the Pan family are also very ambitious, and many of them have obtained honors and embarked on official careers.

For this reason, the Pan family even considered withdrawing from the trade business completely and canceling Tongfu Bank. However, the Pan family repeatedly complained and the court did not allow the Pan family to withdraw, so they had to bite the bullet and continue to operate Tongfu Bank.

Perhaps the Pan family is not as good as the Wu family in terms of business, but in terms of insight into the current situation and connections, the Pan family has more methods than the Wu family.

Historically, Pan Zhengwei's grandson had a close relationship with Mr. Sun, and even directly supported Mr. Sun.

"Liangyi has already told me about your father's affairs. As a son, it is a person's duty to fulfill his filial piety.

Since Mr. Liang has this kind of filial piety, my Pan family has always valued filial piety and human ethics, so the Pan family will definitely help with this matter."

Pan Zhengwei lifted his robe and sat down, taking the tea from Liang Shaoyu.

If it was just for this matter, there was no need for Pan Zhengwei to bring his two grandsons with him.

Liang Yao knew that Pan Zhengwei must have other requirements when he brought his two grandsons.

"The Pan family is willing to help. Liang is grateful. If the Pan family needs Liang, Liang is also obliged." Liang Yao thanked Pan Zhengwei.

"Pan has met your old man several times. It seems to me that Mr. Liang is testing you."

Since Liang Yao had already spoken, Pan Zhengwei didn't mince words and spoke directly.

"I heard that Mr. Liang is selecting young talents and plans to send them to the American military academy for further studies?"

After Pan Zhengwei lived in San Francisco for a period of time, he gradually became accustomed to life in a foreign country.

His name for the United States was also changed from Citigroup to America. Liang Yao heard that Pan Zhengwei had a good relationship with Robinson recently, and he also invested in the Boston Bank, which was just established by Boston Company.

"Is Yuting planning to send the two young masters of the Pan family to the military academy? Military academies are not like ordinary schools and they have to endure hardships."

Liang Yao looked at Pan Zhengwei's two grandsons. Pan Zhengwei's two grandsons, Pan Baohuang and Pan Baolin, were one eighteen and one sixteen years old. This age did meet Liang Yao's requirements.

Is it just that Pan Zhengwei is willing to let his two precious grandsons go to military school and endure hardships?

"Only when you endure hardship can you become a master. The descendants of the Pan family never know how to write the word "endure hardship." Pan Zhengwei said.

"Master Liang, we are not afraid of hardship."

Pan Baohuang and Pan Baolin said to Liang Yao in unison.

"It's just that Pan hopes that after they return from their studies, they can find jobs under Mr. Liang's account. The Pan family can pay for their studies themselves," Pan Zhengwei added.

"Yu Ting underestimates Liang's financial resources. Since the two young masters want to find jobs under me in the future, Liang should naturally bear the expenses of studying." Liang Yao thought for a while and said.

"It's not a wise move to just send both young men to a military school. There are other good schools in the United States, called Harvard, Yale, and Pennsylvania."

"Master Liang, if you have any advice, I would like to hear the details. I know very little about the affairs of the United States, so I would like to ask Mr. Liang to make it clear." Pan Zhengwei listened carefully to Liang Yao's words, for fear of missing key information.

"My suggestion is that one of Baohuang and Pauline should be admitted to the military academy, and the other should prepare to be admitted to an American university, whether it is studying law, business, or engineering.

California is a new state, and what is most lacking right now is highly educated talents. As long as they return from their studies, their future prospects are limitless. I am now organizing students to prepare for college entrance exams," Liang Yao said.

"Very good, very good. My old idea is to let one of them join the army and the other to join politics. As for what they should study, I would like to ask Mr. Liang to take some time to recommend one or two." Pan Zhengwei said, stroking his palm.

"If you insist on joining politics, study law." Liang Yao thought for a while and said.

There is a large proportion of American politicians who were born in law, and the current president Fillmore studied law by himself.

Gervin and many other congressmen he knew also had legal backgrounds.

And California is indeed in urgent need of legal talents.

(End of chapter)